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Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

theinquirer.net

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Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#21

Post by jackhack »

snaky wrote: post #9
woliveirajr wrote: post #5

> "Likewise, if there are countries that want to have access, and there are more countries than just China, you provide what they're asking." Seems that it's kind of obvious and infuriating at the same time: companies that sell physical goods don't have much choice, they must meet country regulations for each country they want to sell.

Companies that don't sell physical goods don't have much choice too. > A prototype search engine that Google is designing to meet the scrutiny of Chinese officials links users’ phone numbers to the searches they perform > This report adds to earlier news, also broken by The Intercept about the search engine, codenamed “Dragonfly,” which eliminates from results a number of terms and topics, like freedom and democracy.…

I think they have plenty of choice. They can say "no", tell these regressive regimes to go to hell, and simply not manufacture/sell their product there, where-ever "there" may be.

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#22

Post by HenryBemis »

claydavisss wrote: post #6

Meanwhile in the US we also have a long history of monitoring internet traffic, installing backdoors and allowing private third-parties to filter what we see online. Where do we get off critiquing the PRC? We should clean our own house first.

Last I checked, in the EU or the USA you don't disappear in the middle of the night never to be seen again because you are:

-follower of different religion

-saying the word "democracy"

-critisizing a politician/the government

so yes, first things first.

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#23

Post by mothsonasloth »

microtonal wrote: post #18
mothsonasloth wrote: post #16

I miss the early 90s and 2000s when governments were still struggling to understand what the internet was, rather than trying to control it.

Did that time ever really exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... I also remember writing some (naive) crypto tools as a kid and I had to report it to permit re-export from the US. Also, the DMCA is from the nineties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

Wow those are interesting.

I'll need to do some digging on the UK government, to see what they were up to back then.

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#24

Post by responseguy »

jackhack wrote: post #21
snaky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies that don't sell physical goods don't have much choice too. > A prototype search engine that Google is designing to meet the scrutiny of Chinese officials links users’ phone numbers to the searches they perform > This report adds to earlier news, also broken by The Intercept about the search engine, codenamed “Dragonfly,” which eliminates from results a number of terms and topics, like freedom and democracy.…

I think they have plenty of choice. They can say "no", tell these regressive regimes to go to hell, and simply not manufacture/sell their product there, where-ever "there" may be.

The shareholders do not agree that that is an option.

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#25

Post by spectre256 »

microtonal wrote: post #18
mothsonasloth wrote: post #16

I miss the early 90s and 2000s when governments were still struggling to understand what the internet was, rather than trying to control it.

Did that time ever really exist? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... I also remember writing some (naive) crypto tools as a kid and I had to report it to permit re-export from the US. Also, the DMCA is from the nineties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_A...

I concur that it's unlikely that time ever really existed, at least in the US.

After all, the internet came directly from the Department of Defense funded ARPANET. Before that, computers were so expensive and large that realistically only governments or large companies could fund even routine work with them.

I suppose all that's changed is now the average human is on the internet. I mean that literally, since it seems that we are about to cross the threshold of 50% of humanity using the internet (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage).

So the things governments wish to do on the internet are more and in line with things that involve the population at large. For better or worse (mostly the latter, IMO) that involves lots of intelligence gathering, copyright enforcement, and national security work.

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#26

Post by responseguy »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #20
snaky wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To print all the chips on your own mini-fab - maybe. Eventually.

But your mini-fab might be backdoored and create chips with backdoors.

More likely that the schematics will contain backdoors, that aren't easily understood to be backdoors. EDIT: have - contains

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#27

Post by wodenokoto »

mothsonasloth wrote: post #16

I miss the early 90s and 2000s when governments were still struggling to understand what the internet was, rather than trying to control it.

I remember in the 90's being unsure if I should be afraid of echelon or if it was just a conspiracy theory. It was very real.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON

Re: Lenovo: Companies working in China may have to install local backdoors

#29

Post by walterbell »

lowry wrote: post #28
walterbell wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is about open-source firmware vs OEM (e.g. Lenovo) closed-source firmware.

WAT?

Open-source firmware: https://coreboot.org

Purism/coreboot: https://puri.sm/posts/category/firmware/

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