NSA Hacked Huawei, Stole Source Code

Charliemopps (1157495) writes "New documents from Snowden indicate that the NSA hacked into and stole documents, including source code, from the Chinese networking firm Huawei. Ironically, this is the same firm that the U.S. government has argued in the past was a threat due to China's possible use of the same sort of attacks."

Comments

No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

That's probably how the US govt knows Huawei is a threat...

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Gov has never articulated exactly how Huawei is a threat with any specificity. The NSA slides don't give any information either. Nothing released to the public has shown that Huawei was ever guilty of any of the things said about them, but on the other hand, the US Gov itself is guilty as hell as far as engaging in the sort of tactics we've accused Huawei of.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

and the rest of the world is learning how untrustworthy the USA is.

Re:No irony

[MrBigInThePants]

If you needed to learn that by now then you have not been paying attention....

Re:No irony

[Jmc23]

No, that's how the US government found out huawei was too hard to hack so they tried to discredit them publicly to get companies to buy equipment to which they had easy access to.

You know, just like trying to discredit PGP.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of the world does not pay attention, they're happy and complacent with TV and porn.

Re:No irony

[MrBigInThePants]

I totally agree with your statement but in this context "the rest of the world" was mainly referring to the leaders of other countries.

The couch vegetables don't count when discussing these issues. What they think only ever matters once every few years at voting time and what they think can be easily installed with scandal, BS and appealing to their bias - so not that much at all really.

Those that are not the vege type are too small in number to matter as a group.

You can call me a foolish cynic all you want but I will hold up the entirety of the global political sphere as a counter example and we shall see who is the more foolish! :)

Re:No irony

[pathological liar]

Your theory has one fatal flaw.

Re:No irony

[hackus]

You ar ecorrect.

Without Industrial Espionage, the Elite can never hold on to their power.

Threats must be identified and neutralized, primarily through the stealing of industrial secrets to insure the Federal Reserve note is secure world wide.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this is maybe true that they stole it to confirm suspicions. Maybe it is more tit-for-tat between the big players.

On the other hand, isn't this the way the US and "West" operate? "Everyone, look at [insert bad thing here] over in [insert target country]! Terrible, we must do something!" Meanwhile, back at home, the same or 3x worse is going on. Here are some pairs of things to put in those brackets:

IP stealing :: China
racism :: South Africa
dangerous weapons & madmen in control :: Iraq, Afghanistan

Re:No irony

[The Grim Reefer]

and the rest of the world is learning how untrustworthy the USA is.

Which country of any consequence is trustworthy? Russia? China? In the EU, Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, etc. don't exactly have spotless histories. Anyone in South or Central America?

Places like Denmark, Iceland and New Zealand seem to be pretty trustworthy to me. But for some reason this just doesn't scale very well. From what I can see, and I very well may be wrong, there is some kind of tipping point when a country's population crosses over the 10-20 million mark. Obviously there are exceptions. Perhaps government simply gets too large to manage at that point and it is no longer possible to maintain oversight on everything.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

well this kind of thing is actually kind of the NSA's job, rather than spying on american's for their political overlords they spied on a foreign powers government controlled telecom company that was trying to sell to the us military and government.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

I see nothing in that presentation (not in the first 20 pages anyway) that supports the US govt position. In fact, I can't see any difference between what's described in that doc and the way the large commercial software vendors in the US operated in the 90s and at least up to the early 2000s. Bugs, inconsistencies and problems were present in large numbers; stonewalling and ignoring them was the regular customer treatment, not the exception.

Re:No irony

[real-modo]

UM, does anyone else feel like saying F--- Snowden at this point?

No.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

>a number of harmful leaks that I believe undermined the purpose of the NSA

if you think that those the NSA were spying on didn't know they were being poked at and by whom you are a naif. If you think the political and diplomatic world didn't know long ago that diplomatic cables contain the most hair-raisingly blunt assessments of person and policy, then you are a fool.

snowden did us a favor by showing us just how far this has gone.

Re:No irony

[erikkemperman]

Nope. Most of the rest if the world is dirt poor, and yet many of these dirt poor folks have the common sense to understand that this is not entirely unrelated to the West being filthy rich. Wealth distribution is pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect looking at natural resource distribution.

Similarly, even though we in the privileged comfort of our Western sofas like to pretend we're mostly a force for Good in the world, those at the receiving end somehow tend to remember who is propping up the violent and corrupt regimes whose boot rests on their faces.

Re:No irony

[erikkemperman]

UM, does anyone else feel like saying F--- Snowden at this point?

Free Snowden? Yeah I'll second that.

Re:No irony

[MrBigInThePants]

Yeah...

While I empathise with their plight and wish it was different I really cannot agree with the rose coloured glasses people view those in poorer countries with. The motivations will be a form of jealously and lack of exposure to the PR machine that people who can afford a TV are exposed to.

It works like this:

- An impoverished person is just a poor person without the basic means for survival
- A poor person is just a middle-class person without sufficient income
- A middle-class person is just a rich person without the surplus cash
- A rich person is just a millionaire without the millions
- A millionaire is just a billionaire.....

See where I am going with this?

There are exceptions, as there always are, but they are rare enough to be considered outliers.

Re: No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

They have huge labs in Sunnyvale that do exactly what the NSA does, ran by "Chinese experts". That is why they are a threat. Lawrence and central expressway. Go look.

Re:No irony

[1s44c]

I've heard that belief that the US is rich and the rest of the world is poor very many times. I've travelled to a few countries and can tell you without a doubt that although there are plenty of poorer places there are plenty of richer places too. There are lots of countries with better infrastructure and better standards of living.

The US has a very positive self-image. That's a great thing. But sometimes it can cover up things that are wrong and could be fixed.

Re: No irony

[Sepodati]

Yes.

Re:No irony

[erikkemperman]

I've heard that belief that the US is rich and the rest of the world is poor very many times. I've travelled to a few countries and can tell you without a doubt that although there are plenty of poorer places there are plenty of richer places too.

Of course it is a technical matter of how we define "rich". But along the lines of GDP per capita there are very few countries in the neighborhood of the US. Those are places like Qatar, Brunei and Norway, which happen to have enormous amounts of fossil fuels relative to their number of inhabitants, as well as tax / banking havens Luxembourg and Switzerland.

If we include the wide variety of transactions that boil down, one way or another, to the US borrowing from the world at large, or profiting from its currency being the global default, it truly is without peer.

There are lots of countries with better infrastructure and better standards of living.

I certainly won't deny there is real abject poverty in the US, but I think that says more about the extreme local inequities than it does about the wealth of the nation as it compares globally.

The US has a very positive self-image. That's a great thing. But sometimes it can cover up things that are wrong and could be fixed.

Absolutely, no argument there.

Re:No irony

[erikkemperman]

The motivations will be a form of jealously and lack of exposure to the PR machine that people who can afford a TV are exposed to.

It seems to me these are consequences, not causes (or motivations as you put it).

It works like this:

- An impoverished person is just a poor person without the basic means for survival
- A poor person is just a middle-class person without sufficient income
- A middle-class person is just a rich person without the surplus cash
- A rich person is just a millionaire without the millions
- A millionaire is just a billionaire.....

You are describing how it is very difficult to hide "upwards" class differences (everyone is acutely aware of the things that are just out of their reach) because so much wealth is spent on advertising same. Conversely it seems this is easy in the other direction (wealthy individuals tend to spend much of it on "downward" insulation, gated communities, exclusive social occasions).

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

You miss the point. You are watching the actual main ressources. We became rich from ressources from our countries (coal, iron, ...), for example, my small country was one of the biggest industrial power during the nineteen century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Belgium
http://reflexions.ulg.ac.be/cms/c_27026/fr/le-minerai-de-fer-plus-grande-richesse-de-wallonie

Because we have got iron and coal. Petrol/gaz are relatively new players. They did not participated to emergence of the dominance of the occidental world.

The second point is our countries are free from dictorship, religions, ... and science were able to develop. Freedom and wealth are strongly correlated. Some may temporarily have some wealth due to ressources on their ground but at the end: the freedom win (because it's a prerequisite for real science). No freedom, no development, no wealth.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Comrade, If you redistribute all the western weath evenly throughout all the world, all you are going to get a world where every country is a shithole. Communism is about making sure that misery is distributed evenly.

Re: No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

dude...racism::South Africa is a bad example. You make it sound like the 330,000,000 people of the US operate as a single consciousness. If you sense hypocrisy in the way Americans viewed apartheid, it's because you fail to see people as individuals.

Racists in the US were not the ones calling for an end to apartheid in SA. On the contrary...the same people who fought racism in the US fought racism in SA. Do you blame them?

Re:No irony

[ganjadude]

actually the majority of the world doesnt pay attention because they are living on pennies a day

Re: No irony

[caveqat101]

Do you maybe mean,lack of education about what a government does? About the leaders in the government, who sell out the responsibility of the government to profit themselves over liberating the people from tryanical leaders? Being the leaders they flavor the operations of the outcomes to their wishes rather then the choice of the majority of the people? Therefore only select styles of leaders appear, that are sponsored by the minorities of the political process? And appear as majorities? Hmmmm, sounds familiar.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that all of the above is the same or 3x worse in the United States? If so, you are a complete fucktard!

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

per capita is quite meaningless if you dont also look at income distribution.
A dictator paying himself a trillion dollars and his peasants 50c would have a prety good per capita GDP also.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont think you have the slightest clue. If you took the richest 1000 people in the world and gave the money to the poorest billion, those people would be wealthier than the average American.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

I am danish and live in denmark, I can assure you that our leaders are just as bad (but perhaps in different ways - since they manage a smaller piece of the global pie). Trusthworthy they are not.

Re: No irony

[tysonedwards]

Whole economy, evenly distributed
14 Trillion Dollars / 7 Billion People = 2 Thousand Dollars.

Whole economy, distributed to one billion people
14 Trillion Dollars / 1 Billion People = 14 Thousand Dollars.

Re: No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh. Do you think they are going to reveal just how much they know? Please.

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. The biggest criminal being "scared" about other potential criminals.

