10 ms·

How the United States threatens our security

125 points by kowabit 7y ago

duxup 7y ago
Considering the spotty nature of updates as it is... I'm not sure I buy into the idea this is a dramatic change as far as risk goes.
ak39 7y ago
AppStore? Or did they mean Google Play?
- kowabit 7y ago
  AppStore ... Better for understanding for the most Readers. But you are right. Google Play Store.
newaccoutnas 7y ago
I'm not sure I agree on the last part re: LineageOS et al. They've not failed, they don't gain traction as it's more difficult to install them (in the case of aftermarket firmwares) due to having to gain root. For Purism or hardware+os combos, then they've not got the same market share or share of mindset. If a big player made a (truely) open Android, I'm sure there would be people all over it. If they went down this path, it may actually open up the Android ecosystem. (then again, the hardware still probably wouldn't be completely open)
- mcv 7y ago
  How does OnePlus's Oxygen OS fit into this? I believe it's based on Cyanogen, which is an open version of Android which, if I recall correctly, was not allowed to distribute the proprietary parts of Android. So doesn't a big, open version of Android already exist there? Or is it just as tied to Google as stock Android is?
  - newaccoutnas 7y ago
    Depends, Oneplus are growing but at 2% of share, whereas Huawei have 10%. Versus previous year of 1% and 8% respectively. (source: https://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-breaks-top-five-global-brands-premium-category https://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-breaks-top-five-globa...) Ancedotally I've never seen any Oneplus advertised on any traditional media here in the UK. Huawei, lots.
    - mcv 7y ago
      I had no idea OnePlus was already a top-5 brand. That's bigger than I thought. Obviously Huawei is larger, but not by as much as I thought.
  - msadowski 7y ago
    Honestly while using OnePlus Two I didn't feel it being open at all. In fact I have a very strong suspicion that OnePlus is using OS updates as planned obsolescence. One day my OnePlus Two installed the system upgrade causing the battery to fully drain in a span of 30 minutes - 2 hours and the phone getting super hot while idle. I tried doing all the recommended steps of fixing the problem (clearing cache, factory resets etc.) without any improvement. As soon as I installed Lineage OS I started getting a 24+ hr battery life and didn't experience any issues so the issue was not related to hardware.
    - newaccoutnas 7y ago
      There was the instance a couple of years back whereby they were sending lots of data back to base, made me very dubious of them since.
      - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
        I've been running LineageOS on my OnePlus 3 ever since this incident and couldn't be happier with it. I'm planning on upgrading to the OP7 once that has good LineageOS support too.
      - 7y ago
- schoen 7y ago
  I think the author agrees with you: the installable AOSP-based distributions are currently inconvenient, but they could potentially become more convenient and popular given more support.
3327 7y ago
the US cannot disclose why as that would disclose capability used in detection that would teach the others how to circumvent it. I for one support the decision and would rather have my data and whereabouts in the hands of the USA rather than CHINA.
- ggm 7y ago
  What does China do with your data that the US government doesn't do?
qaq 7y ago
For mobile telecom equipment: 1 Huawei 2 Ericsson 3 Nokia How helping out 2 of the largest actually competitive companies in EU to gain more market share in US threatens EU security is beyond me
- ahje 7y ago
  The fact that the US has such a large impact on EU markets is a threat in itself. Sure, Europe and the United States are on decent terms now, but nobody knows how things will look in 5, 20 or even 100 years, and being that dependent on external parties is definitely a risk.
  - geggam 7y ago
    Currently the US has an impact on the world markets. Not just the EU. While everyone agrees Trump is a buffoon the fact he is leveraging that in an attempt to benefit the US is waking people up to that fact.
    - ahje 7y ago
      > Currently the US has an impact on the world markets. Not just the EU. Absolutely! As a European I'm only looking at this from an EU-perspective, though. People from other parts of the World should do the same.
      - CharlesColeman 7y ago
        > Absolutely! As a European I'm only looking at this from an EU-perspective, though. People from other parts of the World should do the same. Isn't "only looking at this from a [MY NATION]-perspective" exactly what Trump is doing and is being criticized for?
- emn13 7y ago
  It may help those two firms, but the point isn't to make these two private entities rich it's national (and union) security: Huawei's existing customers - which exist in the US, but particularly in the EU - must now rely on a partner that through government fiat suddenly cannot be a reliable partner anymore. Also remarkable is how little power has to do anything about it. If they wanted to ensure continued reliability of existing infrastructure and infrastructure investments they can... try to nationlize huwawei's relevant IP? Nationalize Google's relevant IP? Both are extremely far-fetched, not to mention the fact that it's not just a matter of IP - replicating those companies respective skillsets probably isn't even feasible. The executive order could probably be subverted by passing along whatever info/IP huwawei needs since that info is likely also present in places outside of US reach, but that threatens escalation (and it's possible EU leaders don't trust huawei either, so they might not even want to do that, even if they could). Additionally, the implied suggestion that the EU is somehow better off because there is less competition for EU-headquartered (but not necessarily EU-owned) firms is pretty absurd. Less competition is almost certainly bad for the EU (and the US), regardless of who gets rich, simply becuase there are vastly more and more important users of this network tech than there are sellers. A nepotistic short-term win won't even budge the GDP needle, but reduced innovation in tech might. However little empathy you might have for Huawei's shareholders, the consequences for their clients at the very least bear pause.
ErikCorry 7y ago
The good news is that Huawei already sucked at making security updates and even claimed to have updated, but hadn't, so it's no huge loss. https://www.wired.com/story/android-phones-hide-missed-security-updates-from-you/ https://www.wired.com/story/android-phones-hide-missed-secur...
- ErikCorry 7y ago
  Here's another part of the story. Huawei were not able to show what they used to build their software. When they tried, the end result did not match the source code they said they were using: https://commsrisk.com/interpreting-huaweis-failed-uk-security-audit/ https://commsrisk.com/interpreting-huaweis-failed-uk-securit...
