Posted on 03/20/2004 4:06:30 AM PST by sarcasm
Washington, March 20:With as many as three million software industry jobs poised to move offshore by 2015, the US industry needs to protect itself against potential security risks, including economic espionage, the chairman of the National Intelligence Council has warned.
“While outsourcing of business functions is a growing trend that helps firms cut costs, it also brings potential security risks--particularly when outsourcing involves entities owned and operated abroad,” Robert L. Hitchings, Chairman of the council, which is the US intelligence community's think tank said while addressing the international security management association in Scottsdale.
He said besides outsourcing, writing computer codes aboard and importing hardware entails security risks. “As many as 3 million software industry jobs could move offshore by 2015, with 70 per cent of these jobs moving to India, 20 per cent to the Philippines and 10 per cent to China,” he said. Warning that corporate leaders need to be on guard.
“Corporate leaders need to be on guard and know who their business partners are and what security measures they have in place to protect against loss, whether through unintended leakage of proprietary business information, deliberate thefts of intellectual property, or outright economic espionage," Hitchings said.
While technology now allows companies to have their most sensitive proprietary computer code written overseas, he said the inability of companies to sufficiently vet the personnel involved in these activities can create a “significant vulnerability.”
US openness to foreign trade and investment and its commitment to global information sharing through academic and scientific exchange, Hitchings said unfortunately leave US technologies highly exposed to foreign exploitation. Pointing out that collectors last year employed a wide variety of techniques in their quest to circumvent US restrictions in the acquisition of sensitive manufacturing processes, he said foreigners often through middlemen acquired sensitive US technologies simply by requesting them via e-mail, faxes or telephones.
Globally networked information systems, he said, also present vulnerabilities, and even the simplest computer threats pose real risks for US companies’ business interests and proprietary knowledge.
Information technology, said Hutchings, has become as important to the US economy as oil, and the growing dependency of the US on foreign it "raises concerns for corporate as well as national security." for instance, he said, half of the world's laptops, one quarter of desktop computers, and half of all PC motherboards are now assembled in China. Taiwan is now responsible for about 70 per cent of all semiconductor production for hire--producing chips designed and marketed by others.”
This growing US dependence, said Hutchings, makes US IT firms vulnerable to interruptions of foreign-built critical components, whether intentional or accidental. “Foreign supply disruptions could suspend US firms' deliveries of finished systems within only a few days, as most carry limited inventories.”
Bump!
Yer sounding like the Democrats...It's pretty tough defending Bush by saying, ok, we know he's a bum, but so are you guys...So we'll stick with our bum...Or, our bum is still better than your bum...
Besides, if Heinz sends their foreign made pickles back to the US, then yes, we're dealing with apples vs. apples...But if they don't there's no argument...
"I think your readers should be more concerned about the whole outsourcing phenomenon. Because if you have so many foreigners creating code that is ultimately shipped back to the U.S., and if you have the U.S. government policy of buying off-the-shelf software, guess what's happening?
"We may be unknowingly allowing backdoor traps in the code. Hackers could very well be putting in compromising code. We have to be careful, because more and more companies, by necessity, are building their code overseas."
Mr. Chen is a big fan of H1B so the patented "free" traders' invective that some use such as "protectionist" or "racist" is even sillier.
Uh, the high paying jobs that are acomin'. Next question.
Oops. Wrong question.
You see, no American has a right to job! If the business decides to outsource and it interferes with the American's pursuit of happiness to make a living then that's tough.
Of course when the government interferes with the corporations' pursuit of happiness to make maximum profits.. well, er.. that's just not fa-a-a-a-air.
Kerry really wants to win--as witness his sizeable contributions to his own campaign. He will no longer be shackled with the demands of Massachusetts politics, and may be expected to move sharply to the right. If he puts McCain on the ticket, you can pretty well predict that they have made the obvious assessment that they can run a smarter campaign than the dysfunctional Karl Rove.
While few on the Republican side seem to want to grasp the fact, Karl Rove is not astute. Karl Rove depends upon yesterday's data, not analytic abilities. He suffers from a severe form of "Tunnel Vision" and has no real analytic abilities. (See Karl Rove--Dysron, Quack or Mole?.)
It is, of course, much too early to try to predict a campaign that will not even really start for serveral months. The present sparring around is more feel out than serious politics. But as of now, things look very bleak for the Republicans--not from anything the Democrats have to say, but from the likely consequences over the next six or seven months, of things which Rove has already done to us.