Re: No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we have a Missing Clue Error on the previous post. The world's 1645 richest people have a wealth of $6.4 trillion (so this is a pretty conservative upper bound on the wealth of the richest 1,000). (Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2014/03/03/forbes-billionaires-full-list-of-the-worlds-500-richest-people/). Distribute to the poorest billion and they each get $6,400. Which I'm sure they would be happy with, but it would not make them rich by American standards.

Re:No irony

[MrBigInThePants]

Yes, I agree. My point was that those poor people, should they find themselves wealthy, would most likely move up into a gated community and pull the ladder up behind them.

This is what tends to happen...

Re:No irony

[MrBigInThePants]

The only basic stats measure that is EVER relevant when talking about wages is the median. (There are better complicated ones or sets of data of course)

The fact that there is wealth in your country does not imply you are a rich country overall.

Personally I feel that any wealthy country that have slums filled with poor is not a very good country at all. (and yes that means the US fails this measure)

Just my personal opinion...

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Wealth distribution is pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect looking at natural resource distribution.

We were able to get into that position because we were more civilized than the rest. We were able to work hard. We were able to work smart. We valued leaving a legacy for our many children. Our rulers saw the people as their brothers. We had stability in government. People stayed married through difficulties enabling them to raise high quality children. Staying married also enabled them to invest more in each other since there was a low risk of losing it. What wife will today work so her husband can do what is required to land a future high income job?

We could not get into that position today. We probably aren't civilized enough to keep what we have. We are lazy. We work in a stupid way. The last one is often forced on us by law. (Programmers have it easier than others) We have few (if any) children. We value spending all we have, including our inheritance, before we die. Our rulers see us as a herd of animals they should exploit and manipulate to keep down. This is a major source of government regulations. Our governments are constantly changing laws to serve them self in the name of the victim group of the week. This makes long term planning, both personal and company wide, impossible. People divorce or don't marry at all. Laws and family courts around in many western jurisdictions makes it extremely risky to marry if you are a man. Married couples are afraid to invest in each other. Children grow up without a father. This makes sons more likely to be violent and daughters more likely to continue the single mom circle. Even children that has a father is damaged by their teachers that naturally don't have the child's best interest as their first priority.

While the west is turning feral other cultures are gradually becoming more civilized. If this trend continue they will be rich and we will be poor. But we won't have an abundance of natural resources to offer them...

Re:No irony

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, if they had THAT much access, how they added little goodies to that source code and CREATED the threat.

Re:No irony

[Jack Griffin]

And this point is so often missed on the great unwashed. It isn't even just restricted to human nature, it is the nature of all life to compete and protect your physical/social position/security. This is why I'm a bit blaise on the whole NSA drama. Sure it sounds bad on the surface, but better that it's us doing it to them and not the other way around (as it surely would be given the chance).

Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?

Yep, if Snowden continues along this path he is moving into 'Traitor" territory. I only support him because he releases information on Domestic spying - this is completely within the realm of a FIA.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?

Yep, if Snowden continues along this path he is moving into 'Traitor" territory. I only support him because he releases information on Domestic spying - this is completely within the realm of a FIA.

Seconded. I'd mod you up if I didn't already comment.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as much as it is the job of the army to invade foreign countries and kill their people. Unless we're actively at war with that country, then no, they shouldn't be doing it, and it is an illegal act of aggression. That, and I'm not really sure how a company that isn't involved in anything military should be considered any different from a civilian; NSA doesn't give a fuck about any boundaries.

Plus, might I remind you, the NSA is also attacking American citizens.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, we are not at war with china. Spying on our trading partners like this hurts the whole nation.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

Snowden isn't releasing anything. He just dumped what he had on some journalists; they are the ones doing these slow staged releases.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'know what? Fuck you. This whole 'outrage over domenstic activity, but foreign-spying is a-ok' attitude has got to stop.

I'm not American. The notion a foreign power can root through my data, without my or my governments consent, with no repercussions and the full support of people like you, is abhorrent to me.

Traitor? The man becomes more of a hero with every tidbit like this he releases. A Hero to the rest of us. Because you no longer count.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

When you knowingly enable others to do something, you are accepting some responsibility for what they will do.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

American companies have been hurt to the tune of billions of dollars. US intelligent efforts overseas have been crippled.

Bullshit! You are an apologist for the corporatists and their political puppets. "Free" bread and circuses for everyone. Yeah!

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Charliemopps]

That all depends on what you want your government to be doing. You could just as easily argue the Vietnam war was the purpose of the military.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[cold fjord]

In this case to the benefit of China.

Snowden claimed to be an expert about China and espionage. When do you think we'll see some information about that? Or will the trend of only releasing information the compromises intelligence methods and activities of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and their allies continue?

He is indeed the rarest of "patriots," exposing only the intelligence plans of his own country and its allies, and not those of its adversaries.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Become an American? Don't want to then suck it up. I wouldn't complain if the signals intelligence agency of your country was spying on me.. oh wait they aren't because of the NSA...

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember "If you hack us, we will bomb you!"?? (close enough)

Re:Personal Liberty!

[symbolset]

Which is why you do due diligence on the background checks on temporary sysadmin subcontractors you trust with the NSA's crown jewels. Wouldn't want to be responsible for empowering some crackpot to let the entire herd of cats out of the bag, eh?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[symbolset]

Oh Jeebus. Anybody who didn't already know NSA was spying on Huawei before this was published still doesn't know it. They are in a coma.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the US considers stopping when you convince China, Russia, and other countries to stop too? And that means all spying. And while you're at it, you might as well bad war altogether. Now try enforcing it.

Spying may be abhorrent to you, but it is a fact of life in the 20th century and beyond. It is the reason that various countries have been willing to enter disarmament treaties till now since the intelligence gathering helped provide assurance that nobody was cheating in a meaningful way. Of course they has probably gone out the window. (Thanks Russia!)

Yes, Snowden is a traitor to the US and its allies. You may not think so, but maybe you haven't been occupied by a hostile power lately. I wouldn't be surprised if you aren't actually a patriot to your own country either.

One last thing, a "pro tip," you don't count either.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[cold fjord]

There is a meaningful difference between a general idea of it and specific knowledge of what happened or was accessed.

Think of the difference between, "somebody in the city doesn't like you," and "your neighbor Bob plans to burn down your house while you are asleep at 11:30 PM tomorrow using a case of Molotov cocktails that are already prepared and are sitting in his garage." Do you think there is a difference in the action you could take based on those two scenarios?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Governments secretly spy on each other ALL THE TIME.

Just like governments have secret programs for all sorts of things.

etc.

There is no doubt about it he IS a traitor, to america and her allies. Sure he's tried to cover himself in gold by talking about the internal spying (PRISM), but that's just a DROP on the ocean of his activity. How can the guy that releases government secrets to the other side be treated as anything less than a traitor.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Ah, it is refreshing to, at last, hear the "it's OK when we do it, but not OK when America does it" spoken out loud. More honesty like this, please!

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

My point is that if you want to judge Snowden, you already have all the facts necessary to do so. There's no "continuing along this path" here - he already walked all the way, like it or not.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm all for personal privacy and freedom, the NSA has no legal obligation to protect the privacy of foreigners just as foreign governments have no legal obligation to protect the privacy of US citizens. It's the responsibility of the US to protect its citizens' privacy, and the responsibility of foreign governments to protect their citizens' privacy. If every government somehow magically agreed to abide by the same spying rules then I would be inclined to agree with you, but you know other governments are doing the same shit to us as we're doing to them. The difference is we got exposed by an insider.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

To reiterate: Snowden is not releasing anything. He took what he got from the NSA internal networks, and handed that over. The way it gets released is subject only to the whim of the journalists who have the dump now. I would imagine that NSA significantly more information about how they spy on everyone, including China, than they have on how China is spying on them. For the latter, we'd need a Chinese Snowden equivalent.

By the way, why are you guys still on this? Every time one of you NSA assholes opens your mouth, you only make it worse for yourself. Not that there is much worse to go - aside from all the trodding on the Constitution, the entire Snowden affair has also shown just how lame and incompetent NSA actually is. A contractor admin taking a dump of most of your internal network resources, including top secret / classified stuff, without even hiding much, and you only find out about that from the newspapers? In any sane country, an intelligence agency so inept would be disbanded on the next day, not even as a punishment, but simply because God knows how many actual Russian/Chinese/Iranian/... spies are inside, doing what Snowden did, except for that whole going to the journalists part. In any authoritarian country, the entire top management team would already be shot for criminal negligence (if not sabotage).

Re:Personal Liberty!

[jma05]

This is the most BS I have seen in this article. I almost want to think you get paid for this.

> In this case to the benefit of China.

The point of the article is not whether it benefits China. The point is that US has been accusing other countries of doing things that it itself does many times over... things that it implied that it would find so abhorrent that it would never consider doing. This news would have been a lot less depressing if it was found that China broke into Cisco... because China does not lecture the world on digital principles.

As a non-american, I actually want US to be the bearer of high values in cyber space so that we have someone to point to and say - that is how things are supposed to be done. It has been incredibly disappointing to follow these revelations. Fortunately, the US tech community still holds high values, even if the corporates clearly don't.

The case of Huawei isn't just about China. It's products are used the world over. Attacking them is an attack on the communications of the world in general, not an attack on someone you can conveniently label as a communist enemy. There is no cold war here.

> Snowden claimed to be an expert about China and espionage. When do you think we'll see some information about that?

Snowden is a counter-intel guy on China. He does not have policy documents on China. Why is this even hard for you to grasp?
What you are demanding is like China asking when Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng will criticize US, rather than just China. That's not their responsibility.

> Or will the trend of only releasing information the compromises intelligence methods and activities of the US, UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and their allies continue?

First, he can only disclose what he had direct access to. If you want China docs, get a Chinese whistleblower.

Second, none of the disclosures are considered “methods”. The journalists have been cautious to not disclose them.

> He is indeed the rarest of "patriots," exposing only the intelligence plans of his own country and its allies, and not those of its adversaries.

Please provide a list of these non-rare patriots that expose intelligence plans on both sides.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[sumdumass]

You don't need to be at war with another nation in order to spy on them or their companies.

I agree that it hurts the whole country but not because it happened, because it was disclosed that it happened.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

> You don't need to be at war with another nation in order to spy on them or their companies.

