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from the year-of-the-linux-desktop-in-China-by-2023 dept.
The Guardian is reporting that the tech war just got hot.
China will be replacing all hardware and software with Chinese equivalents. This is the latest escalation in the US-China tech trade war in response to the US ban on Huawei equipment.
China has ordered that all foreign computer equipment and software be removed from government offices and public institutions within three years, the Financial Times reports.
The government directive is likely to be a blow to US multinational companies like HP, Dell and Microsoft and mirrors attempts by Washington to limit the use of Chinese technology, as the trade war between the countries turns into a tech cold war.
The Trump administration banned US companies from doing business with Chinese Chinese[sic] telecommunications company Huawei earlier this year and in May, Google, Intel and Qualcomm announced they would freeze cooperation with Huawei.
By excluding China from western know-how, the Trump administration has made it clear that the real battle is about which of the two economic superpowers has the technological edge for the next two decades.
China already leads in patents
China's 2016 patent application total is greater than the combined total of patent applications filed in 2016 in the United States (605,571), Japan (318,381), South Korea (208,830) and Europe (159,358). These five jurisdictions accounted for 84 percent of all patent applications filed during 2016.
China has been preparing for an all-out IT war.
In May, Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times newspaper in China, said the withdrawal of sharing by US tech companies with Huawei would not be fatal for the company because the Chinese firm has been planning for this conflict "for years" and would prompt the company to develop its own microchip industry to rival America's.
"Cutting off technical services to Huawei will be a real turning point in China's overall research and development and use of domestic chips," he said in a social media post. "Chinese people will no longer have any illusions about the steady use of US technology."
US trade policy may have been meant to pressure China, but that move looks to have just forced an acceleration of the loss of software and hardware orders from American suppliers to China.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @05:38PM (5 children)
Check out PRISM [wikipedia.org]. We've convinced and/or coerced all major software companies (including Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft) to effectively work as government spies. There's a really interesting document [cjfe.org] demonstrating what agents see (including screenshots) when using PRISM to spy on Skype communications. Whatever your computer sends on a Skype connection gets sent out and then directed straight to the NSA. Initial reporting [spiegel.de] on that leak, if you prefer media coverage.
In the FAQ it even has things like agents being confused about why some data is sent multiple times. What happens there is when a spy target uses skype on multiple machines the machine connects to Microsoft's servers to sync their latest conversations, since Microsoft routes everything they send on over to the NSA as well, it ends up in the NSA spook getting multiple copies of the same conversations during the syncing process.
No idea who started this nonsense first, but it's pretty safe to assume than any software from a big company is probably riddled with government backdoors and surveillance mechanisms. IMO this is one of the real issues with the Huawei nonsense. Huawei would probably not respond positively to the NSA asking them to spy up. For that matter the NSA probably wouldn't even want representatives of a Chinese company, and by proxy their government, privy to exactly what we're doing and demanding of companies.
So ultimately you have a choice. Do you want a foreign government half way around the world spying on you, or your local government spying on you. And that's not a rhetorical choice. I think there are good arguments to be made for both sides and ultimately it's something that will be up to the individual to decide. But suffice to say I think there will be a more than sufficient market for domestic usage, unless the government tries to make it impractical or unlawful to use Chinese software - which is a very real possibility.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Monday December 09 2019, @06:17PM
It's not only about the spying in this case, actually. The problem was I don't see why I should abide the spying running locally, on my machine, wasting my resources.
Additionally, as a local software, it can potentially see what other things the computer is doing, and I'd rather not have them able to scan EVERY account we are managing with other vendors. It's one thing if the government has a hook into Skype chats - it's another thing if Skype is handing them bank credentials it snooped from the browser, which the malware would be positioned to do.
As such we have a rule of only managing Chinese accounts on computers with Chinese software to try to limit the scope of this.
Because of needing to take such a measure, I don't think I could safely mix Chinese Office and Microsoft Office, if that makes sense. I'd have to assume I have this problem with everything ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @06:59PM (1 child)
To access the American market? I think they absolutely would be creaming themselves to provide intercept ability for the NSA.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday December 09 2019, @07:08PM
No, but the Chinese government would probably look quite favorably on such an opportunity.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday December 09 2019, @10:18PM
No idea who started this nonsense first...
Truman?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:35PM
In my case both are foreign governments. But the USA does more "rendition" of non-citizen non-residents than China (who seem to focus more on their citizens and ex-citizens).
Since I don't plan to ever visit China, and don't really conduct much business with China, China spying on me seems to be safer than the USA.
This of course could change if China becomes more powerful...