Paranoia will destroy us: Why Huawei and other Chinese tech is not spying | Hacker News Reader

Paranoia will destroy us: Why Huawei and other Chinese tech is not spying

zdnet.com

53 pointsedwinjm74 comments

I view this kind of caution against foreign powers (corporations are not separate from their governments in time of war) in the same way that the 2nd amendment protects us against tyranny.

And seatbelts from flying through wind shields.

You don't need it until you need it, and if you don't have it, it's too late.

National infrastructure that needs to work in a time of war must be nationally controlled by all nations.

"Spying" is a straw man argument, it's not about spying.

Innthe age of information spying is the war.

Spying and computer attacks. All out wars between modern developed countries is badically impossible given our power of destruction.

That seems like saying "scouting is the war" from 1000 years ago. Perhaps the preparations for war though, and effective strategies during war?

When war starts up, nations don't have time/resources to update their networks/infrastructure.

I think the UK appears to have taken the pragmatic descision since Thatcher, that in anything serious these days it is either overrun or obliterated, so might as well buy the cheap stuff from our strategic rivals that will break down in an apocalypse and we can make some quick cash in the mean time selling off all the national technical base.

edit - Has been going on since long before Thatcher, to be fair. There's an old documentary about this subject by Spike Milligan, called 'The Bed Sitting Room' - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=de0w8tU0j1U

yip, thatcher set in motion a process that has resulted in there being no uk companies with the expertise t o build a nuclear power station. the uk has to rely on french and chinese state owned companies for that

Not sure what sense to make of this:

that in anything serious these days (World War III?) it is either overrun or obliterated (would be either overrun or obliterated?)

I tried clicking on your link to help me understand but it's to an hour-and-a-half long film (and not, I think, a documentary...)

>that in anything serious these days (World War III?) it is either overrun or obliterated (would be either overrun or obliterated?)

yes

>I tried clicking on your link to help me understand but it's to an hour-and-a-half long film (and not, I think, a documentary...)

Prophetic satire then. Watch it anyway, you owe it to Spike Milligan.

Maybe not yet, but it surely gives them the capability to spy later on.

My country, Vietnam, also banned Huawei equipment[1], and I don't believe it's pure paranoia. China has been taking every chances to spy on us, from illegally buy houses near Da Nang airport[2] (nearest airbase to Paracels) to 'tourists' walking near the Ministry of Defence to Advanced Persistent Threat targeting petroleum or maritime corporation (forgot the link right now).

We just don't trust China, and there're numerous reasons for that. This may sound racist but the stereotype of Chinese in Vietnam is extremely cunning, for better or worse, they will do everything to get to their goals as long as they don't get found out. China has 5000 years of history, they always play the long game.

Some quotations from "The Art of War" 2500 years ago:

"Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business"

" The enemy's spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service. "

[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/09/vietnam-doesnt-trust-hu...

[2] https://tuoitrenews.vn/society/32340/da-nang-suspects-more-l...

What do you think America is doing?

America? I think Trump is a fool but some of his measures make sense. Regarding China, I feel that America misunderstood that China will play by the international rule (setup by western countries). No, they have their own rule and whatever 'International law' out there are written by upsurping countries and meaningless to them.

The alternative is relying on US tech. While I get the point that Huawei could be spying on us later on, the US is the one nation we know is spying on us.

All tech we use these days can be used for spying. The whole Huawei craze is just the U.S. realizing that they are no longer the only power to fear.

The alternative is relying on US tech.

Huawei's biggest competitors are Ericsson (Swedish) and Nokia (Finnish).

The US spying is subject to a strained but ultimately effective legal and constitutional system. There is no comparison between the US government's transgressions, and the Chinese government's complete unrestricted impunity to spy and infiltrate.

Constitution doesn't protect me if I'm not a citizen. For example US can tapped the phone of Angela Merkel.

The spying is done by intelligence services. Services that have huge reputational problems, largely because they have nothing to fear and all the power. Whatever is going on inside those organizations is completely hidden from the government itself. What Snowden made available has shocked everyone, including those who should oversee the intelligence services.

