via The New York Times...
When Kenneth G. Lieberthal, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, travels to that country, he follows a routine that seems straight from a spy film.He leaves his cellphone(1) and laptop(2) at home and instead brings “loaner” devices(3), which he erases(4) before he leaves the United States and wipes clean the minute he returns(5). In China, he disables Bluetooth(6) and Wi-Fi(7), never lets his phone out of his sight(8) and, in meetings, not only turns off his phone(9) but also removes the battery(10), for fear his microphone could be turned on remotely.
He connects to the Internet only through an encrypted(11), password-protected(12) channel, and copies and pastes his password from a USB thumb drive(13). He never types in a password directly(14), because, he said, “the Chinese are very good at installing key-logging software on your laptop.”
What might have once sounded like the behavior of a paranoid is now standard operating procedure for officials at American government agencies, research groups and companies that do business in China and Russia... (more)
