proud republican Loc: RED CALIFORNIA

pafret Loc: Northeast

Our microchip industry is defunct and all of our stuff comes from Asia. Only a fool would not realize that sooner or later the Asians would embed circuity in these chips which enable them to steal data. With our computers babbling all day and night responding to who knows what external queries does anyone beleive their stuff is safe on the computer?

About twenty years ago one of the six remaining factories producing memory chips (all in asia) burned down, the resulting price increase in memory chips was astronomical. I laugh when I see the saber rattlers boasting about our weapon superiority when they are heavily dependent on microcircuits produced by our likely adversaries. Do they think that our enemies will continue to supply them or are they so technologically ignorant that they are unaware of the time to develop the expertise, machinery and physical plant to supply our needs?

Abel

Right on the money! The only "almost sure" way to prevent this is to make all the critical chips in the USA, using secure manufacturers that are under tight scrutiny, and end product manufacturers monitoring every incoming chip for any variance in specified functional ability and activity or any "back-doors," which will significantly increase the cost of each chip and the end product. Then buy only computers "Made in USA!" Pretty impractical! I say "almost" because there will always be spies and disgruntled employees, and money talks while BS walks; dangle enough of the right bait in front of a fish and even the best will bite, and piss enough employees off and one or more will surely leave you a gift that keeps on giving. Surveillance isn't perfect, and obviously neither is the government. Protect yourself, it is your responsibility! If you have some secret you wish to keep, don't tell ANYONE, don't talk in your sleep, and most certainly don't put it into a computer or on the internet!

Like lawyers continually making new laws, so many that we now find it impossible to remember them all, so they will have work to do to earn money defending us in court because we broke a law we didn't know about or remember, companies that "protect" us from v***ses and malware could themselves be introducing malware and v***ses into the system so they have a never ending supply of work "protecting" us from them. Maybe Artificial Intelligence will be able to lead us out of this fiasco; since we have the best judges money can buy in this country, at least an AI judge would be more consistent as to penalties for various "crimes" than a liberal judge. Just a thought.