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Is Your Antivirus Made By the Chinese Government? 196

guanxi writes "Huawei, a large Chinese telecom and IT company with close ties to the Chinese military has faced obstacles doing business in other countries, because governments are concerned about giving them access to critical infrastructure. Huawei Symantec is a joint venture with one of the world's largest IT security companies which sells security products in the US. Would the Chinese or other governments take the opportunity to create back doors into western IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?"
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Is Your Antivirus Made By the Chinese Government?

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  • by tomalpha ( 746163 ) * on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:11AM (#35854216)

    Would the Chinese or other governments take the opportunity to create back doors into western IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?

    Would the US or other Western governments take the opportunity to create back doors into Chinese IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?

    • by qpqp ( 1969898 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:17AM (#35854246)
      Would people continue to be stupid enough to install Symantec software to allow them to?
      • by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:20AM (#35854286)

        Certainly used to be the case that Symantec Enterprise AV wasn't too bad. Small footprint, didn't hog system resources, didn't clutter up the desktop with pointless "I'm still here! Aren't I wonderful!" alerts.

        Too much, in fact. As a sysadmin I regularly had people ask me to install AV or (in one or two cases) go out and install a third-party AV product, thinking I'd shipped them a PC with no AV.

        • by arth1 ( 260657 )

          Too much, in fact. As a sysadmin I regularly had people ask me to install AV or (in one or two cases) go out and install a third-party AV product, thinking I'd shipped them a PC with no AV.

          As a sysadmin, I defer questions like that to the IT staff that does windows. I certainly won't install clamav or similar on any of the workstations I get people -- it's a complete waste of good bits and cycles.

      • by pmontra ( 738736 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:54AM (#35854492) Homepage
        Who needs the backdoors supposedly made by Symantec when they already installed the ones supposedly made by Microsoft? Or a BIOS or hardware itself [scientificamerican.com]?
      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
        AV *is* a backdoor. So I'm sure there's nothing wrong in the Huawei Symantec AV now. But if there were a war, then the next update would be a backdoor. And the updates are automatic by default and it'd have mostly trust by then (whether explicit trust, or trust by ignorance).
    • by ThePromenader ( 878501 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:23AM (#35854302) Homepage Journal

      Well, if everyone's going to be getting into everyone else's back door, the best we can hope for is an all-round reacharound.

      • Someone should tell the RIAA/MPAA about the illegal filesharing these governments are taking part in. Will be fun to watch the ensuing apocalypse.

    • What opportunity? When was the last time the Chinese bought anything from the West.

    • Are other governments crazy to use proprietary software from American companies, given that the US would be crazy not to use it to spy on them?

      • Yes. But that's not our problem.
      • by guanxi ( 216397 )

        Are other governments crazy to use proprietary software from American companies, given that the US would be crazy not to use it to spy on them?

        Yes and intended to be an unavoidable conclusion. If you think it's hard for the US to secure systems, imagine if you're another gov't. What would you install? All FOSS (and after you review it all)?

    • by ArcherB ( 796902 )

      Would the Chinese or other governments take the opportunity to create back doors into western IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?

      Would the US or other Western governments take the opportunity to create back doors into Chinese IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?

      American companies are not owned by the US government. China is a communist country. By definition that means that Chinese companies are owned by the Chinese government.

      So, if the Chinese were buying their network security products from the US government, I would fully expect them to put back doors in. Since US companies are not owned by the US government, the I fully expect them NOT to. On the other hand, if you buy anything from the Chinese, you are effectively buying from the Chinese government, mean

      • by no known priors ( 1948918 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @09:45AM (#35854908)

        China is in no way communist. It's as capitalist as they come. They only thing "communist" about them is the name of the party in power. What's the similarity between the economic and political systems of the former USSR (along its 70 odd year life), Cuba (over the last 50 odd years), Vietnam since 1975, PRC since '49, North Korea since the '50s, and Romania, East Germany, and other Eastern European "Warsaw Bloc" countries when they were "communist"?

        Oh wait, fuck all. Apart from, most of the time, the party in power having the word "communist" in its name.

        Sure, there are many companies that are owned by the government in China. There are also a lot more that aren't. That's part of the reason you hear all these cases of people dying from contaminated milk products and the like. Capitalists making a killing. Saving money at any cost.

