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> It is a “near certainty” Beijing was aware of the conversations between Intel and its Chinese tech partners, because authorities there routinely monitor all s

by zaxomi 9y ago

> It is a “near certainty” Beijing was aware of the conversations between Intel and its Chinese tech partners, because authorities there routinely monitor all such communications, Mr. Williams said. Doesn't that mean that it is a “near certainty” that the U.S. Government was aware of it, because authorities (NSA, etc) routinely monitor all such communications?

justicezyx 9y ago
Seems a generally-accepted-leaning-to-be-true assumption regarding NSA (or any nation-state-backed security or spying agencies with advanced technologies in a similar level as US).
- dustingetz 9y ago
  Yeah but you'd need like 1:10 ratio of persons employed to monitor the comms of persons of interest. So there can't be that many persons/orgs under regular surveillance or huge numbers of people would be employed for the monitoring.
akerro 9y ago
Can we also assume that any country with global wiretapping systems - US, Germany, Russia, China, India could intercept this information?
- hishnash 9y ago
  Yes through you may have left out the UK (with GCHQ) who do most of the spying for the NSA within the US, so as to ensure the NSA doesn't break any rules as they are permitted to take data from another nations department but have restrictions on local citizen data ;) they intern share data they gather on the in UK.
angry_octet 9y ago
I think we can assume Intel have heard of cryptography.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lordlimecat 9y ago
The state of communications interception is a bit different in China. In the US it is opportunistic. In China it is mandatory and baked into the internet backbone, the cloud providers, and all communication providers.
- isomorphic 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A I think you mean "overtly mandatory" in China's case.
  - rtpg 9y ago
    I get your point. The NSA has anchor points very deep in the system. The overt, pervasive mandatoriness of the Chinese system is another ballgame entirely. If the Chinese gov't shows up and asks for basically anything, of course you give it. There is no questions, no lawyers. It is how things are done. US tech companies do have lawyers and fight back at some stuff. Think about all those defamation cases where people try to sue Twitter to get the identities of people criticizing them. How do you think that works in the Chinese social environment?
    - dmix 9y ago
      Well if there's lawyers getting involved, or the threat of such, that's what the five eyes (and the other "n eyes") are for. And then you can just call it a "minimization error during routine data sharing with foreign intelligence partners" that happened to sweep up tons of domestic US data.
      - rtpg 9y ago
        Right, you end up with this sharing to get around legal issues. Technical issues are a bit different though. Australian intelligence does not have rooms in any AT&T building I think. Though perhaps they perform some legal tricks to give them access and then roundtrip the info. I hope they at least feel bad doing so.
  - 9y ago
cryptonector 9y ago
There's a big difference between "gathered the communications" and "is aware of their contents". When you gather everything you merely have the potential to be aware of things you maybe should be aware of. Finding which needles in the stack of needles are of interest is difficult. It is entirely possible that without being told neither government could have become aware of this in spite of having the communications that could make them aware if only someone read them. It's also entirely possible that the Chinese government became aware from being told by folks at those Chinese companies who received disclosures, and that the U.S. government wasn't. Eventually we might find out what the actual situation was. From a purely legal and policy standpoint, the linked report is concerning. One would think that Intel ought to be aware of the national security implications of Meltdown/Spectre and should have alerted someone in the U.S. government, though they're probably not obligated to. And, of course, what if Intel had not be an American company?

by zaxomi 9y ago

justicezyx 9y ago

Seems a generally-accepted-leaning-to-be-true assumption regarding NSA (or any nation-state-backed security or spying agencies with advanced technologies in a similar level as US).

dustingetz 9y ago
Yeah but you'd need like 1:10 ratio of persons employed to monitor the comms of persons of interest. So there can't be that many persons/orgs under regular surveillance or huge numbers of people would be employed for the monitoring.

akerro 9y ago

Can we also assume that any country with global wiretapping systems - US, Germany, Russia, China, India could intercept this information?

hishnash 9y ago
Yes through you may have left out the UK (with GCHQ) who do most of the spying for the NSA within the US, so as to ensure the NSA doesn't break any rules as they are permitted to take data from another nations department but have restrictions on local citizen data ;) they intern share data they gather on the in UK.

angry_octet 9y ago

I think we can assume Intel have heard of cryptography.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

lordlimecat 9y ago

The state of communications interception is a bit different in China. In the US it is opportunistic. In China it is mandatory and baked into the internet backbone, the cloud providers, and all communication providers.

isomorphic 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A I think you mean "overtly mandatory" in China's case.
- rtpg 9y ago
  I get your point. The NSA has anchor points very deep in the system. The overt, pervasive mandatoriness of the Chinese system is another ballgame entirely. If the Chinese gov't shows up and asks for basically anything, of course you give it. There is no questions, no lawyers. It is how things are done. US tech companies do have lawyers and fight back at some stuff. Think about all those defamation cases where people try to sue Twitter to get the identities of people criticizing them. How do you think that works in the Chinese social environment?
  - dmix 9y ago
    Well if there's lawyers getting involved, or the threat of such, that's what the five eyes (and the other "n eyes") are for. And then you can just call it a "minimization error during routine data sharing with foreign intelligence partners" that happened to sweep up tons of domestic US data.
    - rtpg 9y ago
      Right, you end up with this sharing to get around legal issues. Technical issues are a bit different though. Australian intelligence does not have rooms in any AT&T building I think. Though perhaps they perform some legal tricks to give them access and then roundtrip the info. I hope they at least feel bad doing so.
- 9y ago

cryptonector 9y ago

There's a big difference between "gathered the communications" and "is aware of their contents". When you gather everything you merely have the potential to be aware of things you maybe should be aware of. Finding which needles in the stack of needles are of interest is difficult. It is entirely possible that without being told neither government could have become aware of this in spite of having the communications that could make them aware if only someone read them. It's also entirely possible that the Chinese government became aware from being told by folks at those Chinese companies who received disclosures, and that the U.S. government wasn't. Eventually we might find out what the actual situation was. From a purely legal and policy standpoint, the linked report is concerning. One would think that Intel ought to be aware of the national security implications of Meltdown/Spectre and should have alerted someone in the U.S. government, though they're probably not obligated to. And, of course, what if Intel had not be an American company?