  - craigsmansion 7y ago
    Fair enough, but reproducible builds are hard, especially on an OS scale. And I'm all for demanding verifiability, but why should manufacturers from particular regions be singled out? Just because the US is trying to fan their domestic "reds under the bed" paranoia for political reasons?
    - mendelmaleh 7y ago
      I don't agree. Android builds aren't that big
Alir3z4 7y ago
Good luck hearing anything from EU. EU should get permission from US to buy gas & energy or who to deal and business with, such a joke!
TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
> By order of the American government, Google must now end its Android support for Huawei. Google will continue to support existing Huawei phones.
- vinay427 7y ago
  To provide a source here: https://twitter.com/Android/status/1130313848332988421 https://twitter.com/Android/status/1130313848332988421 Resulting article: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/19/google-says-its-app-store-will-continue-to-work-for-existing-huawei-smartphone-owners/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/19/google-says-its-app-store-...
njepa 7y ago
I don't disagree, but I think the perspective is a bit weird. Especially this part: >But the fact that the market power of the Americans has such a big influence is our own fault. European governments have failed to create framework conditions to create competition here as well. If you know which parties in Europe are in charge, it is not surprising. Europeans have been specifically willing to let the US and China dominate these markets. Most of Europe literally relies on the US for their security with NATO. Many of our companies have been sold to China, or are manufacturing in China. Of course we can't have our cake an eat it too. (Unless it is something like this that you meant).
- luckylion 7y ago
  I agree, and I understand the OP to say that as well. I don't know if it is/was incompetence to not support domestic industries, or the wish to not anger the US by competing on this area, or something else, I don't know. I believe most of these areas (the hardware, the software, the services) are of such high importance that is indeed of national (talking EU wide) interest to not have to rely on foreign interests. We trust Google to not unfairly kill hardware vendors, to not manipulate search results, but ultimately, we're powerless if they do, and having to "trust" a foreign government on these essential things sounds bad. Whether it's China or the US ("America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests") is secondary imho. Yes, we have better relations with the US, but who can tell whether our interests will align 10 or 20 years down the road?
- Alir3z4 7y ago
  This and plus whenever US sanctions a country, EU is the first party to jump and follow them. (_tasting their own medicine now somehow_) EU only has a sense of independence but in reality it doesn't, it's too depended on US, so much that they can't move a needle without US permission. Just have a look how they're under pressure to buy Gas from Russia or import oil from sanctioned country like Iran. EU needs to grow up :D
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
JackPoach 7y ago
Yes, EU kind of 'outsourced' large part of technical platforms to US much like what happened to NATO (many european countries don't have real military forces to speak of and rely on US armed forces for protection). EU has no search engine to speak of. European antiviruses are a joke. There's no european 'office suite' that I know of. Should the United States apply the pressure, Europe has very little to counter the pressure with.
- threeseed 7y ago
  Qwant.com is European. And very European in that it favours user privacy.
  - klingonopera 7y ago
    Yeah, but last I checked, I think half a year ago, they were (still?) getting their results piped from Microsoft's Bing search engine. I'd find it more important to develop the search engine technology than to, well... just rebrand another US search engine, essentially...
    - wvh 7y ago
      The problem with some of these European initiatives is that they sound more like a political project than a technical one. Lots of "values" being discussed – granted, decent values to support – but very little technology. Perhaps I'm too jaded an engineer, but if a solid product or technical idea isn't at the base of a project, no amount of values and goodwill is going to glue it together into a reliable working whole.
  - Sami_Lehtinen 7y ago
    Mojeek (mojeek.com) is truly independent search engine. Many others are just resellers of Bing results, like Oscobo (oscobo.com). Yandex (yandex.com) is also quite nice.
- junipertea 7y ago
  While I agree about our lack of (usable) search engine, I disagree on your second claim. Europe has a strong background in cybersecurity. Kaspersky is Russian (to be fair, not EU), Avast is Czech, ESET is Slovak, AVG was also Czech before bought by Avast. All of them are popular antivirus programs used today.
sorrowfulgeek 7y ago
>The accusations against the alleged friends and partners have not yet been substantiated with evidence. Rather the opposite. Huawei has granted access to its network equipment software. The Founder and CEO of Huawei has links to the Chinese government and intelligence services. Sure, Huawei is happy to open up their current product and code to close inspection. That doesn’t prevent them from inserting spyware into future updates. It is not just the US, India and other countries share the same concerns about Huawei. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhengfei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhengfei I think it is insane to even consider trusting critical communication infrastructure to a company from an authoritarian country with a history of spying on, censoring and mind-controlling its own citizens.
- narnianal 7y ago
  Why is it even a concern? It is the most natural thing in the world that if you live in country x, you were born there, your family lives there, they speak your language and have your culture, that when it gets more serious you will support them over other countries. It's not a concern. If China and US enter some kind of cold war then Chinese companies will support China and US companies will support US. Maybe that would end when the cold war ends and it's clear who will become the winner.
- jamisteven 7y ago
  "I think it is insane to even consider trusting critical communication infrastructure to a company from an authoritarian country with a history of spying, censoring and mind-controlling its own citizens." You may wanna lookup MKULTRA, and then Cisco's backdoors, and basically every major US Telco's connections to intelligence agencies.
  - _Microft 7y ago
