Silicon Valley Panic: China Demands NSA-Like Access and Control

[TaiShang]

Silicon Valley Panic: China Demands NSA-Like Access and Control / Sputnik International

Silicon Valley is in a panic following an announcement that China is considering sweeping counter-terrorism legislation. The law would require tech companies to provide the Chinese government with NSA-like access to private data, terms the industry may be forced to accept if they want to do business in the world’s most populated country.

The Edward Snowden revelations about the American spying apparatus have numerous impacts. One of the latest is a decision by the Chinese government to terminate contracts with a number of major US-based technology brands. This could stem from news that the NSA installed spyware into the products of major US technology companies, thus using these brands as tools of US intelligence agencies.

But another recent side-effect of the Snowden documents could be a proposed Chinese counter-terrorism law. While China seeks to shield itself from digital spying, the new law could give its own government even stronger capabilities in cyber surveillance.

Bad for Business: After NSA Hack China Stops Buying Major US Tech Brands

The law’s current draft would require foreign tech firms to give the Chinese government “backdoor” security access, and to provide encryption keys. The law would also require companies to house servers within Chinese borders, giving law enforcement access to user data.

“It’s the equivalent of the Patriot Act on really, really strong steroids,” an anonymous US industry source told Reuters.

No matter the extent of the legislation, given the prevalence of the emerging Asian market. If tech companies want to be able to compete on global scale, they can’t ignore Chinese consumers.

“It’s a disaster for anyone doing business in China,” an industry source told Reuters. “You are no longer allowed a VPN that’s secure, you are no longer able to transmit financials securely, or to have any corporate secrets. By law, nothing is secure.”

US officials say that the Obama administration has already expressed its concerns with the law. They say that it places unfair burdens on foreign companies, but Beijing is expected to approve the legislation in the coming months.

“The Administration is aggressively working to have China walk back from these troubling regulations,” US Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement released on Thursday.

As part of their appeal, the US argues that such stringent cybersecurity policies could also have negative consequences on the Chinese economy.

“One unfortunate consequence of over-broad anti-terrorism policies is to potentially isolate China technologically from the rest of the world,” James Zimmerman, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters. “And the end result of that may be to limit the country’s access to cutting-edge technology and innovation.”

Western nations, of course, have done their own share of meddling in the privacy policies of tech companies. Both the United States and Britain have encouraged Silicon Valley to provide encryption keys. Just last month, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama encouraged tech companies to provide intel in real-time in the name of national security.

“We need to work with these big companies,” Cameron told the BBC, “to make sure that we can keep people safe.”

This call was made soon after the terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. China faces similar threats from religious extremists. Over the past two years, hundreds have died in the Xinjiang region, which the government blames on Islamist separatists.

And again, it may very well be the example set by the NSA which has encouraged China to adopt its own form of Big Brother.

***

In a word, obey the rules of the land or either bear the consequences!!! This message is now loud and clear to the US-regime embedded foreign companies.

Meddling in China's internal affairs and doing fifth-column works is soon to be over. Those agent-provocateurs won't be leaving China unscathed.

China already has high-tech know-how; so no side affect on that regard.

Besides, from Beidou GPS system experience, we know how miraculously Western sanctions work out.

 

[TaiShang]

Bad for Business: After NSA Hack China Stops Buying Major US Tech Brands

01:33 26.02.2015(updated 14:59 26.02.2015)

China has been axing major US technology companies from its government purchasing list in favor of local brands. Some analysts believe fears over NSA spy technology could be to blame.

The list of products for the Central Government Procurement Center (CGPC), which is approved by the Chinese Ministry of Finance, includes over 5,000 products, 2,000 of which were added in the last two years, and almost entirely from domestic companies. Among those products, foreign brands have fallen by a third, and among security-related products, by a half. As of two years ago, Cisco Systems had 60 items on the list, but now has none. Among other companies, whose products were excluded from the list are Intel’s security brand McAfee, Apple, and Citrix.

China Bought Nearly Half of Gemalto SIM Cards Hacked by US, UK

"We have previously acknowledged that geopolitical concerns have impacted our business in certain emerging markets," a Cisco spokesman told Reuters. Apple, Citrix, Intel and the Chinese Ministry of Finance did not immediately comment.

Though there are non-espionage-related reasons why China might be preferring local brands, the decline in foreign products does seem to coincide with the leaks made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 about massive US spying programs.

