10 ms·

Huawei set for limited role in UK 5G networks

62 points by goatinaboat 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
An unfortunate decision.
- ainiriand 7y ago
  I thought that we were beyond that. The whole issue about spying was a hoax. It was a Bloomberg fake.
  - bnjms 7y ago
    They're managed services the argument that spying can be introduced after the fact is sound.
  - swebs 7y ago
    Huawei was on the danger list for years before the Bloomberg article. This is unrelated.
    - rat9988 7y ago
      What proof de we have against it.
      - swebs 7y ago
        Accusations have been going around since the early 2000s but I don't think any governments released the hard evidence to the public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Espionage_and_security_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Espionage_...
        cobookman 7y ago
        Huawei stole the Cisco iOS source code. I'm also sure the CIA/NSA has other information. However leaking such info might compromise a source. Guess we'll need to wait 50 years to get an idea. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000
        frandroid 7y ago
        "Cisco iOS source code"? What are you talking about?
        popz41 7y ago
        Cisco "IOS" with a capital I, the operating system that runs Cisco hardware.
        frandroid 7y ago
        Ahhhh thanks
      - lagadu 7y ago
        Absolutely none.
      - president 7y ago
        A track record of bad faith on the part of Huawei and its lifeline, the CCP.
jpkeisala 7y ago
Interesting decision. I interpretate this either UK does not believe US that China is spying or little spying doesn't really matter since the price is better and we can control it.
- arethuza 7y ago
  I think it's a compromise to try and avoid annoying both the US and China at the same time - not sure if it has worked though.
  - samwillis 7y ago
    The UK is also at the beginning of post-Brexit trade negotiations with the US trade agreement being a central one. This is going to be part of those negotiations going forward and is all part of the governments strategy.
    - arethuza 7y ago
      You think the UK will offer to drop Huawei as part of a US trade deal? Wouldn't that mean a remarkable loss of face for the current UK government?
      - cs02rm0 7y ago
        Depends what they get in return.
      - evgen 7y ago
        The current UK government is going to get bent over and given a reminder of BoJo's days at Eton before they get any trade deal from the US, and that is before you start to ask questions about internal US politics and the chance of passing any sort of trade deal during the coming election season. Humiliation is a baked-in assumption regarding any future deal and having some chips that you can afford to sacrifice during the deal-making is something worth keeping around if you can.
      - michaelt 7y ago
pastor_elm 7y ago
What's it matter to the UK government if private citizens get spied on by China.
- jaywalk 7y ago
  The UK government is using the same networks...
mrtksn 7y ago
Is anyone familiar with the economics of the 3G,4G,5G ... XG rollout? Are the margins thin and production slow so that multiple suppliers are needed? If someone does not trust a supplier why it is hard to just keep them out completely? Is it more about politics beyond the network rollout?
- arethuza 7y ago
  If we tell Huawei to get lost then we annoy the Chinese, if we use Huawei then we annoy the US. In true British fashion we'll end up with a compromise that upsets everyone.
- fuzzyset 7y ago
  I work for a major wireless provider in the US (as a wireless engineer). Huawei equipment is almost an order of magnitude cheaper than the Scandinavian companies. Samsung is such a small player in the US that they don't really matter. Personally, I'm worried (not sure that's the right word) that China will just do it's own thing in the near future. It was a miracle that LTE phones work worldwide, IMO. China had/has its own 3G CDMA tech. I wouldn't be surprised if the market gets fragmented in later releases of 5G or with 6G.
  - blackrock 7y ago
    I recall reading that China went with CDMA (which is Qualcomm intellectual property) as a condition on entering the WTO, as mandated to them by the United States. So they were allowed to join the WTO, and Qualcomm made billions in IP royalties. I don’t have the evidence at hand. Perhaps someone else can find it.
- DharmaPolice 7y ago
  The British government wish for Chinese firms to spend money on British goods/services, for Chinese tourists to come to Britain and spend money and for the Chinese government to enforce more intellectual property rights which benefit Britain. Even prior to Brexit this was true, but obviously post-Brexit these considerations are even more important. If a major Chinese supplier is completely excluded because they are Chinese then it will be seen as a very deliberate snub. This in turn will make it harder to achieve the goals mentioned above (investment, trade, etc). Instead, this kind of compromise is so the Chinese government don't lose face and Britain can still meet the national security requirements defined by the United States.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
