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Lenovo Under U.S. Probe for Spying

Posted by Zonk on Thu Mar 30, 2006 10:21 AM
from the seekrit-agent-man dept.
Security Government United States Politics
BigControversy writes "The DailyTech has a report indicating that Lenovo, the giant Chinese PC manufacturer, is under a probe by the U.S.-China Economic Security Review Commission (USCC) for possible bugging. Apparently, the government has ordered 16,000 PCs from Lenovo but is now requesting that Lenovo be investigated by intelligence agencies. The fear is of foreign intelligence applying pressure to Lenovo to equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on." From the article: "Despite the probe, Lenovo says that its international business, especially those that deal with the US, follow strictly laid out government regulations and rules. Lenovo also claims that even after purchasing IBM's PC division, its international business has not been affected negatively. Interestingly, in an interview with the BBC, Lenovo mentioned that an open investigation or probe may negatively affect the way that the company deals with future government contracts or bids." There just has to be better uses of our intelligence community's time.
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  • Disagree on the last comment (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JMUChrisF (188300) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:23AM (#15026140)
    Isn't this the perfect use of our intelligence community? I think this is a very valid threat from a community like China who has been known to have spies in the US at all times. (Not saying we don't spy back, but that's the game!).

    A lot of federal agencies have policies about using foreign hardware/software for reasons just like this. Go USA!

    • Re:Disagree on the last comment (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Mattcelt (454751) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:38AM (#15026267)
      Absolutely! This is what the counterintelligence agencies DO!

      Seriously, who would be surprised if a Chinese company (remember the Chinese? They're still Communists!!) was encouraged to spy on U.S. Government agencies? To think otherwise is, IMO, incredibly naïve.

      Personally, I think Lenovo ought to be barred from selling hardware to the U.S. Government altogether. It's simply not worth the security risk.
    • Interesting point this. If these PCs were ordered from Dell which Levono purchased and which I'd reason was in part a basis for this deal, would an investigation have been ordered.

      IMHO, it is good practice to have standing procedures to investigate all contracts/purchases, be them government, business or personal. And it would be extremely bad procedure for a foreign government to attempt such a poor spying procedure, but no harm in checking, which I doubt would be very hard.

      But I think this is a ve
      • The Chinese communist government with nuclear missiles pointed at Japan, Taiwan, and the US do not have %10 share ownership of Dell. The Chinese communist government that is routinely caught spying on Japan, Taiwan, and the US does not have %10 share ownership of HP. The Chinese communist government that frequently trades with Iran, Libya and has been responsible for the dissemination of nuclear plans to Pakistan and North Korea does not have 10% share ownership of Toshiba.

        China is a problem. It is a
          • While I understand and in fact largely share your "anti-american" sentiment (any sane person is worried about the US government's evangelical neo-mccarthyism), you appear to go too far in your accommodation of China's totalitarian regime, as some people do when trying to find some counter-balance to the Bushites.

            The US continues to trade with and indeed support many despotic regimes, but at least they nominally support change towards more democracy. China on the other hand *prefers* to deal with despotic r

    • Re:Disagree on the last comment (Score:5, Interesting)

      by WindBourne (631190) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:41AM (#15026286) Journal
      In light of all the spying that we did against the USSR (xerox copy machines, sabatoged oil line controls leading to an explosion, etc) and China (using Nauru's embassy, splices in the telecom, etc.) , we would be insane to not check the equipment. What amazes me is that over the last 5 years, our gov. has outsourced so many critical areas to nations that are at best neutral, and more likely future enemies.
      • What amazes me is that over the last 5 years, our gov. has outsourced so many critical areas to nations that are at best neutral, and more likely future enemies.

        A cynic might take that to mean that the US is looking to make a lot more enemies.. Who am I kidding, the plans to invade my country have already been made, a bill was passed by Congress to invade The Hague in the event the International Criminal Court would ever attempt to try a USian.. SO yeah, I live in a future enemy State, despite being one of

    • This is a good argument for open source hardware. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:51AM (#15026363)
      Like it or not, we totally depend on other countries. I used to work on a military system that used tubes (valves for you brits). The tubes were no longer made in the west. The only source of the tubes was the USSR (with whom we would have been at war, if there was a war). If the third world war had lasted more than a month, we would have had to order spare parts from the Russians.

      Mil Spec used to require second source suppliers for everything. That means every chip, resistor and capacitor. To do that now would require that several companies have the complete design of everything down to the last square mm of silicon. Such a policy would effectively prevent spying devices because many people would be able to examine the design. The same reason that open source is safer than Windows is the same reason that hardware designs should be open sourced (or at least second sourced).

      BTW. You are absolutely right. Even friendly countries spy on each other. There was a story going around a while ago about an embassy had to be totally torn down because the local workers who built it had planted many microphones in it.


