State Department bans Lenovo PCs from classified work

Remember a few months ago when the US State Department ordered thousands of Lenovo PCs despite concerns by some that the boxes could be infested with evil Commie spyware? Well, the computers have apparently been delivered, and the government has now decided those concerns should be taken seriously. The 16,000 Lenovo computers will basically be quarantined from other government computers, and won't be used for any classified work. Which we assume means they'll be used for games of Solitaire and BitTorrent downloads of patriotic anthems. C'mon guys, let's get real here. Sure, Lenovo's  computers are made in China. But so are plenty of other computers, including Apple's shiny new MacBooks. And ThinkPads and ThinkCenters were made in China, in the exact same factories, even when IBM still owned the brands. The fact is, if Chinese spymasters really wanted to use PCs to check in on the US government, they could do it without Lenovo. We're not suggesting that the government not be wary of international espionage. But if they really want to get serious about it, there are better ways to do it than buying 16,000 computers and then limiting their use to back-office functions.

[Tim UF @ May 19th 2006 10:54AM]

this is right in line with the FBI spending hundreds of man-hours this week digging up some horse farm looking for hoffa... who disappeared 30 years ago. Spend my tax money on something a little more current, thank you.

and if they are worried about spyware on these systems... they should go hire some of the now out of work software programmers (their jobs outsourced) to rework the comps... create jobs, secures the nations digital interests (some of it)... seems like a better option than relegating 16,000 laptops (at $2,000-$3,000 a piece) to solitaire and minesweeper

[Bilbo @ May 19th 2006 10:56AM]

Not sure you are clear on the term "back-office" here. Back-office refers to operations away from customers. Given that covert and classified work is pretty much done away from the public, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use "back-office" in this situation. Maybe "mundane" or "routine" would be better words for what you seem to be implying.

[Bur$atil @ May 19th 2006 10:56AM]

Let's see how the shares play in Wall Street. Now the US computer companies want to get even with the Chinese Lenovo.
This is real capitalism? I do not think so.

[Jeff @ May 19th 2006 11:07AM]

"...and BitTorrent downloads of patriotic anthems."

HAHAHAHA thats great...

[Pfft @ May 19th 2006 11:08AM]

Good thing they realized this *after* they spent all that money to buy them.

[Ryan @ May 19th 2006 11:11AM]

This is not that big of a deal. Classified systems don't make up THAT much of the computer force within the government. These will still be hooked up to unclassified networks I'm sure and will all be put to good use. I'm sure they are just going to be quarantined from JUST classified networks.

[trev @ May 19th 2006 11:16AM]

The whole siuation just seems daft - if you dont trust the product then why buy it? Do they actually have any reasonable evidence to be suspicious in the fist place?

Why is there always some pedantic person who feels the need to demonstrate their wisdom about the most mundane matters...Bilbo? :)

[dave @ May 19th 2006 11:19AM]

Xenophobia and hysterics, sweet. Go State Department!

[unhookt @ May 19th 2006 11:22AM]

It's called accountability folks. If a US company is responsible for release or distribution of classified information, heads will roll. If a Chinese company were responsible for the same, Lenovo would likely be afforded the full protection of their historically less than cooperative government. There would likely also be a parade in Tienemen Square.

[Nate @ May 19th 2006 11:23AM]

#5 is right

[Ryan @ May 19th 2006 11:43AM]

*Yawn* Old news...

[morgan @ May 19th 2006 11:44AM]

Who needs Lenovo and the chinese government to mess with secure information, when this administration sees fit to out a CIA agent.

[will chen @ May 19th 2006 11:54AM]

are you kidding me?

Thinkpads have been manufactured in China for the longest time.

Actually, its kinda funny since the US government(Boeing) actually sold China a bugged plane.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1769642.stm

Jesus, i would hate to be American. Your government is doing a horrible job of representing you guys... cept those crazy Christian Amerikkka nuts.

[henrrik @ May 19th 2006 11:57AM]

President Bush's iPod is made in China...

[Rob Bushway @ May 19th 2006 12:03PM]

I agree - you are talking about 900 computers out of 16,000....

[Will @ May 19th 2006 12:08PM]

Anything that is bought from China, no matter what company slaps their sticker on it supports Chinese espionage. Are you forgetting that China is still a hugely communist country, and that most companies in China, are wholly, or at least partly owned by the Communist Chinese Govenment. I can assure you that anytime these companies have a chance to help increase China's status in the world they will do it.

This is not Xenophobia, this is reality. China is doing whatever it can to elevate it's status in the world, and when we buy Chinese goods, we are helping the Chinese become a world superpower, just so we can save some money on a computer.

