Huawei Would Accept EU Supervision To Lay 5G Network (techradar.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechRadar: Huawei has said it is willing for its equipment and activities to be supervised by the European Union (EU) as it continues to fend off the threat of restrictions on the use of its kit in 5G networks. Last year it emerged the US, which has long frozen out the company from its own telecommunications infrastructure, had been encouraging other western nations to take similar action. The main basis for Washington's fears is a perception that Huawei is linked to the Chinese government and that the use of the company's equipment risks the possibility of backdoors that could be used for espionage. These fears are heightened by 5G because of the sensitive information these networks will carry. The US is concerned that if its allies continue to use Huawei kit, then America's security will be threatened.

Now, Abraham Liu, Huawei's chief representative to EU institutions, has used a speech to mark the Chinese New Year to repeat the company's denials and to stress its willingness to cooperate with the EU and European governments. "Cybersecurity should remain as a technical issue instead of an ideological issue. Because technical issues can always be resolved through the right solutions while ideological issue cannot," he is quoted as saying. "We are always willing to accept the supervision and suggestions of all European governments, customers and partners." A number of European nations, including the UK and Germany, have expressed concern about the use of Huawei equipment in their telecoms infrastructure, however earlier this week, France rejected proposals that would increase checks Last week, Huawei pledged to spend about $2 billion over five years to resolve the security issues in the United Kingdom. However, they also claimed that the firm "has never and will never use UK-based hardware, software or information gathered in the UK or anywhere else globally, to assist other countries in gathering intelligence." They added: "We would not do this in any country."

Comments

Whereas the USA is entitiled to its concerns...

[bogaboga]

...Washington's fears is a perception that Huawei is linked to the Chinese government and that the use of the company's equipment risks the possibility of backdoors that could be used for espionage...

(...bold mine...)

...I do not think it's got any moral ground or otherwise, to dictate Europe's direction or priorities.

As we discuss this [important] issue, let's remember that the USA has been *cough* *caught* *cough* spying on allies through one of its 3 letter agencies. That's fact, which I hope will be taken as precedent.

What we are talking about here though, are mere possibilities.

Further, no one can guarantee a completely safe telecommunications regime anywhere; or is there?

Intelectual property theft

[toejam13]

Recall that Huawei isn't just on the US ban-list due to supposed state espionage fears. They've also been accused of stealing intellectual property from Nortel, Cisco, and possibly Motorola (source). It wouldn't be outrageous to assume they have targeted Ericsson, Nokia, or Alcatel-Lucent as well.

Worse, given the opaque relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government, we have no idea how much of that corporate espionage was performed by government teams, an issue the US has been fighting for some time (source), nor how much financial support the government is providing to subsidize pricing.

In short, banning Huawei is probably a good idea for those more mundane reasons alone.

Re:Intelectual property theft

[Freischutz]

Recall that Huawei isn't just on the US ban-list due to supposed state espionage fears. They've also been accused of stealing intellectual property from Nortel, Cisco, and possibly Motorola (source). It wouldn't be outrageous to assume they have targeted Ericsson, Nokia, or Alcatel-Lucent as well.

Worse, given the opaque relationship between Huawei and the Chinese government, we have no idea how much of that corporate espionage was performed by government teams, an issue the US has been fighting for some time (source), nor how much financial support the government is providing to subsidize pricing.

In short, banning Huawei is probably a good idea for those more mundane reasons alone.

In view of the fact that Huawei spying for the Chinese govt. is so far mostly speculation but that the US has been caught with it's pants down planting backdoors in the equipment of US manufacturers and that we have no idea to what extent these US companies were actually cooperating with the NSA backdooring operations, I'd say that there is a stronger case for banning Nortel, Cisco, Motorola, and friends than there is for banning Huawei. That being said I'm still not willing to trust Huawei even as far as I can throw them.

It's a moot point. This is a beachhead.

[Gravis Zero]

Unless every component (both hardware and software) is being produced with total oversight (which it is not), then this agreement is a farce. Huawei can promise anything and everything, sign legally binding agreements, etc and you still couldn't trust them because they are based out of China. This is important because Chinese national security law gives the state (China) absolute authority in all matters when it comes to tech companies.

Besides, once they are widely installed, what are you going to do when you find out they can no longer be trusted (after a system-wide software update), rip out the entire infrastructure?

I said it before and I'll say it again, dictators only pretend to play fair.

Re:It's a moot point. This is a beachhead.

[angel'o'sphere]

All phone calls are monitored and recored by NSA and others anyway in Europe.
Who the fuck cares if a chinese company inserts another back door?

Re:It's a moot point. This is a beachhead.

[Gravis Zero]

It is breathtaking to see such xenophobic racism modded up to +5 on Slashdot.

This has nothing to do with xenophobia, nor racism. I do not trust the Chinese government which has been employing statism. The Chinese people are just as much victims of their government as anyone.

What did Trump do with his trade war to people's brains?

Nothing. That guy is soon to be exposed as a criminal and will be headed to jail.

A year ago nobody would dare say something like this, it would be at -1 Troll.

Literally, no. There has been news about the wrongdoing and human rights violations by the Chinese government for much longer than a year. This isn't something new.