Chinese Media Calls For Boycott of Cisco

An anonymous reader writes "China's state-run media is calling on the country's wireless carriers to move away from Cisco products. According to reports, using Cisco products allows the U.S. to 'attack China almost at will,' and forms a 'terrible security threat.' Chinese officials are urging the companies' wireless carriers to switch to hardware made by Huawei and ZTE Corp. Citing cybersecurity concerns, the United States has banned the use of equipment from both Huawei and ZTE in its cellular networks. Cisco has not yet been named in documents describing the NSA's global wiretapping operations. Apple, a company named in leaked documents, has slashed iPhone production for the second half of this year on falling overseas sales."

Comments

Thank Edward Snowden

[elucido]

He has certainly helped China to boost it's defenses.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

BS...

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Every country should boost its defences if another country is snooping around anonymously in its businesses!!! No country has the right to do that! Thank Edward Snowden indeed!

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, this is just the pot calling one of the many kettles black. Huawei and ZTE allow this type of "access" as well, but it's just on behalf of the Chinese government rather than the US government.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Rightly so, its just sad that the people he wanted to help boost their defenses are trying to ignore it all.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Apharmd]

Why shouldn't a nation be able to take steps to maintain its own sovereignty? I'm not a fan of Chinese human rights violations, but they have an interest, no, a responsibility to secure their borders from US aggression. Including espionage.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[interkin3tic]

If you're being sarcastic, you're deluded. China improving it's defenses, even against the US is not your loss, and the US successfully spying on the Chinese is not necessarily to your benefit. It's only a problem for you if it becomes one-sided, which will take a lot more than Snowden's actions. Meanwhile, Snowden has brought to light the US government shitting on it's own constitution.

If that is a sincere thanks to Snowden, I agree.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[TWiTfan]

And Cisco saved DS9 countless times.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[TubeSteak]

Are we at war with China?
Are we even in a cold war with China?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Against what? The NSA spying on US citizens?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[elucido]

Are we at war with China?
Are we even in a cold war with China?

China and the US are friends but also at war in other areas depending on the area. In the technology space the US and China are at war. It's a cyber war between hackers at this point and Edward Snowden has made it harder for US hackers which gives the advantage to Chinese hackers. This impacts the global economy and the US economy.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[elucido]

Every country should boost its defences if another country is snooping around anonymously in its businesses!!! No country has the right to do that! Thank Edward Snowden indeed!

That is the cause of the cold war. I guess we are going to go back to that again because governments never trust other governments and never have.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

He also made a pretty cool song about womens' underwear.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[elucido]

Why shouldn't a nation be able to take steps to maintain its own sovereignty? I'm not a fan of Chinese human rights violations, but they have an interest, no, a responsibility to secure their borders from US aggression. Including espionage.

They can, the problem is it brews an even more paranoid environment which means more prism like spying operations will be built. The more nations distrust each other the more they spy on each other. The cold war is an example of this kind of distrust.

The level of distrust China now has may lead China to crack down domestically and build more effective domestic spying capabilities.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Pieroxy]

Now one thing is certain for me: The US is slipping into a totalitarian state at a rate I wouldn't have believed a couple of weeks ago. Even the revelations and proof that the US government is stashing all the data it can get on its own citizens in spite of the constitution and the law only triggers anger over the dude that revealed it all.

People, this guy should be a national hero by now, not a fugitive.

So, totalitarian it will be and the US population is gently coming along apparently.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Thong song!

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

We have always been at war with China

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Sperbels]

That is the cause of the cold war. I guess we are going to go back to that again because governments never trust other governments and never have.

As my parents once said: if you want our trust then stop acting like a child and start acting responsibly.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[drinkypoo]

If you were an American you would understand why this is bad.

And if you were Chinese you would understand why this is good. Guess what? This is not a battle of good and evil.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[mlts]

I wish this were not the case. Maybe the US, Russia, and China need to do what European countries did in 1945 to 1945 and allow their students to travel freely among the nations. That way, the historic French/German hatred has waned to brawls at football matches and not trenches/tanks.

I probably sound crazy, but it might do good for an open border policy among the three superpowers. This doesn't mean that sovereignty has to be given up, just like Spain is still Spain, but at least the people in the country are not just seeing what is spoon fed to them in the press.

The 1946 decision to let Europeans wander among nations has done wonders for Europe... maybe we should consider the same thing here in the US?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[elucido]

If you were an American you would understand why this is bad.

And if you were Chinese you would understand why this is good. Guess what? This is not a battle of good and evil.

I never said it was. But since I don't have a job working in IT in China and Chinese citizenship it's not in my self interest to want to promote the Chinese economy.
Do I want to be ruled by the Chinese? Do you?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[mlts]

Correction, 1945 to 1946. This was a time that Western Europe was either going to figure out how to set member country differences aside or collapse completely.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't give a rat's ass if China is snooping on me. I do, however, care greatly that my own government is snooping on me.

You're blaming the messenger. Snowden isn't a threat to Cisco, the fact that they rolled over for the NSA is.

I think I'll buy a Chinese router and sell my Cisco router.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[gutnor]

Dude, were you born yesterday ?

Do you really thing that China was all trusty of made-in US before ? China is just having a bit of PR fun at the US right now but in practice nothing change: the US tries to spy China and China try to spy the US. That's the job of the NSA after all.

What you just learned is confirmation that the US was also lying to its own citizen. Also you learned that when it comes to spying a Chinese national, a Taliban general or a French plumber have exactly the same rights for the US: none. That is not completely unexpected, but especially for European and other first world citizen and allies of the US, they just learned the hidden price of the free service provided by the various US companies like Google.

Also, unlike European, US citizen have a built-in distrust for their government. I see regularly people that think that the obligation to wear your seatbelt in a car is infringing their freedom. That is amazing that people are not in the street asking for the Government heads on a pike right now.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[dbIII]

It's already being determined that it wasn't nearly as base as he said

So you are suggesting that all our base is not belong to us? :)
Or are you suggesting that we are not in treble.


Seriously though - "global damage" then a complaint about exaggeration? The press may be foaming at the mouth but a guy flying from place to place bitching about how the NSA can't do it's job without farming it out to vunerable subcontractors isn't causing global damage. It's the ones that quietly took the money from foreign powers without making noise in the press that would have done the damage long ago.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[WaffleMonster]

He has certainly helped China to boost it's defenses.

I think there is a strong case to be made that just the opposite would occur. By moving away from Cisco the NSA may very well find it easier to compromise more Chinese infrastructure.

It turns out you don't need backdoor conspiracies to have a little fun with Chinese telcom gear.

http://phenoelit.org/stuff/Huawei_DEFCON_XX.pdf

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[AJH16]

This has nothing to do with Snowden. This has everything to do with backlash against the US for blocking use of backdoored Chinese hardware in our networks. Since we blocked them from selling to us, they are trying to match the move by blocking us from selling networking gear to them, regardless of if there is a back door or not. It's Tit for Tat, nothing more.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Jedi Alec]

The level of distrust China now has may lead China to crack down domestically and build more effective domestic spying capabilities.

When it comes to the US snooping in one's affairs, strong distrust is not only healthy, it can only be called reasonable.

Remember, it's not paranoia if the NSA is actually checking out your internet history.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Nyder]

He also made a pretty cool song about womens' underwear.

What, no links?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[davester666]

You first!

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[davester666]

Prism is not about spying on other governments. It's about spying on other countries citizens [and just maybe the odd American]...

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[hjf]

Listen, retard, that's not how it works. It's not about who has the biggest dick. It's about who has the money. If China does well, the US does well too. Because now you have a giant market to export. If the chinese can afford to buy US products, you will have more jobs in the US, in the manufacturing sector.

God I just HATE how short sighted Americans are. How do you think the world works, really? Do you think you just print money and that's it? It's not. It gets to a point where you can be the world's bestest USA #1 murica fuck yeah economy, and then no one buys from you. If no one buys from you, there's no trading, and you have an import deficit, and you lose the #1 spot. Quickly. Do you think you can keep printing dollars and buy everything from china? Sure you can. Then you lose all manufacturing jobs, and have people protesting, which you have to keep in welfare. Then, because the economy shrinks, you lose your shiny IT job. Then companies close down or are sold to the chinese. Suddenly the only people making money are the ones in "finance", which is a time bomb that just takes 1 bad day at NYSE to crap out the whole country's economy and drag the rest of NATO with it too.