    • A lot of federal agencies have policies about using foreign hardware/software for reasons just like this. Go USA!

      Oh yes, while the notebooks carried the IBM lable, they were good american products, while now they're evil chinese. Very interesting approach, considering that the computers were built all the time in the same factory in China.

      I guess, if you'd have to buy american-only computers, you won't be able to purchase from Dell, IBM, HP, Toshiba, Sun and most other brands.

    • Re:Disagree on the last comment (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2006, @11:10AM (#15026535)
      / It looks like someone is trying   \
      | to spy on you. Would you like to? |
      | *Save your changes and exit now.  |
      | *Trace the attackers IP.          |
      \ *Turn off these warnings.         /
         /
      __/
      olo
      |||
      \_/
      • Hell, no doubt even Canada has a few.

        Canada would never spy on the U.S. As an employee of the CIA, I can assure you that you have no idea what you're talking aboot, eh?

      • Canada does. http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/ [csis-scrs.gc.ca] But they tend to lose Secret documents at hockey games, and their idea of tourture is feeding people poutine until they risk cardiac arrest before rushing them to the hospital for free health care, feeling sorry and giving people Citizenship for any hardship they faced, then calling it a day and going to drink beer and watch hockey.
      • Virtually all laptop manufacturing is already off-shore. If you're worried about foreign spying, you've already lost the war. This "investigation" is a complete waste of time.

        Better late than never. If there's no problem, no problem, which would be nice to know. If there is a problem, the US needs to react to it. Consider it an unintentional consequence of the wholesale offshoring of US (or for that matter, all of the OECD's) manufacturing to cheap labor markets. It's an uncontrolled economics experiment f

  • So let me get this straight.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by trazom28 (134909) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:23AM (#15026143)
    We have a crapload of good PC Manufacturers here in the states, and our government instead orders 16,000 PCs from a Chinese manufacturer?

  • Summary correction. (Score:3, Funny)

    by tpgp (48001) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:25AM (#15026149) Homepage
    The fear is of foreign intelligence applying pressure to Lenovo to equip its PCs so that the U.S. can be spied on."

    Should read:

    The fear is of the Chinese Trade Gap [csmonitor.com] widening further

    Fixed! (Its a joke for the humour impaired)
  • ...why did they order the PCs from China in the first place? Didn't they know that their attempt to save a buck might end up in future unforeseen costs?

    Next time, but from US manufacturers! Let this be a lesson learned.

  • I think not. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by biggyfred (754376) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:27AM (#15026158)
    Better use of intelligence time? This should be taken damned seriously. Have a look at PROMIS [google.com] and tell me this is a benign subject..

  • MicroSoft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bombadillo (706765) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:27AM (#15026159)
    This isn't much different than the Chineese Governments fear of backdoors placed in M.S. Windows by U.S intellegence. The shoe is on the other foot now.
    • And Microsoft gave into the Chinese government's demands and released their source code so that it could be audited. This is just the cost of doing business with powerful governments with large budgets. Lenovo should, like Microsoft, suck it up, or lose the US government's business. Turnabout is fair play, after all...

  • Supposition and Speculation (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Billosaur (927319) * <wgrotherNO@SPAMoptonline.net> on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:29AM (#15026168) Journal
    The supposed problem presented by the USCC is that the 16,000 computers are being built by a Chinese-mainland company. The USCC argues that a foreign intelligence like that of the Communist Party of China (CPC) can use its power to get Lenovo to equip its machines with espionage devices. Lenovo has strongly declined that it is involved in any such activities.

    On the one hand, they have a point: it would be very easy for the Chinese government to "encourage" Lenovo to plant things in these machines to allow them to spy on the US. On the other hand, given the profusion of malware, keyloggers, Trojans, and such, the Chinese government could already be spying on the US without having to go to such extraordinary lengths. Frankly, it's too obvious to be credible.

  • TV, and DVD Players May Listen Too! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blueZhift (652272) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:29AM (#15026179) Homepage Journal
    Hmmm, with so many goods coming from China these days, your TV and DVD player may be spying on you too, or in the near future, especially with the growth of home networks. Seriously, trying to buy any kind of electronics that don't come from China is getting harder and harder. Do it yourselfers aren't much safer, afterall, would anyone notice if the network chip on that Chinese made motherboard have some extra functionality? My, isn't paranoia fun?

  • If you need real security (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rhys (96510) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:30AM (#15026190) Homepage
    And you didn't install the OS yourself from something "known good" (or at least believed good, like a generic windows install CD bought at best buy or your other favorite local rip-off shop) you're an idiot.

    Beyond that, by talking about it, you've given "the enemy" information on how your IT practices work: you pretty obviously don't use ghost or any similar sort of mass deployment software. (yes, I realize that for laptops with all their custom crap it doesn't work as well. Still, a place I worked as a summer intern used to do it back in the 96-2000 era on IBM thinkpads, so...)

