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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.
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.
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!
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.
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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.
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