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An unusual travel warning
Posted By katie allison granju
Apparently, American tourists who bring personal technology - like cell phones and laptops - with them to China for the Summer Olympics are at risk of having their devices bugged by the Chinese government.
Jun 11th, 2008
Well, WBIR.com jazzed up the headline a bit; the original article in USA Today warned “Olympic Visitors’ Data is at Risk.” What is the difference between a tourist and a visitor? The espionage warnings are directed at government officials, business people, and anyone traveling with particularly sensitive information. The Chinese Government doesn’t even remotely have the resources to bug every single person who comes into the country, so quite obviously they would direct their attention to people who enter on official business, whom they could identify easily at ports of call. I’ve been in and out of China at least a dozen times in the last five years on my regular old passport doing academic work or traveling, and no one in or out of the Chinese government has ever shown the slightest interest in my electronics. So *tourists* traveling to the Olympics probably don’t need to fret unduly about this, but government officials, etc. need to take precautions.
For some, that’s a distinction without a difference, because all of it means that there is still Chinese espionage going on (though do we seriously not ever bug foreign officials when they travel here or elsewhere? We sure did during the Cold War…), but the way the headline is on the site linked to strikes me a little bit as scare-mongering.
I was just there. This is real.
Sounds ominous, Bob. Were you going to fulfill a lifelong dream of seeing the Great Wall and found all your electronics bugged upon your return, or what? I’m going back again soon (my last trip was admittedly a full six months ago - not in the Olympics countdown mode yet), but I’m not worried. Of course, I carry no national or corporate secrets on my laptop. If you do, please by all means be careful.