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>Getting listening devices installed/activated on every device is a whole 'nother ball park. It's not that hard really. Anyone who's worked on a large codebase
by marcoperaza 10y ago
>Getting listening devices installed/activated on every device is a whole 'nother ball park.
It's not that hard really. Anyone who's worked on a large codebase knows how easy it would be for someone to slip in a vulnerability that looks like a simple coding mistake. There's even a contest for producing such code: http://www.underhanded-c.org/ http://www.underhanded-c.org/
Keep in mind that Western tech companies knowingly hire tons of foreign nations who are presumably loyal to their home nations (as is natural), and a large portion of whom have their entire families still living there too.
(Which is not to say that they shouldn't hire foreigners. There are similarly bad incentives for domestic nationals as well, who can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per exploit on the grey market. The problem is that the engineering processes and standards for software are nowhere near as robust as they need to be considering the ubiquitous access to and control of our society that technology has.)
- praneshp 10y agoYou've said the loyal thing twice now. Being loyal to your country is not the same as being disloyal to your company; it's also quite insulting to suggest that I'd betray my employer just because I'm a foreigner. Edited to take out insult.
- marcoperaza 10y agoMany, if not most, people would put their nation before their employer if said employer is primarily an asset of an adversary nation. I don't think that's wrong or insulting. It's also not meant to be accusatory. I hesitated to write because I figured someone would get their feathers ruffled, but it's just realistic. Tech companies, the software and devices they create, and the data they have, are of national security significance. We should shape our threat models as such.