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Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Paraesthetic 8y agoYeah we would rather not have a company who is actively helping their government censor their Internet, and oppress their citizens from developing critical infrastructure in our country. Its not because They're Chinese its because they're unethical and oppressive.
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agoTie my kangaroo down sport, that's good news. Now we just need the sleepy EU to wake up so we get their spyware removed from our Mobile Operators infrastructure here!
- dis-sys 8y agoMercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi sold almost 2 million cars in China in 2017. Surely most of them can be replaced by Non-EU cars in case Huawei/ZTE are not allowed free access in EU. Trump wants a 25% tariff on every EU car, he is going to welcome such a suicidal move by the EU.
- duhast 8y ago> Trump wants a 25% tariff on every EU car, he is going to welcome such a suicidal move by the EU. BMW largest car factory is located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, US. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMW_in_the_United_States
- barking 8y agoIn 2 years we won't have to worry about Trump any more, maybe.
- ksec 8y ago>Surely most of them can be replaced by Non-EU cars in case Huawei/ZTE are not allowed free access in EU. China didn't allow free unrestricted access of Nokia and Ericsson in China either.
- close04 8y agoTake it your mobile phone is built in Germany, with German components. ;) It's just a matter of picking your poison. You think your Cisco router has no backdoors? Your Intel CPU? Your Windows OS? Your Gmail account? This isn't about making you safer, it's about removing competition (as crappy as it may have been). And they eliminate competition both economically and in the spying game. The more companies there are that want to spy on you, the more you pay attention to security and you make life hard for everyone. But phew, the spies were banned so no need to worry anymore :).
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> You think your Cisco router has no backdoors? Accessible to a one-man dictatorship in Australia’s back yard? No. In any case, any backdoors in a Cisco product will be available to Canberra, a Five Eyes member.
- close04 8y ago> Accessible to a one-man dictatorship in Australia’s back yard? No. Are you qualified to make that statement? No. Just before every major hacking revelation someone like you victoriously claimed we're totally safe.
- roenxi 8y agoMmm. As an Australian, the main reason I'd be happy with using US telecom equipment would be the fact that Australia makes up 1/5th of the 5 eyes. I'd expect our security people to have a very good idea of what backdoors are or are not present.
- lx3459683 8y agoSo US/AU government backdooring AU citizens is okay, but if China has access it's bad? People actually think like this now? We just collectively rolled over and accepted mass surveillance?
- 8y ago
- DyslexicAtheist 8y agoconsidering all the downvotes maybe I haven't really explained the problem properly or maybe I deserved it idk. Here some points that I should probably have made clear instead of writing a snappy one-liner without substance. Banning Huawei isn't going to increase the security or reduces the backdoors. I've been working many years for NEVs and later started a recruiting firm that did OSINT in this domain. First of all Lawful Interception is (as the name implies) legal. Despite the legality and the standardization in ETSI/3GPP the actual implementation of these black boxes is extremely shady & obscure. Siemens COM (now part of Nokia since some years already) for example has outsourced the implementation to their Milan site, where it has been further outsourced (using 2 intermediaries in a cascading supply chain) to a tiny Italian firm that does contracts mainly for the OEMs but other than that has zero vetting of their people (no security clearance etc). Code isn't reviewed and in fact the OEM didn't even have access to the code. I'm bringing this up because the problem isn't only because it's China and as I said has anyway no positive impact on increasing security (just because the company is European or US doesn't make it more trustworthy). Nevertheless if I get spied on (illegally) then I'd much rather have it done by my own jurisdiction which doesn't come after me and my family than by some thick-face black heart dictatorship in Asia. How Huawei became so successful in EMEA? #1) access to unlimited funding from Chinese gov. Huawei is financially backed by the state and able to cut out competitors with aggressive pricing in RFP/RFQs (even it doesn't financially make sense - "as long as it hurts the competitor it's a win") #2) willingness to bid for projects in highly corrupt countries where a suitcase of cash changes hands using shady consultants, and ability to satisfy questionable requests from war-lords & repressive regimes (tailored Lawful Interception & DPI etc) #3) bribing is illegal for companies located in US or EU (Nokia, Ericsson, ...) but pretty much a non-issue in China. It goes hand in hand with conducting business with the regime. #4) Stealing the IP of competitors: Either by placing sleepers in other firms or (the easier way) by coercing and leaning on employees of Chinese origin working for competitors. #5) employs workers under despicable conditions (complex outsourcing layers to ensure bad-PR never directly hits Huawei - questionable supply chain is also bad security) Again I'm not anti China and I'm happy to rip into CISCO, Juniper, Nokia & Ericsson (and I have done so in the past on plenty occasions).
