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I don't see anyone else talking about it. Around January 2018 it came out that China had hacked the African Union headquarters which it had built as a gift to t
by TACIXAT 8y ago
I don't see anyone else talking about it. Around January 2018 it came out that China had hacked the African Union headquarters which it had built as a gift to the AU. [1] More recently, reports have come out that implicate Huawei in that hack. [2] There is a law in China that says citizens and corporations are required to cooperate with its intelligence services. While there has been no strong evidence against Huawei released publicly, the logic is that China asked for a backdoor and that Huawei had to comply.
>Ms Cave said Huawei had been implicated in alleged cyber theft of data from the African Union’s Ethiopia headquarters. According to multiple reports this year, data was transferred every night from the building for five years. “There’s no proof that Huawei was asked to participate or turn a blind eye to the breach, but we know that there was a breach and Huawei was the key provider,’’ Ms Cave said.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/30/china-african-union-headquarters-bugging-spying https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/30/china-african-...
2. https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-security/china-used-huawei-to-hack-network-says-secret-report/news-story/510d3b17c2791cbcac18f047c64ab9d8 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-s...
- endorphone 8y agoThere is a law in China that says citizens and corporations are required to cooperate with its intelligence services Of course US corporations are just as beholden to government directive. e.g. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/04/how-american-companies-enable-nsa-surveillance/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/10/04/how-american-companies-...
- friedman23 8y agoThe alternative to Huawei for telecommunications equipment isn't a US corporation so framing it as the US vs China serves no purpose. I'll be happy if neither the US nor China made telecommunications equipment for countries. I don't understand why people feel the need to defend Chinese mega corporations. edit: I managed to offend a few people with this comment
- jake_the_third 8y agoI don't think it's defending chinese companies as much as it is highlighting that companies on both sides are susceptible to more or less the same type of government control. I personally think it's something worth mentioning when it's the most common reason cited for avoiding a chinese company.
- friedman23 8y ago> as it is highlighting that companies on both sides are susceptible to more or less the same type of government control. Except they aren't. Just the fact that you mention "both" sides shows your ignorance. The alternative to Huawei, as I have mentioned, is not an American corporation it is a European one (Ericsson or Nokia). This isn't a case of the American government forcing allies to abandon Huawei so an American corporation can profit.
- kungtotte 8y agoWhat about the rest of the world? Samsung and LG are both Korea-based, and Sony is from Japan.
- friedman23 8y agoI wasn't aware that they had 5g offerings but if they do they are obviously choices too. I'm not aware of any American 5g offerings.
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- vadym909 8y agoThere might be a few American companies that may do it but not out of fear, and I suspect many companies and individuals would resist, oppose, leak, resign if this was the case in America as you often hear in the news. There are courts, public opinion, journalists that you could involve in the US. Ever hear of pushback in China from anyone?
- jmnicolas 8y agoHave you ever heard of Snowden ?
- balibebas 8y agoIf it were up to that guy we'd all lock our phones in refrigerators after dark.
- apatters 8y agoDoesn't the Snowden phenomenon kind of make his point? His leaks spawned a shitstorm of US/Western media coverage and even court cases against the government. What happens inside China if a Chinese national flees the country and blows the whistle? Basically no challenge to the government, media blackout, maybe his friends get sent to re-education camps, etc.
- SSLy 8y agoYes, but neither Ericsson nor Nokia are US companies.
- apexalpha 8y agoVery good then, if we do this as Europe I say we do the same for any American company. There is _video_ proof of the NSA doing exactly the same thing they now accuse the Chinese of.
- cyborgx7 8y agoBut they are our "allies". Surely they wouldn't do anything to us. Unlike the evil chinese.
- coldtea 8y agoThere's also the fact that historically those evil Chinese were those that had been attack (from colonial UK and co, then from the axis powers, etc.) and not the ones doing the attack -- whereas at least one European country (Germany) had been under US attack, and many had internal meddling (Gladio, dictatorships, corporate espionage, diplomatic meddling, etc to this day).
- gdy 8y ago"Germany had been under US attack" Is that how it is called now?
- Veen 8y agoTell that to the Tibetans, Mongolians, and the dozens of other nations that have been subject to Chinese imperial domination over the centuries.
- cf141q5325 8y agoOr to Latin America
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- fsloth 8y agoSure. And I don't think anyone is claiming any different. And due to the five eyes agreement between US and commonwealth countries there is a lot of espionage data changing hands there. European telephone networks were compromised a long time ago to my understanding But from a geopolitical ourside vs. their side standpoint Huawei from US point of view is on the wrong side of the fence. A certain level of spying is always expected. Did Huawei actually breach some unacceptable level, or is this just a manifestation of the US vs. China tradewar, I don't know.
