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Verizon Drops Plans To Sell Huawei Phones Due To US Government Pressure (bloomberg.com)
Bloomberg reports that Verizon has dropped all plans to sell phones by Chinese manufacturer Huawei due to pressure from the U.S. government. The decision comes after AT&T walked away from a deal earlier this month to sell Huawei smartphones in the U.S. Bloomberg: Huawei devices still work on both companies' networks, but direct sales would've allowed them to reach more consumers than they can through third parties. The government's renewed concern about Chinese spying is creating a potential roadblock in the race between Verizon and AT&T to offer 5G, the next generation of super-fast mobile service. Huawei is pushing to be among the first to offer 5G-capable phone, but the device may be considered off-limits to U.S. carriers who are beginning to offer the next-generation service this year in a few cities. U.S. security agencies and some lawmakers fear that 5G phones made by companies that may have close ties to the Chinese government could pose a security risk.
preloaded with Chinese spyware you can't delete? Good old American NSA spyware is good enough for me!
....free market and Trump's promises to remove regulations.
The Chinese are probably less interested in me (as a non-entity wrt their politics) than the USA, who seem interested in fucking up as many people as possible.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
They are all watching, and every modern device is compromised.. Choose your poison.
Personally, i trust the Chinese devices more than US phones. I'm not a target for the Chinese, but i am for our own government, simply due to my existence..
... over capitalism. How odd. The American government knows full well that for all of the technology they have, disassembly of the devices reveals multinational components -- very few of which are American made.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
These US folks are becoming experts in wasting time. Putin put it correctly: -
"Dogs bark but the caravan goes on."
We'll get them online. Enough said.
My mom got a mobile hotspot from Verizon years ago and I groaned when I saw it was made by Huawei. Even if you don't think they're siphoning data, their devices are notorious for abysmal security.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Actually, China already puts a huge 50% import tax on goods. Being blocked from the Chinese market isn't a big deal because few can actually afford them.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I thought that this was the country of freedom!
Nope, this is Trump doing as much damage as he can before he is impeached.
After all the spying revelations about the US alphabet soup agencies , the 96% of the worlds population that does not live in the USA don't trust the US an more than they trust China.
China is already the major trading nation for a large number of countries and it is busy strengthening those ties, where as the US is trying to cut them.
Any trade war the US gets into will on hasten the decline of the USA and strengthen everyone else. Sure the world will suffer for a while, but thats the nice thing about capitalism, someone else will fill the gap.
What made America great was the ability to buy cheap goods from abroad. As soon at phones cost three times what they do, people will cut back on them.
And yet other countries have free trade deals with them.
The USA is the 3rd largest trading partner after Australia and China. the new PPTA deal (without the USA) will open up other markets.
New Zealand has a free trade agreement with China.
If we had to stop trading with either China or the USA the USA would lose, and that is true for many countries.
Awww, look at the little idiot. Its quite cute the way they think everyone lives in the USA. Lots of people live in far better countries.
And yet other countries have free trade deals with them.
Most nations (including the USA) dance to the tune of their ultra-rich, so it makes sense to undermine one's own nation to get reduced profits rather than none at all.
If we had to stop trading with either China or the USA the USA would lose, and that is true for many countries.
Well it's a good thing the USA isn't making crazy demands like that then, eh?
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If they don't believe the phones are secure and are telling carriers not to sell them, why not just go all the way and ban their importation and operation on US networks as a national security matter?
Is a dick move, but understable, to ban Huawei equipment (cellphones, telecom Gear, servers, storage, datacom and SW) for the goverment at all levels (federal, state, local).
Is and even dickier move (and not undestable) to ban private enterprises to use the network-side kit.
But is the dickiest move, and the least understable one, to ban the direct sale of cellphones by carriers.
Problem #1: Is the public that is the most harmed, as huawei phones are decent phones at decent prices, and joe sixpack could not care less that the chinese spies discover that he is galavanting. Less choices=less competition.
Problem #2: It can inspire retaliatory measures by the chinese. And rightly so, may I add.
Problem #3: Is probably ilegal by treaties like the ones signed in the WTO, so the government exposes itself to a complaint and losing face.
Problem #4: When the USoA (being this administration or another one in the future) start to (re)negotiate trade deals, the potential partners will see this precedent and go Hummmm!
Disclosure: I worked for Huawei in Venezuela on the telco side for a year, starting around 2007. At that time there was no server/storage/sw side. I later did technical training on Storage/Server/Cloud for them, but was not in their payroll.
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
"Well it's a good thing the USA isn't making crazy demands like that then, eh?"
Pulled out of the TPPA, wants to renegotiate NAFTA, and now inching towards a trade war with China, etc etc etc.
Do you want to check your definition of crazy ?
I don't care about Chinese and Russian spying or potential spying anymore. Our country has a whole lot more problems than that. We cannot even take care of our most vulnerable citizens and we have the highest incarceration rate in the western world. At this point it's just a distraction from domestic problems.
So, you twist my words to make me an opponent? Sure sounds like you just want to argue regardless of what it's about.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Re "Wouldn't it be better to make ALL cellphones more secure, by law"?
