US Government Fears China Bugs Lenovo PCs 348
An anonymous reader writes "After approving the sale of IBM's PC Division to the Chinese Corporation Lenovo, the US Government has realized China could bug Lenovo PCs destined for US Government customers. Would the US have done the same to China? With American businesses so eager for business in China no matter what, where are we headed?"
Security or economics? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it hard to believe that they don't, so this punishment is not for the computers being manufactured in China, rather for the company not being US owned anymore. In other words, it's fine for the Chinese to do the manufacturing, but it has to be Americans making the real money (and again, this sort of chauvinism is pretty common & not unexpected, but it would be nice for the US to be a little more honest about its motivations).
Re:Security or economics? (Score:3, Insightful)
In many ways it's just like the automobile industry in the 70's and 80's
Re:Security or economics? (Score:2)
Re:Security or economics? (Score:2)
So how does this supposed bugging scam work? (Score:5, Insightful)
True enough, the whole suggestion of PC bugging is almost funny. If the Chinese were to bug every single computer that gets assembled in China just on the off chance that it happens to end up in a secret US.Govt facitlity they would leave a footprint so large that the operation would be blown wide open pretty quickly. How many amateurs and computer engineers are there around the world picking their computers apart? One would expect such a scam to be discovered pretty quickly. Besides that how are the Chinese going tell which of the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of computers the US.Govt buys end up in secret facilities. Do the computes phone home? Do they have self activating bugging devices that phone home (through how many layers of firewalling and network security?) when they some how automatically detect that they are in a US Govt facility? The whole suggestion of the Chinese bugging computers wholesale is ridiculous. That leaves us with the possibility of a sophisticated Chinese sting operation that uses the Lenovo distribution network to spike only those computers Lenovo and its distributors (distributors which would have to be staffed by the Chinese intelligence) know are likely to be destined for sensetive facilites. That would minimize the likelyhood of the scam being discovered unless US intel started randomly sampling computers and checking them for bugs but it still seems collossally impractical. If I were Chinese intelligence I would stick to working the most vulnerable part of any US.Govt operation. I would, for example, look for that inevitable disappointed, bored out of his skull, stuck in a dead end career pencil pusher and bribe him/her. It has worked in the past and it will work today. There have to be a thousand more practical ways of spying on the US than bugging computers.
Re:So how does this supposed bugging scam work? (Score:2)
However, just to play devil's advocate, I think that they could much more easily integrate logic into one of the other support chips in the laptop (there are thousands) that could, for instance, look for and store an encryption key. Nothing major.
Re:So how does this supposed bugging scam work? (Score:2)
Re:So how does this supposed bugging scam work? (Score:2)
Re:So how does this supposed bugging scam work? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So how does this supposed bugging scam work? (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah, how many pick the ethernet chip apart, transistor by transistor ?
Plus, note that a backdoor does not necessarily result in observable information flow. If I wanted to bug a PC, I'd patch its hardware random number generator.
AC
Re:Security or economics? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Security or economics? (Score:2)
For a GOVERNMENT I find that normal (Score:2)
See, there was this thing called the Great Depression. And there was this guy called John Maynard Keynes [wikipedia.org] who came up with a new economic theory. Best known as Keynesian economics [wikipedia.org] Look it up s
Re:Security or economics? (Score:3, Insightful)
Another American family political dynasty. Who'da thunkit?
Seriously, the Bush bashing is getting old. It only works if you really expected something better from them in the first place. Can you honestly say that you do?
Bugged, you say? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bugged, you say? (Score:3, Funny)
Also, this is Scuttle's second dupe in 8 hours. He duped the article about the new New York Applestore. He managed to remove that quickly enough [slashdot.org], though, and I don't think many saw it.
Scuttle Monkey, I give you editors a hard time, but usually it's all in good fun*. But you're just pathetic. Hang it up and go back to work at McDonald's, man! I want my fries hot
Re:Bugged, you say? (Score:2)
*sigh* (Score:2)
Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Funny)
But soon this will be over.
The new lenovo pc will automagicly connect through the great firewall of China and deliver the chinese the coordinates to nuke slashdot dupe posters.
Just making the internet a safer place
You better believe they'd do it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They bug everyone calling into and out of the US. They keep aggregate data for the purpose of dragnetting the stuff later for evidence of links to terrorism.