The guy said it hurts to be spied; you are the one implying war and spying are unrelated, not him... which is a way to sidestep the problem. And then you say...

> I agree that it hurts the whole country but not because it happened, because it was disclosed that it happened.

So if someone does the same to the USA and doesn't tell anyone, is it ok? If you don't want it done to your country, do not do it to others.

You know what, I'm beginning to think Mr. Snowden just got fed up with the kind of hypocrisy you are displaying.

I cannot blame him, not for a minute.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I could perhaps relate to some of your outrage, but not in this context. This is a government-supported Chinese company that spied on US. If there's anything I'd prefer NSA to infiltrate, this would be high on the list. So save your complaints for a time when some innocent european playmate gets her sex tape stolen by the NSA.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[cold fjord]

Are you having a flashback comrade? Maybe this will help. Circa 1973 - Did you hear about the very sincere Armenian students? They went to a learned professor and asked, "Is it truly possible to build communism in Armenia?" "Yes," replied the professor, "but why not do it to the Georgians first?" Snowden's actions are like communism, despite the many touted "glories" of it, better that they happen to someone else. I'll nominate China, or maybe Russia now that they are back to seizing the lands of others to add to the glory of Russia.

As to being an "NSA asshole," I truly hope that you someday break the conditioning of your Soviet youth to realize that not everyone thinks alike in the West. Some of us are actually right even if we are not a member of "the party," an apparatchik, or a member of the "dark forces."

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not being willing to extend Constitutional protections to the whole world shows you have serious problems with the "all men are created equal" part of it.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[sumdumass]

The guy said it hurts to be spied; you are the one implying war and spying are unrelated, not him... which is a way to sidestep the problem. And then you say...

No, the guy said we are not at war with China implying that was was necessary for spying. You are damn straight that I made the point they are unrelated because they are no dependent on each other.

o if someone does the same to the USA and doesn't tell anyone, is it ok? If you don't want it done to your country, do not do it to others.

lol.. what? Of course I don't want others to know what my country is doing. I won't be upset to find out they are doing their best to determine what we are doing or that they succeeded, However, I want to know what other countries are doing and do expect my country to find that out. For all the problems my country has, I trust it enough. All the other countries, I do not.

Like I said, it hurts the whole country only because it is exposed. Retaliation in the forms of lost business, trade agreements and so on can happen because it was exposed not to mention step being taken to separate us from our abilities to gather intelligence on other countries.

You know what, I'm beginning to think Mr. Snowden just got fed up with the kind of hypocrisy you are displaying.

I really don't care why he decided to become a traitor. I'm not sure why you should either. He is a traitor BTW and deserves a traitors end.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

I know that there are plenty of misguided people who are not really affiliated with the organization that they effectively propagandize for, but in your case I'm having serious doubts about that. You're always in very early on any story that even tangentially mentions any US security agency, and particularly NSA, or on any comment along those lines even in otherwise unrelated stories. It's almost as if you had an RSS filter for those keywords.

Mind you, I'm not saying that your boss at NSA is paying you for it. You're likely some kind of very small fish there anyway (not menial work, though - you have to be actually doing something relevant to the core mission of the organization to feel personally offended about Snowden and what he represents). And the only reason why you're posting here is some kind of perverted esprit de corps, where your employer being ridiculed automatically translates to some personal butthurt for yourself, and an itch to post all these "rebuttals" of yours.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

When the US acts the way they act, they create precedents, which can and will be used in ways that harm people. Crimea was invaded using the legal shenanigans the US used in the past decade to invade places here and there. Want to point fingers? Fine, but point them fairly.
Releases like that by Snowden, which show us details about how we're being spied on, are very valuable and useful, because they create the opportunity to make new rules that regulate such activities.
In the same way, understanding of how various 'war crimes' happened was instrumental in drafting the various conventions that made a lot of them crimes and allowed persecution of their perpetrators.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[torsmo]

Well said, and you're quite correct in your analysis. He also likes to subtly intimidate posters who call him out for his BS.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

"He is indeed the rarest of "patriots," exposing only the intelligence plans of his own country and its allies, and not those of its adversaries."

Or, you idiot who failed to even consider it, YOUR OWN COUNTRY is the GREATEST of YOUR adversaries, overall. Or at least has that potential, unchecked.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[cold fjord]

There is no useful "analysis" in that post. Your "BS" detector apparently needs calibration since the post you responded to is almost entirely BS and you didn't detect that.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

He doesn't have enough credibility to be intimidating, to be honest, so it just comes off even more ridiculous. And, of course, by now any sensible person with modpoints just mods down everything "cold fjord" as Flamebait on sight, so you only see those posts if you jump on the article early, or have a habit of reading at -1 as I do.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Where did he say that?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your government (that's right, I don't know what nationality you are, but I'm right) does the same thing or at least wants to. If you are living in any sort of democracy then I wouldn't cast stones, because you are living in a glass house.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[erikkemperman]

American companies have been hurt to the tune of billions of dollars. US intelligent efforts overseas have been crippled.

And before they profited to the tune of billions thanks to trade secrets that just happened to find their way from NSA into their spotless hands.

I understand your point about the difference of revealing domestic vs foreign spying, but even the latter category of leaks has demonstrated that NSA are operating way beyond it's stated purpose (which is security not economic superiority) at a huge cost to US taxpayers. In other words, still bona fide whistleblowing as far as I'm concerned.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mentions of communism, Soviets, and dark forces... Man your crazy dial goes up all the way to 11 today, doesn't it?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[jma05]

> As to being an "NSA asshole," I truly hope that you someday break the conditioning of your Soviet youth to realize that not everyone thinks alike in the West. Some of us are actually right even if we are not a member of "the party," an apparatchik, or a member of the "dark forces."

For someone who is neither from a communist country nor was a subject of cold war era, anti-communist conditioning in the West, I must say that after JTRIG revelations, it is getting kinda hard to distinguish NSA ethos from communist ethos.

https://firstlook.org/theinter...

It always makes one wonder what NSA calls its clearly more sophisticated equivalent of the 50 cent army... no doubt much better paid.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Bite The Pillow]

You completely missed the real point, however. Americans can object to this, though it will take time. They will draw a line at some point and say this is legit, that's not. From a foreign perspective you can be angry all you want, but this is not something that Americans will get angry about.

Your opinion does not matter, unless you happen to be a policy maker in China. And then it does not matter to the Americans who object to the NSA, and are deciding whether the next revelation us a big deal.

If there were not a huge domestic surveillance thing going on, Americans might object. But in context, they are not going to care. And you can't make then, as angry as you get. So be mad, or just understand that your concerns are in line behind tens of complaints regarding its own citizens.

You still don't like it, I don't expect you to. Because your perspective is different. Add "compared with everything else" to each comment and suddenly it makes sense, no?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need to be at war with another nation in order to spy on them or their companies.

I agree that it hurts the whole country but not because it happened, because it was disclosed that it happened.

That hurt already happened before Snowden; remember there are 10's of thousands of people with his clearance level and were thousands of administrators who had actual access to those same systems. The Chinese already knew everything Snowden knew and that is (part of) why they are spying back.

All that happened is that you became aware that you were being hurt.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. keep thinking that. In the words of the great Frederick Forsyth, the predators roam about hunting whatever they like. Whether you are in their favour or not matters shit. Slashdot doesn't matter. Facebook doesn't matter.
Until good men find a way to be as good as the evil ones, then we just have to console ourselves with lame excuses and half assed notions of morality.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[1s44c]

Why do you thing the NSA wants to crack huawei?

1) Because the want to find out of there are deliberate holes left by the Chinese in their equipment that they should warn their own people about.

2) Because they want a head start on cracking the equipment to spy on everyone, foreign and domestic.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[1s44c]

The thing that pains me is that we can't trust journalists either. They will outright lie to get a good story and their motivations are always suspect.

The only way to get information out is to torrent it and let the world dig though it.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[1s44c]

That sounds like a play on US anti-communism brainwashing. It just sounds like deranged ranting to someone who doesn't support communism but actually knows what it is. You have no argument, rational or not.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Snowden isn't releasing anything. He just dumped what he had on some journalists; they are the ones doing these slow staged releases.

Hence being a traitor.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[thetoadwarrior]

Don't steal from other countries then if you don't want it disclosed. While you might not ave any problem with your government helping conduct industrial espionage it shouldn't be done.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[thetoadwarrior]

Some people find it hard to accept their own government is an awful entity and they are the sole reason the government gets away all the shit it does.

Re: Personal Liberty!

[BitZtream]

things that it implied that it would find so abhorrent that it would never consider doing

We have two official agencies who's charter is defined as spying on other nations ... And a third that does it under the flag of immigration.

I'm not sure who you've been listening to but if you think the US pretends not to spy you really are unaware of the world around you.

Re: Personal Liberty!

[BitZtream]

No, and neither do you, because no one that matters ever said anything like that.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

> lol.. what? Of course I don't want others to know what my country is doing. I won't be upset to find out they are doing their best to determine what we are doing or that they succeeded, However, I want to know what other countries are doing and do expect my country to find that out. For all the problems my country has, I trust it enough. All the other countries, I do not.

This "however" of yours is there because you have two standards: your country can do it but others cannot spy you. That's pretty much unfair; and before you say "life is unfair, deal with it", I point you to karma and how great a bitch it is. When it comes around to collect your pay for any evil done, don't start complaining, ok?

> Like I said, it hurts the whole country only because it is exposed. Retaliation in the forms of lost business, trade agreements and so on can happen because it was exposed not to mention step being taken to separate us from our abilities to gather intelligence on other countries.

You're kidding me, right? Do you think other countries are stupid? Do you have any idea of how harder it became to do business since the USA adopted its aggressive stance? That was way before Snowden even _entered_ the NSA.

Don't do wrong things and then start complaining that someone leaked about it... this is a criminal's way of thinking. Instead, don't do things which will offend friendly countries and not so friendly ones will take as an aggression. Be a good neighbor and demand others to be good, too. Don't sneak into their houses to see their personal belongings.

