Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

More worries for Beijing visitors

By | August 7, 2008, 9:13am PDT

If you are headed to (or already at) the Olympic Games and you weren’t worried by my Tech Tips for Beijing Visitors at the end of last month, maybe you should be now,

In telling the Wall Street Journal’s readers “Don’t Forget About China’s Dissidents,” Ellen Bork notes at the tail end of her piece:

The world isn’t just sending athletes to the Olympics, but surveillance technology that will help the government keep tabs on its people for years to come. American companies alone have sold China technology that invisibly copies computer hard drives, reads encrypted text and performs facial recognition analysis on surveillance video.

So, even if you store your photos, documents and other files on a hard drive, they may not be safe from duplication. Your notes may be decrypted. And your face picked out of a crowd, as you move about.

Have fun. Carefully.

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Tom Steinert-Threlkeld is editor-in-chief of Securities Industry News, as well as a long-time media, technology and business journalist.

Disclosure

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld has interests in two Web startups, which he cannot disclose until formally launched. They do not involve enterprise computing. He holds interests in technology companies only through mutual funds in which he has no say in their selection of investments. He has worked for Reed Elsevier PLC, Ziff Davis Media and the A.H. Belo Corporation.

Biography

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld

Tom Steinert-Threlkeld is editor-in-chief of Securities Industry News, as well as a long-time media, technology and business journalist.

He experimented with online news delivery a quarter century ago, with a text-only online service called StarText at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas.

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RE: More worries for Beijing visitors
tomlin21-24319035676893835085146735905770 11th Oct
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0 Votes
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could be anywhere in world
vmirchan 7th Aug 2008
after what happened in Atlanta during our Olympics, I would bet any future US based Olympics would have similar level of security and surveillance...you see that a bit more discreetly with our Super Bowls...

in fact anywhere in the world where there are crowds these days you have the risk the Chinese are facing. Of course, there are not the most subtle when it comes to these matters...
Use high encryption and dont bring anything you dont want other people to find.

Simple rules for a complicated world.
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Encryption only goes so far...
dunn@... 8th Aug 2008
If the system can be compomised at the logged on user level while the laptop is in use then all encrypted data is in the clear and can be copied as unencrypted data.
This is the joke of whole disk encryption on a laptop that is going to be using wireless. Since the user is logged in the data is no longer encrypted and can be copied, deleted, or modified.
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RE: More worries for Beijing visitors
kfestus@... 8th Aug 2008
This is an example of how technology + money + power = you're screwed. China has the money to buy the latest in decryption/remote spying/getting-into-your-sh*t technology. This technology is already several generations ahead of your crappy consumer-level laptop/cellphone/whatever. You can't afford to protect yourself from this stuff.
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RE: More worries for Beijing visitors
howmed@... 8th Aug 2008
I thunk whatever y'all iz paranode n yur not regular folks, yur scentific clooned beins
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RE: More worries for Beijing visitors
cbiggs99@... 8th Aug 2008
It's been 20 years this year since I left the USAF, where I taught classified electronic classes. Some of the equipment that I was responsible to repair and program is outdated for that world, but walks circles around anything that is available to the public. For instance, three systems communicated with with each other to prevent interference and false results. I was working in ranges in excess of 30GHz. New broadband technology?? In 1983, one system that I used daily covered from 30MHz to over 35GHz. It's been replaced by a more powerful and faster system. It was run by a 600MHz computer; at the time, 4MHz IBM PCs were considered the top of the line.
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so far advanced
2WiReD 3rd Oct 2008
ya, id seriously love to know just how far ahead of the curve in some tech the US army used to be / still is....enough to make your head spin id say
0 Votes
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RE: More worries for Beijing visitors
tomlin21-24319035676893835085146735905770 11th Oct
I do not wholesale jerseys in many situations reply to posts but I'll in this particular instance, superb info'I will bookmark your web site. Maintain the great operate

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