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Spy Games In America And China
by William New
No one should be surprised to learn that the United States and China actively spy on each other. But it might be interesting to compare the ways they do it.
That is what a panel of U.S. experts did at the new International Spy Museum in Washington last week at an event called "The China Equation," sponsored by the Asia Society Washington Center. The participants included Paul Moore, former FBI chief analyst for China matters; Steven Mufson, former Chinese bureau chief at The Washington Post; and Bates Gill, Freeman chair of China studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Moore said China is trying to modernize by collecting information from public places and clandestinely where it can. He described how Chinese officials gather data from knowledgeable people -- such as government officials or high-tech industry executives -- either in the United States or visiting China by befriending them and getting them to divulge more information than they intended. He said Chinese intelligence agents do not appear to be motivated by greed, revenge or personal problems the way U.S. and other intelligence agents are.
Gill said the United States tends to rely more on high-tech reconnaissance and surveillance in China and in the United States. But neither side is able to do as much intelligence-gathering as they would like, he said. Gill recommended that policymakers be aware that as relations between the nations get more intense, even brief misunderstandings can cause big problems, so policymaking should not rely too much on intelligence, which can be incomplete.
Gill said targets of Chinese intelligence-gathering in the United States include military technology and industrial secrets. But he noted, "China's record of accessing technologies and integrating them into its industrial base is pretty poor."
E-Government Hurdles Identified In England
Research commissioned by the United Kingdom Office of the Deputy Prime Minister shows that local authorities in England are beginning to see the benefits of e-government, but a lack of skills and understanding is hindering their progress, europemedia.net reports.
The government report said nearly three-quarters of local councils identified skills gaps. More than half reported that their officers lack the ability to do cost-benefit analysis of e-government programs, and 70 percent said members fail to appreciate how e-government contributes to their strategic objectives.
The study showed variability in the implementation of e-government initiatives but noted some consistency. For instance, most local governments have partnerships with private technology suppliers. But local authorities are split over whether suppliers understand their requirements.
Also in Britain, a new organization has formed to promote information security. A chapter of the Information Systems Security Association (ISSA) was created to promote practices that ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of information resources. ISSA is the largest international, nonprofit association specifically for information security experts, with 10,000 members and 64 chapters worldwide.
An ISSA statement said that information security, or the perceived lack of it, is one of the key factors delaying growth of the Internet. It has identified five areas critical to the success of the information security industry: executive knowledge, industry self-governance, government and legal issues, education and awareness for technology users and technical issues.
Elsewhere on the cyber-security front, the International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crime Bureau last week issued a call for tighter password protection among financial institutions, following a recent case of password theft in the United States that may cost $3 million.
The theft occurred when a help-desk employee at a credit-reporting software company in Long Island allegedly stole and sold more than 30,000 personal credit-card numbers. The ICC bureau, based in London, offered several recommendations for protecting passwords.
Let The Dialogue Begin
The United States and the European Union on Tuesday agreed to renew their commitment to the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue as a key venue for government and industry discussions.
The renewed commitment came after a meeting in Brussels, Belgium, among Grant Aldonas, the U.S. Commerce undersecretary for international trade; Jean-Paul Mingasson, the European Commission's director-general for enterprise; and Pierre Defraigne, deputy director-general for trade. Aldonas said in a statement that the two sides see the need to work on trade facilitation, which typically includes such issues as streamlined customs procedures.
The Technology Market Abroad
An initiative of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) resulted in 14 international business deals for U.S. telecom and tech firms in 2002, according to results announced Tuesday.
TIA began working in 2001 with the USAID program called the Global Trade and Technology Network. The GTN program is active in 51 emerging markets. Many of the deals came out of GTN's participation in Supercomm 2002, an annual industry exhibition and conference co-owned by TIA, the association said.
Meanwhile, in India, experts said the rapid rate of technological advance has failed to reach the common man. India Times reports that Kenneth Keniston, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the hopes attached to e-commerce and e-governance have been "an illusion" in India due to the high cost of computers and government corruption.
And the U.N. International Telecommunication Union, together with a project on governing Internet-address suffixes for countries, has launched a global survey on the relationship between national governments and their domain names, such as .uk for the United Kingdom. Surveys are in English, French and Spanish.
U.S., Sweden Join Forces On Nanotechnology
A panel of leading researchers from the United States and Sweden meet Wednesday in California to discuss the latest research in nanotechnology and potential commercial applications. The Swedish consulate in Santa Monica is organizing the event.
"Nanotechnology is so diverse in its potential applications that the technology will impact our lives in virtually every imaginable way," Consul General Andreas Ekman said in a statement. "Sweden and California both are working on the cutting edge in various areas of biotechnology, so it is fitting that we are working together to explore the scientific and commercial potential of this revolutionary new field."
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