In the U.S., military espionage is heroic and economic espionage is a crime. In China, the line is not that clear.
Let me say this: BULLSHIT, a thousand times.
Who says this? Any of the companies who have been lying to their customers? Any of the government agencies which have not explained anything about the NSA activities (not that they would know what is going on)? Any of the officials caught lying, one and again?
The US will not perform economic espionage as long as the US has a technological edge (which is probably not anymore the case in lots of areas).
Which brings us to an important observation: OCDE rules forbidding economic espionage are designed to keep the current technological status quo; any country is well advised to sign them to be accepted to the club, and immediately throw the rules to the garbage bin. Because we can be sure that any country capable of doing economic espionage has been doing it, is doing it, and will continue to do it, no matter the rules, no matter if they get caught, no matter the hypocrital public posturing of their leaders.
Those rules, and the whole "Intellectual Property" apparatus, is there for the suckers to respect them. The US, in particular, has never respected those rules.
One of my coworkers actually expressed this sentiment to me. He's generally a smart guy but I don't know how you get across how damaging this is to basic commerce.
The NSA is destroying the American technical industry piece by piece. How do we approach this existential crisis, when the folks behind the NSA apparently don't give a shit what damage they do to America?
Is there any possible justification under 'national security' for wiretapping Merkel or the president of Brazil?
Unless people think that Merkel is secretly in cahoots with some kind of extremist group, it's obvious that this kind of spying is done exclusively to get an economical edge when negotiating treaties.
Since you jogged my memory, here's one person who has said it: Richard Clarke, U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism 1992-2003 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3769442
> we can be sure that any country capable of doing economic espionage has been doing it, is doing it, and will continue to do it, no matter the rules, no matter if they get caught, no matter the hypocrital public posturing of their leaders.
Why can we be sure of this? Simply from a rudimentary game-theoretic analysis? Isolated incidents of industrial spying aren't enough to show that this activity is as ubiquitous and inevitable as you say it must be.
Is it just me or does this seem to be a tortured argument - the US suggested that huawei might be implementing backdoors in their product out of the box, is not the same thing as the US security agency actively searching for exploits for the product. One is a collaborative effort to sell someone a defective product (could be fraud) the other is a adversarial effort that is a natural part of the security industry cycle.
There is another degree of freedom in that equation, Cisco.
The Chinese networking gear has become shockingly good. performance per dollar and performance per watt they are extremely competitive with Cisco, especially in the higher end. I couldn't talk to gateway routers but their switches also have accurate documentation. Ciscos biggest edge is institutional memory, a bunch of CCxx certifications, and they are assembled in America or owned by an American company or something like that which meant security.
Can any one tell a remotely interesting story as to why Cisco wouldn't aid the NSA? I mean Apple, google, etc did..
>the US suggested that huawei might be implementing backdoors in their product out of the box, is not the same thing as the US security agency actively searching for exploits for the product.
The US has also been adding hardware backdoors by intercepting mail as it travels across US friendly territories. Furthermore, the US backdoored RSA's RNG 'out of the box', and reports suggest it has backdoored other things 'out of the box'.
The argument as I understood it was this, US:
"China valves its 'dominance of cyberspace' over the security of both itself and the community of nations, therefore using hardware produced in China will probably make everyone, including the US, less safe".
It is a good argument in general form and it addresses an important need for security because this sort of gear is used in nuclear power plants, air defense grids, hydroelectric dams, etc (note that Hardware backdoors have covert radios for bridging airgaps). These backdoors, even if not exploited by the Chinese, could fall into arbitrary hands[1] and cause significant economic damage.
EDIT: People are downvoting this comment. As downvoting is your right please continue to do so but feedback is welcome. I care about understanding this issue and I want to know why you disagree with my comment.
Are you aware that the NSA is actively planting exploits into products by intercepting shipments? Your are not buying a Cisco product: you are buying a Cisco + NSA product, with a backdoor. Which is exactly the same as buying a Huawei product with a backdoor.
