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U.S. Officials Say Huawei Can Covertly Access Telecom Networks
- orand 7y agoMy favorite part is Huawei is supposedly using our own law enforcement back doors. I hope that this is forever used as an example to fight the ongoing push for "good guy only" back doors.
- radicsge 7y agoThe "good guys" (telco/law enforcement) have strict criterias to access it, like court order. Thus it is regulated by the local government. Meanwhile Huawei is supposedly actively created a workaround: > U.S. officials say Huawei has built equipment that secretly preserves the manufacturer’s ability to access networks through these interfaces without the carriers’ knowledge.
- 8note 7y agowhere 'strict' is a secret court that accepts everything put in front of it?
- azinman2 7y agoYes, versus your telecom provider in another country.
- jorblumesea 7y agoFISA courts have a high acceptance rate because prosecutors don't put anything in the ring unless they're very sure they'll get approved. This has been affirmed by many ex-FISA court appointees, lawyers and those in the intelligence community. Please let the "FISA court is a rubber stamp" myth die already.
- Consultant32452 7y agoI don't know if the FISA system is abused or not, but I certainly would not take the word of anyone who made a living off it to tell me it's all good. I submit I may have a very different definition of reasonable use. I know the opinions of regular police and courts and I disagree with them too.
- jorblumesea 7y agoI think if your proof is "I don't trust anyone in government" that's a pretty weak argument, no? Also, isn't it true that every warrant is just opinions about whether someone has done something warranting investigation? I don't see what any of these objections have to do with FISA.
- gpm 7y ago> "I don't trust anyone in government" that's a pretty weak argument, no? Not trusting the government is the entire point of large portions of the US constitution...
- jorblumesea 7y agoThe constitution is all about checks and balances. There was implicit trust in the government from the very outset of the founding of this country. It was a documented designed to guarantee trust. If you don't trust the checks and balances that the government provides, then the constitution is a worthless piece of paper. Warrants are by definition, a check and balance of sorts, although I understand it doesn't feel that way. Police (executive branch) comes to a judge (judicial branch), who approves or rejects the warrant. The judiciary has the final say over whether the police can search a home, for example. I think it's interesting how many people point to how we need to get back to the roots of constitutionalism, but also say "I never trust anything governments do or say". If that's the case, why do you think the constitution will help you there? The document itself requires huge levels of trust.
- 7y ago
- vertig0h 7y agoThe other fundamental distinction often ignored is that the United States Government represents and is ultimately beholden to the citizens of the US, even if that relationship appears strained at times. The Chinese Communist Party has absolutely no such relationship with the people of the United States and is instead an active adversary to the US Government and the people of the US. US law enforcement's restricted (or unrestricted, for that matter) access to networks provides no justification - moral or otherwise - for Huawei's access to those same networks. As a US citizen I support US Government access to our networks because I know such access is used for the prosecution of criminals and helps preserve our collective safety. The CCP on the other hand uses its unrestricted access to networks in China for the brutal suppression of its own people and seeks to export that authoritarian model across the world, something which should alarm us all.
- SmirkingRevenge 7y agoThis is on the money. All the overreaches of the US government can be viewed as what happens when the world's hegemon actually is constrained by people, and has limits to its authority. Its what a country with its power and influence does, when its restrained. Imagine the overreaches of a hegemon without those restraints. If the CCP were to replace the US/western alliances, as the dominant power - the catastrophe would be unimaginable.
- Thriptic 7y ago> The "good guys" (telco/law enforcement) have strict criterias to access it, like court order. The good guys have a non-transparent approval mechanism for permission which no one can audit. In reality, you have no basis for claiming it's an effective overall control mechanism because none of us can see most of the data. Further, there have been numerous documented cases of abuse like intelligence officials spying on their significant others, parallel reconstruction on cases where secret data shouldn't have been used, etc. An administrative policy control where application of the control is handled by the people holding the data with 0 auditing by anyone outside the system is not a strict control. Do I trust American intelligence more than the Chinese government or Huawei? Definitely, but that does not let American intelligence off the hook or justify what they are doing with mass data collection.
- Johnny555 7y agoDo I trust American intelligence more than the Chinese government or Huawei? Why would you trust American intelligence/law enforcement more than a foreign government (unless you have something to hide from that government, like if you are fostering unrest from abroad)? There's not much reason for China to be interested in me, but there's lots of reasons I wouldn't want US law enforcement spying on me, since they are in a better position to make trouble for me.
