Pentagon creating software 'do not buy' list to keep out Russia, China

[Speed Weed]

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/pentagon-creating-software-do-not-buy-list-to-keep-out-russia-china/ar-BBL8MoJ?ocid=spartanntp

Quote

WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) - The Pentagon is working on a software "do not buy" list to block vendors who use software code originating from Russia and China, a top Defense Department acquisitions official said on Friday.

Ellen Lord, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told reporters the Pentagon had been working for six months on a "do not buy" list of software vendors. The list is meant to help the Department of Defense's acquisitions staff and industry partners avoid buying problematic code for the Pentagon and suppliers.

"What we are doing is making sure that we do not buy software that has Russian or Chinese provenance, for instance, and quite often that's difficult to tell at first glance because of holding companies," she told reporters gathered in a conference room near her Pentagon office.

"Please buy American products only while we keep gambling with this trade war." This is what I have to say. Do you trust Pentagon? Are you still going to use Russian and Chinese products, such as Kaspersky antivirus or Huawei smartphone despite all the bad things the Pentagon can bring up? 

[Radium_Angel]

I'd like to see some of all the electronic shit we buy, made in the US or some other non-communist/child-labour-using/1st world country.

[LAwLz]

Bahahahaha

I wouldn't be surprised if software made in the US is even more filled with backdoors and other spying software than software from China and Russia.

The US government has even been caught hijacking transports of routers and switches, and physically modified the hardware so that they can gain unauthorized access to it.

 

This is basically the US going "please only use software that enables us to spy on you. We don't want Russia or China to maybe do it".

If only there was some way of knowing software was trusted without having to rely on strong xenophobia... Maybe like, if you could see the source code. That sure would be neat, wouldn't it?

[Delicieuxz]

19 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Bahahahaha

I wouldn't be surprised if software made in the US is even more filled with backdoors and other spying software than software from China and Russia.

The US government has even been caught hijacking transports of routers and switches, and physically modified the hardware so that they can gain unauthorized access to it.

 

This is basically the US going "please only use software that enables us to spy on you. We don't want Russia or China to maybe do it".

If only there was some way of knowing software was trusted without having to rely on strong xenophobia... Maybe like, if you could see the source code. That sure would be neat, wouldn't it?

Exactly.

 

The USA government is going to be by far embedded in more software than any other country. The NSA and CIA are known to work with thousands of US tech companies to let US agencies have access to their software. Microsoft is one of the companies that works with the NSA and CIA and allows them unfettered access to read people's communications and documents in Microsoft software. That's what PRISM revealed. Most all the other tech giants do the same thing.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-06-14/u-s-agencies-said-to-swap-data-with-thousands-of-firms

 

All these tech giants that harvest personal data and compile them into virtual profiles of the people the data is from (Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter) are likely sending those profiles to the CIA's servers, where the CIA compiles them into a mega profile of each person.

 

And Amazon is basically a front for the CIA and Jeff Bezos a CIA operative with him being the CIA's largest business partner and handling all their covert cloud intel networks.

 

And the USA government has hacked most routers and smartphones out there. It's safe to assume that anyone who uses USA software and communications technology is hacked by the USA government.

 

 

But the US government is just doing with software what they try to do with everything else: Use threats, coersion, manipulation, and propaganda to force people away from using competitors good and into using USA goods only. It's how the USA keeps itself wealthy. The USA is doing the very same thing with trade all over the world right now, is threatening countries like Turkey and India against buying Russian anti-missile / anti-air systems (which significantly outclass the USA's best anti-missile and anti-air system in about every way), and is trying to muscle the European gas market from Russia for the same purpose:

 

Liberating Europe from Russian Gas

 

All these efforts are disingenuously presented by the US government and are really all about strong-arming all the world's business and advantage (like spying advantages) into the USA and away from everywhere else.

 

But anyone in a Western country would be safer risking being snooped on by Russia or China than by the USA.

[PlayStation 2]

You guys wanted to make someone look bad on the basis of meddling, here's the end result.

Put up or shut up.

[sof006]

7 hours ago, DaPhuc said:

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/pentagon-creating-software-do-not-buy-list-to-keep-out-russia-china/ar-BBL8MoJ?ocid=spartanntp

"Please buy American products only while we keep gambling with this trade war." This is what I have to say. Do you trust Pentagon? Are you still going to use Russian and Chinese products, such as Kaspersky antivirus or Huawei smartphone despite all the bad things the Pentagon can bring up? 

I'll still buy Huawei because I believe a company is a company and if they want to sell your info they will. Doesn't matter who it is, Apple... Google... Etc they're all companies that make money off selling you a product and ultimately probably exploit the fact that you own something like a smartphone. Information is power after all.

