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The Trump administration unveiled a wild plan to wall off China from the US internet
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pauses while speaking at a news conference at the State Department on April 29, 2020, in Washington, DC.ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday announced a new "Clean Network" initiative, aimed at blocking off large swathes of China's internet from the US.
This comes the same week as President Trump ordered that hugely successful social media app TikTok — which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance — sell off its US business to an American company or else face getting banned."The Clean Network program is the Trump Administration's comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens' privacy and our companies' most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party," Pompeo wrote in the announcement of the program.
The plans will stoke worries that the internet is set to become increasingly balkanized, with citizens unable to access certain apps or services thanks to geopolitical tensions.
Pompeo outlined five ways in which the initiative aims to keep China away from America's internet, although he was not entirely clear about how they might be technically enforced.
1. Telecoms carriers
Pompeo said this part of the initiative is: "to ensure untrusted People's Republic of China (PRC) carriers are not connected with US telecommunications networks. Such companies pose a danger to US national security and should not provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States."
It is not clear from the press announcement exactly how this will work, whether it will bar Chinese telecoms carriers from operating in the US, or whether it might make it impossible for people in China and the US to call one another.
2. No "untrusted" Chinese apps on US app stores
The "Clean Store" part of the initiative aims: "To remove untrusted applications from US mobile app stores," meaning Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store.
This explanation for this runs: "PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American's [sic] most sensitive personal and business information must be protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP's benefit."
This may mean booting Chinese apps, currently permitted on both the major app stores, out entirely.
3. American developers won't be allowed to have their apps pre-installed on phones made by Chinese companies
The "Clean Apps" part of the initiative is: "To prevent untrusted PRC smartphone manufacturers from pre-installing –or otherwise making available for download – trusted apps on their apps store."
Pompeo specifically names Chinese tech giant Huawei as an example, calling it "an arm of the PRC surveillance state." The US government has long accused Huawei of acting as a proxy for the Chinese government to spy, which Huawei denies.
"These [trusted] companies should remove their apps from Huawei's app store to ensure they are not partnering with a human rights abuser," Pompeo writes.
Currently, US apps including Amazon's shopping app and Snapchat are available on Huawei's App Gallery.
4. Americans will have to keep their data off Chinese cloud services
Pompeo says this is: "To prevent U.S. citizens' most sensitive personal information and our businesses' most valuable intellectual property, including COVID-19 vaccine research, from being stored and processed on cloud-based systems accessible to our foreign adversaries through companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent."
5. Keeping China away from undersea internet cables
Pompeo writes this part of the initiative is: "To ensure the undersea cables connecting our country to the global internet are not subverted for intelligence gathering by the PRC at hyper scale. We will also work with foreign partners to ensure that undersea cables around the world aren't similarly subject to compromise."
It's not clear how exactly this part of the plan will manifest itself, but in June a DOJ telecoms committee advised the FCC to block the construction of an undersea cable to Hong Kong.
{{}}
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech...from-the-us-internet/articleshow/77392468.cms
The US is building a new Great Firewall
A “digital Berlin Wall” between the US and China now looks more real than ever.
The US state department announced today that it will expand its “Clean Network” initiative, first rolled out in April, to root out major Chinese tech products from the US system. The department said the move is aimed at guarding US citizens’ privacy and US companies’ sensitive information from “aggressive intrusions by malign actors.”
“With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok, WeChat, and others are significant threats to the personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for Chinese Communist Party content censorship,” said Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state.
Under the expanded initiative, which focuses on five areas, “untrusted” Chinese telecom carriers, apps, and cloud service providers including Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu will be prevented from storing or processing US user data, being downloaded from US app stores, or connected to the US telecom system. Moreover, Chinese smartphone makers such as Huawei will be prevented from pre-installing or offering downloads of some US or foreign apps. Undersea cables that connect the US to the global internet will also be scrutinized by the US government.