    Security by obscurity? Sure. That is all your password is, after all too, it (sec by obs) isn't strictly a bad thing.

    • Re:If you need real security (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chill (34294) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:50AM (#15026359) Homepage Journal
      And you didn't install the OS yourself from something "known good" (or at least believed good, like a generic windows install CD bought at best buy or your other favorite local rip-off shop) you're an idiot.

      Irrelevant.

      BIOS has gotten to the point [phoenix.com] that it can "phone home" before you even get to the OS. A small modification to hardware or firmware can make it so the system inserts key packets into the network stream, sending covert messages out to the equivalent of electronic "dead drops".

      We aren't talking about always-on-a-secure-network PCs, but laptops that'll be jacked into hotels, Starbucks and other insecure networks at some point.

      Unless you jack those machines in behind a traffic analyzer/router that captures every packet, then analyze *each* packet that goes out of the machine, you'll never be 100% sure the hardware isn't trojaned.

      Ping is nice and innocuous. Are you sure you know what that 56-byte payload contains [wfu.edu]? Have you ever looked? What about DNS requests? They happen ALL the time. Did you analyze each one to make sure they aren't requesting TXT-records that get forwarded over to a Chinese-owned server in the U.S.?

        -Charles

  • I doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by e**(i pi)-1 (462311) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:32AM (#15026205) Homepage Journal
    Any built-in addition features in the hardware, the bios or
    even the preinstalled operating system would be immediately
    detected and destroy the entire PC business of Lenovo abroad.
    • Immediately detected?

      Some counterexamples include the Sony rootkit, which was shipping for most of a year before being caught and wasn't even that cleverly coded, and Interbase, which went six or seven years before anyone noticed the back door login. Or of course the brilliant Ken Thompson backdoor in /bin/login.

      The problem with this investigation is that PCs shouldn't be trusted anyway. Does anyone think that an intelligence agency couldn't develop, or spend a thousand dollars to buy, a zero-day Windows vu

  • This makes perfect sense (Score:3, Funny)

    by JamesD_UK (721413) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:32AM (#15026206) Homepage
    After all, it'd be so easy to find a PC that didn't have any components made in China. Where's the sarcasm tag? :-)

  • Just a stunt (Score:3, Insightful)

    by orzetto (545509) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:33AM (#15026213)

    The USCC is an organ of the US Congress. These are the members [uscc.gov]. If I understand correctly, they are all politicians. Chinese do things cheaper than Americans, American politicians whine so they look like they are against outsourcing, then they buy happily.

    Seriously, bugging thousands of PCs to get intelligence? Give me a break. Intelligence is not just about getting information, it is also about not getting caught and leaving no evidence. Thousands of PCs trying to send coded messages to Beijing would ring a bell even at the Department of Homeland Security. It's much simpler and safer to buy or blackmail a politician or an employee to provide information.

  • There is a very good word for this phenomena: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by A beautiful mind (821714) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:42AM (#15026301)
    Xenophobia.

    I have nothing further to add, because that word sums it all up. While there are valid threats against the USA and in the intelligence community there are measures to tap into restricted data, they are NOT going to mess with PCs for fuck's sake! If someone has high security requirements that entity is not going to buy from a consumer level shop ANYWAY.

    Geez.
    • they are NOT going to mess with PCs for fuck's sake! If someone has high security requirements that entity is not going to buy from a consumer level shop ANYWAY.

      So you're saying that the sensitive departments of the US government custom builds their own desktops and laptops? Have a reference?
    • Xenophobia. I have nothing further to add, because that word sums it all up. While there are valid threats against the USA and in the intelligence community there are measures to tap into restricted data, they are NOT going to mess with PCs for fuck's sake! If someone has high security requirements that entity is not going to buy from a consumer level shop ANYWAY.

      That's terribly naive. You fail to realize that most espionage is industrial. Billions of dollars are lost due to industrial espionage, foreign countries acquire R&D info that saves them time and money, their military tech is advanced by years, ...

      Also naive is to think that people with high security are the only target. In the real world espionage often goes for indirect info. What companies are supplying the goods and services, are their changes in orders, their production, etc. You don't have to get the general's plan for an invasion, you may only need to identify his preparations.

  • That is one interesting article summary by OP (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gorbachev (512743) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:44AM (#15026313) Homepage
    Levono is NOT being investigated for spying or bugging the computers sold to the US Government.

    The US Government is basically doing a security check on the computers they ordered to make sure there's nothing extra on those computers.

    Someone got their panties all in a wad is trying to score some polipoints by being patriotic.

    There really is smoke without a fire. This proves it.

