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Comment by plantain | Hacker News Reader

No more updates for my Huawei phone then presumably. Really feeling more secure now!

Google have no choice but to comply with US law. This is now going to make a load of existing US owned (Huawei manufactured) devices less secure unless an exemption is agreed for things like software security updates.

Not only that, the ban encourages a long term move away from US-based tech as alternatives are needed within China. This new tech will ultimately be available worldwide, but no longer owned or controlled by US companies.

As someone from neither China or US, it seems crazy. It’s one thing to ban Huawei from your own markets for security concerns, but by making such a heavy handed ban on working with them, the US government seem to be making the US less secure short term, but also US companies will be less competitive and less influential in the world long term.

> the ban encourages a long term move away from US-based tech as alternatives are needed within China.

China blocked Google play years ago and repeatedly blocks every attempt Google tries to make to relaunch back into china [0] so they did that a long time ago.

[0]: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/google-misses-out-on-billion...

It's bigger than China blocking Google's adware/spyware crap.

> Google have no choice but to comply with US law

Like they have no choice with tax laws. Or no choice with cartel laws. Or no choice with data protection laws.

They are agressively trying to circumvent many laws all the times to extend their monopoly and grow their profits. They have multi-billion fines from the EU and several member states pending and no somewhat critical thinking citizen would claim that EU has been particularly tough on their monopoly and tax evasions.

Huawei really needs to give everyone bootloader unlocks so that people can move to LineageOS in the meantime.

They will probably lose support from mobile carriers at that point.

why would carriers care about bootloader unlocks? it's different from a carrier lock, which prevents a phone from being used on another carrier.

Doesn't an unlocked bootloader almost automatically allow bypassing of the carrier lock?

if allows baseband chip firmware update, then yes

aren't those signed anyways?

even if it is, you can probably do an update with an unlocked one. (so the update is not device specific, not tied to IMEI)

Why would they care now? Their devices are essentially dead in the water in western markets.

Check out the double digit growth they have in the EU.

Google is fighting hard to keep their app store on Huawei devices, because they don't want 10Ms of users to force-adopt alternative app stores.

Your phone was manufactured by a front for a foreign intelligence service. It was never secure.

Just to play devil's advocate, do you have any citations for that statement?

No. Although Huawei did do some shady shit, like come up with a bonus scheme based on how much IP/market intelligence their employees could "acquire" from their competitors.

I'd hardly presume Huawei is a front for a foreign intelligence service, but their software for cellular basestations is extremely vulnerable (hundreds of different vulnerable versions of OpenSSL sprinkled through) and they still can't be bothered to use version control, despite committing to address both issues back in 2012: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-huawei-bri...

Huawei's products are vulnerable by default, anyone can look up the applicable CVEs and run the proof of concept code for said CVE to pop a shell. China doesn't have exclusive access :)

No, I think it is, that would explain a lot of things - like how can they make/sell premium mobile phones for less? If the Chinese govt is paying you (say) $100/user to plant a back door, that would certainly help.

Remember that Huawei settled out of court to the 'allegation' that they copied Cisco's source code.

So, are Facebook a front for the CIA?

Personally I would prefer it to be a foreign government rather than the one in charge of the country I reside in...

American-manufactured devices are probably equally as infiltrated by American foreign intelligence services. Hence why they don't just use a standard Linux distro with open source firmware.

There is no proof of this, but there is tons of proof that China state funds Huawei and has the intent of espionage and IP theft.

There is no proof at all. There are a lot accusations, but US government cannot provide any evidences to back them up.

The opposite actually

US government spying has nothing to do with why manufacturers don’t “just use a standard Linux distro with open source firmware”. There are no GNU/Linux (as in, with the GNU userland) distros that work well enough on phones to compete with Android and open source firmware removes some competitive advantage around things like image processing.

Even if it was true that American phone companies are infiltrated by American intelligence services, you have to ask yourself which government you trust more. As a New Zealander, I think there are very good reasons to trust the US government a lot more.

Heck, if you look at where Chinese officials try to stash their money and their families, it's clear they trust Western countries a lot more too.

> As a New Zealander, I think there are very good reasons to trust the US government a lot more.

As an EU citizen, idk, China seems more locally focused, the U.S reaches everywhere. Speaking of NZ, the whole Kim Dotcom situation makes it look like a U.S.vassal state, honestly.

Hardly, look at what the Chinese are doing in Africa and the "Silk Road" initiative and how they load down countries with borrowing so they can come in and clean up 10 years later.

Of course I trust China more. China never militarily supported a coup in my country.

Well, OS updates weren't going through the play store anyway, no? And it appears you'll continue to be able to download app updates via the play store "But users of existing Huawei devices who have access to the Google Play Store will still be able to download app updates provided by Google.".

Some security updates will be installed via the Play Store starting from Android Q.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/18531350/google-android-q-...

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