18 ms·

The FBI, CIA and NSA say American citizens shouldn't use Huawei phones

270 points by daegloe 9y ago

devhead 9y ago
Maybe it's tinfoil hat time; the more the government says to not use Huawei, offering no proof at all, the more I think they are unable to track and log information like they can on US(ish) phones. All US phones have components manufactured in China as well as all over the world. It is not a stretch to think the foreign governments couldn't get in the middle and create vulnerabilities or straight up drop attacks on different components they have access to. How is Huawei any different? Are we supposed to take their complaints seriously when Snowden leaks revealed the NSA hacked Huawei servers to find vulnerabilities they themselves could use to spy on people around the world. /shrug operations Shotgiant doesn't matter? If the NSA hack revealed that Huawei was injecting spyware it's time to release the details of how they found out.
- byproxy 9y ago
  I suppose then the question becomes "Who would you rather have listening in?"
  - eesmith 9y ago
    Let's see, if the US is listening in, then there's a small chance they will misinterpret my actions as suspicious, arrest me, and perhaps even lead to my imprisonment. This may include extraordinary rendition, should they make that decision while I am in another country. If China is listening in, then there's a chance I will be denied a visa to visit China or, should I be given a visa and visit, then they can arrest me, etc. Upsides in either case? None. So I would rather have China listening in than the US.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - Grazester 9y ago
      Dont fool yourself. If you get a Huawei phone and use it with a U.S. carrier with any services by U.S. tech companies that can be back-doored or subpoenaed, then you could potentially have both the U.S. and China spying on you. It has already been proven in the past that these Chinese phones send considerable amounts of data to Chinese servers. If you are someone working with a military contractor or the government(with any kind of security clearance) I dont think the U.S. would want you using a Chinese phone for obvious reasons
      - spicytunacone 9y ago
        >It has already been proven in the past that these Chinese phones send considerable amounts of data to Chinese servers. Not that I don't believe this, but can you provide a canonical source to support this claim? I don't keep up with this literature.
        emodendroket 9y ago
        Also, what are they sending? My natural response to this would be "well of course they do" because presumably most phones come with some software/services from the manufacturer.
    - jonyt 9y ago
      I think you're very much mistaken about the risks involved. For example[0]. I really have a hard time understanding people who think the US is worse than China. China is orders of magnitude worse. Sure, the NSA may spy on your electronic communications but the level of invasive, oppressive surveillance is not even comparable[1]. As far as I know no people are in jail in the US for protesting the government's policies. In China that's not the case[2]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/daughter-gui-minhai-swedish-bookseller-china-fears-jail https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/daughter-gui-m... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355 https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chi... [2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/political-prisoners-china-database_us_589a1d83e4b09bd304be3300 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/political-prisoners-chi...
      - thaumasiotes 9y ago
        You may feel that from a human rights perspective China is morally inferior to the US. This has no bearing on whether you're better off being spied on by one or the other. If you're located in the US, the US government has an extreme amount of power over you and China has almost none; it's obviously better to be spied on by China. If you're in China, the logic reverses.
      - pythonaut_16 9y ago
        Not to mention, with the NSA, the primary concern should be transparency and whether what they're doing is legal/allowed by the constitution. With China there are real national security concerns. We can have discussions and concerns about the NSA while also recognizing foreign nations pose an equal or worse threat. At least with the NSA there is some hope of reigning them in when they overstep.
        MertsA 9y ago
        > At least with the NSA there is some hope of reigning them in when they overstep. Honestly? The response to the Snowden leaks would seem to indicate the opposite.
        9y ago
    - ilkan 9y ago
      The US gov't is unlikely to jack the results of $200M and 11 years of research and give it to state-controlled companies.
    - y-c-o-m-b 9y ago
      What about blackmail? They can use your surfing data (porn, social media) to blackmail you. If you do your banking or shopping on your phone, they will have access to your credit card data, social security #, etc. that can be sold or used for cyber warfare. You're right, no upsides, but there are huge risks with having the Chinese steal your information.
      - eesmith 9y ago
        Ahh, you are right. I didn't think about that possibility because I don't have a smartphone.
        eesmith 9y ago
        And because I read "listening in" literally, as intercepting audio, rather than metaphorically as being able to intercept all traffic. Also, the US has blackmailed people, like the FBI attempt to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. We know the US gathers the porn habits of people who it considers might be a threat, including of a US person (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n_4346128.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n... ). So really it's a matter of balancing the odds. The odds are low that either government will care about me. It feels more likely that my life will be upended by a mistake, like what happened with Brandon Mayfield, and a mistake by the US government is far more likely to affect me than a mistake by the Chinese government.
    - s73v3r_ 9y ago
      If these are intelligence agencies, wouldn't they also consider assassinating you?
      - eesmith 9y ago
        I'm honored that you think I'm that important. The hypothetical choice is, would I rather have the US or China listening to my phone, if I had to choose one, and "none of the above" was not an option. It is not easy to assassinate someone in another continent, and I don't live in China. There's also the chance that the assassination will fail, and even backfire, where the further investigation might reveal agent identities. I'm just not that worthwhile to possibly waste those resources.
        s73v3r_ 9y ago
        I mean, if you're that worried that something is going to happen to you, then you do think you're that important.
        eesmith 9y ago
        It was an intellectual exercise to answer the posed question "Who would you rather have listening in?"
- eridius 9y ago
  This argument would hold more weight if the government was saying not to use any non-US phone. But they're specifically targeting Huawei and ZTE. Notice that there's no recommendation to avoid e.g. Samsung phones.
  - user982 9y ago
    Samsung is South Korean, a US ally and SIGINT partner. Modify the argument to, "the government is saying not to use any phones that are not from the US or its puppet states."
    - eridius 9y ago
      Are Huawei and ZTE the only phone manufacturers from a non-SIGINT partner state? That doesn't seem correct. Hell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_makers_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_makers_by... lists 29 different mobile phone makers in China, 2 of which are Huawei and ZTE, one of which is a subsidiary, leaving 26 independent manufacturers. But the government isn't telling us not to buy e.g. a Xiaomi phone.
      - michaelmrose 9y ago
        Which of those other 27 are big enough in the US to be worthy of mention?
        eridius 9y ago
        How about Xiaomi? Wikipedia says that as of 2017 they're the world's 5th largest smartphone company. I don't know how popular their products are in the US, but I have at least heard of them before (which is more than I can say for ZTE).
        prklmn 9y ago
        I’d venture to say 98% of the US population couldn’t tell you if Xiaomi was a tech company or a Chinese food dish.
- HankB99 9y ago
  > ... the more I think they are unable to track and log information like they can on US(ish) phones. My first thought was "Why? Can't they snoop on us with those phones?" Then I thought that they snoop at the network level so I don't think they need anything on the handset to listen in. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
  - marnett 9y ago
    You'd still want vulnerabilities on the device in order to have access to encrypted messaging. While this type of attack would not be used on all citizens, investigative journalist and activists would certainly be citizens of interest.
    - HankB99 9y ago
      Yes, I had forgotten about that case.
- mtgx 9y ago
  Huawei is not that good with phone updates. I don't think they need special access to hack or record Huawei phones, especially if they find the Chinese backdoor in there.
- mc32 9y ago
  People tend to believe narratives that mirror or support their beliefs. Blame North Korea for Sony hack? Nah, no way. Blame Russia for election hacking (even though at most they bought some ads on FB and ran some twitterbots) oh yeah, those manipulative Russians. You're free to ignore their advice, btw.
  - redux13 9y ago
    This comment is highly understating the power of social media micro-targeting by dubbing it as buying a few ads on FB and running twitterbots. I would request you to check out the Ted talk by Zeynep Tufekci (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI) to get a sense of how effective social media campaigns can be.
    - mc32 9y ago
      Well that would explain why they were so effective in the Ukaine campaign, right? Or you're saying Americans are so much more deceived and gullible? The Kochs and the Soroses pump so much more money into manipulating elections what the Russians did was peanuts. People would hardly be complaining if they had instead been on Team Bernie. But since the candidate who could not possibly lose lost a Sure shot, people want and need a ready made answer, enter twitterbots and FB ads. Anyway, the agreeing narrative phenomenon is most clearly evident in the Assange issue. When he was exposing America's behavior in Europe and the middle east and it also aligned with left ideology, he was a hero, Swedish accusations be damned. Now that his leaks hurt the left, he's a tool of the Russians, of course.
