Chinese Networking Vendor Huawei's Murky Ownership

A month ago we mentioned India's suspicions that telecomm equipment from China might contain backdoors. There hasn't been any smoking gun on such speculation. Now reader littlekorea sends in some background on the ties one important Chinese telecomm vender might or might not have to the government there. "Conspiracy theories abound as to whether networking kit vendor Huawei is owned or controlled by the Chinese government and/or the military-industrial complex. But who really owns Huawei? Kiwi journalist Juha Saarinen headed to Shanghai to find out."

Comments

This is easy

[lalena]

Just compare the code byte for byte with Cisco's. Any differences are the Chinese backdoor.

Re:This is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Just compare the code byte for byte with Cisco's. Any differences are the Chinese backdoor.

So lemme get this straight. If you believe that the American government is involved in a conspiracy or conspiracies, such as the overwhelming evidence that the official story explaining 9/11 is not the whole story, then you're a nut, a loon, a conspiracy nut, a crazy right-wing wacko, and nobody should listen to you because you suggest a conspriacy.

If you believe that the Chinese government is involved in a conspiracy or conspiracies, such as the evidence that it caused companies to insert backdoors into networking and telecom equipment in order to spy on many people including many non-Chinese, why then you should examine the evidence, make comparisons, and go on to think about how and why they may have done so.

Folks, this double standard has to go. The nature of government is not really so different whether it is the USA or China or Russia or anyplace else. They love power for its own sake, and if they can find a way to increase it they will do it. They are amoral. They don't give a damn about you. You are useful only because you pay taxes and can be governed. Oh, by the way, check out one fine creation of the US Federal Government and think a little harder about whether they'd really do a thing as horrible as 9/11 if it would increase their power and let them pass oppressive laws like the Patriot Act.

Re:This is easy

[StandardCell]

I totally understand the undercurrent of your comment, and I don't dispute this could be the case. From a security standpoint it may be impossible to detect hardware intervention in any ASIC they may have had, particularly since it can run in parallel with no intervention in software (or preloaded at final test or wafer test).

Huawei should have been subject to ITC embargoes years ago for their technical thievery from the Western network equipment makers. It isn't a surprise to me that this kind of backdoor would exist. People get everything they deserve for buying their equipment from a company started by a Chinese army officer and Communist Party official.

Re:This is easy

[sznupi]

There was similar "consensus" about Japanese or perhaps even Koreans not a long time ago...

Seriously, don't you see a problem with reaching it in the group of colleagues? (or that pretty much anybody doing it has some interest in coming to such conclusion)

Re:This is easy

[ElectricTurtle]

The problem is that it used to be true. The Japanese and Koreans started out with nothing more than 1 for 1 copies (the Messerschmitt Me-262 vs the Nakajima J9Y comes to mind). Now they do innovate and come up with unique designs and design improvements, but because of their past it's hard for them to escape the reputation even when it no longer applies. The Chinese are in the same boat.

Re:This is easy

[WindBourne]

And yet, it is India that has the claim, not America. But hey, lets not let facts get in your way.

Re:This is easy

[sznupi]

US German enginners and Soviet German engineers also come to mind (nevermind all the German patents, tech, etc.); or ignoring by the US early intellectul rights (or whatever the promoted term was back then) when it suited you.

Now it just suits you to point out possibly similar things in others.

Re:This is easy

[Dishevel]

Umm. The wackos that believe that the US Government is responsible for the 9/11 attacks are left wing, not right wing. Right wing wackos believe that the President of the US dose not have a real birth certificate. Different group. Same wacko level. You are an idiot.

Re:This is easy

[mbkennel]

"So lemme get this straight. If you believe that the American government is involved in a conspiracy or conspiracies, such as the overwhelming evidence that the official story explaining 9/11 is not the whole story"

There's a huge difference between believing typical governments

a) insert technical backdoors for intelligence collection through commercial companies (of course they do)

b) commit indiscriminate mass murder and terrorism against one's own people, intentionally, including blowing up the nation's own military headquarters. (This is not the same as violently suppressing dissent or suspicious ethnic groups, lots of governments do that).

Besides, if Dick Cheney and the other usual conspiratorial suspects were involved with 9/11 they would have blown up the skyscrapers using bombs, and then blamed it on Saddam. They didn't give a crap about Afghanistan. And they definitely would NOT attack the Pentagon.

Re:This is easy

[Knuckles]

While in practice it may end up just as "they have zero respect for software licenses", I do think it is more fair to accept that their culture has a completely different concept of ownership and thus copyright. It's not as if "our" views of these matters are god-given and the only possible and correct ones.

Re:This is easy

[sznupi]

"Faulty" as far as those places would be concerned. I'm sure Sweden, Finland or Germany would love to find valid reason to ban Huawei equipment in the EU.

Re:This is easy

[CAIMLAS]

It's a bit easier to be skeptical of the Chinese stealing our stuff when it is a well-established fact that China (the country, not just the companies) actively tries to seed their nationals into our corporations to steal our intellectual assets.