AIUI Huawei supply a lot of the current infrastructure (so it's unlikely to be getting worse?). Also, a GCHQ spokesperson gave an interview on BBC Click late last year and said, basically, there's very little risk. The programme pointed out that China are ahead on the technology. I trust the Chinese more with our data than USA, tbh. Businesses should be end-to-end encrypting any way, so ... I'd like to have seen them [UK politicians] tell Trump to go suck it, like "we'll use the technology we want and aren't going to be bullied into using USA companies just so you can get access to our data through NSLs". That would have been a display of this mythical sovereignty we're burning the country down for.
Nokinside 7y ago
In Europe Huawei have been under constant scrutiny from government spooks and telecom companies for at least 10 years (without news about it). Nothing has never been found and US has never provided any evidence. They are just worried. Some of that worry is reasonable but going all or nothing is not. For years now, some European network operators (especially if they have government contracts) have silently limited what they buy from Huawei. Base stations and most hardware is OK. Operating services, network control, visitor and location registers, mobile switching centers, network monitoring, and related software dealing with the core network can be bought from others if there is need. Interfaces are standardized and you can buy different components from different vendors. Many EU countries just "happen" to have one or two carriers with strategically shielded core networks. The real problem with Huawei has been lower quality software relative to competition. If I had to guess, I would say that NSA exploits holes in Huawei software to spy European allies at least as much as Chinese do or as much as Europeans spy each other.
- badrabbit 7y ago
  Only someone working to promote Chinese influence would say this. It's no different than Russia and China govs having a blanket ban on Windows and some western hardware. Interesting twist at the end there, so the NSA is the big concern even with China designed and built hardware eh? Exactly how gullible do you expect readers of your comment to be? Let's say for a moment that even though China (a nation very hostile to the US and UK with a myriad of APT groups who focus on different goals such as corporate espionage,strategic compromise,misinformation and state espionage!) has the advantage of being able to instruct (not coerce since in China this wouldn't be against Huawei's rights) Huawei to implement layers of hardware and software backdoor,they somehow exploit Huawei devices at the same rate as NSA,let's say that's true, so what? Do you expect people to believe the NSA would target the UK as much as China does? Haha, let's say even that is true,so what? The UK are the US's closest ally, while China is probably the most hostile nation to the UK right now, vulnerabilities mean nothing without a threat that causes their exploitation to reduce a security property right?? You're essentially using clever wording to say "Hey, that's just a wooden horse,so what if our enemies left it at the gate? Even our allies send us gifts sometimes,they are just as likely to use it to a malicious end" And no wonder your comment is top! I use to see this a lot when I was using quora a few years ago. Chinese "trolls" are so different than russian,they're always intelligent,word things well and very very subtle with good knowledge of western context but the propaganda angle is always clear like this. They specifically target influential academic(ish?) sites to exert influence. I am not fully sure you're one of them,but your comment is uncanningly similar. I never thought about an influence operation on HN,but man it makes so much sense.
corporate_shi11 7y ago
Regardless of whether something is "found" or not, every single Chinese company is completely beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP has absolute power over the private sector that we have not analog for in the West. Consider the recent defiance by Apple and other tech companies against the Government on issues of privacy and involvement in military programs. That simply does not happen in China because it cannot happen. The private sector is embedded in the framework of CCP governance. As such, when you sign away your Telecom infrastructure to Huawei, you are signing away your infrastructure to the CCP. Now I can anticipate the whataboutism on this issue. "If it's not China it's the US, same difference", etc. You are free to believe that, but the US is on the side of human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of information, etc. China is not. If you don't recognize the magnitude of the differences between the US and China or perhaps don't care about them, that's beyond the scope of this post to address.
- complianceowl 7y ago
  You have 498 Karma, and you made a great point. I'm curious as to why your comment is light grey?
  - ivanhoe 7y ago
    Perhaps for this part: "but the US is on the side of human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of information, etc."? China is admittedly far worse, but US has been working really hard on catching up with them in last few decades...
    - badrabbit 7y ago
      That's like comparing the common cold with cancer
  - bnt 7y ago
    Because he is a corporate shill?
    - deleted 7y ago
zaro 7y ago