      - alsetmusic 9y ago
        > The Kochs and the Soroses pump so much more money into manipulating elections what the Russians did was peanuts. People would hardly be complaining if they had instead been on Team Bernie. But since the candidate who could not possibly lose lost a Sure shot, people want and need a ready made answer, enter twitterbots and FB ads. The Kochs (etc) are Americans manipulating the system with their wealth and probably within the law. I resent them for it, but that’s very different from a foreign government attempting to influence the results of a US election. I don’t pretend to know the actual pervasiveness of Russian influence; I’m only saying that your comparison falls flat. I have to wonder if you might realize this yourself, but choose to ignore it in order to justify your own agenda. Also, I would be angry with any outcome that was shown to be the result of election tampering. That goes for any candidate, even if I voted for them myself.
- wyuenho 9y ago
  // Are we supposed to take their complaints seriously when Snowden leaks revealed the NSA hacked Huawei servers to find vulnerabilities they themselves could use to spy on people around the world. Yes, you should. More than one entity has committed a sin does not make that sin a non-sin.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    What evidence do we have for the claim, though, beyond what the FBI, CIA, and NSA told us?
- qwerty456127 9y ago
  Who cares about what overseas intelligence agencies know of them? I would be much more concerned about the agencies that sit close enough to actually be interested in my person. I am exaggerating (McCarthyism is probably not this hard any more and people are much less prone to take communism seriously nowadays) but just for example: if an American gets involved in an anti-communist club in the USA China will hardly care about him in particular but if some of the people in one's phonebook happen to be communists the homeland agencies can actually go after him and ruin his life :-)
  - refurb 9y ago
    If your using a phone to access email that has trade secrets or IP in it, you'd care.
    - cm2187 9y ago
      Or if the relationship between China and the US becomes more confrontational, China effectively controls a large part of the US infrastructure which becomes a strategic risk. Kind of a nuclear option (no country would ever import anything running on electricity ever again from china if they were to do that).
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I sometimes feel like the smartest move is to use a product coming from a country ruled by a hostile government. Like, if you're in the US, sign up for Chinese services, but if you're in China sign up for American ones. (yeah the relationship is more complicated than "hostile" but you get my drift)
  - siidooloo 9y ago
    If this is your perspective, maybe it would be better if everyone bought phones from Finland.
    - carlmr 9y ago
      Is Finland hostile to anyone?
    - indubitable 9y ago
      I believe his point with 'hostile' is to choose nations where they would be both likely and able to say 'no' should the host nation of an individual request sensitive information on the individual in question. For instance Switzerland had some of the most secure and private banking in the world. It was actually a criminal act in Switzerland to reveal the name of an account holder - to anybody, including governments. And so if the US were to request information on a possible US account holder, they would be likely to say no. But given the influence of the US on both Switzerland and on the nations it most heavily depends upon, they've proven themselves unable to say no, and ended up passing all sorts of special laws, just to bend over to US requests that infringed their nation laws and more generally their sovereignty. Another interesting example with Switzerland is Champagne. Champagne, Switzerland has been making a local wine known as Champagne since the 9th century. Many centuries before the champagne of France even existed. In 2004 the EU told them to stop using the name. And again even if they were likely to say no, they would be unable to do so. As another interesting aside Champagne, using the ubiquitous méthode champenoise, was not invented in France. It was created by an Englishman. What a sordid tale that little drink has! Would Finland be likely to say no? I don't know - I have very little knowledge of the security arrangements between Finland and the US. Would they be able to say no to the US? Not a chance.
- psergeant 9y ago
  > they are unable to track and log information like they can on US(ish) phones This seems remarkably unlikely. One would have thought the security industry would have noticed if Huawei had particularly robust security.
rrdharan 9y ago
I worry that it's sort of the same line of thinking that leads folks to skip vaccinations for their children, i.e. "What about the Tuskegee experiments and MKUltra? We can't trust government claims about health risks."
- user982 9y ago
  Claims without evidence, let alone proof, absolutely should not be trusted.
  - rrdharan 9y ago
    I think that’s a fair distinction to make.
  - twmb 9y ago
    Intelligence agencies generally avoid saying exactly why they suggest something and how they came to that conclusion. If agencies were fully open, adversaries would know what holes _they_ need to plug.
    - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
      I'd go one step further and say that intelligence agencies rarely say what they mean. It would be naive to take any of their statements at face value.
- lazerpants 9y ago
  To be fair, anti-vaxxers do have legitimate examples of vaccines being harmful [0]. Calling them all out as crazies just reduces the communication between sides and doesn't help further vaccination promotion. [0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/why-pandemic-flu-shot-caused-narcolepsy https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/why-pandemic-flu-sho...
  - fao_ 9y ago
    I don't know why you're being downvoted. The article you cite is a legitimate example of a case where vaccines have caused harm, you're not directly advocating that people stop having vaccinations.
3steve 9y ago
60 Minutes did a segment on Huawei a couple of years ago where they discussed the extreme concerns intelligence officials had with Telcos using Huawei equipment. At the time it just seemed like a very strange segment, this was of course before the Snowden revelations. I have thought about that segment many times since the Snowden revelations and it starts to make sense why intelligence officials where so concerned.
- xploit 9y ago
  I recall seeing that segment. If I remember correctly it was focused on the Chinese stealing trade secrets and intellectual property from US companies. One example they gave was Cisco source code that was found in Huawei network devices.
benevol 9y ago
That's really funny, because a couple of years ago, Snowden demonstrated very clearly that American tech companies are all infested by NSA mass surveillance tools or dominated by mass surveillance activities, constantly profiling pretty much all citizens.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- _0ffh 9y ago
  It's a double-whammy: Not only do the Chinese get all that precioussss data, also the Americans don't! Unless, maybe, they manage to buy or trade for it. Facing that kind of loss, I would be concerned, too!
- Angostura 9y ago
  As far as I’m aware he didn’t demonstrate that (say) Apple was infested by NSA mass surveillance tools. And those options that could be used to profile users can be switched off. What am I missing?
  - benevol 9y ago
    > What am I missing? Quite a lot, I'm afraid. Please do read the Snowden leaks, it's extremely important historical data. For starters, all major US tech companies are PRISM partners.
    - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
      Based on said leaks and a fact sheet from DNI Clapper himself, PRISM is simply an efficient warrant processing system based upon legal authority, nothing more. While troubling and worthy of debate, particularly regarding its 702 legal authority and targeting of Americans, it does not involve malware, surreptitious access to any of the involved tech companies, or an infestation of NSA tooling. The author of the PRISM slides was not careful to make this clear, which meant without context, everyone seemed to assume PRISM was a Room 641A situation. It's become clear that to be a 'partner' in PRISM simply means that the entity is capable of responding to warrants using the system, and citing PRISM as an example of compromise in the same vein as this Huawei announcement is disingenuous at best. Some companies built systems on their side to help (like Facebook), while Google delivered their PRISM data via SSH, for example; Twitter, interestingly, did not play ball. Having responded to warrants before, I can tell you that it's a drawn out, paperwork-intensive process. Something like PRISM is actually net good for both parties, since governmental relationships are extremely human intensive on both sides at the scale of the large tech players. I can actually understand and sympathize with the USG designing a system to make it more efficient, though the leaks tell us it was flagrantly misused (primarily via NSLs, back door searches, and so on).
donttrack 9y ago
I used to make mobile phones for a European company. High end expensive phones - very few phones produced. I was responsible for gathering telemetry data and was always wondering why some of the first telemetry data we got from phones was from Guam.
- saagarjha 9y ago
  Maybe because Guam is near the international date line, and telemetry that turns on on a certain day is likely to come from there first?
  - rootsudo 9y ago
    Makes sense.
- syva 9y ago
  vertu?
echevil 9y ago
Said by the masters of espionage
thomastjeffery 9y ago
> Huawei has not made strides in the U.S. market in large part because of government concerns that the Chinese government can use its smartphones and other products for intelligence gathering. This is a great opportunity for Huawei to be the first major manufacturer to have a totally open-source stack. It would be immediately unimpeachable; a feature that no other smartphone manufacturer has.
- homero 9y ago
  They'll never get the modem from qualcomm, that thing has it's own os and can download and run anything
  - catpack 9y ago
    You do realize that they design and manufacturer their own modems, right?
    - homero 9y ago
      Huawei has a soc? I swear they use mediatek I stand corrected HiSilicon
      - vetrom 9y ago
        HiSilicon is wholly owned by Huawei.
ilkan 9y ago