It is still subject to legal constraints, and when exposed there is at least the possibility of consequences and changes. In China it is entirely legal, tolerated, and expected. In China the intrusions can entirely unsubtle and deep, whereas in the US there is at least some balance with legal restraints. These are very different situations. Neither of them are ideal, however equating them is really not accurate.

One point that I'm missing, is that the government of China can legally force any of their companies to start spying. And there would be no way that we would know.

Then often the argument becomes: But the US are already spying on us, so it's not too bad. Which is fair, but in the US, there are checks and balances and freedoms so that somebody has recourse. All these things are absent in China.

So the question is one of trust. Who do you trust more when they are spying on you: The US or China? For me as a European, this is definitely the former.

"there are checks and balances and freedoms"

you are so full of child like innocence, I envy you

There is no need to be so condescending.

That was the kindest way of saying it.

Come on, the fact the Trump wasn’t able to achieve much of what he wanted (and even start those initiatives properly) confirms that. A country with less powerful social institutes would be in a worse shape.

So against a claim of child like innocence your response is to mention the Bogeyman?

Yet US got significantly more checks and balances and freedoms than China.

This is not a hypothetical question at all. Denmark is certainly asking this question, with the understanding that currently the US can tap anything they want in our communications infrastructure, and buying 5G from Huawei would instead give that power to the Chinese.

I think it is fortunate that Danish political consensus is converging toward avoiding Huawei infrastructure. American politicians might be as bad as Chinese leaders, but the former are sometimes held accountable, however meekly.

What American company provides 5G carrier capabilities currently? I can’t think of any the only two that come in mind that aren’t Chinese are Alcatel-Nokia-Siemens-Lucent or w/e they are called now and Ericsson.

For the most part the US can compromise networks without needing to control the companies that provide the equipment they’ll just compromise the operator and the supply chain.

The network core (back-end) of mobile network (including 5G) probably uses Cisco or Juniper switches, which are American companies.

PS: I'm supporting blacklisting of Huawei equipment.

For me, as an ex-Australian who has lived in America and Europe, I don't trust either China or America with regards to their spying. Both countries have a long line of human rights violations in their history, and neither has shown a particular improvement in the last few decades.

The USA has committed untold strife in the world. It has toppled democratically elected governments and installed dictators, it has declared war on innocent nations and racked up hundreds of thousands of innocent victims in its rush to war glory. It has spent more on war in the last decade than any other nation, by far, while its people suffer under one of the most tyrannical, terrible health systems the modern world has constructed.

China has concentration camps. America has a thousand top-secret military prisons scattered around the globe.

The idea that one can be trusted over the other is utterly naive, and in light of the real evidence on the ground, a terribly ignorant point of view. I mean, we may be able to say, in all fairness, that there is a great chance that Huawei MAY spy for the Chinese government - but we can say for certainty that every single ISP in the USA HAS spied for the US Government, and we have no way to be sure it isn't still happening given the immense resources poured into making us look the other way as a civil society.

There's a massive difference between foreign country spying on you and your own democratically elected government spying on you.

Before you try to call US not democratic - don't. It is democratic. Especially when you compare to China. Of course, there's no perfect democracy and we can always work for more.

Except that for anyone who's not American, the US is a foreign country.

And who is not in NATO or other closely allied countryu

On the list of countries that the US hasn't invaded yet, most of them are on NATO.

So?

NATO: over.

War is over. If you want it.

The grandparent don't say anywhere that the US is not democratic, it says that " It has toppled democratically elected governments and installed dictators" that it's empirically truth.

The idea that, in the international arena, and for not USA citizens, the USA is preferable to China is, at least, naive and, probably, dangerous. As a neither USA nor Chinese citizen, none of those two have my best interest at heart.

Not even my own country have my best interest at heart frequently, but at least I have some "checks and balances" there.

My checks and balances: a well-worn passport, pay the taxes and obey local laws, and do everything possible to attain a sail-boat existence, if if a land-lubber.

And, eventually, get that sail boat.

Borders are thin and invisible. Don't be stopped by them.

Why is it better to be spied upon by a “democratic” country? Especially if that country has been known to start a dozen wars and topple numerous regimes in the last decade or so?

When you gotta pick one, even tiny difference is a difference.