Thanks For The Propaganda

[Anonymous Coward]

"Conspiracy theories abound as to whether networking kit vendor Huawei is owned or controlled by the Chinese government and/or the military-industrial complex."

Only OTHER countries have medical-military-industrial complex. The United States has ( excuse the Rand Paul reflex) C-C-C-a-a-p-p-i-i-t-t-a-a-l-l-i-i-s-s-m-m.

I presume Cisco and Microcrap Windows have no backdoors.

Yours In Norlisk,
Kilgore T.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Coop?

[MozeeToby]

So, after reading the fine article, it seems to me that the company is, officially at least, a coop. Only employees are allowed to own shares, which are primarily used as a method of profit sharing and performance rewards. It's actually not a bad model if you don't need the capital you can get by selling stock. There's a handful of companies in the US that do things much the same one, Ocean-spray being the first example that comes to mind.

I don't see anything in the article about if/when/how the Chinese government influences the company beyond an offhand remark about the CEO's past work at the beginning and an otherwise unsupported statement at the end. How exactly would the company being publicly traded ally fears that the Chinese government is exerting control? It isn't as if the stockholders would have to know about the situation, nor would the fallout be any more severe if they were found out (either way the company would be going bankrupt very rapidly).

Nothing to see here

[fermion]

The CEO, like many CEOs in the US and around the world, have suspicious ties to the military and government. Typically this is why they make so muh money, they know the people who control the big contracts.

There is a structure that makes it appear that the workers own the company. Having worked for a US company controlled by Asian interests, I found the structure rather familiar. It is done to reward workers based on results, and retain good employees.

Other than that, there is no overwhelming evidence of government ties. Just a company with a management structure meant to maximize the appearance of employee control. The fact that the façade may not match reality does not mean the reality is a conspiracy.

Re:Why make a back door when the front is wide ope

[Miros]

What is the difference between a back door, and a section of code which is deliberately a little bit sloppy to allow for a vulnerability that would just be very difficult for someone to discover? You are assuming that any back-door which does exist would be well labeled as such and therefore serve the function of a smoking gun if discovered. In reality it would probably be far easier to just not fix certain bugs deliberately and provide detailed documentation of them to the right people.

It's easy logic

[copponex]

When Americans have backdoors, it's to protect American interests and therefore "good". When the Chinese have backdoors, it's to protect Chinese interests and therefore "bad".

You can apply this same logic to foreign policy. Both value systems are based on power instead of principle.

Re:It's easy logic

[causality]

When Americans have backdoors, it's to protect American interests and therefore "good".

It's to protect American governmental interests. The lie or the myth is that those are the same as American interests or the interests of the American people.

Re:By using mobile broadband...

[Nikkos]

You are supporting communism! Thats right, the CEO of Huawei is a fully paid up member of the Chinese Communist Party.

I'm pretty sure every rich and powerful person in China is a paid up member of the Communist Party. I doubt they'd be rich and powerful otherwise.

are you surprised?

[oddTodd123]

owned or controlled by the Chinese government

Isn't everything in China owned or controlled by the government?

As a user of Huawei's sonet gear...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been using Huawei's sonet gear for the last 5 years. I work for a CLEC. I have about 50 nodes in the field.
They are a mix of M800s, M1600s, and M3600s that are spread out over multiple states. They are a real pleasure
to use and have been rock solid. Their price point compared to other vendors was a no brainer and have allowed
us to improve our network.

Take the M1600 which is a 3-4U box. It has 8 slots that can take a wide array of cards from OC48, 12 DS3s, 28 T1s,
ethernet GigE ports, ethernet 10/100 ports, multi port OC12/3, and even up to OC192 which I have not used yet. When
I did have a card laser failure they RMA'd it and gave me a new card even though it was no longer under warranty. Their
support is quite good and I speak with Americans who are located in Texas.

All the gear is on a private network so I am not quite sure how a backdoor would ever allow them access or the ability
to enter my gear if they so desired.

So with that said, if Huawei combined with the Chinese govt can deliver such an enjoyable experience for my company
and I when it comes to using their sonet gear, I am all for it.

Re:A Couple Misnomers

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

That isn't strictly true. Sure, if you draw an org chart, and everyone falls under "the state", then it looks like you couldn't possibly have a "complex" with only a single actor.

However, "The state" is never a monolithic actor. Indeed, more totalitarian states can have incredibly colorful internal power struggles, with individuals competing for influence over various state organs, with new organs being created as more loyal replacements for older, ideologically challenged ones, sometimes even direct conflict between different state entities.

If, in practice, you have a situation where factional leaders in whatever military organ is dominant are strongly aligned, strategically, financially, culturally, with the factional leaders in the dominant industrial entities, the fact that the theoretical org chart says that they are all under one state doesn't really interefere with this being a situation usefully describable as a "military industrial complex", any more than the fact that, in the US case, the public sector military and the private sector industry are supposedly separate.

PS.

[sznupi]

A fun read to go through: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

Yes, they were a bit sidelined for few last centuries; considering the above list it's not totally unreasonable to look at any possible present "tech stealing" as collecting debt, in the process of revving up again.