Since this topic with Huawei started, I keep thinking that the US doesn't want Huawei to sell equipment to anybody, not so much because , you see, the Chinese will use the equipment to spy, but rather that they(the US) won't be able to spy using this equipment. edit: remove paste garbage from the beginning
- president 7y ago
  I think it's common knowledge that every nation state spies. The real question is - which nation do you trust to spy on you? Last time I checked, the US's spying did not result in people getting kidnapped and tortured into black jails for something as benign as comparing their leader to a cartoon character.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    As a US national, I trust China to spy on me far more than the US government. China couldn't kidnap me - they'd get huge political repercussions from the US. China kidnapping me on US soil would be very risky for them too. On the other hand, the US could totally imprison me on bogus charges constructed from spy data. If I was a Chinese national living in China, all of the above would reverse.
    - president 7y ago
      There are Chinese political and religious dissidents that would disagree with you here. EDIT: By the way you are wrong about kidnappings in the US by China. This has happened in the past and still happens today where China uses Chinese nationals based in the US to locate dissidents or “tax-evaders” and force them against their will to fly back to China.
    - mrtweetyhack 7y ago
      "China couldn't kidnap me" You wanna bet because I'm sure even I could kidnap you.
loudmax 7y ago
I think the Economist had a good take: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/25/huawei-is-a-cyber-security-risk https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/25/huawei-is-a-cyb... There is a real risk in using Huawei equipment, but the risk can be mitigated. If the Chinese government tells Huawei to insert a backdoor, Huawei will certainly comply. But state actors don't necessarily need backdoors to exploit equipment. They're going to look for bugs, which they're just as likely to find in competitor's equipment as anything else. So the real solution is not to exclude Huawei because they're Chinese, but to make sure engineers fully understand the system from the hardware on up. This means insisting on open source systems and then conducting thorough audits.
- blackrock 7y ago
  Fascinating, so China will be the #1 supporter of open source software? All their code must be open sourced, in order to win foreign contracts. And all it took was a little trade war.
  - yorwba 7y ago
    Not open source, just available for review by government agencies. The UK's Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre has had access to Huawei's source for a while now, and has been complaining about bugs for about as long. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-security-evaluation-centre-oversight-board-annual-report-2019 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-secu...
    - ngcc_hk 7y ago
      Hardware open sourced and audited ? Are you joking ? They can be changed by a fix and it is networked. Also vulnerability is another vector. You concentrate on what you know but not others left open is very hard to know.
    - blackrock 7y ago
      This is actually even more interesting. Now, China can get buy-in from the UK. The two are basically married now. Huawei can require that the UK certifies the source code, and to even do the actual compilation step itself, and to sign the final executable programs and configuration files. At which point, the binaries are created, and the UK will have a cryptographic signature of the file. Thus the binary is now cryptographically secured, that even China, with their mysterious black magic, cannot break the mathematical and thermodynamic laws of nature. /s The UK team then approves this binary, and allows Huawei to begin mass installation on the hardware via firmware flashing. Then Huawei will initiate mass production, and begin shipping out the hardware to worldwide customers. Then the UK can post-certify that the same source code that they compiled and published, is the exact same code that is in the hardware. The same process can be done for continuing code updates. Huawei can mandate that the UK provides a team to do the final compilation and verification step, and this team must promise (by penalty of law) to remove themselves from any conflict of interest, meaning they cannot work on similar technologies in the future, to compete against Huawei. It’s like a non-compete agreement. And they also cannot disclose any Huawei trade secrets, or algorithmic details of Huawei’s 5G hardware. Their responsibility is to just ensure security, and do penetration testing for security weaknesses. And China can even mandate that the UK team relocate to China, to view the source code onsite. And they can even run this for all hardware blueprints too. And monitor the code that also goes into the other chips on the SoC motherboard. Then Huawei and China can claim that the code was validated by the UK itself, and here’s the genuine certification ID. And that it’s free of any known defects or spyware code.
LeonM 7y ago
I understand the concerns here given the track record of the Chinese government. But, there is (AFAIK) not a single proof of a backdoor currently installed on Huawei telco equipment. Whereas there is a huge number of security bugs, hardcoded passwords (looking at you, Cisco), dubious certs and other nastiness discovered in equipment of other manufacturers. . So really, given the amount of auditing that has been done on Huawei equipment recently, we could almost say that their equipment can be trusted more than that of other manufacturers.
