Forbidden Laptops Are On The Space Station
Internal NASA GSFC memo: “Congress just passed a law that bars NASA, National Science Foundation, Department of Commerce, and Department of Justice from buying IT systems that have been “produced, manufactured or assembled” by companies “owned, operated or subsidized” in any way by the Chinese. The only exceptions to this rule are for hardware that is deemed to be in the interests of national security, or if the FBI decides that a component’s acquisition does not carry any risk of “cyber-espionage or sabotage.” While Goddard is working out processes to handle this legislation, the direction from Goddard’s Chief Information Officer is that no IT products shall be purchased at this time, via P-card of any other mechanism. This applies to hardware, software and maintenance, and to both civil servant and contractor purchases.”
4 agencies get new rules on China IT sourcing, FCW
“Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee, inserted a version of the measure in an appropriations bill for fiscal 2013 drafted last year. It was subsequently added to the Senate’s version of the continuing resolution that covered full appropriations for several agencies, including Commerce, Justice, NASA and NSF.”
Keith’s note: This applies across the agency. There are Lenovo ThinkPad laptops on the ISS. Lenovo is owned by Chinese business interests. And these ThinkPads can’t be replaced by Mac laptops or iPads because most (nearly all) of them are assembled in China. Larger image
So we are supposed to use paper and pencil to launch rockets? How very old school…
that’s how we took men to the moon and back.
Hardly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…
An impressive piece of hardware at the time, far more sophisticated than hand-arithmetic.
well, we now know you live in the 1960s when computers couldn’t do anything, but I think the world has moved on.
Well, I guess they better start building themselves laptops and code programs from scratch.
That’s a really stupid rule, seeing as how even most of the American brand stuff is overseas. My guess is that it will get “exception-ed” to death, and basically kept just to use as a cludgel against any attempts by ZTE and Huawei to get into the American Market.
These laptops were selected simply because they were preceded by US IBM (albeit with many foreign parts). Dell was quite interested in becoming an alternative vendor some six or seven years ago but it didn’t happen.
That said, and I too believe Wolfe is an instance of the utter paranoia of many on the political edge, the Chinese are as capable of embedding trojan horses deep into the microcode firmware that make chips work. In general, all of our core flight systems are UNIX based and well defended but the astronaut laptops, which run dual operating systems, one for personal use and one tied to the flight systems are a possible point of vulnerability. A launch was once held because of the risk caused by a Word Macro virus that was plastering systems across the country.
`Congress just passed a law that bars NASA, National Science Foundation, Department of Commerce, and Department of Justice from buying IT systems that have been “produced, manufactured or assembled” by companies “owned, operated or subsidized” in any way by the Chinese.`
So, everyone at these agencies needs to work from home using their own personal systems if they want to get anything done, I guess.
The original wording I saw was “any risk associated with such system being produced, manufactured or assembled by one or more entities that are owned, directed or subsidized by the People’s Republic of China.”
What’s going on here? is “any risk” being interpreted as any purchase now?
This country is just so completely screwed up. I think we’re past the point of no return for a generation on the stupidity level. We have a generation leading that does not critically think anymore.
I wonder how many in Congress that passed this bill drive a foreign made car. Probably all of them. Stupid law. Stupid title of blog post.
HP says:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1…
Open up the side and the labels off the chips.
I think that the title “Forbidden Laptops Are On The Space Station” is a bit alarmist – while the “new” rules spelled out in the article would definitely throw a monkey wrench into their procurement today, the fact still remains that at the time the T61p laptop was selected for use, the “China Connection” was not a consideration.
Amen. Let’s use some common sense here folks. The laptops in question are already at ISS, they are essential, there isn’t a replacement readily available – do ya think maybe they will get a waiver to continue using them???
While I can’t read Keith’s mind, I interpreted his headline as totally toongue-in-cheek, his way of saying that he thinks it’s a ridiculous situation.
I own two IBM Lenovo laptops. Many thousands of people own Lenovo laptops around the world, and have done so for years. If there was the slightest irregularity or indication that they might be a “danger,” then surely all kinds of high-end users would have figured it out by now. Besides, it too obvious a technique to actually be tried.
This whole thing is just more Wolf-O-Rama, and I, for one, am getting really sick of the man’s infantile attitude.
Foxconn (aka Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.) is in fact Taiwanese-owned, even though most of its plants are in the PRC. I doubt that qualifies as “China” under Rep.Wolf’s paranoid definition. Foxconn assembles for, among others, Apple, hp, Acer, Amazon, Cisco, Dell, Microsoft, Sony, and Toshiba. It’ll be interesting to see, when NASA and the G-men actually get around to defining a “process” to sort this it, whether they count as Chinese.
Correct. The wording of the legislation is: “produced, manufactured or assembled by one or more entities that are
owned, directed or subsidized by the People’s Republic of China.”
