Viswanathan K's Thoughts

Miriam Posner’s article on supply chains starts off with a common question. Do exploitative work conditions exist because global corporations care only for profits, while third world countries are both cheap and don’t care about labour conditions? The answer, as you might have guessed, isn’t simple. But the information she finds while exploring that question is very interesting.   But first, she points out another aspect of supply chains around us: “The world is unpredictable—you’ve got earthquakes, labor strikes, mudslides, every conceivable tragedy—and yet as a consumer I can pretty much count on getting what I want whenever I want it. How can it be possible to predict a package’s arrival down to the hour, yet know almost nothing about the conditions of its manufacture?” The ignorance, she says, isn’t limited to us customers. Even companies themselves don’t know! That may seem outrageous, but it is a feature, not a bug: “This partial sight, erected on a massive scale, ...

After explaining the workings and eventual decryption of the Enigma code in his terrific book, The Code Book , Simon Singh pointed out that the British kept the fact a secret even after World War II. Why? To keep tabs on countries who still used the Enigma code, says this Wikipedia article. In fact, they went a step further than just tapping into countries that happened to use the Enigma code: “After the end of World War II, the Allies sold captured Enigma machines, still widely considered secure, to developing countries.” Were you appalled by that? Fast forward to present day, says security expert , Bruce Schneier, and things are actually lot worse: 1)       The Pentagon recently stopped selling phones made by Chinese manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei on military bases. Why? Because they might be spying on their users. 2)      In 2012, the US was worried about Chinese made Internet routers for the same reason. 3)  ...