Also, you have to start thinking we are just a single species. If you value your country above the Earth, would you complain if one State started to act only in its own interests instead of caring about what's good for the entire country?

Re:Personal Liberty!

[mjwalshe]

It's interesting that most of the leaks from GCHQ and the NSA have been from young and naive low level entrants from a millatery background.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

... a Chinese Snowden equivalent...

He didn't live long enough to release anything. The Chinese aren't as tolerant of theft of state secrets as the US is.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[ganjadude]

I dont agree with that tactic, When I mod, I dont even look at user names i mod based on the content of the post. I cant stand when people start to mod down people because of who said it, rather than what was said

Re:Personal Liberty!

[davecb]

And this wasn't from him, anyway: see https://firstlook.org/theinter...

Re: Personal Liberty!

[jma05]

> I'm not sure who you've been listening to but if you think the US pretends not to spy you really are unaware of the world around you.

Are you dense? Where do you think the outrage in the world is coming from if this was all understood as typical espionage activity.

Let me answer that for you. This isn't simple foreign spying. No one expected NSA to be spying on entire populations of the world. There is no spy agency in the world that does that. It is legitimate to do targeted espionage. Every country does that. This is not about nabbing a foreign terrorist or spying on diplomats.

People simply expected US to do a better job at targeted espionage than anyone else. No one also expected NSA to be engaged in character assassinations of conspiracy theorists and social manipulations of hactivists. US always promoted the rhetoric that these things as abhorrent and incompatible with its values and for the rest of the world.

And don't answer with an attitude that US can do what it wants and that it is up to foreign governments to protect their civilians either. US purports itself to be the leader of the free world and these actions are incompatible with that role. If it wants to simply be an imperial power - fine. Unless US addresses these issues, the world will reconfigure itself to such an implicit declaration in time.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Reading comprehension is your friend. No where did the post you're replying to say it's OK for non-American governments to spy. Please read, and following reading, comprehend.

Re: Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are obviously naive. Read about Mossadeq, Allende, Gulf of Tonkin. And stop reading mainstream media. It only poisons your mind.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of crap. GCHQ (and that means NSA) has full access to Huawei source. They don't need to steal anything. Especially not their emails.

You know what ? America is a cesspool of criminals and ex-criminals and their offspring. It shows.

Re: Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking lying sack of shit. Your nigger indeed threatened to use military force in response to cyber attacks on the US.

I did say (close enough), guess that 'murican education is really slipping to an all time low.....

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

I doubt Snowden would live long (outside of a solitary cell, anyway) if he were discovered before he could run. We know how it went for Manning.

No, the fact that there hasn't been a Chinese Snowden would indicate that Chinese intelligence services are not quite as lame, and can actually detect an intrusion of this scale on their internal networks.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[shutdown -p now]

I generally agree, but there are accounts that are used only to troll/flamebait - the various APK clones are one good example. At that point, it doesn't really matter - if you mod them down based on the content you end up in exact same situation, consistently modding down every post.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your opinion does not matter, unless you happen to be a policy maker in China.

Some of us are British or from other members of the five eyes. Our Government is tasked by your government to spy on you and is actually probably better at it in some ways than you are at spying yourselves.

If you ever want to recover your privacy, you had better persuade us that we want to stop our own governments spying on you. Hint; your attitude isn't likely to persuade most of our compatriots. Personally I'm persuaded, not because of you, but because I think all the Americans deserve the right to privacy independent of what you think.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

Y'know what? Fuck you. This whole 'outrage over domenstic activity, but foreign-spying is a-ok' attitude has got to stop.

I'm not American. The notion a foreign power can root through my data, without my or my governments consent, with no repercussions and the full support of people like you, is abhorrent to me.

Unfortunately for you, thats just how international relations work. Nations always spy on each other. The only thing that can change that is the two nations becoming one.

Its a given that US Intelligence agencies will spy on other nations, the same that GCHQ will spy on other nations, because thats their entire purpose, but we in the US are extremely upset when our intelligence agencies turn against us because that cannot ever be legal in any way, shape, or form because it is against our Constitution (unconstitutional laws are void).

Re:Personal Liberty!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Not being willing to extend Constitutional protections to the whole world shows you have serious problems with the "all men are created equal" part of it.

This^

It's really very disheartening when someone says some individual is not entitled to any rights or respect because he/she is not a citizen.

That is equating one's rules of conduct with Law, which is a very poor standard.

Dura lex, sed lex. It means the Law is harsh.

A _real_ man is above that. We must show respect, not because others deserve it, but because we owe it to ourselves to behave in a civilized manner.

If your government is doing shameful things, you'd better start thinking seriously about the next election.

Re: Personal Liberty!

[jma05]

Read all that. We all know our Chomsky. I know how to pick my media, thank you.
The CIA adventurism was supposed to have been largely reined in by the congress in the 70s. The Internet stuff is new. Again, where do you think the new outrage is coming from. The world knows the history of US spy agencies.

Re: Personal Liberty!

[jma05]

I should say 80s.

Re:Personal Liberty!

[tragedy]

Seconded. I'd mod you up if I didn't already comment.

Which makes one wonder why you're posting AC here.

pot/kettle storyline

[turkeydance]

but include the little teapot.

Re:pot/kettle storyline

[Anonymous Coward]

>but include the little teapot

but it's too hard to see it when it's in the near-sun portion of its orbit...

Good for NSA

[LacompaCida]

That's what they were paid for. Good job, NSA.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

The job of the NSA is to gack foreign companies and steal their source code?
Interesting to say the least, do you have a source for this information, as I'm sure several governments would be interested.

Re:Good for NSA

[khasim]

No. Huawei is a commercial company. Not a government.

This is our government engaging in corporate espionage.

Re:Good for NSA

[cold fjord]

That's what they were paid for. Good job, NSA.

Yes, but that sort of thing tends to be more valuable when it isn't publicized.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Huawei is a commercial company. Not a government.

I guess you missed the part where it's in China. Communist/fascist regimes don't have distinctions like that.

Corporate espionage would be giving the code to American companies, or selling something based on it.

Re:Good for NSA

[fustakrakich]

The job of the NSA is to gack foreign companies and steal their source code?

Many of the "jobs" of the NSA are classified. It is perfectly plausible that this would be one of them. Since there is no oversight, we should always assume the worse. Chances are they will have gone well beyond whatever you can possibly dream up.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you missed the part where it's in China. Communist/fascist regimes don't have distinctions like that.

Neither do US corporations either... Microsoft, Google, Apple, Yahoo, RSA & others all collect data for the NSA.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

The US government and the big US commercial companies behaves as one giant blob of corruption though.
The richest and most powerful 1% in china wants exactly the same as the 1% in the US. Same shit.

Re:Good for NSA

[jovius]

So NSA does its job by stealing documents from China. Chinese do their job by stealing documents from the US. Snowden as a whistleblower does his job by exposing the documents. Its win-win-win for all.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure you cheer and support foreign governments that steals American trade secrets and information too. After all industrial espionage is just doing there job right.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

"Corporate espionage would be giving the code to American companies, or selling something based on it."

And who is to say they are not doing this.

What you are suggesting is that the person who just burgled your home will not steal your wallet.

Re:Good for NSA

[AmiMoJo]

That's what they were paid for. Good job, NSA.

Except that they just undermined their government's protests and Chinese hacking. Unlike US allegations against China which are pretty thin the Chinese now have concrete evidence of international law-breaking and industrial espionage against them. Expect it to be used against the US at the WTO and whenever the US tries to make any complaints about hacking in the future.

It will be interesting to see how the US government tries to spin this. They said in the past that hacking could be considered an act of war, retaliated against with conventional weapons as well as cyberattacks. It's pretty much open season on the US now, and you can expect to see virus attacks on US infrastructure in the future. All thanks to the NSA.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they were paid for. Good job, NSA.

Agreed. The US government should show reciprocity to the actions of China. I am perfectly okay with this. Surprised this is being presented as some sort of major scandal. Seems like most of the recent leeks haven't shown anything illegal or shocking, but I guess Glenn Greenwald wants to cash out his 15 minutes of fame for as long as possible.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes and much much more. Not just a foreign company eh? A company deliberately installing back doors to the world wide Internet. These are not home routers. You want you company or nation to use these routers? I am sure ever nation and corporation on earth is interested. Many are wondering what that back door access is. Now that it is common knowledge the shader side of life will be all over it.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Strangely enough I have had careful burglars before. You know nothing of how strange reality is.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't Huawei the beneficiary of source code from Cisco?
I can't remember if it was stolen or if the President at the time gave it to the Chinese Government.

Re:Good for NSA

[plover]

When China engages in spying on corporate America, they spy on companies like Valspar for the formula the US Navy uses to protect warships from rust. They then give that information to Chinese firms to make durable paint for their own navy, and to turn a huge profit.

When the NSA spies on Huawei, they use the information to discover vulnerabilities they then go on to internally use to exploit the infrastructure of those who use them. They do not give the information to Cisco in order to make more efficient American routers (that are then made in China.).

So China uses industrial espionage to strengthen their military and economy. The NSA uses industrial espionage to weaken the security of everyone equally.

See the difference? Me neither.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

It will be interesting to see how the US government tries to spin this.

I would expect the same way they spin every other times when they were being hypocrites? First keep yelling as if they didn't do it themselves, then claiming their version was different, and finally do what they want anyway, backed with military force if needed.

This kind of shit comes out from the US every year if you paid attention to look for it (e.g. by not watching only US news sources).

Re:Good for NSA

[TheOldestGit]

Well thanks for that NSA - keeping the new network where I live properly security vetted ;-) [I happen to live in the Isle of Man where the the new LTE stuff is being done with these (invisible) guys] NB We had the first 3G network in Europe & the Japanese engineers were everywhere for development

Re:Good for NSA

[ark1]

It will be interesting to see how the US government tries to spin this.

"It was not theft, it was copyright infringement."

Re:Good for NSA

[oldhack]

Right, "commercial company" in the commie CPC empire. What planet do you live on?

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

The job of the NSA is to gack foreign companies and steal their source code?