- eddieplan9 7y ago
  Are you even looking? I did one Google search, and found this [1]: > The results of the analysis show that Huawei devices quantitatively pose a high risk to their users. In virtually all categories we studied, we found Huawei devices to be less secure than comparable devices from other vendors https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/vulnerabilities/huawei-products-riddled-with-backdoors-zero-days-and-critical-vulnerabilities/ https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/vulnerabilitie...
  - yorwba 7y ago
    That article is based on Finite State's report, who sell static analysis software and are highly incentivized to not check too closely whether everything flagged by their tool is actually a vulnerability. They probably did find a bunch, but not nearly as much as they claim. There was some good discussion on the report 6 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421148
gorgoiler 7y ago
It feels like everyone is talking about national security when this seems more like a fight over who gets lucrative contracts to supply millions of pounds worth of equipment. What’s the capital investment of 5G — how much money are we talking about here? The article doesn’t mention one, but is there a major US supplier of telecoms equipment that is vying for these contracts, being propped up by the state department? Edit: The following report says £2.5b capex, £1.7b opex over the next decade https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/577965/Exploring_the_Cost_Coverage_and_Rollout_Implications_of_5G_in_Britain_-_Oughton_and_Frias_report_for_the_NIC.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
dghughes 7y ago
What is the urge to use Huawei is there no other alternative no competitor with equivalent hardware? Does Cisco not make 5G hardware at all or at the same level as Huawei? My concern is the 23.8GHz frequency used by 5G being devices so close to the 24GHz used by meteorology satellites.
jdkee 7y ago
How did the U.S. lose out on advanced telecom design and manufacturing so badly?
- tpmx 7y ago
  GSM started in Europe. Qualcomm continued betting on CDMA way too long. It ended up with Ericsson buying the infrastructure part of Qualcomm back in 1999: https://money.cnn.com/1999/03/25/europe/ericsson/ https://money.cnn.com/1999/03/25/europe/ericsson/ https://www.wired.com/1999/03/ericsson-qualcomm-accord/ https://www.wired.com/1999/03/ericsson-qualcomm-accord/ The americans won the really lucrative (and powerful - witness Trump/Brexit) application layer though (e.g. Google/Facebook/Amazon) so they shouldn't feel that bad.
nickdothutton 7y ago
I put together this post a little while ago examining the HSEC report and letter from the ISC. It is, I hope, a fairly unbiased take. There aren’t any good options and the time to do something about this was 20 years ago. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/
tpmx 7y ago
My interpretation: UK is kind of desperate for allies post-brexit.
mzs 7y ago
just yesterday, Senators John Cornyn, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio to Boris Johnson: "The facts on Huawei are clear. We hope that your government will make the right decision and reject Huawei’s inclusion in its 5G infrastructure." https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/27/congress-warns-britain-stay-away-huawei/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/27/congress-...
devnullbyte 7y ago
Strikes me as a good decision. The deal is that core networks are supplied by European NEP's mostly Nokia and Ericsson and radio elements are supplied by Huawei. There is very little information can be gleamed from from RAN, its all encrypted between the end point and the core network. Anyone wanting to harvest data will want to backdoor core network elements. Another factor is that Huawei code has been provided and audited for a number of years now. Sure that is not full proof, but its way more than we have had available from any US vendors. I will be honest, as it stands I would trust a huawei box, way more than a cisco box. On another note I expect this is a political play. The UK gets to not piss off the Americans too much (well putting aside Trump and his crazies) and the Chinese see us as favorable still. It's also quite interesting how this is coming off the back of Trump stating his displeasure at the UK governments plans to tax the tech giants more, with most of them being companies who are spying on global citizens at a volume never seen before.
ngcc_hk 7y ago
Still do not get it. A networked device can revolt anytime. It is in the flash code they can change anytime. There might be a war one day and if so, you will be dead NT he ware.
burnJS 7y ago
Didn't the NSA get numerous backdoors put in by US tech companies? Didn't some guy last name Snowden, first name Edward, disclose some of that? Don't take this as sticking up for China. It's more, shitting on all governments.
mzs 7y ago
FWIW how this happens is Huawei gives still influential former gov folks cushy jobs: https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1222496191897731073 https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1222496191897731073

