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Eh. To be fair I'm torn between giving my local government the ability to manipulate me vs giving a foreign power my data. I don't read Chinese-owned news, I do

Eh. To be fair I'm torn between giving my local government the ability to manipulate me vs giving a foreign power my data. I don't read Chinese-owned news, I don't vote in China, I have nothing to do with them (well, except having my electronics made there). So is it really worse when Huawei steals my data instead of Google? At least with Huawei someone might care enough to stop them.

stordoff 8y ago
You may want to go there though - I have no desire to at the moment, but I wouldn't want to predict 10 years out. You are also reliant on Huawei not selling the data to a US actor, or your government compromising it.
cabaalis 8y ago
If your local government attempts to use data against you, at least there's a legal framework to work within and fellow citizens who might be willing to take up your cause. There's not a lot of recourse against a foreign government using data to blackmail/access your company data/intimidate/disparage you. Edit: I say foreign "government" instead of Huawei because of my interpretation of China's policies. If a company there has my information, it seems reasonable to me to assume their government does.
Kadin 8y ago
First, you have some level of recourse against agencies of your own government, either directly or via the electoral process. They may or may not have more interest in you than a foreign government, but that depends on what you're doing. The type of people of interest to American intelligence agencies is rather predictable and unimaginative. Most Western governments do not engage in espionage for private-sector economic gain. (Before the Chinese apologists show up: there have been extremely limited examples, historically, including a few times when US intelligence agencies became aware of spying or collusion on the part of another party in negotiations with a US company and notified them. There is not anything in the US that approaches the "same team" approach that the Russians and the Chinese have.) So even if you are not engaged in, say, assisting Tibetan independence activists, the Chinese government might still be interested in your work email, and there is reason to believe that any proprietary information might get passed along to a Chinese competitor (in the Russian scenario, it's probably more likely cybercriminal organizations who might sell it). The type of user who should be concerned about Chinese or Russian hacking, given the significant overlap between private industry (including criminal organizations, particularly in Russia) and government intelligence, is much more broad than the type of user who should be concerned about targeting by US or European intelligence. Middle Eastern countries are probably somewhere in the middle; they have what appears to be more broad targeting than Western countries but still maintain more of a firewall between industry and government than Russia/China. (That said, the physical threat appears to be greater if you really are a person of interest.)

stordoff 8y ago

You may want to go there though - I have no desire to at the moment, but I wouldn't want to predict 10 years out. You are also reliant on Huawei not selling the data to a US actor, or your government compromising it.

cabaalis 8y ago

If your local government attempts to use data against you, at least there's a legal framework to work within and fellow citizens who might be willing to take up your cause. There's not a lot of recourse against a foreign government using data to blackmail/access your company data/intimidate/disparage you. Edit: I say foreign "government" instead of Huawei because of my interpretation of China's policies. If a company there has my information, it seems reasonable to me to assume their government does.

Kadin 8y ago

First, you have some level of recourse against agencies of your own government, either directly or via the electoral process. They may or may not have more interest in you than a foreign government, but that depends on what you're doing. The type of people of interest to American intelligence agencies is rather predictable and unimaginative. Most Western governments do not engage in espionage for private-sector economic gain. (Before the Chinese apologists show up: there have been extremely limited examples, historically, including a few times when US intelligence agencies became aware of spying or collusion on the part of another party in negotiations with a US company and notified them. There is not anything in the US that approaches the "same team" approach that the Russians and the Chinese have.) So even if you are not engaged in, say, assisting Tibetan independence activists, the Chinese government might still be interested in your work email, and there is reason to believe that any proprietary information might get passed along to a Chinese competitor (in the Russian scenario, it's probably more likely cybercriminal organizations who might sell it). The type of user who should be concerned about Chinese or Russian hacking, given the significant overlap between private industry (including criminal organizations, particularly in Russia) and government intelligence, is much more broad than the type of user who should be concerned about targeting by US or European intelligence. Middle Eastern countries are probably somewhere in the middle; they have what appears to be more broad targeting than Western countries but still maintain more of a firewall between industry and government than Russia/China. (That said, the physical threat appears to be greater if you really are a person of interest.)