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While I agree with you, I doubt banning Chinese tech will remedy this problem. My experience is that American brands are much, much more aggressive about making

While I agree with you, I doubt banning Chinese tech will remedy this problem. My experience is that American brands are much, much more aggressive about making you connect to the internet, install our apps, create an account, subscribe to our newsletter etc. Look at the difference between iRobot and Chinese robot vacuums on Amazon - the difference is night and day.

chme 2y ago
True. I was just talking about my experience with DJI. Where you buy a product, can use it for a bit, and then it stops working, because you haven't connected it to the internet or created an account. It is often the 'market leaders' that are so afraid to loose customers and their market position to implement customer hostile processes into their products.
hatsix 2y ago
Depends on what you consider the "problem". As Congress sees it, the problem is two-fold... You have no control over your data. The company that does have control over your data is beholden to a foreign country not currently considered "a close ally".
mike_d 2y ago
> American brands are much, much more aggressive about making you connect to the internet, install our apps, create an account This whataboutism ignores one very important point. When you connect a device to an American company they might do things that we consider privacy violations, while still staying generally within the bounds of the law. We like to joke about data going to the NSA or something, but in the extremely limited cases where it does protections exist with oversight. Contrast this to Chinese companies where by law every company is part-owned by the government itself. The Ministry of State Security literally has employees who show up to these companies every day like normal workers, but their job is to find and exploit intelligence on foreign individuals and businesses.
- peoplefromibiza 2y ago
  > This whataboutism ignores one very important point. Reverse whataboutism is still whataboutism. For example this predicate > while still staying generally within the bounds of the law. Completely ignores the fact that US companies have been found lying and deceiving to circumvent the barriers posed by the law. But not only US companies, remember the diesel gate? This other predicate > (In China) by law every company is part-owned by the government itself It's completely false, while this one > The Ministry of State Security literally has employees who show up to these companies every day like normal workers It's pure intellectual dishonesty . Every sufficiently advanced intelligence agency has spies. With the USA agencies being the largest employers for spies on the entire Planet.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  The idea of running any internet-connected software with a push-update mechanism, built and controlled by a company in a country without a strong independent rule of law, should terrify far more people than it apparently does. This is one of those 'It's not a problem until it is a problem, and then it's a big fucking problem' scenarios.
  - FactKnower69 2y ago
    >a country without a strong independent rule of law I'd really like you to try and define this term in a way that doesn't exclude the US
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      If anyone wants to point to US FISA laws and use that to equate the US justice system with China's, I'm all ears...
    - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
      I'm not sure what you are getting at, but judicial independence is one thing that the USA has (in some quantity) that China has none of. There is no such thing as judicial review in China, if the official class decides to ignore China's constitutional freedoms of speech, religion, and press, then there is no recourse for a court to come in and say, "no, that's not right." Vs. the USA, where the Supreme court comes in all the time and tells presidents and congress what they can't do. The Chinese government has said multiple times that it believes rule of law is a western imperialistic concept, so it isn't like this is even a goal for them.
khazhoux 2y ago
> While I agree with you, I doubt banning Chinese tech will remedy this problem. I don't mean this as a political issue, but in your comment I see one of the reasons Trump appeals to people. He promotes a mindset of "stop handwringing and just fix the damn problem." Here we know the following: 1) DJI devices have an always-on connection 2) Chinese government is unfriendly to US and exerts strong control over Chinese companies 3) China regularly blocks US companies for whatever reason they decide. So yeah, we can say "but banning DJI won't solve the general problem of bad companies; we shouldn't just focus on China; is a ban really fair? etc etc. Or, we can just say "screw it -- China treats US companies like shit and we're not gonna just hand over all our drone info"
- segasaturn 2y ago
  I'm not sure how that would actually "fix the damn problem"? My point is that American tech companies are just as data-hungry as DJI, probably more, and Chinese tech products are more likely to let users control their devices off-line than American brands. You're right though that creating a boogeyman and attacking it while ignoring the much larger and more complicated problems is great politics (and always has been)
  - khazhoux 2y ago
    See, that's exactly what I mean. Here [1], CISA assesses China-made drones as a national security risk. That is a non-partisan agency. But your response is: * American tech companies are just as data-hungry, if not more. -> irrelevant, this is about foreign cyberattacks or foreign data mining * China produces more user-controllable devices than American brands. -> irrelevant * Boogeyman -> Scare word * Ignoring the much larger and complicated problem -> Deflects and says we can't do /anything/ unless we consider all angles and do /everthing/ This leads to endless handwringing, and is one of the reasons the left has support of only 50% of Americans, when it should be (in my opinion) a huge majority. Because we're endlessly caught up in the attitude of "nope, we really can't do anything in the face of obviously problematic issues." Gosh, it feels racist to ban a Chinese tech company (even though the Chinese government does actually target our cyber infrastructure). Gosh, what about the bad American companies? [1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24362988/cybersecurity-guidance-chinese-manufactured-uas-final.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24362988/cybersecurit...
tw04 2y ago
And yet the US government isn't worried about a US company leaking photos of sensitive information to the US government. The same cannot be said of the Chinese government who may be happy to get extensive drone footage of everyday US infrastructure which can be used in a future war. Meanwhile, China won't even let Google provide a valid map of the country... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Google_Maps_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Google_Maps_in_Chi... But tell us all more about how we should be more concerned about a US company requiring an internet login.
- lmm 2y ago
  The US government is right to be worried about China. Individuals, especially but not exclusively those of us who aren't US citizens, might well have more to fear from the US.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  This is always an interesting read for the rest of us neither in the US nor China. On one hand I understand we'll need to move to more insular and protective policies and basically ban foreign technology in so many places, on the other hand I don't want a gov like Ethiopia to have the choice between having no technology or being spied to the bone by all of its tech providers. The EU would be the only place with a one in a million chance to pull it off, there sure must be another way ?

