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Australian Gov't Bans Huawei From National Network Bids
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like paranoia regarding Chinese cyber-espionage is riding sky-high within the Australian Government. It was confirmed today that the country's Attorney-General's Department had banned Chinese networking vendor Huawei (the number two telco networking equipment vendor globally) from bidding for work supplying equipment to the government's $50 billion National Broadband Network universal fibre project. The unprecedented move comes despite Huawei offering to share its source code with security officials, and despite Huawei not being accused of breaking any laws in Australia. Questions over the legality of the Government's move are already being raised."
Don't they mean Nortel's source code?
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
Huawei is an arm of the Chinese government. Officially and in practice. There are members of the Chinese Communist Party permanently assigned to it who monitor correctness and suggest policy (under pain of death). They will spy and steal tech if the Party thinks it's useful. That's just how they roll.
The only real question is whether anyone gives a damn what's going over Australia's National Broadband Network. If not, then Huawei may be cheaper.
Code audits don't reveal backdoors in hardware. I've disassembled malicious silicon from China. I don't really trust anything built in their fabs now. Personal phone calls, sure. Corporate, well, just assume you've been compromised.
No, China wouldn't consider a trade war. They'd appeal to the WTO, claiming Australia makes an unreasonable claim to Article XIV.1.a. But clearly 1) this only affects Huawei, not all Chinese network equipment makes, 2) in fact is only coincidentally affecting China with Huawei being a Chinese entity, 3) a government buying secure routing equipment can discriminate based on reputation of vendors.
The bigger issue is how China can be permitted to continue to allow its state to run businesses while remaining a member of the WTO. It's a problem illuminated by Huawei: the business is suspect, which makes the Chinese government suspect. Which then makes ALL businesses the Chinese government meddles in suspect. Which is tantamount to discrimination based on origin when they're shown the door. The WTO was never intended to include countries like China where there is no constitutional separation between affairs of state and private business.
Australia is usually very open with China and acknowledges them as a crucial trading partner; often bending over backwards to accommodate Chinese business, especially the current government.
I would think that there must be some serious intelligence information motivating this public slap in the face for a top-tier chinese company.