Slashdot Mirror
Europe Should Be Afraid of Huawei, EU Tech Official Says (reuters.com)
The European Union should be worried about Huawei and other Chinese technology companies because of the risk they pose to the bloc's industry and security, the EU's technology commissioner said on Friday. From a report: "Do we have to be worried about Huawei or other Chinese companies? Yes, I think we have to be worried about those companies," Andrus Ansip told a news conference in Brussels, days after a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested in Canada as part of an investigation into alleged bank fraud.
Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data.
He also said those companies produce chips that could be used "to get our secrets." "As normal, ordinary people we have to be afraid," he said, adding he did not have enough information about the recent arrest in Canada.
Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data.
He also said those companies produce chips that could be used "to get our secrets." "As normal, ordinary people we have to be afraid," he said, adding he did not have enough information about the recent arrest in Canada.
Hawai'i is almost on the other side of the world!!!
Nonaggression works!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL_GShyGv3o
this could easily be rewritten
"Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data. "
to
"Apple, which generated $233 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in US, faces intense scrutiny from many nations over its orders from the US government, driven by concerns it could be used for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because US technology companies were being forced in FISA courts to cooperate with FBI investigations, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data."
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
im getting a little tired of these dog whistles because while it is concerning that China and/or Russia may be spying on us these same people have no problem with google or facebook spying on us!
Lets clean up our own house before we go throwing stones at others.
Oh noes not the yellow peril all over again. Reds under the bed, cue generic ranting...
Well actually I agree. And I spent a number of years actually examining the insides of Huawei kit for security evaluation. What Huawei are, are masters of shifting the blame, making "accidental" firmware features that shouldn't be on kit when its discovered, and calling racist on every single person who has the audacity to actually out flaws.
Plus they get all of their larger corporate customers tied into a non disclosure agreement on flaws, and fix security issues that the customer refuses to deploy with quietly with no mention in the release notes. So you will *never* hear of a really bad flaw unless its found by a independent researcher (which I was not) because their hands are tied. And independent's don't usually buy in enterprise class hardware for their personal labs.
I also used to deal with other major vendors, and yes, some of them were equally as bad at disclosing & avoiding actually fixing something they could "manage" their way out of doing, but none of them ever tried to get me fired as a racist for finding flaws. Some were great, you found something, they fixed it and you had the fix/release in a day/week, and they used to offer to attribute the finding (which I couldn't accept, because I also had a NDA and no publicity clause).
Of course, so say random guy on slashdot. But...
But they aren't worried about hordes of "immigrant" dedicated to destroying their cultures and replacing it with a death cult?
This story isn't really about "normal people", which typically refers to an average citizen. Those have nothing that Chinese intelligence would want. It's the same reason why we "normal people" are relatively safe against the likes of NSA too. We have nothing NSA wants.
It's the corporations that are engaged in competition with China, and state structures that need to be worried. They actually have things Chinese intelligence wants. But that doesn't sound as scary to the "normal people" unfortunately, because they often have trouble connecting "myself" to "my state" and "large corporations in my state that directly affect my livelihood".
Yep, it's always "EVIL" when it's the other side spying. Now if they had total control themselves, they wouldn't cry "wolf" like this, but they'd shut up about it and tell the denizens to go back to their normal lives and live it as if nothing was afoot.
Truth is - we need open source processors and alternatives, so we have an alternative to big corporations that can be forced to make decisions based on the powers that be.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
How about simply reality. YES, you should be very much worried about all foreign supplied technology in your countries infrastructure. It basically places you hostage to that other countries control of the companies that supply you that technology. It can be backed doored in all sorts of ways, to intercept data, to censor data, to shut down the transmission of data, YES, it is extremely risky to place the control of your countries infrastructure in the hands of other countries governments via their control of the companies supplying the technology.
Who would I trust the least, well, you know the easy answer would be the USA but in reality Saudi Arabia and Israel would be fucking worse, and a bunch of other corrupt countries but to be honest I would trust China ahead of the USA, quite a ways ahead. Other countries should really stop using code or electronics coming out of the US, it is way more back doored than most would believe, oh yeah, multiple back doors.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
They're just getting ahead of the curve set down by Australias new laws.