    In which way would the US government considered as authoritarian? There are some tendencies with the ongoing aggressions against free media with the current one but even that is almost limited to the president and his speaker.
scandox 7y ago
In terms of the monster I want living in my attic, I won't swap the US for China any day soon.
- VBprogrammer 7y ago
  I've occasionally rationalised this on the basis that I'd rather China knew everything about me than the US on the basis that I visit the US once every few years and am relatively unlikely to visit China.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - threeseed 7y ago
    You know that China has for a long time has been secretly kidnapping people in other countries: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...
    - faissaloo 7y ago
      Yeah but so does America lol
    - cstross 7y ago
      When the USA does that, it's called Extraordinary Rendition: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordinary-facts-about-cia-extraordinary-rendition-and-secret-detention https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordina... Their main claim to legality is sufficiently questionable that they legislated to deny officers of the International Criminal Court entry to the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
      - vinay427 7y ago
        The GP's point was that not planning to travel to China doesn't eliminate the consequences of trusting China. Trusting the US was already stated to be a problem because they travel there.
foreigner 7y ago
I find it amusing that the US is accusing Huawei of doing to the US for China exactly what Xerox did to the USSR for the US.
- jedberg 7y ago
  "Something something it's righteous when we do it but evil when they do it"
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > "Something something it's righteous when we do it but evil when they do it" That's too simplistic a take. There's a moral angle that you're missing: "they" are authoritarians with terrible human rights records (see: Dissidents, treatment of), "we" are a liberal democracy that's quite a bit better at human rights (though not perfect).
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    That does seem to be the message from centuries of history.
- vinay427 7y ago
  Well, it's not hypocritical unless the US administration claims some sort of moral superiority as a result. No one as far as I know is seriously saying that the US is better than China for not having a Huawei (that we know about), but that the US and presumably its allies have an interest in avoiding this technology purely for their own self-interest.
- duxup 7y ago
  The Russian embassy would have be within their right not to use a Xerox machine.
- jdietrich 7y ago
  Not to mention Bullrun and the Dual_EC_DRBG affair. I assume that all US-designed technology is backdoored and I think I have good reason to make that assumption.
OliverJones 7y ago
There's a part of USA culture that thrives on cold-war-style paranoia. It's in conflict with another part of our culture that thrives on openness and cooperation. The paranoid part of our culture is in ascendance in these decades (partly due to the success of malicious state actors exploiting our openness and cooperation.) This has been a back-and-forth struggle for much of the USA's history. It's never static. This balance will continue to change in future. In the meantime, of course, it's helpful to their careers for politicians to stir up fear of ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.
- geggam 7y ago
  You do realize things do go bump in the night ? The world isnt all that nice.
  - teddyh 7y ago
    And that’s why the military and intelligence agencies get funding. But what good does it do to get the general public scared and worked up about these issues?
    - duxup 7y ago
      Voters should know what is going on.
      - teddyh 7y ago
        There’s a vast difference in making information available and to “stir up fear of ghoulies and ghosties”.
        duxup 7y ago
        How do you define “stir up fear of ghoulies and ghosties”? Concerns you personally don't share?
    - geggam 7y ago
rado 7y ago
Don't tell me there is also a single country that controls the global (oil-trading) currency?
- gnode 7y ago
  Most oil trading is done in US dollars, but by no means all. It's a convenient and popular unit of account for international trading, but the Euro and Yuan are used too.
markvdb 7y ago
Let's hope this mess brings us at least a stronger FOSS mobile ecosystem...
- omeid2 7y ago
  Free Open Source Software is easy, Free Open Source Services are harder, not impossible (OpenStreet Maps, Wikipedia, IRC (Freenode specifically)), but it is really hard because the cost increases with users unlike software. And what Google brings is service, very reliable and high quality one at that, though the history of Google search quality is up to debate as of recent.
timwaagh 7y ago
i do not know what the espionage evidence was. it must have been a lot to throw a lot of european consumers under the bus like this. definitely an issue for diplomats, but it could in the long run lead to more competition on the software markets, with neutral play store clones gaining a foothold.
lovetocode 7y ago
Because Europe is the bastion of morality.
- gsich 7y ago
  It is.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    No it's not, but let's not fall into the trap of not being able to criticize anything unless we're saints.
  - julienreszka 7y ago
    No morality without free speech.
pasabagi 7y ago
Realistically, the best bet for Europe is to play the part of the USA in the lead-up to WW1. By remaining unaligned with either the axis or the allies until the war was essentially decided, they came out of the conflict as the sole winners. Unfortunately, I expect that the EU will stick with the US, and get dragged into whatever that entails. I hope that the world has changed enough that total war between incumbent and upstart great powers isn't possible - but I don't really see any clear reasons why it shouldn't happen. What I hope is that China is aware of the parallels between their situation and the situation of pre-WW1 Germany, or pre-WW2 Japan, and goes a different route. If they simply wait, focus on soft power, and ignore all provocations, they'll no doubt end up taking the USA's place.
- bouncycastle 7y ago
  In the book, "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman, the author predicts that China will start to fragment. Although this hasn't been happening probably because of the increase in strict authoritarian rule. Perhaps this trade war will intensify the pressure until some kind of uprising against the authoritarian rule emerges. Besides, China is more keen on keeping economic harmony than fighting a war. History has shown us what happens when its citizens aren't happy time and again.
oytis 7y ago
