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U.S. to open program to replace Huawei equipment in U.S. networks

348 points by DocFeind 5y ago

sschueller 5y ago
So a $1.9 billion gift to cisco from the feds?
- anonymouswacker 5y ago
  We can call it a stimulus, or paying them to fix a broken window.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  Nokia and Ericsson, not Cisco. Although, the Huawei stuff definitely needs to go, so your characterization is still off.
  - philprx 5y ago
    Cisco too actually. Huawei did sell plenty of pure Ethernet / IP switches and firewalls in the US. Cisco does have plenty of Carrier-grade, Telco-grade and ISP-grade equipment that are used by operators (4G core, Network Functions, BRAS, GGSN/PGW...).
  - est 5y ago
    Funny how an American CEO bankrupted Nokia's handset business now it's time to makeup its telecom business.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  They will surely return it to management as bonuses and stock buybacks for shareholders. The Intel model of stimulus. Now TSMC runs the show in high end semiconductors.
908B64B197 5y ago
This is great. The next question will be how much trust can we place in the networks of our allies that still use compromised equipment from Huawei?
- Ekaros 5y ago
  And real question how much trust the "allies" can place in any equipment from USA...
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    The last clear report we had was from 2013 and the answer then was "Trust. LOL!"
  - sct202 5y ago
    Shouldn't be too much of a worry since the next 2 largest vendors of telecom equipment are European (Nokia and Ericsson). Although, Nokia owns the remnants of a bunch of US companies like Lucent and Motorola Networks so they may be more connected to the US.
    - jpgvm 5y ago
      I would say the biggest and most important chunks of both came from Nortel. Vast majority of what we consider as 4G and 5G was developed at Nortel and during the collapse was scooped up by Ericson/Nokia and Huawei (though the latter mostly just hired ex-Nortel researchers and engineers).
      - 1cvmask 5y ago
        Not 5G. The reason why Huawei became a leader in 5G is that they created all their technology around the discoveries of Erdal Arikan and bet the whole farm on it: https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-breakthrough/ https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-break... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdal_Ar%C4%B1kan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdal_Ar%C4%B1kan
      - 5y ago
nimbius 5y ago
id go so far as to say this is more a one-time 1.9 billion dollar bailout for the telecom industry. the bitter truth is nobody in the USA made it to market as fast as Huawei with 5G for a number of reasons. AT&T and others rested on their laurels, content with a monopoly market where they defined what 4g speeds were and werent. They became convinced they could extend this monopoly assertion to the rest of the world either through sheer hubris or through blind ignorance. Once the global market called their bluff, they scrambled for protectionism from the US government in the form of unsubstantiated sinophobic rhetoric, and stoked an elderly congress still rife with bubbling anticommunist sentiment. Trump gave them their trade war and it wasnt until Canadian bourgeoise faced chinese prisons that they were forced to acquiesce. Huawei's CFO signed off on largely symbolic US charges, and resumed her life. Now the only damage control can come from US taxpayers, forced to pay twice for inferior 5G.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  It's simpler than that. The Chinese Development Bank offered very generous credit to Huawei in a time where the West was letting some of it's most innovative companies collapse or languish (the 2008 financial crisis). Nortel was the main reason this all happened. They were the ones that were doing all the cutting edge wireless network research and when they collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the best in the wake of said collapse. Say what you will about Chinese companies but damn some of them execute well.
  - mr_luc 5y ago
    Nortel was the main reason this all happened. They were the ones that were doing all the cutting edge wireless network research and when they collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the best in the wake of said collapse. Err ... not sure if you're aware, but it's common knowledge that Nortel's sensitive IP was hacked by the Chinese. In fact it went on over almost a full decade, from the late 1990's to 2009 when it was brought widely to light. [1] Say what you will about Chinese companies but damn some of them execute well. Well, I mean, especially the ones benefiting from nation-state level corporate espionage. Of course empires stealing tech from each other has happened many times historically; we don't have to all act shocked that it can happen. But neither is it irrelevant that it did, in fact, happen, and specifically in the case that you mention of Nortel and Huawei. It's definitely not just a simple case of "generous credit", though the wider point about Western governments not supporting their core digital infrastructure companies in strategic ways during those years is certainly correct. --- [1] https://mindmatters.ai/2021/04/why-do-huaweis-inventions-look-oddly-familiar/ https://mindmatters.ai/2021/04/why-do-huaweis-inventions-loo... -- well-sourced article referencing much of the earlier reporting on the matter
