Apparently, the US Government doesn’t want to take any risks. According to CRN and Mark Bregman, CTO at Symantec, they look with suspicion on everything that comes from China – especially code.
Among the measures it recommends to IT executives regarding the protection of their computer equipment when traveling to that country are:
- Leave your standard IT equipment at home – buy separate gear to use in China
- Weigh the machine before you go and when you get back
- “Clean” thoroughly the equipment (re-image the laptop you used)
- Throw away the mobile phone you used during your stay.
The US is also very concerned about malicious code – they don’t want to have anything to do with Chinese coders and they don’t trust companies that do their development in China. Bregman thinks this is the wrong attitude – US developers can be as dangerous as the Chinese and the Government should check the tools and processes to test code from wherever it comes.