China doing well is the best you can do to reduce your deficit. You don't need to be the #1 all the time, you just need to know how to play your cards. Just remember, you just cannot nuke China. You can wave your big nuclear ICBM cock all you want but you can't afford to use them. The chinese will fuck you up, bad.

Learn the fucking rules of commerce, for once!

The 90s taught us that service-based economies are nice, but you leave out all the untrained masses. There are people who do not want to go to college, and just want a job - and those people won't be able to find jobs if the US keeps the elitist "I import everything because I don't want to get my hands dirty" view. Unless you're a tiny country, it's not viable to live off just "service". Design, R&D is nice, but you need extremely high specialization for this nowadays. If defense is not there to pay for it, how long do you think that will hold?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[hjf]

China has now a justification to stop paying royalties to an US company for routers, and replace their infrastructure with their own homegrown devices. Also, hurt Cisco's profit margins so they can impose their Huawei/ZTE devices to the US market. It's a win-win for them.

Also: this has absolutely nothing to do with privacy, hacking or spying. Because china could just be doing the same on the other end. But to be fair: it wasn't long ago that ZTE or Huawei provided the source to their routers. At least they try to do something to clean their reputation. Cisco would never disclose their source code, probably claiming it "may contain unknown bugs that will compromise the security of the global internet". That is enough to raise suspicion, but you can't do anything about it.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[hij]

The 1946 decision to let Europeans wander among nations has done wonders for Europe... maybe we should consider the same thing here in the US?

I just want to share my agreement with this. If we promoted the idea of young people traveling around the United States then maybe we would not have these dumbass regional fights stalling our government. Although, the bigger issue seems to be generational, so maybe we should promote the idea of people transitioning between different generations?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Spy Handler]

And they're coming for your guns. You can't have a totalitarian police state if the citizens are armed.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Koreantoast]

It would never work and never happen. For one, the United States already has huge numbers of Chinese students who have been regularly coming and going to the United States for decades, and it hasn't had any real noticeable impact. If anything, the United States university system is pretty much at the boundaries of how many Chinese students it can bring in without displacing other foreign nationals and even hurting US students as well.

Also, it worked in Europe because the economic differences between those nations was not severe. The gap in standard of living and opportunities is still so severe between the United States and China, that an open door policy would result in a MASSIVE flood of low-skill immigration. The United States is barely able to support the large influx of immigrants from a nation of 112 million, how do you think it will cope with open borders from a nation of 1.2 billion and an even lower per capita income?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ebno-10db]

Listen, retard ...

Thank you for starting your post this way. It saved me the trouble of reading any further.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ebno-10db]

Snowden has made it harder for US hackers

How did he do that?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[DarkOx]

Listen, retard, that's not how it works. It's not about who has the biggest dick. It's about who has the money. If China does well, the US does well too. Because now you have a giant market to export. If the chinese can afford to buy US products, you will have more jobs in the US, in the manufacturing sector.

No its really not about the money. Its about the wealth. Wealth is about being secure in the ability to produce the things you need, and having time left over to produce the things you want and to enjoy them. If you have no production in the end you have no wealth. Our current relationship with China is destructive the general wealth of the United States, even its making a certain group of people extremely wealthy.

God I just HATE how short sighted Americans are. How do you think the world works, really? Do you think you just print money and that's it?

No and I don't think the parent does either but it sure looks like you actually do.

It's not. It gets to a point where you can be the world's bestest USA #1 murica fuck yeah economy, and then no one buys from you. If no one buys from you, there's no trading, and you have an import deficit, and you lose the #1 spot. Quickly. Do you think you can keep printing dollars and buy everything from china? Sure you can. Then you lose all manufacturing jobs, and have people protesting, which you have to keep in welfare. Then, because the economy shrinks, you lose your shiny IT job. Then companies close down or are sold to the chinese. Suddenly the only people making money are the ones in "finance", which is a time bomb that just takes 1 bad day at NYSE to crap out the whole country's economy and drag the rest of NATO with it too.

Which is exactly why people like me argue if we are going to start a trade war or a new cold war the time to do it is NOW. Not later, we need to do it now why we still have some industry out side of fiance left, time is running out.

China doing well is the best you can do to reduce your deficit. You don't need to be the #1 all the time, you just need to know how to play your cards. Just remember, you just cannot nuke China. You can wave your big nuclear ICBM cock all you want but you can't afford to use them. The chinese will fuck you up, bad.

Learn the fucking rules of commerce, for once!

Wrong reducing the deficit is good and all but if we do it thru the Fed monetizing debt with endless QE to prop up financial markets so we buy stuff in China, with no real recourse against them just nationalizing it later it won't mean much. We need to create real wealth not just entries on a balance sheet.

The 90s taught us that service-based economies are nice, but you leave out all the untrained masses. There are people who do not want to go to college, and just want a job - and those people won't be able to find jobs if the US keeps the elitist "I import everything because I don't want to get my hands dirty" view. Unless you're a tiny country, it's not viable to live off just "service". Design, R&D is nice, but you need extremely high specialization for this nowadays. If defense is not there to pay for it, how long do you think that will hold?

Well I guess you got one right.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ebno-10db]

I really don't give a rat's ass if China is snooping on me. I do, however, care greatly that my own government is snooping on me.

That's why I use Kaspersky at home. I doubt the FSB gives a damn about me, but to the NSA I'm suspicious because I'm a US citizen.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Deflagro]

We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ShanghaiBill]

Huawei and ZTE allow this type of "access" as well

Do you have any evidence whatsoever that this is true?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't working because the influx is one way. It would be nice for this to be a two way street, as I'm sure China can benefit from non-obnoxious Americans just as the US benefits from those who visit here.

Visiting != citizenship or work permits. The goal is to get 2-3 different populations with different thinking to see another culture, perhaps maybe to understand why the others are as they are.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ShanghaiBill]

the United States university system is pretty much at the boundaries of how many Chinese students it can bring in without displacing other foreign nationals and even hurting US students as well.

Foreign students usually pay full, unsubsidized tuition. So they do not display US students. The limiting factor in education is money, not the number of chairs in the classroom.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[dcollins117]

China and the US are friends but also at war in other areas depending on the area.

Frenemies!

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

are you kidding dude?

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oai1V7kaFBk

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Although, the bigger issue seems to be generational, so maybe we should promote the idea of people transitioning between different generations?

They already have that.
It's called death.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

It's already happened, and were all armed to the teeth...

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[ixidor]

"War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength."

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

Meanwhile, if you really believe China is improving their network defenses, I have a bridge to sell you (China has some of the most unsecured systems ever). This is not going to solve their huge problem of completely unsecured networks ALL OVER CHINA, whether they buy Cisco or not. This is just your typical trade war.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're coming for your guns. You can't have a totalitarian police state if the citizens are armed.

Economics are a far better tool to control a populace than guns anyway.

Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Geezle2]

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Excellent initiative !

[hebertrich]

About time they reverse the tables. Can't trust the Americans at all witH anything that's communications related.
Spies be spies and the USA has let the dogs loose . Their trouble now to try to have trust them again.
Fool me once , shame on you , fool me twice , shame on me.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[elucido]

Don't you understand what just happened? We are now entering a trade war which could spiral into another cold war.

This is not going to be good for us citizens who will lose our jobs. It will not be good for the US economy, and Chinese spies will continue hacking into US corporations. You want to be ruled by China then that is fine but let's not pretend like it will be good news to most people in America.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah.......cuz China is as pure and innocent. My data networks get hammered thousands of times daily by Chinese addresses. I'm sure all of that is just a few college kids having fun. Give me a break.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Only the ignorant morons of web forums and discussion pages would seriously applaud China. This is a country that not only openly spies on its citizens, it kills them for speaking out against the government. I don't mean in the Snowden way, I mean in the Daily Show way.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[postbigbang]

There is a war. Huaewei is dragged through the mud by witless/gutless/dimwits in the US Congress. Turnabout is fair play.