khana 5y ago
Good.
guilhas 5y ago
Free trade, only good when you're on top. Also these equipments have been produced in China for decades, even western branded ones, and there is still no proof that they pose any security risk. As opposed to USA companies well documented to spy USA allies, and their own population, for government agencies
- dleslie 5y ago
  Yes, Huawei has never done anything untoward. /s There's a whole section[0], and another entire page[1] on Wikipedia detailing accusations against them. China, too, has quite the detailed presence[2]. So let's not pretend they're trustworthy. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Controversies 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_...
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    I'm sorry but this is a very low effort post that a quick look at any article about Snowden's revelations would crush. Wikipedia simply cannot be used like this. You might as well count words on pro and against articles. Especially not useful as most facts in this area are at best poisoned facts -knowledge that has a biased source that cannot be trusted like the US intelligence community- and you are using a mainly US English site which in itself will have a bias against China. If you really do want to compare you could compare proven backdoors (which would destroy Cisco but not Huawei) instead of looking at accusations, which is pointless.
    - dleslie 5y ago
      If you take a look at the Criticism of Huawei page, you'll find that it contains far more than accusations.
      - DaftDank 5y ago
Dah00n 5y ago
This is, of course, pure politics with no meat or foundation in reality. If they are exchanged with equipment like Cisco or other US made (well, designed) products it is a big step backwards. Not only do they have a much worse proven track-record (especially Cisco) but no US manufacture (and really no EU either that I have heard of) can match Huawei in getting your own custom stuff pushed through to release. I have never heard someone from the industry acknowledge anyone beating Huawei in R&D and time to deliver custom requests to code or hardware. They are light-years ahead of most other manufactures in those areas IMO and if they were a US company everyone would praise them (they still do but not too loudly). They are like Ubiquiti - before they started to suck.
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  Well you started to support local suppliers with real dough, which is a start. The real question is, is Nokia or whoever can grab the opportunity and put down more cash on RnD?
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Not only that, but Cisco has acquired so many Chinese companies that they are practically Chinese at this point. Working in one of their US government cloud environments, we were constantly talking internally about the odd changes coming from their China-based employees but superiors didn't seem to care.
- tw04 5y ago
  You would have to be far, far more specific in what areas they are "light-years ahead". Huawei are nothing approaching light-years ahead in the areas this programs is targeting, they're just cheaper. The primary complaint from small ISPs wasn't that Cisco or Arista or Calix or insert vendor don't have competing or even better products, it's that they are "too expensive".
  - Dah00n 5y ago
    Maybe in a small deployment, yes, but in bigger deployments the price is not the main point. If you need a specific software fix pushed through quickly, good luck if you have US made equipment. Even when (if) you succeed it is often fixed by Chinese or other Asian coders anyway. It is insanity.
cletus 5y ago
I view this as inevitable. Networking infrastructure has a valid national security interest. Companies in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy. Sure these companies are notionally private but the people who own them exist because the CCP allows them to and the price for that is loyalty. I believe this will continue and I fully expect that at some point the United States will deem those born in mainland China, regardless of current citizenship, to be a security risk and they won't be allowed to work in areas of national security or national interest. This goes beyond classified material and extends to China cheating on trade including, but not limited to, the wholesale theft of intellectual property through "partnerships" and other means as the price Western companies pay for "access" to the Chinese market. Western companies won't "win" in China because the CCP won't allow it to happen. They're literally giving away their secret sauce chasing a phantom. There's a reason why there are Chinese versions of every Western company you can think of that's dominant in China. Why the issue with those born in mainland China? Because China doesn't allow dual-citizenship. Those that become naturalized in the United States, for example, lose their Chinese citizenship. This then becomes a carrot the CCP can dangle in front of those wishing to return: restoration of citizenship. That is, of course, if you happen to have a particular set of knowledge or skills deemed important to China. What I believe is most needed immediately is reciprocity in trade. That is, if Western companies aren't given fair access to the Chinese market (for the record, it's China's right to restrict this for whatever national interest they wish) then Chinese companies should be similarly restricted in the West.