        Wikipedia (not a great source for most political ideas) [wikipedia.org] says:

        The only communist state which still traditionally follows Marxist-Leninist doctrine and maintains a largely planned economy is Cuba, which describes itself as "a socialist state guided by ideas of Marx, Engels and Lenin and in transition to a communist society".

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Except that, well, the government has COMPLETE and total control over every industry. The fact that they let SOME companies operate without direct everyday oversight in no way changes the fact that the government can, at any time, tell them to do something and they will do it. So, schmucky mcmoron, try not to convince people that the Chinese Government does not have control over these companies, when, in fact, they have complete control.

          • pretty sure you just defined "totalitarian" not communist, thereby affirming what the parent wrote...
        • That's part of the reason you hear all these cases of people dying from contaminated milk products and the like. Capitalists making a killing. Saving money at any cost.

          Another way of thinking about this is that the modern-day Chinese capitalists are doing exactly what every other country's capitalists did regularly during their countries early industrial period. The British capitalist's abuses along the same lines (e.g. adulterated bread) was part of Karl Marx's evidence that pure capitalism necessarily led to suboptimal outcomes. The American capitalist's abuses along the same lines (e.g. sick cattle getting sold as premium beef) was vividly described by Upton Sinclair.

        • by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @11:58AM (#35856114) Homepage

          Bzzt wrong. China is still capital-C Communist. They just released their new Five-Year Plan [chinalawblog.com], for Pete's sake. The difference is that after Mao died, Deng Xiaoping hijacked the people's revolution onto the capitalist road [internatio...wpoint.org]. For those of you who didn't go to university and hence weren't exposed to Marxism, "capitalist roaders" [nytimes.com] are a heresy of Communism. They still want to achieve socialism, but by the wrong methods. According to Mao, the Soviet Union suffered this fate after Stalin died.

          The Chinese government still directly controls huge swathes of the Chinese economy. Companies are owned by the state and operate for its benefit. Americans having trouble with this unfamiliar idea could perhaps think of Amtrak, or the conversion of General Motors into an arm of the federal government a few years ago. The baby milk scandals are due to a lack of enforcement mechanisms [chinalawblog.com]. In so many words, there are few laws and fewer inspectors. Moreover, Chinese culture places no value on people you don't know - they might as well not exist, so who cares if you poison them or not? This is how you get crowds of people standing around gawking at accident victims instead of rendering aid (first one to help has to pay the victim's hospital bills).

          Unfortunately, there are those out there to whom socialism is an unassailable holy concept, and when a communist country takes the capitalist road, an attempt is made to classify the whole shebang as EEEVIL in order to make capitalism look bad. It's like old Soviet documentaries about the United States that focused on the poor and homeless, in order reinforce the conclusion that was preordained anyway.

    • by ron_ivi ( 607351 )

      Occasionally we document it when we do, like the NSA back door in Lotus Notes: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/2/2898/1.html [heise.de]

      OTOH, sometimes we don't; like when we blew up the Soviet pipeline with software trojans: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-farewell-dossier [damninteresting.com]

      But regarding Windows and this anti-virus software? C'mon - you can pretty much bet that every country in which Microsoft has software developers already has their own back doors (disguised as accidental security bugs). How else can you explai

    • Yes, the US government did install a backdoor. It's not an AV though; it's called Windows.

    • by jc42 ( 318812 )

      Would the Chinese or other governments take the opportunity to create back doors into western IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?

      Would the US or other Western governments take the opportunity to create back doors into Chinese IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?

      Then there's the observation that the security folks have been making from the very beginning: If you are actually serious about computer security, you don't install any software unless you have the source and you've compiled it yourself. This especially applies to the security software itself, though it applies to everything installed on every machine.

      If your organization's security team is installing software from anything other than the source code, there are only two possible explanations: 1) They'

  • Yet another reason (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    NOT to have anything to do with Symantec. Besides the products being over-bloated and under-performing now consumers need to worry about being part of the Chinese anti-American fight?

    No thank you.

  • Probably (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Moderator ( 189749 ) *

    "Would the Chinese or other governments take the opportunity to create back doors into western IT networks? Wouldn't they be crazy not to?"

    Yeah, but it's probably happening at layer 2 and 3, since a lot of American networks are being offshored to Japan who in turn hires the cheapest third country nationals (Chinese CCNA's) to administrate. Add this to the fact that there is a lot of counterfeiting of Cisco hardware anyway, and there's no reason to hide a backdoor in plain site within an AntiVirus program.