The silly thing is, that all of the cell phones across the planets are like little location devices, revealing your location, your contacts, your texts, and your conversations.

Cisco is on the slide anyway, and this won't really have a dramatic effect on the US economy. The problem, you see, is that the warriors aren't making enough money right now, and with moderate Middle East peace, there's no good money to be made from that.

Trade war? Insignificant. Sorry. Just not gonna happen.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

bit of an alarmest aren't you?

Blaming Snowden for this is obsurd, because anyone that has two functioning brain cells knows that the US Congress looked into passing legislation banning Huawei and ZTE last year.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[elucido]

There is a war. Huaewei is dragged through the mud by witless/gutless/dimwits in the US Congress. Turnabout is fair play.

The silly thing is, that all of the cell phones across the planets are like little location devices, revealing your location, your contacts, your texts, and your conversations.

Cisco is on the slide anyway, and this won't really have a dramatic effect on the US economy. The problem, you see, is that the warriors aren't making enough money right now, and with moderate Middle East peace, there's no good money to be made from that.

Trade war? Insignificant. Sorry. Just not gonna happen.

If the boycott of Cisco takes place then a trade war has begun. Cisco is one of the most important tech companies in the USA. What if they boycott Apple, Microsoft, and several others? I expect there will be a trade war as well as a cold war among hackers.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[zerocool6900]

Only problem with your statement is that so far the start of every full blown war has helped the US economy. I'm not talking about peacekeeping or drawn out police actions...I mean war. WWI, WWII, Cold War. All boosted the US economy to some degree.

One of the main reasons is that these companies decide to bring jobs back to the US. Not sure if this will happen in this age of a global market. But the tension between US and China has been growing for a very long time.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[hebertrich]

You had to think when you elected the Governments who brought this upon you .
Traitors to it's people . Breaking your own laws and the constitution .
The criminals and traitors are in Washington. Infuriating ? it is , but you can't blame the world and dog
for the actions of your government that led to this . It's time to pass at the cashier.
The confidence is broken. Time to face the consequences your Government's gestures are doing and done is now .
Don't blame anyone else than yourselves as a People ,. You're letting them do this.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Cisco should stop embedding backdoors into their products, then?
I'm surprised they haven't done this ages ago. The major question here is: where can countries that neither want backdoors from the U.S. nor the Chinese get their networking equipment?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as long as it doesn't escalate into a clone war.
Mercenaries are invariably assholes and It'll be a cold, cold day before I fight beside bug-eyed Gungans.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[elucido]

Only problem with your statement is that so far the start of every full blown war has helped the US economy. I'm not talking about peacekeeping or drawn out police actions...I mean war. WWI, WWII, Cold War. All boosted the US economy to some degree.

One of the main reasons is that these companies decide to bring jobs back to the US. Not sure if this will happen in this age of a global market. But the tension between US and China has been growing for a very long time.

The cold war and WW2 is why we have prism in the first place. Nothing good resulted from the red scare, the cold war, etc. It did not help our economy either, look at the fact that the US is not backed by gold, look at the fact that the US buying power in a family has decreased. We have to work more to get less than our parents did and our parents had to work more than theirs. So at this point, no it does not increase your salary or your buying power to have war unless you work for the war machine of China or the US.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[postbigbang]

So the boycott surrounding Huawei is ok then? Who fired the first shot?

Cisco either stands on its own, or doesn't. If Cisco can't prove that it's not sending backdoor info to the NSA, then is China justified in its concern? Let the Chinese boycott whomever they want. There is no right to sell something anywhere. There is value or there is not.

The war with hackers has been going on for a decade. We do stuff (from the USA) and they do stuff (from mainland China). You're surprised?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Only problem with your statement is that so far the start of every full blown war has helped the US economy. I'm not talking about peacekeeping or drawn out police actions...I mean war. WWI, WWII, Cold War. All boosted the US economy to some degree.

So you're saying the US economy is built around wars and the Americans need to fight other countries to continue to persist? So tell me again is there any reason left to like Americans?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[elucido]

And this will initiate a trade war. Now China will suspect every US IT product of having a backdoor. Even if this has always been true, it's now proven true by Snowden and the consequences to the economy will be negative. It means more protectionist policies are coming as distrust slows global trade.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[durrr]

It's not a capital offense to critique the government in china. Though sure, you might get locked away and all that stuff.

But at least they are openly authoritarian. Unlike the US where you are supposed to have all these right but in the end you can still be locked away and all that stuff for arbirary reasons. Or bombed by drones, or assassinated by the CIA.

When it comes to replicating that authentic 1984 feeling, the US is far in lead with the twisting of language and concepts and covertly doing the opposite of what is stated. Lets see.

Perpetual warfare: check
Removing your rights in the name of preserving them in doublespeak fashion: check
Doing its best to achive universal surveillance: check
Demonizing the enemies while presenting self as bastion of glorious freedom and prosperity, while false flagging, assassinating and shitting everything up: check
And so on.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[postbigbang]

Not gonna happen. There is too much investment on both sides. And if it cleans up the misdeeds of both side's spooks-- so much the better.

Does the dark side of intelligence need a spanking? Oh.Yeah. Will this do it? No.

This was the Chinese press calling for the action, not the government. Our press did the same stupid thing regarding Huawei. Did it have an effect? Not really.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[elucido]

Not gonna happen. There is too much investment on both sides. And if it cleans up the misdeeds of both side's spooks-- so much the better.

Does the dark side of intelligence need a spanking? Oh.Yeah. Will this do it? No.

This was the Chinese press calling for the action, not the government. Our press did the same stupid thing regarding Huawei. Did it have an effect? Not really.

It already is happening. Do you think the boycotts will stop here? The US will retaliate and then China will retaliate.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Tridus]

Unlike the good guys in America, which spies on its citizens and charges them with espionage for speaking out against the government.

When it comes to curtalizing citizen activity, at least the Chinese are honest about it. The shameless hypocrisy coming from the US government is insulting.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Sperbels]

You overestimate the power of the people to affect change in government.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[elucido]

Unlike the good guys in America, which spies on its citizens and charges them with espionage for speaking out against the government.

When it comes to curtalizing citizen activity, at least the Chinese are honest about it. The shameless hypocrisy coming from the US government is insulting.

China does the exact same thing. Don't you live in China?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[DarkOx]

Given what our Government has been doing to Universities in HK, conducting cyber attacks of they type our own military has publicly stated could be considered an act of war this response is COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED. I don't know why any reasonable person would expect China to do anything less.

After all what have done? Talked about potential trade disruption. Considering we have already done the same, with arguably less provocation, this had to be expected.

The fact is all the secrecy, creative interpretations of legal authorizations, spying etc, is making our nation less safe. Chuck Schumer and John Kerry are running around saying how "troubled" they are friendly nations HK/China, Russia, wont extradite someone they want to charge with a political crime. Well they should look in the mirror, why are is our government hacking academic institutions their countries. They don't trust us because policies that men like Kerry and Schumer helped put in place make us untrustworthy.

Quite honestly I think a more inward policy would be best for our nation. I am of the belief all our terrorism are in fact rooted in globalism; but even if you don't the current leadership still needs to go because our current policy does not foster anything like real international cooperation.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[postbigbang]

Umm, I don't think so. Whose propaganda are you reading that cites this? Do you have any clue how much business is transacted between the US and China? This is nothing. Ignore the bruised egos and weaseling astroturfing corporate PR people trying to distract you. These are corporations that are scared to death to report a bad quarter to their Wall Street overlords. They live in a separate reality.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[DarkOx]

Or at the very least economically marginalized be being the denied the right travel, and black listed from any job that does a background check.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[DarkOx]

I am not so sure. The fact is this little blue marble is only so big. There will probably necessarily come a day where its us them. Maybe that impasse is 50, 100, or 300 years from now but I think its coming. Starting an economic conflict /now/ when it really would still hurt them more than us might not be a terrible plan.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the 'champions' of free trade will sulk and take their football home like they allways do.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[dbIII]

No. That's just the wet dream of the defence contractors that made so much out of the cold war earlier with overpriced crap that didn't work who now find there's nowhere near the same margins with weapons that are supposed to work in real shooting wars. They want a cold war and keep on cheering for one but luckily they have no say so long as Apple and everyone else want good relations with China.