chme 2y ago

True. I was just talking about my experience with DJI. Where you buy a product, can use it for a bit, and then it stops working, because you haven't connected it to the internet or created an account. It is often the 'market leaders' that are so afraid to loose customers and their market position to implement customer hostile processes into their products.

hatsix 2y ago

Depends on what you consider the "problem". As Congress sees it, the problem is two-fold... You have no control over your data. The company that does have control over your data is beholden to a foreign country not currently considered "a close ally".

mike_d 2y ago

> American brands are much, much more aggressive about making you connect to the internet, install our apps, create an account This whataboutism ignores one very important point. When you connect a device to an American company they might do things that we consider privacy violations, while still staying generally within the bounds of the law. We like to joke about data going to the NSA or something, but in the extremely limited cases where it does protections exist with oversight. Contrast this to Chinese companies where by law every company is part-owned by the government itself. The Ministry of State Security literally has employees who show up to these companies every day like normal workers, but their job is to find and exploit intelligence on foreign individuals and businesses.

peoplefromibiza 2y ago
> This whataboutism ignores one very important point. Reverse whataboutism is still whataboutism. For example this predicate > while still staying generally within the bounds of the law. Completely ignores the fact that US companies have been found lying and deceiving to circumvent the barriers posed by the law. But not only US companies, remember the diesel gate? This other predicate > (In China) by law every company is part-owned by the government itself It's completely false, while this one > The Ministry of State Security literally has employees who show up to these companies every day like normal workers It's pure intellectual dishonesty . Every sufficiently advanced intelligence agency has spies. With the USA agencies being the largest employers for spies on the entire Planet.
ethbr1 2y ago
The idea of running any internet-connected software with a push-update mechanism, built and controlled by a company in a country without a strong independent rule of law, should terrify far more people than it apparently does. This is one of those 'It's not a problem until it is a problem, and then it's a big fucking problem' scenarios.
- FactKnower69 2y ago
  >a country without a strong independent rule of law I'd really like you to try and define this term in a way that doesn't exclude the US
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    If anyone wants to point to US FISA laws and use that to equate the US justice system with China's, I'm all ears...
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    I'm not sure what you are getting at, but judicial independence is one thing that the USA has (in some quantity) that China has none of. There is no such thing as judicial review in China, if the official class decides to ignore China's constitutional freedoms of speech, religion, and press, then there is no recourse for a court to come in and say, "no, that's not right." Vs. the USA, where the Supreme court comes in all the time and tells presidents and congress what they can't do. The Chinese government has said multiple times that it believes rule of law is a western imperialistic concept, so it isn't like this is even a goal for them.

khazhoux 2y ago

> While I agree with you, I doubt banning Chinese tech will remedy this problem. I don't mean this as a political issue, but in your comment I see one of the reasons Trump appeals to people. He promotes a mindset of "stop handwringing and just fix the damn problem." Here we know the following: 1) DJI devices have an always-on connection 2) Chinese government is unfriendly to US and exerts strong control over Chinese companies 3) China regularly blocks US companies for whatever reason they decide. So yeah, we can say "but banning DJI won't solve the general problem of bad companies; we shouldn't just focus on China; is a ban really fair? etc etc. Or, we can just say "screw it -- China treats US companies like shit and we're not gonna just hand over all our drone info"

segasaturn 2y ago
I'm not sure how that would actually "fix the damn problem"? My point is that American tech companies are just as data-hungry as DJI, probably more, and Chinese tech products are more likely to let users control their devices off-line than American brands. You're right though that creating a boogeyman and attacking it while ignoring the much larger and more complicated problems is great politics (and always has been)
- khazhoux 2y ago
  See, that's exactly what I mean. Here [1], CISA assesses China-made drones as a national security risk. That is a non-partisan agency. But your response is: * American tech companies are just as data-hungry, if not more. -> irrelevant, this is about foreign cyberattacks or foreign data mining * China produces more user-controllable devices than American brands. -> irrelevant * Boogeyman -> Scare word * Ignoring the much larger and complicated problem -> Deflects and says we can't do /anything/ unless we consider all angles and do /everthing/ This leads to endless handwringing, and is one of the reasons the left has support of only 50% of Americans, when it should be (in my opinion) a huge majority. Because we're endlessly caught up in the attitude of "nope, we really can't do anything in the face of obviously problematic issues." Gosh, it feels racist to ban a Chinese tech company (even though the Chinese government does actually target our cyber infrastructure). Gosh, what about the bad American companies? [1] https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24362988/cybersecurity-guidance-chinese-manufactured-uas-final.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24362988/cybersecurit...

tw04 2y ago

And yet the US government isn't worried about a US company leaking photos of sensitive information to the US government. The same cannot be said of the Chinese government who may be happy to get extensive drone footage of everyday US infrastructure which can be used in a future war. Meanwhile, China won't even let Google provide a valid map of the country... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Google_Maps_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Maps#Google_Maps_in_Chi... But tell us all more about how we should be more concerned about a US company requiring an internet login.

lmm 2y ago
The US government is right to be worried about China. Individuals, especially but not exclusively those of us who aren't US citizens, might well have more to fear from the US.
makeitdouble 2y ago
This is always an interesting read for the rest of us neither in the US nor China. On one hand I understand we'll need to move to more insular and protective policies and basically ban foreign technology in so many places, on the other hand I don't want a gov like Ethiopia to have the choice between having no technology or being spied to the bone by all of its tech providers. The EU would be the only place with a one in a million chance to pull it off, there sure must be another way ?