Yeah but I’m not sure the US is your best bet for enemy. No country has started more wars, possibly in history.

If you're an ally, that doesn't matter that much.

Coming from eastern europe and seeing what happened in Ukraine, I see trigger-happiness of US as an advantage.

If Russia comes banging at our doors, I don't trust Germany or France to do more than issue a stern letter. China? I'm pretty sure they wouldn't give a fuck. US of A? That's our only bet TBH.

Because when the US started a civil war and ousted your leader to install a chocolate oligarch backed by militant nazi thugs it was purely for your benefit, right? Not in order to plunder the country.

Sorry to hear you're brainwashed by Putin's propaganda.

That puts your other posts in a different light.

What part of that statement do you take issue with?

Was Poroshenko not a chocolate oligarch? Was he not installed by the West after a coup? Are the Right sector not Nazi thugs?

At least 60 since WWII. One direct result of US interference are the ongoing issues in the Middle East.

>in the US, there are checks and balances and freedoms so that somebody has recourse. All these things are absent in China.

If the government really wants you they'll take you. And no amount of thoughts, prayers or picketing will free you.

We've seen examples of that in our generation, the last 20 years only when we've had a massive information network available. Imagine all the nameless poor sods who have disappeared before the internet.

I'm not naive about the limitations of the freedoms that are afforded to a citizen by the US government, or my government for that matter. We should have more freedoms and say into our government, and it should be more fair.

But here's the main point: It's a hell of a lot better than in China. Freedom and checks and balances are always on a spectrum. You're arguing that because there are limitations to your freedom, you might as well be totally in chains.

There are differences at lower levels, but not when it comes to you getting the attention of a state-level actor.

>It's a hell of a lot better than in China.

How do you measure that? I mean what are you comparing? Media reporting? In my opinion you shouldn't even be able to trust internet media reporting on this matter.

For example I think most of us saw the viral video a few weeks ago of a young chinese woman being taken from her apartment. She had left her cellphone recording while police detained her for no apparent reason.

But if we take that as an example. What do we really know? All we really know is what is shown in that video.

It's hard for the video to lie.

Other than that we have no idea who released the video online or made sure it was spread onto western social media. Because as we do know, most of Asia are living in a bubble with their own social media and search engines.

So with that in mind, an organisation could cherry pick information from such social media to spread on western media in order to manufacture consent.

Imagine the roles reverse. A video of a young black male being detained for no reason, have dogs bite him, have officers beat him, released onto asian social media sites with no real context.

I personally think it's much easier to assume that people are people in all parts of the world. Power corrupts in every country. And absolute power corrupts absolutely, regardless of religion, skin tone or cultural background. We're not that different.

Now Europe is being bitten by the fact that there are no major European companies left. Siemens network branch was bought by Nokia and then there's Ericsson.

I'm just not sure why the EU is not making using domestic hardware a prerequisite. Would keep technological know how in the EU and reduce dependency. Not to speak about security.

There are no US companies either afaik Qualcomm does not make carrier equipment they are happy making basebands and milking patents.

The checks and balances in the US of A only exist for Americans. They don't exist when you're not an American and exist even less if you're not even in America.

Yeah tell that to all the people that were interned without any legal recourse by American intelligence. As someone that is not from the USA or China I think we should worry more about USA than China as the records shows it is USA that has kidnapped people from their own countries or 3rd country rather than China.

Or you know, we could worry about both the US and China? I come from a third-world country where my own government is looking to screw me over. There is some consolation in at least getting to choose who screws me over.

Oh we should worry about both I was just comparing the 2. To me currently USA is more dangerous than China hypothetical future spying through Huawei.

It surprise me that people take those allegations seriously. I mean, some spying is to be expected but not to justify the banning of all the company.

I thought it was obvious that this have nothing to do with spying. Some elements in the USA government and legislative have decided that China could be a threat to American only superpower status.

By the way, what happened with the Bloomberg allegations? (1)

(1) - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

I’m not sure how 5G infrastructure or smartphones threaten the status of a superpower in any sense. Also, at this point Bloomberg is already an outlet that can’t be trusted as they haven’t provided any follow-up to the Super Micro story.