[V8v @ May 19th 2006 12:20PM]

Lenovo is Chinese- owned, moron.

Apple, HP etc. are manufactured there, but not owned by the government.

[John Doe @ May 19th 2006 12:27PM]

Lenovo is based in China. Apple and IBM are not. There is a difference when a government is within striking range of a company. As far as we all know Microsoft could have put backdoors into Windows for the government. This isn't paranoia this is simply a strategy that could be put into play by a government.
However what doesn't make any sense is that we have at least a few smart people in this country. Pull a few random samples off the line, pull the systems apart, and do a complete analysis of the hardware, BIOS, etc. Then go and physically inventory the hardware of each system to make sure everything else is identical. Yes it?s a lot of work and money but so is the cash they dumped into these systems in the first place.

[daniel @ May 19th 2006 12:30PM]

im surprised the unions at american computer companies dont fuss about this, it happens here in the uk that if the government takes out a contract with an overseas company, british companies who make similar products cause a fuss, i assume its the same in the us so the us government is buying foreign products over us made products which probably makes unions cause problems and to make it worse they dont trust lenovo

[Tim UF @ May 19th 2006 12:34PM]

the purchase order for the comps was prolly submitted back when thinkpads were IBM's not lenovo's... id imagine when lenovo got naming rights, they also got purchase contracts... so fbi could have been purchasing from a US company, nevermind that lenovo has been building them (for IBM) since before they actually got the naming rights.

just like an Sylvania TV you see isnt built by sylvania, but by some company paying sylvania for the rights to use the name. (sylvania is a US company btw)

[will chen @ May 19th 2006 12:52PM]

"16. Lenovo is Chinese- owned, moron.

Apple, HP etc. are manufactured there, but not owned by the government."

Uh, so what? Who actually touches the products... you guessed it. It doesnt matter that Apple is US owned, they hire manufacturers (THAT ARE CHINESE) to manufactur their computers. Apple doesnt have its own little plant in China.

Moron.

[Jesse @ May 19th 2006 12:54PM]

#18 The US tends to have more of a free market economy than the UK. With the current administration free trade is a good thing, so buying from a Chinese company causes competition and will force the American companies to do better so the government will buy from them next time. Also, the union presence in the United States is very low in the private sector, I believe it's only 27%.

[karaokequeen3 @ May 19th 2006 12:54PM]

Wow, what a surprise. You gotta love xenophobia via the back door. I can't think of an example comparable to this anywhere else in the world. Prove me wrong, kids! Prove me wrong...

[Mischa Lockton @ May 19th 2006 1:14PM]

They just don't understand do they? The computers don't need to come from China to have commie spyware installed. It can easily be added later.

They should focus on having trustable humans- the computers are not the problem. How about those diskdrives, laptops, and tapes etc. that keep disappearing?

Besides, how lame is IT if it can't reinstall some OS's?

The funniest part in all of these is that those jokers said yes, then after they are delivered, they say no... way to help with the gas crisis morons.

Boo on protectionism.

[Julian Bond @ May 19th 2006 1:22PM]

This clearly doesn't go far enough. Government departments should be made to only buy American products made on American soil by American companies. They can't be too careful these days what with the war on terrarh and all.

Oh. Right.

[henrrik @ May 19th 2006 1:27PM]

... and of course putting spyware in computers from a manufacturer with obvious Chinese goverment ties is the sneakiest thing the Chinese spymasters could think of. Sounds pretty crude to me.
How about just paying some schmuck with a gambling debt to hand over classified information?

[Mischa Lockton @ May 19th 2006 1:33PM]

First of all, I agree with #12, our government has done worse.

#19 There is no such thing- at some point, the parts are made in China due to costs. I guess the big difference is if the co is USA owned or not- but it would not be a big deal to me. If China is that bad- then why even assemble or make parts there? (tiny tiny bugs people) Gimmie a break! This protectionism will send us back into the paranoid 30's.

Besides- where are they going to find USA made computers and where are they going to find the 10x cash it would take? Oh, right, we never need the cash. (just put it on our biggest-in-human-history tab!)

Now if it were a Fender Stratocaster, I would completely understand.

[otakucode @ May 19th 2006 1:36PM]

I'm sure these machines will just be used for sensitive, but not classified, work. And there's a heck of a lot more sensitive work than there is classified.

[Mike @ May 19th 2006 1:40PM]

My guess is they found "something" in their new shipment and decided to quarantine the entire payload. Perhaps the new laptops were "different" from one tested before the major purchase was made.