Quite disappointing that German anti-Americanism goes as far as siding with China. And quite ironic that the author plays the Trump card, who has gained a lot of his notoriety by having ties to another authoritarian regime.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  I don't find the author is siding with China, I find he's playing fair. Everything (?) the US accuses China, the EU could accuse the US of as well. I'm guessing it's for historical reasons things are the way they are now, and because of economic inertia that this has yet to change. I don't want to be pro-China nor pro-US. But I see two people wanting to sell me something, and one of them is trying to stop me from buying the better product.
  - kowabit 7y ago
    Thanks
    - klingonopera 7y ago
      Sure, but we should be thanking you! :3
  - oytis 7y ago
    Siding as in not morally but practically - doing/willing to do things that favor someone, not necessarily liking someone. > But I see two people wanting to sell me something, and one of them is trying to stop me from buying the better product. This willingness to compromise on global security for a little profit is siding to me. Exactly the same willingness as in Gazprom/NordStream case if you follow the topic. > Everything (?) the US accuses China, the EU could accuse the US of as well. It could, but what the author seems to propose is tolerating China's violations, not opposing these of US (which EU couldn't realistically do anyway).
    - Nasrudith 7y ago
      To be fair "global security" has been cried wolf about enough given its use as a scurtiny terminating cliche for reasons that are irrelevant like embarrassment to officials that it could be replaced with "nothing" and have approximately the same meaning. If you don't trust the message the argument goes the other direction it becomes "compromising nothing for a little profit". Why leave money om the table for the sake of a known bad actor? If you sincerely believe it that loss of credibility should be deeply troubling. If you don't it is as it should be - they lost their abused cudgel and can deal with it.
erentz 7y ago
I’m kind of surprised by the response here. For one thing this helps European telecoms suppliers. On top of this there is this weird expectation that the way things have been is good and should continue. I don’t see this justified. Huawei exists in large part because of the history of the US opening it’s markets to China which helped the Chinese economy grow immensely (not to mention copying Cisco). I’m not going to defend the US on everything but it has its own interests and nobody should be surprised over the coming decades if it starts closing off its market and withdrawing its guarantees on securing other countries trade. Europe has had a lot of time to grow up and should at this point realize this probable future and decide what such a future means for it, and decide how it wants to present itself in such a world.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  Exactly. When the going gets rough, the US is just as willing as any other authoritarian state to sacrifice all justice, friendship, goodwill and fairplay to secure their profits. Why should the EU follow the US into their dirty game? The first 70 years after war, the US at least tried to keep the illusion of being decent. Now everything's an all-out free-for-all, and EU should be looking after themselves than the interests of somebody else.
  - trickstra 7y ago
    US is also threatening to stop business with whoever doesn't ban Huawei, so that's why
    - emn13 7y ago
      Without trying to imply some kind of opinion as to Huawei or Trump here: I don't think that's a serious threat. It's one thing to make a lot of tough-looking noise as a matter of protectionism to curry favor with voters thus protected - it's quite another to actually hurt those same voter's economic interest fairly quickly without clear, short-term benefit. In other words: protection classical industry makes some sense politically (whether or not it's a good idea), setting off a real trade war with your allies when you're also in a trade war with china makes no sense at all. Also, I doubt Trump needs to. He's quite capable of harassing Huawei without much foreign support. Why risk a recession - and thus reelection - if you don't have too?
mendelmaleh 7y ago
(un)ironically, Huawei recently stopped allowing bootloader unlocking, now they will probably have to use AOSP
chkaloon 7y ago
After reading this, it occurs to me that a side effect might be the EU getting its act together and provide some real competition to US tech dominance. I would consider that a good thing. Not sure that's what Trump intends...
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I would love to see that but I doubt it would happen - there seem to be major cultural problems holding the EU back - which is something that isn't unique to them - every nation has their own frankly stupid cultural dysfunctions which if addressed could make things so much better for everyone at no real cost except selfish and irrelevant vested interests. The EU nations are generally far too protectionist and unwilling to allow disruption or breaking of fiefdoms - just changing where ancient province lines for agriculture regions fills them with rage - let alone absurd. Then there are the issues with German publishers and Spanish newspapers. Until that changes they will unfortunately fail to have more than a relatively minor presence - they really should have a larger tech industry for their size and educated population base.
stareatgoats 7y ago
I feel most of the comments here don't correctly lasso this on a fundamental level. This article describes a single data-point in a context where protectionism becomes a guiding policy principle. The world coalesces (will coalesce) in economic alliances with military power to back their interests, and it is an extremely dangerous path. To people who want to point fingers at individual players, saying "it is the fault of Trump, (China, Putin or whoever)" please don't, unless you want to be part of the warmongering hysteria that lies ahead. It's not anyone's fault, this is just the result of economic and political history. What we need is to make sure this doesn't end in a man-made catastrophe, larger than anything hitherto.
Isinlor 7y ago
> China itself could, of course, also impose bans on American producers and products. A stand-still would possibly bring peace again. I think we are missing something here. China is already banning western services. No mainland Chinese person is using Google directly. No Outlook, Gmail, Facebook, Skype, AppStore, Google Play, etc. I don't think they can ban USA services even more. China can only ban exporting to USA, but it's like cutting off your own legs to make a point. In a certain sense, China is losing the game they started a long time ago. While Europe... Well, we are a total disaster in the IT sector anyway. Nobody gives a damn about the EU.