Well, it's a damn sight better than having them hack American companies in order to compromise the security of Americans' communications, which is what they seem to have been more interested in doing since 2001.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

After having the misfortune of working with Huawei's code I can assure you that no US company in their right mind would want to touch it. It's some of the worst spaghetti code I have ever seen with random coding styles and indenting that goes downhill fast from there. Besides, if you want the cleaned up code, just use the GPL code that they started with.

Posting as AC for obvious reasons.

Re:Good for NSA

[EuclideanSilence]

It's pretty much open season on the US now, and you can expect to see virus attacks on US infrastructure in the future. All thanks to the NSA.

I wouldn't mind getting some new infrastructure. Burn it all down.

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't .... make .... irony .... joke..... Brain ..... broken ....

Re:Good for NSA

[dbIII]

They do not give the information to Cisco in order to make more efficient American routers

Maybe they do. One odd thing to come out was taxpayer funded industrial espionage of Indonesian clove cigarettes for "US commercial clients". I wonder how much commercial spying is going on and what the kickbacks to the intelligence agencies or those issuing the orders are.

Re:Good for NSA

[lennier1]

A company deliberately installing back doors to the world wide Internet.

So, we're now talking about the NSA backdoors in routers made by US companies?

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

In what? making the US look like hypocrites?

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, Huawei is owned by the Chinese army.

Re:Good for NSA

[AmiMoJo]

The NSA certainly does spy for commercial advantage. Remember when they spied on Airbus so that Boeing could win some contracts?

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok Polyanna. You really believe that shit? You are fucking deluded.

China also stole some of our secrets for advanced nuclear weapons in the 1990's. How are you going to spin that? China is going to use that information to create "flower" and "love" bombs to fill the world with happiness?

Re:Good for NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that they just undermined their government's protests and Chinese hacking. Unlike US allegations against China which are pretty thin the Chinese now have concrete evidence of international law-breaking and industrial espionage against them. Expect it to be used against the US at the WTO and whenever the US tries to make any complaints about hacking in the future.

And you just expressed why the one sided leaks of Snowden have done so much damage to the US, not helped the US. He has handed the ammo to the very people who have waged the largest hacking campaign against the US for them to continue doing what they have been while allowing them to play the victim. The US has proof of the allegations against China, and others, but revealing them would compromise its ability to continue stopping them (namely reveal what they can detect versus what they didn't), so the US doesn't. I find it very hard to believe that with the documents Snowden had access to he did not also uncover ones documenting the known attacks by actors like the Chinese against the US, yet he has chosen NOT to release THOSE. And of the attacks and breakins the US knows about, there are many fold more that were done against the US that the US doesn't know about (unless of course you buy the hype that the US is all powerful and everyone else is incompetent)

And the argument that it was the journalists that release the docs, not Snowden, is a strawman. Snowden chose which documents to give to the journalists.

Re:Good for NSA

[dunkindave]

Except that they just undermined their government's protests and Chinese hacking. Unlike US allegations against China which are pretty thin the Chinese now have concrete evidence of international law-breaking and industrial espionage against them. Expect it to be used against the US at the WTO and whenever the US tries to make any complaints about hacking in the future.

And you just expressed why the one sided leaks of Snowden have done so much damage to the US and the west, not helped them as is often claimed. Snowden has handed the ammo to the very people who have waged the largest hacking campaign against the west for them to continue doing what they have been while allowing them to play the victim. The US has proof of the allegations against China, and others, but revealing them would compromise its ability to continue stopping them (namely reveal what they can detect versus what they didn't), so the US doesn't reveal it unless it is a very major event. I find it very hard to believe that with the documents Snowden had access to he did not also uncover ones documenting the known attacks by actors like the Chinese against the US, yet he has chosen NOT to release THOSE. And of the attacks and breakins the US knows about, there are many fold more that were done against the US that the US doesn't know about (unless of course you buy the theory that the US is all powerful and everyone else is incompetent).

And the argument that it was the journalists that release the docs, not Snowden, is a strawman. Snowden chose which documents to give to the journalists. Claiming it was just a large dump of unreviewed documents that he gave to foreigners, even if he believed they were journalist, is not a responsible act.

Re:Good for NSA

[Alarash]

I thought any company in China has to be owned at 51% by the government?

New TED with ED

[Dj Stingray]

... on the youtube. It's going to be hard to find, for obvious reasons. Here is a link.

Edward Snowden: Here's how we take back the Internet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVwAodrjZMY

No surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

None at all.

NSA validated in their concerns?

[saps1e]

So if they have access to the source code, does this mean that the NSA is speaking authoritatively when they say Huawei's routers do have backdoors for the Chinese govt?

Re:NSA validated in their concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the NSA is saying is that they get into people's networks by hacking networking gear, and so does the Chinese version of the NSA. Presumably the Chinese have ample opportunity to steal Huawei source code and find some flaws in it.

There's no need to build in a back door on purpose. Any exploit is a back door. Building products without "back doors" is incredibly difficult. Yes, China could intentionally back door Huawei products... this doesn't mean it does, but more importantly, it's entirely academic whether they find exploits the old fashioned way or plant them.

The organization I work for has Huawei gear and does code audits on it. There is no line specifically marked "back door". There's also no reason to believe that Huawei products are less secure than other stuff on the market. If anything, if the NSA is bitching about Huawei gear, it's almost an endorsement of its security.

Re:NSA validated in their concerns?

[AHuxley]

More like the NSA did not want kit on the open market that was not as easy as US and EU products for next gen DISCOROUTE, QUANTUM like options.
"NSA targets sysadmin personal accounts to exploit networks" (March 21, 2014)
http://www.zdnet.com/nsa-targe...
i.e. a long list of ways in shared with 5+ other nations, their contractors, ex staff, former staff.
Anyone able to afford contractors, ex staff, former staff for the methods gets in too :)
Thats the problem with weak global security in any networking product - too many people know too much via gov and contracting work over the installed lifetime of any telco product.

Re:NSA validated in their concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

The organization I work for has Huawei gear and does code audits on it. There is no line specifically marked "back door". There's also no reason to believe that Huawei products are less secure than other stuff on the market. If anything, if the NSA is bitching about Huawei gear, it's almost an endorsement of its security.

So you work for the NSA?

Huawei source code

[Anonymous Coward]

#include

In all seriousness, it's a pretty roundabout way to get one's Linux build. What did YOU think was inside those boxes?

Retaliation is fair game

[hessian]

The Chinese have been hacking American military stuff since the 1980s.

Not only that, they were the source of the vast majority of the weapons used against us in the Vietnam war, and fought directly against us in Korea.

They're bad guys.

Re: Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad guys? Really? They're bad? And guys!? You sound like a child, wandering into the middle of a movie....

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Jmc23]

Remind us again why the US was there in the first place.

Fucking kool-aid drinkers.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[YukariHirai]

Merely fighting against America does not necessarily make them bad guys, in a reasonably objective sense. If you are American, then anyone fighting against you would seem to be bad guys from your point of view, but from an outsider's point of view, it's just "these guys" and "these other guys".

Some might argue that them hacking makes them bad guys by some measure, but the US has been doing the same thing, so I'd consider that inconclusive at best and hypocrisy at worst. Others might argue that the stuff done to Americans during the Vietnam War makes them bad guys, but given everything done by the Americans during the Vietnam War... well, same conclusion.

With that said of course, the Chinese government has had a history of doing some very shitty things to a lot of people. On the other hand, so has the US government...

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

Remind us again why the US was there in the first place.

Fucking kool-aid drinkers.

It was part of a Cold War era foreign policy strategy called "containment". It led to some controversial things such as the Vietnam war, but it was effective at stopping the Soviet Union from conquering more territory.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

No ideas where you had your informations but even VPA soldiers said that they don't like China-made weapons, and prevented use them as possible.
WTF stuffs you read!?

Russian made + some domestic weapons were used by VPA.
American made captured weapons + handcrafted mine/bomb/gun made from America stuffs were used by VC.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[AHuxley]

Why was "military stuff" near any vast fast public networks? What contractor or gov worker would connect a site, factory, base, supply system to a public network for anyone to 'try' for from some competing or hostile distant nation? Thats why most wealthy nations had dedicated hardened networks and very skilled staff. Only poor nations used their own low quality civilian like telco systems for encoded mill use.
i.e. you get into a typing pool or low security mil network or its a massive well crafted honeypot.
i.e. after the first few attempts by other nations to 'look' at the more secret networks - would steps be taken to remove or not connect military stuff from easy public networks with suspect international access?
If the US was so good on the offensive part as we are now understanding via whistleblowers and the US press the hardened/secure parts would have been as impressive over decades?
So expect the stories of mass 'military stuff' been lost via huge open fast public networks interfacing with fast not secure mil networks to be propaganda, a domestic recruiting tool (get a smart well paying mil job to help save the nations networks), extra funding stories of local political leaders (boondoggles) or junk science that could be lost with no risk.
The US had a total mastery of getting into other nations networks globally but much less understanding in not connecting its own real data to the same fast open junk public/academic/telco networks?
Expect honeypots, ended projects, altered work and disinformation to have been found at the end of most "hacking military stuff" - good enough to keep another nation best occupied/spending for years and follow back the hackers networks but not anything too useful.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[the eric conspiracy]

Right.

However I have some Chinese friends who aren't too happy with the history of their government. The remember things like relatives being bundled off to the provinces to never be seen again.

Remember the empty chair.

http://www.economist.com/blogs...

America has plenty of problems but....

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

> Merely fighting against America does not necessarily make them bad guys, in a reasonably objective sense. If you are American, then anyone fighting against you would seem to be bad guys from your point of view, but from an outsider's point of view, it's just "these guys" and "these other guys".

If your country is a member of NATO, or the EU, or has a US military base, you are effectively Americans as far as geopolitics goes. China and Russia are the last two major powers outside of that, so there is no such thing as an uninterested third party when the eagle mixes it up with the bear and dragon.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[frist]

There is no comparison my friend. You need to read about the glorious peoples' revolution in china. You need to read about 30 million people dying to famine because of Mao. When people compare the USA with China or the Soviet Union, it just shows how ignorant they are of history.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no comparison my friend. You need to read about the glorious peoples' revolution in china. You need to read about 30 million people dying to famine because of Mao. When people compare the USA with China or the Soviet Union, it just shows how ignorant they are of history.

