'Can we trust any technology that comes from China?'

Don't look a gift memory stick in the mouth. Or a gift camera, for that matter. That's the message from The London Times, which relays an MI5 report on Chinese espionage.

MI5 believes that China bugged UK business executives; set up "honeytraps" for blackmail purposes; gave "gifts" of cameras, memory sticks and other devices that contained trojans; and performed extensive electronic hacking. The information warfare campaigns in question targeted defense, telecommunications, energy and high-tech manufacturing companies.

Last year a UK intelligence report stated that China could have the ability to shut down power, water, and food supply chain systems.

Suspect Firmware

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writing in IT World, goes one step further. He asks the obvious question: "can we trust any technology that comes from China?"

If malware is routinely installed in cameras and USB sticks, why wouldn't other hardware manufactured in China be suspect? Vaughan-Nichols contends that if China really is hell-bent on cyber-war -- and a quick review of the literature would indicate that indeed it is -- why wouldn't it simply write backdoors into the firmware of laptops, servers, switches and other systems?

PC World's David Coursey insists we follow Reagan's advice and "trust, but verify." I'm not sure how we do that. Coursey believes that the big vendors who work in China are strongly motivated to ensure our safety.

But is that enough? The hackers believed to have been organized by China's military have already proven themselves to be very patient, highly organized and incredibly skilled. So it's not a huge conceptual leap to believe that civilian manufacturers -- even the likes of Apple, Dell and HP -- could have been compromised by a cyber-espionage operation designed to insert back-doors into mainstream hardware.

My personal prediction is that China will eventually suffer significant economic damage over these kinds of suspicions. Transparency and democracy -- someday -- will levy a major toll on the People's Liberation Army. In the mean time, follow Reagan's advice.


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