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Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

This is a remarkable opinion.

If we have problems with consumer-hostile behaviour like tracking users, remotely disabling vehicles, or other things like that we should outlaw those behaviours in products used in the US.

We will never do that because Western auto manufacturers want to be able to behave badly in the same way Chinese manufacturers might and they have a firm grasp on the American governments leash.

'Its from China' is a dumb reason not to allow a product into the market. If there are specific features, standards, etc that should be followed, enforce those.

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I agree with you that consumer hostile behaviour should be illegal. Realistically, governments want this because it gives them more control so its not going to happen.

"its from China" is a good reason for many countries. A lot of countries are currently worried about their dependence on the US. They would have a lot more to worry about if they were dependent on China. Is it a good idea for European countries to put themselves in a position where China could disable half the vehicles in their country? The same for every Asian country that might have a dispute with China. Just borrowing money from China has proved to be a disaster for some Asian countries even without a dispute.

I'm gonna blow your mind here... Perhaps we need open firmware in our devices so we know if China, the US government, or Google is adding backdoors to the hardware we own?

Why is it that when we deal with China it's acceptable not to trust the vendor but when we buy from literally anyone else we have to accept the enormous number of backdoors and implicit spying that comes with it?

China isn't the problem. The perverse incentives created when we don't own our own gear is.

> I'm gonna blow your mind here... Perhaps we need open firmware in our devices so we know if China, the US government, or Google is adding backdoors to the hardware we own?

Yes, dream on. How are you going to politically push through something very few people even understand? I covered this is in the first line of my comment.

> Why is it that when we deal with China it's acceptable not to trust the vendor but when we buy from literally anyone else we have to accept the enormous number of backdoors and implicit spying that comes with it?

You have to accept it from someone. You seem to have missed my point that for many people (and countries) trusting Chinese vendors is worse than trusting the alternatives.

Why do we have to accept it? People assume so many distasteful aspects of our society are inviolable features of reality and not just something some people decided.

It has nothing to do with consumer hostile behaviors. Its bad when a hostile foreign government has control over and information about (think blackmail, not ads) your citizens.

A junior engineer on the x-500 future fighter jet drives a polestar and seems to be visiting the house of a single woman (which they know from tiktok days) while his family would probably think he would be at work. Will this guy throw away his family or start handing over USB keys?

Any even mildly intelligent politician is going to try and block this ability.

> Its [sic] bad when a hostile foreign government has [...] information about [...] your citizens

How many domestic automotive manufacturers does America have, and how many times has the current administration threatened annexation of their Northern "ally"?

This is, at best, hypocrisy; and being on the recieving end of the annexation threats, I'm disinclined to use the most generous interpretation of America's "Rules for me but not for thee" attitude

You don't have to buy any American products, and can vote for politicians that want to ban American access to Canadian markets.

Countries have been spying on each other (and their citizens) for centuries. Its not hypocrisy so much as run of the mill geopolitics.

Also, this rule is from the Biden administration, not Trump.

What’s your actual point here? Is it that no country should ever trust another because they can one day turn hostile? Are you advocating that all global trade of electronic-based products should be banned?

You're being confused by nationalism into not seeing that you're making exactly the point I just did. The bad thing here is not that China knows where you are 24/7. It's that anybody does. Why is it bad for China to be able to spy on you but acceptable that Google can? The US government? How about we just STOP THE SPYING? Regardless of who is doing it?

Great. But the solution is not to let china just do it while we work on the solution. Block them, and work on blocking local suppliers.

Don't double the problem before you try to fix it.

You have a bacterial infection of the toe and of the finger. If i cut off your toe your foot problem is solved. Or...you can take antibiotics and not cut off anything.

Like it or not, China is the world's factory now. The west has decided it doesn't want to dirty it's hands making things anymore, so it is what it is. Make reasonable, standard daylight firmware a required feature of all these devices and you simultaneously solve about a thousand problems.

But GMs security of their tracking information is 100% perfect and no foreign adversary will gain access? BS. Either we need to ban it completely for all manufacturers, or we don't actually care.

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