- finikytou 5y ago
  why only companies in china? we know for a fact that apple or microsoft have backdoors that US government (and Israeli looking at this year events) can leverage to enact pretty much what they deem as natitonal interest
  - cletus 5y ago
    You're going to have to clarify what you're talking about. These claims I've tended to find actually confuse several issues and misconstrue reality, intentionally or unintentionally. For example, the US has the FISA courts with all that entails (eg National Security Letters, pen registers). There is a legal framework for this whether you like it or not. My personal view is that the whole FISA system is overreach open to abuse that lacks transparency. But at least Federal judges are still involved in the process. Or are you talking about something else? Something extrajudicial perhaps? For example, countries (including the US) use allied intelligence agencies as an end run around their own laws. The NSA has certain restrictions on spying on US citizens that, say, Germany or Israel do not. So the NSA can get counterparts to do their dirty work and in turn the NSA does their dirty work. Is that what you mean? If so, what's the relevance here? If not, then what?
jmacd 5y ago
This issue seems to have been tiptoed around and many governments have tried to "play fair" about some aspects of critical infrastructure. If the strategic importance of a company like ASML hasn't taught western governments how much is at stake when it comes to getting a technology edge then I'm not sure what will.
coliveira 5y ago
The US has never proved that there is any kind of Chinese surveillance going on with Huawei equipment. Lying and anti-market strategies seem to be the tool of choice of the US government to block the advance of societies that are not deemed to be part of their empire.
- xster 5y ago
  The NSA has been hacking Huawei for years. If it had anything concrete, it would have shared it years ago rather than forcing its NATO allies to dump Huawei based on vagueries like "I know we wiretapped your chancellor, but trust us, Huawei is evil, we're just not going to prove it to you". https://www.computerworld.com/article/2488962/nsa-hacked-into-servers-at-huawei-headquarters--reports-say.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2488962/nsa-hacked-int...
  - _jal 5y ago
    > If it had anything concrete, it would have shared it years ago 1) This is the NSA. They only talk when attention serves their goals. 2) They may well have, just not with you. We have no idea what conversations have happened amongst NATO members (let alone among 5 Eyes).
    - trasz 5y ago
      We do know for fact that GCHQ called NSA’s backdoor claims bullshit.
  - kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
    > we're just not going to prove it to you How do you know there is no proof? Unlike some dimwitted administrators, the US doesn't have a policy of disclosing actively classified information.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jjcon 5y ago
  I don't think anyone needs to prove malfeasance here - a threat to national security doesn't require wrongdoing, only the existence of attack vectors by a foreign hostile nation/entity. Publishing those attack vectors would be a hilariously terrible idea as it would have ramifications in every country with Huawei in its infrastructure. Plenty of products are deemed essential and produced domestically or only by close allies, this goes for just about every country, I'm not sure why communications infrastructure is somehow different.
nickdothutton 5y ago
For background, a couple of posts on the Huawei 5G debacle. From the UK viewpoint, but at least partly relevant to other western powers. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g-the-uk-gets-a-lesson-in-go/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g-the-uk-gets-a-lesson-in-g...
Railsify 5y ago
NOK
whoevercares 5y ago
Make sense for the US to do - though again can be easily used by CCP to incite nationalism. Although more and more people in China does not admire US as a whole anymore, after Trump, Afghanistan shitshow
archsurface 5y ago
Will be interesting to see how this plays out in other countries such as South Africa which has Huawei infrastructure and Huawei 5g routers in homes.
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  Here's a pretty interesting article on that exact topic from a couple of years back [1]. The closing paragraph sums up the (South African) author's sentiment: > But, if the tech cold war comes down to a choice between Chinese or American internets and technology, Africa’s choice has already been made. Its current internet and technology boom is in significant part because of the investment of Chinese tech companies and the sale of affordable, quality components. [1] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-06-china-wins-the-tech-war-in-africa/ https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-06-china-wins-the-tech-war-...
