[henryfjordan]

I wouldn't trust the US govt (where I live) with my personal secrets, but I would trust them to protect the trade secrets of a business based in the US (yay corporatism!)

I don't think China cares about my personal secrets nearly as much as the US does, but they are pretty actively engaging in state-sponsored corporate espionage.

[SkyMarshal]

The CCP is compiling a database on everyone in the developed world, from sources as disparate as their Chinese visa info, to hacked/leaked data from various websites, to social media posts, to surveillance video/audio/images.

Eventually they’ll be able to analyze it with AI, and use it to advance their own agenda. Whether you consider that a good thing, or a less bad thing than whatever the NSA does, is in the eye of the beholder.

But make no mistake, the CCP does not ‘not care’ about your personal info.

[noja]

> I wouldn't trust the US govt with my personal secrets

> I would trust them to protect the trade secrets of a business

Would you trust a US business to protect your personal secrets more than the US government? Why?

[henryfjordan]

You misunderstand a bit. If I were Coca-cola, I would trust that the NSA would never ever reveal my secret recipe. But at the same time I wouldn't trust them not to read the private messages of my employees for other juicy stuff.

America cares more about corporate rights than human rights.

[ptx]

That's nice for the American company, but why should companies and individuals in the rest of the world trust this American private/public conglomeration with their data? Foreigners have no rights under American law, from what I gather.

[muratsu]

Public distrust of American companies doesn't serve the USA when top tech companies have approximately half their revenue generated outside the USA.

[henryfjordan]

They shouldn't? I don't think I ever made that point. I was only speaking to the motivations of each Government. If I don't trust my own gov't to respect my private data, why would I tell anyone else to trust them?

Foreigners have basically all the same rights as citizens under US law. Maybe you're thinking of the NSA's mandate to only collect foreign-bound US internet traffic, not domestic?

[ptx]

Ah. Reading more carefully, I see now that you were saying that as an American it might be better to trust American companies than Chinese ones. Sure, quite probably.

All I'm saying, and I guess this doesn't contradict what you were saying, is that for the rest of the world it makes no difference if we choose American or Chinese equipment since we'll be spied on either way.

[SkyMarshal]

Foreigners living/operating in the US have almost all the rights US citizens do, besides citizen-only things like voting or running for office.

[redisman]

> I don't think China cares about my personal secrets nearly as much as the US does, but they are pretty actively engaging in state-sponsored corporate espionage.

This is only scratching the surface. Don't forget their extensive tracking and imprisonment of ethnic minorities, political "dissents", etc. Seeing how they treat their own people, I can only imagine what kind of pressure they'll be able to exert on small(relative to China) countries that gave them control of their communications systems.

[henryfjordan]

Oh yeah, they certainly are using the data of their own citizens. I meant my data as a US citizen.

[sifar]

Until you become a PersonOfInterest to them.