 

So what I'm saying is, I'll buy Huawei or Kaspersky because as long as they're doing what I want I don't care.

[Guest]

Seeing as there’s an office block just outside my window (two high-rise buildings next to each other) that gets to see my junk every morning, I don’t mind the NSA or KGB having a good look either.

[kirashi]

7 hours ago, DaPhuc said:

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/pentagon-creating-software-do-not-buy-list-to-keep-out-russia-china/ar-BBL8MoJ?ocid=spartanntp

"Please buy American products only while we keep gambling with this trade war." This is what I have to say. Do you trust Pentagon? Are you still going to use Russian and Chinese products, such as Kaspersky antivirus or Huawei smartphone despite all the bad things the Pentagon can bring up? 

Yes I'll still use the software no problem. One cannot get around using security software from Russian / Ukrainian sources (all security vendors share their core findings with one another, then make money on certain features or aspects of their brands) or from China because all computer hardware has firmware microcode required for things like your phone's camera module to interface with the CPU on a hardware level, regardless of it being an iPhone or Android phone.

 

The only way we could get around this is by developing more open source hardware and accompanying hardware, but the current business model of copyright and patent lawsuits don't exactly support this form of more secure market.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Guess it's time for a trade war on software. Because dubbing it as such wouldn't attract so much bad publicity. US developers are clearly being treated unfairly by Russian and Chinese developers....em I right. 

[Humbug]

[Stefan Payne]

9 hours ago, DaPhuc said:

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/pentagon-creating-software-do-not-buy-list-to-keep-out-russia-china/ar-BBL8MoJ?ocid=spartanntp

"Please buy American products only while we keep gambling with this trade war." This is what I have to say. Do you trust Pentagon? Are you still going to use Russian and Chinese products, such as Kaspersky antivirus or Huawei smartphone despite all the bad things the Pentagon can bring up? 

After Edward Snowden, I'd trust the US Software as far as I can throw them.

If a Chinese alternative is there, I'd use them instead.

And I'm not afraid about Russia and would prefer that as well.

[Mark77]

What about the spyware like Chrome?  

[Bananasplit_00]

4 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

After Edward Snowden, I'd trust the US Software as far as I can throw them.

If a Chinese alternative is there, I'd use them instead.

And I'm not afraid about Russia and would prefer that as well.

China sure, Russia no thanks. Living on the east coast of Sweden makes me the first nuke target for Russia if they decide that they want to come play(not that i think they ever will but ya know i know the invasion plan ). Not that my personal info would be much use when i turn to ash i guess...

 

China i couldnt care less about, what the hell are they going to do with my personal info? sell me more garbage and clog our postal systems more?

 

A lot of my personal details are already public information for anyone to scrape of the web along with the rest of Sweden so whatever really for a lot of it but i do dislike my info being used to make money in general

[Stefan Payne]

1 minute ago, Mark77 said:

What about the spyware like Chrome?  

What about the Privacy messes like Facebook, Android, probably iOS and also Windows since last couple of years.

Or all the Privacy Statements of US Firms that say "oh, we could share your data with Partners", AFAIR nVidia is one of those as well as EVGA and the List goes on and on...

[asus killer]

ehehehe Between Russian, Chinese and US software and companies i would choose neither if possible, hard to spot the difference in child labor, shady practices, anti competition shit, general sense of lawlessness and accountabiliy, and spy/data collection craziness.

[Amazonsucks]

10 hours ago, DaPhuc said:

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/pentagon-creating-software-do-not-buy-list-to-keep-out-russia-china/ar-BBL8MoJ?ocid=spartanntp

"Please buy American products only while we keep gambling with this trade war." This is what I have to say. Do you trust Pentagon? Are you still going to use Russian and Chinese products, such as Kaspersky antivirus or Huawei smartphone despite all the bad things the Pentagon can bring up? 

I havent ever used them nor do i plan to. I try to buy as little from China as i possibly can. I dont use Kaspersky because there are much better options out there.

 

Dont get me wrong. I hate Facebook, Amazon and Google like i hate the communist party. 

 

In addition to do not buy lists the west shouldnt have been letting China steal ip for a quarter century in exchange for their cheap labour and manufacturing. The westerners who sold the west out to China are the truly guilty reprehensible ones. China would have collapsed and been reborn by now if it werent for the wests stupidity and shortsighted greed. 

 

Instead, by buying everything made in China, the west has screwed over the Chinese citizens while enriching an authoritarian human rights abusing regime so they can build military outposts all over the Spratly islands and south china sea, build a stealth fighter they hacked from Lockheed Martin and build a nuclear arsenal.