ano88888 5y ago
US really need to think hard on why Huawei gets ahead in 5G. And how can they make US telecoms more innovative. I think they should introduce more competitions.
- rizpanjwani 5y ago
  From what I understand, Huawei got "ahead" in 5G by stealing Nortel's IP and running it into ground by the way of spycraft.
  - signa11 5y ago
    and csco too.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    That they copied IP, no doubt, but "running it into ground by the way of spycraft" I would like some sources?
    - rizpanjwani 5y ago
      https://nationalpost.com/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-down-nortel-corporate-espionage-theft-and-the-parallel-rise-and-fall-of-two-telecom-giants https://nationalpost.com/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-dow...
  - est 5y ago
    Nortel is a Canadian company. Does this mean it belongs to America's 5G portfolio?
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    You can't get ahead by copying, you can only get to the same level. So how did they get ahead?
    - SSLy 5y ago
      Leeching off other competitors.
quantum_state 5y ago
It is sad to find so many folks have been brainwashed without being aware of it …
libpcap 5y ago
About time!
beloch 5y ago
The swap of Meng Whenzhou for the two Canadian Michaels demonstrates why it doesn't matter if Huawei's equipment is trustworthy or not. Canada was obeying international treaties when it detained Meng. The Chinese state took Canadian hostages and held them in questionable conditions until they were eventually able to force a swap. It is now clear that the Chinese government expects certain Chinese executives and corporations to be above both international law and the law of foreign countries in which they operate. If your country permits Huawei to do business within it's borders, that puts your own citizens at risk of being taken hostage. Let's not kid ourselves that national governments care more about people than economics, but letting foreign countries take your citizens hostage without repercussion can threaten your chances of being reelected. Thanks to this episode, public opinion in Canada is now overwhelmingly against letting Huawei operate in Canada. Given this and pressure from its allies in the five eyes, it seems almost inconceivable that the Canadian government won't soon ban Huawei from participation in 5G networks. This episode has also raised questions about permitting the operations of other Chinese corporations that are too closely associated with the Chinese government. e.g. If a Chinese mining corp operating in a foreign country had it's operations shut down for environmental law infractions, would there be reprisals in the form of trade sanctions, etc. from China? This kind of lawless behaviour is going to have a chilling effect on all commerce with Chinese companies.
- bllguo 5y ago
  > letting foreign countries take your citizens hostage without repercussion can threaten your chances of being reelected. Hence why two Canadian spies were detained. How this episode could possibly be framed as Chinese aggression, I have no idea. Your claims are also disingenuous. Why do you emphasize "international"? Only one party was interested in prosecuting Meng on ridiculous charges - the US.
  - null0pointer 5y ago
    Present any evidence at all that they were spies. I'll wait.
    - 5y ago
hutzlibu 5y ago
Again, there is sooo much talk around it in all directions. But has there actually been a backdoor exposed? With all the attention turned towards it and that it has been a topic in geopolitics since years - there should have been some ressources allocated towards some reverse engeneering, that clearly shows it is not trustworthy? If not, why not? I mean it surely is not easy - but I always only hear blame without proof. (And I don't need proof, that the ccp is not nice. I know that.) In either case, my takeaway is, that we need more open hardware, that can be easily verified to do what it claims.
- bagacrap 5y ago
  by the time they actually find a vulnerability, it will be a little late to do anything about it. And if the US govt intelligence community did find a backdoor, what makes you think they'd tell you or me about it?
est 5y ago
Next step: insert domestic backdoors and patriotic data monitoring.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Seems a lot more doable when all the equipment is made in the USA. With or without permission from the public, there will be back doors.
perryizgr8 5y ago
Maybe it is different when it comes to enterprise equipment, but for consumer routers and APs I find Huawei's offerings to be extremely poorly designed. They have the minimum amount of hardware capability, badly designed bug-ridden ugly software, missing and misleading configurations. I would never buy a Huawei product unless I absolutely had to have the cheapest crap in the market. If people/ISPs would just pay for quality, Huawei would be out of business tomorrow.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  It is different sadly. For a long time Huawei were the only company offering actual 5G base stations for instance (they might still be). That's one reason they are in so many infrastructure systems right now...