You want to be ruled by China

Not happening either. They don't even want North Korea and wouldn't know what to do with 300 million angry Americans, in fact they still have a few people left in politics who saw first hand how Japan could not do much with the Chinese territory they occupied.

Final thing, this is the press calling for it, so it's as irrelevant as some idiot on Fox calling for the assassination of a South American President. Given Cisco's sleazy track record I'd call for a boycot myself for their lack of respect for US law alone (dragging a competitor out of a court in session to be imprisoned and face trumped up charges elsewhere). Even what was done to the founders when the company was taken over was very sleazy.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[dbIII]

Cisco is one of the most important tech companies in the USA

They like to think so but they dropped the ball some time ago. It turns out you can't be at the cutting edge of technology when you get rid of the people doing the development.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[dbIII]

China doesn't pretend to go for anything other than "might makes right" which is why we can't accuse them of hypocrisy. The USA is supposed to follow the rule of law instead which is why we can. In the US it's not supposed to be a crime to just piss off powerful people. For instance Assange's real "crime" was publishing a leak that showed that Hillary Clinton was not fit to be trusted in a position of responsibility (eg. the instruction to steal credit card details to be able to frame foreign diplomats).
That doesn't make China any better it just shows that the US is currently being run more like China than the "spin" tries to convince us.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

umm, you do realize that the US government thinks it'll actually benefit the economy right? That's why they started ramping up propaganda against China in the past couple of years.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

It's stupidity like yours which defines the US. Always US and THEM.

One day, hopefully before it's too late, you dimwits will realize there's this other option called WE. We are all humans. Once you get used to the fact that killing/supressing/enslaving/opressing others to support an unsustainable lifestyle is unsustainable, maybe we can make real inroads into sustainability and cooperation.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[gstoddart]

Now China will suspect every US IT product of having a backdoor.

Well, quite frankly, how could they not?

If all of these companies are helping with this, and allowing them to spy on global communications, how can we believe they aren't complicit?

The US government can force you to add in back doors and not tell anybody due to secrecy laws, and looking at the scope of this spying issue, you pretty much have to assume there's a good chance that those products do have a backdoor.

How could China (or any other country) trust that this gear hasn't been written in such a way as to enable this kind of spying any more than the US believed this Chinese made gear?

The US has more or less said "for our security it's our right to spy on everybody", which means we should also assume that every other country has decided they should be able to do the same damned thing.

Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Cisco ... if you've been named as part of this, the assumption simply has to be that, as an entity, you aren't safe to trust. It also means you should assume those same entities will be forced to help every other damned country carry out the same level of spying.

It's not like they could claim they aren't willing to help government spying, because they've already been doing it. At which point, saying 'yes' to the US government and 'no' to any other country is an untenable position.

When you get your corporations involved in spying, it's a natural conclusion that your corporations might be involved in spying.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[poity]

Is this why you vote Republican, because they're honest about their stance, unlike Democrats as they have demonstrated?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[poity]

or if you're not a US citizen, is this why you favor Republicans over Democrats?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't read Chinese then. The Chinese constitution asserts the rights and privacy of the individual. Only because of the ubiquity of the US press and the English language is there disproportionate international public scrutiny of the US government.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

You want to be ruled by China then that is fine but let's not pretend like it will be good news to most people in America.

I'd like to have the choice, but these days Americans seem to think we shouldn't have a choice, that the world must choose their form of government or be "liberated." And frankly, I and many others around the world couldn't care less what happens to Americans beyond this: we wish they drop their "us vs them" attitude and stop waging wars around the planet.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like we have some eurotrash here. Can you state with a straight face that you do not benefit in any way from US foreign policy? Does your country need to spend a whole lot in military when you have the US military to fall back on in case things get really bad? Has US intelligence gathering never benefited your country?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

And this will initiate a trade war.

Funny, Cisco gear is made in china/taiwan. Hell there is hardly a US brand of anything manufactured that isn't. It will be an interesting trade war. I suppose the US has some raw materials exports.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[triffid_98]

Because of our constitutional freedoms? Oh wait....

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Except for one point:

    Huawei products are (or at least were at one point in their rise to a multibillion dollar company) blatant ripoffs of Cisco gear. Copied the IOS, copied the documentation, copied the EIGRP protocol to the point that they had the same bugs(read: they STOLE it outright). I don't think you can make a case that Cisco needs to stand on it's own without pointing out that Huawei should stand on it's own. Even if the Congress was incorrect in the boycott due to cyber-red-scare(if you will), they would have been right on boycotting them due to the theft of Cisco's intellectual property. China steals far more than they invent, and I don't mind when someone holds them to account for it. I do not see the rest of the world engaged in that kind of copying and IP theft.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[DarkOx]

Right because is somehow Snowden's fault our government was conducting espionage against a nation we are not at war with cold or otherwise. No program on the scale of what the NSA has been doing was going to stay a secret forever. If you want blame someone blame the policy makers who have our government behaving deceitfully, and hypocritically.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[WhatAreYouDoingHere]

Yes, true, while there is US and THEM, there is also WE. But, you must understand, WE are not like THEM! ;)

Re:Excellent initiative !

[ThatsNotPudding]

One day, hopefully before it's too late, you dimwits will realize there's this other option called WE. We are all humans.

Call me when the shuttle lands, Pollyanna. It's a nice sentiment, but until we all look the same feature and skin-wise, there will still be tribal us vs. them attitudes; we should try to rise above it, but it's hard-wired down to the lizard brain level of herd mentality.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[postbigbang]

Yet Cisco hasn't litigated ANY of that, to my knowledge, at all! Huawei has offered source code, and time and again refutes that their product violates any of Cisco's IP. Your argument is a red herring. The crux of the US Congressional hearings focus on alleged backdoors, and spying.

See http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/29/cisco_huawei_case_ends/ for more information. Please check your facts before making assertions that aren't true. Cisco is a leaking ship, not that Huawei did the world any favors by emulating Cisco. This is about stock prices and protectionism and an aging product line and a CEO with no vision that should have walked the plank eons ago.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[DarkOx]

Physics pretty much says you are wrong. Call me whatever you like but there is some number of people this planet can't feed, or keep within an survivable thermal envelop. I don't know if its 9,10, or 100 billion for that matter. Who knows how efficient we can be. There is however some point where its going to come down to resources being available for your family or someone else.

I don't think anyone's ideals will be so important to them when their kid is hungry.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

Recognising differences is hardwired, it's how we tell things apart. Treating others differently is all software.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

haha, true. I couldn't think of a way to properly express the superset of US and THEM in english. Not sure there is a word except God.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

No, physics agrees with me. Unsustainability is unsustainable. Logically we should do something about it before it literally comes to kill or be killed. Figuratively, we are already there as the wealthy nations strip the poorer ones of their resources.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[ebno-10db]

We are now entering a trade war ...

No, we've been in a trade war for years. It's just that China was the only one fighting it.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[sjames]

It will be bad for the Wall Street side of the economy, but it could be a boon for Main street. If China boycotts Cisco for security concerns, Cisco might have to bring production back to the U.S. perhaps not so good for Cisco's short term profits but it might be very good for employment.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[ebno-10db]

Good. No shooting please, but a trade war needn't involve that. Actually we've been in a trade war for years, it's just that China was the only one fighting it.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[joe_frisch]

The problem with fighting over the marble is that victory doesn't last. The US basically won in the 1990s, but it didn't really help. Even if you had a world-spanning totalitarian government, it would eventually fracture into groups fighting over the marble.

This is why we need more marbles.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

oh, that's rich. Apparently you're not aware of how the US does business with those it considers it's friends and allies!

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd say that several nations would consider "US Intelligence gathering" done against them (and perhaps contrary to their laws) to lack some benefits.

I'm sure there are examples of when it was, but not all of the US intelligence has had positive outcomes.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[ebno-10db]

oh, that's rich. Apparently you're not aware of how the US does business with those it considers it's friends and allies!