[sherwood @ May 19th 2006 1:59PM]

How can the officials make judgement without building any case to support that? What is different between computers made in China vs lenovo PC made in China.. I'm sure Chinese spies will be silly enough to use a Chinese made devices to steal information.. (they prob will pick something not obvious, like ipod, dell laptops or your digital cameras to get information...)

[Jason @ May 19th 2006 2:13PM]

People laugh and yuck it up, but this is serious stuff. China is trying hard to raise it stock in Asia and become the principal power, pushing South Korea, Japan and Taiwain into the back seat.

What do you guys think China is dumping all of that money into that they are making by selling cheap computer components? They sure as hell aren't dumping it into their education system, it's going into military research so that their weapons and technology can catch up with the West.

[l @ May 19th 2006 2:15PM]

Idiots here say "I'm sure" too much.

It's entirely possible they have a specific reason to not use those laptops. It's also possible that they've already found something wrong with them. The end.

[Jason @ May 19th 2006 2:43PM]

I don't get why people think this is irrational. It's always better to be safe than sorry, especially when hardware has been used for spy tactics before.
For example, the US sold printers with Trojans on them to Iraq during the Gulf War. When there's precedent, it's not paranoia; it's safety.

[x23 @ May 19th 2006 2:43PM]

"22. It doesnt matter that Apple is US owned, they hire manufacturers (THAT ARE CHINESE) to manufactur their computers. Apple doesnt have its own little plant in China.

Moron."


actually it does. it's called corporate accountability. no one is doubting that Apple (and basically everyone else) contracts out their work. sorry, but you aren't a master sleuth for figuring that out. but Apple is still a US company. Lenovo is not. contrary to what you would like to believe that actually DOES make a difference.

EXACTLY like #9 said. might as well repost it... as apparently everyone just skipped right over it in order to make really idiotic sounding posts. normally involving 'xenophobia' or really incredibly tired US bashing and other drivel.


"9. It's called accountability folks. If a US company is responsible for release or distribution of classified information, heads will roll. If a Chinese company were responsible for the same, Lenovo would likely be afforded the full protection of their historically less than cooperative government. There would likely also be a parade in Tienemen Square."

[Froggy @ May 19th 2006 2:52PM]

welcome to the DEPARTMENT OF HATE... go Condi, way to cave into Hill pressure.

[tekdemon @ May 19th 2006 3:03PM]

I think the problem here is that they're suddenly being very paranoid when in reality they should probably have checked all their computers anyway.

Also, even if something isn't manufacturered in China, that doesn't mean that their intelligence people can't bribe someone to put spy components in something made in the US. Seriously even if ipods were made in the US, what's to stop Chinese intelligence from bribing one of the plant managers with $200,000 to use bugged chips in a few runs of the ipods? Then they'd just make sure that that ended up in some order shipped to military bases or something.

Seriously, there's a bazillion ways to get bugs planted in those laptops, so suddenly being all paranoid just because Lenovo bought IBM's PC line is kinda silly.

Which is why I agree with the others that are saying that this is just political bashing. Seriously though, if they really wanted to be secure they'd have to check down every single thing that makes it's way onto DoS premises. Which is quite frankly, impossible.

At the end of the day though it's not like we don't have our own spies either, that's kind of the whole point isn't it? To always keep up your spying so you know what the other person has spied about you. So in the end you even up everyone's advantage.

[Jason @ May 19th 2006 3:16PM]

"At the end of the day though it's not like we don't have our own spies either, that's kind of the whole point isn't it? To always keep up your spying so you know what the other person has spied about you. So in the end you even up everyone's advantage."
So what's your point? Because we spy on China, that means we ought to allow ourselves to be spied on or possibly sabatoged by them? In a communist country, Lenovo could easily be ordered by the Chinese government to modify their hardware; a very real threat.
If the Chinese government were to do something similar to Apple's plant, it would be difficult, must be done covertly, and could have huge ramifications for China's economy if they were discovered doing so. It's not like Lenovo can just relocate.

[travis @ May 19th 2006 3:24PM]

This is completely retarded. I used to be in the military and before we even considered putting a computer on the network, classified or unclassified, we reloaded them. Its not like youre forced to use the standard load that comes on the computer...

[will chen @ May 19th 2006 3:46PM]

"32.
"22. It doesnt matter that Apple is US owned, they hire manufacturers (THAT ARE CHINESE) to manufactur their computers. Apple doesnt have its own little plant in China.