348 points by DocFeind 5y ago

sschueller 5y ago

So a $1.9 billion gift to cisco from the feds?

anonymouswacker 5y ago
We can call it a stimulus, or paying them to fix a broken window.
jaywalk 5y ago
Nokia and Ericsson, not Cisco. Although, the Huawei stuff definitely needs to go, so your characterization is still off.
- philprx 5y ago
  Cisco too actually. Huawei did sell plenty of pure Ethernet / IP switches and firewalls in the US. Cisco does have plenty of Carrier-grade, Telco-grade and ISP-grade equipment that are used by operators (4G core, Network Functions, BRAS, GGSN/PGW...).
- est 5y ago
  Funny how an American CEO bankrupted Nokia's handset business now it's time to makeup its telecom business.
1cvmask 5y ago
They will surely return it to management as bonuses and stock buybacks for shareholders. The Intel model of stimulus. Now TSMC runs the show in high end semiconductors.

908B64B197 5y ago

This is great. The next question will be how much trust can we place in the networks of our allies that still use compromised equipment from Huawei?

Ekaros 5y ago
And real question how much trust the "allies" can place in any equipment from USA...
- WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
  The last clear report we had was from 2013 and the answer then was "Trust. LOL!"
- sct202 5y ago
  Shouldn't be too much of a worry since the next 2 largest vendors of telecom equipment are European (Nokia and Ericsson). Although, Nokia owns the remnants of a bunch of US companies like Lucent and Motorola Networks so they may be more connected to the US.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    I would say the biggest and most important chunks of both came from Nortel. Vast majority of what we consider as 4G and 5G was developed at Nortel and during the collapse was scooped up by Ericson/Nokia and Huawei (though the latter mostly just hired ex-Nortel researchers and engineers).
    - 1cvmask 5y ago
      Not 5G. The reason why Huawei became a leader in 5G is that they created all their technology around the discoveries of Erdal Arikan and bet the whole farm on it: https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-breakthrough/ https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-data-break... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdal_Ar%C4%B1kan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdal_Ar%C4%B1kan
    - 5y ago

nimbius 5y ago

id go so far as to say this is more a one-time 1.9 billion dollar bailout for the telecom industry. the bitter truth is nobody in the USA made it to market as fast as Huawei with 5G for a number of reasons. AT&T and others rested on their laurels, content with a monopoly market where they defined what 4g speeds were and werent. They became convinced they could extend this monopoly assertion to the rest of the world either through sheer hubris or through blind ignorance. Once the global market called their bluff, they scrambled for protectionism from the US government in the form of unsubstantiated sinophobic rhetoric, and stoked an elderly congress still rife with bubbling anticommunist sentiment. Trump gave them their trade war and it wasnt until Canadian bourgeoise faced chinese prisons that they were forced to acquiesce. Huawei's CFO signed off on largely symbolic US charges, and resumed her life. Now the only damage control can come from US taxpayers, forced to pay twice for inferior 5G.

jpgvm 5y ago
It's simpler than that. The Chinese Development Bank offered very generous credit to Huawei in a time where the West was letting some of it's most innovative companies collapse or languish (the 2008 financial crisis). Nortel was the main reason this all happened. They were the ones that were doing all the cutting edge wireless network research and when they collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the best in the wake of said collapse. Say what you will about Chinese companies but damn some of them execute well.
- mr_luc 5y ago
  Nortel was the main reason this all happened. They were the ones that were doing all the cutting edge wireless network research and when they collapsed Huawei was the one that executed the best in the wake of said collapse. Err ... not sure if you're aware, but it's common knowledge that Nortel's sensitive IP was hacked by the Chinese. In fact it went on over almost a full decade, from the late 1990's to 2009 when it was brought widely to light. [1] Say what you will about Chinese companies but damn some of them execute well. Well, I mean, especially the ones benefiting from nation-state level corporate espionage. Of course empires stealing tech from each other has happened many times historically; we don't have to all act shocked that it can happen. But neither is it irrelevant that it did, in fact, happen, and specifically in the case that you mention of Nortel and Huawei. It's definitely not just a simple case of "generous credit", though the wider point about Western governments not supporting their core digital infrastructure companies in strategic ways during those years is certainly correct. --- [1] https://mindmatters.ai/2021/04/why-do-huaweis-inventions-look-oddly-familiar/ https://mindmatters.ai/2021/04/why-do-huaweis-inventions-loo... -- well-sourced article referencing much of the earlier reporting on the matter

khana 5y ago

Good.

