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A lot of people in this thread are complaining that the US does this to but does anyone seriously believe that having Huawei tech embedded in American infrastru
by rdlecler1 7y ago
A lot of people in this thread are complaining that the US does this to but does anyone seriously believe that having Huawei tech embedded in American infrastructure is a good idea?
- geofft 7y agoYes, I do. Here's a few reasons: - I genuinely think that the Huawei stories are by and large protectionist fearmongering and that Huawei products would win in a free and high-information (and high-correct-information, of course) market. I think better, cheaper products are good for the US. - If Huawei is actually using their products to spy, or there is even a belief of such, that incentivizes the use of end-to-end secure protocols that don't trust routers, open-source and verifiable devices for end users, etc. If it's just the US government, there's a strong pressure on US companies not to treat their own government as an adversary, which creates the danger that it's easy for the government to become an adversary (even if they are not today, it can change hands quickly). - I don't think China is any more evil than the US. So if I'm okay with using infrastructure from AT&T and its Room 641A, Verizon and its Quantico circuit, and the various PRISM companies, I have no logical reason to object to infrastructure that may be similarly compromised by the Chinese government.
- cheez 7y ago> - I don't think China is any more evil than the US. https://www.wired.com/story/inside-chinas-massive-surveillance-operation/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-chinas-massive-surveillan... Slightly worse, I would think. Another reason not to give up your guns to the benevolence of government.
- geofft 7y agoYou're right, the US government would never violently expand its borders and encourage settlers from the majority race, oppress the existing people with police brutality, and track people through their smartphones.
- b_tterc_p 7y agothese points are all out of a reasonable time frame or far exaggerated against American government vs the Chinese government Like, yeah, we have police brutality, and it’s a real problem. But did we crush a bunch of student protestors into human pancakes and then forbid anyone from talking about it? No.
- geofft 7y agoDid you know about the Jackson State massacre or the Orangeburg massacre, in both of which the police killed college and high-school students? Or the 1985 police bombing of a residential neighborhood in Philadelphia that killed six adults and five children and destroyed 65 houses? The US doesn't need to suppress people from talking. There's enough social control that people don't talk in the first place. The information is all out there and technically public, which against the US populace is more effective in making sure people don't think of the police as they should.
- lsc36 7y agoBut you're not forbidden from talking about what you mentioned, that's why you're posting here, no? Try to post anything about Tiananmen on any forum based in China. To me this is the key that makes CCP strictly worse than the US govt.
- ptx 7y agoIt's still a bit different, though. I hadn't heard of these incidents before, but when I read your comment (which would have been censored in China) I searched for "philadelphia 1985" and quickly found an old clip from Frontline reporting on the events (which would have been censored in China) on YouTube (where it would have been censored in China, setting aside that YouTube is blocked entirely). Wikipedia (which is blocked in China) also has an article (which would have been censored in China if not already blocked), saying that the police first evacuated the surrounding houses and there was a protracted gunfight before they bombed "a fortified, bunker-like cubicle on the roof". This is not quite comparable to the military killing thousands of unarmed protestors.
- half-kh-hacker 7y agoRegarding: > - I don't think China is any more evil than the US. In my opinion, citizens of China have it far worse, due to things like the Great Firewall. I'd much rather live in the US than China, at least it's vaguely democratic.
- microcolonel 7y agoAlso, China is willing to be more evil to Americans than the U.S. is to Americans.
- geofft 7y agoTo white Americans?
- b_tterc_p 7y agoThis is getting downvoted but it’s an important sentiment. You can argue that America and China are equally bad (I disagree), but regardless, you can’t really argue that America and China are equally bad to Americans.
- geofft 7y agoSo, I am an American, but my primary loyalty is to humanity as a whole. I think we should do what's best for the world, not what's best for Americans, if those two are in conflict. I don't think promoting the American intelligence apparatus is good for the world, and I think it has little enough value to Americans that I'm willing to abandon it. (I think you can construct an argument that America treats the rest of the world better than China, though. I don't think I believe it right now but I could be convinced.)
- rorykoehler 7y agoIt's always disturbed me how Americans use the word Americans when humans would be much more apt. It shows that deep down the rest of the world is nothing but a resource to be exploited in the minds of many Americans.
- cglace 7y agoSo foreign spying should be encouraged if you are doing domestic spying? I don’t see how that computes as far as domestic policy goes.