I believe some plants/companies are subsidized by the PRC.
Edit: Brett Weeks wrote his statement before mine. His statement of “Correct” applies to sunman42’s comment.
Are there any laptops/desktops with none of their parts built in PRC?
nope. I guess the government will just have to use a toaster instead.
I cannot wait for the next piece of Magic 8 Ball inspired legislation. Congress is now worried about technology manufactured in China? Should have thought about that decades ago. The rest of the government is going to operate as comatose as the Congress does.
I’m waiting for the ban on Chinese-made children’s and baby’s toys. They may have embedded microtransmitters in them surreptitiously inundating our children’s minds with eastern philosophy and “right” thinking. I figure it has about the same likelihood of being true as Messing with expensive microchip components or whole laptops.
If China was doing something this desperate, and stupid, and got caught, then their sales would dry up and a large chunk of their import dollars would disappear, and then who could the US borrow more money from?
Pretty funny since ACES just rolled out Lenovo PCs to everyone at my center this year…
Here is section 516:
SEC. 516. (a) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise
made available under this Act may be used by the Departments of Commerce and Justice, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or the National Science Foundation to acquire an
information technology system unless the head of the entity
involved, in consultation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation
or other appropriate Federal entity, has made an assessment of
any associated risk of cyber-espionage or sabotage associated with
the acquisition of such system, including any risk associated with
such system being produced, manufactured or assembled by one
or more entities that are owned, directed or subsidized by the
People’s Republic of China.
(b) None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available
under this Act may be used to acquire an information technology
system described in an assessment required by subsection (a) and
produced, manufactured or assembled by one or more entities that
are owned, directed or subsidized by the People’s Republic of China
unless the head of the assessing entity described in subsection
(a) determines, and reports that determination to the Committees
on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate,
that the acquisition of such system is in the national interest
of the United States.”
So I assume assessments need to be made on hardware. Hardware would include laptops, workstations, supercomputers (and parts), routers/switches, etc.
A question would then be, is software an “information technology system?” I think, technically, it is. A lot of companies outsource some aspect of the software overseas. Who’s to say a software firm in India is not partially owned by a company in China?
BTW, companies are bought and sold frequently in the high tech world. So I guess one year the government may be able to buy the product and the next year not. Assuming of course that this regulation carries forward.
So much for customer support or warranty. We bought it then they sold the companies to a Chinese firm, so we can’t get parts or service and more!
What about companies with shareholders? Does somebody (the FBI) have to keep a running check on share distributions and who the major shareholders are, and what voting blocks they control by proxy, to make sure that there isn’t a Chinese majority at any point in time?
What if a company has one or more Chinese nationals on its Board of Directors or other advisory committees?
Are all of these silly rules confined to Chinese citizens or do they include citizens of other countries who were born in China? (They might be sleepers, you know.)
Better check if any senior company executives have Chinese relatives, or owe money to Chinese bookies, or eat a suspicious amount of Chinese food…. and on, and on…
And who’s paying for all of this checking up?
Frank Wolf makes Chicken Little look like a genius.
Thanks for the copy.
So, is Lenovo owned, directed or subsidized by the PRC? If anything it might be subsidized, but how is that defined?
IF the law was just passed then those laptops are NOT forbidden. Those laptops were shipped and flown years before this IT Law was made.
The US is quite capable of manufacturing the PCs and possibly sesnsitive components needed for government use. It will be more expensive. This is one of the first shots fired in the Cyber war that has been brewing with China. If MNCs want to set up facilities in China to manufacture their products that’s their business. But they might want to talk to Elon Musk about how he feels concerning such business practice. Personally I am tired of MNCs like Google setting up R&D facilities in China and then running to the US government for help when their email is hacked and Chinese democracy advocates are publicly outed. Since when is the US government obligated to help out MNCs when they are in foreign countries doing business? Sometimes I think Rand Paul makes more and more sense……
Addendum: Microsoft uses Kaspersky code in its security features in its software. Eugene Kaspersky is a fan boi and buddy of Vladimir Putin. So its not just China to worry about….
The law forbids expenditures of FY 13 funds for these purposes, and doesn’t apply to laptops purchased with previous year funds.
Rep. Frank Wolf’s ummitigated hatred of All Things China borders on the pathological. Unfortunately for him , and us who must suffer him, there is no vaccine for Grand Mal Hypocrisy.
The law is based on Frank Wolf’s paranoid fear/hatred for all things Chinese, and the absolute power he has been granted over the NASA and Department of Justice budgets by both the GOP majority and the Democrats in the Senate, due to their lack of principles and/or backbone. This allows Wolf to insert any petty demand he can think of into the latest budget resolution and places a fringe Congressman from a district with no NASA activities in charge of NASA, the DOJ, and the OSTP. This isn’t the way democracy is supposed to work.