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US Congress Rules Huawei a 'Security Threat'

Posted by timothy on from the q-in-tel-is-totally-a-different-story dept.

dgharmon writes with the lead from a story in the Brisbane Time: "Chinese telecom company Huawei poses a security threat to the United States and should be barred from US contracts and acquisitions, a yearlong congressional investigation has concluded. A draft of a report by the House Intelligence Committee said Huawei and another Chinese telecom, ZTE, 'cannot be trusted' to be free of influence from Beijing and could be used to undermine U.S. security."

14 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Don't panic by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't panic. If you have a Huawei phone just fill a bucket with water and drop the phone in. After 12 hours you can safely dispose of t in the bin. Then go and buy a phone made in the West like the ....uhm ..... well ... do without a phone.

    1. Re:Don't panic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If past actions are anything to go by this stance actually says "We know that our electronics cannot be trusted to be free from US influence and therefore we cannot assume that a foreign nations electronics will be."

    2. Re:Don't panic by javilon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They are opening a can of worms.

      Obviously, the US has been doing exactly that. There are documented cases of back doors introduced into US software and hardware. It could bite them back with other countries using exactly the same argument against them.

      I do not fault the US for defending their interests. It is clear that China will use all opportunities available to them, exactly as US did. But they are going to face the same issues that countries like Iran face now. They can use foreign technology that is better than domestic products, or they can try to stop it from entering the country. The fact is that US is quickly becoming irrelevant in hardware manufacturing, so it is a difficult call.

      What seems clear is that this won't be good for the economy since it will be interpreted as tariffs by the other side.

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      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    3. Re:Don't panic by Divebus · · Score: 4, Funny

      China practically invented the category of Gov't spyware in electronics. Be careful what you say in front of your Chinese made toaster.

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      Most of the stuff on /. won't survive first contact with facts.
    4. Re:Don't panic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      China practically invented the category of Gov't spyware in electronics

      Whereas the USA is content with bugging the Chinese premier's aeroplane...

      Perhaps China should have placed Boeing, Dee Howard and Rockwell-Collins on their "security threat" list.

  2. Same applies to US by Seeteufel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I guess the same applies to companies like IBM, AT&T and Microsoft in the European Union, companies which undermine our domestic security (see the IBM Lotus Notes backdoor scandal in Sweden) and seek to influence our law makers. In particular AT&T with their lobbying for censorship rules and Microsoft which does not disclose the source code of its applications to the IT security agencies and undermines open source and open standards policies --- as if they were part of the European constituency. Oh, and don't mention the OOXML case.

    1. Re:Same applies to US by scdeimos · · Score: 5, Informative

      You forgot Cisco, who is so in-bed with the US government that they caused an ex-Cisco employee to be arrested while sitting in a Canadian court room. Glass houses, me thinks.

  3. Security threat to the United States by Kinky+Bass+Junk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Sure, if by 'security threat' you mean 'economic threat', and by 'United States' you mean 'Motorola'.

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    Anonymous Coward
  4. A step forward by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Now all the other governments of the world should ban Microsoft for being a security threat and things could become far better for most of the people. Even could be considered "a national security threat", played a major role in Stuxnet/Flame/etc targetted attacks, where US agencies could had been involved.

    In fact, with that argument most US based software companies could be banned outside, unless by licence (i.e. open source ones) you can get all the source, recompile and deploy it yourself. And that includes embedded software devices

  5. Is the free trade not so fun anymore? by miffo.swe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    First off i have a very hard time believing backdoors are built in the large networks they sell. In complex systems like that its next to impossible to hide things in the long run. Anything suspicious would have been found in the audits.

    This looks like a try at restricting import with arbitrary reasons without any substance behind them. I am sure many countries smile at this as they get to block American goods like GM corn etc citing safety reasons, and now they can use US own rhetoric.

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    HTTP/1.1 400
    1. Re:Is the free trade not so fun anymore? by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      First off i have a very hard time believing backdoors are built in the large networks they sell

      Really? After stuxnet, flame, you think that?

      Fact is most of that network hardware gets a great deal less scrutiny than desktop software gets. A much smaller number of people use it directly, far fewer security folks get access to it.

      Even if backdoors are not deliberately inserted its beyond reason to think exploits don't exist somewhere. Now what would the Chinese government's security arm do if they discovered a useful reliable exploit? Probably exactly what our own did/does and create things like stuxnet. Oh and if you could work something like that into the network layer it would be way way harder to spot than at the application layer.

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      Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  6. Irony by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm told this is ironic because the reason that Huawei got started was because the Chinese did all sorts of experiments with Cisco gear and determined that they couldn't trust them because of all the backdoors they had to accommodate US agencies.

    The Chinese needed network gear they could trust, they'd been tearing the Cisco gear down for a while to check them for back doors, so they just went the whole hog and started their own router company.

    The main reason that the US *know* that the Huwaei gear has back doors in it is probably because they are the same back doors cloned from the Cisco gear, but with different encryption keys.

  7. Lobbying by amiga3D · · Score: 4, Informative

    Hauwei should have started lobbying harder sooner. They spent over 800 million this year but only 200 million last year. Well, if they keep it up things will turn around. Gotta grease those palms in DC to get what you want.

  8. And by security you mean by gelfling · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Apple didn't want to tangle with them in a predatory lawsuit that even if they won they'd never see a dime, so they simply lobbied Congress to keep them out.