William Flax
I, of course, agree with the article on the obvious security threats, noted. But, frankly, the article gravely understates what is really happening to the prospects for an ongoing American future. Outsourcing is one small--but growing--part of a much bigger problem.
There is so much at my web site on that bigger problem, I hesitate to focus on any one aspect here. But the Left has deliberately undermined our sense of ongoing communities, both in the ethnic sense, the geographic sense, and in other historic senses, as well as in terms of immediate present interests. Much of this onslaught was carried out under the banner of "Civil Rights," some under that of "Immigration Reform." It has been given virtually sacrosanct status in American education today, and goes virtually unchallenged by fanatics who do not understand the actual effects of the syruppy pap they spout.
Basically, it comes down to the fact that everything is seen from the advantage of the moment; from immediate self-serving benefit, or the benefit of seeming to humor the demands of what appears to be accepted by everyone else. Anyone who still feels a sense of being a part of an ongoing community--with a few tolerated exceptions--is treated at the least as too parochial, benighted, old-fashioned, or prejudiced. If the person actually goes beyond his own sense of identity, and articulates the unique values of a community, he may be treated a lot more harshly.
To fail to understand the importance of concentric communities in the American experience, is to absolutely fail to understand America. In the sense we are all Americans, we carry with us quite separate identities of being Ohioans, Virginians, Nevadans, Carolinians, etc., which are also quite distinct and ongoing. Within those other, for each individual, concentric identifications, there are other smaller community identifications.
The best way to understand this is in the direct metaphor employed by Booker T. Washington, the great Negro educator, in his appeal to the White community to hire their long time neighbors in the Negro community, rather than immigrants flooding into the United States--though never in numbers quite like the present. It was true not only in White/Negro relations, but in North/South, State by State, even town by town, county by county, religious community relations, etc.. To paraphrase: In all things where our interests were unique to each group, we could be as separate as the fingers; but one as the hand, where the common American interest comes into play.
Outsourcing, open immigration from countries that do not share a common culture or ethnicity with the American mainstream, globalism (where it goes beyond the traditional American happiness to trade with the world, and becomes an end in itself), all tend to undermine the vital senses of community identification. Simply put, there ceases to be any standard for moral conduct, dependent upon social identification with a specific, concrete group. Not even one percent of any population are so philosophically oriented, that they can completely ignore the standards that come from community identification--as I am using the term here--and still act in a disciplined manner. Undermine community identification, and morals and ethics go out the window.
Do you want to test the hypothesis? Let me know, and I will illustrate my points further--though perhaps not till Monday. I do not want to spend the weekend at the key board.
Bill Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
And I'm also certain they will be happy to supply us with all the smart bombs we will need, and the guidance systems to deliver them, if we ever get into a shooting war with someone they like.
They're our friends, after all.
Yep. Sure can't miss sight of this. Got to close ranks around GWB or we're doomed.
Campaign Finance Reform. (Who needs the First Amendment?)
Pledge to renew the Assault Weapons Ban. (Come to think of it, who needs the Second, either?)
Open borders, amnesty for illegals. (Nothing is more important that cheap corporate labor.)
Offshoring of every job worth having. (Except maybe massive corporate profits at the expense of the very customer base who supports them.)
But it's O.K. for George Bush to advocate all this, because after all. . . he's a Republican.
America First, and anyone else, a distant 2nd...That's my position...I however, am not as optimistic as everyone else...Yes, I do believe George Bush will win the election...
The way I see it, the RNC gave the presidency to Clinton intentionally when they put Dole on the ticket...NAFTA had already been agreed to by the other Bush but they needed someone to get it thru the Democrat Congress...Dole couldn't have done that...Clinton had to win...
I believe the RNC and Republican Corporations pumped enough money into the younger Bush's campaign they never expected such a close race in 2000...George actually lost the popular vote...And I was shocked Gore could could even be a contender...
Kerry is such a loser as a person, I don't think he could stand a chance if he was running against Pat Paulson...George B should slide thru this one without a hitch...But, we know where that leaves us with Free(?) Trade...I believe the ship, SS America, is sinking and George keeps blowin' more holes in the bottom of the boat...But yes, Protecting American people, jobs and sovereignty is the only thing that will keep us afloat...
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