guilhas 5y ago

Free trade, only good when you're on top. Also these equipments have been produced in China for decades, even western branded ones, and there is still no proof that they pose any security risk. As opposed to USA companies well documented to spy USA allies, and their own population, for government agencies

dleslie 5y ago
Yes, Huawei has never done anything untoward. /s There's a whole section[0], and another entire page[1] on Wikipedia detailing accusations against them. China, too, has quite the detailed presence[2]. So let's not pretend they're trustworthy. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Controversies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Controversies 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_...
- Dah00n 5y ago
  I'm sorry but this is a very low effort post that a quick look at any article about Snowden's revelations would crush. Wikipedia simply cannot be used like this. You might as well count words on pro and against articles. Especially not useful as most facts in this area are at best poisoned facts -knowledge that has a biased source that cannot be trusted like the US intelligence community- and you are using a mainly US English site which in itself will have a bias against China. If you really do want to compare you could compare proven backdoors (which would destroy Cisco but not Huawei) instead of looking at accusations, which is pointless.
  - dleslie 5y ago
    If you take a look at the Criticism of Huawei page, you'll find that it contains far more than accusations.
    - DaftDank 5y ago

Dah00n 5y ago

This is, of course, pure politics with no meat or foundation in reality. If they are exchanged with equipment like Cisco or other US made (well, designed) products it is a big step backwards. Not only do they have a much worse proven track-record (especially Cisco) but no US manufacture (and really no EU either that I have heard of) can match Huawei in getting your own custom stuff pushed through to release. I have never heard someone from the industry acknowledge anyone beating Huawei in R&D and time to deliver custom requests to code or hardware. They are light-years ahead of most other manufactures in those areas IMO and if they were a US company everyone would praise them (they still do but not too loudly). They are like Ubiquiti - before they started to suck.

markus_zhang 5y ago
Well you started to support local suppliers with real dough, which is a start. The real question is, is Nokia or whoever can grab the opportunity and put down more cash on RnD?
encryptluks2 5y ago
Not only that, but Cisco has acquired so many Chinese companies that they are practically Chinese at this point. Working in one of their US government cloud environments, we were constantly talking internally about the odd changes coming from their China-based employees but superiors didn't seem to care.
tw04 5y ago
You would have to be far, far more specific in what areas they are "light-years ahead". Huawei are nothing approaching light-years ahead in the areas this programs is targeting, they're just cheaper. The primary complaint from small ISPs wasn't that Cisco or Arista or Calix or insert vendor don't have competing or even better products, it's that they are "too expensive".
- Dah00n 5y ago
  Maybe in a small deployment, yes, but in bigger deployments the price is not the main point. If you need a specific software fix pushed through quickly, good luck if you have US made equipment. Even when (if) you succeed it is often fixed by Chinese or other Asian coders anyway. It is insanity.

cletus 5y ago

I view this as inevitable. Networking infrastructure has a valid national security interest. Companies in China are extensions of the state and tools of foreign policy. Sure these companies are notionally private but the people who own them exist because the CCP allows them to and the price for that is loyalty. I believe this will continue and I fully expect that at some point the United States will deem those born in mainland China, regardless of current citizenship, to be a security risk and they won't be allowed to work in areas of national security or national interest. This goes beyond classified material and extends to China cheating on trade including, but not limited to, the wholesale theft of intellectual property through "partnerships" and other means as the price Western companies pay for "access" to the Chinese market. Western companies won't "win" in China because the CCP won't allow it to happen. They're literally giving away their secret sauce chasing a phantom. There's a reason why there are Chinese versions of every Western company you can think of that's dominant in China. Why the issue with those born in mainland China? Because China doesn't allow dual-citizenship. Those that become naturalized in the United States, for example, lose their Chinese citizenship. This then becomes a carrot the CCP can dangle in front of those wishing to return: restoration of citizenship. That is, of course, if you happen to have a particular set of knowledge or skills deemed important to China. What I believe is most needed immediately is reciprocity in trade. That is, if Western companies aren't given fair access to the Chinese market (for the record, it's China's right to restrict this for whatever national interest they wish) then Chinese companies should be similarly restricted in the West.

