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Australian Gov't Bans Huawei From National Network Bids

Posted by timothy on from the drive-a-hard-bargain dept.

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."

7 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Are the concerns valid? by AtomicSymphonic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Are the concerns valid? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. No you mean Cisco's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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/

  3. Is it paranoia if it's true? But what do you have? by Sarusa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:national security by OeLeWaPpErKe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:Is it paranoia if it's true? But what do you ha by bertok · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. Re:national security by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.