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/spy-fears-drive-us-officials-chinese-owned-hotel https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/spy-fears-drive-us-offic... Can't find the article but there was a warning not to discuss trade secrets or use the free wifi in conference rooms at Chinese-owned hotels in the US or Canada (which includes Starwood brands). Before anyone starts talking about "hackers"... why sneak around when you can just own the building.
neo4sure 9y ago
Huawei is a government sponsored entity. It will be natural for them to spy on our citizens and companies and steal their data for the betterment of China. We just have to be aware of that. Going into conspiracy theories won't help us much, we have to be clear-eyed.
peterwwillis 9y ago
I'm going to make two assumptions: China is spying on us through these phones, and the US is not spying on the Chinese through US phones. Now consider what real harm is going to come from US citizens using these phones when don't have any influence on the US government. Are the Chinese going to siphon the data of everyone in the country and use it to plan attacks on the government? Could be. But considering the relationship these two counties have right now, does this seem probable? We aren't at war with China. But we are slowly giving up market share to foreign companies, which weakens our economy and our negotiating power. Really, the biggest threat to the US from China is not intelligence leaks. It's customers. Once we lose the mobile market, everything else people use through the mobile phone may follow. China's startups could position themselves to become the center of the tech world with a captive user base and tailored platform. It could be that ZTE and Huawei simply can't be bought, and the US gains nothing by allowing China to dump cheap and powerful smartphones on the market. It's one thing to screen phones in the public sector - but nationally? I'm not buying it.
johnflan 9y ago
Its kinda surprising they haven't cited any evidence, I would expect they have numerous examples.
pobo 9y ago
China China China China China China China China China China China China. When did this country get so popular in US?
_trampeltier 9y ago
Thank you FBI, CIA and NSA to tell us Europeans not to use closed US software.
booleandilemma 9y ago
So is it a choice between getting spied on by the Chinese government or my own government? Which phone does the US government recommend I buy?
- rootsudo 9y ago
  Buy American. Buy iPhone. Made in China*.
  - adventured 9y ago
    Hardly any of the iPhone is made in China. Taiwan is not China. The same is true about Samsung phones, they've almost entirely eliminated China from their manufacturing process. Three times as many Samsung phones are made in Vietnam as in China at this point. Before another five or six years out, barely any non-domestic smartphones will be made in China.
- yorby 9y ago
  It might be just about money... more money stays in the US if you buy from Apple
- laxd 9y ago
  I'd separate jurisdiction from information.
calimac 9y ago
What? Have the 3 letter orgs fallen of their rockers? Are the 3 letter orgs now Tin Hat Wearing Conspiracy Theorists? They are crazy to think china is tracking our communications with hardware embedded or pcb embedded components!! wackos! As they used to say about anyone who would suggest such a thing; dismiss the conspiracy theorists they are crazy. Remember the 3 letter orgs called the guy who said long throw mics were in Comcast cable boxes? He ripped one open on public access tv to reveal it. Remember when the 3 letter orgs called the guy who said they have a search engine that made all private comms of the world (INCLUDING AMERICANS) key word searchable? Snowden blew that one wide open. Who is the traitor the people spying on all our comms or the guy who exposed it? unclear. Metadata" by their definition is all our footprint and text source of the comm. Wow, they have the audacity to suggest a china national corporation would embed surveillance components in devices worldwide. The Gods must be crazy.
turc1656 9y ago
"There is a risk of letting any company "beholden to foreign governments" inside the country's telecommunications infrastructure, he said." At it's face value this is indeed true. However, it is interesting there is no mention of Samsung then, right? Why would they be exempt from this recommendation, especially given Samsung phones are hundreds or perhaps thousands of times more prevalent than Huawei and ZTE phones in the US. Shouldn't the argument from the FBI, CIA, and NSA be that US citizens shouldn't purchase any non-US manufactured phone? I'm skeptical as to the true purpose of the statement. This might possibly indicate that for whatever reason Huawei and ZTE don't play ball with the US when it comes to surveillance and the US intelligence agencies don't like it. If anything, this just raised the probability of me purchasing one of these phones. I'll probably stick with BlackBerry, but I will at least consider these next time I need to buy a new phone.
- kragen 9y ago
  The US has 23,000 soldiers in South Korea. It may also be relevant that there are no US-manufactured phones. Indeed, even Samsung phones are full of chips from mainland China and Taiwan.
  - gnode 9y ago
    Isn't the issue more about design though? It seems to me that it'd be easy enough to take a random sample of chips made by your Chinese manufacturer, cut the top off and verify it matches your design with a microscope. However if the complex product is designed by an adversary it's easier to hide a backdoor, probably also easier to plausibly claim it was an accidental bug.
- gascan 9y ago
  However, it is interesting there is no mention of Samsung then, right? Well, if you follow the news, apparently South Korea is beholden to Samsung, not the other way around ;) https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/27/south-korea-prosecutors-seek-12-years-jail-for-samsung-heir-lee-in-corruption-case.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/27/south-korea-prosecutors-seek...
- 9y ago
ctphipps 9y ago
The headline seems sensationalized. The article doesn't mention a recommendation not to use, it simply was the absence of a recommendation at all. "...asked the group to raise their hands if they would recommend private American citizens use products or services made by Apple competitor Huawei or smartphone maker ZTE." The US Government is not in the business of recommending device brands or services to private individuals, and not making a recommendation is not the same as recommending against.
- caf 9y ago
  Yes. I would say there it is pertinent to consider why the Senator did not word the question as "Would you recommend private American citizens avoid using products or services...".
rootsudo 9y ago
Makes sense, it was a big deal to never use Huawei equipment in routing or cell equipment.
ASalazarMX 9y ago
It's a sad state of affairs when one can't tell whether China really has backdoors on Huawei phones, or USA just wants you to use phones with their own backdoors. Too much smoke and mirrors.
- reaperducer 9y ago
  Maybe it's a budget-saving measure. Keeps the TLA's from having to buy all of our information from Facebook and Google.
tannranger 9y ago
Do you all think this would apply to the Nexus 6P as well? Google branded but made by Huawei..right?
- cpncrunch 9y ago
  Presumably. I own a 6P and it is an amazing phone. If I had to buy a new phone today it would probably be a Pixel 2. However it seems to be having some issues with a blue screen tint, perhaps due to a poorly manufactured polariser. That just leaves Samsung, which is out of the running due to their poor history for android updates. I don't really give a shit myself whether China is spying on me, as I myself have nothing to do with China and don't have any secrets worth stealing, but it would probably be best avoiding any Chinese networking hardware if you have any concerns.
  - yorby 9y ago
    What if they could remotely blow up your battery?
    - vkou 9y ago
      What if they could remotely blow up your town with a nuclear missile? Qui bono?
    - cpncrunch 9y ago
      Why would the Chinese government want to remotely blow up my battery? Would the NSA want to remotely blow up my battery?
      - yorby 9y ago
        It could be targeted attacks on important targets.... a bit like drone strikes, but much more precise ... Reminds me a bit of the Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA
thinkloop 9y ago
Extremely easy to have provided proof, none provided, useless fud.
gshulegaard 9y ago
Without evidence this sounds a lot like fearmongering. But at the same time the FBI, CIA, and NSA are probably best informed about just how powerful (smart)phone surveillance can be. I still want to see the evidence though.
bproven 9y ago
If the FBI, CIA and NSA say I shouldn't use Huawei phones then I guess maybe that means I should :)
russellbeattie 9y ago
All three of these orgs have done questionable things to their own citizens - some in recent history - however, they're what Americans have. Not trusting them when they're being so ridiculously direct seems unwise. If I had to choose my lesser evil, I'll go with my government's agencies over the word of a foreign government. I don't think China is fundamentally evil, but I do think that it's viciously competitive and very organized. So for now, I'll take the warnings at face value and avoid Huawei phones.
- supergirl 9y ago
  how about ask for proof? let it be debated by elected people first? seems like secret agencies are running things there... if you want to achieve your goal just scream "national security"; nice system.
ggm 9y ago
This argument has strong extra-territorial qualities because they forced the "five eyes" compatriots in AU and NZ to drop Huawei as core technology in domestic and international fibre deployment. But, there is this other quality. The in-senate presentation mainly focussed on the governance structures behind Huawei. The government is cross because ex PLA members are vested and its not a transparent company structure. I think the FBI/CIA/NSA reports are deeply troubling for their lack of specificity, in a context of international trade I am not drawn to entirely believe them. Remember, this is the nexus of people who alleged sound reasons to go to war in Iraq which turned out to be flawed. Sometimes rumour is conflated with fact. I know people who work in Huawei. I do not believe they are people of bad intent.
mehrdadn 9y ago
Any reason to believe the same wouldn't go for OnePlus?
lerie82 9y ago
Many Obama phones are Huawei.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
Between the devil and the deep blue sea; we either let the Chinese spy on us, or the Americans.
emmelaich 9y ago
Not only TLAs from the USA. Australia's ASD would have the same opinion. And I personally wouldn't get an other Huawei phone after seeing the app shit that had all permissions, was pre-installed, force started and uninstallable.