- Enumerating123 7y agoThis take is essentially the "I have nothing to hide" argument except applied to China. Moreover, even if China is not interested in you in particular, it is interested in the executives, politicians, and decision makers that use our telecom infrastructure along with you. And you should care if those people are spied on by the Chinese government, probably more than about yourself being spied on by the US government. While the US is not perfect and has executed a number of immoral/illegal projects, the world order under the US seems far superior to what a world order under China could be.
- roenxi 7y ago> While the US is not perfect and has executed a number of immoral/illegal projects, the world order under the US seems far superior to what a world order under China could be. Which specific part of the Middle East are you thinking of with that little gem? I'm looking at Iran on a map and they are the last stable center amongst a sea of catastrophes from Syria to Afghanistan that all have the sticky fingerprints of American influence on them. The entire Arabian peninsula is a mess hold together only by US support and stands as a real-time embarrassment of all the rhetoric out of Washington in my lifetime. Compared to that, what exactly is China likely to do that could be worse? The US has a bunch of stuff they can be proud of, but nobody is going to (indeed nobody is) take them seriously when their ambassadors hand-wringing about the risks of foreign spies or foreign influence. The US has been doing whatever they feel like for decades with little regard for anyone else and they have not shown themselves to be particularly honourable when there are real stakes, like oil, on the table.
- mirimir 7y agoYeah, that is vastly amusing. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Huawei backdoors stuff for its government. It's well known that US manufacturers have done that.
- cabalamat 7y ago> I wouldn't be at all surprised if Huawei backdoors stuff for its government I would be surprised if they don't.
- kube-system 7y agoAnd that is with US manufacturers operating under a court system that is much more friendly to potentially challenging those demands.
- stopads 7y agoThe news here is that all telecom equipment is required to have back doors built into them, the "crime" is the manufacturer sometimes using this too. I don't know if this is hugely revelatory or surprising, it has been common knowledge that all the telecoms are effectively government entities for a long time now. It's still just a bit surreal to see it all spelled out in black and white in the WSJ.
- tjohns 7y agoThat's not really news. It's mandated by the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), which is a law dating back to 1994: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_... Some enterprise network gear even has CALEA modules built in to facilitate traffic intercepts. For example, here's some docs from both Mikrotik and Cisco: https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/CALEA https://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/CALEA https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst6500/ios/12-2SX/lawful/intercept/book/65LIch1.html https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/switches/lan/catalyst6...
- neonate 7y agohttps://archive.md/jowdd https://archive.md/jowdd
- Taniwha 7y agoAs someone who doesn't live in the US I'm not sure that that's not any different than the recent Crypto AG news, or the similar back doors that have been discovered in Cisco hardware over the years, including the ones provided for US 'law enforcement'. The only real answer though is not to worry about this stuff, use the cheapest switching hardware you can find (sure use Huawei if they're the cheapest) and own your own privacy, don't trust anyone and do your own end-to-end encryption.
- caconym_ 7y agoOn the face of it I don't think it's terribly different, no. Anyone who wants to make a moral judgment about which is "worse" should start with moral judgments of the American and Chinese governments.
- whynotminot 7y ago^ this one right here. Not going to pretend the US is perfect. But in a world where the future is basically a choice between one of two super powers to throw your lot in with, imma go with the US.
- tremon 7y agoThe US is the one with a track record of hostile aggression outside its own borders. So far, China seems to focus more on domestic issues than on international assassinations. As a person not living in China, Chinese spying seems less dangerous to me than US spying, at least for now.
- kelnos 7y agoBoth the American and Chinese governments have bad track records when it comes to abusing civil liberties, privacy intrusion. I would say that the Chinese government is worse, but that doesn't really matter from my perspective for this particular thing. As an American, I expect that the US government, if it wants it enough, can obtain access to my communications (at least while using US infrastructure), assuming they're not e2e encrypted. Hopefully such access would be gated by a warrant, and I expect in most cases that's how it works, though I do expect there are abuses here and there. The Chinese government, however, should not have any kind of access to any of my communications (unless I am visiting China, using their infrastructure; or perhaps am communicating with someone in China from abroad). In addition, if the relationship between the US and China ever sours to the point of war, presumably the Chinese would have no problem using any possible backdoors to disrupt US telecom networks. Given this, I would much rather the US use US-built telecom infrastructure than Chinese-built infra. I think an argument over which government is more moral or trustworthy is just not useful here.