- tootie 8y agoTypically this is done via FISA warrants aside from that period during the Bush admin. China doesn't guarantee due process and get request information on anyone for any reason including dissidence. Every government will spy on their citizens to some degree, but that doesn't make them equivalent.
- cf141q5325 8y agoAnd the citizens of your governments "allies"?
- moreorless 8y ago> Every government will spy on their citizens to some degree, but that doesn't make them equivalent. I only got my girlfriend a little pregnant; not like Joe over there, who got his girlfriend fully pregnant.
- objektif 8y agoNot a great analogy there are governments and there are governments who gove you social credit scores and stuff.
- matthewowen 8y agoYes, some things are binary and some things are not. Your example is binary. The situation we're talking about is not.
- hellbanner 8y agoFrog in the boiling pot
- hannasanarion 8y agoSlippery slope See I can name meaningless aphorisms too.
- jolmg 8y ago
- empath75 8y agoI think this should be fairly obvious, but if you’re extremely concerned about American intelligence and law enforcement having access to your data, you should avoid American services and products. If you’re concerned about Chinese intelligence and law enforcement, you should avoid Chinese products, etc. Interestingly, I think this would often mean that Americans who are engaged in illicit activity would probably be better off using Chinese services and vice versa.
- derefr 8y agoCorporations are, but their employees and officers aren’t. For example, the US government could compel Lavabit (the company) to hand over signing keys; but they couldn’t compel the employees/founders of Lavabit to keep working there, nor charge them with anything for quitting. It’s not illegal to choose to dissolve a company in protest of a US government directive.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Corporations are, but their employees and officers aren’t Employees and officers of US corporations are not immune to government orders. Particularly, NSLs directed at information held by corporations can be, and often are, addresses to particular officers as orders to that officer, who is often ordered to deliver the requested material in person to the relevant government office. > For example, the US government could compel Lavabit (the company) to hand over signing keys; but they couldn’t compel the employees/founders of Lavabit to keep working there, No, but that doesn't protect them individually from government orders to provide information, the authority for which applies to any person, not just corporations (corporations are covered because they are juridical persons.) > It’s not illegal to choose to dissolve a company in protest of a US government directive. It actually is illegal to do anything (other than filing a sealed challenge in court to the non-disclosure provision) in protest of an NSL with a non-disclosure provision, since such a protest itself violates the non-disclosure provision. And, yes, even aside from that, it would probsbly also be illegal to voluntarily surrender access to info you have been ordered to provide to the government rather than providing that info as ordered.
- changchuming 8y agoYou forget to mention that both China and the African Union denied the hack, and that the report came from "anonymous sources". Not saying that it didn't happen, but it's far from confirmed, just like the Bloomberg report.
- whatshisface 8y agoTo balance it out, what motivations might the AU have to lie about a hack, in the case where it did happen? If the Chinese gifted them the embassy then they have to be quite close, maybe the AU leaders are conscious of the Chinese influence and seek to maintain it.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoIsn't that standard protocol, don't admit when the other spies win. Confirmed leaked data is worth more than dubious leaked data. Pride comes in to play too.
- geofft 8y agoAt this point it seems most likely to me that the Bloomberg story was planted by the US government to sow FUD in a rival superpower. If this one Chinese motherboard had a tiny, quasi-magical chip (certainly technically possible but quite overkill as an engineering solution to achieve the alleged goal), can you trust any hardware purchase from China?
- Salamat 8y ago"There is a law in China that says citizens and corporations are required to cooperate with its intelligence services." The US and its intelligence services have been doing the same with US tech companies. " The US National Security Agency (NSA) infected hard disk firmware with spyware in a campaign valued as highly as Stuxnet that dates back at least 14 years and possibly up to two decades – all according to an analysis by Kaspersky Labs.The campaign infected possibly tens of thousands of Windows computers in telecommunications providers, governments, militaries, utilities, and mass media organisations among others in more than 30 countries. https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/17/kaspersky_labs_equation_group/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/02/17/kaspersky_labs_equa...
- linkregister 8y agoI don't see any evidence that the companies cooperated with this. The process of interdiction, described in the Snowden leaks, sounds more probable. It seems like a small distinction, but it makes a huge difference to the people who work at these companies who would never agree to this practice. The outcome, of course, is the same. It is rich that the U.S. is asking other countries not to use Huawei equipment, when the Snowden leaks indicate the U.S. government was using interdiction to hack other countries' governments.
- lawnchair_larry 8y agoThat was malware that infected a target product in the customer environment. No government coercion or backdoors. Kaspersky’s own report documents this thoroughly. Not even close to the same.
- linkregister 8y agoI think there's a lot of unfair finger-pointing at Huawei. China's hacking program is very prolific and has some impressive achievements. There's no reason why the Chinese government couldn't have found vulnerabilities in Huawei equipment and conducted a campaign that way, especially since that equipment is internet-connected at all times.