They even bug members of the United Nations ( not that I have a great deal of respect for them, but still
Why wouldn't they bug China. And yes, why wouldn't China bug the US.
It's an insane system. A paranoid, power-hungry system.
Takes one to know one (Score:4, Informative)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/176
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/east/0
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/15/1050172
Re:You better believe they'd do it ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You better believe they'd do it ... (Score:2)
Tin foil time! (Score:5, Funny)
Yes (Score:5, Interesting)
and now that I think about it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:and now that I think about it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:and now that I think about it... (Score:2)
So what the US government has just inadertently admitted is that they no longer have the ability to take a piece of hardware and take it apart to make sure it works as advertised, with no "extra features" ...
Other "firsts" that no longer are available in the USA, but you can buy real cheap from China:
US, welcome to the rest of the world... (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the rest of the world!
Everyone else has to keep the same thing in mind when they use Windows in government and industry.
Re:US, welcome to the rest of the world... (Score:2)
What about Solaris? What about AIX? Irix? UNICOS (especially this one)?
What about the specialized sh*t loaded on Rockwell vector processors used in radars by everyone but the russians?
What about...
Let's be real here.
What goes around comes around and it is very nice to see the US govt being repayed in its own currency. It is only a matter of time until it gets more of it with everyone and his dog moving manufacturing to China and R&D to India and Russia.
Aw, these Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)
They say they want democracy in the Middle East, but when there is democracy in the Middle East, they don't respect the outcome (Hamas).
They say other nations should respect human rights, but they themselves don't (Gitmo, torture flights, numerous examples).
Anyone still wonder why the rest of the world spits on America?
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:3, Insightful)
For the record, the whole world spits on China, too.
America may be a mess, but it's not like China is a shining example of how to run a country. Your country sucks just as much as mine, and probably more so.
At least I can say America is a mess without worrying about a knock on my door from the thought police. America may be poorly mistreating those captured on the war on terror, but at least we don't have "strike hard" campaigns where our own citizens are sentenced to death in stadiums and executed minu
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2, Funny)
Chinese guy? Pure Viking blood here, dude...
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)
But here's the thing -- noone acts as if China are doing particularily well in these areas, neither do China currently act as "world police", waving the banner of freedom and democracy, and claiming to be chief protector of those values.
For that matter, China doesn't even particularily seem to care if other countries ignore human rigths.
When you go out in the world, invade other countries, wave the banner of freedom and democracy around, it is to be excepected that people will be bothered by this "image" and see it as fake when they're confronted by stuff like Gitmo.
There are (lots of!) places worse than Gitmo in China, no doubt about it.
But the thing is, like you say, US citizens are free to protest Gitmo. They're even free to toss out those politicians responsible for trampling americas reputation in the mud. Yet they do not. To me that's a mystery.
Most americans I know are *proud* of their freedoms. Consider human rigths *important*. Want the world to have more freedom and less torture, less inhumane punishments, less repression, less people in jail without a fair trial. That's why I don't understand why you tolerate such abuses from your own government.
At last: "We may be bad, but atleast we're better than China" is true. But it makes you wonder, doesn't it ? If you have to compare yourself to *China* to come out the winner, just how deeply have you sunk ?
Sure, you're not alone in refusing to sign the convention on childrens rigths, you share that honor with Somalia. That give a warm cuddly feeling ?
The thing is, I don't get it. I'm absolutely positive, if you where to read the declaration (available here [ohchr.org]) for the US public and ask if they're in favor or not, literally 95% (or more) would be in favor, and you're a democracy, so I don't understand why you don't demand your government gets with the program.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Oh, I totally agree with you. I despise Bush et. al. (and yes, I voted in 2004), and I think we'll look at the word "terrorism" in forty years in the same quaint, cringing way we look at mentions of "communism" from the 60's. Regardless, I love my country and its history, and I'm getting really tired of having to answer, as an American, for the actions of my government. It's understandable, I suppose, but hearing it from someone who seems so eager to embrace Chinese culture strikes me as a bit hypocritic
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Despite some ugly blemishes in our history, the U.S. has given a lot to the world. (Then again, name a country with as long a history that doesn't have something to be embarrassed about.) The current regime is a complete
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're not familiar with your countries history, if you were, you would not have said: When it is perfectly clear to most of the world, that America is still supporting some real bastards in the middle east (not to mention an illegal nuclear power).