- BLKNSLVR 8y ago
- crtasm 8y agoCyber actors is one I've not heard before. Sounds like a good idea, what are the downsides if any?
- Rjevski 8y agoI wish they'd bad this equipment not because it's Chinese, but simply because it's shit. Seriously, pretty much all mobile network equipment (including EU-based Ericsson) has critical vulnerabilities. I wouldn't worry about Chinese backdoors when anyone can get privileged access to the core network.
- sschueller 8y agoThey should ban any 5G millimeter wave (30GHz-300GHz) devices until enough testing on humans has been done. It is unclear what affects these waves have on our corneas and requires more research.
- ByThyGrace 8y agoWhy especially the corneas?
- sschueller 8y agohttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10762-018-0497-z https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10762-018-0497-z
- striking 8y ago"These findings suggested that damage to the corneal epithelium was not induced by corneal dryness alone, but by exposure of dried corneas to MMW-induced heat to above body temperature." So as long as I don't microwave my corneas with my phone, I should be alright. Thanks! edit: hell, even the researchers say this themselves: "It is an important finding that corneal epithelial damage is induced by MMW exposure, accompanying very strong pain, although it is cured within 1–2 days after injury. Since humans blink more frequently than rabbits, exposure to these levels of MMW is unlikely to induce corneal epithelial damage in humans."
- greatabel 8y agoMaybe PRISM is also caused by Huawei and ZTE. There is nothing about politics.
- throw2016 8y agoThis destroys the logic of free trade, competition that countries and a plethora of global organizations like IMF, WB promote and enforced aggressively over the last 40 years especially when looking for markets in other countries. But if its only applicable to a favoured set and suddenly has all sorts of qualifiers when it comes to your own markets then the whole thing collapses. And everyone can see its politics with a fig leaf of process designed for one way benefit and as a system cannot deliver mutual benefits.
- criddell 8y ago> This destroys the logic of free trade That depends on the calculation. Maybe there's a non-zero risk that China could remotely turn off their 5G network and including that in the calculation makes local sources a better value even when the dollar price is higher.
- notfromhere 8y agothe logic of free trade meets the logic of national security. national security is going to win that one unless Australia is going to willfully become a Chinese vassal
- somecallitblues 8y agoIt’s just a populist move by a shit right wing government. But they won’t be around for too long.
- BLKNSLVR 8y agoSoon to be replaced by an equally spineless and shit centre-left wing government.
- kentosi 8y agoI don't understand the concern. Huawei isn't providing the 5G network, just the phones that latch on to it. It would presumably be Telstra (the primary Australian telecommunications provider) that would provide the network itself. How is providing a 5G compatible phone any more a security risk than providing a 4G one? Edit: I should have read this more thoroughly since it's not just about phone, but rather that "Australia has blocked Huawei and ZTE from providing equipment for its 5G network". Key word: equipment, which I'm guessing spans to the installation of infrastructure in Australia.
- ksec 8y agoHuawei is not just a phone company. In Modern Telco ( Telstra) , they are mostly setting up, dealing with land / cell site lease, backbone, customer support and Retails. Along with some Network Engineers working along side with Telecom Network Equipment manufacturers for their Services. That Telecom Network Equipment manufacturers could be Huawei, ZTE, Samsung, Nokia, or Ericsson. Samsung is an new entry and has very little market shares. Huawei is bigger than both Nokia and Ericsson combined.
- detaro 8y agoHuawei doesn't just make phones, they make network components too. http://carrier.huawei.com/en/products/wireless-network http://carrier.huawei.com/en/products/wireless-network
- torgian 8y agoThis is kinda funny and hypocritical when you devote a few brain cells to this. Every country is gathering data on everyone. If you think they are respecting your privacy, you’re naive. The US has been doing it for years. Secretly. EU and I bet you Australia too. And even China, yes. But hey, at least China is honest about what they’re doing. Gotta respect that at least. Point is, it’s just a show.