Those leaks included revelations about access to information directly from the systems of major US tech firms and the collusion of European governments.

"The Snowden incident, it's become a real concern, especially for top leaders," Tu Xinquan, Associate Director of the China Institute of WTO Studies at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing told Reuters. "In some sense the American government has some responsibility for that; (China's) concerns have some legitimacy."

China Takes Stance Over NSA Hacking Revelations

Predictions that the NSA spying programs would hurt US tech firms are nothing new, so to some this is a case of ‘I told you so.” Back in 2013, just months after Snowden’s initial leaks, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation issued a report warning that “the U.S. cloud computing industry stands to lose $22 to $35 billion over the next three years” due to foreign fears of US cyber espionage.

However, some are skeptical that security concerns are the underlying reason, and may merely provide a good excuse to back off foreign brands and boost a tech industry that is expected to expand by 11.4 percent to $465.6 billion in 2015, according to tech research firm IDC.

"There's no doubt that the SOE segment of the market has been favoring the local indigenous content," a Western tech firm executive who didn’t want to be identified told Reuters.

European Companies in China Frustrated Over Beijing's Internet Restrictions

But dependence on local brands will, at east in the short term, leave China without the best quality technology in some sectors.

"In China, information security compared to international levels is still very far behind; the entire understanding of it is behind," Wang Zhihai, president and CEO of Beijing Wondersoft, told Reuters.

Relations between China and the US have already been chilly as both governments have raised concerns about technology’s vulnerabilities to government espionage.

China has already made certain demands that have rankled foreign companies wishing to do business with government entities in China.

For example, a 22-page document outlining rules for selling tech to banks laid out stipulations such as requiring companies to turn over intellectual property like source code in the name of security concerns, according to a New York Times report in January.

On the other hand, the US has also had concerns about possible connections between Chinese technology firms and government spying. The US would not allow Huawei Technologies, the largest networking and telecommunications firm in the world, to operate in the US due to concerns over Chinese government spying. And in fact, the leaked NSA documents revealed that the US made efforts to create backdoors into Huawei’s systems itself.

 

[Martian2]

China needs to stop Uighur terrorism

I think China's demand for NSA-like capabilities within its own borders is long overdue. The Uighur terrorists have killed hundreds of defenseless Han Chinese civilians with impunity.

With NSA-like powers, China can stop future Uighur terrorists.

Let's take a look at those Uighur emails. Yep, they're definitely terrorists.

 

[TaiShang]

China needs to stop Uighur terrorism

I think China's demand for NSA-like capabilities within its own borders is long overdue. The Uighur terrorists have killed hundreds of defenseless Han Chinese civilians with impunity.

With NSA powers, China can stop future Uighur terrorists.

Let's take a look at those Uighur emails. Yep, they're definitely terrorists.

That's one of the reasons for the newly-drafted and soon to be accepted anti-terrorism law.

No more Western-backed terrorism in Xinjiang because their connection with the World Uighur Congress (the hotbed of separatist terrorism) in the US.

Time to get serious and iron-fisted.


China Readies New Anti-Terror Legislation to Tackle Uyghur Separatists
15:49 26.02.2015

Chinese lawmakers began the second reading of draft anti-terrorism legislation quell unrest in the Xinjiang region home to Muslim Uyghur minorities.


MOSCOW (Sputnik) —Chinese lawmakers have begun the second reading of draft anti-terrorism legislation, after a series of separatist attacks in the Xinjiang region, home to Muslim Uyghur minorities, the local Global Times newspaper reported on Thursday.

Chinese authorities are seeking to suppress unrest in the turbulent Xinjiang region that has killed more than 100 people in recent years. China prosecuted Uyghur minority groups accused of committing terror-related crimes under its criminal law. However, Xinjiang regional officials decided the existing law was inadequate as some suspects were involved in the international jihadists groups in neighboring countries, Bo Xiao, Xinjiang legislator said in an interview with the “China Daily”.

Last February, Xinjiang regional officials also told the “China Daily” that they were considering drafting anti-terrorism legislation to quell unrest in the region. By the end of last year, in October, Chinese lawmakers presented the first draft of the national anti-terrorism law.

The second draft legislation will be discussed in Thursday’s session of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, the country’s legislature, which will be attended by a national intelligence gathering body.