- T_ADD 7y agoThere's always been such allegations about Huawei. Backdoors are no surprise. LI is standardized by 3GPP. But if Huawei can do it, so would be the case for NSN, ZTE, Ericsson and even samsung. Besides backdoor access built in, these telecom equipment come with advanced diagnostic capabilities that are not accessible by anyone other then their own RND department.
- mycall 7y ago> these telecom equipment come with advanced diagnostic capabilities that are not accessible by anyone other then their own RND department. In these days of Meltdown and Spectre and TSX Speculative Attacks, I'm not too sure anymore.
- sandoooo 7y agoIt is more accurate to say that the US government has mandated law-enforcement backdoors that means any telecom equipment provider has covert access, Chinese or otherwise. And now that this is the case they would really rather that you stop using the Chinese ones (and use instead US companies, who also have access to the backdoors and are willing to share it with the US government). As a practical matter, it all depends on your threat model: are you more likely to get into trouble if the US government knows your secrets, or the Chinese one? How much of a premium are you willing to pay to minimize this risk either way?
- draw_down 7y agoUltimate security: put a US device behind a Chinese one (or vice versa)
- offmycloud 7y agoWhy do they need a back door when they can walk right in through the front door? I used to work for a large company that purchased Huawei 4G gear and had a paid support agreement. A condition of the agreement was giving VPN and SSH access to Huawei support engineers, so that they could "debug" their products in our network.
- drummer 7y agoIt would not surprise me if they also had some hardcoded accounts and certificates for convenient "support" access.
- mycall 7y agoadmin/admin
- kube-system 7y agoactually, it's root/admin for this device: http://manuals.zedt.eu/Huawei%20HG8245%20backdoor%20and%20remote%20access.pdf http://manuals.zedt.eu/Huawei%20HG8245%20backdoor%20and%20re...
- tastroder 7y agoAre we talking about Huawei or Cisco here? The well documented general stupidity of infrastructure hardware suppliers hardly supports the air quotes, or any of the nation state narratives here.
- drummer 7y agoSometimes it is convenient to disguise back doors as general stupidity or honest mistakes.
- reaperducer 7y agoWhy do they need a back door when they can walk right in through the front door? Because when one is discovered you use the other? Redundancy is a hallmark of good systems.
- resters 7y agoConsidering the anti-competitive, protectionist nature of the US backlash against Huawei, I think it's wise to be quite skeptical of these kinds of claims until they have been proven to be true by independent security experts.
- drummer 7y agoCNBC coverage also mentioning the CIA Rubicon program https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4UYIt8Y0XHU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4UYIt8Y0XHU
- geophertz 7y agoWhat annoys me the most about the whole "Huawei fiasco" is the fact people were going to install proprietary product to run 5G, which meant that it ended in a strange speculation game. If only open and free hardware had to be used for such things, there wouldn't be any problems of putting blind trust into a foreign company.
- azinman2 7y agoHow do you verify what you have is what you are told it is? Free software / hardware doesn’t solve espionage.
- no_opinions 7y agoThe suspicious thing isn't the tool/technology, it's the actor and what the world would be like if they ran the show. This is a good reason why Chinese needs to democratize totally and switch things up. The issue is, when you live in China and luck strikes out, there's no choice but to conform, or face suffering, which if Xinjiang is any measure, includes deprivation of liberty. Take pity on the one who has disagreement with the system in PRC. I don't understand a government lasting long without elections by the people. I don't get their end game on the world stage. They remind me of Kefka from Final Fantasy VI, or team rocket in Pokemon, because news often planning some conspiracy or trap that'd backfire on them in the end.
- OrgNet 7y agoIt's only OK when the U.S. does it... /s
- tibbydudeza 7y agoReally who cares except some jingoist defence industry neocon who still thinks the cold war is a thing , also the Chinese don't do drone strikes or invade other countries.
- anon46121 7y agoChina doesn't invade countries; except Tibet, Vietnam, India and Korea. They also funded and trained the Khmer Rouge and clashed with the soviet union. They have also built and fortified islands in other nations territorial waters. That is from the top of my head.
- torbjorn 7y agoThe Uyghurs getting put in political reeducation camps.
- alfiedotwtf 7y agoUS: It's not right the Chinese spy on telcos FVEY: It's right for us to spy on Belgacom
- kube-system 7y agoEvery world power for the past couple of millenia: Let's spy on other world powers and try to prevent them from spying on us.
