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Is China Wiring Africa For Surveillance?
Daniel_Stuckey writes "Huawei has invested billions of dollars in Africa over the last two decades, providing affordable cell phones, internet access, and telecommunications networks to the continent. Over the last few months Huawei has closed major deals in Africa to get more areas on the grid. The company says it's bridging the digital divide, but others suspect it's wiring the continent for surveillance."
Nobody cares enough about Africa to listen in on them. The only thing Africa has is resources, and China already is buying them. Is the infrastructure subject to surveillance? Sure, but every infrastructure is, even heterogeneous ones like the US.
"Hmm, government backdoor access to data through communications technology. Where would the NSA get an idea like that?"
Talk about throwing rocks in glass houses!
China is the greatest enemy of the USA, and ALL major US military planning is designed for future conflict between these two powers. So, no surprise then that the owners of Slashdot ensure a constant stream of articles attacking China. Attack Iran, attack China, praise Israel. Is there anyone here so thick that they do not notice this tedious pattern?
PS do the owners of Slashdot still prevent citizens of Iran from accessing the open-source websites they also control. And NO, there is no US law requiring this.
It's about time somebody started spying on Africa.
Everytime they have a TV show about Africa, it's just a bunch of f**king lions and elephants. Where are all the people?
What the heck's going on there? It's about time somebody found out.
About 4 years ago, I took a trip to Ethiopia. One guy I talked to there was the head of an aid organization that helped build infrastructure in the more rural parts of the country. He explained to me that while the Western countries like the US, Germany, the UK, etc donated money to local organizations, the Chinese preferred to come in and do the job themselves. It saves on the corruption and waste, and they get to build a positive impression themselves. So you see lots of Chinese companies there building roads, burying cable, building farms/industry, etc.
He told me they had the right idea. The Chinese are *investing* in Africa as opposed to donating to it. That's going to have a long-term impact on who has more influence in Africa. So yeah, they're going to build surveillance...they're building the infrastructure. If we wanted to stop them, we'd go start building too.
They could be propping up regimes that routinely use torture and abuse human rights, and randomly killing innocents with drones. But then there'd be nothing left for the US to do...
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
...China taking away jobs from the US.
Dammit, spying on the world is OUR job! They took uuur juuuuubs!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think you just wanted an excuse to use the mostly unknown word "exfiltrate." Your post doesn't actually say anything at all.....
Exactly why do we discuss articles like this? There is zero evidence so far that China is doing mass surveillance outside of China.
The articles acknowledges it, and asks questions that cannot be answered, while providing no new insights.
The NSA, facebook, and google seem to demonstrate that spying on everyone requires shockingly little investment and gets good returns even when you don't know exactly what you want to find in your spying.
Plus, there seem to be a lot of stuff that is worth knowing. There's oil and other natural resources in Africa, right? Seems like intercepting geological reports within western companies, or whoever, about where the oil might be could be very advantageous to China.
"but others suspect it's wiring the continent for surveillance".
With todays knowledge: probably yes,
Thanks again mr. Snowden for revealing the truth.
Such a shame. It should have been NSA surveillance equipment, but they will find an other way.
Privacy is terrorism.
I guess if it comes for free, that's one thing, but how much money do you think China wants to invest exfiltrating data from Africa as opposed to their first-world competitors?
Right. Because first-world companies don't do any business in Africa.
Alternatively, China is investing in Africa for the long haul, because China desperately wants access to Africa's vast natural resources. Many African Governments include infrastructure projects as a requirement for Chinese acquisitions or in trade deals with China.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Now that we know the US Gov. has our country (plus Europe at a min) completely wired up for surveillance who are we to complain about the Chinese.
As an Australian in the Oil&Gas (and previously the mining) industry, the main reason Australia's economy is so big right now is because it's more expensive and dangerous to rip the shit outta Africa and Brazil.