yorby 9y ago
Time to get a Huawei phone and new VPN....
- madisfun 9y ago
  ... and then login into Google and Facebook accounts, use Google Maps for navigation, Whatsapp/Snapchat for private messages, Amazon to buy nearly everything, Youtube search for political statement. Bonus points if you run some "free" apps with ads served from all over the world. If wish it were possible to get off the hook by just changing the phone brand and IP.
3pt14159 9y ago
You guys, I can't tell if it's foreign bots flooding this thread with disinformation, but it's obvious that using a Huawei phone isn't going to keep you off of American intelligence servers. All it's going to do is make it easier to get on Chinese ones too. I'd take these warnings seriously. The Chinese have a long history of stealing IP and disregarding norms.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  I doubt foreign bots are flooding this thread.
  - Tasboo 9y ago
    Yeah that would never happen /s. This is one of the most frequented social media sites for tech people. This place is a perfect target for foreign bots.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      I think we have plenty of homegrown distrust of intelligence agencies post-Snowden without needing to import it from abroad.
    - golergka 9y ago
      What's much more important, HN is a constant source of reposts. Half of what I see on all other tech sites I see on HN first.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > All it's going to do is make it easier to get on Chinese ones too. I'd take these warnings seriously. The Chinese have a long history of stealing IP and disregarding norms Agreed. To those arguing "the Chinese having all my information is better than the Americans," three points: 1. As 3pt14159 says [1], just because the Chinese have access to your phone doesn't make it safer against American law enforcement. 2. Every phone isn't made by American or Chinese firms. Don't force a false dichotomy. 3. Economic espionage is a scary threat model. Consider what you know that someone else might find valuable. Few people answer "yes" in respect of political information. Many more answer "yes" in respect of commercial information. That is your blackmail value. Choosing to expand your security cross-section to foreign economic espionage plus domestic political espionage, versus simply the latter, is irrational. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16381401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16381401
dirtbox 9y ago
The takeaway being that the Kirin line of CPUs is proving difficult to create a backdoor for.
oblib 9y ago
I guess we shouldn't bring up the whole "NSAKEY" thing again. But if we did I'd have to wonder at least a little bit if those phones not having one is the real motivation behind this "warning".
windexh8er 9y ago
This is not new. I worked for a Comcast subsidiary who owned and operated a multi-state "cable" company who owned all of their end to end transport and had a customer base of around 250k at the time. They installed all fiber and HFC networks in the ground, thus they also owned all the fiber transport gear. We had been in a bake off between Infinera (US based) and Huawei for long-haul transport until a three letter agency paid a visit and made the decision for us. So... Either one of two things was true: the three letter agency was protecting US consumers or the three letter agency already had Infinera backdoored. My personal opinion in the matter was the former. Why? Because later that same year the data center was shut down one night and off limits for all changes and users. The next day a large, locked and tamper taped mobile rack was in the DC with 100Gb link into core routing. That led me to believe gaining access to siphoning traffic was not really the issue. But I could also be wrong because I wasn't in the know. This was in 2010-2011, pre-Snowden.
- contingencies 9y ago
  The same thing happened to Vodafone (the major cellular carrier and therefore nation's largest ISP) in Australia circa 2013. Next-gen gear bids were under consideration, Huawei came in by far cheapest, but an Australian government agency visited and essentially suggested they were free to buy Huawei however they may not have their licenses renewed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 9y ago
  A third possibility is that they're using this influence to give an economic advantage to US-based companies, and a disadvantage to foreign (or specifically Chinese) ones. Could also be all three of course.
  - anyeverynothing 9y ago
    You're right it could be anything and everything. But knowing what I know about intelligence agencies and China it was most likely a fair warning to the US citizen.
  - psergeant 9y ago
Tasboo 9y ago
What an odd comment thread. In what twisted world are people holding the Chinese government as a bastion of liberty compared to the US?
ENOTTY 9y ago
Here is a video[1] of the part of the testimony being reported here. It's also worth mentioning that several years ago, the BT in the UK basically installed Huawei equipment all over their core telecom infrastructure.[2] [1]: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4714734/zte-huawei https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4714734/zte-huawei [2]: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22803510 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22803510
giardini 9y ago
What we need is a phone that neither the Chinese nor American governments can monitor. Failing that, since I live in the USA, perhaps a phone that the Chinese can monitor but the American government cannot (at least until China and USA ink a pact to trade intelligence info). What irks me is why does the government insist upon having the ability to monitor everyone willy-nilly when it has been shown consistently that by far most of the information gathered is worthless for both espionage and criminal investigations?Why not return to the older court-approval method for warrants (and get rid of FISA courts and the FISA system entirely).
- adventured 9y ago
  What in the world would lead you to believe if the Chinese can monitor your phone, that the US can't? That's so far out there in terms of logic, I can hardly imagine where you're coming from. This entire thread is overloaded with posts that seem to not understand the US intelligence system, its legal authority, how FISA works, how the court system works, et al. I keep seeing people say that they might be better off with their information outside of the US, because China or Russia can't arrest them if they reside in the US. If your information is outside the US, transited to a foreign service provider, you just dramatically increased the US Government's authority to target your information.
  - giardini 9y ago
    adventured says >"What in the world would lead you to believe if the Chinese can monitor your phone, that the US can't? That's so far out there in terms of logic, I can hardly imagine where you're coming from." Firstly, What makes you think you know and can state here what I believe? You have no idea. Secondly, I don't believe that. But I do believe that surveillance is a constantly-changing game (like stepping into a river) and a Chinese vendor will be slower to provide updates to USA intelligence agencies than will a domestic vendor. Hell, domestic communications vendors have willingly followed the instructions of the 3-letter agencies. The time lag could allow one to avoid surveillance. adventured says >"This entire thread is overloaded with posts that seem to not understand the US intelligence system, its legal authority, how FISA works, how the court system works, et al." Best to save your breath and worry about the gaps in your own knowledge. adventured says >"I keep seeing people say that they might be better off with their information outside of the US, because China or Russia can't arrest them if they reside in the US. If your information is outside the US, transited to a foreign service provider, you just dramatically increased the US Government's authority to target your information." Firstly, that was true for awhile but not now. Foreign or domestic, your data is being collected and is being examined by computers, indexed and stored for future reference. We're already at "Big Brother". Secondly, I'd like to see the FBI try to bring evidence to a U.S. criminal court that was collected by almost any foreign government's intelligence services. That would be a fast track to dismissal of charges.
MBCook 9y ago
Don’t use those phones because the Chinese government did get information off them? Odd. Isn’t that EXACTLY what the US government was trying to do a few years ago to Apple phones? Get their own personal back door put in?
longcheng 9y ago
The US government probably worries that Huawei could remotely blew the phone battery should US ever goes into a trade war with China, which is emergent ... That's the only sense I can make out of this news. I would dump my Huawei if US government can expense it for me. It's hard to find such a high quality phone. [1] [1]https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-Amazon-Alexa-Leica-Camera/product-reviews/B01MYRABC3/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-Amazon-Alexa-Leica-Camera/prod...
kaltroiqx 9y ago
https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/6/16979110/huawei-honor-9-lite-four-cameras-android-budget-smartphone-europe-release https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/6/16979110/hu... Meanwhile in western europe? ........
voltagex_ 9y ago
This would carry more weight if someone funded serious reverse engineering efforts against some of these phones.
neuro_imager 9y ago
I posted a link to a company making secure laptops and iphones on a previous, similar thread and got down-voted and accused of shilling/trolling. If you are interested look for : laptops and phones where you are in control and have complete visibility into the operating system, all bundled software, and the deeper levels of your computer. (The phone has not been released yet.)
dis-sys 9y ago
next time when anyone wants to complain the fact that facebook, google and twitter are all banned in China, think about this news.
ketsa 9y ago
I have a Xiaomi. And given the choice I prefer being spied upon by the chinese... Rather than the Yankees.
throwawaymanbot 9y ago
The UK signed up with Huawei backend didnt it? In spite of Intel Community Concerns. The Concerns are real. And Should not be ignored. But at this stage where everything is backdoored, the problem might just be with the concept of backdooring itself. Now everyones backdoored and its mutuallly assured eavesdropping, its a stalemate.
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270 points by daegloe 9y ago