- morpheuskafka 7y ago> U.S. officials say Huawei Technologies Co. can covertly access mobile-phone networks around the world through “back doors” designed for use by law enforcement I cannot believe they don't see the contradiction. Chinese law enforcement isn't supposed to have backdoors in equipment sold around the world but the US is? Seriously? I can't believe any countries would buy sensitive communications infrastructure from any country that openly includes backdoors.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- m0zg 7y agoThis reminds me of that case when Russia deployed its radioelectronic warfare gear in Syria, and the US complained that it interfered with the US's own radioelectronic warfare gear. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd be the last person to carry water for Huawei, but realistically each country that hopes to maintain its sovereignty should build their data infrastructure on their own. Especially first world countries who have the means and the technology to do so. Otherwise you end up with Barack Obama listening in on Angela Merkel's phone calls and stuff like that.
- RantyDave 7y agoI don't think that's the real issue. The real issue is that Huawei can (maybe) covertly deny service. Or launch attacks on other pieces of infrastructure.
- kube-system 7y agoChina could simply embargo Huawei support contracts and leave a bunch of network equipment with unpatched CVEs
- thewileyone 7y agoEveryone here is missing the real issue, which is money; it's not about US or China spying. It's about the trillions at stake for who owns the 5G patents. Currently 4G patents are mostly owned by Qualcomm, but if Huawei takes precedence, Huawei stands to earn trillions from equipment makers.
- jamez1 7y agoThis is just nonsense, patents don't accrue much of the revenue and the revenue for the entire telecommunications industry globally is probably only a trillion.
- ozymandias12 7y agoNot to say Huawei only has 1/3 of all 5G patents.
- born_a_skeptic 7y agoHow did Huawei become the leader in 5G? Did they develop tech themselves?
- camillomiller 7y agoChinese officials say that the NSA tapped the phone of an allied nation's Prime Minister without their knowledge. If you remove yourself from the current spat between USA and China, how can we take for good what "US officials" say, when we all have PROOF, post-Snowden, of what US officials were actually doing? The previous sentence is a direct quote of a top-3 executive of Huawei I've witnessed personally at a press conference. He was absolutely right. My point is: if you isolate statements like these, the discourse is going nowhere. Also, for the tapping of Merkel's phone we have proof, for most of the things "US officials" say, we have not, we're just asked constantly to trust what they say and take it at face value, but American institutions have squandered that luxury in the past 20 years. This is also why telco companies in allied countries that have invested billions in 5G infrastructure from China are not really willing to cancel their plans only based on take-it-or-leave-it and trust-based intelligence.
- w7 7y agoHow does proof that the USA did something affect or change the risk that Huawei devices can pose? That's literal whataboutism. The alternative providers aren't even USA owned, they're European. Discourse is going no-where because some people have a fundamental misunderstanding that this is some sort of trial that requires proof, when in actually it's simple risk analysis. Discourse is going no-where because some people somehow think it's unfair for Huawei to be banned from networks, when China routinely bans Western companies based on domestic security/market risk alone. Discourse is going no-where because some people expect backdoors to have giant identifiable red flags, when instead they look like the openssl CVE's from 2006 that disappear and reappear in Huawei's firmware. Discourse is going no-where because some people seem to think this is some attempt by the US to maintain some surveillance hold on telecom networks, when they can just compromise Huawei gear anyways. Anyone sticking to Huawei hardware is doing it because it's extremely cheap, and they're either blind to (willingly or not) the risk or have factored it in (see UK's 35% deal).
- roenxi 7y agoThe future is very uncertain; but dealing with the immediate past the US are much more likely to use their intelligence to drone strike somebody or invade a country. I would personally rather be spied on by the US than by China, but I can see how a rational person would choose the reverse.
- amrx431 7y agoAs if Cisco doesn't at the behest of NSA.
- swiley 7y agoWhy is everyone ok with this closed telecom stuff? The user experience SUCKS and it’s always used to manipulate and spy on you. Put everything on ipv6 and use open standards.
- mhandley 7y agoAs a UK citizen, my general assumption is that the systems security of all telco equipment and the operational security of all telcos is so poor that both the US and China can covertly access our networks, no matter who made the equipment. Pretty much no complex software stands up to scrutiny if you're willing to put $100M into cracking it. Until some equipment vendor starts shipping a software stack that is both open-source and formally verified, it seems that situation will persist. Can't see that happening anytime soon.
- daemin 7y agoWhy crack the hardware when the soft squishy things are so much easier to compromise.