The U.S. military needs to stop shopping on Amazon. /s
In a way this is refreshing. When the U.S. military buys broken goods from a U.S. manufacturer, you get the sort of positive feedback loop that strengthens the military industrial complex. (I'm thinking the F-22 Raptor.) But when funds leak to China, that feedback loop is broken.
Given U.S. military budgets, this seems like a rounding error. Especially as the article claims that this was over a five year period. Four mil a year in procurement fraud is probably a drop in the ocean.
This makes me sad. I get that rounding errors are a thing. However, a million here, a billion there, pretty soon, we're talking about real money.
In the real world, most people can't really comprehend the value of $1,000,000.00. One million might as well be one billion might as well be one trillion. At the risk of being cliche, if we did not have the loss of the $4 million per year (of just this one specific thing), what else could that money have been used for instead?
I'd say that the most important military gear is probably still made in China, smartphones, computers, routers. But I don't really know what I'm talking about, never been in the military.
For the past 30 years (a very long period of time), the U.S. has bought mountains upon moutains of crap from China, in both military and civilian sectors. But there is not even a single high-profile hardware backdoor incident publicised, except maybe the Bloomberg big hack fiasco. This tells you something.
> But there is not even a single high-profile hardware
> backdoor incident publicised. This tells you something.
Not so much. If the US military found a hardware backdoor, would they want to publicly tell their enemy that their strategy is effective? Not only this, but if they tell their enemies which ones they find, by doing so they also tell them which ones they haven't found.
The only reason details of these fakes were published was likely because the Chinese company couldn't reasonably be considered as acting maliciously in this regard. Rather, they were just trying to turn a quick buck.
[+] [-] kev009|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rectang|6 years ago|reply
In a way this is refreshing. When the U.S. military buys broken goods from a U.S. manufacturer, you get the sort of positive feedback loop that strengthens the military industrial complex. (I'm thinking the F-22 Raptor.) But when funds leak to China, that feedback loop is broken.
[+] [-] sambal|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ProCynic|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylan604|6 years ago|reply
In the real world, most people can't really comprehend the value of $1,000,000.00. One million might as well be one billion might as well be one trillion. At the risk of being cliche, if we did not have the loss of the $4 million per year (of just this one specific thing), what else could that money have been used for instead?
[+] [-] tomcam|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] samdung|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Hamuko|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dejaime|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kpremote|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bArray|6 years ago|reply
This is bad form.
> But there is not even a single high-profile hardware
> backdoor incident publicised. This tells you something.
Not so much. If the US military found a hardware backdoor, would they want to publicly tell their enemy that their strategy is effective? Not only this, but if they tell their enemies which ones they find, by doing so they also tell them which ones they haven't found.
The only reason details of these fakes were published was likely because the Chinese company couldn't reasonably be considered as acting maliciously in this regard. Rather, they were just trying to turn a quick buck.