    • Japan? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Monday April 18, 2011 @10:27AM (#35855270)

      Yeah, but it's probably happening at layer 2 and 3, since a lot of American networks are being offshored to Japan who in turn hires the cheapest third country nationals (Chinese CCNA's) to administrate.

      Japan? Why Japan? Most companies I now (including the one I work at) have gone straight to China. And the network is via China's telco. And the guys running the systems are Chinese.

      This isn't "back door". This is inviting them in the front door and giving them the keys to house so they can look after it for you.

    • But it's so easy to hide a backdoor in plain sight you might as well not called it plain sight.

      http://underhanded.xcott.com/ [xcott.com]

      It's possible to have code that looks and even functions innocently but does something nasty. You can bet this is the technique used. If discovered, it just looks like a regular vulnerability - a coding mistake.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    I mean, we use it here but honestly...it's mostly for show and doing little things. It's the stuff on the backend and decent architecture that makes things work.

  • by Eunuchswear ( 210685 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:18AM (#35854264) Journal

    Why would I need one?

    If I did need such a bizzare thing how on earth could it be made to work?

    • by koolfy ( 1213316 )
      Maybe it would be like something that checks if the file you downloaded comes from a trusted platform, maybe do checksums..

      Something clever enough to understand the context from which the file comes from, and give it only as much privileges as it deserves/needs.

      Something that could understand the risk of a proprietary software, "trusted" or not, in critical parts of the system, and the benefits of an opensource one.
      Maybe even, if it's clever enough analyse its traffic and source code, but that's a lot
      • by Anonymous Coward

        Blaming the user for being an idiot is like blaming the sky for raining, or the earth for quaking. It's part of the natural landscape, and while no engineering solution is perfect, you can do better than point your finger and scream shrilly "it's not my fault, you should have read the manual!"

      • or IDPS
    • But I obviously do need a speel chequer.

    • by smithmc ( 451373 ) *

      Between December 1974 and her death in March 1982, Ayn Rand collected a total of $11,002 in Social Security payments.

      And why shouldn't she? She paid into the system (and probably quite a bit more than $11K); wasn't she entitled to get it back?

  • by Compaqt ( 1758360 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:19AM (#35854280) Homepage

    OK, the usual caveats apply about logic bombs hidden in open source, but still, at least when the source is open you have a fighting chance at discerning a backdoor.

    http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/ [clamav.net]

    There's a Windows version, too (Immunet):
    http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/about/win32/ [clamav.net]

    • by rbrausse ( 1319883 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:39AM (#35854398)

      But ClamAV is one of the worst engines out there. If one need's an antivirus tool (it would be a fair point to call all of them snake oil) use a package with a higher detection rate.

      • by hitmark ( 640295 )

        What about false positives? Or having the audacity to report a simple ad cookie multiple times to inflate the detection hit counter?

        • What about false positives?

          do you remember 9/1 [clamav.net]?

          • by hitmark ( 640295 )

            Heh, i was mostly aiming it at the "higher detection rate" AV packages where the detection rate ends up being inflated by false positives and over-reporting "threats" that are more annoyances that have gotten news media coverage...

      • Well, I'm not necessarily claiming it's the best. But it does allow you to inspect the code to look for a backdoor.

        Some might find this handy:

        59 Open Source Tools That Can Replace Popular Security Software [earthweb.com]

      • by npsimons ( 32752 ) *

        But ClamAV is one of the worst engines out there.

        I see this claim all the time, and I always have to wonder: what evidence is there for this claim?

        If one need's an antivirus tool (it would be a fair point to call all of them snake oil) use a package with a higher detection rate.

        Really? Please name a few, or even just one, that a) are open source, b) don't consume resources like the machine is some dedicated virus scanning box and c) can easily be integrated to any mail server (at a minimum they have to not

        • But ClamAV is one of the worst engines out there.

          I see this claim all the time, and I always have to wonder: what evidence is there for this claim?

          okay, according to Shadowserver [shadowserver.org] somewhere in the middle

          If one need's an antivirus tool (it would be a fair point to call all of them snake oil) use a package with a higher detection rate.

