India Bars ZTE, Huawei, Others From Sensitive Government Projects

hypnosec writes "The Indian Government has decided it won't be using telecom equipment from international vendors, and has barred all such foreign companies from participating in the US$3.8 billion National Optical Fiber Network (NOFN) project — a project aimed at bringing high-speed Internet connectivity to the rural areas of India. The DoT has decided that it will be going ahead with 100 per cent domestic sourcing and has released a list of certified GPON suppliers. This decision comes after the research wing of the ministry, C-DoT, advised the telecom department to bar Chinese companies like ZTE and Huawei, keeping in line with a similar decision by the U.S. In an internal memo, the research body advised the department that both these Chinese companies are a security threat to the telecom world."

Comments

Tinfoil Hats?

[RudyHartmann]

Okay, I'm not a big conspiracy theorist. But if there isn't a good chance of a backdoor in their software, I'm a monkey's uncle. Aren't these companies partly owned by the People's Liberation Army?

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[green1]

I can understand the paranoia over buying equipment supplied by a company known to be tight with a foreign power you don't always get along with. But I also really wish someone would show some proof of something close to a security threat in one of these products before the whole world goes crazy about "OMG the Spies!!!"
There is tons of hardware by these companies available all over the world, and so far (to my knowledge) nobody has ever found any evidence of a back door, or any spying capability in any of it. And honestly, I don't see any reason to think that those companies are any more likely than any other company in the world to do that.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[rahvin112]

The top three owners of ZTE are all members of the PLA. All three are high ranking officers. One of them is also believed to be a high ranking member of the Chinese equivalent of the CIA.

These men claim that their PLA association is past history and not relevant but they are all still ranking officers in the PLA. Maybe just maybe their ownership is related to the corruption of the PLA and communist party in general and that there is no real connection. The problem is that even if there is no involvement now, the PLA could direct intervention and backdoored firmwares.

I'd be surprised at any government stupid enough to put in place telecom equipment from a company owned by the military of a sovereign nation. You're probably at risk with any non native produced equipment BUT that risk goes up enormously if that foreign company is owned not only by the government of a foreign nation but the military of that nation.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[AK Marc]

There has never been one, and millions of dollars have been spent looking. It's all about racism (or nationalism or protectionism). Unless they have a hidden kill switch (not a backdoor) that's very very secure (for DoS only), there can't be anything there. The DoS would only come out when China declares war or something. Oh, and the moon landing was faked by Castro as part of the LBJ-hires-Castro-to-kill-JFK deal.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[epyT-R]

No, it's not racism. It's a legitimate concern, but it doesn't just apply to the chinese. Who's to say that Cisco/nortel/juniper et al don't also have backdoors in their firmware? Frankly, no western country has a right to bitch about chinese government abuse of civil liberties and police state paranoia when they themselves are doing the same things. I'm surprised the indian government isn't choosing to distrust western closed hardware as well. They should.

This is yet another reason why closed software sucks. There's no way to audit what's running on the hardware.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[Anonymous Coward]

American companies are also excluded. India has specified that it will be supplied by a domestic supplier.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[lxs]

Would India want a country it has been at war with rally doing their base to base to capitol optical links?

You do realize that most countries that do business today have at one time or another been at war with each other?

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[AK Marc]

Are you seriously suggesting that the PLA wouldn't hide secret functions in its gear?

I'm saying they didn't. There's a difference.

This is primarily a security decision, and if there is nationalism or protectionism at play AT ALL it is secondary to the real actual threat.

There is no threat, so secondary concerns become the only one when the "primary" is a farce.

You've posted similar fairy tales before, handwaving away legitimate security concern as racism. You realize that it's ridiculous to assert this, don't you?

Yes, it's ridiculous to look for proof before wasting billions spending money on other companies who may have the same or worse. With so many people looking at Huawei under a microscope, how do you think they'd get away with hidden back doors? It's improbable at best, and at this point, pretty much statistically impossible. How long until you admit you were wrong? 5 years? If there's no attack by China in 5 years, backed by Huawei transformers leaping from their networking gear, will you admit it then? 10 years? Or will it take 1000 years of no Huawei backdoors until you believe?

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[Mike Frett]

Did you forget about NSAKEY_?. Microsoft apparently took great lengths to shush that since you can't remember. There is no telling what Government backdoors are in Microsoft Windows since Indians and Chinese both help write code for it. There was also (and still is) an unknown hole in IE in 2010 that allowed Chinese hackers to steal Data from Google, Adobe and others. The question was: Was it really unknown, or intentionally put there?. Who knows, not us.

Then there is the Hardware backdoor from China, using the ASIC chip in US Military components. It's not a theory or a maybe, it's all fact. If you can't personally see the code for all this Software and Hardware, nobody should use it. But of course, we know that's not possible except with Open Source.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[TheGratefulNet]

with US-created backdoors, when they break, there's a patch for it coming soon to restore functionality.

with the chinese ones, the bugs you get are the bugs you live with. you can't expect the chinese back-doors to be as well supported, can you? once they break, they are broken.

