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Chinese Networking Vendor Huawei's Murky Ownership

Posted by kdawson on from the worthy-of-neal-stephenson dept.

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."

15 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. This is easy by lalena · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:This is easy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:This is easy by StandardCell · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:This is easy by sznupi · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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)

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    4. Re:This is easy by sznupi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      One that hath name thou can not otter
    5. Re:This is easy by Dishevel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
    6. Re:This is easy by mbkennel · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "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.

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Coop? by MozeeToby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

  4. Nothing to see here by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
  5. Re:Why make a back door when the front is wide ope by Miros · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. It's easy logic by copponex · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:By using mobile broadband... by Nikkos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  8. are you surprised? by oddTodd123 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    owned or controlled by the Chinese government

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

  9. Re:A Couple Misnomers by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.