  • "PC comes pre-loaded with spyware" (Score:3, Funny)

    by peter303 (12292) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:46AM (#15026331)
    Though Windows/IE takes less than an hour on average to become infected with spyware after connecting to the Net, Lenevo saves you the trouble by pre-loading it.

    (A joke, not a troll)

  • This crap pisses me off... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sirwired (27582) on Thursday March 30 2006, @10:47AM (#15026335)
    First off, they aren't under a "probe" for possible spying, despite what the article says. A "probe" would imply that somebody has reason to believe there is actually spying going on. Instead, this is a stupid "investigation" to ensure that there isn't, despite a complete lack of evidence saying there is. This is simple xenophobia, nothing more.

    Do the geniuses that ordered this "probe" realize that the vast majority of components in a modern computer come from the orient? That it is VERY difficult to find a keyboard, mouse, case, or power supply that is NOT made in China? Do they know that many laptops (not Lenovo) are manufactured by Chinese-owned companies, and/or made directly in China itself?

    The only thing that could be worrisome is if they had Lenovo handle the builds on the hard drives, but NO classified shop should be relying on "outside" builds anyway.

    Do these folks ALSO realize that by law, no computer containing classified data may be connected to a public network of any kind? How is any "bugged" machine supposed to export the data? Osmosis? Telepathy?

    SirWired

  • You are dead wrong, Zonk (Score:4, Informative)

    by analog_line (465182) on Thursday March 30 2006, @11:00AM (#15026440)
    This is exactly the kind of thing our intelligence communities should be getting involved in. First off, this kind of stunt would be the first thing our own intelligence agencies would try to do if the Chinese government were buying computers built by an American company on American soil. Some arm of the US intelligence community planted bugs in wine bottles and other amusing places near the UN ambassadors on the Security Council during the buildup to the Iraq War.

    The Chinese practically wrote the book on espionage. For some interesting reading on the subject take a look at The Tao of Spycraft" [amazon.com]. Interesting, if extremely dry, reading if you're interested in the intelligence community. A very good look at the LONG history of intelligence practice that the Chinese government has to draw on. I got interested working in computer security when everyone else in my office was ex-mil intelligence.

    And not being particularly antagonistic toward us doesn't mean anything. Back in 1999/2000, the general opinion by most of my co-workers who knew something about it was that France and Israel were the countries that were spying on us the most, with China coming in third. The only reason Britain wasn't number 1 on the list was "we already give them everything we know."

    I wouldn't put it past us to try it on them, so it would be ridiculous to trust that they wouldn't try it to us too.
    • dude.. you really need to get a grip. You think the Chinese had no prior ability to do things like you suggest before they actually purchased the laptop biz? And the USCC is not the intel community:

      Composition: The Commission is composed of 12 members, three of whom are selected by each of the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, and the Speaker and the Minority Leader of the House. The Commissioners serve two-year terms.

      I said many times during the DPW brooha that one cannot easily pick a poin

  • Jerry Taylor In Tuttle (Score:3, Funny)

    by XMilkProject (935232) on Thursday March 30 2006, @11:03AM (#15026461) Homepage
    Probably they should ship the laptops to Jerry Taylor [slashdot.org] in Tuttle, Oklahoma for inspection.

  • Only on slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pmike_bauer (763028) on Thursday March 30 2006, @11:06AM (#15026487)
    ...are you going to find a collection of article summaries that:

    1) criticize the United States for using it's intelligence resources to protect itself from a corporation operating out of Communist China.

    2) criticize the US for not using intelligence resources "_enough_" to protect its ports/borders/etc.

    3) criticize the US for using intelligence resource "_too_much_" by wire-tapping potential terrorists.

    Go figure.
    • "1) criticize the United States for using it's intelligence resources to protect itself from a corporation operating out of Communist China."

      Except that China is not communist. It is MORE capitalist than the USA. It is also not a democracy.

      "2) criticize the US for not using intelligence resources "_enough_" to protect its ports/borders/etc."

      Actually, every sane government would and does protect it's borders. You don't generally see the security service outsourced to a foreign country for the same rea

  • A better use of intelligence (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2006, @11:08AM (#15026512)
    There just has to be better uses of our intelligence community's time.


    There is. You just don't hear about it.

  • We have enteredd the xenophobic stage (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Serveert (102805) on Thursday March 30 2006, @12:41PM (#15027403)
    Anti immigrant, anti foreigners(Lenovo, CNOOC 18.b billion USD bid for US oil company, Dubai ports deal, Israeli attempt to by US security firm,etc etc). We're like this precisely when reports come out saying there is little savings by Americans. Foreigners are flush with cash, they are sitting on piles and piles of dollars, and they're finding dollars are harder to use.

    I still maintain that as this continues this will increase inflation, USD will be the new monopoly money.

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