62 points by goatinaboat 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

An unfortunate decision.

ainiriand 7y ago
I thought that we were beyond that. The whole issue about spying was a hoax. It was a Bloomberg fake.
- bnjms 7y ago
  They're managed services the argument that spying can be introduced after the fact is sound.
- swebs 7y ago
  Huawei was on the danger list for years before the Bloomberg article. This is unrelated.
  - rat9988 7y ago
    What proof de we have against it.
    - swebs 7y ago
      Accusations have been going around since the early 2000s but I don't think any governments released the hard evidence to the public. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Espionage_and_security_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Espionage_...
      - cobookman 7y ago
        Huawei stole the Cisco iOS source code. I'm also sure the CIA/NSA has other information. However leaking such info might compromise a source. Guess we'll need to wait 50 years to get an idea. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000
        frandroid 7y ago
        "Cisco iOS source code"? What are you talking about?
        popz41 7y ago
        Cisco "IOS" with a capital I, the operating system that runs Cisco hardware.
        frandroid 7y ago
        Ahhhh thanks
    - lagadu 7y ago
      Absolutely none.
    - president 7y ago
      A track record of bad faith on the part of Huawei and its lifeline, the CCP.

jpkeisala 7y ago

Interesting decision. I interpretate this either UK does not believe US that China is spying or little spying doesn't really matter since the price is better and we can control it.

arethuza 7y ago
I think it's a compromise to try and avoid annoying both the US and China at the same time - not sure if it has worked though.
- samwillis 7y ago
  The UK is also at the beginning of post-Brexit trade negotiations with the US trade agreement being a central one. This is going to be part of those negotiations going forward and is all part of the governments strategy.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    You think the UK will offer to drop Huawei as part of a US trade deal? Wouldn't that mean a remarkable loss of face for the current UK government?
    - cs02rm0 7y ago
      Depends what they get in return.
    - evgen 7y ago
      The current UK government is going to get bent over and given a reminder of BoJo's days at Eton before they get any trade deal from the US, and that is before you start to ask questions about internal US politics and the chance of passing any sort of trade deal during the coming election season. Humiliation is a baked-in assumption regarding any future deal and having some chips that you can afford to sacrifice during the deal-making is something worth keeping around if you can.
    - michaelt 7y ago

pastor_elm 7y ago

What's it matter to the UK government if private citizens get spied on by China.

jaywalk 7y ago
The UK government is using the same networks...

mrtksn 7y ago

Is anyone familiar with the economics of the 3G,4G,5G ... XG rollout? Are the margins thin and production slow so that multiple suppliers are needed? If someone does not trust a supplier why it is hard to just keep them out completely? Is it more about politics beyond the network rollout?

arethuza 7y ago
If we tell Huawei to get lost then we annoy the Chinese, if we use Huawei then we annoy the US. In true British fashion we'll end up with a compromise that upsets everyone.
fuzzyset 7y ago
I work for a major wireless provider in the US (as a wireless engineer). Huawei equipment is almost an order of magnitude cheaper than the Scandinavian companies. Samsung is such a small player in the US that they don't really matter. Personally, I'm worried (not sure that's the right word) that China will just do it's own thing in the near future. It was a miracle that LTE phones work worldwide, IMO. China had/has its own 3G CDMA tech. I wouldn't be surprised if the market gets fragmented in later releases of 5G or with 6G.
- blackrock 7y ago
  I recall reading that China went with CDMA (which is Qualcomm intellectual property) as a condition on entering the WTO, as mandated to them by the United States. So they were allowed to join the WTO, and Qualcomm made billions in IP royalties. I don’t have the evidence at hand. Perhaps someone else can find it.
DharmaPolice 7y ago
The British government wish for Chinese firms to spend money on British goods/services, for Chinese tourists to come to Britain and spend money and for the Chinese government to enforce more intellectual property rights which benefit Britain. Even prior to Brexit this was true, but obviously post-Brexit these considerations are even more important. If a major Chinese supplier is completely excluded because they are Chinese then it will be seen as a very deliberate snub. This in turn will make it harder to achieve the goals mentioned above (investment, trade, etc). Instead, this kind of compromise is so the Chinese government don't lose face and Britain can still meet the national security requirements defined by the United States.

