“Chinese authorities are quietly scrutinizing technology products sold in China by Apple and other big foreign companies, focusing on whether they pose potential security threats to the country and its consumers and opening up a new front in an already tense relationship with Washington over digital security,” Paul Mozur and Jane Perlez report for The New York Times.
“Apple and other companies in recent months have been subjected to reviews that target encryption and the data storage of tech products, said people briefed on the reviews who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In the reviews, Chinese officials require executives or employees of the foreign tech companies to answer questions about the products in person, according to these people,” Mozur and Perlez report. “The reviews are run by a committee associated with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s Internet control bureau, they said. The bureau includes experts and engineers with ties to the country’s military and security agencies.”
“Because Chinese officials have not disclosed the nature of the checks, both the United States government and American tech companies fear that the reviews could be used to extract tech knowledge as well as ensure that the United States was not using the products to spy,” Mozur and Perlez report. “Ultimately, the reviews could be used to block products without explanation or to extract trade secrets in exchange for market access. Those secrets could be leaked to Chinese competitors or expose vulnerabilities, which, in turn, Chinese hackers could exploit.”
“There is no indication that foreign companies have provided access to highly guarded material such as source code,” Mozur and Perlez report. “In a congressional hearing last month, Apple’s general counsel, Bruce Sewell, said the Chinese government had asked the company to share source code in the last two years but that Apple had refused.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The fallout from the Snowden bombs continues to rain down.
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This really is fallout from the government’s misuse of technology for mass surveillance. Snowden didn’t create that — he just blew the whistle.
Mr. Snowden should be haled as a hero and not a villain.
Snowden is a whistleblower and should be protected as such within the USA. That he is not means that #MyStupidGovernment knows it’s guilty and wishes to hide that fact from the public by shooting the whistleblowing messenger. This is a crime of persecuting a whistleblower who revealed crime.
IASSOTS. Just own up US government and let’s move on to better times with only LEGAL surveillance of US citizens on US soil, protecting the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the US Constitution, as written and obviously intended. Deal with the law you are sworn to protect. That’s not a request.
Under the international law whistle-blowers can not be prosecuted, if they disclose crimes of the government.
But USA under the rule of military/oil/banking oligarchy ignore most of international law, so, of course, it means nothing.
Well put.
“And because Chinese officials have not disclosed the nature of the checks, both the United States government and American tech companies fear that the reviews could be used to extract tech knowledge as well as ensure that the United States was not using the products to spy.”
Certainly a worry about extracting tech knowledge is a viable possibility. A worry about that country their tech using products to spy on the Chinese and others is a pretty well established fact. This makes MDN’s take spot on. What Snowden revealed has a lot of repercussions.
Mr. Snowden is a hero.
Obvious Q&A::
Q: Does China want to rip off other country’s IP?
A: DUH yeah! Slam dunk proof that’s been the case for many years.
Q: Is this further Chinese totalitarian aggression against both the world and their own citizens.
A: DUH yeah! “The reviews are run by a committee associated with the Cyberspace Administration of China, the country’s Internet control bureau, they said. The bureau includes experts and engineers with ties to the country’s military and security agencies.”
Q: Does China have the right to focus “on whether [foreign companies] pose potential security threats to the country and its consumers” ?
A: Yes indeed, as does any other country. We’re obviously in an era of corporatocracy when companies puppet governments, including the US government, and demand any and all methods of control over governments throughout the world. Go read the current drafts of both the TPP and TTIP ‘trade’ treaties if you want to read raw demands for corporate dominance over world governments as well as the rights of their citizens.
Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) – IP Chapter
Newly Leaked TTIP Draft Reveals Far-Reaching Assault on US/EU Democracy
Mammoth deal an even greater boon to corporate power than previously known, warn analysts
TPP: Trans-Pacific Partnership
TTIP: Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
IOW: It goes both ways.
The FBI and the DOJ started this when they made a public case demanding Apple open the iPhone for them. Then stating it was opened by a third party not revealing the security problem to Apple that they, by law, have to.
So, what really happened? If China can’t figure it out then they will demand to know how it was done. Thanks FBI and the DOJ. Apple is screwed no matter what really happened. Should have done what Apple suggested prior to screwing it up and just shut your mouth. That is what the pros use to do.