Slashdot Mirror
The Chinese Telecom That Spooks the World
wrekkuh writes "The Economist has printed an interesting look at the concerns and speculations of the fast-growing Chinese telecom giant Huawei, and its spread into western markets. Of particular concern is Huawei's state funding, and the company's founder, Ren Zhengfei, who once served as an engineer in the People's Liberation Army (PLA). However, another article from The Economist goes into greater detail about the steps Huawei has taken to mitigate some of these concerns in England — including co-operating with the GCHQ in Britain, the UK's signals-intelligence agency, to ensure equipment built by Huawei is not back-doored."
How can you be absolutely sure they are not back-doored?
Why is it ok that all internet equipment cc's a copy to the usa, but not ok to send the same copy to china?
So, they are being tested by the security watchdog in the U.K. Big deal, they load up a specially prepped software image (like they do for all their customers) and pass the test. Next step is to have all operators buy their heavily discounted gear for almost nothing, implement it and have them install a critical software update to avoid exploits. Have that image backdoored and they are one step closer to total world domination.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
As anyone familiar with the underhanded code contest knows, it's possible to create code that looks fine, easily passes reviews from people even who are on the lookout for back doors, yet still contains back doors.
It's essentially impossible to prove that your equipment is NOT backdoored, unless you designed and built it in-house and believe that your own engineering staff is trustworthy (its own problem, when there is a history of governments buying off employees within companies that have access to critical data and processes).
If you don't want to be spied on, encrypt it.
Even if you encrypt your communications, they can still see who you are talking to. Sometimes knowing who you are talking to can be almost as valuable as knowing what you are saying.
We do not distrust you, we do not dislike you.
We distrust and dislike your authoritarian government. We do not want your government to have more power in the world. Not because we are afraid of or oppose the empowerment of USA on the world stage, or have anything against USA culture or USA people. But because we oppose authoritarian government, of any kind, from any part of the world.
We DO have a built in prejudice against your government (not against you), because your government clearly attempts to control and manipulate communication channels. Yes, they also manipulate communication channels in Europe, but not for state control of political dialogue.