That explains our persistent trade deficit, especially with China.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and maybe unicorns will evolve and start farting rainbows.

Btw, whats with the claim that this is US thinking? You really think other countries don't feel an "us vs them" feeling? If so, here's a link for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

That's just what you tell yourself to internally justify being an asshole. And the corollary is that there are plenty of people who are not assholes; if it was left to the selfish lizard brains such as yourself, there would be no civilisation.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

haha, true. I couldn't think of a way to properly express the superset of US and THEM in english. Not sure there is a word except God.

but which one?

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

Lizards don't have herds, do they?

Us vs Them, in any recognisable tribal sense, probably only goes down to the primate level.

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

Not sure why that confuses everyone. It's almost like idiots who say that would die of starvation if they went to a non-english speaking country and couldn't find food labelled in english.

God is the superset of everything, a rose by any other name...

Re:Excellent initiative !

[Jmc23]

Do you know of any other country where government officials divide the world with their US and THEM rhetoric? Not sure if you've noticed, there is no other country that is so divided on almost every single issue. It's hard to notice this if you live in the middle of the propaganda, it really seems like USians believe the rest of the world is exactly as paranoid and fearful of any beliefs unlike their own.

Re: Excellent initiative !

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, China has already received lots of criticisms for that, esp after the US government's yet-another campaign of "cybersecurity/cyberthreat" through the media lately.

If the government could conclude that "computer sabotage by another country could constitute an act of war", while proceeded with its PRISM and other programs by secret orders from secret judges in secret courts, I don't see why it cannot be criticised or questioned.

I would also not be surprised if other countries have similar concerns, now that it's revealed US has been hacking and spying on the whole world, governments and civilians, allies or not.

Can anyone blame them?

[spacefight]

Seriously? I guess not!

Re:Can anyone blame them?

[Anonymous Coward]

China is only worried about this because they area already well practiced in producing consumer devices which have backdoors built in..

I fully agree and support this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, if Cisco had half a brain, they would bring manufacturing back to the west.

Pot and Kettle?

[John Napkintosh]

Weren't some companies found to be using Chinese clones of Cisco hardware and things which contained compromised chips and such? I remember reading about seizures of this hardware some time ago.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[Anonymous Coward]

Counterfeit Cisco equipment.
http://www.networkhardware.com/counterfeit-cisco-chat#.Ucmxi_m64zI

The idea really is that the counterfeits were finding their way into US Government via Authorized Cisco sellers buying up such devices from eBay.

The thing is, if it talks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's still a duck. If the hardware was working, just using cheaper chinese knockoff parts, the MTBF is likely a lot shorter.

But don't confuse counterfeit hardware, meant to look and act like the original, with aunthentic gear that's been refurbished and compromised in the process. Notice how malware gets onto storage devices (like digital picture frames) because somewhere along the production path, pirated software was used? This is the same principle in play.

The reason ZTE and Huawei aren't allowed to sell to US Government is because they (the US) can't wire-tap that gear. Likewise Cisco may have been complicit (or even forced at gunpoint for all we know) to allow wiretapping in their products. If those same products were sold to China, then it's equally likely the Chinese government can wiretap it as well if they figure out how the US does it.

But the point in all these Snowden related problems is that Cisco is going to suffer losses from this. Like the most "evil" companies in the US are the wireless carriers (Verizon, AT&T), Cisco (who provides them with hardware), Oracle (Databases), IBM and Microsoft. I wouldn't put it past any of these companies to be complicit with government requests to access or provide backdoors into their products.

More to the point, If you're fond of using cloud services (Gmail included) which the data is hosted in US data centers, guess what, the Patriot act says the US Government can access it all they damn well please.

It would be wonderful if some court found that the US can not spy on Americans or foreigners who's data is stored or transits in the US under the fourth amendment and to throw out the patriot act. But no, once the government takes rights away, it never gives them back.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pot and the kettle are both grey. All of this somehow presupposes that China (and for that matter Russia) DON'T spy on their people, which is laughably absurd on the face of it. Look - we live in a grey world. While I'm not condoning what the US Government is doing, in fact I have a problem with it, the false moral equivalence here is striking. People are so ready to throw the USA under the bus that they're convinced that Chinese products and Chinese government are more noble. Shades of grey, don't you think? And I have to believe that if the Chinese leaders are somehow more honest than our leaders(which is a huge stretch), that it is only because they're not on top, yet. If one of these other countries people often compare favorably against the USA took over, do you really think they'd not mess with everyone else just like the USA does?
    Russia has a LONG history of aggression and oppression toward their neighbors and anyone they can influence. Same for China, and China's aggression is growing as they gain confidence and clout. Be careful what you wish for.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason ZTE and Huawei aren't allowed to sell to US Government is because they (the US) can't wire-tap that gear.

That is not the reason. The reason is that the US government has a suspicion and fear that these devices could be compromised and allow the Chinese back door access to classified government information.

This is a legitimate concern and both China and the US are likely right in their stances.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[LordLimecat]

Saying that all Cisco gear has backdoors for the USG in it is a pretty bold claim, and one that Ive not heard before. Youre supposing that noone has noticed this "backdoor" traffic on their cisco gear (or thru any of the network devices that traffic traverses), AND that the USG is comfortable knowing that 90% of the infrastructure out there is already compromised?

Provide sources, please.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[GODISNOWHERE]

The reason ZTE and Huawei aren't allowed to sell to US Government is because they (the US) can't wire-tap that gear.

That doesn't make sense. If the equipment already belong to the U.S government then they don't need to wiretap it; it would just be called "logging" of their own hardware. ZTE and Huawei are banned from selling to the U.S because of the way the Chinese government spies. Chinese spying isn't limited to attempts to break into corporate networks; their attempts are usually much more subtle. The Chinese government's approach to spying, unlike the U.S or Russian approach, doesn't use highly trained agents, because they don't need to.

What usually happens is that they will ask a person that still has relatives in China who has access to secret information to find out one small, minor thing for them. In exchange, the Chinese government will take care of your relatives back in China. If you don't comply, then the government might make things more difficult for your relatives. If the person is caught, then the espionage penalty will not be harsh because the information stolen is insignificant, and they won't reveal anything about the larger spying effort because they truthfully don't know. Then the stolen information is slowly pieced together to reveal something more significant.

Chinese companies that have branches in foreign countries that conduct legitimate business but are also used to fund and abet this kind of spying with the profits that they make. Its sort of like Los Pollos Hermanos from Breaking Bad, except that the company has an allegiance to a Latin American country and sells state secrets, not methamphetamine.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[Anonymous Coward]

"once the government takes rights away, it never gives them back"

And that's exclusive to the U.S. government?

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[dataspel]

I am calling BS on this post. If the USG promotes backdoors on Cisco equipment, and then supplies their own military with that equipment, then they have just made themselves vulnerable to anyone who can find those backdoors. Not gonna happen.

Re:Pot and Kettle?

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't make a peep until the device is tapped. Keep the taps to a minimum (which in practice probably isn't needed often) and you'll find that you can get away with backdoors for decades. The people they need to use these taps on are only the very very very sophisticated paranoid users. Everybody else they can just get a warrant and break down the door. Then do a forensic recovery later. Cause most people don't know what full disk encryption even is.

Wait

[wcrowe]

You mean there are electronic products that are NOT made in China? Where are Cisco products manufactured?

Re:Wait

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean there are electronic products that are NOT made in China? Where are Cisco products manufactured?

Mexico

Real reason for Huawei Ban

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we see the real reason for the banning of Huawei equipment. Because unlike Cisco, it's difficult to subject Huawei to secret court orders forcing them to compromise the security of their customers.

Re:Real reason for Huawei Ban

[gl4ss]

Now we see the real reason for the banning of Huawei equipment. Because unlike Cisco, it's difficult to subject Huawei to secret court orders forcing them to compromise the security of their customers.

that's actually a rather good point.

with cisco backdoors the fucks can also pretend that the chinese don't know about them.

Re:Real reason for Huawei Ban

[Agent ME]

Huawei is good enough at compromising their own security though. I feel like I'm the only one that remembers this. https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9229785/Hackers_reveal_critical_vulnerabilities_in_Huawei_routers_at_Defcon

other way around??

