IBM just conducted unprecedented and controlled tech demonstrations for a foreign government wherein source code for certain software was revealed. This is big news as a source code is any tech firm's trade secret. The fact that China, the biggest economic and political rival and partner of the US, got an exclusive peek into an unspecified IBM product's source code was definitely cause for concern, Tech Times reported.
Source codes are incredibly sensitive information for any tech company so IBM's revelation to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was more than a just a little curious. Measures were taken to ensure that none of the codes would leave the demo room. For example, the room had no Internet connection and Chinese IT experts also viewed the source codes through a security app specially made by IBM.
Additionally, the demos were conducted over the course of a few hours only. This helped make sure that a thorough analysis of the code could not be done and that back doors would not be found out. "Strict procedures are in place within these technology demonstration centers to ensure that no software source code is released, copied or altered in any way," said an IBM spokesperson to the Wall Street Journal.
The Snowden documents brought to light the National Security Agency's spying on foreign governments using back doors written on US tech firms' products. This has put foreign powers on higher alert ever since and China, in particular, had been pressuring US tech firms for their source codes for some time now. IBM is the first firm to voluntarily open its doors to Chinese scrutiny even as other tech firms continue to refuse the intrusion, a stance backed by the Obama administration.
Venture Beat reported that IBM's tech demo was not unique to it as Microsoft inked a deal with China in 2003 for controlled access to the Windows code. Microsoft apparently made similar deals for the Windows source code with other foreign powers like the UK and Russia. Insiders revealed that if all goes smoothly, IBM will be able to offer its cloud-computing platform Bluemix to China. It will collaborate with Chinese data-center services company 21Vianet Group Inc. for this possibly lucrative service.
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