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

AIUI Huawei supply a lot of the current infrastructure (so it's unlikely to be getting worse?). Also, a GCHQ spokesperson gave an interview on BBC Click late last year and said, basically, there's very little risk. The programme pointed out that China are ahead on the technology. I trust the Chinese more with our data than USA, tbh. Businesses should be end-to-end encrypting any way, so ... I'd like to have seen them [UK politicians] tell Trump to go suck it, like "we'll use the technology we want and aren't going to be bullied into using USA companies just so you can get access to our data through NSLs". That would have been a display of this mythical sovereignty we're burning the country down for.

Nokinside 7y ago

In Europe Huawei have been under constant scrutiny from government spooks and telecom companies for at least 10 years (without news about it). Nothing has never been found and US has never provided any evidence. They are just worried. Some of that worry is reasonable but going all or nothing is not. For years now, some European network operators (especially if they have government contracts) have silently limited what they buy from Huawei. Base stations and most hardware is OK. Operating services, network control, visitor and location registers, mobile switching centers, network monitoring, and related software dealing with the core network can be bought from others if there is need. Interfaces are standardized and you can buy different components from different vendors. Many EU countries just "happen" to have one or two carriers with strategically shielded core networks. The real problem with Huawei has been lower quality software relative to competition. If I had to guess, I would say that NSA exploits holes in Huawei software to spy European allies at least as much as Chinese do or as much as Europeans spy each other.

badrabbit 7y ago
Only someone working to promote Chinese influence would say this. It's no different than Russia and China govs having a blanket ban on Windows and some western hardware. Interesting twist at the end there, so the NSA is the big concern even with China designed and built hardware eh? Exactly how gullible do you expect readers of your comment to be? Let's say for a moment that even though China (a nation very hostile to the US and UK with a myriad of APT groups who focus on different goals such as corporate espionage,strategic compromise,misinformation and state espionage!) has the advantage of being able to instruct (not coerce since in China this wouldn't be against Huawei's rights) Huawei to implement layers of hardware and software backdoor,they somehow exploit Huawei devices at the same rate as NSA,let's say that's true, so what? Do you expect people to believe the NSA would target the UK as much as China does? Haha, let's say even that is true,so what? The UK are the US's closest ally, while China is probably the most hostile nation to the UK right now, vulnerabilities mean nothing without a threat that causes their exploitation to reduce a security property right?? You're essentially using clever wording to say "Hey, that's just a wooden horse,so what if our enemies left it at the gate? Even our allies send us gifts sometimes,they are just as likely to use it to a malicious end" And no wonder your comment is top! I use to see this a lot when I was using quora a few years ago. Chinese "trolls" are so different than russian,they're always intelligent,word things well and very very subtle with good knowledge of western context but the propaganda angle is always clear like this. They specifically target influential academic(ish?) sites to exert influence. I am not fully sure you're one of them,but your comment is uncanningly similar. I never thought about an influence operation on HN,but man it makes so much sense.

corporate_shi11 7y ago

Regardless of whether something is "found" or not, every single Chinese company is completely beholden to the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP has absolute power over the private sector that we have not analog for in the West. Consider the recent defiance by Apple and other tech companies against the Government on issues of privacy and involvement in military programs. That simply does not happen in China because it cannot happen. The private sector is embedded in the framework of CCP governance. As such, when you sign away your Telecom infrastructure to Huawei, you are signing away your infrastructure to the CCP. Now I can anticipate the whataboutism on this issue. "If it's not China it's the US, same difference", etc. You are free to believe that, but the US is on the side of human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of information, etc. China is not. If you don't recognize the magnitude of the differences between the US and China or perhaps don't care about them, that's beyond the scope of this post to address.