Chances are you live in a country whose system of government is based on the one we first implemented. I'd also imagine you're enjoying not living under a Kaiser or a Fuhrer, something for which the United States is largely responsible.
1) The first democratic country was New Zealand. [ipu.org] Prior to that, there was no democratic nation (as less then 50% of the population could vote).
2) I live in a country that's enormously grateful for the Marshall plan, no doubt about it, that was a good thing for the world (thanks to your grandfather's generation)
3) Why do you have to bring up WWII? 'cause you have not fought any wars where you were clearly in the right since?
The OP said something that I found offensive about Americans, while quite clearly trumpeting his association with China. I felt obligated to point out the hypocrisy there. That's where the China connection came from.
Incorrect. The OP said something that you found offensive about Americans, and you looked at his website and jumped to the conclusion that he was chinese. You couldn't attack his argument, so you attacked what you thought he was instead.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, but democracy didn't start with womens' suffrage. (Furthermore, your assertion that a country of 100 people immediately becomes a democracy as soon as the 51st person gets the right to vote seems rather silly.) You can trace the roots of democracy back thousands of years, of course, but the fact remains that the first system of government to belong to that family of modern liberal democracies was founded here, in the mid- to late 1700's.
In the small world in which we live today, is any country not
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
My assertaion was that a country where only white, male landowners can vote is not a "modern liberal democracy". Modern democracy has been a gradual process, I think NZ was the first country to achieve it.
and most of us would never have supported the invasion of Iraq in the first place had we not been flat-out lied to by Bush.
The whole world got lied
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
My assertaion was that a country where only white, male landowners can vote is not a "modern liberal democracy". Modern democracy has been a gradual process, I think NZ was the first country to achieve it.
Let's let this one slide. I think I'm right; you think you're right, and without a more restrictive definition of "modern liberal democracy," it's clearly a matter of perspective. We can find more important things to argue about.
Aceptable discourse? Whatever dude - the fact is you made presumptions
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
But that just shows your stupidity. Would you think someone with a cuban name & spanish language site supports Castro? How about someone with an American sounding name with an English language website - are they automatically Bush supporters?
There are thousands of Chinese living all over the world, covering the full spectrum of political opinions. The fact that you assume Chi
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
I'm affraid not
Not quite. The United States of America was never designed as a democracy. It's a republic. Individual citizens, therefore, cannot always be held accountable for the actions of their elected officials. The elected officials should be held accountable. Were this really a democracy, then yes, individual citizens would be the ultimately accounta
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
n. pl. democracies
1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community.
from: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=democrac y [reference.com]
I'd say the USA was a democracy under more tha
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Many people hold you collectively accountable for the reelection of a man who has consistently lied to you.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Why the emphasis on "your own citizens"? Surely summary execution is bad regardless of whether the victims are citizens of the country in which it takes place or not? Are you saying you would have no problem with the US government rounding up foreigners and shooting them dead, as long as it leaves its citizens alone? Boy, what an admirable sentiment.
That's ridiculous. My aim was to point out the hypocracy in the OP's statement. And, frankly, yes, while you won't find a sane person anywhere would would
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Are you stupid? The OP didn't say anything positive about China.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Bullshit. It's called a knee jerk reaction to criticism.
Criticism of your country is not the same as endorsement of your percieved enemies.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Are you saying that because he lived in china for a while, anything critical he says against the US automatically means that he thinks the (positive) reverse about China?
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Yes, that is EXACTLY how it works. Ask any American the death toll in Iraq and you'll get an answer in the region of 3,000. The non-racist, correct answer is nearer 100,000.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm totally ashamed of my government's actions. I can't think of a single good idea that's come out of Washington in the past five years. I'm a registered Democrat; I vote in every election, and I donate money to politicians in every election cycle. Short of armed revolt, I don't see what more I can do.
But hearing things like "the world spits on America" makes my blood boil. I love my country, and I'm proud of (most of) its history. Blaming all Americans for the poor decisions our government makes is no different than blaming all Muslims for the activities of al-Qaeda.
Karma Kablooiieee!