I'd prefer the US backdoors. at least I know there's support for them.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[azalin]

That's probably the reason those are excluded as well. While the summary focuses on the Chinese, it also states that no foreign suppliers will be involved.

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[Issarlk]

Am I the only one seeing this as an excuse to favor india's telecom companies without looking too protectionist?

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[TheLink]

Then there is the Hardware backdoor from China, using the ASIC chip in US Military components

Citation please?

If you're talking about the Actel chip, it wasn't done by the Chinese: http://www.csoonline.com/article/707542/china-not-to-blame-for-backdoor-in-us-military-chip
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~sps32/sec_news.html#MEDIA

Re:Tinfoil Hats?

[SuricouRaven]

It's China. As they are officially (If increasingly less so in practice) a communist country, they generally see much less seperation between the state and industry than we expect in the west. Many large companies are openly state-owned (ZTE), and even private companies (Huawei) have a very close relationship with the government, to the point that government officials sit on the board of directors. This works both ways: Just as the companies do the government's bidding, so the government works to tilt the economic playing field in their favor. See the restriction on rare-earth exports for an example.

It's safe to say...

[Anonymous Coward]

That a large shout goes out to China saying "We dont Trust you" from the rest of the world.

Yet the rest of the world still insists on using the large, cheap, suicidal and robotic workforce of China to produce it's consumer goods!

Just wait until the Water Cooler starts listening in on your breaktime chats about the latest developments in secret tech.... ;)

Re:It's safe to say...

[AK Marc]

Yet the rest of the world still insists on using the large, cheap, suicidal and robotic workforce of China to produce it's consumer goods!

Suicide rate is higher in the US than in a Foxconn factory.

Re:It's safe to say...

[AK Marc]

I hear the amount of shirts at 1 Wal-Mart is higher than how many shirts are in my closet too.

"rate" means # per person. Try to think before you post next time.

Re:It's safe to say...

[3.5 stripes]

Ever seen one of those little 3G dongles? Chances are one of those was a Huawei..

Components & software?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the govt also consider components(chips, circuitry, software) in locally sourced hardware also are not made outside India or are open-source. India does not have expertise in chip manufacturing except potato chips.

Re:Tech support

[Crash McBang]

Because if you do, purple monkey dishwasher!

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

"In an internal memo, the research body advised the department that both these Chinese companies are a security threat to the telecom world"

You mean becoming completely dependent on another country, a specific company, etc. for resources, especially defense critical resources, can be a 'security threat'? Really?

No shit. I know I left that clue bat laying around here somewhe....

Re:if you can do the work at home, do it

[Zontar The Mindless]

I rather like the idea of interdependence growing to the point where countries simply can't afford to have wars with one another, myself.

So which are the Indian Networking companies?

[unixisc]

So who are the Indian equivalents of Cisco, Avaya, Juniper, Brocade, et al? Yeah, they do have domestic Telecom companies like Airtel, Reliance Communications, but others? Only one I can think of is iBaton (Apple hasn't sued them for using I before the product name) which makes networking equipment like switches & routers. Otherwise, everything there is the usual DLink, Linksys, Cisco and so on.

It makes more sense if the Indians were to just ban Chinese companies, like Huawei and ZTE from the action

Re:So which are the Indian Networking companies?

[jiggs]

companies like airtel will use its hardware subsidaries like beetel(sp not just the unknown iBaton) or other indian manufacturere(rather import and relabelers) will import the same huwaei or ZTE spec devices manufactured in taiwan or indirectly in china and sell it. so govt here just helps the indian middle men if not manufacturing.
BTW the software for cisco to juniper et all are developed here in india and the hw made in china. so big deal its quite the same for american companies as well

Re:if you can do the work at home, do it

[iserlohn]

This was exactly the same argument made on the eve of WWI, that the world economy was too interdependent for war to be waged between the major powers. What happened afterwards is history.

My own take is that the nuclear deterrent is much more potent than any economic deterrent.

Just hire their engineers!

[Dorianny]

Even without backdoors or intentional bugs that can be exploited to gain access, Huawei engineers hired/coerced by the government would be very useful in finding exploits in Huawei products.

India joins the US

[tyrione]

It isn't a coincidence that India agrees with the US on building out by using local talent. Europe will follow suit in each nation state, and South America will do the same. China's stranglehold on cheap materials/labor is no longer the driving factor in manufacturing. The top manufacturers in China are working on investing in foreign lands to avoid losing their present contracts. Over time, they'll lose them. It's an economic/intelligence/political trifecta approach to breaking China's dominance on flooding world markets and thus driving down competiting economies. In short, US, Euro and other nation states corporations realize that game is up. They know the import/export tariff imbalance days are over.

Spy vs Spy

[Dorianny]

We hear national security and we all start thinking espionage and conspiracy theories. Truth is that economic losses can be just as devastating. All that expensive equipment needs regular servicing to function properly. All China would have to do is bar Huawei from offering its services in India and all that vital equipment is rather quickly going to turn into very expensive junk, leading to downtime and huge losses for whatever services rely on them. In its current spat with Japan, China proved more than willing to use economic warfare in disputes.