- koolba 7y ago> I don't think China is any more evil than the US. So if I'm okay with using infrastructure from AT&T and its Room 641A, Verizon and its Quantico circuit, and the various PRISM companies, I have no logical reason to object to infrastructure that may be similarly compromised by the Chinese government. One big problem is that there is no recourse against China. Unless you have some long term plans of joining their politburo and making changes 25 years from now, there's no way to way to apply direct pressure for change. Say what you want about the USA's intelligence organizations but at the end of the day there's a path for change. We elect a new top of the house every four years and all our intelligence agencies (are supposed to...) report to our civilian leaders. China's is a black box that's only getting darker over time.
- monocasa 7y agoWhat path? The NSA was found to be breaking the constitution, and as far as we know hasn't stopped.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> What path? Through legislation and free deliberation. > The NSA was found to be breaking the constitution No, it hasn’t. Many believe it is, but the courts have so far upheld the NSA’s activities. The American public’s views on the topic are mixed [1]. The fight is in convincing the public this is an issue. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americans-think-about-nsa-surveillance-national-security-and-privacy/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/29/what-americ...
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agohttps://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-judge-says-nsa-program-appears-violate-constitution-flna2D11751613 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-judge-says-nsa-... https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjolt/vol11/iss1/8/ https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjolt/vol11/iss1/8/ The evidence suggests that blanket surveillance is a thing, and that's it very clearly unconstitutional. Of course in this situation it's always possible to appeal to "national security" but that's an unconvincing legitimisation unless it can be proved that national security has been enhanced to an extent that warrants the suspension of constitutional protections. So far as I know this has never even been tried in court, never mind proven.
- gruez 7y ago>that incentivizes the use of end-to-end secure protocols that don't trust routers That doesn't work for metadata. Also, confidentiality is only one aspect of security. You also want availability, which can't be assured with clever crypto.
- __sy__ 7y agothis. I wish this comment was at the top of this thread. Saying that end-to-end encryption will somehow fix the Huawei threat is utter nonsense.
- boapnuaput 7y agoToday is a Lucky 10000 day for you. We'll start with human rights in China [0] and look at some highlights. (Yes, every citation is to Wikipedia today. You've earned it.) * There are millions of people imprisoned in China. Could be as few as 1.5mil, but likelier around 3.5mil, [2] including likely over 1mil in "re-education" concentration camps in the Western region of Xinjiang. [1] By comparison, while the USA's legendarily held the highest per-capita incarceration rate for decades, presumably this is because we are more honest than China about our rates. (Not to mention Russia.) Also, consider this map of incarceration per state in the USA. [3] Thanks, Louisiana. * The Internet is neither Free nor neutral in China. [4] You can expect not just to be spied upon, but also to have lots of non-Chinese literature removed from your view, and also to face social consequences from your Internet browsing choices. You would already be known as outspoken for your posts, which would not be hidden or pseudonymous, and which would travel through both automated and manually-reviewed filters before being published. Rumor has it that both Russia and China are researching ways to construct their own Internet-like sub-networks and infrastructure so that they can disconnect entirely from the rest of the world. * A family-and-caste system, hukou [5], is used to systematically deny freedom of movement to the vast majority of Chinese citizens. While the system has experienced reforms since Deng, in the time of Mao, hukou was an oppressive tool, and to this day, one must apply for a permit to move to large cities in Eastern China like Beijing. Worse, if I understand correctly, the hukou permits can be zoned within a metropolitan area, so that one is only permitted to move to certain parts of Beijing. As a reminder, for contrast, the USA has a strong history of legally supporting the right to freedom of movement since 1823 [6], even if we have often failed to ensure those rights. [7] * The USA has freedom of religion written into the Constitution, in the First Amendment. China does not have freedom of religion. [8] Party members must be atheists. Christians must belong to state-run churches. [11] Tibetan Buddhism is state-managed; lamas must fill out permits for reincarnation [9] and the Panchen Lama has been kidnapped and replaced with a state-chosen impostor. [10] Falun Gong has been systematically persecuted. [12] * Tibet. [13] Additionally, Hong Kong. [15] * In more recent fields of human rights: Homosexuality and non-binary sexuality are only recently permitted, within the past few decades, and associated rights like marriage/civil unions are still forthcoming. * Meta: The Communist Party of China wants to appear to have a unified will. To this end, they tend to allow whatever the Central Committee wants, to promote their ability and right to do whatever they like to the people of China, to dismiss individual human rights as deleterious to the Party and its state, and to concentrate power arbitrarily. Compare and contrast with the USA. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_China [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate#China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_incarceration_and_correctional_supervision_rate#/media/File:US_Incarceration_Rate_per_100,000_Inhabitants_by_State.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Peo... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfield_v._Coryell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfield_v._Coryell [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining [8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_religion_in_China [9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Religious_Affairs_Bureau_Order_No._5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Religious_Affairs_Bureau... [10] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchen_Lama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panchen_Lama [11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China#Subdivision_of_the_Christian_community https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China#Subdivis... [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go... [13] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Tibet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Tibet [15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Hong_Kong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Hong_Kong
- RaleyField 7y agoTo a significant extent you have to fear US if you are planning on blowing things up and you have to fear China if you have valuable IP. I don't have to like it, but hit me up with Room 641A over PLA Unit 61398 any day of the week.