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that we (America) thought that Cisco was putting backdoors in products made in China and sold in the USA, thus China is spying on America via Cisco.

Re:other way around??

[Oceanplexian]

They all put backdoors into their products. That's the joke. If there's a backdoor for the government, there is a backdoor for hackers, and I'd never consider anything Cisco to be suitable for a production environment for that reason. Unless you can see the source, you have no idea who's inside your network.

More ISPs that care about privacy should look into deploying open-source networking equipment. We should practice peering with neighboring networks, use secure VoIP when possible & support open-source software. Spying is not a conspiracy anymore, it's a fact.

Re:other way around??

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if the backdoor requires a private key to use

Re:other way around??

[volxdragon]

More ISPs that care about privacy should look into deploying open-source networking equipment.

That is LAUGHABLY funny. No open source router is even close to core-router speeds. Yes, a lot of "core routers" are build on open source technologies, but only so much as using Linux or *BSD as the OS...all have custom/proprietary interfaces to the hardware forwarding engines. Almost all of them have custom routing protocol stacks. Don't get me wrong, you want a small SOHO device, or even something that can handle a corporate LAN, sure....but try doing 100 ports of 10-gig-each in a chassis...just isn't going to happen.

Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

No surprise here, who wants to have equipment that can be killed from the thousands miles away.

Re:Kill Switch

[istartedi]

No surprise here, who wants to have equipment that can be killed from the thousands miles away

When I was a lowly dial-up support tech in the 90s, we used to make fun of angry callers who exlaimed, "my business depends on the Internet!". They should have had more than one ISP, we chided. Today there are many businesses that depend on the Internet intrinsically. It seems more forgivable now; but perhaps the mockery is still apropos. Perhaps the idea of any business depending on the Internet is still just as silly. Perhaps the Internet itself is silly, except for the small core of researchers that were using it back in the day. I can haz exabytes of stupidity, archiving a brief moment in history when we naively disgorged all our information at the speed of light..

Re:Kill Switch

[Anonymous Coward]

You could say the same about phones, but nowadays phones are pretty much a requirement for business. Now the internet is pretty much a requirement for a lot of businesses which has allowed them to function even further beyond the borders of the country they're in. You have a lot of corporate networks that connect all their facilities through the internet. Losing the internet for them means losing orders, means losing millions.

That's really funny

[Anonymous Coward]

Under the hood on many Cisco products are Broadcom chips. Under the hood on many Huwai products? Broadcom.

Great Development

[prefec2]

As all countries are spying at each other and stop trusting each other, international trade of It goods collapse. As in most goods, electronics are involved, this will harm international trade. As present China did not ban European products, but as they encourage the use of Chinese products, this ban is not USA only. The Europeans should try to do something similar. They should avoid US, British and Chinese products all along and encourage its companies to use strong encryption and tor like systems.

Re:Looks As If Every Vendor Is A Backdoor Man.

[phantomfive]

Maybe, just maybe, if we manufactured our own shit and purchased our own shit, we wouldn't have to worry about such shit.

Because the NSA doesn't have backdoor access to Microsoft?

The real reason...

[trailerparkcassanova]

The Chinese have successfully copied Cisco's HW so there's no reason to buy the genuine product.

Re:The real reason...

[Pascal Sartoretti]

The Chinese have successfully copied Cisco's HW so there's no reason to buy the genuine product.

I thought that Cisco's advantage over its competitors was in its SW, not HW...

Re:The real reason...

[ttucker]

The Chinese have successfully copied Cisco's HW so there's no reason to buy the genuine product.

I thought that Cisco's advantage over its competitors was in its SW, not HW...

Actually, their business advantage is in figuring out how to make people pay enormous sums of money for things that should be, and otherwise are, nearly free.

Re:The real reason...

[AmiMoJo]

Cisco aren't really about hardware, they are about support. I worked at a place where they didn't even have access to their Cisco router, they had to call Cisco who managed it remotely for them.

Re:The real reason...

[tlhIngan]

The Chinese have successfully copied Cisco's HW so there's no reason to buy the genuine product.

I thought that Cisco's advantage over its competitors was in its SW, not HW...

That's the point. They've cloned the hardware enough that the Cisco software runs "well enough" on it. Of course, some stuff might not work, or work poorly or just crash, but it powers up and runs!

Re:The real reason...

[sociocapitalist]

The Chinese have successfully copied Cisco's HW so there's no reason to buy the genuine product.

First, the Chinese have not copied all products only a subset.

Second, when you buy from a company you aren't only buying hardware. You're buying a solution - including support, service, software (the copied software, though evolved, still contains the Cisco bugs that were in it when it was copied years ago not to mention whatever has happened to it in the meantime).

So there are still good reasons to buy from Cisco, even if it costs more.

Cisco but not Cisco

[Ravensfire]

This just means that they will use locally produced copies of Cisco equipment. Which is dramatically different from what they do now ... Yeah...

Re:Looks As If Every Vendor Is A Backdoor Man.

[Ravensfire]

Because the NSA doesn't have backdoor access to Microsoft?

They do, but there are too many bugs in the code for them to get any information!

Protectionism

[Somebody Is Using My]

You know, China, I have no issue with a sovereign nation looking to its own industry to provide the technologies it needs to defend itself from threats, whether they are of an analog or digital nature. You shouldn't depend on foreign suppliers for your defense, not only because they may be somehow compromised with unknown backdoors, but also because you have no control of the supply. So sure, drop Cisco; it's probably for the best.

But if you are considering Huawei switches and routers to provide you any sort of security, you may wish to rethink that particular course of action. The NSA doesn't /need/ to install backdoors when the software is vulnerable by default.

Cisco hardware may be compromised with backdoors, but at least they are /competently/ compromised...

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Are you suggesting that Cisco hasn't had products with vulnerabilities susceptible to trivial attacks? A simple search easily contradicts that assertion. Besides, once a vulnerability is known and code has been released to exploit it, then all attacks against the vulnerability essentially become "trivial".

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

A China puppet has made the last comment... If it weren't for the help of America and the West over the last 3-4 decades, China would still be unable to feed a significant number of its people... China has modernized somewhat in its cities, but in the patamkin villages out in the country, ... abject poverty. This is what they fear the most, internal unrest... All this crap now about spying, is just political/economic positioning.

Snowden is a traitor, and if HE was a chinese citizen in similar circumstances, would be EXECUTED on site... That is the severity of Communist rule.

Re:Protectionism

[Solandri]

It's probably a double bluff. The Chinese government has a hard time breaking into Chinese citizens' networks built on Cisco gear. So they piggy-back off recent news and make up a plausible story about Cisco stuff being compromised by the NSA, and so you should use Huawai and ZTE stuff instead. In fact it is the Huawai and ZTE stuff which is compromised - with backdoors (or lax security) put in by the Chinese government. Chinese citizens switch away from Cisco and to Huawai and ZTE hardware, and the Chinese government has an easier time spying on their own citizens.

They're relying on the recent Snowden/NSA spying scandal to make people forget that what the NSA did/does is child's play compared to the massive privacy intrusion the Chinese government already carries out against its own people. Remember, the U.S. government wants to be authoritarian. The Chinese government is authoritarian.

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

So the Chinese government IS authoritarian but cant break into peoples networks? One would think an authoritarian government would simply confiscate whatever it wanted instead of trying to 'hack'?

Perhaps they are piggy backing off another story where Snowden states the US government is hacking Chinese universities and they fear its via cisco gear?
Alternatively, maybe they are leveraging negative press from the US government where they should stop sourcing technology from china as it has unproven back-doors (tit-for-tat)?

Ever been to China? As someone from north america who owns property in China I can tell you it is not as you might think.
They are absolutely Dirt poor but authoritarian, never saw it.

Lastly, I'm somewhat curious as to what "citizens networks built on Cisco gear" you think they are interested in. Most internet access is done at internet cafe's (which have the Chinese content filters in place). Even some very wealthy friends don't have computers with internet access.

China isn't like north america, they never built out a huge telco infrastructure so how do they get internet to the home unless its wireless?