          Really? Please name a few, or even just one, that a) are open source, b) don't consume resources like the machine is some dedicated virus scanning box and c) can easily be integrated to any mail server (at a minimum they have to not require a GUI and run on Linux/BSD).

          a) only clam, I wasn't aware that open source is a prerequisite for using software
          b)/c) I used trendmicro on mail gateways, usable without X11 and with a quite small resource foot print

          • by npsimons ( 32752 ) *

            a) only clam, I wasn't aware that open source is a prerequisite for using software

            Okay, maybe not required, but I have a very strong preference for software I can check for back doors.

            b)/c) I used trendmicro on mail gateways, usable without X11 and with a quite small resource foot print

            I was honestly curious about what people recommend for AV, as it's something I'm not really familiar with. I'll have to look into trendmicro, thanks!

            • as a side note: I used this product as of company policies. If you're free to choose other vendors take a look at F-Secure and Kaspersky, too. I never had them running in real-world environments but both are nice (CAVE: I installed them only on test systems) and widely used.

    • Anti-Virus

      - Spots only known viruses ... meaning that new viruses, i.e the ones you are most likley to see, get through

      - Spots known virus like activity.... meaning will cause false alarms, whilst letting viruses using new expoits through

      It's much better to make it difficult or impossible for people to run random software sent to them ... rather than make this commonplace

      Logic bombs in Open-Source - are very hard to do (and not be easily seen), and could just as easily be in closed source ...

  • And we thought we had the edge, with our own military industrial complex producing TV sitcoms.
  • Seems like there are already plenty of reasons to avoid Symantec. Just sayin'....
  • by geobeck ( 924637 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:22AM (#35854300) Homepage

    Why not just make Symantec products such bloated resource hogs they slow down western computers, reducing US productivity as workers wait for their cursor to follow every mouse movement?

    Um... How long has Symantec had ties to China?

  • by Fallen Andy ( 795676 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:26AM (#35854322)
    Holy Fuck ....

    I don't often say that, being a polite englishman, but - so many of the USB telecoms dongles using UMTS/HSPA are *made* by Huawei (here in Greece from last night, the WIND dongle i was using ...)

    But after a moments thought, how would i be reassured if it was U.S. manufactured? or indeed anywhere else?

    Chill out dudes - most of what you see is manufactured by 4-5 manufacturers with names like FoxConn, Compal etc...

    ...and conspiracy theories aside, I personally see the Chinese as being 21st century versions of what happened in my own country in the 19th...

    Mind the alligators and have a nice day

    Andy

  • Witch-hunt (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:27AM (#35854324) Homepage
    I am shocked to see such jingoism on Slashdot. Just look at the summary, it drips with a false "us/them" mentality. On one side, the side of goodness and light, "the West" (whatever that means) and on the other side, "the Other", which takes the form of the main villain of the 21st century, those scary Chinese. It is simply assumed that "the Chinese" will sabotage any network they come in contact with...because...well, because uh...why, exactly? It's just the Western mindset of "everyone is always out to get us" that requires the creation of these scarecrows. Much like the McCarthy witch-hunt, this is going in search of a scary monster that doesn't exist. There was no WMD in Iraq, there were no communists in the State Department, and the Chinese are not out to get us. The parallels between these situations are eerily similar.
    • Yes. The USA no longer wears a white hat and as it turns it, never really did. But the Chinese are slightly more evil. They have an established reputation for luring companies (like Symantec) into business deals and then after getting what they wanted, cut ties and go out on their own. This has happened more times than can be counted starting with seizures of manufacturing facilities of companies that were previously invited into China to set up shop there and moving on to various technologies most nota

      • They have an established reputation for luring companies into business deals and then after getting what they wanted, cut ties and go out on their own.

        Like Microsoft? Seriously, the above could refer to any cut-throat capitalist enterprise.

        What people are really ticked off about is that the Chinese have learned all our dirty tricks, which just doesn't seem fair to, after we generously sent them all our manufacturing capacity n'all.

    • Re:Witch-hunt (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ti1ion ( 239188 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @09:11AM (#35854638)

      So, why exactly is the parent comment moderated as a "troll?" It only points out the obvious! Oh, wait, it's the mock sarcasm, that must be it. Although, perhaps the author genuinely felt that this "sophisticated" tech audience, that delights in ripping apart knee-jerk statements/policies on other topics, would so easily join the herd on this ridiculous topic.

      Upon reading the summary, my first thought was writing "Oh no! The Chinese! The Chinese! Protect your wives and daughters against the Chinese!" What a bunch of nonsense.

