U of I Research Park and Spygames

Most updates coming from the U of I Research Park fall along the lines of this recent story of people debating the qualities of a proposed new building, its lab potential, its kitchen facilities, etc:

UI Research Park board gets first look at EnterpriseWorks 2.0 design
...
University of Illinois Research Park board members heard a presentation Monday for what could be a $15 million expansion of the EnterpriseWorks incubator space...

"The large atrium includes a much larger kitchen. The kitchen we have right now is tight, and it wasn't meant to serve as a catering kitchen, plus the high volume of people really making that a space that you use every day," said Research Park Director Laura Frerichs. "In a lot of new incubators, the kitchen is the centerpiece, so if you go into a WeWork type of space, you'll know that the kitchen is the star and that's where people choose to work around as part of a coffee-shop kind of environment. So that's part of what we envisioned here..."

At Monday's meeting, board members questioned everything from the site location to the biosafety level of the new building's labs to the size of the elevators...

And College of Engineering Associate Dean Liang Liu asked if the labs would be designed to biosafety level two, which would let them handle pathogenic organisms such as HIV or the bacteria that causes staph infections, or three, which could handle more dangerous microbes, such as the West Nile virus or yellow fever...

The board didn't take any action Monday on the concept.

The full article is here, but you probably get the gist. Meanwhile, in national news, you may have heard various stories about Chinese or Russian technology firms being accused of possibly aiding the intelligence services of their home countries. Example from Reuters:

U.S. officials allege Chinese telecom manufacturers are producing equipment that allows their government to spy on users abroad, including Western researchers working on leading-edge technologies. Beijing and the Chinese companies have repeatedly denied such claims.

The University of California at Berkeley has removed a Huawei video-conferencing system, a university official said, while the UC campus in Irvine is working to replace five pieces of Chinese-made audio-video equipment. Other schools, such as the University of Wisconsin, are in the process of reviewing their suppliers...

The moves are a response to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which President Donald Trump signed into law in August. A provision of that legislation bans recipients of federal funding from using telecommunications equipment, video recording services and networking components made by Huawei or ZTE. Also on the blacklist are Chinese audio-video equipment providers Hikvision, Hytera, Dahua Technology and their affiliates.

U.S. authorities fear the equipment makers will leave a back door open to Chinese military and government agents seeking information. U.S. universities that fail to comply with the NDAA by August 2020 risk losing federal research grants and other government funding.

Full article here. Here locally that has affected how the University of Illinois is dealing with foreign technology companies, including local "Western researchers working on leading-edge technologies":

Like other schools, UI has moved to keep Huawei disconnected on campus
The University of Illinois took steps in 2016 to forbid equipment from a Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker that the U.S. government now considers a national-security threat.

In December of that year, the UI, with the College of Engineering, took the initiative to forbid the "connecting of any equipment or other items from Huawei that would connect to our networks by wired, wireless or any other connection," spokeswoman Robin Kaler said...

Around the same time the UI took those steps, the UI Research Park added Huawei as a tenant.

It opened an initial office in the fall of 2016, according to the Research Park website, and held a grand opening for its space in October 2017.

But Kaler and the Research Park developer said Huawei employees there don't use university internet or equipment...

"They have a lease just like any other tenant," she said. "So it's a binding contract between the owner of the building, the landlord and Huawei. The university is not part of that agreement."

Regarding their equipment and networking, Ruedi said, "They set up everything themselves."

More at the full article here. Maybe this is just ramifications of diplomatic tensions. Maybe the risks of espionage are roughly the same as always. A little paranoia might be appropriate in this case, however, especially for "Western researchers working on leading-edge technologies." Rich Warren had some advice about the various security warnings for Russian anti-virus software or Chinese cell phones last year:

If, in fact, China and Russia are spying on me, there must be some very bored snoops tracking me. In fact, I would bet most of us are putting those snoops to sleep, because few of us have much to hide. A University of Illinois physics or chemistry professor specializing in cutting-edge research or someone mulling becoming a political candidate might want to be more wary.

More on his take at the full article here and a follow up on when the US security warnings made updates unavailable on his ZTE phone.