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Why Huawei Gives the US and Its Allies Security Nightmares (technologyreview.com)
Perhaps the most insightful piece that sums up why the U.S. and its allies are apprehensive of using Huawei's products. Six reasons, we are just highlighting the pointers, click on the source story to read the description:
1. There could be "kill switches" in Huawei equipment.
2. ... That even close inspections miss.
3. Back doors could be used for data snooping.
4. The rollout of 5G wireless networks will make everything worse.
5. Chinese firms will ship tech to countries in defiance of a US trade embargo.
6. Huawei isn't as immune to Chinese government influence as it claims to be.
1. There could be "kill switches" in Huawei equipment.
2. ... That even close inspections miss.
3. Back doors could be used for data snooping.
4. The rollout of 5G wireless networks will make everything worse.
5. Chinese firms will ship tech to countries in defiance of a US trade embargo.
6. Huawei isn't as immune to Chinese government influence as it claims to be.
Every point made here is just as true from the other side too. I know China is investing heavily in developing high-end microprocessor designs and manufacturing capability, but shouldn't it make strategic sense for them to also spend as much money as it takes to purge their country of Microsoft? Windows Update could be easily repurposed for espionage, and even if the US government doesn't control it yet, they could surely do so if they situation was desperate enough. I'd expect China to be throwing huge piles of money into transitioning away from Windows entirely for all military and government functions, and all major companies too. They even tried with Red Flag Linux, and that ended badly. China is striving for hardware manufacturing capability, but seems to be unconcerned over software.
Working as a switch engineer* I heard stories from people working in India, that during one of their border clashes, the Chinese switches they had installed were completely remotely disabled causing total chaos. To be fair I have heard similar stories about American equipment. I think that's even public knowledge in the case of the Iraq war. I'm really not convinced that having third country equipment will save you (look at Ericsson in Greece before the Olimpics).
My main question here is, why are you allowing all your citizens to depend on Chinese chips in their smartphones when you don't want to rely on them yourselves?
* I do not mean Ethernet switch.
I set it's a bunch of "possibilities"...
"Could be"..."Could" and so on...
Chinese firms will ship tech to countries in defiance of a US trade embargo.
Why should foreign entity obey US law is I may ask?
. Huawei isn't as immune to Chinese government influence as it claims to be
Let's remember we have the NSA that has done more or less the same, even in defiance of US law...
If you're the average American (or European, for that matter), you're living paycheck to paycheck, your perspective of retiring at the end of your useful shelf life (~65, give or take) is practically zero, your children's chance of a useful education is degrading (...if you're European; it's already essentially zero of you're US), and the only perspective your offspring have in their life is to live through & possibly, maybe, try to clean up the mess the big winners of your generation are creating for all of us.
In that case, China is not your primary enemy. Your own government is, together (or better: led by?) those who Have. That's what you should be worrying about primarily.
Cisco does exactly the same.
aaaaaaa
And still absolutely nobody has asked themselves how Turkey happened to end up with audio recordings of the Kashoggi murder... While everyone was busy saying "oh dear that's terrible", I was thinking "lol they're going to have to change the bugs in the Saudi consulate now".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
American ally
I believe the word you are looking for is "vassal". There are no more American allies. An ally is assumed to have some degree of independence and usually has equal status. A vassal, on the other hand, is one who never disagrees and always does as they are told. Kind of like that person we all know at work who is a complete idiot and yet somehow is always the boss's favorite and always gets promoted. That isn't the boss' friend - that IS your boss and if you cross him/her/it, you will find out pretty sharpish who is going to be transferred/fired. Hint - it's not them.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I had never heard of Huawei until I moved back to Costa Rica earlier this year. I was basically GIVEN two of their phones by the local phone company - they're that cheap. And they're pretty good. I don't use them because I still have my Samsung but I had a look at them. Given what they offer (a lot) for what they cost (almost nothing), I can understand why the US cell phone market is shaking in its boots. This is not so much about spying and 100% about the oligopolies making sure they don't lose market share. Anyway, I have 2 spare phones.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Speaking as someone from western Europe, the problem with Huawei is that in geopolitical terms China is not an ally by any stretch of the imagination. The USA are. If there's any serious trouble, we do not have to worry about the USA shutting us off unless they decide at some point that we are no longer allies. The biggest worry is that equipment from the US has some backdoor (installed on behest of the government or whatever) that the Chinese can exploit.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Don't know about you, but here around (Austria), the news were full of speculation that Turkey hesitated to publish said recordings because it would give away the places of the turkish bugs in the Saudi Arabian embassy.
They are not "slaves in all but name only". The working conditions are pretty good in a lot of those Chinese factories, the workers make enough money to send home to their rural families, and despite the sensationalist claims, suicide rates are roughly equivalent to the non-factory worker population. I would say that it is far more likely that your vegetables were picked by someone in the USA that is functionally a slave or that your clothes are made by some child in a sweatshop than your phone is made by a "slave". Indeed, one of the reasons why the work has moved to China is the presence of so much SKILLED labour all concentrated in one place.
China isn’t perfect, the factories often try to get away with shit, not everyone there is acting in good faith...but I could say exactly the same thing about a lot of places in North America. I think the real fear here is that despite everything, we AREN'T any better than the Chinese, and it offends our moral sensibilities that we might not have any moral high ground to stand on when it comes to workers and their rights.
I am not making excuses for Huawei, and we shouldn't make them for Microsoft, either. A few months ago, my computer was one of the many that de-authorized by Microsoft because of the bug in their servers, only for a day, but Windows 10 appears to have a kill switch.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
China lives by completely different rules. They have no respect for freedom of speech or democracy, quite the opposite, and they don't care if other countries do
You're cherry picking.
There's no intrinsic value in the word "democracy" alone, it's value lies in what it entails: the fact that everyone gets to have their say in important decisions concerning the very fabric of their lives. If democracy is flawed to the point where unless you're rich, you've essentially been tricked out of your right to participate (as is the case for the US for example), then whatever value you had goes out the window.
Don't talk to me about "Freedom of speech" while you have people like Assange bullied and prosecuted for what they said. Taking dirty about government in a pub at the corner isn't that much of an achievement; that's something you can do in Russia or China, too, easily enough. It's when you're actually starting to reach somebody with your talk that you're in trouble - in China, Russia, and USA.
But I'm getting carried away.
More to the point, China tries, and in large parts succeeds better that the West, to not leave people behind to poverty, distress, hunger, cold. This is amazing given the situation they are in (far ovet 1bn people, most of them rural, all about to finally claim their due piece of modern age just about these years). The have different methods, many of those methods do suck. But at least they're succeeding in their goal.
Our methods suck no less, but we're failing big time, even at the easier goal of preserving a modern way of life.