[Linus_torvalds]

13 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If only there was some way of knowing software was trusted without having to rely on strong xenophobia... Maybe like, if you could see the source code. That sure would be neat, wouldn't it?

You can freind. You can do that right now use OPEN SOURCE OSs for your hardware. You could use OPEN SOURCE Openwrt on your router, Use OPEN SOURCE linux distro with 100% OPEN SOURCE software in it on your PC, even you could replace BIOS with Libreboot on some laptops, you could use OPEN SOURCE OS on your phone (Sailfish OS, ubuntu touch, Plasma OS, LUNA OS).

 

But sadly people are so ignorant. They still will use Netgear, cisco, asus and so on routers with default OS, Android and iOS phones, Windows 10 and so on. If you wanted you could have OPEN SOURCE OSs and programs but you want windows and it's source code. that's not gonna happen.

[yian88]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Bahahahaha

I wouldn't be surprised if software made in the US is even more filled with backdoors and other spying software than software from China and Russia.

The US government has even been caught hijacking transports of routers and switches, and physically modified the hardware so that they can gain unauthorized access to it.

 

This is basically the US going "please only use software that enables us to spy on you. We don't want Russia or China to maybe do it".

If only there was some way of knowing software was trusted without having to rely on strong xenophobia... Maybe like, if you could see the source code. That sure would be neat, wouldn't it?

Actually mate you dont need soruce code, all you need is professional firewall and network monitor hardware then connect your device to it and monitor what they do, if you software is supposed to edit a document save it and done, and its connecting to the internet uploading data to unknown servers or to russia/china IP then they are busted.

[Okjoek]

I actually don't disagree. Our country, even our continent needs to be more self sufficient. Tariffs are one of the only things I'm happy to see come out of this administration. US workers need protectionism against foreign slave labor competing for our jobs.

[GoldenLag]

5 hours ago, Amazonsucks said:

-snip-

Anti-china much?

 

China's communist party is a lot more og ak open economy than whst the soviet Union was.

 

Another note: the only country in the world that has an economy ready for war, is the US

 

 

I buy stuff from Asia because that is where everything is made. 

 

It isnt surprising countries are making such lists as this. Thats what countries do, they will allways have lists and plans for a "what if" scenario plays out.

[captain_to_fire]

So would this lead to software/hardware trade war?

 

*I'll be waiting for POTUS45's Twitter rants on why the US needs to impose huge tariffs on non-US software. 

 

13 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

All these efforts are disingenuously presented by the US government and are really all about strong-arming all the world's business and advantage (like spying advantages) into the USA and away from everywhere else.

In reality, there's nothing stopping the US government to decide what software they want to run on their computers and given the political turmoil at the moment, it's playing safe to choose US-made software only regardless whether software from other countries has unethical ties to their respective governments or not.

 

While the US government has definitely gained notoriety for spying on its own citizens thanks to the Snowden leaks and the Shadowbrokers GitHub dump, almost all intelligence agencies of every country like UK's GCHQ, Russia's FSB, China's 3PLA, and others engage in spying, not just the US. 

[Jito463]

17 hours ago, LAwLz said:

This is basically the US going "please only use software that enables us to spy on you. We don't want Russia or China to maybe do it".

Uh, you do realize that the whole point of this list is only about software running on government owned computers, right?  This has absolutely nothing to do with the general public.

18 hours ago, DaPhuc said:

The list is meant to help the Department of Defense's acquisitions staff and industry partners avoid buying problematic code for the Pentagon and suppliers.

Frankly, I'm surprised they don't already have something like this already.  At the very least I imagine they'd have some sort of recommended list.

[Stefan Payne]

Lets start with listing the Russian Software or Software that is maintained by a Russian you know of:

 

MPC-HC

MPC-BE

7Zip

 

AFAIR also Rivatuner/Afterburner.

 

And that is just what comes to mind without looking it up....

[Ryujin2003]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Uh, you do realize that the whole point of this list is only about software running on government owned computers, right?  This has absolutely nothing to do with the general public.

Frankly, I'm surprised they don't already have something like this already.  At the very least I imagine they'd have some sort of recommended list.

This...

 

They do have an approval process, but I think this is more to formalize it. Making it formal puts more of an emphasis on letting those barred companies know they aren't trusted.

 

The amount of conspiracy theorists in this thread is appalling.

[ouroesa]

2 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Uh, you do realize that the whole point of this list is only about software running on government owned computers, right?  This has absolutely nothing to do with the general public.

Frankly, I'm surprised they don't already have something like this already.  At the very least I imagine they'd have some sort of recommended list.

Exactly what I was thinking reading all of the comments. People seem to see a headline, make assumptions and blep uninformed and misleading "opinions". 

 

Please read the article, or at least the exert, before confusing everyone.