My thoughts exactly when I made my first post on this article.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
How about making bribery of public officials illegal, making torture illegal, and making all laws available for public scrutiny. Eventually one or both major parties are going to have to do all those before the USA becones a complete political then economic laughing stock. Whatever the current administration says and does, the Republican Party is never going to give the USA a monarchy that only has to submit to an election every few years.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:4, Insightful)
Moreover, as an American, I must point out that its a little silly to be proud of America's history. The US has done a lot of very bad things in its history, specifically the genocide of the native people and continued intervention into the affairs of Latin America. Being a proud American, thus, means either being ignorant of history, or swallowing some of the simpler ideas about fairness, humanity, and democratic freedom. Of course, that is not to say that the latter is that unusual a state of mind for people. Certainly, the Chinese, the Japanese, the British, the French, nor the Germans (or whomever else sees it fit to criticize America as of late), cannot say with a clear conscience that their dark history is any better than ours.
Re:Aw, these Americans... (Score:2)
Name one major Chinese invention of the past 200 years that is currently in widespread use in the rest of the developed world.
"Centuries" might have been a minor stretch, but let me put it another way: the last time the U.S. wasn't at the forefront of scientific research and innovation, people drove around in horse-drawn buggies and used candles for light. I think it's safe to say that the United States has had a vast impact on the development of technology in general.
Democracy (Score:3, Insightful)
Bullshit. Holding a democratic election does not absolve you of responsibility for the outcome. If "the People" want Hamas to run the P.A., they will have to live with the consequences of that decision. The rest of the world is under no obligation to underwrite the operations of a group of terrorists, whether democratically elected or not.
Re:Democracy (Score:2)
Yes, that is fair enough, if they elect a government that doesn't want to play fair internationally, then they need not be treated fairly themselves.
However, Americas medling in democratic elections is not limited to the Middle East, nor is it limited to violent regimes. Take a look at the past 50 years o
Re:Democracy (Score:2)
There was even an incompetant bungled attempt at removing a leader who was on his way out in Australia in 1975 which apparently only provoked hilarity in the Australian government and intelligence agencies. It backfired in the USA when a couple of agents were apparently apalled by this interference and used it as an excuse to sell secrets to the USSR. The fictionalised account of the real court case about this was turned
Re:Democracy (Score:2)
The purpose of Democracy is to protect against evil and tyranny. In this case, bringing Democracy to the Middle East is not a valuable goal, while freeing it from tyranny is.
Not that the Iraq invasion actually DID that, though...
Re:Democracy (Score:2)
Re:Democracy (Score:2)
If you are interested in a good overview of US/Iraqi relations during the Iran/Iraq war, check our t
Wikipedia Source... (Score:2)
Yeah, right. From the source you cite: "The neutrality and factual accuracy of this section are disputed. Please view the article's talk page". At least, Wikipedia is honest enough to admit it.
The thief's mentality... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The thief's mentality... (Score:2)
The strange part is that Lenovo doesn't even need to do that - the Chinese are stealing American technology left and right, and they're doing just fine without bugged PCs.
Yes, more laws! (Score:2)
Who really needs a free market anyway?
Re:Yes, more laws! (Score:2)
A bit ironic (Score:2, Insightful)
Using the chinese as manufacturers on the other hand, that's all right since the money goes to US companies.
Obvious (Score:2, Funny)
Above the neck?
Bugged PCs? Just re-image (Score:2)
Bugs don't need to be software. (Score:4, Informative)
Look at some of the ways the US bugged equipment exported to Russia during the cold war -- there's a lot of ingenuity going on there.
Tit for Tat? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is stupid... (Score:5, Insightful)
However it raises an interesting point, it's much easier to hide back doors in software, so by this reckoning china should ban the use of american software... If this started happening, i`m sure microsoft would make it's pet government back down.
History repeats: Venice and the Turks (Score:3, Insightful)
Interestingly Dubai looks like its ruler is consciously aiming at becoming the next Venice, and his relations with the US are going the same way (trying to obtain harbours in the Turkish empire==trying to buy ports in the US).
The parallels are considerable. Venice relied on seapower and built the greatest manufacturing business in the world - the Arsenal, which employed 16000 men and could turn out three ships a day at its peak. But when it tried to rely on dominating trade and took its eye off manufacturing and naval power, it went into decline. The current US emphasis on creating a world of "intellectual property" and slowly de-emphasising manufacturing is not a good long term trend, at least for the US. Look at the UK, which is now a very third class power dependent on managing financial flows.
It looks like Marx was right; US capitalism may be destroyed by the internal contradictions, in that the interests of capitalists are contrary to the security of the country. Meanwhile, China while claiming to be business friendly is using Lenin's approach of using capitalism against itself.