Chinese lawmakers will primarily focus on the legal definition for terrorism. Unlike the first draft discussed last year, the one to be reviewed on Thursday interprets terrorism as “any speech or activity that, by means of violence, sabotages or threats, generates social panic, undermines public security, or menaces government organs or international organizations”. The first draft also included “thoughts” in addition to “speeches and activities," which was considered to violate the constitutional rights of Chinese people. The second draft therefore seeks to find a balance between combating extremism and protecting people's rights.

Also, the draft offers improved aerospace controls to protect the country against potential drone attacks and proposes to tighten control on social media to regulate the spread of terror-related information.

In the past year, at least 200 people died in the resource-rich Xinjiang in attacks carried out by Uyghur separatists, according to Australian ABC. Last October, an Uyghur man drove into a crowd at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, causing the deaths of two pedestrians and three Uyghur attackers.

 

[opruh]

Foreign tech companies are in panic, China is definitely doing something good.

 

[Jlaw]

Silicon Valley Panic: China Demands NSA-Like Access and Control / Sputnik International

Silicon Valley is in a panic following an announcement that China is considering sweeping counter-terrorism legislation. The law would require tech companies to provide the Chinese government with NSA-like access to private data, terms the industry may be forced to accept if they want to do business in the world’s most populated country.

The Edward Snowden revelations about the American spying apparatus have numerous impacts. One of the latest is a decision by the Chinese government to terminate contracts with a number of major US-based technology brands. This could stem from news that the NSA installed spyware into the products of major US technology companies, thus using these brands as tools of US intelligence agencies.

But another recent side-effect of the Snowden documents could be a proposed Chinese counter-terrorism law. While China seeks to shield itself from digital spying, the new law could give its own government even stronger capabilities in cyber surveillance.

Bad for Business: After NSA Hack China Stops Buying Major US Tech Brands

The law’s current draft would require foreign tech firms to give the Chinese government “backdoor” security access, and to provide encryption keys. The law would also require companies to house servers within Chinese borders, giving law enforcement access to user data.

“It’s the equivalent of the Patriot Act on really, really strong steroids,” an anonymous US industry source told Reuters.

No matter the extent of the legislation, given the prevalence of the emerging Asian market. If tech companies want to be able to compete on global scale, they can’t ignore Chinese consumers.

“It’s a disaster for anyone doing business in China,” an industry source told Reuters. “You are no longer allowed a VPN that’s secure, you are no longer able to transmit financials securely, or to have any corporate secrets. By law, nothing is secure.”

US officials say that the Obama administration has already expressed its concerns with the law. They say that it places unfair burdens on foreign companies, but Beijing is expected to approve the legislation in the coming months.

“The Administration is aggressively working to have China walk back from these troubling regulations,” US Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement released on Thursday.

As part of their appeal, the US argues that such stringent cybersecurity policies could also have negative consequences on the Chinese economy.

“One unfortunate consequence of over-broad anti-terrorism policies is to potentially isolate China technologically from the rest of the world,” James Zimmerman, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters. “And the end result of that may be to limit the country’s access to cutting-edge technology and innovation.”

Western nations, of course, have done their own share of meddling in the privacy policies of tech companies. Both the United States and Britain have encouraged Silicon Valley to provide encryption keys. Just last month, Prime Minister David Cameron and President Obama encouraged tech companies to provide intel in real-time in the name of national security.

“We need to work with these big companies,” Cameron told the BBC, “to make sure that we can keep people safe.”

This call was made soon after the terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. China faces similar threats from religious extremists. Over the past two years, hundreds have died in the Xinjiang region, which the government blames on Islamist separatists.

And again, it may very well be the example set by the NSA which has encouraged China to adopt its own form of Big Brother.

***

In a word, obey the rules of the land or either bear the consequences!!! This message is now loud and clear to the US-regime embedded foreign companies.

Meddling in China's internal affairs and doing fifth-column works is soon to be over. Those agent-provocateurs won't be leaving China unscathed.

China already has high-tech know-how; so no side affect on that regard.

Besides, from Beidou GPS system experience, we know how miraculously Western sanctions work out.

I like the red highlighted part that show western hypocrisy. That's the most important part.

 

[TaiShang]

I like the red highlighted part that show western hypocrisy. That's the most important part.

Indeed. Anticipate more whining as China goes on leveling the playing field.

The concept "national security" does not belong to the US regime only. We will utilize it.