Maybe it's tinfoil hat time; the more the government says to not use Huawei, offering no proof at all, the more I think they are unable to track and log information like they can on US(ish) phones. All US phones have components manufactured in China as well as all over the world. It is not a stretch to think the foreign governments couldn't get in the middle and create vulnerabilities or straight up drop attacks on different components they have access to. How is Huawei any different? Are we supposed to take their complaints seriously when Snowden leaks revealed the NSA hacked Huawei servers to find vulnerabilities they themselves could use to spy on people around the world. /shrug operations Shotgiant doesn't matter? If the NSA hack revealed that Huawei was injecting spyware it's time to release the details of how they found out.

byproxy 9y ago
I suppose then the question becomes "Who would you rather have listening in?"
- eesmith 9y ago
  Let's see, if the US is listening in, then there's a small chance they will misinterpret my actions as suspicious, arrest me, and perhaps even lead to my imprisonment. This may include extraordinary rendition, should they make that decision while I am in another country. If China is listening in, then there's a chance I will be denied a visa to visit China or, should I be given a visa and visit, then they can arrest me, etc. Upsides in either case? None. So I would rather have China listening in than the US.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - Grazester 9y ago
    Dont fool yourself. If you get a Huawei phone and use it with a U.S. carrier with any services by U.S. tech companies that can be back-doored or subpoenaed, then you could potentially have both the U.S. and China spying on you. It has already been proven in the past that these Chinese phones send considerable amounts of data to Chinese servers. If you are someone working with a military contractor or the government(with any kind of security clearance) I dont think the U.S. would want you using a Chinese phone for obvious reasons
    - spicytunacone 9y ago
      >It has already been proven in the past that these Chinese phones send considerable amounts of data to Chinese servers. Not that I don't believe this, but can you provide a canonical source to support this claim? I don't keep up with this literature.
      - emodendroket 9y ago
        Also, what are they sending? My natural response to this would be "well of course they do" because presumably most phones come with some software/services from the manufacturer.
  - jonyt 9y ago
    I think you're very much mistaken about the risks involved. For example[0]. I really have a hard time understanding people who think the US is worse than China. China is orders of magnitude worse. Sure, the NSA may spy on your electronic communications but the level of invasive, oppressive surveillance is not even comparable[1]. As far as I know no people are in jail in the US for protesting the government's policies. In China that's not the case[2]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/daughter-gui-minhai-swedish-bookseller-china-fears-jail https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/08/daughter-gui-m... [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chinas-surveillance-state-overwhelms-daily-life-1513700355 https://www.wsj.com/articles/twelve-days-in-xinjiang-how-chi... [2] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/political-prisoners-china-database_us_589a1d83e4b09bd304be3300 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/political-prisoners-chi...
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      You may feel that from a human rights perspective China is morally inferior to the US. This has no bearing on whether you're better off being spied on by one or the other. If you're located in the US, the US government has an extreme amount of power over you and China has almost none; it's obviously better to be spied on by China. If you're in China, the logic reverses.
    - pythonaut_16 9y ago
      Not to mention, with the NSA, the primary concern should be transparency and whether what they're doing is legal/allowed by the constitution. With China there are real national security concerns. We can have discussions and concerns about the NSA while also recognizing foreign nations pose an equal or worse threat. At least with the NSA there is some hope of reigning them in when they overstep.
      - MertsA 9y ago
        > At least with the NSA there is some hope of reigning them in when they overstep. Honestly? The response to the Snowden leaks would seem to indicate the opposite.
      - 9y ago
  - ilkan 9y ago
    The US gov't is unlikely to jack the results of $200M and 11 years of research and give it to state-controlled companies.
  - y-c-o-m-b 9y ago
    What about blackmail? They can use your surfing data (porn, social media) to blackmail you. If you do your banking or shopping on your phone, they will have access to your credit card data, social security #, etc. that can be sold or used for cyber warfare. You're right, no upsides, but there are huge risks with having the Chinese steal your information.
    - eesmith 9y ago
      Ahh, you are right. I didn't think about that possibility because I don't have a smartphone.
      - eesmith 9y ago
        And because I read "listening in" literally, as intercepting audio, rather than metaphorically as being able to intercept all traffic. Also, the US has blackmailed people, like the FBI attempt to blackmail Martin Luther King Jr. We know the US gathers the porn habits of people who it considers might be a threat, including of a US person (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n_4346128.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/26/nsa-porn-muslims_n... ). So really it's a matter of balancing the odds. The odds are low that either government will care about me. It feels more likely that my life will be upended by a mistake, like what happened with Brandon Mayfield, and a mistake by the US government is far more likely to affect me than a mistake by the Chinese government.
  - s73v3r_ 9y ago
    If these are intelligence agencies, wouldn't they also consider assassinating you?
    - eesmith 9y ago
      I'm honored that you think I'm that important. The hypothetical choice is, would I rather have the US or China listening to my phone, if I had to choose one, and "none of the above" was not an option. It is not easy to assassinate someone in another continent, and I don't live in China. There's also the chance that the assassination will fail, and even backfire, where the further investigation might reveal agent identities. I'm just not that worthwhile to possibly waste those resources.
      - s73v3r_ 9y ago
        I mean, if you're that worried that something is going to happen to you, then you do think you're that important.
        eesmith 9y ago
        It was an intellectual exercise to answer the posed question "Who would you rather have listening in?"
eridius 9y ago
This argument would hold more weight if the government was saying not to use any non-US phone. But they're specifically targeting Huawei and ZTE. Notice that there's no recommendation to avoid e.g. Samsung phones.
- user982 9y ago
  Samsung is South Korean, a US ally and SIGINT partner. Modify the argument to, "the government is saying not to use any phones that are not from the US or its puppet states."
  - eridius 9y ago
    Are Huawei and ZTE the only phone manufacturers from a non-SIGINT partner state? That doesn't seem correct. Hell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_makers_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mobile_phone_makers_by... lists 29 different mobile phone makers in China, 2 of which are Huawei and ZTE, one of which is a subsidiary, leaving 26 independent manufacturers. But the government isn't telling us not to buy e.g. a Xiaomi phone.
    - michaelmrose 9y ago
      Which of those other 27 are big enough in the US to be worthy of mention?
      - eridius 9y ago
        How about Xiaomi? Wikipedia says that as of 2017 they're the world's 5th largest smartphone company. I don't know how popular their products are in the US, but I have at least heard of them before (which is more than I can say for ZTE).
        prklmn 9y ago
        I’d venture to say 98% of the US population couldn’t tell you if Xiaomi was a tech company or a Chinese food dish.
HankB99 9y ago
> ... the more I think they are unable to track and log information like they can on US(ish) phones. My first thought was "Why? Can't they snoop on us with those phones?" Then I thought that they snoop at the network level so I don't think they need anything on the handset to listen in. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
- marnett 9y ago
  You'd still want vulnerabilities on the device in order to have access to encrypted messaging. While this type of attack would not be used on all citizens, investigative journalist and activists would certainly be citizens of interest.
  - HankB99 9y ago
    Yes, I had forgotten about that case.
mtgx 9y ago
Huawei is not that good with phone updates. I don't think they need special access to hack or record Huawei phones, especially if they find the Chinese backdoor in there.
mc32 9y ago
People tend to believe narratives that mirror or support their beliefs. Blame North Korea for Sony hack? Nah, no way. Blame Russia for election hacking (even though at most they bought some ads on FB and ran some twitterbots) oh yeah, those manipulative Russians. You're free to ignore their advice, btw.
- redux13 9y ago
  This comment is highly understating the power of social media micro-targeting by dubbing it as buying a few ads on FB and running twitterbots. I would request you to check out the Ted talk by Zeynep Tufekci (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFTWM7HV2UI) to get a sense of how effective social media campaigns can be.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Well that would explain why they were so effective in the Ukaine campaign, right? Or you're saying Americans are so much more deceived and gullible? The Kochs and the Soroses pump so much more money into manipulating elections what the Russians did was peanuts. People would hardly be complaining if they had instead been on Team Bernie. But since the candidate who could not possibly lose lost a Sure shot, people want and need a ready made answer, enter twitterbots and FB ads. Anyway, the agreeing narrative phenomenon is most clearly evident in the Assange issue. When he was exposing America's behavior in Europe and the middle east and it also aligned with left ideology, he was a hero, Swedish accusations be damned. Now that his leaks hurt the left, he's a tool of the Russians, of course.
    - alsetmusic 9y ago
      > The Kochs and the Soroses pump so much more money into manipulating elections what the Russians did was peanuts. People would hardly be complaining if they had instead been on Team Bernie. But since the candidate who could not possibly lose lost a Sure shot, people want and need a ready made answer, enter twitterbots and FB ads. The Kochs (etc) are Americans manipulating the system with their wealth and probably within the law. I resent them for it, but that’s very different from a foreign government attempting to influence the results of a US election. I don’t pretend to know the actual pervasiveness of Russian influence; I’m only saying that your comparison falls flat. I have to wonder if you might realize this yourself, but choose to ignore it in order to justify your own agenda. Also, I would be angry with any outcome that was shown to be the result of election tampering. That goes for any candidate, even if I voted for them myself.
wyuenho 9y ago
// Are we supposed to take their complaints seriously when Snowden leaks revealed the NSA hacked Huawei servers to find vulnerabilities they themselves could use to spy on people around the world. Yes, you should. More than one entity has committed a sin does not make that sin a non-sin.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  What evidence do we have for the claim, though, beyond what the FBI, CIA, and NSA told us?
qwerty456127 9y ago
Who cares about what overseas intelligence agencies know of them? I would be much more concerned about the agencies that sit close enough to actually be interested in my person. I am exaggerating (McCarthyism is probably not this hard any more and people are much less prone to take communism seriously nowadays) but just for example: if an American gets involved in an anti-communist club in the USA China will hardly care about him in particular but if some of the people in one's phonebook happen to be communists the homeland agencies can actually go after him and ruin his life :-)
- refurb 9y ago
  If your using a phone to access email that has trade secrets or IP in it, you'd care.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    Or if the relationship between China and the US becomes more confrontational, China effectively controls a large part of the US infrastructure which becomes a strategic risk. Kind of a nuclear option (no country would ever import anything running on electricity ever again from china if they were to do that).
emodendroket 9y ago
I sometimes feel like the smartest move is to use a product coming from a country ruled by a hostile government. Like, if you're in the US, sign up for Chinese services, but if you're in China sign up for American ones. (yeah the relationship is more complicated than "hostile" but you get my drift)
- siidooloo 9y ago
  If this is your perspective, maybe it would be better if everyone bought phones from Finland.
  - carlmr 9y ago
    Is Finland hostile to anyone?
  - indubitable 9y ago
    I believe his point with 'hostile' is to choose nations where they would be both likely and able to say 'no' should the host nation of an individual request sensitive information on the individual in question. For instance Switzerland had some of the most secure and private banking in the world. It was actually a criminal act in Switzerland to reveal the name of an account holder - to anybody, including governments. And so if the US were to request information on a possible US account holder, they would be likely to say no. But given the influence of the US on both Switzerland and on the nations it most heavily depends upon, they've proven themselves unable to say no, and ended up passing all sorts of special laws, just to bend over to US requests that infringed their nation laws and more generally their sovereignty. Another interesting example with Switzerland is Champagne. Champagne, Switzerland has been making a local wine known as Champagne since the 9th century. Many centuries before the champagne of France even existed. In 2004 the EU told them to stop using the name. And again even if they were likely to say no, they would be unable to do so. As another interesting aside Champagne, using the ubiquitous méthode champenoise, was not invented in France. It was created by an Englishman. What a sordid tale that little drink has! Would Finland be likely to say no? I don't know - I have very little knowledge of the security arrangements between Finland and the US. Would they be able to say no to the US? Not a chance.
psergeant 9y ago
> they are unable to track and log information like they can on US(ish) phones This seems remarkably unlikely. One would have thought the security industry would have noticed if Huawei had particularly robust security.