Smartphones are universal data collection devices, each of which is capable of gathering audio-, video-, RF-, location-, motion- and activity-based intelligence. Some add various other capabilities like air pressure, temperature and humidity to the list. Controlling this massive data source is massively valuable. Since each device contains a fairly powerful radio transmitter they can also be used as jammers by those who control the (closed, proprietary) RF firmware. All these devices are battery-powered so they can not just be disabled by pulling the plug (or the battery in 'modern' devices).

5G infrastructure adds another layer to the intelligence gathering infrastructure as well as an even more powerful jamming capability. Cell towers are equipped with battery backup as well so they can not easily be disabled by cutting the power to the tower.

Any party in control of these assets has strategic and tactical advantages over their adversary: strategic in that this allows for intelligence gathering, tactical in that this allows for precise targeting, jamming, denial of service, control of connected infrastructure for whatever purpose and more [1].

[1] Controlling mobile infrastructure over a wide area adds the prospect of using it to defy 'stealth' (low radar cross-section) by capturing off-axis reflections, etc.

I hope Huawei make a fully open source and hack-able mobile phone. I think that would sell like crazy on the western market where everyone hates Google, and ride the news wave and turn it around into their favor.

People don’t hate Google as much as you want to believe, people love Google Search/Maps/Gmail and everyone who wanted “a fully open source phone” could install MicroG for a long time already.

Google is very different in the age of "gmail ain't done 'til firefox won't run"...

You won’t get an open source baseband ever trough certification.

Does that matter for Huawei?

Since importing and even using those devices in the US, Europe and every other developed nation is a crime then yes it would.

It's fairly well known in the telecom and internet infrastructure field that Huawei stole Nortel's entire DWDM and optical transport product line and duplicated it. The ex Nortel HQ office building in the Ottawa area was found to be riddled with high tech bugs.

Just a reminder that Nortel, an ex-Canadian giant was “spied to death” by Huawei back in early 2000s. The stolen tech is the foundation of Huawei.

This is a superb summary and a great call to action to get together and examine in depth the out of band data leaks and data management.

I know with some certainty that US based companies provide source for communications software to US three letter agencies. I think it's strange to expect that a Chinese company would refuse to render the same services to analogous agencies in China.

Whether US companies would willingly insert changes at the behest of those agencies I do not know.

Huawei was under the radar of national security agencies (look at the S, not just the US) for years

Huawei won't be spying but will also limit US spying. so it is a no go.

Currently there are 5 coountries USA, Russia, Israel and China playing the digital intelligence game with enough talent and companies.

On your mobile phone only those countries have a window for spying.

I don't think Russia is capable of spying on mobile phones. And have doubts about Israel too. How would they even get there?

Endless apps and vulnerabilities.

But then you have to install a Russian app. And WebView component is autoupdated in recent Androids.

I know people who work for Huawei in Iran. They are spying.

First of all: This is not about "banning" Huawei in USA. Huawei is not in the US. It is about preventing the rest of the world in using Huawei.

The Trump administration has spent the last year or so trying to convince allies not to use Huawei and apparently has failed to do so. So now it does this.

Trump seems to think he can win an election on China; this may be the case. However doing so will probably hurt the longterm interest of the US.

Forcing millions of European Huawei users away from Google services is neither in the business interest of Google nor does it benefit the intelligence gathering capabilities of the US.

I don't think the President realizes just how much this will harm the USA in the long run.

He is basically telling the rest of the world to think long and hard before using any American tech in their products. Also his allies are increasingly less and less inclined to listen to him. The French have openly said they will continue to use Huawei. The Brits are going to use them anyway, the just didn't want the USA to know.

Edit: sorry. toned down the language.

Huawei passed Apple in 2018 and Q12019. It threatens Samsung to become Number 1 soon. Oppo, Xiaomi and other Chinese smartphone manufacturers are also rising.

Old Nokia, HTC, Erickson, Sony, ( US allies like Europe, Taiwan, Japan ) are losing .

Only South Korea held on but is the next one to get pushed into insignificance.

Trump uses non free market tools to stop this growth.

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/huaweis-global-smartpho...

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