      American corporations have been making and selling computer software for decades -- how many here are worried about government bugs in that software? Should the Chinese buy US made software? How about the Russians, or anyone else? How is it that Windows has 90% percent market share all over the world and governments are not screaming to have it removed? Talk about an opportunity to install secret access! And, if we assume the US government *has* been installing secret bits into US made software, what makes the US (from a foreigner's perspective) any better than China?

      And the most amusing thing about this is that it was the US that pushed, and pushed hard, to open China to US trade. When Nixon made his trip to China, it was historic. So, after opening Pandora's Box, the US desperately wants to close it. Got it. Nothing shows decline like trading confidence for fear.

      That's right, the Chinese are coming to get you. And you know what, you are so stupid (look at your education system!) that you wouldn't even be able to figure it out! That's what this story indicates to me. Forget actually having the knowledge and integrity to prove something, we'll just go on accusations. After all, everyone knows Linux is made by/for Communists and is anti-American. It's also full of security holes and opens the user up to all sorts of expensive lawsuits because those Linux Commies stole code from the good, America loving, closed-source corporations that only have the end user's best interests in mind when creating exceptional software.

    • Re:Witch-hunt (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @09:12AM (#35854644) Journal

      It is simply assumed that "the Chinese" will sabotage any network they come in contact with...because...well, because uh...why, exactly? It's just the Western mindset of "everyone is always out to get us" that requires the creation of these scarecrows.

      Because we've learned from history? It used to be that people flying to France on business were advised not to discuss anything commercially sensitive on their flights - Air France had a habit of allowing bugging of the business class seats and commercial information was passed on to other French companies. We almost certainly did the same thing on British Airways flights, although we seemed to be better at not getting caught.

      Inserting back doors into networks is just the next step in this same approach. We assume that they're doing it, because we've been doing it for the last few decades and it would be surprising if any country that had the capability to do so didn't.

    • by Inda ( 580031 )
      "The West" from where I'm sitting means: USA.

      There is not a hatered of the Chinese in the UK. Most of us have enjoyed their cheap shit over the past ten years and their food is lovely.

      The USA needs an enemy to feel important. When they work out that they are the enemy, the world will be a better place.
    • Re:Witch-hunt (Score:4, Interesting)

      by KnownIssues ( 1612961 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @09:49AM (#35854936)
      Cold War II. Now that we can't rely on the Soviet Union to instill fear and hate and competition in us, we've had to find the next imaginary (or at least, self-created) threat. If the Chinese are a "threat" to anything it's our imagined political and economic importance in the world. In that sense, the threat might be real. Rather than convince ourselves that we will maintain our position by virtue of being more ethically pure than them, perhaps we should focus on improving our own economic and political position.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Hate to say it, but you'll need to check some facts.
      China is an autocratic state- as a result they have hands in the corporate boardroom of any business that operates there- which results in a scenario where the possibility of "sabotaged" gear not only possible, but likely. False Us vs Them mentality?? I can point to a scary number of hacks against American and South Korean interests which have been traced roughly to China and North Korea. Hell, China has an entire military division that devotes itself to w

    • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
      The US needs a villain. Politics only works when we have someone to agree to fight. Whether the Irish, the Jews (wait, that was another country), the Japanese, the Mexicans, the Blacks, the Russians, the Muslims, the Chinese, etc. We have to hate someone. You can't get votes from happy people. You only get votes from scared or angry people (better both). So everyone with power in the US requires we hate someone to keep their power.

      So it isn't racism or such, as much as rabid insane nationalism pushed
    • by guanxi ( 216397 )

      As the author of the post, I'm glad someone raised this point, but either you didn't read the last sentence or it didn't have the effect (on you) that I intended.

      I'm aware of some anti-Chinese sentiment in the US (and from what I understand, it goes both ways), to which I'm strongly opposed -- it's not only ignorant, it's illiberal and unfair to the people of China, who deserve just as much as anyone else, and it leads to dangerous political decisions. It's also true that the Chinese government and possibly

  • by Drakkenmensch ( 1255800 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:27AM (#35854330)
    So I'm gonna guess mine isn't.
  • Prejudice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Monday April 18, 2011 @08:30AM (#35854340)

    Presumed dishonorability = prejudice.

    In know we tend to always paint our current perceived rivals as THE MOST EVIL THING EVAR, but China is pretty much the same thing as most groups of people - some corrupt, some fairly virtuous and kind to their fellow human beings, and a whole lot of mix in between.

    China has had a lot of revolutions and shifts - and as their demographics continue to change, they're in the middle of several now, and they'll have more. Pretending that they're just bogey-men isn't going to help anything, or improve those shifts in anyone's favor.