Moron."


actually it does. it's called corporate accountability. no one is doubting that Apple (and basically everyone else) contracts out their work. sorry, but you aren't a master sleuth for figuring that out. but Apple is still a US company. Lenovo is not. contrary to what you would like to believe that actually DOES make a difference.

EXACTLY like #9 said. might as well repost it... as apparently everyone just skipped right over it in order to make really idiotic sounding posts. normally involving 'xenophobia' or really incredibly tired US bashing and other drivel."

I hate to burst your bubble, but as accountable as Apple would be, its not like they can monitor the plants under a microscope. Espionage is different than quality control, espionage isnt exactly easy to detect.

Your idea is right, its just not applicable to espionage. Do you think Apple would know if someone manufacturing the computers bugged them as well? I don't think so.

You're also right on the point that Apple would be severly punished if this happened on their watch. What i'm saying is, they're just as helpless as Lenovo to stop it.

Being an American company manufacturing in China will not stop these things. In fact, even if the products were manufactured in the states, these things might still happen.

[Jason @ May 19th 2006 3:50PM]

37. Apparently you are pretty clueless. Bugs can be planted in the BIOS, hidden partitions, as well as hardware bugs (chips) that can be right on the computer motherboard or in other less obvious places.

Hell, you could build a tiny flash drive with embedded key-logger software that then transmitted the captured data over the network and be very stealthy about it (you could easily hide it among the other mainboard components).

[sfeng1 @ May 19th 2006 3:52PM]

i see nothing wrong with this, just extra precautions. And also, Lenovo is just the first step in a series of Chinese attempts to aquire US companies, in order to gain an economic foothold - and a lot political leverage - over the US, such as Haier's attempt to buy out Whirlpool (in which the State Department vehemently opposed, and eventually balked).

[Eric @ May 19th 2006 4:00PM]

Unless CHINA has invaded and taken over TAIWAN without our notice (not bloody likely), then Apple computers are not made in China.

Unless you buy the commie party line that Taiwan is a province of the motherland.

I think the Tainwanese would beg to differ. Our missiles allow them do so...

[Joel @ May 19th 2006 4:04PM]

The probably saw the event logs that state "The Wicked Access by Mark service was successfully sent a start control." that shows up every few minutes on all Lenovo laptops. Apparently they feel this a good name for the recovery application on the laptop, and that it wouldn't raise anybody's suspicions.

[tekdemon @ May 19th 2006 5:19PM]

Re: #37 (Jason)
Err you missed the entire point of my post dude...and that was that it's silly because they're suddenly freaking out when there's about a bazillion other ways to do things.
Whether or not Lenovo is a Chinese company doesn't matter because the intelligence agencies DO NOT OPERATE UNDER THE LAW!!! Do you seriously think the CIA/KGB/Chinese intelligence really care whether something is legal?

If Chinese intelligence bribed some factory manager at an Apple plant to place rigged components inside a shipment of ipods, sure it'd be illegal, but it doesn't change the fact that it would just as easily be done. The fact that Lenovo is a Chinese company doesn't mean all of a sudden Chinese intelligence is openly sending them open orders to plant bugs, are you kidding me? That would be the opposite of covert you know.

[Scott Gentzen @ May 19th 2006 7:41PM]

Aside from the whole security/trust debate....

There's a big difference between banning a piece of hardware from being used for classified data and banning hardware from unclassified data. The hardware will go somewhere and get used for something else.

The article actually says that out of the 16,000 batch, 900 were tagged to be used in classified data.

[unhookt @ May 19th 2006 7:57PM]

Thanks #34.

At the very least it is the responsibility of the government to take such precautions. There is precedence for these kinds of actions and as a result such concern and the related decision on the part of the government is merited.

[TC @ May 19th 2006 8:26PM]

I agree that precautions should be taken, but shouldn't setting administrator passwords be a priority?

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39208859,00.htm

[sean @ May 20th 2006 2:57AM]

so...let's fact it.
as far as i know, Lenovo, Fujisu and Asus are the only few PC makers that have their own production lines. for example, every Apple computer is made directly from Asus's production line in china. (so does Hp, Dell,alienware..)
so exactually how will U.S government find a PC brand that is NOT MADE IN CHINA?

How can you acutally find anything that is not made in china?

[notadumbamerican @ May 20th 2006 3:10AM]

The american government and the US popultion are a bunch of stupid idiotic morons. No wonder people want to blow you all up.

[Marc Mayor @ May 20th 2006 4:54AM]

If you don't take this huge threat seriously, then either your are not a patriot, or you are paid by these commie bastards...

JUST KIDDING ! ;-)

Nice post Marc