Dutch athletes warned to keep phones and laptops out of China

https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/dutch-athletes-warned-keep-phones-laptops-out-china-media-2022-01-11/

by throway453sde • 5 years ago

104 44 5 years ago

pjmlp• 5 years ago

I wonder if their next phones will be Made in Netherlands, or where will they buy them from to avoid spyware built into the firmware straight out of factory.

This is the kind of half baked decisions that show how those on the decision chain aren't deep into security and only are into it for the news.

antishatter2• 5 years ago

While true it’s still a good decision.

brnt• 5 years ago

Sometimes half baked is better than a tray of eggs and some flour.

r00fus• 5 years ago

It's mitigation. If a SLA wants into a specific phone they can likely do it (whether using NSOGroup or more upstream means).

chihuahua• 5 years ago

A large OS vendor issues its employees special hardened laptops for accessing any systems containing customer data. They have a very elaborate and inconvenient setup that's supposed to make them super-secure. The laptops are shipped directly from Lenovo in China. I asked the guy who was presenting this scheme how they know they aren't compromised from the factory, and he shrugged. I'm not sure what that means.

Symbiote2• 5 years ago

There are phones made in South Korea, India, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan.

throwawayboise2• 5 years ago

Good advice for anyone.

antishatter2• 5 years ago

100% and many companies that are security aware have similar policies.

thaumasiotes2• 5 years ago

It's good advice for diplomats and such.

Most people are of no interest to China; why is this warning being given to athletes? Who wants to compromise them? How?

sorokod• 5 years ago

Can you share the criteria by which "China" determines if a person is of interest?

s5300• 5 years ago

It might be a bad look on the athletes country if they were to find nudes or something, for lack of a better example. Blackmail in general.

Sometimes that doesn’t matter though, such as the Sukarno sextape.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-cia-and-kgb-tried-to-bl...

Symbiote2• 5 years ago

Diplomats are protected by the Vienna Convention -- although in practise, I assume many take significant precautions. They must protect against ordinary loss and theft anyway.

namelessoracle• 5 years ago

Blackmail. "Dont win against our team or we will leak your data" being the threat.

China definitely wants to have winning teams when they are hosting.

mcguire• 5 years ago

It's not always what you take in; sometimes it's what you bring back.

bostik• 5 years ago

A successful or otherwise interestingly profiled athlete in Olympics will have recurring contacts with sports (and lifestyle) beat journalists. They in turn will have contact with their peers working their respective beats.

So with just two degrees of separation from an athlete, you have a high chance to get direct access to political reporters and their contacts. Add device-to-device no-interaction exploits and you're well set at harvesting a whole lot of material.

indymike• 5 years ago

Who wants to compromise them? How?

Think about it. World class competition. Young person talking to friends about something off color or just young and stupid. Leak it. Mental edge and concentration gone. And that is the least harmful thing I can think of.

dopa42365• 5 years ago

Sounds like good advice for everyone traveling to countries that scan/copy your devices on entry.

https://www.wired.com/2010/11/hacker-border-search/

uoaei• 5 years ago

Is there an up-to-date source on which countries do what kinds of scanning/copying?

Is it the case that device-level encryption successfully prevents access to the contents, or is that a layer I should refuse to trust?

renzo882• 5 years ago

Depending on country laws, refusing to reveal keys or even device-level encryption itself may be illegal/cause you to be detained.

The best thing you can do is bring a wiped device through, and assume that it and its data can be seized at any time. Also treat any device as disposable - once seized, it should not be trusted.

AlexGood• 5 years ago

U.S. CBP reported that they conducted 40k electronic searches in 2019, or about 1-in-10000 travelers. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/speeches-and-statements/cbp-sta...

renzo882• 5 years ago

A friendly reminder, this is unconstitutional if you're a us citizen. However, they can still absolutely ruin your day.

On entry to any country, I sync my devices and wipe them.

TrueGeek• 5 years ago

Non-paywall link: https://web.archive.org/web/20210421205347/https://www.wired...

Yajirobe2• 5 years ago

Why did they do this to him??

tremon2• 5 years ago

Does that really matter?

fnakL• 5 years ago

This from a country (Netherlands) that is world leader in surveillance and extrajudicial punishment (persoonsgerichte verstoring, directly from the Stasi playbook).

belter• 5 years ago

Only the Dutch can spy on the Dutch...they can't afford others to do the same...

