I don't get too excited ... when I read about foreign countries spying on us. One reason why:
we do it too. Another reason: we do almost nothing to stop it. If we don't like the spying, then instead of being all offended and self-righteous when friend or foe spies on us, we should instead concentrate on defending ourselves. The current plague of Chinese industrial spying, for example,
should be seen as a failure of our defenses against spying (in effect,
inviting the spies!) – not as some nefarious Chinese plot.
The current situation is as if we tore the front door off our house, put giant billboards advertising that fact on the freeway, then act surprised and hurt when thieves rush in to steal all our stuff. I know from personal experience at the last several software companies I worked for that stealing all their source code would only have been moderately difficult for a complete outsider with no internal connections – and completely trivial for anyone with any insider assistance at all. Anyone with even the slightest interest in the technology I worked on could have had it all (and quite possibly did!) very easily...