Exactly. Till you review US history and how the original Native Americans were exterminated and try to spot the difference. The US government was responsible for the genocide of Native Americans for a long period of time. Concentration camps? Think of the Japanese Internment camps during WW2. It becomes harder and harder to spot the difference between the US government and that of China or the Soviet Union when the US currently holds the numero uno position for the most number of people incarcerated in prison as a percentage of the population.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Alomex]

Vietnam was fighting for its independence. In fact had it been granted after WWII as France had promised they would have likely become a capitalist country like the rest of Indochina.

Instead we cornered them into a communist corner by bombing them and their children with napalm and they are the "bad guys" because the Chinese gave them some rifles?

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that one has to be cognizant of history, but that only makes the USA the lesser of the evils. It doesn't make the USA the utopia. Also, as with the stock market, past performance is no indication of future performance, although that is the only data we have. The root of the problem is that countries are necessarily run by megalomaniacs, since only megalomaniacs are interested in the job.

Re:Retaliation is fair game

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got an idea. You should go to China. Try giving away some bibles to some of the citizens. Not religious, how about handing out political circulars stating the need for an alternative to one party political rule. Or perhaps you can simply drop your Chinese escort and go to the parts of China that the government simply does not want you to see. If you do any of the above, you will most certainly know what is like to be in a Chinese prison.

Just for kicks. Try to distribute some anti-Putin, pro Ukrainian Crimea leaflets in Moscow right now. Let see how long you last.

Until then STFU. You have no idea what true state oppression really is. If you think that America is a genocidal freedom oppressing country no better than China or Russia right now you are truly a deluded fool.

Huawei source code, take 2

[Anonymous Coward]

#include "cisco.h"

sigh...

Re:Huawei source code, take 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, meanwhile over at cisco;-

#include linux.h

The jokes on you NSA

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Huawei had stolen the code from Cisco. So it is no big loss for them. They are laughing at NSA for not getting the source from the source.

Re: The jokes on you NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

they just wanted to run diff -u

Re: The jokes on you NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

And the NSA is laughing because it was Cisco's backdoored code that let them in.

Re:The jokes on you NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Huawei had stolen the code from Cisco. So it is no big loss for them. They are laughing at NSA for not getting the source from the source.

True in the early 90's, false today. If Cisco believed Huawei would steal their source code, why do they continue to have a Chinese-mainland based subsidy?

Re:The jokes on you NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just the early nineties. I helped evaluate a number of companies' networking gear for a rebadging effort about 10 years ago. Huawei was one of them. It was pretty easy to spot how blatantly they had copied the CLI from Cisco, and it didn't take much more work to find a couple of bugs that were identical with Cisco bugs.

As for why Cisco still has a subsidiary there, it's simple. Profit. Chambers has never given a shit about long-term viability, and he's completely non-technical (despite his resume). As far as he's concerned, developers are interchangeable cogs, so why not go get cheaper ones from China? Same for manufacturing. Plus, having a subsidiary makes it ever so much easier to sell to China, which is a huge market (especially when you have no ethical issues with things like the Great Firewall).

As long as he gets his big bonuses, he doesn't give a damn about stolen code.

Wow !!

[Taco Cowboy]

Let's say I robbed you, and because of that, I found that you've got a gun.

And because of that, *YOU* are dangerous !!!

You, Sir, have a weird sense of humor !

Re:Wow !!

[binarylarry]

Huawei so serious?

Re:Wow !!

[Anonymous Coward]

That is not humor. We are dangerous and we accept no threat to exist.

Re:Wow !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The NSA does no do this for entertainment or commercial purpose. This is the force of a major power being used to augment the industrial military might. This is just one facet of what really goes on not what you think goes on.

Re:Wow !!

[MobSwatter]

Anyone seeing here why the TPP trade deal might not be such a good idea after all? Then again over the last 20 years you've all see the dollar that was with 5 Canadian to 1 US go 1 for 1. Your paying 5 bucks a gallon for gas and almost as much for milk. Warning signs? What warning signs..? We'll be having are dollar even with the peso in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and the news will still be telling everyone that everything is okay...

Re:Wow !!

[Jmc23]

Um, nice revisionist history there. Unfortunately reality and the internet disagree with you.

Re:Wow !!

[MobSwatter]

Well at least someone stands up and takes credit for all that.

Re:Wow !!

[thebigmacd]

Uh...yeah...no

The lowest the Canadian dollar has ever been was 61.79 cents US.

Re:Wow !!

[MobSwatter]

Yep, my bad, you are right. That was the exchange I got at a store up there for a pack of smokes while on vacation paying with US dollars, nice to have made out like a bandit at one point. Still even at that, it was 1.62CAN/1.00US, now it's 1.12CAN/1.00US.

Re:Wow !!

[noh8rz10]

Um, nice revisionist history there. Unfortunately reality and the internet disagree with you.

he's pretty much right. gas and milk are $4/gal. if the dollar were even with the peso and there were a zombie apocalypse, fox news would be blaming obama and illegal immigrants.

Re:Wow !!

[ComputersKai]

change that to "Armed Robbery"

Re:Wow !!

[MobSwatter]

Yeah, but folks are on the status quo only recognition mode, seems it's the same crap that preceded the fall of the soviet union. "Oh look there's a problem we can't solve because it will effect our paychecks and piss off the corporations, lets ignore it and move to the next one while the unsolved one compounds."

Re:Wow !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say I robbed you, and because of that, I found that you've got a gun.

And because of that, *YOU* are dangerous !!!

Don't think of this as a warning between civilized people. Think of these as criminal gangs. The Americans are worried the guy with the gun is dangerous precisely because they've been shooting at him, they are still shooting at him and they plan to keep shooting at him. It's not pleasant when you thought you were shooting at an unarmed civilian and it turns out he's actually a member of a rival gang.

Re:Wow !!

[ganjadude]

in 1999 1 US dollar went for 1.30 canadian.(i only know this because I worked on the NYS thruway and we had to know this being that we would deal with canadians) not quite 5-1, and in the past few years the canadian dollar was actually stronger than ours.

Re: Wow !!

[Anonymous Coward]

And you're an idiot. This is espionage. Against a dangerous adversary. So cry more.

Re: Wow !!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you Americans could grow a bit less paranoid, this world would be a nicer place. Really.

Back you BS allegations up with facts, please.

So far we see your own brutality projected on others in your PHANTASIES.

Re:Wow !!

[arglebargle_xiv]

I wonder if the NSA was surprised to find Cisco copyright notices in the "Huawei" code they took? And wouldn't this be repossession rather than theft?

Too slow

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of trickling these reports out one at a time, it would have been far better to take the time to vet them and release them all together. I'm very afraid the effect of dripping these out one drop at a time will be to dilute the public's interest and outrage.

Re:Too slow

[Anonymous Coward]

No, its giving people time to digest how morally corrupt the USA. And each new revelation is another reminder that with dealing with the USA you best keep a close eye on your wallet.

Re:Too slow

[Anonymous Coward]

The group Snowden worked with is trying to keep in in the public eye by trickling it out. They've obviously failed because the latest "revelations" are being greeted with deafening silence. His 15 minutes of fame are over.

Re:Too slow

[Anonymous Coward]

If you do it all as one big hit the impact while large will wither rather quickly. Far better to constantly pound and pound them with how corrupt they are by providing constant proof.

Re:Too slow

[Anonymous Coward]

You're still paying attention, though, I see.

In Soviet style USA

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody and everything is a threat to the current regime.

No he did the right thing

[future assassin]

He releases in between Dancing With the Starts to catch people attention before they go back to the next reality tv show.

Round and round we go

[grub]

So, in essence, the NSA stole the stuff Huawei originally stole from Canada's Nortel.

Re:Round and round we go

[Anonymous Coward]

The title of your comment occurs in this song that I like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCTDKLjdok4

Enjoy!

NEWS FLASH !! THIS IS HOW THEY KNOW !!

[Anonymous Coward]

They know WhoWhy is dirty because they stole the source !! Look to the source !! Look to the source !! Besides this is what they get paid to do !! Getting caught IN PUBLIC by TRAIDER "Have I got somthing for you" Snowden changes nothing !!

NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not the only joke on the NSA.

An even bigger one is that they have now validated and condoned stealing source code as an acceptable activity. The legal ramifications of this are immense. The comedy value is just icing on the cake.

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Jmc23]

and IP doesn't matter!!

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the legality of war? What is it to kill without limit. You think this is a comedy? WTF do you think the NSA is? The reason we won WWII? Almost certainly.

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Anonymous Coward]

>The legal ramifications of this are immense.

Not really. Two words:

Sovereign Immunity.

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[sconeu]

IPv4 or IPv6?

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Jmc23]

You're in the wrong namespace. Try and focus on the thread.

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the legality of war? What is it to kill without limit. You think this is a comedy? WTF do you think the NSA is? The reason we won WWII? Almost certainly.

Neither the CIA nor NSA existed during World War II. The OSS on the other hand engaged in activities currently carried out by the CIA and NSA. Read a non-fiction book sometime, you might learn something of value.

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[sconeu]

Whoosh.

Also, remember, we're talking about routers. I'm well aware of what IP meant in context.

Re:NSA validates the right to steal source code

[Jmc23]

Oh, you actually thought that was funny?

OMG the socially inept troglodytes agree with you.

Yeah whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not going to change anything... The NSA can do whatever the hell they want, a indent think they give a shout if it's leaked because the most people will do is hand weave haha

NSA

[giorgist]

Tell us what you know !!! Information wants to be free

Entertaining quote

[phantomfive]

From the article:

NSA workers not only succeeded in accessing the email archive, but also the secret source code of individual Huwaei products. Software source code is the holy grail of computer companies.

Re:Entertaining quote

[AHuxley]

Thats the big question - how did the NSA get in...
China faced years of efforts from the USA, UK and Soviet Union to try and understand its nuclear tests and later rapid mil advances via help from diverse private EU/US/Canadian contractors.
China knew every longer range radio transmission of any kind was been saved by sites in surrounding nations and via sat efforts.
China knew to harden all communications surrounding is nuclear tests.
i.e. British sigint in Hong Kong was a massive undertaking even with the 1997 handover (Chung Hom Kok/Demos-I), later moved to Australia.
China was well aware of the efforts going back decades and the constant signals attention their embassies got.
So for the NSA just to get into some "email archive" seems a bit too lucky both from a networking aspect in China or what China expects to flow in from outside networks.
i.e. staff been turned or hardware changes vs accessing a network all the way in and out to move the data?

