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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 neve

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.
- dang 7y ago
  You've broken the site guidelines badly here. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN. There's years' worth of further explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if anyone wants it.

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.

dang 7y ago
You've broken the site guidelines badly here. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting to HN. There's years' worth of further explanation at https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=true&page=0&query=by:dang%20astroturf https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... if anyone wants it.