Future Tense Newsletter: Everything Is Compromised

This week, we learned that Chinese spies may have planted microchips in certain consumer electronics destined for the United States--including products from Apple and Amazon--in order to surveil device users. While your iPhone or Amazon Echo may or may not actually be compromised (both the U.S. government and the companies alleged to have been targeted have vehemently denied the story, which was first reported by Bloomberg), the possibility of such foreign intrusion into our internet of things devices would have massive implications for our national security and technology sectors. Josephine Wolff explains that though the story may not bear out, it still highlights China's power as one of the few manufacturers, testers, and packagers for many major tech firms--and how there might not be a way to truly secure this global supply chain. Elsewhere on Slate, we've been covering other stories about data security. Sharon Bradford Franklin wrote about a newly proposed law in Australia that could give U.S. law enforcement backdoor access to encrypted data and communications. Josephine Wolff argued that Google actually did a good job disclosing and handling a data vulnerability it found in Google Plus.