4 ms·

why are people so afraid of huawei? they are just a telco. they provide infrastructure. sure they can snoop on unencrypted traffic, but thats not their core bus

why are people so afraid of huawei? they are just a telco. they provide infrastructure. sure they can snoop on unencrypted traffic, but thats not their core business. so who cares if the 5g is american, russian or north-korean. if i were the us, i'd be afraid of 1. google and 2. facebook. their business is actually spying and selling that information. these know more about americans than any other company. they see data that is actually sensitive and encrypted. just because they are american companies, does not mean they will not leak to foreign intelligence entities. heck those are very likely on their client list already.

spectramax 7y ago
I think you forgot about the Chinese government who is interested in siphoning and censoring information.
- anonymouslambda 7y ago
  Yes, here is the voluminous evidence that we have presented that Huawei spies for the Chinese government. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...
elorant 7y ago
Because they allegedly have strong ties to the Chinese government. So theoretically they could build backdoors to critical infrastructure used by ISPs and other network providers. As for you main argument, we can worry both for Huaewei and Google/FB. It's not either or the other(s).
- hrktb 7y ago
  I am not sure about how we should feel about Huawei, but by this line of argument nobody could lay undersea cables or get anyone to use them. From the article: > The leader in the global undersea cable market is SubCom of the U.S. Japan's NEC and Europe's Alcatel-Lucent Each of these have strong ties to their respective government and could build backdoors.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  I don't think it is "strong ties to the Chinese government" as much as it is "literally the Chinese government." If you can imagine how uncomfortable other nations should be having the Chinese government running their next gen 5g telecom infrastructure everything makes a lot more sense. It's not just the USA that is refusing to use Huawei. Japan etc. have said hell no. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/20/cia-offers-proof-huawei-has-been-funded-by-chinas-military-and-intelligence/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/20/cia-offer... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-founders/article/2177194/japan-decides-exclude-huawei-zte-government https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-founders/article/...
  - anonymouslambda 7y ago
    So where is the actual evidence? Why won't the CIA present it publicly? Or should we just believe the CIA that it has this "evidence"?
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      There might not be any evidence. It might simply be the possibility of an update with backdoors/military payloads that gets pushed worldwide moments before a shooting war begins, or as a way to paralyze the world when negotiations become heated.
  - DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
    Huawei is a private company. The logic of this argument is that no Chinese company whatsoever is reliable. There's literally nothing Huawei can possibly do to allay the fears of people who take this attitude.
    - jorblumesea 7y ago
      I don't think anyone who knows anything about China believes "private company" means anything in that country. The founder was literally a PLA and a huge amount of private ventures have deep ties to both the CCP, either in funding, talent or both. It's not a coincidence that APT steals IP and "somehow" Chinese companies have advanced 20 years in research.
- xxgreg 7y ago
  Fixed that for you: "Because they have strong ties to the Chinese government. So they refuse to build backdoors for the NSA".
- est 7y ago
  > Because they allegedly have strong ties to the Chinese government Do you know which telco companies have more connections to the Chinese government? Every other Chinese company. Even Foxconn which manufactures your iDevice has Communist representatives in their management.
- pergadad 7y ago
  There is a longform article on Huawei which I can't find right now, but essentially it suggested that Huawei's ultimate authority is a "workers committee" which ultimately is controlled in turn by the Party. That said, it's really not a stretch. To give just one example: There are strong suggestions that Microsoft got NSA money to buy Skype, principally so that MS would revert Skype to a server-based model and take encryption out. Whether this case is true or not, it seems pretty certain that the US government makes use of national players. And it would be incredibly far fetched to even imagine the PRC not doing the same thing.
  - T-A 7y ago
    https://technode.com/2019/04/19/who-owns-huawei-clearly-not-its-employees-paper/ https://technode.com/2019/04/19/who-owns-huawei-clearly-not-... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669
rb808 7y ago
Someone posted this link the other day. https://zeihan.com/my-way-or-the-huawei/ https://zeihan.com/my-way-or-the-huawei/. If enough people have a cold war mentality strategically it makes some sense. Combined with the chance to annoy the Chinese govt in the middle of a trade war, Trump will love it.

spectramax 7y ago

I think you forgot about the Chinese government who is interested in siphoning and censoring information.

anonymouslambda 7y ago
Yes, here is the voluminous evidence that we have presented that Huawei spies for the Chinese government. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosures_(2013%E2%80%93present) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure...

elorant 7y ago

Because they allegedly have strong ties to the Chinese government. So theoretically they could build backdoors to critical infrastructure used by ISPs and other network providers. As for you main argument, we can worry both for Huaewei and Google/FB. It's not either or the other(s).

hrktb 7y ago
I am not sure about how we should feel about Huawei, but by this line of argument nobody could lay undersea cables or get anyone to use them. From the article: > The leader in the global undersea cable market is SubCom of the U.S. Japan's NEC and Europe's Alcatel-Lucent Each of these have strong ties to their respective government and could build backdoors.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
I don't think it is "strong ties to the Chinese government" as much as it is "literally the Chinese government." If you can imagine how uncomfortable other nations should be having the Chinese government running their next gen 5g telecom infrastructure everything makes a lot more sense. It's not just the USA that is refusing to use Huawei. Japan etc. have said hell no. https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/20/cia-offers-proof-huawei-has-been-funded-by-chinas-military-and-intelligence/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/20/cia-offer... https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-founders/article/2177194/japan-decides-exclude-huawei-zte-government https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-founders/article/...
- anonymouslambda 7y ago
  So where is the actual evidence? Why won't the CIA present it publicly? Or should we just believe the CIA that it has this "evidence"?
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    There might not be any evidence. It might simply be the possibility of an update with backdoors/military payloads that gets pushed worldwide moments before a shooting war begins, or as a way to paralyze the world when negotiations become heated.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  Huawei is a private company. The logic of this argument is that no Chinese company whatsoever is reliable. There's literally nothing Huawei can possibly do to allay the fears of people who take this attitude.
  - jorblumesea 7y ago
    I don't think anyone who knows anything about China believes "private company" means anything in that country. The founder was literally a PLA and a huge amount of private ventures have deep ties to both the CCP, either in funding, talent or both. It's not a coincidence that APT steals IP and "somehow" Chinese companies have advanced 20 years in research.
xxgreg 7y ago
Fixed that for you: "Because they have strong ties to the Chinese government. So they refuse to build backdoors for the NSA".
est 7y ago
> Because they allegedly have strong ties to the Chinese government Do you know which telco companies have more connections to the Chinese government? Every other Chinese company. Even Foxconn which manufactures your iDevice has Communist representatives in their management.
pergadad 7y ago
There is a longform article on Huawei which I can't find right now, but essentially it suggested that Huawei's ultimate authority is a "workers committee" which ultimately is controlled in turn by the Party. That said, it's really not a stretch. To give just one example: There are strong suggestions that Microsoft got NSA money to buy Skype, principally so that MS would revert Skype to a server-based model and take encryption out. Whether this case is true or not, it seems pretty certain that the US government makes use of national players. And it would be incredibly far fetched to even imagine the PRC not doing the same thing.
- T-A 7y ago
  https://technode.com/2019/04/19/who-owns-huawei-clearly-not-its-employees-paper/ https://technode.com/2019/04/19/who-owns-huawei-clearly-not-... https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669

rb808 7y ago

Someone posted this link the other day. https://zeihan.com/my-way-or-the-huawei/ https://zeihan.com/my-way-or-the-huawei/. If enough people have a cold war mentality strategically it makes some sense. Combined with the chance to annoy the Chinese govt in the middle of a trade war, Trump will love it.