It's important to note that during the USG vs Huawei discussions there were no actual proofs brought by the USG about the allegations it pressed on Huawei. Huawei even wrote an open letter just two years ago asking for investigation and denying all the allegations http://www.huawei.com/ilink/en/about-huawei/newsroom/press-r...
To my knowledge, no response has been made by USG justifying the allegations it was making when it was openly called by Huawei. Given all of this, I find it ironic the comments here such as "backdoors in Huawei's devices" are taken for granted. Now with the latest leaks exposing hacking by the USG itself the tone of the conversation (including the comments in HN) has not changed. What am I missing?
The only noticeable change seems was the decreased tone of the US media (CNN alikes) who used to shout extremely loud that 'Those Chinese are hacking our systems!'. At the very least frequency of such news got decreased ever since the leaks.
Why do you think the US was so concerned about buying gear from China? They just realized that since they're doing it, China is probably doing it as well.
I've noticed this before. They start sounding the trumpet about some dangers, after they already do them themselves - like when they said that cyber-attacks should be considered acts of war because they can put infrastructures in danger, basically months before they launched Stuxnet against Iran, or when they started warning about cyber-attacks putting banks in danger, and then we found out this year that NSA can access bank accounts and even modify them.
So next time when they warn about some other danger, I think we can assume they've already done it themselves to others. As for the "IP stealing" that they keep accusing China of, it may be true, but NSA probably steals information from other corporations more than anyone, since they have access to everything, and I'm not so sure China does, too. Most of the world's Internet traffic goes through US, and they have access to that, and as we've seen to the private networks of the world's largest service companies, too, like Google, Yahoo and so on. They also have access to most of Europe's data through UK/Sweden cables. China doesn't have any of this, and could only dream of such access.
I guess at this point, its fair to ask all those previous commenters who were telling us: "It just doesn't work like that.. We were in the dept of defense.. you guys don't understand" to comment..
That's a nice but naive sentiment. You can rest assured your hardware is similarly trojaned - whether it is your CPU, your Ethernet controller or your network switch. No, I do not have first hand knowledge about CPU trojaning by the NSA. But given everything else, I'd be surprised if they don't have access to the CPU itself.
The consistently frustrating thing about all these 'revelations' is that the US government allegedly do it only for national security concerns where as other nations does it for corporate espionage.
[+] [-] gonvaled|12 years ago|reply
Who says this? Any of the companies who have been lying to their customers? Any of the government agencies which have not explained anything about the NSA activities (not that they would know what is going on)? Any of the officials caught lying, one and again?
The US will not perform economic espionage as long as the US has a technological edge (which is probably not anymore the case in lots of areas).
Which brings us to an important observation: OCDE rules forbidding economic espionage are designed to keep the current technological status quo; any country is well advised to sign them to be accepted to the club, and immediately throw the rules to the garbage bin. Because we can be sure that any country capable of doing economic espionage has been doing it, is doing it, and will continue to do it, no matter the rules, no matter if they get caught, no matter the hypocrital public posturing of their leaders.
Those rules, and the whole "Intellectual Property" apparatus, is there for the suckers to respect them. The US, in particular, has never respected those rules.
[+] [-] wavefunction|12 years ago|reply
The NSA is destroying the American technical industry piece by piece. How do we approach this existential crisis, when the folks behind the NSA apparently don't give a shit what damage they do to America?
[+] [-] Fede_V|12 years ago|reply
Unless people think that Merkel is secretly in cahoots with some kind of extremist group, it's obvious that this kind of spying is done exclusively to get an economical edge when negotiating treaties.
[+] [-] fforw|12 years ago|reply
Spying on the head of the EU-anti-monopoly investigations against Microsoft and Google is already industrial espionage.