125 points by kowabit 7y ago

Considering the spotty nature of updates as it is... I'm not sure I buy into the idea this is a dramatic change as far as risk goes.

ak39 7y ago

AppStore? Or did they mean Google Play?

kowabit 7y ago
AppStore ... Better for understanding for the most Readers. But you are right. Google Play Store.

newaccoutnas 7y ago

I'm not sure I agree on the last part re: LineageOS et al. They've not failed, they don't gain traction as it's more difficult to install them (in the case of aftermarket firmwares) due to having to gain root. For Purism or hardware+os combos, then they've not got the same market share or share of mindset. If a big player made a (truely) open Android, I'm sure there would be people all over it. If they went down this path, it may actually open up the Android ecosystem. (then again, the hardware still probably wouldn't be completely open)

mcv 7y ago
How does OnePlus's Oxygen OS fit into this? I believe it's based on Cyanogen, which is an open version of Android which, if I recall correctly, was not allowed to distribute the proprietary parts of Android. So doesn't a big, open version of Android already exist there? Or is it just as tied to Google as stock Android is?
- newaccoutnas 7y ago
  Depends, Oneplus are growing but at 2% of share, whereas Huawei have 10%. Versus previous year of 1% and 8% respectively. (source: https://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-breaks-top-five-global-brands-premium-category https://www.androidcentral.com/oneplus-breaks-top-five-globa...) Ancedotally I've never seen any Oneplus advertised on any traditional media here in the UK. Huawei, lots.
  - mcv 7y ago
    I had no idea OnePlus was already a top-5 brand. That's bigger than I thought. Obviously Huawei is larger, but not by as much as I thought.
- msadowski 7y ago
  Honestly while using OnePlus Two I didn't feel it being open at all. In fact I have a very strong suspicion that OnePlus is using OS updates as planned obsolescence. One day my OnePlus Two installed the system upgrade causing the battery to fully drain in a span of 30 minutes - 2 hours and the phone getting super hot while idle. I tried doing all the recommended steps of fixing the problem (clearing cache, factory resets etc.) without any improvement. As soon as I installed Lineage OS I started getting a 24+ hr battery life and didn't experience any issues so the issue was not related to hardware.
  - newaccoutnas 7y ago
    There was the instance a couple of years back whereby they were sending lots of data back to base, made me very dubious of them since.
    - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      I've been running LineageOS on my OnePlus 3 ever since this incident and couldn't be happier with it. I'm planning on upgrading to the OP7 once that has good LineageOS support too.
    - 7y ago
schoen 7y ago
I think the author agrees with you: the installable AOSP-based distributions are currently inconvenient, but they could potentially become more convenient and popular given more support.

3327 7y ago

the US cannot disclose why as that would disclose capability used in detection that would teach the others how to circumvent it. I for one support the decision and would rather have my data and whereabouts in the hands of the USA rather than CHINA.

ggm 7y ago
What does China do with your data that the US government doesn't do?

qaq 7y ago

For mobile telecom equipment: 1 Huawei 2 Ericsson 3 Nokia How helping out 2 of the largest actually competitive companies in EU to gain more market share in US threatens EU security is beyond me

ahje 7y ago
The fact that the US has such a large impact on EU markets is a threat in itself. Sure, Europe and the United States are on decent terms now, but nobody knows how things will look in 5, 20 or even 100 years, and being that dependent on external parties is definitely a risk.
- geggam 7y ago
  Currently the US has an impact on the world markets. Not just the EU. While everyone agrees Trump is a buffoon the fact he is leveraging that in an attempt to benefit the US is waking people up to that fact.
  - ahje 7y ago
    > Currently the US has an impact on the world markets. Not just the EU. Absolutely! As a European I'm only looking at this from an EU-perspective, though. People from other parts of the World should do the same.
    - CharlesColeman 7y ago
      > Absolutely! As a European I'm only looking at this from an EU-perspective, though. People from other parts of the World should do the same. Isn't "only looking at this from a [MY NATION]-perspective" exactly what Trump is doing and is being criticized for?
emn13 7y ago
It may help those two firms, but the point isn't to make these two private entities rich it's national (and union) security: Huawei's existing customers - which exist in the US, but particularly in the EU - must now rely on a partner that through government fiat suddenly cannot be a reliable partner anymore. Also remarkable is how little power has to do anything about it. If they wanted to ensure continued reliability of existing infrastructure and infrastructure investments they can... try to nationlize huwawei's relevant IP? Nationalize Google's relevant IP? Both are extremely far-fetched, not to mention the fact that it's not just a matter of IP - replicating those companies respective skillsets probably isn't even feasible. The executive order could probably be subverted by passing along whatever info/IP huwawei needs since that info is likely also present in places outside of US reach, but that threatens escalation (and it's possible EU leaders don't trust huawei either, so they might not even want to do that, even if they could). Additionally, the implied suggestion that the EU is somehow better off because there is less competition for EU-headquartered (but not necessarily EU-owned) firms is pretty absurd. Less competition is almost certainly bad for the EU (and the US), regardless of who gets rich, simply becuase there are vastly more and more important users of this network tech than there are sellers. A nepotistic short-term win won't even budge the GDP needle, but reduced innovation in tech might. However little empathy you might have for Huawei's shareholders, the consequences for their clients at the very least bear pause.

ErikCorry 7y ago

The good news is that Huawei already sucked at making security updates and even claimed to have updated, but hadn't, so it's no huge loss. https://www.wired.com/story/android-phones-hide-missed-security-updates-from-you/ https://www.wired.com/story/android-phones-hide-missed-secur...