Re:History repeats: Venice and the Turks (Score:2)
The decline of Venice had less to do with the Ottomans than it had to do with the discovery of the Americas and the sea routes to the east indies. Mediterranean trade simply became less important, and Italy lost much of its centrality.
The winds changed, the well ran dry, insert appropriate analogy. Basically, t
Intellect is more important than production (Score:2)
You have some very interesting points in comparing the decline of Venice with the decline of the USA. But I don't think the problem is in overemphasis of intellectual property. The problem, IMHO, is that IP is being devalued, not over valued. When a patent is granted on "one-click" methods, these are granted the same status as very important disco
US citizens fears gov bugs internet (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70944-0.ht
So what? (Score:2)
We have a saying... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We have a saying... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do you think China wants Windows source code? (Score:5, Funny)
The Chinese dpo no trust Windows unless they have the source code.
Do you really know what Windows is doing? They is this blob of unknown code that is running on 90% of the world's computers, all under the control of one corporation in the US, a corporation that receives special treatment from the US government.
Oh please. (Score:2)
Re:Why do you think China wants Windows source cod (Score:2)
Nothing new or unusual here. The security folks have long had one primary rule: If you're at all interested in security, you don't run any software unless you have all the source code and you've compiled it yourself.
If you run a binary from someone else, you have no way of knowing what's hidden in there. It could be doing all sorts of things in addition to what you think it's doing, and you have no way of knowing.
Microsoft does have a bit
Re:Why do you think China wants Windows source cod (Score:3, Insightful)
As Ken Thompson says; "No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted
Trusted Computing Bytes Back (Score:2, Insightful)
This could become a case of chickens coming home to roost with China and other U.S competitors and adversaries using the TCP (Trusted Computing Platform) [cam.ac.uk] to have a back door to computers they produce and which are sold to businesses and governments all over the world.
All they need to do is to make note of the keys or signatures from the TPMs(Trusted Platform Module) [infineon.com] that are embedded in every modern PC.
In fact this illustrates the greatest challenge of TCP based DRM. Who will be the key escrow / signing
Of capitalism and morality (Score:2)
However our friendly old capitalism has increasingly metamorphosed into a new kind of faceless corporate globalism where any remains of social responsibility have given way to pure greed and only the rights of the major shareholders -- themselves increasi
Re:Of capitalism and morality (Score:2)
Have you been away from
US Embassy - Moscow (Score:2, Informative)
US bugs Chinese "Airforce 1" Okay?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Didn't hear the Chinese stop buying jumbo jets.
Slashdot subscribers (Score:2)
Detection of such a scheme (Score:3, Insightful)
This leaves network traffic. Now I really hope there aren't many machines that stradle classified networks and unclassified networks. Real, physical separation could guarantee no crosstalk between classified and non-classified systems. A while back I recall some discussion that VMWare was being used to virtualize systems of different classifications, so maybe this is not the case anymore. Nevertheless, a firmware bugged system would have to report home, and any self-resperting network admin _should_ be able to notice periodic network connection attempts to its destination, especially in a very controlled enviroment where arbitrary tcp/ip connections just aren't the norm.
This leaves the approach of using stenographic techniques to attempt to hide important data in files that the Chinese would hope to become declassified and published. Talk about hit and miss, not to mention the processing power and overhead such a scheme would take, but this is about the only way out I can think of this morning before my coffee. The firmware could be looking for keyword triggers, record big blocks of text around the keywords found, then embed in numerous other documents in hopes to leak it. Talk about a crapshot, but maybe it is worth adding to a paranoid agency's list of things to watch for.
-Michael
Not a Bug (Score:2)
Keeping up with Dell (Score:2)
The Metamorphosis (Score:2, Funny)
Typing with insect legs is no fun—believe me.
Closer to Home (Score:2)
Obviously forgotten about the alleged NSA backdoor in the Windows Crypto API [slashdot.org].
Let's just hope total war is obsolete (Score:3, Interesting)
Informative, not troll (Score:3, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly, more so if you notice that his essay is dated 2003 and is about the Middle East situation, it has absolutely nothing to do with the USA government using computers made in China other than stating Chomsky's opinion that the USA has an interventionist foreign policy. In the context of this discussion, that link is 80% off-top
Re:All I can say is.. (Score:2)