"Dutch civil servants used social media to spy on citizens, says study" https://www.euronews.com/2021/05/19/dutch-civil-servants-use...

"Netherlands: End dangerous mass surveillance policing experiments" https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/netherlands-e...

"The Netherlands, a surveillance state?" https://www.ictrecht.nl/en/blog/the-netherlands-a-surveillan...

"Watchdog: New law lets gov't spy on "all Dutch people"" https://nltimes.nl/2015/09/01/watchdog-new-law-lets-govt-spy...

throwawaysea• 5 years ago

So what’s the solution? Take a clean device and then connect it to online services from China? Or are they advising against that ad well? Presumably this is about physical device searches and not the safety of internet access in general.

throwawayboise2• 5 years ago

Yes. Take in clean devices, and dispose of them when you leave. And don't do anything sensitive while you are there.

willcipriano• 5 years ago

If you have the sort of thing they would be interested in you probably have to check your hotel for bugs as well. I wouldn't access anything I want to keep private from within China.

saiya-jin• 5 years ago

Well, if you are lets say Politically exposed person (PEP) or holder of any kind of significant wealth, power or influence, this applies to pretty much any country definitely including US. For Android/iOS that's +-already covered with NSA and god knows what lurks in firmwares of ie network controllers in laptops.

Smart move is not this kind of (even if well deserved in this case) fearmongering of specific country, but sobering/smarting up and not putting any kind of sensitive data on blackbox devices with free access to internet.

Happy to live my insignificant middle class life and not be even a bit bothered by this kind of crap. And even with full access to my phone there is nothing really bad that can be done to me / my family.

tremon2• 5 years ago

And even with full access to my phone there is nothing really bad that can be done to me / my family.

Uploading CP to it doesn't classify as really bad?

alamortsubite• 5 years ago

For obvious reasons, the Chinese government is extraordinarily sensitive to criticism. I wonder if the Dutch policy has less to do with device security (the reason given by officials), and more to do with avoiding an international row stemming from some athlete's post on social media during the games.

hunglee2• 5 years ago

Sounds advice, one which I am sure the Dutch government would routinely give to their citizens who visit to any country which gives itself the right to access personal information on the device.

paxys• 5 years ago

A lot of large companies in the US (including my own) have similar policies for China travel. We are not allowed to take any work devices into China. The company loans us "clean" phones and laptops (without any company data or access to company networks) that we can use while we are there.

28304283409234• 5 years ago

I maintain the same policy when going to the US. Burnerphone + laptop.

nemoniac• 5 years ago

For anyone interested in a Dutch perspective on surveillance and how the Netherlands tries to place itself in the maelstrom of international digital warfare, this is a good read:

http://www.letterenfonds.nl/en/book/1273/the-invisible-digit...

musicale• 5 years ago

Unfortunately both my phone and laptop originated in China.

Can they be trusted?

trompetenaccoun• 5 years ago

Depends on what you mean by "originated" and "trusted". As an example I'd advice against shopping for Huawei phones running 'HarmonyOS' while on holiday in Mainland China. But you probably already know this.

antman• 5 years ago

While working for a US multinational I was given a list of countries that when visiting I have to have a formatted/new/empty laptop at the border.

The list included the US.

nevermindiguess• 5 years ago

The shocking fact is that the international community allows such an event to be held in a country where one cannot safely take a phone or computer. But since that could be said for many other “good” countries, then I suppose it becomes normal to engage with these “bad” countries despite their human rights violations. And that is a big source of cynicism for many people: if the “good and righteous” international community does business with countries like China and they themselves engage in the same human rights violations, then the ethical base for these countries’ legal system is demolished. And when the legal system is completely debased, then anything goes. Crimes can no longer be defined and therefore punished. A citizen’s revenge towards its government is no longer a crime. Just another act that can no longer be judged by any ethical standards (other than one’s subjective moral one). When those institutions entrusted with upholding society’s ethical values through the law (ie the right to privacy, the right to a fair legal process, etc.) no longer abide to the law themselves, anarchy ensues. Just watch the consequences of the international community failing to hold responsible those who created the conditions for your pandemic, for the sake of their commercial interests.

disgu• 5 years ago

Work for a European company and we have the same rules for Russia, the US and China. I don't know the full list of countries but those are the only two relevant for my travels.

Dutch athletes warned to keep phones and laptops out of China

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