complianceowl 7y ago
You have 498 Karma, and you made a great point. I'm curious as to why your comment is light grey?
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  Perhaps for this part: "but the US is on the side of human rights, freedom of the press, freedom of information, etc."? China is admittedly far worse, but US has been working really hard on catching up with them in last few decades...
  - badrabbit 7y ago
    That's like comparing the common cold with cancer
- bnt 7y ago
  Because he is a corporate shill?
  - deleted 7y ago

zaro 7y ago

Since this topic with Huawei started, I keep thinking that the US doesn't want Huawei to sell equipment to anybody, not so much because , you see, the Chinese will use the equipment to spy, but rather that they(the US) won't be able to spy using this equipment. edit: remove paste garbage from the beginning

president 7y ago
I think it's common knowledge that every nation state spies. The real question is - which nation do you trust to spy on you? Last time I checked, the US's spying did not result in people getting kidnapped and tortured into black jails for something as benign as comparing their leader to a cartoon character.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  As a US national, I trust China to spy on me far more than the US government. China couldn't kidnap me - they'd get huge political repercussions from the US. China kidnapping me on US soil would be very risky for them too. On the other hand, the US could totally imprison me on bogus charges constructed from spy data. If I was a Chinese national living in China, all of the above would reverse.
  - president 7y ago
    There are Chinese political and religious dissidents that would disagree with you here. EDIT: By the way you are wrong about kidnappings in the US by China. This has happened in the past and still happens today where China uses Chinese nationals based in the US to locate dissidents or “tax-evaders” and force them against their will to fly back to China.
  - mrtweetyhack 7y ago
    "China couldn't kidnap me" You wanna bet because I'm sure even I could kidnap you.

loudmax 7y ago

I think the Economist had a good take: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/25/huawei-is-a-cyber-security-risk https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/01/25/huawei-is-a-cyb... There is a real risk in using Huawei equipment, but the risk can be mitigated. If the Chinese government tells Huawei to insert a backdoor, Huawei will certainly comply. But state actors don't necessarily need backdoors to exploit equipment. They're going to look for bugs, which they're just as likely to find in competitor's equipment as anything else. So the real solution is not to exclude Huawei because they're Chinese, but to make sure engineers fully understand the system from the hardware on up. This means insisting on open source systems and then conducting thorough audits.

blackrock 7y ago
Fascinating, so China will be the #1 supporter of open source software? All their code must be open sourced, in order to win foreign contracts. And all it took was a little trade war.
- yorwba 7y ago
  Not open source, just available for review by government agencies. The UK's Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre has had access to Huawei's source for a while now, and has been complaining about bugs for about as long. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-security-evaluation-centre-oversight-board-annual-report-2019 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/huawei-cyber-secu...
  - ngcc_hk 7y ago
    Hardware open sourced and audited ? Are you joking ? They can be changed by a fix and it is networked. Also vulnerability is another vector. You concentrate on what you know but not others left open is very hard to know.
  - blackrock 7y ago
    This is actually even more interesting. Now, China can get buy-in from the UK. The two are basically married now. Huawei can require that the UK certifies the source code, and to even do the actual compilation step itself, and to sign the final executable programs and configuration files. At which point, the binaries are created, and the UK will have a cryptographic signature of the file. Thus the binary is now cryptographically secured, that even China, with their mysterious black magic, cannot break the mathematical and thermodynamic laws of nature. /s The UK team then approves this binary, and allows Huawei to begin mass installation on the hardware via firmware flashing. Then Huawei will initiate mass production, and begin shipping out the hardware to worldwide customers. Then the UK can post-certify that the same source code that they compiled and published, is the exact same code that is in the hardware. The same process can be done for continuing code updates. Huawei can mandate that the UK provides a team to do the final compilation and verification step, and this team must promise (by penalty of law) to remove themselves from any conflict of interest, meaning they cannot work on similar technologies in the future, to compete against Huawei. It’s like a non-compete agreement. And they also cannot disclose any Huawei trade secrets, or algorithmic details of Huawei’s 5G hardware. Their responsibility is to just ensure security, and do penetration testing for security weaknesses. And China can even mandate that the UK team relocate to China, to view the source code onsite. And they can even run this for all hardware blueprints too. And monitor the code that also goes into the other chips on the SoC motherboard. Then Huawei and China can claim that the code was validated by the UK itself, and here’s the genuine certification ID. And that it’s free of any known defects or spyware code.