finikytou 5y ago
why only companies in china? we know for a fact that apple or microsoft have backdoors that US government (and Israeli looking at this year events) can leverage to enact pretty much what they deem as natitonal interest
- cletus 5y ago
  You're going to have to clarify what you're talking about. These claims I've tended to find actually confuse several issues and misconstrue reality, intentionally or unintentionally. For example, the US has the FISA courts with all that entails (eg National Security Letters, pen registers). There is a legal framework for this whether you like it or not. My personal view is that the whole FISA system is overreach open to abuse that lacks transparency. But at least Federal judges are still involved in the process. Or are you talking about something else? Something extrajudicial perhaps? For example, countries (including the US) use allied intelligence agencies as an end run around their own laws. The NSA has certain restrictions on spying on US citizens that, say, Germany or Israel do not. So the NSA can get counterparts to do their dirty work and in turn the NSA does their dirty work. Is that what you mean? If so, what's the relevance here? If not, then what?

jmacd 5y ago

This issue seems to have been tiptoed around and many governments have tried to "play fair" about some aspects of critical infrastructure. If the strategic importance of a company like ASML hasn't taught western governments how much is at stake when it comes to getting a technology edge then I'm not sure what will.

coliveira 5y ago

The US has never proved that there is any kind of Chinese surveillance going on with Huawei equipment. Lying and anti-market strategies seem to be the tool of choice of the US government to block the advance of societies that are not deemed to be part of their empire.

xster 5y ago
The NSA has been hacking Huawei for years. If it had anything concrete, it would have shared it years ago rather than forcing its NATO allies to dump Huawei based on vagueries like "I know we wiretapped your chancellor, but trust us, Huawei is evil, we're just not going to prove it to you". https://www.computerworld.com/article/2488962/nsa-hacked-into-servers-at-huawei-headquarters--reports-say.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/2488962/nsa-hacked-int...
- _jal 5y ago
  > If it had anything concrete, it would have shared it years ago 1) This is the NSA. They only talk when attention serves their goals. 2) They may well have, just not with you. We have no idea what conversations have happened amongst NATO members (let alone among 5 Eyes).
  - trasz 5y ago
    We do know for fact that GCHQ called NSA’s backdoor claims bullshit.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  > we're just not going to prove it to you How do you know there is no proof? Unlike some dimwitted administrators, the US doesn't have a policy of disclosing actively classified information.
deleted 5y ago
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jjcon 5y ago
I don't think anyone needs to prove malfeasance here - a threat to national security doesn't require wrongdoing, only the existence of attack vectors by a foreign hostile nation/entity. Publishing those attack vectors would be a hilariously terrible idea as it would have ramifications in every country with Huawei in its infrastructure. Plenty of products are deemed essential and produced domestically or only by close allies, this goes for just about every country, I'm not sure why communications infrastructure is somehow different.

nickdothutton 5y ago

For background, a couple of posts on the Huawei 5G debacle. From the UK viewpoint, but at least partly relevant to other western powers. https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g-the-uk-gets-a-lesson-in-go/ https://blog.eutopian.io/huawei-5g-the-uk-gets-a-lesson-in-g...

Railsify 5y ago

NOK

whoevercares 5y ago

Make sense for the US to do - though again can be easily used by CCP to incite nationalism. Although more and more people in China does not admire US as a whole anymore, after Trump, Afghanistan shitshow

archsurface 5y ago

Will be interesting to see how this plays out in other countries such as South Africa which has Huawei infrastructure and Huawei 5g routers in homes.

toomanybeersies 5y ago
Here's a pretty interesting article on that exact topic from a couple of years back [1]. The closing paragraph sums up the (South African) author's sentiment: > But, if the tech cold war comes down to a choice between Chinese or American internets and technology, Africa’s choice has already been made. Its current internet and technology boom is in significant part because of the investment of Chinese tech companies and the sale of affordable, quality components. [1] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-06-china-wins-the-tech-war-in-africa/ https://mg.co.za/article/2019-03-06-china-wins-the-tech-war-...

