Bring my electronics to China?
April 1, 2023 12:05 PM Subscribe
Going to Hangzhou for two months for work. Some folks suggest not bringing my regular cell phone. Some folks warn not to access any of my accounts while I'm there. That seems like a colossal pain, but better than identity theft and/or spyware I'll never be able to get rid of. How paranoid should I be? ( (I'm bringing my company laptop. I work for a huge Chinese company.)
I have lived in china for 6 years, which I suppose has necessitated certain compromises that someone visiting for just two months might not want to make. I am a pretty technical person, and pretty paranoid compared to many, though I'm not a security expert and try to take a principled but not overly dramatic take on security.
honestly...in your position, I would not worry. the chinese government is powerful, but like, how do you think they are going to get into your cell phone? but sure, you could get a burner and be careful about what you use and what you access...but...
( (I'm bringing my company laptop. I work for a huge Chinese company.
to me, this dwarfs everything else! the idea of being afraid the chinese government is going to hack your phone via 4G when you have a company laptop issued by a large Chinese company...to me, using your company laptop for anything personal is a significantly larger risk than accessing your gmail via your personal phone in china. I mean, that applies to using your work laptop for personal stuff no matter what company, but definitely for a chinese one...
but I mean, this all comes down to a threat model. I mention this just because a lot of people tend to understandably have very broad, amorphous fears about life here that is more driven by anxiety than anything else. the chinese government being able to get spyware onto phones that are foreign roaming from within china would be an incredibly huge deal. if they had such a hack, it would be world shattering news for 100 reasons. that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but like...even if they did have it, do you think they would waste it on you? they'd be giving up knowledge of an extremely powerful political tool, and for what? the fact that china is not arresting foreigners en masse, or chinese people who use vpns etc and are much less careful than I am, indicates to me that this is not really a practical risk. but it comes down to what sorts of things you use your personal devices for, and what you are afraid of. I would say that practically speaking, your personal devices, especially through a vpn, are about 100000x safer than your company laptop. that is what you should be worried about, inside or outside of china.
I will say that various tech companies I've worked at in the past had china policies, which were that we weren't allowed to bring work anything to china. but the reason they gave was explicit: they were afraid that they plant something in our phone or work laptop in security. this at least is plausible...well, the odds of them being like "we are going to take your laptop to an inspection room" is very low, but if they did do that, then you should definitely assume that said laptop (or phone etc) is compromised and get rid of that (but again, I mean, you work for a large chinese company lol which by the nature of business in china already has to manage a relationship with the government, I guarantee your company has a communist party/xi jin ping thought reading room at their HQ, for example...). but merely bringing your personal devices is in my opinion not sufficient to be worried. it'd be interesting to have any actual concrete evidence to the contrary, though. where are the arrested foreigners (that aren't clearly motivated)? like, if you follow how china polices chinese people, when they crack down...they go around and look at people's phones, force them to install things, etc. if they had the ability to transparently spy on people simply by nature of being on the telecom network, why would they need to go through the trouble?
posted by wooh at 4:53 AM on April 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
honestly...in your position, I would not worry. the chinese government is powerful, but like, how do you think they are going to get into your cell phone? but sure, you could get a burner and be careful about what you use and what you access...but...
( (I'm bringing my company laptop. I work for a huge Chinese company.
to me, this dwarfs everything else! the idea of being afraid the chinese government is going to hack your phone via 4G when you have a company laptop issued by a large Chinese company...to me, using your company laptop for anything personal is a significantly larger risk than accessing your gmail via your personal phone in china. I mean, that applies to using your work laptop for personal stuff no matter what company, but definitely for a chinese one...
but I mean, this all comes down to a threat model. I mention this just because a lot of people tend to understandably have very broad, amorphous fears about life here that is more driven by anxiety than anything else. the chinese government being able to get spyware onto phones that are foreign roaming from within china would be an incredibly huge deal. if they had such a hack, it would be world shattering news for 100 reasons. that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, but like...even if they did have it, do you think they would waste it on you? they'd be giving up knowledge of an extremely powerful political tool, and for what? the fact that china is not arresting foreigners en masse, or chinese people who use vpns etc and are much less careful than I am, indicates to me that this is not really a practical risk. but it comes down to what sorts of things you use your personal devices for, and what you are afraid of. I would say that practically speaking, your personal devices, especially through a vpn, are about 100000x safer than your company laptop. that is what you should be worried about, inside or outside of china.
I will say that various tech companies I've worked at in the past had china policies, which were that we weren't allowed to bring work anything to china. but the reason they gave was explicit: they were afraid that they plant something in our phone or work laptop in security. this at least is plausible...well, the odds of them being like "we are going to take your laptop to an inspection room" is very low, but if they did do that, then you should definitely assume that said laptop (or phone etc) is compromised and get rid of that (but again, I mean, you work for a large chinese company lol which by the nature of business in china already has to manage a relationship with the government, I guarantee your company has a communist party/xi jin ping thought reading room at their HQ, for example...). but merely bringing your personal devices is in my opinion not sufficient to be worried. it'd be interesting to have any actual concrete evidence to the contrary, though. where are the arrested foreigners (that aren't clearly motivated)? like, if you follow how china polices chinese people, when they crack down...they go around and look at people's phones, force them to install things, etc. if they had the ability to transparently spy on people simply by nature of being on the telecom network, why would they need to go through the trouble?
posted by wooh at 4:53 AM on April 2, 2023 [6 favorites]
working in infosec, the general rule was treat any electronics you bring into china as compromised. some companies even have "burner laptops" for this reason. it sucks. but it's real.
posted by evilmonk at 8:59 AM on April 3, 2023
posted by evilmonk at 8:59 AM on April 3, 2023
Yeah, I'm wondering about your company laptop - are you accessing personal accounts on that? If so, that's the first piece of security to tighten up before, during, and after your trip.
Assuming you're treating that as a no-personal-accounts zone, then it's just a matter of personal choice how secure you want to be.
I personally would do the burner electronics, minimal-access-to-personal-accounts stuff, but that's partly a function of what information I have access to through my job, and of wanting to protect the privacy of people I communicate with - I'd take not just my own privacy into account, but that of anyone whose accounts touch mine.
I certainly have friends who've spent weeks in China and posted through it with no apparent ill effects.
posted by Stacey at 9:08 AM on April 3, 2023
Assuming you're treating that as a no-personal-accounts zone, then it's just a matter of personal choice how secure you want to be.
I personally would do the burner electronics, minimal-access-to-personal-accounts stuff, but that's partly a function of what information I have access to through my job, and of wanting to protect the privacy of people I communicate with - I'd take not just my own privacy into account, but that of anyone whose accounts touch mine.
I certainly have friends who've spent weeks in China and posted through it with no apparent ill effects.
posted by Stacey at 9:08 AM on April 3, 2023
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posted by emkelley at 4:12 AM on April 2, 2023 [3 favorites]