    Judgements with reason and evidence can be fair... but conjecture and prejudice aren't helpful.

    Ryan Fenton

    • I'd be very surprised if there aren't back doors into US made systems, hell wasn't there a crypto scheme a while back which was being pushed by the US government where it turned out that due to a relationship between 2 numbers in the spec there could be a master key which could only be known by whoever wrote them into the spec.

      I view it as stabilising, nothing like lots of trade and owing each other money to keep everyone smiling and not shooting, shooting your debtors is bad for business.

      Both sides having

      • by AK Marc ( 707885 )

        They're terrified of losing their job to someone abroad who's more competent

        Competency isn't in question. I'm sure that in billions of Chinese, there's someone more competent than me. The issue is whether they are cheaper. And yes, for what I do, I'm sure they are cheaper, but there's value lost in having to have them telecommute. So where's the overall value land? Right now, I'm a better value. But that may change. Even if they were less competent, at some point they could be cheap enough that they'd be preferable to me. It's not a unreasonable fear. It's real and justifi

        • It's not the fear of being outsourced that's unfair, it's all the things that often leads to.

          people are afraid so they tell themselves things like "all work from that country is crap" or "just about all of them are incompetent" or even "it's morally wrong to give my job to someone overseas" to try to make themselves feel safer.
          but they come to believe it.

          the initial worry is perfectly justified so skill up and get yourself some good blackmail material but the things people make themselves believe as a resul

    • Presumed dishonorability = prejudice.

      The worry about Chinese espionage is not prejudice.

      First, nobody's presuming dishonorability. They're presuming that nation-states will do what they have always done, whether from the West or East, which is espionage. There's a long history, even among supposed Western allies like the French and the US, or the US and Israel, of spying on each other. The spying isn't always for strictly "national security" concerns either, it has also included economic espionage performed to advantage companies from the spyi

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Who would you trust to make a better antivirus, if not the people who make the viruses themselves?

  • lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

    Seriously. Infowars.com levels of paranoia is the best they can come up with to avoid Symantec products?

    On rumors even.

    Symantec should be avoided because their software suites have been turning the fastest machines into boat anchors and doorstops for 20 years.

    If you're worried about the Chinese, how worried are/were you about _nsakey/key2?

    --
    BMO

  • symantec antivirus products dont spare enough cpu cycles for the backdoor to do any real work, so you should be perfectly safe, its a good as locked up.
  • Echelon proofed to be too costly and difficult.

    So place Trojan Boot Loaders into networking equipment and activate them via serial No through a Google ( or similar ) search engine answer to load some specific trojan coming along with the search engines answer.

    secret services ? if can do it, they will do it!.

  • Would the Chinese or other governments take the opportunity to create back doors into western IT networks?

    Let's face it, if a government is trying to spy on pc's around the world, they can do it without the need for someone to purchase a specific software product. The interesting question is if they even need to bother? Big corporations send your personal information and other sensitive data all over the planet. Server farms in India, Pakistan, Singapore and other low rent parts of the globe have your

  • Because I don't have an anti-virus, I don't use MS Windows.
  • ...and always has been. You get software coded in India, who then themselves outsource to Pakistan, Vietnam, etc. and they put in backdoors. You get chips made in China and they put in backdoors or transmitter capability. You give financial information to India or the Phillipines and they can hold it hostage for either money or political concessions. Only a damn fool, a politician, or an executive focused on this quarter's bonus is dim enough to think otherwise.

  • Tag article "yellowperil" and close tab.

  • The /. headline screams "Is Your Antivirus Made By the Chinese Government?"

    By the first paragraph that is watered down to an "IT company with close ties to the Chinese military".

    The linked BBC article says nothing about Huawei being government owned, controlled or even related. The only tie the BBC mentions is that Huawei was founded (over 20 years ago) by an "ex-Chinese army officer".

    I am not an apologist for the Chinese government nor am I necessarily in favour of Huawei being able to make investments ou

  • The CHinese gov. is in a cold war with the west. They show this daily with their manipulation of the yuan, their subsidization, their dumping, etc. More importantly, there is little doubt that the crackers in China are working for their gov. This is all the while they have the largest military build up in history.
    Hell, even google has been cracked by insider spies.

    It is time for American gov. and ideally, western gov. to pull back all of their hardware and require that they be manufactured in friendly na

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