High-tech goods from China, such as electric vehicles or even robot vacuum cleaners, could represent a security risk, Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency has warned.
BfV head Sinan Selen told a hearing of parliament’s intelligence oversight committee in Berlin that the issue was of “great concern” to him.
“I already see substantial shortcomings that create potential for abuse,” he said.
Data collected via the products could be passed on to “state agencies”, he said, leading to risks including “potential shutdown of entire products.”
“In terms of resilience and availability (this) could confront us with problems,” he said.
The warning comes as sales of high-tech products to Germany are growing and Chinese manufacturers compete ever more strongly with their German counterparts.
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Maybe they should legally compel all computer hardware and appliance manufacturers to have fully open source firmware, so all products can be security audited, flashed with FOSS code, and true ownership returned to the buyer, so all products can be used indefinitely without any internet connection, with FOSS apps, or a local or remotely self-hosted controller at the users discretion?
Maybe we could take actions that genuinely reduce anti-competitive walled gardens, ewaste, and vulnerabilities… while increasing freedom, competition, and quality of life?
And how about no wireless connectivity. Updates are repair shop only.
If all computing firmware were FOSS, disabling hardware components such as radios would become trivial. Can’t communicate if it speaks no language.