- zaro 8y agoMy thoughts exactly, only that somebody else gets the downvotes :)
- ethbro 8y agoI'm going to take issue with this, because I see this line of argument a lot on HN recently. There is a fundamental difference between "like in kind" and "like in severity". Do the US and China both monitor telecom? Yes. Has the US built a national firewall? No. Do the US and China both have legal processes for acquiring court ordered telecom intercepts? Yes. Is the US legal system wholly subordinate to political goals? No. Do the US and Chinese governments lean on companies to comply with their wishes? Yes. Do US companies survive at the whim of the US government and generally lack independent legal recourse to fight pressure? No. If you want to go through point-by-point with what's similar between Chinese and US data monitoring regimes, I'm happy to do so. But they aren't close to the same.
- e40 8y agoI really dislike the "they're both the same" arguments. People do the same about the US political parties (and use this as an excuse to either not vote, or vote for their favorite side, based on this). This thinking allows people to let the worse offender off the hook.
- jazoom 8y ago"This new architecture provides a way to circumvent traditional security controls by exploiting equipment in the edge of the network – exploitation which may affect overall network integrity and availability, as well as the confidentiality of customer data." Hey Australian Government. You know what also protects confidentiality of customer data? Encryption.
- Jhsto 8y agoCellular base stations allow a database of SIM cards to be created. This could be considered a superior tracker to advertisement IDs of Apple and Google. This is because the ID is retained between user equipment changes. This information is exchanged before actual data transmission, i.e., it does not matter even if the actual data would be encrypted. I think it's inevident that the more precise geolocation data of 5G (due to an increased base station installations required by the mmWave frequencies) will be sold to advertisers. Essentially, Australia is betting that European manufacturers will respect privacy better than China - and sure, at least European companies do not need to hand over their data to authorities. Having seen surveillance implementations installed in Chinese IoT devices, it is more or less true that China is at least keeping the doors open for an intertwined database where information from various different Chinese companies can be built.
- joshschreuder 8y agoThe laws of mathematics don't apply in Australia
- jazoom 8y agoSeems like he didn't believe the mathematics in the polls either.
- BLKNSLVR 8y agoHe believes in them when it suits him. "The iron laws of arithmetic confirmed my leadership," (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-45266718 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-45266718) He, like all politicians, also seems to believe in cakes they can both have and eat.
- wemdyjreichert 8y agoMany people seem to dislike the anti-china move. However, let's not forget that china has put over 1 million Muslims in literal concentration or reeducation camps. That's wrong. China needs to stop, and if not buying their cell gear helps, we should consider it too.
- BLKNSLVR 8y agoAnd what are the US kill stats up to recently? There are no good guys.
- lightbyte 8y agoThat is not relevant to the discussion
- dnomad 8y agoWhat's really funny about this whole affair is that everything that people accuse China of doing has actually been done by the US. There's some powerful projection at here. We know for a fact that the NSA does intercept telecom devices on their way out of the country and so the US actually does export compromised devices [1]. We know for a fact that US telecom manufacturers export equipment that has been pre-broken by the NSA [2]. We know for a fact that the NSA aggressively penetrates foreign networks at the deepest levels, even for so called allies. [3] All of this is a matter of record, it's been documented and verified by several agencies. But somehow despite all this we're supposed to be very, very afraid of Huawei and ZTE? The total lack of integrity at work here is a bit breathtaking but it's come to be expected. [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa... [2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/cisco-confirms-nsa-linked-zeroday-targeted-its-firewalls-for-years/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/08/cisco... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Parliamentary_Committee_investigation_of_the_NSA_spying_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Parliamentary_Committee...
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- tynpeddler 8y agoThe west is slowly starting to realize something that China has realized for years; economic policy is not a question of economics but of geopolitical strategy. Free markets are nice in theory (and often in practice), but once you let in bad actors with the clout of a nation state, all the usual assumption behind free markets no longer apply. It's pretty disappointing that, based on what we now know, western economists aided China in gutting western industry under the guise of "China is just subsidizing the west, we'd be stupid not to take advantage." Even worse, we had already rejected that argument when applied to companies like Walmart, but for some reason we thought it would apply to whole national economies.
- sangnoir 8y ago> The west is slowly starting to realize something that China has realized for years; economic policy is not a question of economics but of geopolitical strategy. I do not believe that this is a recent realization - this goes back to at least the Dutch East India company (VOC). The foundation of the British economy were the vast resources of the British Empire (read colonies) for many decades.
- tynpeddler 8y agoIt's one of those things that the west knew and then forgot in the 90's after the cold war ended and we realized how great free markets were at improving people's lives.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]