I don't think you are going to see people running cisco cable modems and cisco/linksys wireless routers anywhere.

So much FUD/Propaganda on slashdot when it comes to China yet so little facts.

Re:Protectionism

[Anonymous Coward]

Cisco hardware may be compromised with backdoors, but at least they are /competently/ compromised...

Yeah, and I'm just partially pregnant.

Indeed Surprising

[dslmodem]

Lenovo and FutureWei (HuaWei) had been banned for a long while. I have been very surprised to see that China is starting to talk about boycott CSCO and maybe, AAPL right now.

Apparently, the meeting between Xi and Obama was not going well.

oh really?

[slashmydots]

yeah and China NEVER puts backdoors in all their networking products they sell to the US. I mean I'm sure the US military gets weird American-made equipment on purpose just for the fun of it and to waste money, not for security reasons.

Re:oh really?

[Tridus]

So then what's the story? The US government has been making noise about banning Chinese gear for a while. Reciprocation is entirely fair.

Re:oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be interesting to know which products have backdoors, that is for sure.

Re:oh really?

[erice]

So then what's the story? The US government has been making noise about banning Chinese gear for a while. Reciprocation is entirely fair.

Reciprocation is entirely fair by definition. However, that doesn't make it reasonable or productive. If China doesn't want to buy Cisco gear it should be because of actual concerns about Cisco gear, not as retalation for the US not buying Huawai gear. That path leads only to deadlock or agreement to mutually ignore the problem.

Re:oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I was just waiting for this to happen. and with the way things are going here in the US it's just a matter of time before other Countries follow.

Re:oh really?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gripes about fairness, or even the notion in general, do not even remotely belong in any international debate of any kind (besides sports).

Fairness?

Come on, please...

Re:Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he simply revealed what most people already suspected/knew. Especially after the Patriot Act which allows for such collection of data.

Is NSA snooping hurting the US software industry?

[m00sh]

Before facebook was seen as the fuel for the social revolutions, twitter the next media platform but now because of all the NSA snooping revelation, it has made all our software companies look like snitches.

Furthermore, it was a lone whistle blower rather than the powerhouse companies that fought against this, it has the made the software companies look placid and complaint to questionable data gathering.

XBox One unveiling response was that it looked like a perfect spying machine not a gaming machine, new cellphones or OSes will be thought to be full of back doors and websites to be perceived to be constantly monitoring data and handing them over to the authorities.

This might drive customers away from US software industry products.

Re:Damage

[Tridus]

Yeah, nothing says "stabbed in the back" quite like someone telling people what their own government is doing to them.

It's funny, not that long ago one of the main principles of America was that you shouldn't blindly trust the government. And now the government is saying "our secret stuff is fine, you can trust us" and people are buying it.

Re:Damage

[Sperbels]

So, we blame him for exposing our own wrong doing? Isn't that a little ass backwards?

Ironic

[toygeek]

This coming from a country known for their counterfeit Cisco hardware.

Security threat

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think Lenovo computers are to the U.S.?

Re:Damage

[Sperbels]

The American government started a conflict against its people long ago. If it falls because of Americans exposing its wrongdoings, it's not the fault of the people, it's the fault of the government for starting the conflict in the first place. What do they expect? That we'll just bow down and let the government do anything to us as long as it's ostensibly in the name of protecting economic interests? Yeah, we benefit in the short term from a healthy economy. But in the long term, we are harmed by the damage to the constitution.

Are there really backdoors in Cisco?

[jd.schmidt]

I just might have a few of these products at my workplace. Are there really backdoors or are the Chinese just paranoid?

Re:Are there really backdoors in Cisco?

[Anonymous Coward]

If there were I think that would have made a much bigger news story on Slashdot than the Chinese media calling to "boycott" them.

More overblown "scandal."

Re:Are there really backdoors in Cisco?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just might have a few of these products at my workplace. Are there really backdoors or are the Chinese just paranoid?

Yep. And you have some really weird browsing habits.

Re:Are there really backdoors in Cisco?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just might have a few of these products at my workplace. Are there really backdoors or are the Chinese just paranoid?

If you aren't certain what gear you are running then I can only assume that networking isn't your job. Do yourself a favor and don't worry about it. Concerning yourself with other professions can quickly overwhelm.

To answer your questions: no, there are no known backdoors and no it is not paranoid to assume all foreign made equipment are suspect if you are using it on critical infrastructure.

Re:Are there really backdoors in Cisco?

[jsepeta]

since the Chinese are known for using ultrasounds to murder female babies through abortion, there's a lot more men than women in the Chinese population, and a lot more use of the Back Door (hahaha)

Re:Are there really backdoors in Cisco?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't matter if there are backdoors. It only matters that the behavior of the United States has made it reasonable to think that there might be. That's all it takes.

Cisco Equipment Made in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a minute. Cisco equipment is made in China! Back doors can be inserted in the OS, or on the hardware.

To avoid the George W. Bush prediction of "The Internets", everyone needs to start using open source routers and switches (hardware and software).

Keep buying Cisco

[gmuslera]

And a lot of other brands... if those are the routers where you can replace the original firmware with a more free, openly auditable alternatives like DD-WRT, Tomato, OpenWRT or others. Or even put Cummulus in supported models. Or if you go to a more generic pc like alternative, directly putting linux or some BSD flavors.

Re:Keep buying Cisco

[Anonymous Coward]

Those are not the types of routers they care about. They're thinking more in line with the 6500 series switches or the CRS-1 for carriers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cisco_CRS-1). Those things don't run so well on DD_WRT or Tomato.

Re:Keep buying Cisco

[Anonymous Coward]

They mean 'real' Cisco gear, not those consumer grade shitboxes that you hook your cable modem to you dumbass. I expected more from a 4 digit member...

Re:Keep buying Cisco

[ttucker]

For all of the, "you're a dumbass" comments, you raise a very interesting point. Consumer endpoint routers with snooping capabilities would be a major security problem for a country too, and this action would most logically include Linksys and Cisco consumer products as well. Also, I can think of more than a few companies with secrets to keep using Cisco ("consumer") cable modems....

Re:Keep buying Cisco

[gmuslera]

There are far more deployed of the small kind than the big ones, are more invisible to the IT people as they are what others goes thru for remote access. And i usually see small ones everywhere, while putting linux as firewalls/vpn/etc instead of cisco on other places.

And considering that cisco runs linux embedded in a lot of them, maybe could appear some open, auditable firmware replacement even for big routers.

Eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just under the impression that Cisco products allowed anyone, not just the US, to easily hack their products.

counterfeit cisco hardware

[Anonymous Coward]

When I worked at Cisco, one of the problems we had was customers would call in for support, not realizing their hardware was not authentic. They would proceed to take out their frustration and outright rage on us. But look, we're sorry you got ripped off, we do a tremendous amount to try to keep the counterfeit hardware off the market. But at some point it stops being our problem and becomes your problem!

Already in a trade war ...

[drnb]

Don't you understand what just happened? We are now entering a trade war ...

We have already been in a trade war with China for many years. Its merely been a one side trade war allowing China to do as they please ...

It starts with a 20-30% price discount on all goods and services due to currency manipulation. It continues with dumping products in targeted industries below "cost". Sometimes literally, sometimes indirectly by not enforcing Chinese wage and pollution laws. Yes such laws exists, they are merely selectively ignored for strategic industries and markets. It then continues with barriers to entry for US goods and services, entry may only be allowed with domestic partnerships and technology transfers (free R&D).

A very interesting read on this topic:
http://www.amazon.com/Death-China-Confronting-Dragon-Global/dp/0132180235/ref=sr_1_1

Re:Is NSA snooping hurting the US software industr

[Anonymous Coward]

Look like?

Yeah I hope that this can be used as a proper cudgel though. They have been playing up tech jobs and the economy is a mess. Then again they didn't get it with crypto exports. Although the right ad campaign might make them choke on humble pie like they deserve. Maybe get the RIAA's number people to say how much money was lost from forcing tech companies into leaving back doors.

