The FBI illegally wiretapped the phones of Americans, often falsely invoking terrorism emergencies, 3, times between and without a warrant. Internet surveillance and control will be no different. Official misuses are bad enough, but it's the unofficial uses that worry me more. Any surveillance and control system must itself be secured.
An infrastructure conducive to surveillance and control invites surveillance and control, both by the people you expect and by the people you don't. China's hackers subverted the access system Google put in place to comply with U. Why does anyone think criminals won't be able to use the same system to steal bank account and credit card information, use it to launch other attacks or turn it into a massive spam-sending network?
Why does anyone think that only authorized law enforcement can mine collected Internet data or eavesdrop on phone and IM conversations? These risks are not merely theoretical. After September 11, the NSA built a surveillance infrastructure to eavesdrop on telephone calls and e-mails within the U.
Although procedural rules stated that only non-Americans and international phone calls were to be listened to, actual practice didn't match those rules. NSA analysts collected more data than they were authorized to and used the system to spy on wives, girlfriends and notables such as President Clinton. But that's not the most serious misuse of a telecommunications surveillance infrastructure. In Greece, between June and March , someone wiretapped more than cell phones belonging to members of the Greek government: the prime minister and the ministers of defense, foreign affairs and justice.
Ericsson built this wiretapping capability into Vodafone's products and enabled it only for governments that requested it. But none more so than the government.
And Google certainly does not go out of its way to suggest that the government was not responsible for -- or at least somehow involved with -- the attacks. We'll see how Google's threat goes. Perhaps the company has more evidence it's not yet sharing publicly.
For you. World globe An icon of the world globe, indicating different international options. Get the Insider App.
Click here to learn more. A leading-edge research firm focused on digital transformation. Other aspects of the project are particularly troubling. In early December, Google CEO Sundar Pichai told a Congressional committee that "right now we have no plans to launch in China," though he would not rule out future plans.
The question is, if Google wants to come back to China, does China want to let it in? Bringing Google search back certainly has upsides. If leaders give the green light to Project Dragonfly, they run that risk again. Chinese citizens who need to access the global internet can still usually do so through VPNs though it is getting harder. By contrast, the political risks of permitting Google to return loom large to Xi and his inner circle. Hostility toward both China and Silicon Valley is high and rising in American political circles.
A return to China would put Google in a political pressure cooker. What if that pressure—via antitrust action or new legislation—effectively forced the company to choose between the American and Chinese markets? If Chinese leaders give the green light to Project Dragonfly, they run the risk of that happening again.
The Chinese government oversees a technology sector that is profitable, innovative, and driven largely by domestic companies—an enviable position to be in. Allowing Google back in would only diminish its leverage. Better, then, to stick with the status quo: dangle the prospect of full market access while throwing Silicon Valley companies an occasional bone by permitting peripheral services like translation. Google does have one factor in its favor. If it first entered China during the days of desktop internet, and departed at the dawn of the mobile internet, it is now trying to reenter in the era of AI.
The Chinese government places high hopes on AI as an all-purpose tool for economic activity, military power, and social governance, including surveillance. Taken together, these efforts constitute a sort of artificial-intelligence lobbying strategy designed to sway the Chinese leadership. They can take advantage of software development tools like TensorFlow and they still have a prestigious Google research lab to train Chinese AI researchers, all without granting Google market access.
In Washington, meanwhile, American security officials are annoyed that Google is actively courting a geopolitical rival while refusing to work with the Pentagon on AI projects because its employees object to having their work used for military ends.
Those employees are the key to the third battleground. The procedure is a one-off, and highly experimental, but the technique could help reduce transplant waiting lists in the future. The city's residents are navigating changes in rainfall, a shrinking aquifer, and entrenched inequity in water access. Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time.
If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service technologyreview. Skip to Content.
0コメント