While the announcement does not give a timeline of the initiative or explain whether it is compulsory for American entities to comply, the announcement is an escalation of the country’s efforts to divide the internet between China and the US. Most recently, the US has made a series of threats to ban Chinese apps including TikTok and WeChat, citing their threats to national security. TikTok will either have to be sold to a US company such as Microsoft, or face shutting down by the Sept. 15 deadline given by the White House. A growing number of US allies are also following suit in choosing to exclude Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei from their 5G networks.
Some worry that the US’s tech policy is now following in the steps of authoritarian regimes, which advocate the concept of “internet sovereignty”: the idea that a nation’s sovereignty extends from its physical territory into cyberspace. For years, China has blocked major foreign tech companies including Google and Twitter, via a Great Firewall which both prevents its citizens from viewing sensitive information and offers protection for its home-grown tech champions. For the US to also shut out platforms based on their national origin, critics argue, would suggest that Beijing’s vision of a fragmented, tightly controlled internet is triumphing over that of an open internet.
Even the language used by the US government now mirrors that of Beijing when it comes to the internet. The Chinese government, for example, has implemented multiple “internet cleanup campaigns” to crack down on vulgar, pornographic, or politically sensitive content. In his announcement, Pompeo laid out “five cleans” to explain the areas covered by the government initiative.
“For decades, the US has been perceived as the defender of free trade and free speech… the US (or at least the Trump administration) seems to have become less enthusiastic about those values,” wrote Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, in a post. “Soon, every big country is likely to use ‘national security’ as a pretext to fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout.”
Among the critics of the US State Department’s latest moves is also the Chinese government, with foreign minister Wang Yi accusing Pompeo of attempting “draw an iron curtain.”
https://qz.com/1889077/us-clean-network-campaign-shuts-out-chinese-apps-from-network/
https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pauses while speaking at a news conference at the State Department on April 29, 2020, in Washington, DC.ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday announced a broad program to crack down on Chinese apps and services.
- The "Clean Network" program will block "untrusted" Chinese apps from app stores; stop Chinese phone companies from pre-installing US apps; keep US data off Chinese cloud services; and guard undersea cables
- It isn't clear that the plan is workable, and risks balkanizing the internet.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday announced a new "Clean Network" initiative, aimed at blocking off large swathes of China's internet from the US.
This comes the same week as President Trump ordered that hugely successful social media app TikTok — which is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance — sell off its US business to an American company or else face getting banned."The Clean Network program is the Trump Administration's comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens' privacy and our companies' most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party," Pompeo wrote in the announcement of the program.
The plans will stoke worries that the internet is set to become increasingly balkanized, with citizens unable to access certain apps or services thanks to geopolitical tensions.
Pompeo outlined five ways in which the initiative aims to keep China away from America's internet, although he was not entirely clear about how they might be technically enforced.
1. Telecoms carriers
Pompeo said this part of the initiative is: "to ensure untrusted People's Republic of China (PRC) carriers are not connected with US telecommunications networks. Such companies pose a danger to US national security and should not provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States."
It is not clear from the press announcement exactly how this will work, whether it will bar Chinese telecoms carriers from operating in the US, or whether it might make it impossible for people in China and the US to call one another.
2. No "untrusted" Chinese apps on US app stores
The "Clean Store" part of the initiative aims: "To remove untrusted applications from US mobile app stores," meaning Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store.
This explanation for this runs: "PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American's [sic] most sensitive personal and business information must be protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP's benefit."
This may mean booting Chinese apps, currently permitted on both the major app stores, out entirely.
3. American developers won't be allowed to have their apps pre-installed on phones made by Chinese companies
The "Clean Apps" part of the initiative is: "To prevent untrusted PRC smartphone manufacturers from pre-installing –or otherwise making available for download – trusted apps on their apps store."
Pompeo specifically names Chinese tech giant Huawei as an example, calling it "an arm of the PRC surveillance state." The US government has long accused Huawei of acting as a proxy for the Chinese government to spy, which Huawei denies.
"These [trusted] companies should remove their apps from Huawei's app store to ensure they are not partnering with a human rights abuser," Pompeo writes.