- fornine 7y agoYou don’t think an authoritarian regime that claims human rights are “Western rights” and denies most aspects of classical liberalism is worse than the US? No man is wrong except the man who says he’s right...
- danskeren 7y agoEvery thread that paints China in a negative light on HN always follow the same pattern: - USA whataboutism - Mass flagging (resulting in the story getting knocked off the frontpage despite having a great upvote, comment and submission ratio) - Comments negative towards China receive 1-5 quick downvotes before slowly climbing back to normal again It’s really unfortunate that an otherwise well moderated community is so easily defeated by this abuse, and that there appear to be nothing being done to fix it despite many obvious and simple solutions (ignore flags and downvotes by those who abuse them, ban shills that resort to whataboutism from posting in threads containing /China/Chinese keywords).
- FakeComments 7y agodang is too busy censoring the narrative by whining about decorum to deal with his site becoming a infowar. I always wonder how much of the censorship investigated at major tech companies is caused by insular communities like HN, where the engineers hang out, practicing that same kind of narrative based censorship under decorum pretenses. Clip from the recent hearing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_kzn3etsE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ik_kzn3etsE
- _lessthan0 7y agoThis is a ridiculous suggestion. There is never a huge amount of posts that criticize the US gov, so it doesn't get enough viewing time even though there are a huge amount of horrendous actions the US are doing and elsewhere (UK etc). Banning comments about whataboutism? LMAO. Censorship because people comment about how bad the US are? And youre bothered about Chinese ruling?
- dang 7y agoThat is not at all an accurate description. This is a classic example of how people feel like the site is biased against their point of view even when it's the dominant one. It's known as the hostile media effect: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... I've written tons about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20bias https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme.... Here's a recent one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20314160 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20314160 Your comment also broke the site guidelines against insinuations of astroturfing. People having opposing opinions on divisive topics is evidence of nothing other than that the topic is divisive. But the insinuation poisons discussions badly. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN. More on that from a few minutes ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20370575 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20370575.
- magwa101 7y agoHere's the thing, check extradition treaties and patent law enforcement...'nuff said....
- redwood 7y agoI'll say this: my gut says "no" BUT if the US uses Huawei as much as China uses Cisco et al then there is one very good thing that can happen--economic interdendence which tends to encourage peace! The key is for balance and competitiveness on both sides to be maintained. China backs its companies with government support more aggressively than the US does (in recent decades anyway) which means the US could lose its edge and end up totally reliant.
- natch 7y agoThat would be fine in an ideal world where both sides have good faith, but in our real world China is doing everything it can to ratchet into dominance rather than mutual reliance.
- chvid 7y agoYes. It is a good idea to have Huawei tech embedded in American infrastructure. First. The allegations against Huawei are BS driven by internal US politics. Secondly where does this weird nationalism lead us? To a world where there is no Chinese router or chipset in American infrastructure. And by extension no American router or chipset in Chinese infrastructure. That is a world which is a lot poorer and filled with unconstructive paranoia.
- zeusk 7y ago> First. The allegations against Huawei are BS driven by internal US politics. Did you even read the linked paper?
- chvid 7y agoYes. I did. Honestly it is rubbish. Secret methodology. No baseline comparison (how does Huawei compare to other similar sized companies?). This is not social science. It is politics.
- StreamBright 7y ago>> but does anyone seriously believe that having Huawei tech embedded in American infrastructure is a good idea? It is a market decision. From the security point of view most vendors are the same.