rrdharan 9y ago

I worry that it's sort of the same line of thinking that leads folks to skip vaccinations for their children, i.e. "What about the Tuskegee experiments and MKUltra? We can't trust government claims about health risks."

user982 9y ago
Claims without evidence, let alone proof, absolutely should not be trusted.
- rrdharan 9y ago
  I think that’s a fair distinction to make.
- twmb 9y ago
  Intelligence agencies generally avoid saying exactly why they suggest something and how they came to that conclusion. If agencies were fully open, adversaries would know what holes _they_ need to plug.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    I'd go one step further and say that intelligence agencies rarely say what they mean. It would be naive to take any of their statements at face value.
lazerpants 9y ago
To be fair, anti-vaxxers do have legitimate examples of vaccines being harmful [0]. Calling them all out as crazies just reduces the communication between sides and doesn't help further vaccination promotion. [0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/why-pandemic-flu-shot-caused-narcolepsy https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/07/why-pandemic-flu-sho...
- fao_ 9y ago
  I don't know why you're being downvoted. The article you cite is a legitimate example of a case where vaccines have caused harm, you're not directly advocating that people stop having vaccinations.

3steve 9y ago

60 Minutes did a segment on Huawei a couple of years ago where they discussed the extreme concerns intelligence officials had with Telcos using Huawei equipment. At the time it just seemed like a very strange segment, this was of course before the Snowden revelations. I have thought about that segment many times since the Snowden revelations and it starts to make sense why intelligence officials where so concerned.

xploit 9y ago
I recall seeing that segment. If I remember correctly it was focused on the Chinese stealing trade secrets and intellectual property from US companies. One example they gave was Cisco source code that was found in Huawei network devices.

benevol 9y ago

That's really funny, because a couple of years ago, Snowden demonstrated very clearly that American tech companies are all infested by NSA mass surveillance tools or dominated by mass surveillance activities, constantly profiling pretty much all citizens.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
_0ffh 9y ago
It's a double-whammy: Not only do the Chinese get all that precioussss data, also the Americans don't! Unless, maybe, they manage to buy or trade for it. Facing that kind of loss, I would be concerned, too!
Angostura 9y ago
As far as I’m aware he didn’t demonstrate that (say) Apple was infested by NSA mass surveillance tools. And those options that could be used to profile users can be switched off. What am I missing?
- benevol 9y ago
  > What am I missing? Quite a lot, I'm afraid. Please do read the Snowden leaks, it's extremely important historical data. For starters, all major US tech companies are PRISM partners.
  - jsmthrowaway 9y ago
    Based on said leaks and a fact sheet from DNI Clapper himself, PRISM is simply an efficient warrant processing system based upon legal authority, nothing more. While troubling and worthy of debate, particularly regarding its 702 legal authority and targeting of Americans, it does not involve malware, surreptitious access to any of the involved tech companies, or an infestation of NSA tooling. The author of the PRISM slides was not careful to make this clear, which meant without context, everyone seemed to assume PRISM was a Room 641A situation. It's become clear that to be a 'partner' in PRISM simply means that the entity is capable of responding to warrants using the system, and citing PRISM as an example of compromise in the same vein as this Huawei announcement is disingenuous at best. Some companies built systems on their side to help (like Facebook), while Google delivered their PRISM data via SSH, for example; Twitter, interestingly, did not play ball. Having responded to warrants before, I can tell you that it's a drawn out, paperwork-intensive process. Something like PRISM is actually net good for both parties, since governmental relationships are extremely human intensive on both sides at the scale of the large tech players. I can actually understand and sympathize with the USG designing a system to make it more efficient, though the leaks tell us it was flagrantly misused (primarily via NSLs, back door searches, and so on).

donttrack 9y ago

I used to make mobile phones for a European company. High end expensive phones - very few phones produced. I was responsible for gathering telemetry data and was always wondering why some of the first telemetry data we got from phones was from Guam.

saagarjha 9y ago
Maybe because Guam is near the international date line, and telemetry that turns on on a certain day is likely to come from there first?
- rootsudo 9y ago
  Makes sense.
syva 9y ago
vertu?

echevil 9y ago

Said by the masters of espionage

thomastjeffery 9y ago

> Huawei has not made strides in the U.S. market in large part because of government concerns that the Chinese government can use its smartphones and other products for intelligence gathering. This is a great opportunity for Huawei to be the first major manufacturer to have a totally open-source stack. It would be immediately unimpeachable; a feature that no other smartphone manufacturer has.

homero 9y ago
They'll never get the modem from qualcomm, that thing has it's own os and can download and run anything
- catpack 9y ago
  You do realize that they design and manufacturer their own modems, right?
  - homero 9y ago
    Huawei has a soc? I swear they use mediatek I stand corrected HiSilicon
    - vetrom 9y ago
      HiSilicon is wholly owned by Huawei.

ilkan 9y ago

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/spy-fears-drive-us-officials-chinese-owned-hotel https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/spy-fears-drive-us-offic... Can't find the article but there was a warning not to discuss trade secrets or use the free wifi in conference rooms at Chinese-owned hotels in the US or Canada (which includes Starwood brands). Before anyone starts talking about "hackers"... why sneak around when you can just own the building.