Currently, US apps including Amazon's shopping app and Snapchat are available on Huawei's App Gallery.
4. Americans will have to keep their data off Chinese cloud services
Pompeo says this is: "To prevent U.S. citizens' most sensitive personal information and our businesses' most valuable intellectual property, including COVID-19 vaccine research, from being stored and processed on cloud-based systems accessible to our foreign adversaries through companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent."
5. Keeping China away from undersea internet cables
Pompeo writes this part of the initiative is: "To ensure the undersea cables connecting our country to the global internet are not subverted for intelligence gathering by the PRC at hyper scale. We will also work with foreign partners to ensure that undersea cables around the world aren't similarly subject to compromise."
It's not clear how exactly this part of the plan will manifest itself, but in June a DOJ telecoms committee advised the FCC to block the construction of an undersea cable to Hong Kong.
{{}}
https://www.businessinsider.in/tech...from-the-us-internet/articleshow/77392468.cms
The US is building a new Great Firewall
A “digital Berlin Wall” between the US and China now looks more real than ever.
The US state department announced today that it will expand its “Clean Network” initiative, first rolled out in April, to root out major Chinese tech products from the US system. The department said the move is aimed at guarding US citizens’ privacy and US companies’ sensitive information from “aggressive intrusions by malign actors.”
“With parent companies based in China, apps like TikTok, WeChat, and others are significant threats to the personal data of American citizens, not to mention tools for Chinese Communist Party content censorship,” said Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state.
Under the expanded initiative, which focuses on five areas, “untrusted” Chinese telecom carriers, apps, and cloud service providers including Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu will be prevented from storing or processing US user data, being downloaded from US app stores, or connected to the US telecom system. Moreover, Chinese smartphone makers such as Huawei will be prevented from pre-installing or offering downloads of some US or foreign apps. Undersea cables that connect the US to the global internet will also be scrutinized by the US government.
While the announcement does not give a timeline of the initiative or explain whether it is compulsory for American entities to comply, the announcement is an escalation of the country’s efforts to divide the internet between China and the US. Most recently, the US has made a series of threats to ban Chinese apps including TikTok and WeChat, citing their threats to national security. TikTok will either have to be sold to a US company such as Microsoft, or face shutting down by the Sept. 15 deadline given by the White House. A growing number of US allies are also following suit in choosing to exclude Chinese telecoms equipment maker Huawei from their 5G networks.
Some worry that the US’s tech policy is now following in the steps of authoritarian regimes, which advocate the concept of “internet sovereignty”: the idea that a nation’s sovereignty extends from its physical territory into cyberspace. For years, China has blocked major foreign tech companies including Google and Twitter, via a Great Firewall which both prevents its citizens from viewing sensitive information and offers protection for its home-grown tech champions. For the US to also shut out platforms based on their national origin, critics argue, would suggest that Beijing’s vision of a fragmented, tightly controlled internet is triumphing over that of an open internet.
Even the language used by the US government now mirrors that of Beijing when it comes to the internet. The Chinese government, for example, has implemented multiple “internet cleanup campaigns” to crack down on vulgar, pornographic, or politically sensitive content. In his announcement, Pompeo laid out “five cleans” to explain the areas covered by the government initiative.
“For decades, the US has been perceived as the defender of free trade and free speech… the US (or at least the Trump administration) seems to have become less enthusiastic about those values,” wrote Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, in a post. “Soon, every big country is likely to use ‘national security’ as a pretext to fracture international tech companies. And ironically, it’s the US companies like Facebook or Google that are likely to lose the most from the fallout.”
Among the critics of the US State Department’s latest moves is also the Chinese government, with foreign minister Wang Yi accusing Pompeo of attempting “draw an iron curtain.”
https://qz.com/1889077/us-clean-network-campaign-shuts-out-chinese-apps-from-network/
https://www.state.gov/announcing-the-expansion-of-the-clean-network-to-safeguard-americas-assets/