I believe that eventually overworked bureaucrats like Mr Ansip will take a long, very long vacation. If not for the weeks to come, we'll see you in May 2019 for the Parliament election and hope you will get a small taste of democracy, as it might be the first time there's some sort of voter turn out in a European election.
In the meanwhile, as a tech commissioner I hope you will spend the remaining time explaining why do we need a EU censorship directive, why we should remove content within one hour and how can we comply when people are sleeping, whether these are emergency power or not and why "anti-terrorist" powers would be decided in a EU directive, who will send notices to delete content within one hour, how the directive is called, whether it is the "Copyright Directive" and why does it apply in such an extreme broad way, whether e-mail are considered part of the Internet and thus need be subjected to automated censorship.
Please let me know Mr Ansip, as a mere citizen I can say that the peoples of European Union are ready to admit they haven't paid enough attention and I'm sure you will appreciate that more and more people will pay more interest to the works of the European democracy and its institutions.
The app want to know my web history, bookmarks and installed apps.
I think I'll return it even though it's cheaper.
Also bought their semi-broken tablet, I have no idea how that spy or whatever it will be fixed (breaks apps + shit antenna) may return that too.
S3 32 GB 3999 SEK
Vs
Mediapad M5 64 GB 3333 SEK.
Scale AH100? 290 SEK Vs Nokia Body+ for 590ish or beuer bf700/750 for 400-500ish or possibly Amazon but I live in Scandinavia.
But so far Apple has resisted the mandatory decrypting and back doors.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/02/apple-other-tech-companies-continue-to-resist-encryption-backdoor-proposals-by-fbi-us-doj
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/apple-fbi-privacy-encryption-fight-san-bernardino-shooting-syed-farook-iphone
https://www.imore.com/why-apple-was-right-resist-government-demands-back-door-ios
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-wants-apple-to-help-unlock-iphone-used-by-san-bernardino-shooter/2016/02/16/69b903ee-d4d9-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.htm
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
That's whataboutery.
We know that Russia and China are spying.
Replying "but what about X? What about Y?" doesn't mean that Russia and China aren't spying, or that we shouldn't worry about it: it is only an attempt to change the subject.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Their commercials with those poofters floating around in skin tight pants that go halfway down their shins .. that's what scares me.
Over the years we have learned that many US high tech products (processors, motherboards, USB devices,...) contain backdoors, and US developped cryptographic algorithms are deliberately weakened. Now the Echelon states warn EU that China does the same. Smokescreen to the EU ?
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) just came up with eTLS, a version of TLS1.3 that can be decrypted by middleboxes because it uses static keys instead of ephemeral keys from a DH key exchange. This eTLS version is to be used so that companies can decrypt TLS connections to inspect for viruses, information leaks, etc., but also so that data inspection requirements of law enforcement can be fulfilled. American companies are subject to American spy agencies and can be forced to implement backdoors that they cannot tell any of their customers about. The existence of National Security Letters leave not a shred more trust in these companies' products than the reign of the Chinese government over Huawei leaves in their products. Nobody's warning about using Erricson, Nokia, Alcatel, Juniper or Cisco in our networks. These are companies which are beholden to "the good guys", right? They are not more secure, but we can tell them to give us backdoor access. We cannot tell Huawei to open a network for us. I think that's the actual reason behind those warnings. Nobody is trustworthy. The difference is who will cooperate with us.
Well, only a problem between Europe, Asia and the USofA. At least Australia will be safe, right? Right?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
both of whom have been caught multiple times inserting backdoors and spyware into their equipment? No? Seems he's being paid off.
And the fact still remains: it has never been proven that Huawei has inserted backdoors in their telecom equipment. Only accusations, but no proof whatsoever.
Let's be honest here, China doesnt give a flying fuck about *my* secrets, and frankly I'd rather the Chinese or Russians had a backdoor to my data than my own fucking government, Duh.
Funny how the government(s) here dont like backdoors in their *own* shit, but want to mandatory install them in *everyone else's* shit.
Yeah, little trouble ginning up sympathy here for anyone other than joe and jane consumer, who get fucked either way.
