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Small reminder that companies must submit all source code for review if they do business in China

wwhitlow 8y ago
Wait really?!? I'd love to see a link to that, so China has more knowledge about how the services that control everyone's digital lives function then we do in America. While I see the totalitarian effect that can have the lack of knowledge and trust in these brands is slowly turning me away especially since alternatives exist.
orbital-decay 8y ago
And?.. Many companies "submit" all their source code to anyone interested, regardless of doing business in China. Just saying. Among closed-source ones, Microsoft and many others have decades-long history of submitting the code for governments to review. Does it really matter for anything? Or you mean even the code which doesn't leave company servers? Do you have a source then, because I'd have a hard time believing that.
- mindfulhack 8y ago
  That's news to me, and if true, stronger evidence for the likelihood of NSA / government backdoors.
afroboy 8y ago
That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
  I've heard about this in the form of "if you want to sell hardware, you have to give them the blueprints", and companies doing it because they want to do business there. I wouldn't be surprised if this included the source code of everything that ships with the device, but I'd think it doesn't extend to server-side code.
- 394549 8y ago
  > That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world. The actual implementation is important here. Does the Chinese government require the companies send them a tarball or just the opportunity to inspect it on the companies terms? If it's the latter, I can see all kind of companies complying. It's not unheard of to allow code inspection and auditing by setting up a secure PC with the code with all the USB ports epoxied shut and no network connection. The inspector using it can read and take notes, but the notes have to be reviewed and cleared by the company before they can be taken away.
est 8y ago
> companies must submit all source code for review if they do government contracts in China FTFY

Wait really?!? I'd love to see a link to that, so China has more knowledge about how the services that control everyone's digital lives function then we do in America. While I see the totalitarian effect that can have the lack of knowledge and trust in these brands is slowly turning me away especially since alternatives exist.

orbital-decay 8y ago

And?.. Many companies "submit" all their source code to anyone interested, regardless of doing business in China. Just saying. Among closed-source ones, Microsoft and many others have decades-long history of submitting the code for governments to review. Does it really matter for anything? Or you mean even the code which doesn't leave company servers? Do you have a source then, because I'd have a hard time believing that.

mindfulhack 8y ago
That's news to me, and if true, stronger evidence for the likelihood of NSA / government backdoors.

afroboy 8y ago

That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world.

tgsovlerkhgsel 8y ago
I've heard about this in the form of "if you want to sell hardware, you have to give them the blueprints", and companies doing it because they want to do business there. I wouldn't be surprised if this included the source code of everything that ships with the device, but I'd think it doesn't extend to server-side code.
394549 8y ago
> That seems not believable at all i'd like to see source for that, i find hard to believe Apple, Oracle and such companies that are very protective for their code to submitted to one of most copy past countries in the world. The actual implementation is important here. Does the Chinese government require the companies send them a tarball or just the opportunity to inspect it on the companies terms? If it's the latter, I can see all kind of companies complying. It's not unheard of to allow code inspection and auditing by setting up a secure PC with the code with all the USB ports epoxied shut and no network connection. The inspector using it can read and take notes, but the notes have to be reviewed and cleared by the company before they can be taken away.

est 8y ago

> companies must submit all source code for review if they do government contracts in China FTFY