[+] [-] noibl|12 years ago|reply
Since you jogged my memory, here's one person who has said it: Richard Clarke, U.S. National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism 1992-2003 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3769442
> we can be sure that any country capable of doing economic espionage has been doing it, is doing it, and will continue to do it, no matter the rules, no matter if they get caught, no matter the hypocrital public posturing of their leaders.
Why can we be sure of this? Simply from a rudimentary game-theoretic analysis? Isolated incidents of industrial spying aren't enough to show that this activity is as ubiquitous and inevitable as you say it must be.
[+] [-] dnautics|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCondor|12 years ago|reply
The Chinese networking gear has become shockingly good. performance per dollar and performance per watt they are extremely competitive with Cisco, especially in the higher end. I couldn't talk to gateway routers but their switches also have accurate documentation. Ciscos biggest edge is institutional memory, a bunch of CCxx certifications, and they are assembled in America or owned by an American company or something like that which meant security.
Can any one tell a remotely interesting story as to why Cisco wouldn't aid the NSA? I mean Apple, google, etc did..
[+] [-] EthanHeilman|12 years ago|reply
The US has also been adding hardware backdoors by intercepting mail as it travels across US friendly territories. Furthermore, the US backdoored RSA's RNG 'out of the box', and reports suggest it has backdoored other things 'out of the box'.
The argument as I understood it was this, US: "China valves its 'dominance of cyberspace' over the security of both itself and the community of nations, therefore using hardware produced in China will probably make everyone, including the US, less safe".
It is a good argument in general form and it addresses an important need for security because this sort of gear is used in nuclear power plants, air defense grids, hydroelectric dams, etc (note that Hardware backdoors have covert radios for bridging airgaps). These backdoors, even if not exploited by the Chinese, could fall into arbitrary hands[1] and cause significant economic damage.
EDIT: People are downvoting this comment. As downvoting is your right please continue to do so but feedback is welcome. I care about understanding this issue and I want to know why you disagree with my comment.
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnational_organized_crime
[+] [-] gonvaled|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slashdotaccount|12 years ago|reply
ANT Files (16.2M ZIP) : http://cryptome.org/2013/12/nsa-catalog.zip
QUANTUM Tasking (5.7M) - http://cryptome.org/2013/12/nsa-quantum-tasking.pdf
QUANTUM Theory (2.5M) - http://cryptome.org/2013/12/nsa-quantumtheory.pdf
[+] [-] streetnigga|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] askar_yu|12 years ago|reply
Later on Huawei testified before the US House http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApQjSCUpt4s
To my knowledge, no response has been made by USG justifying the allegations it was making when it was openly called by Huawei. Given all of this, I find it ironic the comments here such as "backdoors in Huawei's devices" are taken for granted. Now with the latest leaks exposing hacking by the USG itself the tone of the conversation (including the comments in HN) has not changed. What am I missing?
The only noticeable change seems was the decreased tone of the US media (CNN alikes) who used to shout extremely loud that 'Those Chinese are hacking our systems!'. At the very least frequency of such news got decreased ever since the leaks.
[+] [-] nxbtch|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bananacurve|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] a3n|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brandon272|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gdy|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blazespin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] salient|12 years ago|reply
So next time when they warn about some other danger, I think we can assume they've already done it themselves to others. As for the "IP stealing" that they keep accusing China of, it may be true, but NSA probably steals information from other corporations more than anyone, since they have access to everything, and I'm not so sure China does, too. Most of the world's Internet traffic goes through US, and they have access to that, and as we've seen to the private networks of the world's largest service companies, too, like Google, Yahoo and so on. They also have access to most of Europe's data through UK/Sweden cables. China doesn't have any of this, and could only dream of such access.
[+] [-] moootPoint|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alphasite_|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mh_|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bobjordan|12 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gaius|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bananacurve|12 years ago|reply
http://cphpost.dk/news/denmark-is-one-of-the-nsas-9-eyes.761...
[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
Sure we can open source our router software for review but what if their hacks are right in the chips being made in China.
Don't US fighter jets and bombers use some electronics made in China too?