The U.S. government is not perfect but I think a great deal not as bad as the Chinese government, in so many ways. And China has been particularly aggressive in its spying, using technology and human assets in the United States and Europe. Chinese aggression against its weaker neighbors is legendary, pushing them around in the the South China sea and other places -- even Chinese fishermen boarding other nation's boats and attacking them with clubs.
Furthermore, the "disappearances" of people in all regions but particularly minority regions has been vast and relentless for decades. Chinese denials of shooting Tibetans crossing the border on foot toward Nepal, for example, was shut down after European mountain climbers video recorded it. China has led the world and the predominant supplier of human organs. The company that builds its "death mobiles" was bragging about growing production demand for them, about 5 years ago when production rates were 1000 per year. Those bodies exhibits, each holding around 200 bodies, in various cities around the U.S. simultaneously were interestingly stocked with Chinese youth, roughly in their 20's (almost exclusively). And of course, there are the camps with millions of minorities for re-education. How many Tibetan monks taken have every been seen again? At one time, over 8,000 were taken never to be seen again.
Our country (the United States) has all kinds of problems but I really think we need to not lose perspective.
US is wanting the Huawei executive for sanctions evasion.
US technology companies were being forced in FISA courts to cooperate with FBI investigations, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data."
Is there an actual link to this happening, or is this just more apples-to oranges fearmongering?
...are very good. It's okay the US treats the world like its own ranch. But ey! no one else dares doing this.
Fair enough, but all the froth about what "HuaWei + PRC might do" demands a calming dose of what âoeCisco+USA actually didâ.
Are you new here?
You think that Slashdot doesn't give you enough of a dose of "let's fear the NSA and Cisco and Apple and Google and Microsoft and ... !" ???
Viable alternatives to Huawei on operator level are really either NSN or Ericsson. Both are EU based manufacturers so supply is not really the problem.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
The big concern is that if you are a tech business and use Huawei products in your infrastructure at some point a Chinese competitor of yours will end up with your trade secrets.
Which is worse than a US competitor stealing them?
In a product made by my country (say for example the US), I would expect to be quite safe from spying.
I could not say the same if I used a product not from my country (huawei, china), which is *well* *known* for spying, hacking abuses and trampling on human rights.
There is a difference, it's pretty obvious, and you should be afraid.
Egads... The things totalitarian states can get away with.
https://gizmodo.com/5151377/ch...
In some news they actually complain that Iran got equipment to _spy_ on their citizens? While the problem is they got _exactly_ the same stuff police in the west uses for the so called lawful interception? Well, crap.
And, btw. do they finally add end-to-end encryption to the 5G, suspiciously missing from all previous gen incarnations? bc. police has been using TETRAs and similar stuff for ages.
I checked. They don't need to do that.
No. We don't have to. We can think, instead of react. I'd expect this shit from 'murika, not EU.
Basically, I assume that all smartphones of about all brands allegedly became eavesdropping devices. So here are some simple ideas:
If one wants to talk about something meaningful it would be a good idea to go outdoors, say running in a park or woods, without smartphones.
Carry a smartphone in a backpack, in a zipped pocket, in order to reduce sensitivity of the microphone (an electromagnetic radiation).
Use text messages instead of phone-calls, not to keep it in a jacket pocket all the time.
At home or at office keep the phone on a remote windowsill.
Why afraid of them? Their CFO just got arrested.
.. and refuses to give us our key/code to unlock it.
Fuck 'em.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
...I worked in the mobile industry for years, for many cellular manufacturers, programming mobile devices, and testing them for on-boarding with the carriers. The one thing that seemed to be a standard across the board with most Chinese manufacturers, I won't name names due to non-disclosure agreements, is that location services was turned on in the EPROM whether it was off in the UI or not. So, Chinese devices failed location services tests almost every time, and the carrier would send the device back. The "bug" would be fixed, tested with QXDM or other diagnostic tools, and then submitted as fixed. Then when the next version of software was put out the "bug" would be back, and it would have to be fixed again. This was never the case with Japanese, Korean, or American manufacturers...only the Chinese manufacturers. For this reason I won't buy cellular devices manufactured in China. If I turn my location services off I want them off period! If they are doing that with LBS think what they are probably doing with the rest of the data on your device. Credit Card info, Banking info, personal data, etc. nothing is safe...or as safe as it can be in this world.