The way they monitor their home turf and protect their own business interests, China will monitor its home turf and protect its own business interests.

Equality brings out a lot of whining. Crimea river!

 

[bobsm]

The United States Is Angry That China Wants Crypto Backdoors, Too

Written by
LORENZO FRANCESCHI-BICCHIERAI
STAFF WRITER
February 27, 2015 // 03:44 PM EST

When the US demands technology companies install backdoors for law enforcement, it’s okay. But when China demands the same, it’s a whole different story.

The Chinese government is about to pass a new counter terrorism law that would require tech companies operating in the country to turn over encryption keys and include specially crafted code in their software and hardware so that chinese authorities can defeat security measures at will.

Technologists and cryptographers have long warned that you can’t design a secure system that will enable law enforcement—and only law enforcement—to bypass the encryption. The nature of a backdoor door is that it is also a vulnerability, and if discovered, hackers or foreign governments might be able to exploit it, too.

Yet, over the past few months, several US government officials, including the FBI director James Comey, outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder, and NSA Director Mike Rogers, have all suggested that companies such as Apple and Google should give law enforcement agencies special access to their users’ encrypted data—while somehow offering strong encryption for their users at the same time.

“If the US forces tech companies to install backdoors in encryption, then tech companies will have no choice but to go along with China when they demand the same power.”

Their fear is that cops and feds will “go dark,” an FBI term for a potential scenario where encryption makes it impossible to intercept criminals’ communications.

But in light of China’s new proposals, some think the US’ own position is a little ironic.

“You can't have it both ways,” Trevor Timm, the co-founder and the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told Motherboard. “If the US forces tech companies to install backdoors in encryption, then tech companies will have no choice but to go along with China when they demand the same power.”

He’s not the only one to think the US government might end up regretting its stance.

Matthew Green, a cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins University, tweeted that someday US officials will “realize how much damage they’ve enabled” with their “silly requests” for backdoors.

Ironically, the US government sent a letter to China expressing concern about its new law. "The Administration is aggressively working to have China walk back from these troubling regulations," US Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement.

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment from Motherboard.

“It's stunningly shortsighted for the FBI and NSA not to realize this,” Timm added. “By demanding backdoors, these US government agencies are putting everyone's cybersecurity at risk.”

In an oft-cited examples of “if you build it, they will come,” hackers exploited a system designed to let police tap phones to spy on more than a hundred Greek cellphones, including that of the prime minister.

At the time, Steven Bellovin, a computer science professor at Columbia University, wrote that this incident shows how “built-in wiretap facilities and the like are really dangerous, and are easily abused.”

That hasn’t stopped other from asking though. Several countries, including India, Kuwait and UAE, requested BlackBerry to include a backdoor in its devices so that authorities could access encrypted communications. And a leaked document in 2013 revealed that BlackBerry’s lawful interception system in India was “ready for use."

The United States Is Angry That China Wants Crypto Backdoors, Too | Motherboard

_______________________________

Do as I say, not as I do.

 

[TaiShang]

When the US demands technology companies install backdoors for law enforcement, it’s okay. But when China demands the same, it’s a whole different story.

Double standards which do not apply to China.

If foreign companies do not comply with anti-terrorism law and they will be punished and excluded from the Chinese market. US objections are not to be taken into consideration.

China responds to US concern over counterterrorism law

March 3, 2015

China's drafting of its first counterterrorism law is a domestic issue, China's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday in response to comments made by the United States.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying held a daily news briefing on Mar. 3, 2015. [File photo]

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday said he was concerned that the law would require technology firms to hand over encryption keys, the passcodes that protect data.

The formulation of a counterterrorism law is an important step of rule of law and combating terrorism. The content of the draft law is based on real experiences in the fight against terrorism and has taken into account lessons learned by other countries, spokesperson Hua Chunying said at a daily news briefing.

"The formulation of the counterterrorism law is China's internal affair. We hope the United States can calmly and objectively handle it," she said.

"Every country is taking measures to ensure their information is secure," Hua said.

She said China had always opposed network monitoring and supported the drawing up of cyber space rules within the United Nations framework.

In September 2011, China, together with Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, submitted an "International Code of Conduct for Information Security" to the 66th session of the UN General Assembly, which promoted such norms and rules.

An updated draft was proposed to the UN in January 2015, to promote peace and stability in cyber space and governance without interference in to the domestic affairs of other countries.