How could the NSA collect it all if every cell phone had real crypto? Real crypto that had to be worked on per phone for a few mins, hours, days per interesting person?
Real time access is the only way to support the collect it all mission globally with big brand junk crypto been the standard.
How could the GCHQ meet its Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act obligations to collect it all if every cell phone had a complex crypto lock?
Junk crypto allows the UK to collect on interesting political groups in the USA that support Ireland without having to ask the USA for crypto keys to US cell phones.
A small town, city in the USA has its police under investigation by internal affairs. Should that investigation be blocked as the people under investigation know to use any good quality cell phone?
Thats what police, contractors gov and mil want. Easy access to all cell phone data, voice prints, GPS, live mic, camera, files without needing to wait or have to push new gov malware onto every cell phone of interest.
Make that too difficult and the interesting people will notice the gov/mil/police malware been pushed down onto their cell phone.
The interesting people stop talking and the good investigators get nothing.
Thats why cell phone crypto is such junk. The police and security services need a real time way in.
Criminals, spies, dual citizens, people of faith, the corrupt just keep walking around with the cell phones as they still understand the crypto to work.
The big trusted brand would never give their data/voice prints/files to their gov/mil/police...
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
One might expect to be detained at LAX for carrying a Huawei phone.
Re: "Criminals, spies, dual citizens, people of faith, the corrupt just keep walking around with the cell phones as they still understand the crypto to work."
Surely this must be changing? More & more ordinary citizens are realizing our phones come p0wned from the factory and are snooping our every move. I can only imagine that "interesting" people must have come earlier to the same realization.
I see on /. that Apple's FBI theatrics have persuaded a few gullible fanbois that iPhones are "secure". But I think that's more of the effect of Apple's Reality Distortion Field than anything else. Surely an actual international mobster, spy, revolutionary, terrorist, freedom fighter, etc must be more clueful than your average Apple customer.
I hate China, Huawei, Spies, Verizon, government intervention, and facisim. Who do I root for, here? :-)
First, you should define secure, and then discover that it's either impossible to achieve (because crackers can find the next exploit), or annoys the power users who want advanced features of the device (because they want to get features unavailable in a stock OS).
Do I really have to point out, all the other phones, made by everyone.. the parts in those phones are from China too? I mean, if the Chinese wanna slip in an AMT-like backdoor into some chips, we're screwed. This is just silly protectionism in the name of national security when it makes no fricken difference whatsoever in regards to national security.
Re " "interesting" people must have come earlier to the same realization."
The US mil lets its own special forces, troops, contractors, medical experts, support staff run around with consumer devices?
The NSA and GCHQ would have seen all the data flowing out of the black sites globally as part of their security support for such black sites?
I doubt everyone is that unaware all the time in the different agencies at that level of mil security awareness.
It was allowed as the devices gave a feeling of joy and pleasure to the people far away from home? A huge wage and few consumer comforts?
Re 'international mobster, spy, revolutionary, terrorist, freedom fighter"
A lot of their help comes from lawyers, human rights lawyers, faith groups, dual citizens, police looking for cash, the media with access to security cleared telco workers.
If the interesting people are not seeing cell phone discovery presented to police by a brand, telco then the interesting people might actually still think its safe.
The people selling out the USA to interesting people from what they see might also really be seeing "nothing" and report that back for cash, or as been part of the same community, faith.
The other complication is mid and low level corrupt police, politicians who see what can be done with stingray, federal agents with LETC flights. If they only see real time results as an ID location not a voice print, not the files on a cell phone, not a live mic, then thats all still ok.
PRISM and DROPOUTJEEP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... should have been the wake up to a generation to go dark and stay dark. It was not.
What did they get reassured about by their contracts deep in the US law enforcement, mil, gov structure that kept them using trusting consumer cell phones?
Are interesting people having their corrupt contacts deep in the telco world tell them its still all ok except for location?
The news of China having total access to every aspect of the US telco system just by selling consumer products in the USA?
Yet the US consumer brands are 100% safe from the security services... ?
The telco system is both 100% secure when using the correct brands and 100% open to another nation?
Someone has every voice print in the USA and is not allowing US law enforcement to upset the collection or crypto is holding and the spy, revolutionary, terrorist, freedom fighter, corrupt police know its still ok to talk?
What are security services doing with their billions in domestic collect it all project funding, water cooling and power usage if that are not collecting it all?
But a China can totally collect it all it all with a few investments in US consumer grade tech?
Someone in US law enforcement has that "Reality Distortion Field" set to max and its still working.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Verizon and AT&T will sell other phones that were still made in China, but that have Americanized names.
Clearly these phones cannot contain spyware.
I have no idea what deals the telecom providers in Belgium, where I live, have. I just know that I can buy any phone unlocked as requested by law. I can just go to any electronics store and byt any phone or buy one in China or wherever and use it with any of the telecom operators.
And all that without roaming costs inside Europe and they still make a lot of monies.
Yes, there are many people who buy their phone with their plan, but even then you could use that phone for whatever you desire. e.g. I buy a Samsung with a plan at X amount. I use the simcard in my iPhone and give the Samsung to my (imaginary) wife with another provider or to my sister who lives in another country> It will obviously not exclude me from payments, but I am free to use it as I please.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.