I am boycotting Cisco

[ttucker]

Their shit is entirely too expensive, with astronomical recurring charges. What do you even get for all of that money, some dismal routers, lame SIP phones, and some CCNA schmuck that you *have* to deal with?

Re:Is NSA snooping hurting the US software industr

[ttucker]

This might drive customers away from US software industry products.

But where will they be driven to?

open source routers

[Anonymous Coward]

any why should europeans trust any of both? we should never trust critical infrastructure to a foreign company selling you a black box that most likely contains backdoors. the source code of routers should be not only public, but compiled on every router served without a single binary blob

Re:open source routers

[wierd_w]

As an american (and probably on the NSA watchlist for being 'suspicious' for not drinking the 'kill snowden, rah rah rah!' Koolaid) let me be quite open, honest, and frank here.

You should not trust my nation to do anything but fuck yours up. Our number one and number two exports are bad foriegn policy legislation, and military munitions (as in, shots fired, not sold.)

The time where you cannot trust the firmware in your equipment happened a long time ago. The need for fully auditable software has never been greater. Do not trust my government. They are snakes and liars, looking to swallow you whole, or numb you with their poisonous PR, like they have so many of my countrymen already.

Europe isn't much better off at the moment, having already drank our koolaid, but most of you populace aren't drooling idiots that think exposing the government's dirty dealings is an act of treason, and honestly hold the opinion that their interests are the givernment's interests. As such, if you and your fellow citizens of EU countries act quickly, you can circumvent the bullshit by refusing to drink any more koolaid, and ousting koolaid pushers fromm office. That should be the single biggest red flag ever: if the politician pushes koolaid for US interests, vote them out. Don't question the choice. Just do it. (The koolaid poisoning is so bad here, that I will certainly attract the attention of a few of the addled addicts with just this message alone.)

If you buy equipment from a US firm, treat it like a spy bug. Either wipe the firmware and install auditable 3rd party programming, or isolate and monitor it religiously.

When presented with a choice to buy open standards based equipment, always go for the open standards. Don't get suckered in by "support contracts" and the like. If you have to build your routers and run linux on them yourself, so be it. The vacuum for quality, and auditable open standard hardware in your market will create business opportunities for your own companies to satisfy, and if they hold true to those ideals, they will get business elsewhere as well.

(And for you koolaid drinkers: as long as the "US's interests" run counter to US principles, I will always, and without reservation, steer people away from such interests, because my interests are for a free and healthy US, not a wealthy despotic and totalitarian one built on lies. I won't trade my principles for money or comfort. You should be ashamed to have done such a thing.)

[Waves at the NSA spook]

 

Not sure

[ThatsNotPudding]

The 1946 decision to let Europeans wander among nations has done wonders for Europe... maybe we should consider the same thing here in the US?

I'm not sure I want to drop the border with Oklahoma; they steal _everything_! Even dirt!

Re:Not sure

[ebno-10db]

I'm not sure I want to drop the border with Oklahoma; they steal _everything_! Even dirt!

Don't be too hard on them, it's only because of all the dirt they lost in the Dust Bowl.

Whaa?

[Anonymous Coward]

Shucks, I thought all of Cisco's products were mass produced in china?

Re:Damage

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the Zionist way. I'm surprised benjfowler hasn't accused Snowden of being an antisemite.

CCR

[rullywowr]

"Doot doot doot, China's looking in my back door"...

marketing bluff

[jsepeta]

It's totally a government-sponsored marketing scam to promote the use of Huawei products that are Cisco knockoffs. But since the Chinese people build gear for both brands in their factories, they're basically just promoting the notion that Chinese companies should use Chinese-owned brands, so that the Chinese government can focus their efforts on infiltrating Cisco ROMs and optimizing them for spying on Americans.

And the cycle continues

[jader3rd]

Soon every government official will get credit for creating local jobs by making it illegal to purchase anything made in a different country. Then we'll cycle back and have lots of globalization, and then we'll repeat the cycle again. Whatever you do, don't read history!

YES!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck cisco, Apple, and ALL of them!

It's time for some new blood to rise kids. You dirty old fuckers who were turning 40 in the 90's blowing up in tech should just retire and end your pitiful fucking existence. You've fucked up so much for the future of tech.

Well known for years

[Anonymous Coward]

The law intercept due to CALEA and its associated vulnerabilities has been well known for years. The US has the ability with a built-in backdoor to redirect and intercept any traffic (Cisco or not) for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act

Old News

[Anonymous Coward]

Back Door anyone ?
Nothing to see here, move along, this is nothing new....

Avoid Huawei at all costs

[Anonymous Coward]

Having worked with source code from both Cisco's IOS and Huawei I have to say that Cisco's code is far better. The code I saw from Huawei was the about worst code I have ever seen. Their code would never make it in either Cisco or Juniper. I have also worked on code for Juniper which is a little better than Cisco.

Huawei are bottom feeders and they'll remain so for the forseeable future.

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons.

Mod parent up

[Xaedalus]

He may be flaming, but he's got a very good point about the mechanics of international trade.

Cisco crap Made in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb request and not that I care because Juniper is better anyway.

easier say than done

[Anonymous Coward]

China media can says all they want - but it is hard to rip out a multi billions router network that work and put in something that is buggy from other vendor.

"Media Call" not "Media Calls"; Media is Plural

[Anonymous Coward]

Grammar Nazi strikes again!

This is something I expected

[erroneus]

I believe I have made comments in the past fortelling what we can expect. We have known for a very long time that communications and technology owned by US companies have been compromised by US government interests. The US government routinely tells companies what they can and cannot sell or offer. This is compromise enough, but it gets worse than that. We have been following stories releated to the problem for the last couple of decades.

But now, at last, the world is waking up to the fact that because our government has become so corrupt, all of our products and services are ALSO suspect. As other people of other nations realize the very obvious problems of using US technologies, US technologies are likely to be rejected, removed and boycotted. I would be not surprised at all to lean of a movement to replace the existing communications infrastructure with something which can be better trusted and protected and completely avoids the US and US territories.

This, more than anything else -- the loss of trust of the rest of the world -- will doom the US and all of the people that do business with and within the US. It doesn't take a global economic collapse to kill the US... not while the US dollar is still the international unit of exchange.

And it's not like we're not seeing this elsewhere. The increasing incident of prohibition of Monsanto's poison in other countries is just a sign of what will likely become a much bigger problem for the US, business in the US and the people of the US.

Can't read the Bloomberg article here in China!

[JimtownKelly]

ZTE is a state-owned collective capitalist venture. Huawei is connected to the highest party organ, despite being privately owned. ChiComs just want other ChiComs to buy from ChiComs, really. (Typed next to a Cisco phone in Shanghai.)

In favour of Huawei/ZTE

[mgcarley]

Enough said.

Motherboards...

[kalqlate]

Paranoia will certainly expand to include motherboards as Chinese motherboards own the market, and similar back door access might be burned into any brand cooperating with the government. Advancement in business and personal computing will take a HUGE hit when this happens.

Dr.Web Re:Thank Edward Snowden

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's why I use Kaspersky at home. I doubt the FSB gives a damn about me, but to the NSA I'm suspicious because I buy Russian security software."

FTFY

You should look into Dr.Web. On their site, the Windows version (Trial) is easy to find. For others, here:

http://www.freedrweb.com/livecd/
http://www.freedrweb.com/liveusb/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/Linux/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/Linux/x86/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/Linux/x64/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/Linux/components/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD/x64/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD/x86/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD/components/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD6/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD6/x86/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD6/x64/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/FreeBSD6/components/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/noarch/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/noarch/sdk/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/noarch/source/
http://download.geo.drweb.com/pub/drweb/unix/release/noarch/webui/

https://st.drweb.com/static/doc/avlinux/en/

http://www.freedrweb.com/livecd/
http://www.freedrweb.com/liveusb/

HTH

FUSK China

[Anonymous Coward]

China has been hacking the United States for over ten years. What are we going to steal from them? Our own plans? LoL. They also produced fake Cisco routers and switches that are/were used in defense contractor/company networks and in the Pentagon. Look at their "new" stealth fighter... it was stolen from us (plans). They steal everything. Check the Washington Post and Mandiants report of APT1.