Re:Entertaining quote

[phantomfive]

Thats the big question - how did the NSA get in...

Through the holes in the source code that Huawei stole from Cisco? (which were placed there by the NSA in the first place?)

Re:Entertaining quote

[AHuxley]

You would think the Russian advisors would have warned them about complex US hardware and software exported via no questions asked US front companies :)

Re:Entertaining quote

[phantomfive]

The Russian advisors are probably over there snickering in the corner

I just had a brilliant idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't BSA or someone like that take the NSA to court for copyright infringement?
We all know that piracy is stealing right? And NSA stole huwaeis IP and infringing on others IP is pretty much the worst thing ever according to the MAFIAA and totally justifies confiscation of all your hardware to be searched through for copyrighted materials.
Kinda like how the government took down Capone for tax evasion.

(I realise that this is very naive and would never happen in real life, but it was a nice little daydream)

China vs NSA.

[porky_pig_jr]

Repeat after me: China = bad! NSA = good!

Act of war... according to US

[jma05]

> Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?

According to US government, hacking communication infrastructure of a country by another government is an "act of war", not regular espionage. They said this very loudly just before Snowden revelations began. So NO. They are not supposed to be doing that.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[cold fjord]

"Act of war" is not a catchall for all hacking, only certain acts.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[jma05]

Why don't you go ahead and define what is and what isn't an "act of war", exclusively using statements by US officials on this matter, rather than your personal opinions that suit your worldview.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[sumdumass]

Actually, it was the Pentagon who claimed hacking was an act of war. I can't seem to find any law maker, presidential statement, or law making it so.

Granted, the Pentagon is a government agency, but they cannot act lawfully without the civilian government giving them permission. So obviously, an act of war is subject to interpretation.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[ignavus]

> Wait,... isn't this the purpose of the NSA?

According to US government, hacking communication infrastructure of a country by another government is an "act of war", not regular espionage. They said this very loudly just before Snowden revelations began. So NO. They are not supposed to be doing that.

Ah, but when we do it, it is a glorious action undertaken for freedom, truth, and to protect innocent children.

But when those foreigners do the same thing, it is because they are mean, slinking, low scoundrels.

There's a world of difference. Anyone can see that!

Re:Act of war... according to US

[DNS-and-BIND]

No hacking of communication infrastructure happened. The NSA just broke in to Huawei company's servers. Did we even read the article, or are we just jumping to conclusions that support our pre-existing mental states?

Re:Act of war... according to US

[jma05]

I am not sure what you are disagreeing with.

- Pentagon officials are US officials.
- I did not say that an act of war isn't subject to interpretation, although I fail to see how you reached that conclusion, given your prior propositions.
- Nor does it make sense for cold fjord to insinuate that I implied that all hacking falls under acts of war. He was making a strawman argument.

But I am asking what is it that was an "act of war" about Chinese hacking of US that wasn't the same about US hacking of Chinese. That it was that China did it, vs. US did it? Is that what you are referring to as "subject to interpretation".

Re:Act of war... according to US

[sumdumass]

I am not sure what you are disagreeing with.

I'm not really in disagreement with anything, just stating that different people have different opinions about it and the one you seem to be relying on is an underling of the people with the power to actually decide what is and what isn't an act of war against the US. This means they can say a lot of things and it doesn't make it so.

Pentagon officials are US officials.

Yes, and they are under higher up officials who make those decisions. They also administrate the military so you could say they might have been posturing to justify budgetary wants. Either way, they do not have the power to decide what is or isn't an act of war unless the entire civilian government is taken out first.

I did not say that an act of war isn't subject to interpretation, although I fail to see how you reached that conclusion, given your prior propositions.

I never said you did say it. I said that an entity without the power to make the claim made it and until you hear it from those who can make the determination, it is all opinion. We have government entities and employees on bother the pro and denial side of global warming, some of which state certain things have to happen. But we don't take their comments as the official position of the US because the US often ignores their recommendations or does the opposite. So taking the wording of a department without clear authority doesn't seem as set in stone as you pretend it is.

But I am asking what is it that was an "act of war" about Chinese hacking of US that wasn't the same about US hacking of Chinese. That it was that China did it, vs. US did it? Is that what you are referring to as "subject to interpretation".

The difference is that the claim of an act of war was made by an underling organization within the US government that doesn't have the power to establish what is or is not an act of war. When you hear congress passing a resolution declaring it an act of war or the president who has constitutional authority creating an executive order declaring it then going to congress, it can be clearly understood as an act of war. Until then, its a department completely incapable of making the determination as a matter of policy that made a statement.

In other words, no one with the authority to declare so has declared hacking as an act of war nor has any established treaty. Your question and reasoning doesn't stand scrutiny when examined in the light of facts. The entire concept of it being an act of war was only the subject of someone's interpretation or opinion about hacking that was going on.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the problem. The Chinese broke into the U.S. so the U.S. naturally responded with the same coins. The U.S. simply defended itself.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[Anonymous Coward]

NSA did that starting 2009 and from the article which we all read they did this with the intent of gaining knowledge of how to exploit huwaei products so they can hack even more infrastructure worldwide..
They also spied on chinese government officials, it's pretty obvious that they hacked chinese infrastructure to achieve both these goals.

Now kindly crawl back under your rock and refrain from childish attempts to confuse the issue, shill.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[jma05]

I think you argued for your position quite well here. It just did not connect in the earlier post since I cannot read your mind.

Re:Act of war... according to US

[Anonymous Coward]

ok, so you are basically saying that nsa and perhaps other us officials are hypocrites and really a fucking morons - what are the americans gonna do about such people running their country?

Re:Act of war... according to US

[jma05]

> Did we even read the article

From NYT:
"But the plans went further: to exploit Huawei’s technology so that when the company sold equipment to other countries — including both allies and nations that avoid buying American products — the N.S.A. could roam through their computer and telephone networks to conduct surveillance and, if ordered by the president, offensive cyberoperations."

Re:Act of war... according to US

[sumdumass]

Well, despite there being a long history of morons and hypocrites working for the government, i wasn't saying that at all. I basically said someone made a statement about something above their pay grade and you should not take it as an official policy statement.

As for idiots or morons running the country, just like any other country, we have quite a few of them in the civilian population too. So the answer will be the same as last year or 50 years ago. NOTHING.

The USSR was fail

[hessian]

It led to some controversial things such as the Vietnam war, but it was effective at stopping the Soviet Union from conquering more territory.

Which, given what a social, political, environmental and cultural wasteland the Communists left behind wherever they gained authority, was a justifiable and in fact laudable goal.

Re:The USSR was fail

[Anonymous Coward]

> Which, given what a social, political, environmental and cultural wasteland the Communists left behind wherever they gained authority, was a justifiable and in fact laudable goal.

As opposed to the dictators and brutal regimes installed by US? You need to read a little Chomsky. The cold war was a huge blunder. There are no heroes on either side.

Re:The USSR was fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Chile is a freaking paradise of liberty nowadays.
I'm not saying that's because of Pinochet, but Allende sure wouldn't have gotten them there.

Re:The USSR was fail

[Anonymous Coward]

>Allende sure wouldn't have gotten them there.

Allende might have had a better chance if kissinger hadn't done the dirty work of getting him ousted and killed in a us-instigated coup...

Re:The USSR was fail

[Anonymous Coward]

yep; can't have them chileans keeping mineral wealth from their own country, at least not while while anaconda copper and ITT (back then) and those other Mom and Pop shops own all those senators.

"Hey, whut are all them furriners doing sitting on our oil/copper/rubber/etc?"

Re:The USSR was fail

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to the social, political, environmental, and cultural wasteland the Capitalists, primarily but not entirely limited to the US, have left behind wherever they've propped up tin horn dictator thugs who oppress their own people but allow our corporations free reign for anything? Or were those "laudable goals" too?

Re:The USSR was fail

[Anonymous Coward]

You Americans always find a nice explanation for your crimes.

In Viet Nam, you propped up a colonial power.

HuaWei's code is crap

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had the misfortune of having to work with some of Huawei's code and all I can say is it's about the worst code I have ever seen. Coding style and indentation was often random and it goes downhill from there. It makes Cisco's code look like a masterpiece. It was full of GPL headers in their proprietary code, they just hacked it up into an unrecognizable mess. I wouldn't be surprised if there's hundreds of exploits in Huawei's code. They also base their stuff off of older versions of VxWorks which is not noted for being all that secure since there's only a single global address space and once you get the T-shell you're basically god.

Posting as AC for obvious reasons.

Goldman

[ebonum]

Remember when Goldman lost some of their trading software? The US government couldn't move fast enough to arrest the guy(Aleynikov ). Time for Huawei to go to the police and ask to for the same. Someone should go to jail, and there will be billion dollar lawsuits. Huawei is a massive, mufti-billion dollar a year company and their source code does have significant value. Huawei has be hacked and has been damaged. If the police do nothing, then change the laws. The next time a Goldman Sachs gets hacked, don't prosecute. Don't extradite some kid from a foreign country to face face prosecution here.

We are the US. One thing that makes us different from the Chinese Communist party is that Chinese Communist party does what it wants and only applies the law when convenient. We do not. We believe in equal protection form the government and equal application of the laws. An American company caught polluting in China will be shown no mercy. A Chinese company polluting in China will come to a quiet, negotiated solution or face no charges at all. This is a key difference between us and them. If the US government really is no better than they are, we need to rethink everything up to dissolving the government.

I'm not sure "ironically" is the right word..

[issicus]

Isn't that why they hacked huawei?

well...

