
China to Set Up ‘Security Offices’ Inside Internet Companies - Sami_Lehtinen
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-05/china-to-set-up-security-offices-inside-internet-companies
======
iamthepieman
I guess they are finally catching up to the U.S.

Edit: pre-preemptively editing because the original, though I believe correct,
was too glib and snarky.

Three Letter Agencies in the U.S. have long had commercial "partnerships"[0]
with private companies including internet and telecom companies. As has come
to light in the past couple years, these partnerships were not "just" about
securing national interests and infrastructure.

[0][https://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/ncsc.shtml](https://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/ncsc.shtml)

~~~
jebblue
Did you really equate communist forced police presence with voluntary and
beneficial government partnerships with the private sector in the US? The
Internet exists _because_ of the US Government (DARPA) and US taxpayer; not
under its direct police control.

~~~
jpollock
How about the requirement that foreign carriers have US citizens in US offices
at the point of interconnect with the US.

I also believe there are reporting oddities in the role too, but I can't find
the reference to it anymore.

The result is that same as China, the difference is who's paying the person's
salary.

Edit [information below]:

[1] (13) Carriers shall comply with the Communications Assistance for Law
Enforcement Act (CALEA), see 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.20000 et seq. Page 5 of 6 1.20000
et seq.

[2] (14) Every carrier must designate an agent for service in the District of
Columbia. See 47 U.S.C. § 413, 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.47(h), 64.1195.

[3]
[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-15-348A1.pd...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-15-348A1.pdf)

Not that ominous, just normal legal intercept. The US has had this requirement
for a long time.

~~~
prewett
It's not the same as China. China is putting _police_ in _local_ (Chinese)
companies with Chinese citizens in Chinese companies. That's kind of different
than requiring a _citizen_ in the office of a _foreign_ company doing business
locally.

I expect that the intent is different, although I don't know US law. The
Chinese intent is to (forcibly?) prevent unwanted communication. I doubt that
is the intent of the US law.

~~~
jpollock
Actually, CALEA [2] is a requirement for all US carriers (ISPs/telcos), it's
just an extra requirement on anyone peering with a US firm. It's also been
around since 1994.

CALEA intercepts are implemented through automated systems, the judge signs a
warrant, it's entered into a computer and the wiretaps are done automatically,
with the traffic routed to the requesting agency's systems.

In China, they probably noticed that they don't have a legal intercept
facility built in, and don't want to spend the time to negotiate with all of
the interested parties. So, they put a person on site.

The threat and the outcome is the same. If you don't provide legal intercept,
you're going to get locked up.

For an example of what level of access these systems provide, a Greek carrier
was hacked through theirs - the hacker(s) turned it on and used it to listen
in on the Prime Minister's phone calls[1].

I'm not saying that the Chinese are doing the right thing, just that it's
largely equivalent to what happens here.

[1] [http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-athens-
affair](http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-athens-affair)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act)

~~~
anseljh
Intercepts with warrants is really, really different than giving unaccountable
thought police a desk in the news room. Equating these things is silly and
borderline offensive.

------
okasaki
At least they're open and honest about it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A)

~~~
codewithcheese
Interesting map seems to indicate NSA is spying domestically as much as they
spy on China

------
codewithcheese
China seems to be the crucible of some remarkable scary political and social
innovation. I don't know what is more likely to happen: police stationed
within a office will be ridiculously corrupt or it will totally kill any
innovation or risk taking within the company.

~~~
jacquesm
It will certainly have a 'chilling effect' if there ever was. China is between
a rock and a hard place. Either they're going to have to open up completely
(which will result in a democracy and obliteration the group that has been
running the country for decades) or they're going to have to try to contain
the genie. They're obviously trying to do the latter but it will hurt them
economically in the longer run. As long as there is visible progress my guess
is the current batch of leaders will do just fine, as soon as progress
stagnates there may be a more dramatic change.

~~~
netcan
I disagree, though I'm not particularly pleased about it.

I think 25 years ago, it seemed that choice existed. You could do liberal,
capitalist democracy following the examples of Western Europe, Japan & the US.
The other hand was a hodgepodge of failure, either state failure or economic
failure. Most notably was the failed soviet bloc but also China, India & South
America (right and left). All or nothing. Revolution or stagnation. Free your
people or live in culturaly stagnant, poverty stricken destitute with .

