Technology companies that want to sell equipment to Chinese banks will have to submit to extensive audits, turn over source code, and build “back doors” into their hardware and software, according to a copy of the rules obtained by foreign companies already doing billions of dollar worth of business in the country. The new rules were laid out in a 22-page document from Beijing, and are presumably being put in place so that the Chinese government can peek into computer banking systems.
Details about the new regulations, which were reported in The New York Times today ( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/technology/in-china-new-cybersecurity-rules-perturb-western-tech-companies.html?_r=1 ), are a cause for concern, particularly to Western technology companies.
In 2015, the China tech market is expected to account for 43 percent of tech-sector growth worldwide ( http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/in-2015-technology-shifts-accelerate-and-china-rules-idc-predicts/ ). With these new regulations, foreign companies and business groups worry that authorities may be trying to push them out of the fast-growing market. According to the Times, the groups—which include the US Chamber of Commerce—sent a letter Wednesday to a top-level Communist Party committee, criticizing the new policies that they say essentially amount to protectionism.
(Score: 1) by boltronics on Sunday February 01 2015, @04:18AM
Better to need to keep papers on you in China, then require fingerprints on entry that is expected of all foreigner to the US. You're probably a US citizen so don't care about that.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday February 08 2015, @03:36AM
Papers please! is more fitting to China considering the state of government there. Otoh, US seems to be on the road there too.
(Score: 1) by boltronics on Sunday February 08 2015, @04:54AM
In Hong Kong (where I've lived for 6+ months in total) I've never been asked for any identification. My spouse (originally from Hong Kong) has only ever been asked for papers once in her life, over a decade ago. Generally the police only request them to verify that people the mainland have authorization to be in Hong Kong (as many Chinese have migrated there illegally), so it's not really meaningful to westerners. Obviously requesting ID is useful in the event of observing a traffic accident or some such, but that goes for any country.
Having papers to move between Hong Kong and the mainland is also not at all surprising, since Hong Kong is effectively like a different country (different laws, government, written language, spoken language, etc.).
I hardly consider Hong Kong at least to be a surveillance state in any of these respects. Heck, on the card to fill out where you'll be staying, I just wrote "New Territories" (which makes up ~80% of Hong Kong) and immigration was fine with that. Compare the points on this list to entering US (which I refuse to visit due to the unreasonable and discriminative requirements):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance#Electronic_police_state [wikipedia.org]
In Korea I read you may even require retina scans! My wife wanted to visit there but I said no f**k'in way.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!