ErikCorry 7y ago
Here's another part of the story. Huawei were not able to show what they used to build their software. When they tried, the end result did not match the source code they said they were using: https://commsrisk.com/interpreting-huaweis-failed-uk-security-audit/ https://commsrisk.com/interpreting-huaweis-failed-uk-securit...
- craigsmansion 7y ago
  Fair enough, but reproducible builds are hard, especially on an OS scale. And I'm all for demanding verifiability, but why should manufacturers from particular regions be singled out? Just because the US is trying to fan their domestic "reds under the bed" paranoia for political reasons?
  - mendelmaleh 7y ago
    I don't agree. Android builds aren't that big

Alir3z4 7y ago

Good luck hearing anything from EU. EU should get permission from US to buy gas & energy or who to deal and business with, such a joke!

TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago

> By order of the American government, Google must now end its Android support for Huawei. Google will continue to support existing Huawei phones.

vinay427 7y ago
To provide a source here: https://twitter.com/Android/status/1130313848332988421 https://twitter.com/Android/status/1130313848332988421 Resulting article: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/19/google-says-its-app-store-will-continue-to-work-for-existing-huawei-smartphone-owners/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/19/google-says-its-app-store-...

njepa 7y ago

I don't disagree, but I think the perspective is a bit weird. Especially this part: >But the fact that the market power of the Americans has such a big influence is our own fault. European governments have failed to create framework conditions to create competition here as well. If you know which parties in Europe are in charge, it is not surprising. Europeans have been specifically willing to let the US and China dominate these markets. Most of Europe literally relies on the US for their security with NATO. Many of our companies have been sold to China, or are manufacturing in China. Of course we can't have our cake an eat it too. (Unless it is something like this that you meant).

luckylion 7y ago
I agree, and I understand the OP to say that as well. I don't know if it is/was incompetence to not support domestic industries, or the wish to not anger the US by competing on this area, or something else, I don't know. I believe most of these areas (the hardware, the software, the services) are of such high importance that is indeed of national (talking EU wide) interest to not have to rely on foreign interests. We trust Google to not unfairly kill hardware vendors, to not manipulate search results, but ultimately, we're powerless if they do, and having to "trust" a foreign government on these essential things sounds bad. Whether it's China or the US ("America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests") is secondary imho. Yes, we have better relations with the US, but who can tell whether our interests will align 10 or 20 years down the road?
Alir3z4 7y ago
This and plus whenever US sanctions a country, EU is the first party to jump and follow them. (_tasting their own medicine now somehow_) EU only has a sense of independence but in reality it doesn't, it's too depended on US, so much that they can't move a needle without US permission. Just have a look how they're under pressure to buy Gas from Russia or import oil from sanctioned country like Iran. EU needs to grow up :D

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

JackPoach 7y ago

Yes, EU kind of 'outsourced' large part of technical platforms to US much like what happened to NATO (many european countries don't have real military forces to speak of and rely on US armed forces for protection). EU has no search engine to speak of. European antiviruses are a joke. There's no european 'office suite' that I know of. Should the United States apply the pressure, Europe has very little to counter the pressure with.

threeseed 7y ago
Qwant.com is European. And very European in that it favours user privacy.
- klingonopera 7y ago
  Yeah, but last I checked, I think half a year ago, they were (still?) getting their results piped from Microsoft's Bing search engine. I'd find it more important to develop the search engine technology than to, well... just rebrand another US search engine, essentially...
  - wvh 7y ago
    The problem with some of these European initiatives is that they sound more like a political project than a technical one. Lots of "values" being discussed – granted, decent values to support – but very little technology. Perhaps I'm too jaded an engineer, but if a solid product or technical idea isn't at the base of a project, no amount of values and goodwill is going to glue it together into a reliable working whole.
- Sami_Lehtinen 7y ago
  Mojeek (mojeek.com) is truly independent search engine. Many others are just resellers of Bing results, like Oscobo (oscobo.com). Yandex (yandex.com) is also quite nice.
junipertea 7y ago
While I agree about our lack of (usable) search engine, I disagree on your second claim. Europe has a strong background in cybersecurity. Kaspersky is Russian (to be fair, not EU), Avast is Czech, ESET is Slovak, AVG was also Czech before bought by Avast. All of them are popular antivirus programs used today.

sorrowfulgeek 7y ago

>The accusations against the alleged friends and partners have not yet been substantiated with evidence. Rather the opposite. Huawei has granted access to its network equipment software. The Founder and CEO of Huawei has links to the Chinese government and intelligence services. Sure, Huawei is happy to open up their current product and code to close inspection. That doesn’t prevent them from inserting spyware into future updates. It is not just the US, India and other countries share the same concerns about Huawei. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhengfei https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhengfei I think it is insane to even consider trusting critical communication infrastructure to a company from an authoritarian country with a history of spying on, censoring and mind-controlling its own citizens.

narnianal 7y ago
Why is it even a concern? It is the most natural thing in the world that if you live in country x, you were born there, your family lives there, they speak your language and have your culture, that when it gets more serious you will support them over other countries. It's not a concern. If China and US enter some kind of cold war then Chinese companies will support China and US companies will support US. Maybe that would end when the cold war ends and it's clear who will become the winner.
jamisteven 7y ago
"I think it is insane to even consider trusting critical communication infrastructure to a company from an authoritarian country with a history of spying, censoring and mind-controlling its own citizens." You may wanna lookup MKULTRA, and then Cisco's backdoors, and basically every major US Telco's connections to intelligence agencies.
- _Microft 7y ago
  In which way would the US government considered as authoritarian? There are some tendencies with the ongoing aggressions against free media with the current one but even that is almost limited to the president and his speaker.

scandox 7y ago

In terms of the monster I want living in my attic, I won't swap the US for China any day soon.