The idea that political freedoms necessary for democracy are intertwined with
the economic freedoms necessary for capitalism had a lot of traction. But,
with the examples of the last generation (positive and negative) I think that
is no longer conventional wisdom. China's been very successful at growing
economically by hand selecting policies and freedoms they want and keeping
other out. You could call it non-fundamentalist or you could call it
unprincipled depending on your biases and judgements, but it's hard to ignore
it.

China has been selectively liberalizing economically, socially and (to a
lesser extent) politically. It doesn't see how you could argue that a sudden
democratization in 1980 or 1990 would have gotten them further along.

The reality is that the choices are nowhere near black and white. There is
such a thing as a soft authoritarian, single party, free market state. They
are doing it.

Its nice to think that liberal democracy and prosperity are intertwined
because I like democracy. But, I think democracy must be justified on its own
merits. The conic advantages…. They're debatable.

~~~
jacquesm
China is being run by a cabal of scared, mostly old (average age is 64, _one_
woman in the politbureau) men. They're using every trick in the book to hold
on to their power while trying to appease the crowds with shiny new trinkets.
The question is if they can manage to consolidate before the crowds realize
they don't actually need the old men and that the old men are _still_ the
biggest brake on their development.

That's why you get things like what the article discusses and why you get the
great firewall. It's all about crowd control on a very large scale and it is
driven by fear of what that crowd could do once it realizes there are no
chains.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Par...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China)

~~~
alextgordon
> ____ is being run by a cabal of scared, mostly 60-year old men. They're
> using every trick in the book to hold on to their power while trying to
> appease the crowds with shiny new trinkets.

You could literally be describing any country on earth with that.

~~~
jacquesm
No, you definitely couldn't.

For instance, NL has a 10/5 split m/f and the average age of the ministers is
52.

[https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabinet-
Rutte_II#Ministers](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabinet-Rutte_II#Ministers)

------
codeshaman
A very sad thing. I don't think the early hackers writing GPL code envisioned
this turn of events.

Most of those Internet companies would not exist if it weren't for the free
and open source software that they run on. Instead of 'liberating' people and
bringing them 'freedom', the free sofware has the undesired effect of creating
the Supreme Big Brother.

We are "Hacker news" here, we should be very worried about this - the early
hacker's visions are being killed by the hour.

How can we win back the dream ?

~~~
krapp
The only thing free software is intended to liberate people from is closed-
source binaries and proprietary code.

If governments choose to use GPL code to spy on and oppress their people,
that's perfectly within the spirit of free software, as long as they respect
the users' freedoms regarding the source code while doing so.

~~~
codeshaman
Stallman's book on my book shelf is called "Free Software, Free Society" and I
believe the spirit of GPL goes beyond just software.

It's the idea that sharing and collaboration will bring us more freedom -
freedom from opressors or owners of any kind, who can control our lives for
their benefit.

I believe this to be the deeper philosophical implication of free and open
source software. It's the dream of a better, freer, smarter society.

So I don't think government spying is perfectly in the spirit of free
software, it's exactly opposite to it.

------
lectrick
This is all a bid to control information.

We should airdrop millions of copies of a Chinese translation of "Fahrenheit
451" all over China...

[http://ebookbees.com/fahrenheit-451-free-
ebook/](http://ebookbees.com/fahrenheit-451-free-ebook/)

------
jqm
"demonstrate positive energy in purifying cyberspace"

I think I'm going to have that put on t-shirt.

------
rdlecler1
Partnerships with major Chinese companies now introduces new counterparty risk
if that relationship can be leveraged as a back door. Interesting to see how
that effects large U.S. Companies working in China. Long term, this can't be
good for the country.

------
ZoeZoeBee
Ministry Of Truth, Hard at it again

------
mtgx
What will the cops do? Shoot at cybercriminals?

~~~
braythwayt
The “cops" will make sure that all the appropriate filters and processes are
in place for the government to monitor its own citizens.

They are there to enforce regulation on the companies, not on
“cybercriminals.” Or to put it another way, operating an Internet company that
fails to acts as a de-facto arm of the state’s surveillance and culture-
control policy is itself a cyber-crime.

~~~
toyg
Also, people who are that close to the pipe are probably the ones most likely
to know how to circumvent their rules, so a bit of extra monitoring on their
day-to-day surely won't hurt.

------
jebblue
When the US gets close to election time and there is at least the chance of a
conservative win in the White House; the Chinese government gets worried and
defensive. They will probably remove the police after a couple of years and
the new president (conservative or liberal) has settled in.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
The same way the Great Firewall went down during Clinton or Obama? Come on,
don't be naive. This is the status quo in China and has NOTHING to do with the
USA. Stop blaming the failings of other nations on the US.