LeonM 7y ago

I understand the concerns here given the track record of the Chinese government. But, there is (AFAIK) not a single proof of a backdoor currently installed on Huawei telco equipment. Whereas there is a huge number of security bugs, hardcoded passwords (looking at you, Cisco), dubious certs and other nastiness discovered in equipment of other manufacturers. . So really, given the amount of auditing that has been done on Huawei equipment recently, we could almost say that their equipment can be trusted more than that of other manufacturers.

eddieplan9 7y ago
Are you even looking? I did one Google search, and found this [1]: > The results of the analysis show that Huawei devices quantitatively pose a high risk to their users. In virtually all categories we studied, we found Huawei devices to be less secure than comparable devices from other vendors https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/vulnerabilities/huawei-products-riddled-with-backdoors-zero-days-and-critical-vulnerabilities/ https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/vulnerabilitie...
- yorwba 7y ago
  That article is based on Finite State's report, who sell static analysis software and are highly incentivized to not check too closely whether everything flagged by their tool is actually a vulnerability. They probably did find a bunch, but not nearly as much as they claim. There was some good discussion on the report 6 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20421148

gorgoiler 7y ago

It feels like everyone is talking about national security when this seems more like a fight over who gets lucrative contracts to supply millions of pounds worth of equipment. What’s the capital investment of 5G — how much money are we talking about here? The article doesn’t mention one, but is there a major US supplier of telecoms equipment that is vying for these contracts, being propped up by the state department? Edit: The following report says £2.5b capex, £1.7b opex over the next decade https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/577965/Exploring_the_Cost_Coverage_and_Rollout_Implications_of_5G_in_Britain_-_Oughton_and_Frias_report_for_the_NIC.pdf https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

dghughes 7y ago

What is the urge to use Huawei is there no other alternative no competitor with equivalent hardware? Does Cisco not make 5G hardware at all or at the same level as Huawei? My concern is the 23.8GHz frequency used by 5G being devices so close to the 24GHz used by meteorology satellites.

jdkee 7y ago

How did the U.S. lose out on advanced telecom design and manufacturing so badly?

tpmx 7y ago
GSM started in Europe. Qualcomm continued betting on CDMA way too long. It ended up with Ericsson buying the infrastructure part of Qualcomm back in 1999: https://money.cnn.com/1999/03/25/europe/ericsson/ https://money.cnn.com/1999/03/25/europe/ericsson/ https://www.wired.com/1999/03/ericsson-qualcomm-accord/ https://www.wired.com/1999/03/ericsson-qualcomm-accord/ The americans won the really lucrative (and powerful - witness Trump/Brexit) application layer though (e.g. Google/Facebook/Amazon) so they shouldn't feel that bad.

nickdothutton 7y ago

I put together this post a little while ago examining the HSEC report and letter from the ISC. It is, I hope, a fairly unbiased take. There aren’t any good options and the time to do something about this was 20 years ago. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/

tpmx 7y ago

My interpretation: UK is kind of desperate for allies post-brexit.

mzs 7y ago

just yesterday, Senators John Cornyn, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubio to Boris Johnson: "The facts on Huawei are clear. We hope that your government will make the right decision and reject Huawei’s inclusion in its 5G infrastructure." https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/27/congress-warns-britain-stay-away-huawei/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/27/congress-...

devnullbyte 7y ago

Strikes me as a good decision. The deal is that core networks are supplied by European NEP's mostly Nokia and Ericsson and radio elements are supplied by Huawei. There is very little information can be gleamed from from RAN, its all encrypted between the end point and the core network. Anyone wanting to harvest data will want to backdoor core network elements. Another factor is that Huawei code has been provided and audited for a number of years now. Sure that is not full proof, but its way more than we have had available from any US vendors. I will be honest, as it stands I would trust a huawei box, way more than a cisco box. On another note I expect this is a political play. The UK gets to not piss off the Americans too much (well putting aside Trump and his crazies) and the Chinese see us as favorable still. It's also quite interesting how this is coming off the back of Trump stating his displeasure at the UK governments plans to tax the tech giants more, with most of them being companies who are spying on global citizens at a volume never seen before.

ngcc_hk 7y ago

Still do not get it. A networked device can revolt anytime. It is in the flash code they can change anytime. There might be a war one day and if so, you will be dead NT he ware.

burnJS 7y ago

Didn't the NSA get numerous backdoors put in by US tech companies? Didn't some guy last name Snowden, first name Edward, disclose some of that? Don't take this as sticking up for China. It's more, shitting on all governments.

mzs 7y ago

FWIW how this happens is Huawei gives still influential former gov folks cushy jobs: https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1222496191897731073 https://twitter.com/_JakubJanda/status/1222496191897731073