VBprogrammer 7y ago
I've occasionally rationalised this on the basis that I'd rather China knew everything about me than the US on the basis that I visit the US once every few years and am relatively unlikely to visit China.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- threeseed 7y ago
  You know that China has for a long time has been secretly kidnapping people in other countries: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-renditions-kidnapping/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/29/the-disappeared-china-r...
  - faissaloo 7y ago
    Yeah but so does America lol
  - cstross 7y ago
    When the USA does that, it's called Extraordinary Rendition: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordinary-facts-about-cia-extraordinary-rendition-and-secret-detention https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/20-extraordina... Their main claim to legality is sufficiently questionable that they legislated to deny officers of the International Criminal Court entry to the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_International_Criminal_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Internat...
    - vinay427 7y ago
      The GP's point was that not planning to travel to China doesn't eliminate the consequences of trusting China. Trusting the US was already stated to be a problem because they travel there.

foreigner 7y ago

I find it amusing that the US is accusing Huawei of doing to the US for China exactly what Xerox did to the USSR for the US.

jedberg 7y ago
"Something something it's righteous when we do it but evil when they do it"
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > "Something something it's righteous when we do it but evil when they do it" That's too simplistic a take. There's a moral angle that you're missing: "they" are authoritarians with terrible human rights records (see: Dissidents, treatment of), "we" are a liberal democracy that's quite a bit better at human rights (though not perfect).
- NeedMoreTea 7y ago
  That does seem to be the message from centuries of history.
vinay427 7y ago
Well, it's not hypocritical unless the US administration claims some sort of moral superiority as a result. No one as far as I know is seriously saying that the US is better than China for not having a Huawei (that we know about), but that the US and presumably its allies have an interest in avoiding this technology purely for their own self-interest.
duxup 7y ago
The Russian embassy would have be within their right not to use a Xerox machine.
jdietrich 7y ago
Not to mention Bullrun and the Dual_EC_DRBG affair. I assume that all US-designed technology is backdoored and I think I have good reason to make that assumption.

OliverJones 7y ago

There's a part of USA culture that thrives on cold-war-style paranoia. It's in conflict with another part of our culture that thrives on openness and cooperation. The paranoid part of our culture is in ascendance in these decades (partly due to the success of malicious state actors exploiting our openness and cooperation.) This has been a back-and-forth struggle for much of the USA's history. It's never static. This balance will continue to change in future. In the meantime, of course, it's helpful to their careers for politicians to stir up fear of ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night.

geggam 7y ago
You do realize things do go bump in the night ? The world isnt all that nice.
- teddyh 7y ago
  And that’s why the military and intelligence agencies get funding. But what good does it do to get the general public scared and worked up about these issues?
  - duxup 7y ago
    Voters should know what is going on.
    - teddyh 7y ago
      There’s a vast difference in making information available and to “stir up fear of ghoulies and ghosties”.
      - duxup 7y ago
        How do you define “stir up fear of ghoulies and ghosties”? Concerns you personally don't share?
  - geggam 7y ago

rado 7y ago

Don't tell me there is also a single country that controls the global (oil-trading) currency?

gnode 7y ago
Most oil trading is done in US dollars, but by no means all. It's a convenient and popular unit of account for international trading, but the Euro and Yuan are used too.

markvdb 7y ago

Let's hope this mess brings us at least a stronger FOSS mobile ecosystem...

omeid2 7y ago
Free Open Source Software is easy, Free Open Source Services are harder, not impossible (OpenStreet Maps, Wikipedia, IRC (Freenode specifically)), but it is really hard because the cost increases with users unlike software. And what Google brings is service, very reliable and high quality one at that, though the history of Google search quality is up to debate as of recent.

timwaagh 7y ago

i do not know what the espionage evidence was. it must have been a lot to throw a lot of european consumers under the bus like this. definitely an issue for diplomats, but it could in the long run lead to more competition on the software markets, with neutral play store clones gaining a foothold.

lovetocode 7y ago

Because Europe is the bastion of morality.

gsich 7y ago
It is.
- luckylion 7y ago
  No it's not, but let's not fall into the trap of not being able to criticize anything unless we're saints.
- julienreszka 7y ago
  No morality without free speech.

pasabagi 7y ago

Realistically, the best bet for Europe is to play the part of the USA in the lead-up to WW1. By remaining unaligned with either the axis or the allies until the war was essentially decided, they came out of the conflict as the sole winners. Unfortunately, I expect that the EU will stick with the US, and get dragged into whatever that entails. I hope that the world has changed enough that total war between incumbent and upstart great powers isn't possible - but I don't really see any clear reasons why it shouldn't happen. What I hope is that China is aware of the parallels between their situation and the situation of pre-WW1 Germany, or pre-WW2 Japan, and goes a different route. If they simply wait, focus on soft power, and ignore all provocations, they'll no doubt end up taking the USA's place.

bouncycastle 7y ago
In the book, "The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman, the author predicts that China will start to fragment. Although this hasn't been happening probably because of the increase in strict authoritarian rule. Perhaps this trade war will intensify the pressure until some kind of uprising against the authoritarian rule emerges. Besides, China is more keen on keeping economic harmony than fighting a war. History has shown us what happens when its citizens aren't happy time and again.