neo4sure 9y ago

Huawei is a government sponsored entity. It will be natural for them to spy on our citizens and companies and steal their data for the betterment of China. We just have to be aware of that. Going into conspiracy theories won't help us much, we have to be clear-eyed.

peterwwillis 9y ago

I'm going to make two assumptions: China is spying on us through these phones, and the US is not spying on the Chinese through US phones. Now consider what real harm is going to come from US citizens using these phones when don't have any influence on the US government. Are the Chinese going to siphon the data of everyone in the country and use it to plan attacks on the government? Could be. But considering the relationship these two counties have right now, does this seem probable? We aren't at war with China. But we are slowly giving up market share to foreign companies, which weakens our economy and our negotiating power. Really, the biggest threat to the US from China is not intelligence leaks. It's customers. Once we lose the mobile market, everything else people use through the mobile phone may follow. China's startups could position themselves to become the center of the tech world with a captive user base and tailored platform. It could be that ZTE and Huawei simply can't be bought, and the US gains nothing by allowing China to dump cheap and powerful smartphones on the market. It's one thing to screen phones in the public sector - but nationally? I'm not buying it.

johnflan 9y ago

Its kinda surprising they haven't cited any evidence, I would expect they have numerous examples.

pobo 9y ago

China China China China China China China China China China China China. When did this country get so popular in US?

_trampeltier 9y ago

Thank you FBI, CIA and NSA to tell us Europeans not to use closed US software.

booleandilemma 9y ago

So is it a choice between getting spied on by the Chinese government or my own government? Which phone does the US government recommend I buy?

rootsudo 9y ago
Buy American. Buy iPhone. Made in China*.
- adventured 9y ago
  Hardly any of the iPhone is made in China. Taiwan is not China. The same is true about Samsung phones, they've almost entirely eliminated China from their manufacturing process. Three times as many Samsung phones are made in Vietnam as in China at this point. Before another five or six years out, barely any non-domestic smartphones will be made in China.
yorby 9y ago
It might be just about money... more money stays in the US if you buy from Apple
laxd 9y ago
I'd separate jurisdiction from information.

calimac 9y ago

What? Have the 3 letter orgs fallen of their rockers? Are the 3 letter orgs now Tin Hat Wearing Conspiracy Theorists? They are crazy to think china is tracking our communications with hardware embedded or pcb embedded components!! wackos! As they used to say about anyone who would suggest such a thing; dismiss the conspiracy theorists they are crazy. Remember the 3 letter orgs called the guy who said long throw mics were in Comcast cable boxes? He ripped one open on public access tv to reveal it. Remember when the 3 letter orgs called the guy who said they have a search engine that made all private comms of the world (INCLUDING AMERICANS) key word searchable? Snowden blew that one wide open. Who is the traitor the people spying on all our comms or the guy who exposed it? unclear. Metadata" by their definition is all our footprint and text source of the comm. Wow, they have the audacity to suggest a china national corporation would embed surveillance components in devices worldwide. The Gods must be crazy.

turc1656 9y ago

"There is a risk of letting any company "beholden to foreign governments" inside the country's telecommunications infrastructure, he said." At it's face value this is indeed true. However, it is interesting there is no mention of Samsung then, right? Why would they be exempt from this recommendation, especially given Samsung phones are hundreds or perhaps thousands of times more prevalent than Huawei and ZTE phones in the US. Shouldn't the argument from the FBI, CIA, and NSA be that US citizens shouldn't purchase any non-US manufactured phone? I'm skeptical as to the true purpose of the statement. This might possibly indicate that for whatever reason Huawei and ZTE don't play ball with the US when it comes to surveillance and the US intelligence agencies don't like it. If anything, this just raised the probability of me purchasing one of these phones. I'll probably stick with BlackBerry, but I will at least consider these next time I need to buy a new phone.

kragen 9y ago
The US has 23,000 soldiers in South Korea. It may also be relevant that there are no US-manufactured phones. Indeed, even Samsung phones are full of chips from mainland China and Taiwan.
- gnode 9y ago
  Isn't the issue more about design though? It seems to me that it'd be easy enough to take a random sample of chips made by your Chinese manufacturer, cut the top off and verify it matches your design with a microscope. However if the complex product is designed by an adversary it's easier to hide a backdoor, probably also easier to plausibly claim it was an accidental bug.
gascan 9y ago
However, it is interesting there is no mention of Samsung then, right? Well, if you follow the news, apparently South Korea is beholden to Samsung, not the other way around ;) https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/27/south-korea-prosecutors-seek-12-years-jail-for-samsung-heir-lee-in-corruption-case.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/27/south-korea-prosecutors-seek...
9y ago

ctphipps 9y ago

The headline seems sensationalized. The article doesn't mention a recommendation not to use, it simply was the absence of a recommendation at all. "...asked the group to raise their hands if they would recommend private American citizens use products or services made by Apple competitor Huawei or smartphone maker ZTE." The US Government is not in the business of recommending device brands or services to private individuals, and not making a recommendation is not the same as recommending against.

caf 9y ago
Yes. I would say there it is pertinent to consider why the Senator did not word the question as "Would you recommend private American citizens avoid using products or services...".

rootsudo 9y ago

Makes sense, it was a big deal to never use Huawei equipment in routing or cell equipment.

ASalazarMX 9y ago

It's a sad state of affairs when one can't tell whether China really has backdoors on Huawei phones, or USA just wants you to use phones with their own backdoors. Too much smoke and mirrors.

reaperducer 9y ago
Maybe it's a budget-saving measure. Keeps the TLA's from having to buy all of our information from Facebook and Google.

tannranger 9y ago

Do you all think this would apply to the Nexus 6P as well? Google branded but made by Huawei..right?

cpncrunch 9y ago
Presumably. I own a 6P and it is an amazing phone. If I had to buy a new phone today it would probably be a Pixel 2. However it seems to be having some issues with a blue screen tint, perhaps due to a poorly manufactured polariser. That just leaves Samsung, which is out of the running due to their poor history for android updates. I don't really give a shit myself whether China is spying on me, as I myself have nothing to do with China and don't have any secrets worth stealing, but it would probably be best avoiding any Chinese networking hardware if you have any concerns.
- yorby 9y ago
  What if they could remotely blow up your battery?
  - vkou 9y ago
    What if they could remotely blow up your town with a nuclear missile? Qui bono?
  - cpncrunch 9y ago
    Why would the Chinese government want to remotely blow up my battery? Would the NSA want to remotely blow up my battery?
    - yorby 9y ago
      It could be targeted attacks on important targets.... a bit like drone strikes, but much more precise ... Reminds me a bit of the Slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CO6M2HsoIA

thinkloop 9y ago

Extremely easy to have provided proof, none provided, useless fud.

gshulegaard 9y ago

Without evidence this sounds a lot like fearmongering. But at the same time the FBI, CIA, and NSA are probably best informed about just how powerful (smart)phone surveillance can be. I still want to see the evidence though.

bproven 9y ago

If the FBI, CIA and NSA say I shouldn't use Huawei phones then I guess maybe that means I should :)

russellbeattie 9y ago

All three of these orgs have done questionable things to their own citizens - some in recent history - however, they're what Americans have. Not trusting them when they're being so ridiculously direct seems unwise. If I had to choose my lesser evil, I'll go with my government's agencies over the word of a foreign government. I don't think China is fundamentally evil, but I do think that it's viciously competitive and very organized. So for now, I'll take the warnings at face value and avoid Huawei phones.

supergirl 9y ago
how about ask for proof? let it be debated by elected people first? seems like secret agencies are running things there... if you want to achieve your goal just scream "national security"; nice system.

ggm 9y ago

This argument has strong extra-territorial qualities because they forced the "five eyes" compatriots in AU and NZ to drop Huawei as core technology in domestic and international fibre deployment. But, there is this other quality. The in-senate presentation mainly focussed on the governance structures behind Huawei. The government is cross because ex PLA members are vested and its not a transparent company structure. I think the FBI/CIA/NSA reports are deeply troubling for their lack of specificity, in a context of international trade I am not drawn to entirely believe them. Remember, this is the nexus of people who alleged sound reasons to go to war in Iraq which turned out to be flawed. Sometimes rumour is conflated with fact. I know people who work in Huawei. I do not believe they are people of bad intent.

mehrdadn 9y ago

Any reason to believe the same wouldn't go for OnePlus?

lerie82 9y ago

Many Obama phones are Huawei.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

Between the devil and the deep blue sea; we either let the Chinese spy on us, or the Americans.

emmelaich 9y ago

Not only TLAs from the USA. Australia's ASD would have the same opinion. And I personally wouldn't get an other Huawei phone after seeing the app shit that had all permissions, was pre-installed, force started and uninstallable.

yorby 9y ago

Time to get a Huawei phone and new VPN....

madisfun 9y ago
... and then login into Google and Facebook accounts, use Google Maps for navigation, Whatsapp/Snapchat for private messages, Amazon to buy nearly everything, Youtube search for political statement. Bonus points if you run some "free" apps with ads served from all over the world. If wish it were possible to get off the hook by just changing the phone brand and IP.

