Slashdot Mirror
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."
I think Huawei was also left out of consideration when AT&T and Verizon were looking to build more LTE towers in the US. Or was that the federal government didn't want their equipment out of this fear?
Would love if someone clarified this.
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.
Except of course that the WTO agreements prevent exactly this kind of national/regional/local concerns and specifically prohibits tender discrimination on the basis of national origin of the tendering company. Welcome to the brave new world.
Cisco alleged Huawei stole their tech, but had to drop the suit after the chinese gov't made it uncomfortable for Cisco.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/24/cisco_sues_huawei_over_ip/
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.
Australia has done that in the past. ....
http://www.australiandefence.com.au/DB96D390-F806-11DD-8DFE0050568C22C9
Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board let SingTel purchase Optus i.e. Singapore's government-owned telco got the Optus C1/D joint civil/military communications satellite.
The dedicated military payload paid for by Australia is used for satellite communications in Australian and south-east Asia.
The payload came from the USA and Japan was the contractor
The main problem for the NBN would be the US/UK/NZ/Canadian/Australian telco choke points- who gets to mirror off every packet in and out of Australia.
An embassy or joint space project can be contained. Communists deep in your ducts long term is not a good idea.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
OTOH I know a lot of private companies that have banned huawei. I seriously doubt at this point that this is a coincidence.
Personally I think they've been caught red-handed in a high-profile network about 2 years ago and the big guys employ people who know the details about this.
Having a copy of the source provides only minimal protection. See for example the Underhanded C Code Contest.
It would be an almost trivial exercise to introduce a vulnerability into a code base that wouldn't be picked up easily by either human or mechanical inspection. Even if such a vulnerability was detected, the vendor could simply claim that it was a coding error, fix it, and get away with it unpunished. By adding a few dozen such vulnerabilities, the vendor could play this game for years without anyone ever being able to prove wrongdoing.
There's no hope of isolating the equipment or software from the Internet either, because the use-case here is a National Broadband Network, the whole point of which is to create a new public Internet backbone.
...by people who support Huawei, most likely. Unfortunately for Huawei's defenders in Australia (and outside of Australia as evidenced by those), it puts them in the open as standing against their own country and having a greater allegiance for the PRC.
Stand strong Australia, and resist the urge to bend to the will of China. They will do everything to get you to back down - stop only when they give up and lose face.
Are you ok, mate?
I've seen members of various sects being more sane than you.
Here we are, year 2012, and the same people who've been stealing and helping their cronies are still scaring the "free world" in the same way like they've done for past 60 years.
Don't mind them putting the cash in pockets, just please be scared of evil .
Anyone who thinks this has anything to do with 'national security' is incredibly dumb.
This has to do with kickbacks and lobbying.
Oh look - there is a communist hanging off your chandelier!
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.