Re: State enterprise
what is there a problem with that? the US have been doing the same for decades but now we have a choice to go with the Chinese.
Depends who you are.
If you work in Western government, military, strategically important, or IP-rich sectors, then it's probably best to avoid Chinese or Russian software. If the Yanks want your data, they've already got it, and to an extent the UK government won't care. But if you don't trust the software not to bleat your details to its parent company and host nation, then probably better to avoid obvious opportunities to help our (official) enemies. At an individual level, this personal data isn't of much economic or political value, but it can still give useful information to foreign intelligence services.
Consider my Chinese brand Android phone. Seems distinctly feasible it will be back-doored for the PLA, if only in the first instance because of the home market they want to eavesdrop on. Now think if it were your phone, and you were employed at GCHQ (Faslane, Aldermaston etc....take your pick), the PLA would be able to work out a high probability as to which users of back-doored phones showed a regular pattern of travel to that part of Gloucester - and turning off the GPS means nothing for a back-doored device. Even if you turn the device off on the way to work, that of itself creates a pattern that can be tracked. Then there's all your "life" data that may be on your phone - contacts, logins, browsing and travel history. With a desktop web browser, a nice back-door means they could use what can be gleaned about the user to line them up for a spot of spear-phishing (or if the browsing history is sufficiently troublesome, for blackmail). Or they may find that the user has a lot of legitimate but extreme political or social sympathies that makes them vulnerable to attempts to recruit them (they may not even know the real power they would be working for, so not limited to communists).
Of course, with 17,500 employees of MoD happily spewing their details on LinkedIn, maybe the Chinese and Russians don't need to work too hard on back-dooring anything?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