[Connie_Lingus]

...isn't that kinda what we pay them to do?

seriously, the last time i checked China was a communist country with no rule of law and no true free elections...isn't it then part of the national security interests of the United States to do what they can to keep tabs on all sorts of stuff?

don't we know that Chinese hackers have infiltrated *our* corporations? do you really think microsoft has never been hacked or the windows source code downloaded and sold to players all over the globe?

i mean, really...is what everyone here shooting for is the US just closing up all security agencies and saying to its citizens "well, game over...lets hope we never need protection against bad actors on the world stage....breath mint anyone?"

So, of course this is all good for the USA right?

[compucomp2]

Somehow this will be portrayed as EVIL RED CHINA by the compliant Western media and the Slashdot China-hating brigade. It seems you are doing everything you accuse us of doing, and more. Total American hypocrisy as usual, but since the Americans have been sanctimonious hypocrites for decades, it seems it cannot be helped, and Slashdot is no different. As usual this is totally fine because these guys are on your team, and your team cannot commit a foul right, while everything the other team does is a foul?

Huawei to judge...

[Anonymous Coward]

That is how you do it folks :)

Nothing ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

When NSA went into it, they found backdoors in the code designed to look for things. Snowden is such a traitor that he is only giving part of the data that he found. Had he wanted to be half way decent, he would have shown what the NSA found.

Re:Nothing ironic

[Anonymous Coward]

It's his pension... and waving of hands saying later on how he did something while living off privileged life :D

 

But we already know Huawei routers are insecure

[Anonymous Coward]

They are full of holes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUC_FduwWxU

Not sure if having the source code could tell you if the holes are just bad coding or deliberate, I guess that may come down to the comments the developers made in the source that may indicate where they deliberately used coding practices that could a back door with plausible deniability.

e.g. /**/ /*Do not fix broken doors used by cheeky monkey.*/

Finally the perfect excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

for China to set tariffs and other protective barriers against Cisco and Juniper. Despite the government subsidy of telecom suppliers ZTE and Huawei, Cisco was actually the market leader in China. Even though China probably assumes espionage by the United States, physical proof means they can get their way around WTO foreign competition rules.

Here we go again

[dbIII]

Q: Why is Snowden a traitor and North not?
Please show your working.


I'll bet it's an amusing little bit that skates around some view that Snowden was betraying a King for his country and North betraying his country in the way he served his King. I really don't get why people like you want to spit in the face of George Washington and go back to King George.

Re:Here we go again

[sumdumass]

Q: Why is Snowden a traitor and North not?

lol.. You mean Colonel Oliver North?

I'm still not sure why he would be a traitor and you failed to present anything substantial on that the last time you attempted to pose this same question.

I'll bet it's an amusing little bit that skates around some view that Snowden was betraying a King for his country

Snowden betrayed his country, not his king. He stole secretes that went past anything about domestic spying and gave them to foreign nations, some of which are hostile at this moment.

and North betraying his country in the way he served his King.

No, what North did was split legal hairs like Clinton did except you don't agree with his politics so he is evil and everyone else is your hero.

I really don't get why people like you want to spit in the face of George Washington and go back to King George.

And I really don't get why you think something that exists only in your head is real. But those are the breaks, I don't understand your fantasy and you don't understand it is just your fantasy.

Re:Here we go again

[dbIII]

I'm still not sure why he would be a traitor

There's my answer then - King before country and fuck the constitution. So why do you make so much noise about being a patriot?

Re:Here we go again

[dbIII]

He stole secretes that went past anything about domestic spying and gave them to foreign nations

Is a newspaper a foreign nation now?

Re:Here we go again

[sumdumass]

Like I said, all in your mind. Now please go take your meds and call your shrink before posting any more.

Re:Here we go again

[dbIII]

So supplying weapons to a terrorist group less than a year after they killed over a hundred US marines is not treason but leaking to a newspaper is? If you are being serious then you are not in a position to be lecturing others on mental illness.

Re:Here we go again

[sumdumass]

NO a news paper is not a foreign nation. It is a tool, a form of conveyance of communication that allows information to flow into the foreign nations. Please stop playing stupid.

Re:Here we go again

[sumdumass]

Sigh... You just don't get it. You probably never will get it. You are the one who demanded I defend Ollie North, I never brought him up.

No, supplying arms to terrorists who killed US marines is not treason if it is in our national interest just like selling arms to Germany and Japan after they killed crap loads more American military personnel is not treason- because it was in our national interest. Absent an act of congress declaring war, the president is constitutionally charged with determining who is or is not our enemy. But I never said anything about Treason, I said traitor and you should spend some time looking the definitions of the two up and comparing them. In the US, Treason is specifically defined by the Constitution. Here is a hint, one can be the other but one doesn't have to be the other.

And here I figured you would have known that with all the king verses constitution you keep throwing around. Perhaps your doc should adjust your meds a bit.

Re:Here we go again

[dbIII]

So there we go - interests of a corrupt few and a terrorist group before a nation. Now at least the readers here know where you are coming from when you call Snowden a traitor.

But I never said anything about Treason, I said traitor

What a pathetic attempt to weasel out and not take responsibility for your own words.

Re:Here we go again

[dbIII]

Please stop playing stupid.

I'd have to be to believe a lie like that "gave them to foreign nations" trash you are trying to sell.

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a perfect example of the selfish american and why most of the world dont like you. usa may do whatever because _i_ live here. and anything that hurts usa but makes the world as a whole better is also bad... selfish little pricks

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

Why dont you erect a huge wall around your country to protect it from information getting out? (there is a historical reference here, see if you can spot it)

Re:Here we go again

[Anonymous Coward]

So going against the "Government" rules of conduct is okay? Right just ask snowden. If i remember the situation correctly, north was part of the government at the time, military directly not retired, which says that an officer in the military is still "on duty" till the age of 65 then, not part of the CIA, but active duty. There is a distinction, he was serving under the administration of pres carter. As a col. not the honerary title but position of, a classical distinction. That while a col, he participated in and was part of a "group" of people who went to Iran, met with an leader of a foreign government who accepted a bribe to keep some prisoners, till after an american election, that while doing this he delayed the release that another negiotation team had secured. Because of the political points rewarded, the in power fell into disfavor, and lost the election, appearing to be weak on foreign enemies, and bad guys... and this is good?

Re:Here we go again

[sumdumass]

Still playing stupid or are you outtigjy trolling now?

Not Ironic, logical

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're the US Government agency tasked with, among other things, cyber offense and defense. You've caught wind that a major geopolitical rival's big telecom equipment company might be sneaking in state-controlled backdoors in their software. It would seem *logical* that you would go and steal their code and docs at that point to try to get a handle on things.

Why prent to be that stupid?

[dbIII]

So you want us to bring up slavery?
Now do you understand how STUPID your attempted goalpost shift above is.

The Chinese really ought to sanction US companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a 10 year import ban on all Cisco equipment would be an appropriate response. If the Chinese were found doing this to America, I'm pretty sure there would be consequences. Of course, everything America does is always right, according to the ruling junta, regardless of how evil, or heinous. The rest of the world are just sick of this the United States, and their trampling on everyone else's rights and freedoms. We are just damn glad that we don't live there.
I guess now that this behaviour is deemed acceptable by the United States, they accept that other nations have the same right to attack US infrastructure, and private enterprises for the same reasons.

No - Korea was a draw

[Bruce66423]

And they lost in Malaya, the forgotten episode of the Cold War. Actually the CHINESE lost in Vietnam; by the end the North was aligned with Moscow and actually fought a war with China in 1979. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Problem for relying on 'Security' by Obscurity

[oo_00]

It's a big problem only if you rely on 'Security' by Obscurity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
For low-tier companies like Microsoft source-code leak would be a real disaster.

counterproductive

[Anonymous Coward]

It is hard to see how revealing this could be seen as whistleblowing, or doing anything useful for Snowden's country and its allies. It will just piss off China and damage international relations. I thought he was claiming to be a patriot ?

First world problems for slashtards

[Anonymous Coward]

In the western world you can bitch about the NSA all you want in public with your real name and pretend that Huawei is the innocent victim. If you were in China, you are not allowed to criticize the government or their equivalent of the NSA in public, nor in private and if you did so on the internet the Huawei built great Firewall of China will block you and you just might be rounded up in the middle of the night by the state and imprisoned.

Most of you on Slashdot don't know how good you have it regarding free speech. You whine that you can't freely violate copyright, nor leak confidential government or business documents without facing repercussions, but there isn't a country in the world where you are allowed to do so aside from the fantasy ideal anarchist country that only exists in your little hacktivist minds.

Re:So, of course this is all good for the USA righ

[Anonymous Coward]

Did China pay you your 50 cents for making this post?

New York Times, not Snowden

[davecb]

See also https://firstlook.org/theinter...

Different ends but same means

[Anonymous Coward]

The biggest difference between what the US does and what China does us that there is no barrier between government and the private sector in China. For example, if China were to hack Cisco or Juniper they would take any and all intellectual property and provide it to Huawei or ZTE. Companies are government and government are companies. There is little to no chance the US government would take any intellectual property and from Huawei and provide it to industry partners such as Cisco. What you need to realize is that yes, the US keeps tabs on it's neighbors both near and far, but there is evidence out there that China has no problem using this information to further their tradewar.

Not really ironic . . .

[Kimomaru]

What's tally ironic is that iPhones are manufactured in China. That's the kind of irony that makes my ears fall off. I think, at some point we're going to have to make these devices in the US.

#include "cisco.h"

[phitsanu]

#include "cisco.h"

The role of the NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

All the NSA is doing is creating new threats by making make more and more people despise the US for violating their privacy. (much like that creationist moron Bush whose job was to generate hatred for America by approving torture and wars for non-existence WMDs)

New Zealand fails

[Anonymous Coward]

http://slashdot.org/story/13/0...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/...

http://slashdot.org/story/13/0...

http://slashdot.org/story/13/1...

Some useful perspective

[hessian]

http://www.americanthinker.com...

Stalin was not the first and not the only Russian tyrant who was ready to turn the whole nation into âoecamp dust.â You may be interested to know that after the Crimean War of 1854â"56, the government of Tsar Nicholas I sold at auction for fertilizer the bleached bones of 38,000 Russian soldiers who fell in the battle of Sevastopol.

Today the world is threatened with a second Crimean War. The troops under the command of the new tsar of Russia are on alert.