4 Highlights From Obama’s Ridiculous Cyber Agreement With China

Last week, the White House announced that the U.S. and China had agreed to stop cyber economic espionage and work together to stop cybercrime.

Well, that was easy, wasn’t it? Too easy.

The reality is that the president has just made another paper agreement that will do little to change the behavior of bad actors.

While it will certainly make some feel good for having “solved” a problem through only talking, it has deprived us of an opportunity to change China’s behavior through the application of sanctions in the face of their blatant cyber actions.

The White House press release is filled with worrisome conclusions, indicating that this agreement ignores the seriousness of this problem and kicks the can down the road.

Here are some of the highlights:

1. [T]he United States and China…agree to cooperate…with requests to investigate cybercrimes, collect electronic evidence, and mitigate malicious cyber activity emanating from their territory.
Great, but think about the implications. The Chinese will request that the U.S. help it stop all sorts of dissident hackers and activists. The U.S. lives up to its agreements so it will dutifully help the Chinese even as oppressed individuals are jailed for cybercrimes, such as “jeopardizing Internet security” or accessing “illegal and harmful information,”—i.e., anything the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t like.

Then what stops the Chinese from stonewalling to protect their hackers? Will the Chinese help the U.S. investigate the five Chinese military officers that the U.S. charged with cybercrimes last year? Doubtful.

2. The United States and China agree that neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.
The U.S. does not engage in economic espionage because it goes against U.S. principles of rule of law and property rights. However, while everyone knows that the Chinese engage in ...Read More HERE