ano88888 5y ago

US really need to think hard on why Huawei gets ahead in 5G. And how can they make US telecoms more innovative. I think they should introduce more competitions.

rizpanjwani 5y ago
From what I understand, Huawei got "ahead" in 5G by stealing Nortel's IP and running it into ground by the way of spycraft.
- signa11 5y ago
  and csco too.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  That they copied IP, no doubt, but "running it into ground by the way of spycraft" I would like some sources?
  - rizpanjwani 5y ago
    https://nationalpost.com/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-down-nortel-corporate-espionage-theft-and-the-parallel-rise-and-fall-of-two-telecom-giants https://nationalpost.com/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-dow...
- est 5y ago
  Nortel is a Canadian company. Does this mean it belongs to America's 5G portfolio?
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  You can't get ahead by copying, you can only get to the same level. So how did they get ahead?
  - SSLy 5y ago
    Leeching off other competitors.

quantum_state 5y ago

It is sad to find so many folks have been brainwashed without being aware of it …

libpcap 5y ago

About time!

beloch 5y ago

The swap of Meng Whenzhou for the two Canadian Michaels demonstrates why it doesn't matter if Huawei's equipment is trustworthy or not. Canada was obeying international treaties when it detained Meng. The Chinese state took Canadian hostages and held them in questionable conditions until they were eventually able to force a swap. It is now clear that the Chinese government expects certain Chinese executives and corporations to be above both international law and the law of foreign countries in which they operate. If your country permits Huawei to do business within it's borders, that puts your own citizens at risk of being taken hostage. Let's not kid ourselves that national governments care more about people than economics, but letting foreign countries take your citizens hostage without repercussion can threaten your chances of being reelected. Thanks to this episode, public opinion in Canada is now overwhelmingly against letting Huawei operate in Canada. Given this and pressure from its allies in the five eyes, it seems almost inconceivable that the Canadian government won't soon ban Huawei from participation in 5G networks. This episode has also raised questions about permitting the operations of other Chinese corporations that are too closely associated with the Chinese government. e.g. If a Chinese mining corp operating in a foreign country had it's operations shut down for environmental law infractions, would there be reprisals in the form of trade sanctions, etc. from China? This kind of lawless behaviour is going to have a chilling effect on all commerce with Chinese companies.

bllguo 5y ago
> letting foreign countries take your citizens hostage without repercussion can threaten your chances of being reelected. Hence why two Canadian spies were detained. How this episode could possibly be framed as Chinese aggression, I have no idea. Your claims are also disingenuous. Why do you emphasize "international"? Only one party was interested in prosecuting Meng on ridiculous charges - the US.
- null0pointer 5y ago
  Present any evidence at all that they were spies. I'll wait.
  - 5y ago

hutzlibu 5y ago

Again, there is sooo much talk around it in all directions. But has there actually been a backdoor exposed? With all the attention turned towards it and that it has been a topic in geopolitics since years - there should have been some ressources allocated towards some reverse engeneering, that clearly shows it is not trustworthy? If not, why not? I mean it surely is not easy - but I always only hear blame without proof. (And I don't need proof, that the ccp is not nice. I know that.) In either case, my takeaway is, that we need more open hardware, that can be easily verified to do what it claims.

bagacrap 5y ago
by the time they actually find a vulnerability, it will be a little late to do anything about it. And if the US govt intelligence community did find a backdoor, what makes you think they'd tell you or me about it?

est 5y ago

Next step: insert domestic backdoors and patriotic data monitoring.

sschueller 5y ago
Seems a lot more doable when all the equipment is made in the USA. With or without permission from the public, there will be back doors.

perryizgr8 5y ago

Maybe it is different when it comes to enterprise equipment, but for consumer routers and APs I find Huawei's offerings to be extremely poorly designed. They have the minimum amount of hardware capability, badly designed bug-ridden ugly software, missing and misleading configurations. I would never buy a Huawei product unless I absolutely had to have the cheapest crap in the market. If people/ISPs would just pay for quality, Huawei would be out of business tomorrow.

LatteLazy 5y ago
It is different sadly. For a long time Huawei were the only company offering actual 5G base stations for instance (they might still be). That's one reason they are in so many infrastructure systems right now...