Which is worse than the US government, which isn't a direct competitor and generally likes to keep secretes for it's own use and usually only gives them to industry for use on government projects, which foreign companies generally can't or won't compete for.
Oh the drama... just show us the tcpdump and/or any other tangible proof instead of all this drama which could be made up. Or not.
I don't think it's really a problem, it's something that the US has said without ANY evidence. I'm more worried about hardware from an US company as there has been enough evidence to show they had inserted backdoors for the NSA and other US 'intelligent' agencies..
US technology companies were being forced in FISA courts to cooperate with FBI investigations, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data."
Is there an actual link to this happening, or is this just more apples-to oranges fearmongering?
Both.
The FBI wanted a backdoor, and Apple fought it.
https://gizmodo.com/why-you-sh...
Successfully, that time-- the FBI withdrew, and said they'd find a different way to crack the phone.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
"Microplastics (referenced correctly by name in this one) are harmless. They are biologically inert and mechanically harmless. They're so small, they're able to travel through the cell walls, and as a result, have no meaningful mechanical impact as far as we know." -Luckyo https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=12642660&cid=57354060
You're the most retarded faggot above the waterline, do you know that? Someone needs to cram a stomachfull of plastic into this lying Luckyo faggot until it dies, then we'll do an autopsy.
"It died painfully and violently, but clearly the plastic had no health effects... weird. Oh well, throw it on the shit pile." - Luckyo's ignominious end, the lying faggot's due.
While I'm not happy with the idea of the US government putting backdoors into things, I am far more concerned about the possibility of a *foreign* government with access to backdoors in equipment that is used within the United States. No one here should even consider buying anything from Huawei.
irony at its finest! or whataboutism inception!
either way, articles like this are predominantly used to distract from the fact that our own people are doing this to us which IS more concerning than a foreign country doing it. If the people in our own country were to focus on security instead of stockpiling zero days then it would make logical sense to complain about the people who are actively trying to undermine security. Until that day, all of these complaints about chinese companies are hyperbolic hypocritical bullshit. As the saying goes, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, which is a fitting saying because that is what our own government is trying to do to us (put us in glass houses). As much as the EU is trying to signal that they care about privacy with the GDPR stuff, at the same time they are trying to enact "lawful" mechanisms to break encryption.
I am not saying that we shouldn't worry about china or Russia, im saying that we should clean up our own backyard and provide private and secure technology for our people before we go complaining about someone else.
gear from Western nations. That includes the chips/electronics.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Australia just passed a law requiring companies to comply with law enforcement requests to introduce a way around end-to-end encryption.. they can attempt to force companies overseas like Apple and Facebook to provide tools to get around this encryption...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-12-07/encryption-bill-australian-technology-industry-fuming-mad/10589962?section=politics
So whilst China might be a concern, you can add Australia to the list of countries who's tech sector is compromised by it's Government and whose software will by law have to have some form of backdoor built in.
We have an huge dependency on US products... and US has killswitch on many of them...
Countless iPhone/iPads that can be remotely locked by Apple
Army's planes like the F-35 which "phone home" continuously and can be remote-disabled
Microsoft that can remote disable any computer by saying that "the key has been used for pirate distribution"
HDMI peripherals that can be revokec by the HDCP
and so on...
Reliance on US device is very dangerous... should one day US decide to go against us...
Truth is - we need open source processors...
Actually, processors/MCUs themselves aren't much of an issue as far as backdoors goes. The issue isn't hardware, it's always software.
With desktops/servers the problem is that AMD/Intel have an underlying control system that cannot be disabled. AMD PSP is less of a threat but Intel ME is a HUGE threat.
With "smart" phones the problem is a lack of an open source baseband processor for cellular phones, aka a cellular modem. The software stack to get on a cell network with a minimum of 3G GSM is enormous because it has so many layers. The current way around this is isolating the baseband processor but that comes with negative consequences as power systems are tightly integrated in cell phones for a good reason.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
FYI, Alcatel-Lucent hasn't been around for a year, having succumbed to the Chinese compeition.