oytis 7y ago

Quite disappointing that German anti-Americanism goes as far as siding with China. And quite ironic that the author plays the Trump card, who has gained a lot of his notoriety by having ties to another authoritarian regime.

klingonopera 7y ago
I don't find the author is siding with China, I find he's playing fair. Everything (?) the US accuses China, the EU could accuse the US of as well. I'm guessing it's for historical reasons things are the way they are now, and because of economic inertia that this has yet to change. I don't want to be pro-China nor pro-US. But I see two people wanting to sell me something, and one of them is trying to stop me from buying the better product.
- kowabit 7y ago
  Thanks
  - klingonopera 7y ago
    Sure, but we should be thanking you! :3
- oytis 7y ago
  Siding as in not morally but practically - doing/willing to do things that favor someone, not necessarily liking someone. > But I see two people wanting to sell me something, and one of them is trying to stop me from buying the better product. This willingness to compromise on global security for a little profit is siding to me. Exactly the same willingness as in Gazprom/NordStream case if you follow the topic. > Everything (?) the US accuses China, the EU could accuse the US of as well. It could, but what the author seems to propose is tolerating China's violations, not opposing these of US (which EU couldn't realistically do anyway).
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    To be fair "global security" has been cried wolf about enough given its use as a scurtiny terminating cliche for reasons that are irrelevant like embarrassment to officials that it could be replaced with "nothing" and have approximately the same meaning. If you don't trust the message the argument goes the other direction it becomes "compromising nothing for a little profit". Why leave money om the table for the sake of a known bad actor? If you sincerely believe it that loss of credibility should be deeply troubling. If you don't it is as it should be - they lost their abused cudgel and can deal with it.

erentz 7y ago

I’m kind of surprised by the response here. For one thing this helps European telecoms suppliers. On top of this there is this weird expectation that the way things have been is good and should continue. I don’t see this justified. Huawei exists in large part because of the history of the US opening it’s markets to China which helped the Chinese economy grow immensely (not to mention copying Cisco). I’m not going to defend the US on everything but it has its own interests and nobody should be surprised over the coming decades if it starts closing off its market and withdrawing its guarantees on securing other countries trade. Europe has had a lot of time to grow up and should at this point realize this probable future and decide what such a future means for it, and decide how it wants to present itself in such a world.

klingonopera 7y ago
Exactly. When the going gets rough, the US is just as willing as any other authoritarian state to sacrifice all justice, friendship, goodwill and fairplay to secure their profits. Why should the EU follow the US into their dirty game? The first 70 years after war, the US at least tried to keep the illusion of being decent. Now everything's an all-out free-for-all, and EU should be looking after themselves than the interests of somebody else.
- trickstra 7y ago
  US is also threatening to stop business with whoever doesn't ban Huawei, so that's why
  - emn13 7y ago
    Without trying to imply some kind of opinion as to Huawei or Trump here: I don't think that's a serious threat. It's one thing to make a lot of tough-looking noise as a matter of protectionism to curry favor with voters thus protected - it's quite another to actually hurt those same voter's economic interest fairly quickly without clear, short-term benefit. In other words: protection classical industry makes some sense politically (whether or not it's a good idea), setting off a real trade war with your allies when you're also in a trade war with china makes no sense at all. Also, I doubt Trump needs to. He's quite capable of harassing Huawei without much foreign support. Why risk a recession - and thus reelection - if you don't have too?

mendelmaleh 7y ago

(un)ironically, Huawei recently stopped allowing bootloader unlocking, now they will probably have to use AOSP

chkaloon 7y ago

After reading this, it occurs to me that a side effect might be the EU getting its act together and provide some real competition to US tech dominance. I would consider that a good thing. Not sure that's what Trump intends...

Nasrudith 7y ago
I would love to see that but I doubt it would happen - there seem to be major cultural problems holding the EU back - which is something that isn't unique to them - every nation has their own frankly stupid cultural dysfunctions which if addressed could make things so much better for everyone at no real cost except selfish and irrelevant vested interests. The EU nations are generally far too protectionist and unwilling to allow disruption or breaking of fiefdoms - just changing where ancient province lines for agriculture regions fills them with rage - let alone absurd. Then there are the issues with German publishers and Spanish newspapers. Until that changes they will unfortunately fail to have more than a relatively minor presence - they really should have a larger tech industry for their size and educated population base.

stareatgoats 7y ago

I feel most of the comments here don't correctly lasso this on a fundamental level. This article describes a single data-point in a context where protectionism becomes a guiding policy principle. The world coalesces (will coalesce) in economic alliances with military power to back their interests, and it is an extremely dangerous path. To people who want to point fingers at individual players, saying "it is the fault of Trump, (China, Putin or whoever)" please don't, unless you want to be part of the warmongering hysteria that lies ahead. It's not anyone's fault, this is just the result of economic and political history. What we need is to make sure this doesn't end in a man-made catastrophe, larger than anything hitherto.

Isinlor 7y ago

> China itself could, of course, also impose bans on American producers and products. A stand-still would possibly bring peace again. I think we are missing something here. China is already banning western services. No mainland Chinese person is using Google directly. No Outlook, Gmail, Facebook, Skype, AppStore, Google Play, etc. I don't think they can ban USA services even more. China can only ban exporting to USA, but it's like cutting off your own legs to make a point. In a certain sense, China is losing the game they started a long time ago. While Europe... Well, we are a total disaster in the IT sector anyway. Nobody gives a damn about the EU.