Former Pentagon Analyst: China Has Backdoors To 80% of Telecoms

An anonymous reader writes "A former Pentagon analyst reports the Chinese government has 'pervasive access' to about 80 percent of the world's communications, and it is looking currently to nail down the remaining 20 percent. Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE Corporation are reportedly to blame for the industrial espionage. 'Not only do Huawei and ZTE power telecom infrastructure all around the world, but they're still growing. The two firms are the main beneficiaries for telecommunication projects taking place in Malaysia with DiGi, Globe in the Philippines, Megafon in Russia, Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates, America Movil in a number of countries, Tele Norte in Brazil, and Reliance in India.'"

Comments

Wait, what?

[girlintraining]

This "former pentagon analyst"... Did he have access to intelligence reports of this nature? If so, and he's disclosing this now, I'm assuming the relevant documentation would be available via a Freedom of Information Act request? Since disclosing classified intelligence would be an act of treason, you know.

Just out of curiousity, this "former pentagon analyst" wouldn't happen to be employed with a defense firm now that would stand to profit from any products the company offers to combat this threat, would it? As many a scientist has uttered before, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." That doesn't change because we're discussing a matter of national security: You still have to put up, or shut up.

Re:Wait, what?

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

Right. The not so Fine Article is low on details. It makes a grand connection between two rather uncontroversial facts: (1) Chinese net equipment can be found in an overwhelming majority of countries around the world and (2) the Chinese engage in cyberwarfare (as does the US and a few other advanced countries). Conclusion:

The Chinese government and the People's Liberation Army are so much into cyberwarfare now that they have looked at not just Huawei but also ZTE Corporation as providing through the equipment that they install in about 145 countries around in the world, and in 45 of the top 50 telecom centers around the world, the potential for backdooring into data.

Emphasis added on the word potential. Now where's the proof (preferably from a chip teardown by a reputable hardware hacker or hacking group)?

Re:Wait, what?

[number11]

This "former pentagon analyst" is a writer for WND, a rightwing web news site with all the credibility of the National Enquirer.

Not to say that China wouldn't build backdoors into telco gear, of course they would. The US requires telcos to provide access for it to spy on calls, it wouldn't particularly surprise me if the Chinese just built it in without talking publicly about it. After WWII, many countries purchased Swiss encryption gear, and many years later it was divulged that the US had inserted a backdoor into that gear. Why would China, or telco gear, be any different?

The fact is, around the world everyone should assume that anything done over a telephone is shared with unknown parties. Unless they've got trustworthy gear to encrypt calls end-to-end.

Re:Wait, what?

[LordLimecat]

Article read like FUD.

As a consequence, sources say that any information traversing "any" Huawei equipped network isn't safe unless it has military encryption.

Wow, military grade encryption? Would that be, like, AES, one of the most widely deployed, tested, and recognized encryption schemes out there? Wow man, that stuff is hard to come by.

I also like the implication that unless you have a VPN, it will still magically find its way out to Huawei regardless of what other network controls you have in place. Having backdoors is one thing, getting thru a firewall is something completely different.

Sources add that most corporate telecommunications networks use "pretty light encryption" on their virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Proprietary information could be not only spied upon but also could be altered and in some cases could be sabotaged.

Someone want to explain to me the difference between "altered in transit" and "sabotaged"?

Im sorry, when so many of the assertions in the article read like uninformed drivel, its kind of hard to take the headline seriously. I have a strong feeling that the person who wrote this doesnt understand any of the terms hes going on about.

Re:Wait, what?

[Luckyo]

He's just ignoring the convenient fact that US has access to 100% by the same measuring stick.

Re:Wait, what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were China, I would put spying devices into hardware we build for well known American Telecom companies. Everything is made in China these days, with all the CAD files, firmware binaries, hardware schematics etc. all handed over to the factories in China.

Why ruin your own brands when the American brands can get into more places.

Re:Wait, what?

[mysidia]

If the source code were free and publicly available.... still... how do you verify the code on the device was compiled from the source you were given, and there's not a hardware component that changes the code after it's in memory?

Re:Wait, what?

[erp_consultant]

Exactly. More DHS scaremongering in yet another lame attempt to justify their existence. Started nine years ago it is now one of the largest departments in the entire federal government with 260,000 employees. Under the guise of combating "terrorism" - a very broad term that can mean whatever they want it to - and bolstered by the Patriot Act, this agency violates the rights of American citizens on a daily basis. And just like every other federal agency, it's never going away. It will only get larger.

Re:He's right.

[arth1]

No, THEY have. We keep getting the stuff they make, and they get US dollars.

They don't always get dollars - due to the trade imbalance, they get IOUs. Our debt to China increases every year, and China can't cash in on it, because that would crash our economy completely, and they would get even less.

We're like an old exiled royal who lives on debt - nobody dares to call him out on being insolvent and having a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting to his former riches, because that would make the chits and IOUs people hold (much of it from when he was solvent) worthless. So everyone continues to lend him money to keep the pretence of solvency and prevent him from defaulting, yet will quietly sell off the debt to new players if given a chance.

Bollocks

[1u3hr]

The source article is on http://www.wnd.com/, which is a pretty wacky looking right wing "news" site. Its top stories currently are :

Gun shop veto draws legal fight
Traveler says no to U.S. internal checkpoints
Blogger: Why don't blacks behave?
Cross-bearing Texas teen arrives In D.C.
Reviewer: It doesn't look like we're repenting
Poll: Majority favor extending all Bush tax rates

Detecting a trend?
Anyway the article in question simply says that 1) Chinese companies make most of the telecom switching gear. 2) Therefore, China's military has backdoored it all and is spying on every byte anyone transmits.

Of course, this is conceivable, but there isn't a shred of evidence. Spying on such a huge scale would require huge infrastructure and data transmission, basically duplicating the entire Internet. That might be detectable.