There's still lots of Alcatel branded stuff out there, even new in the box, but you're right, Alcatel as a business is no more.
But so far Apple has resisted the mandatory decrypting and back doors.
Or so they say.... how do you think they stay in business?
A comment on other comments. CN requiring govt officials on their boards.... er, Dropbox anyone? But many of us use that without a whimper.
So, these idiots are only now concerned "...over its ties to the Chinese government..." and on top of that, they're apparently not equally concerned about all other Chinese companies? Apparently these elites running Western nations either never studied history and government, or their willful ignorance has been purchased by rich business leaders who make gazillions of dollars/pounds/euros importing junk from China.
NEWSFLASH: CHINA IS A COMMUNIST COUNTRY!
There is no f***ing THING as a "Chinese company"! It's as though these morons have forgotten the entire 20th century! China is a one-party-rule country that is officially communist and has a dictator-for-life. ANY "business" in China is just an arm of the government, which in-turn is at one with the Chinese military. If you deal with a golfball company in China, you are dealing with the government. If you deal with a doll factory in China, you are dealing with the government. If the doll factory is ordered to put something bad into dolls, it will do so effectively by command of the Chinese military.
People in western countries are apparently so fat-dumb-and-happy in the decades of post-WWII prosperity and peace that they seem to take nothing truly seriously anymore and not see REAL evil and tyranny even while using its slave labor to make cheap consumer goods.
I've no doubt that if Hitler's regime was alive and well today, and if they could get their iPhones made there even cheaper, Tim Cook and pals would make their iPhones at Auschwitz and if questioned about the implications would deny that the workers were oppressed or that there was any connection to the regime. Some western leaders might make a fuss about the possible connections to the German regime, but the pretend worry would all be just PR and the premium phones built by slave labor would continue to be churned out because the resulting profit margin would just be too insanely great for the comapny and its investors. It's not just Apple, either - all the big multinational businesses are just as corrupt and immoral - look at how many were desperate to jump into Iran after Obama's "deal" with the mad mullahs.
Let's imagine a world in which millions of Americans do all their banking online through their Chinese army phones, and attend all their work meetings carrying their Chinese army phones, and the whole time those Chinese army phones are sending all the info home to China - the button presses, the screen taps, and all the audio recorded from mics that are supposedly not recording, and imagery from cameras that are supposedly off.
China gets all the info if might want from inside corporate board rooms, halls of government, military facilities, etc. Some of the data is perhaps useful to the Chinese military, some to Chinese economic planners, some to Chinese tech entities looking to steal the next big thing, and so forth. And the more years this goes on, the more comfortable average people are with toting these Chinese army phones everywhere with them and the more reckless they are with them and the less concerned western security agencies are.
And just what happens to any western economy if someday the Chinese decide to suddenly use all that personal banking data to steal all the money from tens of millions of average people - all at one time? Think of the upheaval in the attacked county.
Most really bad things in this world are enabled by gullible foolish people doing dumb stuff because they are lazy or because it's convenient, or easy, and they often know what they are doing is dangerous but they say some version of "What, me worry?"
you're on Slashdot where people not only underrstand math but also understand data mining, filters, large database systems, etc.
This is the same Slashdot where people have worried about the NSA vacuuming up all telephone calls and e-mails, housing the contents, auto-searching the contents for keywords and flagging certain combinations and correlations for human operators to examine.
Your apparent problem seems to be one of racism - namely that you assume that what the US government is clearly capable of and currently doing to some extent (and getting better at every year) is something a larger country with a larger military force and a totalitarian government is simply incapable of for no other apparent reason than that they're Chinese!. If you have some other reason for dismissing the idea of China doing this then you sure failed to provide it.
As for the idea that the officials in China "would have you shot" for suggesting such a scheme, I submit that they not only have not had anybody shot for their massive decades-long industrial-scale IP theft, but they actually reward such activity. They also are openly discussing such large assymetric economic attacks in their military papers and they are very interested in many was of causing chaos in the economies of nations who oppose them either as independent actions or as actions coordinated with future kinetic military actions.