3pt14159 9y ago

You guys, I can't tell if it's foreign bots flooding this thread with disinformation, but it's obvious that using a Huawei phone isn't going to keep you off of American intelligence servers. All it's going to do is make it easier to get on Chinese ones too. I'd take these warnings seriously. The Chinese have a long history of stealing IP and disregarding norms.

emodendroket 9y ago
I doubt foreign bots are flooding this thread.
- Tasboo 9y ago
  Yeah that would never happen /s. This is one of the most frequented social media sites for tech people. This place is a perfect target for foreign bots.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    I think we have plenty of homegrown distrust of intelligence agencies post-Snowden without needing to import it from abroad.
  - golergka 9y ago
    What's much more important, HN is a constant source of reposts. Half of what I see on all other tech sites I see on HN first.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> All it's going to do is make it easier to get on Chinese ones too. I'd take these warnings seriously. The Chinese have a long history of stealing IP and disregarding norms Agreed. To those arguing "the Chinese having all my information is better than the Americans," three points: 1. As 3pt14159 says [1], just because the Chinese have access to your phone doesn't make it safer against American law enforcement. 2. Every phone isn't made by American or Chinese firms. Don't force a false dichotomy. 3. Economic espionage is a scary threat model. Consider what you know that someone else might find valuable. Few people answer "yes" in respect of political information. Many more answer "yes" in respect of commercial information. That is your blackmail value. Choosing to expand your security cross-section to foreign economic espionage plus domestic political espionage, versus simply the latter, is irrational. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16381401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16381401

dirtbox 9y ago

The takeaway being that the Kirin line of CPUs is proving difficult to create a backdoor for.

oblib 9y ago

I guess we shouldn't bring up the whole "NSAKEY" thing again. But if we did I'd have to wonder at least a little bit if those phones not having one is the real motivation behind this "warning".

windexh8er 9y ago

This is not new. I worked for a Comcast subsidiary who owned and operated a multi-state "cable" company who owned all of their end to end transport and had a customer base of around 250k at the time. They installed all fiber and HFC networks in the ground, thus they also owned all the fiber transport gear. We had been in a bake off between Infinera (US based) and Huawei for long-haul transport until a three letter agency paid a visit and made the decision for us. So... Either one of two things was true: the three letter agency was protecting US consumers or the three letter agency already had Infinera backdoored. My personal opinion in the matter was the former. Why? Because later that same year the data center was shut down one night and off limits for all changes and users. The next day a large, locked and tamper taped mobile rack was in the DC with 100Gb link into core routing. That led me to believe gaining access to siphoning traffic was not really the issue. But I could also be wrong because I wasn't in the know. This was in 2010-2011, pre-Snowden.

contingencies 9y ago
The same thing happened to Vodafone (the major cellular carrier and therefore nation's largest ISP) in Australia circa 2013. Next-gen gear bids were under consideration, Huawei came in by far cheapest, but an Australian government agency visited and essentially suggested they were free to buy Huawei however they may not have their licenses renewed.
tgsovlerkhgsel 9y ago
A third possibility is that they're using this influence to give an economic advantage to US-based companies, and a disadvantage to foreign (or specifically Chinese) ones. Could also be all three of course.
- anyeverynothing 9y ago
  You're right it could be anything and everything. But knowing what I know about intelligence agencies and China it was most likely a fair warning to the US citizen.
- psergeant 9y ago

Tasboo 9y ago

What an odd comment thread. In what twisted world are people holding the Chinese government as a bastion of liberty compared to the US?

ENOTTY 9y ago

Here is a video[1] of the part of the testimony being reported here. It's also worth mentioning that several years ago, the BT in the UK basically installed Huawei equipment all over their core telecom infrastructure.[2] [1]: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4714734/zte-huawei https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4714734/zte-huawei [2]: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22803510 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-22803510

giardini 9y ago

What we need is a phone that neither the Chinese nor American governments can monitor. Failing that, since I live in the USA, perhaps a phone that the Chinese can monitor but the American government cannot (at least until China and USA ink a pact to trade intelligence info). What irks me is why does the government insist upon having the ability to monitor everyone willy-nilly when it has been shown consistently that by far most of the information gathered is worthless for both espionage and criminal investigations?Why not return to the older court-approval method for warrants (and get rid of FISA courts and the FISA system entirely).

adventured 9y ago
What in the world would lead you to believe if the Chinese can monitor your phone, that the US can't? That's so far out there in terms of logic, I can hardly imagine where you're coming from. This entire thread is overloaded with posts that seem to not understand the US intelligence system, its legal authority, how FISA works, how the court system works, et al. I keep seeing people say that they might be better off with their information outside of the US, because China or Russia can't arrest them if they reside in the US. If your information is outside the US, transited to a foreign service provider, you just dramatically increased the US Government's authority to target your information.
- giardini 9y ago
  adventured says >"What in the world would lead you to believe if the Chinese can monitor your phone, that the US can't? That's so far out there in terms of logic, I can hardly imagine where you're coming from." Firstly, What makes you think you know and can state here what I believe? You have no idea. Secondly, I don't believe that. But I do believe that surveillance is a constantly-changing game (like stepping into a river) and a Chinese vendor will be slower to provide updates to USA intelligence agencies than will a domestic vendor. Hell, domestic communications vendors have willingly followed the instructions of the 3-letter agencies. The time lag could allow one to avoid surveillance. adventured says >"This entire thread is overloaded with posts that seem to not understand the US intelligence system, its legal authority, how FISA works, how the court system works, et al." Best to save your breath and worry about the gaps in your own knowledge. adventured says >"I keep seeing people say that they might be better off with their information outside of the US, because China or Russia can't arrest them if they reside in the US. If your information is outside the US, transited to a foreign service provider, you just dramatically increased the US Government's authority to target your information." Firstly, that was true for awhile but not now. Foreign or domestic, your data is being collected and is being examined by computers, indexed and stored for future reference. We're already at "Big Brother". Secondly, I'd like to see the FBI try to bring evidence to a U.S. criminal court that was collected by almost any foreign government's intelligence services. That would be a fast track to dismissal of charges.

MBCook 9y ago

Don’t use those phones because the Chinese government did get information off them? Odd. Isn’t that EXACTLY what the US government was trying to do a few years ago to Apple phones? Get their own personal back door put in?

longcheng 9y ago

The US government probably worries that Huawei could remotely blew the phone battery should US ever goes into a trade war with China, which is emergent ... That's the only sense I can make out of this news. I would dump my Huawei if US government can expense it for me. It's hard to find such a high quality phone. [1] [1]https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-Amazon-Alexa-Leica-Camera/product-reviews/B01MYRABC3/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_hist_5?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=five_star&reviewerType=all_reviews#reviews-filter-bar https://www.amazon.com/Huawei-Amazon-Alexa-Leica-Camera/prod...

kaltroiqx 9y ago

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/6/16979110/huawei-honor-9-lite-four-cameras-android-budget-smartphone-europe-release https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/6/16979110/hu... Meanwhile in western europe? ........

voltagex_ 9y ago

This would carry more weight if someone funded serious reverse engineering efforts against some of these phones.

neuro_imager 9y ago

I posted a link to a company making secure laptops and iphones on a previous, similar thread and got down-voted and accused of shilling/trolling. If you are interested look for : laptops and phones where you are in control and have complete visibility into the operating system, all bundled software, and the deeper levels of your computer. (The phone has not been released yet.)

dis-sys 9y ago

next time when anyone wants to complain the fact that facebook, google and twitter are all banned in China, think about this news.

ketsa 9y ago

I have a Xiaomi. And given the choice I prefer being spied upon by the chinese... Rather than the Yankees.

throwawaymanbot 9y ago

The UK signed up with Huawei backend didnt it? In spite of Intel Community Concerns. The Concerns are real. And Should not be ignored. But at this stage where everything is backdoored, the problem might just be with the concept of backdooring itself. Now everyones backdoored and its mutuallly assured eavesdropping, its a stalemate.

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