Once China (the biggest importer of iron by a long way) nail that down, I'll need to expatriate or be out of a job. Providing digital-age tools and infrastructure to Africa is an incredibly smart move for China.
Maybe Huawei is finding itself shut out of western markets for fear of backdoors and stolen code, that the best market they can find is selling to their own government's aid programs.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
...I'll need to expatriate or be out of a job. Providing digital-age tools and infrastructure to Africa is an incredibly smart move for China.
See? You already know where to apply for immigration (I bet the NBN is going to take longer to build).
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
dunno.. you could wire up 20% of africa for gratis with the NSA budget.
Not going to happen, it wouldn't help a bit the US defence industry.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Africa is one of the largest supplier of Europe's natural resources. So much so that France sends out armed forces to procure them (they call the justification "terrorism" too, PR).
Even still, most of their resources remain untapped. In the next two decades, a large focus is going to be around Algeria, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger as they are rich in untapped resources and exploitable in labor.
Having an omnipresence would give an advantage to China as a global superpower. Not saying it's right or good...
Huawei employee here (non-chinese, btw).
Huawei is not being shut out of "western" markets, with the exception of the US. Huawei has an extensive deployment of radio, wireless access, packet switching and core systems across Europe and Latinamerica. A good portion of what 3G and LTE networks in both sides of the Atlantic for any operator you care to mention is using Huawei sytems.
I must recognise, though, that laws and regulations (both in telecom proper and labour areas) make it easier for Huawei in african countries than they do elsewhere.
Huawei is *not* a multinational company with its headquarters in China, it is a Chinese company with offices all over the world. Big difference. All decision-making is either done from China or by chinese PHBs abroad; and many of them can't seem to get that they are not in China (when in Europe, for instance) and they want to do things in their own way, which is proving to be easier in (some) african countries.
IMO, yes, Huawei is wiring Africa for its own purposes...and that may involve surveillance.
Natural resources is the name of the game. And its not just China eyeing the riches.
100. Finally, to keep my subjects permanently locked in a mindless trance, I will provide each of them with free unlimited Internet access.
Well played China...well played...
There's less money in Africa than elsewhere, but by the same token, there is less entrenched competition there as well.
Who ever gets there firstest with the mostest has a great chance of owning the continent. It might not be profitable this year or this decade, but sooner or later they will be the entrenched company.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The NSA, facebook, and google seem to demonstrate that spying on everyone requires shockingly little investment and gets good returns even when you don't know exactly what you want to find in your spying.
The NSA can do it cheaply because of the existence of companies like Google and Facebook that have centralised systems that a lot of people trust. Google and Facebook only exist because of various economic incentives in the US (some resulting from government incentives, some due to historical accidents), which are not exactly cheap - trying to replicate these conditions in another country would be very expensive. If people were using decentralised communication systems, PRISM would have been a lot harder.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
More /. paranoia over a company that has been "suspected" and it seems to be even more so since Obama has been in the white house, but it "seemed", when republicans were in the white house it wasn't as big a deal.
If Africa cannot get itself together they have an opportunity to grow and become a whole country. [snip]
You begin with a political rant of some kind (was that anti-Obama or anti-Bush?) , and then prove yourself horribly educated by repeatedly calling Africa a country.
"His name was James Damore."
(me again)
Nope. Except for "Ni Hao" (hello) which I hardly ever use...and a couple of other phonemes that I've learned.
In fact, "they" seem to prefer it that way. In our office (somewhere in Europe) there's 3 lines of communication. One for, as we are called, "local staff" in our "local" language (not English); another one in English which is the crossover language; and Chinese, where all the things that we "locals" can't/don't participate....of course, we get upset and reciprocate by starting our own half of the meeting in a language most of them can't understand; which I think is not easy to do for our colleagues in the UK as they don't have that 3rd language to fall back on (yes, I know there are other languages besides English in the UK. I have friends in Wales).
When I joined the company I wanted to learn the language and had all this curiosity about chinese culture. They seem to have systematically drained any kind of interest from me.