World China: All your source codes are belong to us!

[tom_mai78101]

China is apparently considering demanding source code from hardware manufacturers, and banning the sale of products from companies that don’t comply. It’s being called an “obligatory accreditation system for IT security products,” but to me it sounds more like a worrying ultimatum.

This would be a drastic move for any Government, but manufacturers are extremely worried about giving such information to China in particular because of its, shall we say, lax attitude to copyright and patent law. In fact, MI5 has even gone so far as to warn UK companies in the past about the threat of Chinese hackers going after trade secrets.

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-tech-security/china-to-demand-secret-source-codes-from-computer-firms-nyt-idUSL4N0V772820150128/

 

[Avaleirra]

There are too many Chinese hackers...they can not be stopped.

 

[TriggerHappy]

there are too many chinese [del]hackers...they can not be stopped.[/del]

Seriously this rules sounds like bullshit.

 

[phyrex1an]

I think this makes perfect sense. Any government that buys software or hardware should demand full access to the source code and specifications. Anything else is being foolish.

 

[Narks]

Yeah, but it's not the government who is buying the hardware.

 

[tom_mai78101]

In China, the government = the people of China. It's well known as the Communism.

 

[ReVolver]

I think the US needs this too... everything you buy you should have the rights to know how it was made, its like food, they give you nutrition facts.

 

[tom_mai78101]

Food is okay, since they came from natural and renewable resources. But source code comes from people's work. They are not like food; they aren't naturally made, even though they are renewable.

Artifically made objects must be named. And by being named, it must belong to one person or company. Naturally made objects don't belong to anyone, but the Earth. We are to share and divide the resources Mother Earth created for us, and not take it as ours.

An old saying: "Don't take what we are to take for granted."

 

[LearningCode]

In China, the government = the people of China. It's well known as the Communism.

China doesn't exactly behave like a Communist country, you know.

 

[Slapshot136]

i can see some benefits to this, because the way some companies put in crap just to piss off users does have to stop at some point - here are some examples

• the wii has a dvd drive, yet it cant play movies without being hacked due to nintendo's BS
  
• blu-ray and dhcp - need i say more?
  
• backup/transfer programs that only work with certain brands of hard drives (WD's version of acronis for example)
  
• amd trying to get MB makers to remove features from their bios (namely core unlocking capabilities)
  
• the entire mac os BS - not allowing it to run on anything but a mac when it can run perfectly fine on non-mac hardware, but yet again that requires hacking
  
• spyware stuff being incorporated into programs, and then you don't even know what info is being sent where - where as if someone looks at the source code, they could easily figure that out
  
• photoshop not letting people play around /w images of a dollar - did they really need to do that? it's not like you can fake money that easily

and yes i know there are hacks for most of these things already, but shouldn't you be able to do this stuff normally without the need for a hack? well then this would enable said hacks to be created much more easily (as opposed to reverse engineering it), and hopefully more of them will become available, to the point where manufacturers don't bother with this BS anymore

as well as increasing the rate of technological advances - instead of 2 companies both researching the same thing, only 1 would do it and then the other would be able to do another research, and then people's stuff would become outdated faster, and they would be able to buy better performing stuff at a cheaper price

they just need to implement it in a way that the company that develops something beneficial actually benefits from it (a better patent system)

 

[216199]

China is doing the wrong thing, as usual.
If they really wanted to do this for the people they could simply adopt the Free Software (or at least the Open Source) philosophy on a national level. Thus source code would be automatically available for anyone to see.
A sort of committee could do quality control when it comes to important software.

However, Chinese guys simply need a way to control the people and the software/hardware they create so they can ban anything they don't like and twist the code so it can be better used for repressions (mainly due to political/"patriotic" reasons).

 

[tooltiperror]

Let`s start his conversation like this.

How the hell did China even get the power to do this?

 

[ElderKingpin]

you have no power to just change the conversation like that. :/...

-------------
China can do whatever it wants, and if it can improve quality of technical equipment. Then by all means do it, but if it can get corrupted. to hell with it.

 

[Tru_Power22]

[*]photoshop not letting people play around /w images of a dollar - did they really need to do that? it's not like you can fake money that easily

What? Yes you can.

 

[ReVolver]

I like how America doesn't support this and yet they claim themselves as "Freedom, Liberty, etc" America doesn't support freedom its a Fascist nation...

 

[seph ir oth]

I like how America doesn't support this and yet they claim themselves as "Freedom, Liberty, etc" America doesn't support freedom its a Fascist nation...

The US gov't may disown China's actions but will not stop its software companies from complying. It's up to the software companies themselves whether to boycott China or not ... GROW SOME BALLS SOFTWARE COMPANIES!

 

[Slapshot136]

What? Yes you can.

it's called "Currency Detection"

and while it's not hard to get around, you do need to ask, why is this "feature" there? it's not like you can just print currency /w a normal printer anyways

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2004/01/61890

 

[gameman]

I like how America doesn't support this and yet they claim themselves as "Freedom, Liberty, etc" America doesn't support freedom its a Fascist nation...

It doesn't matter were you go people will have different views, especially a single county. so what if we don't approve of this? Just because you know that we don't support this doesn't mean we're fascist. I'm not suddenly calling your nation a communist state because you support china's actions.

 

[KillerChi]

I have a feeling it's simply to support Chinese companies.
Knowing China, that is.

While, I do agree some copyright and source restrictions have gone too far. (Like DHCP or DRM)

 

[tooltiperror]

I read somewhere that this might ruin some products if tampered with, even a tiny bit.