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Britain and Germany Will Not Ban Huawei, Citing Lack of Spying Evidence (reuters.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes from a report via Reuters: Despite persistent U.S. allegations of Chinese state spying, Britain said it is able to manage the security risks of using Huawei telecom equipments and has not seen any evidence of malicious activity by the company, a senior official said on Wednesday. Asked later whether Washington had presented Britain with any evidence to support its allegations, he told reporters: "I would be obliged to report if there was evidence of malevolence [...] by Huawei. And we're yet to have to do that. So I hope that covers it."
At the same time, German officials have told The Wall Street Journal that the country has made a "preliminary decision" to allow Huawei to bid on contracts for 5G networking. Catering to the surging populism, the U.S. has accused Huawei and other Chinese telecom equipments, along with European cars, as national security risks, even though the National Security Agency, American's cyber spying agency, was found to have wiretapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel, conducted economic espionage against France, and hacked into Chinese networks. Earlier this week, beleaguered Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei described the continued investigations by the U.S. into the Chinese firm -- including the arrest of his daughter and company CFO, Meng Wanzhou -- as politically motivated.
At the same time, German officials have told The Wall Street Journal that the country has made a "preliminary decision" to allow Huawei to bid on contracts for 5G networking. Catering to the surging populism, the U.S. has accused Huawei and other Chinese telecom equipments, along with European cars, as national security risks, even though the National Security Agency, American's cyber spying agency, was found to have wiretapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel, conducted economic espionage against France, and hacked into Chinese networks. Earlier this week, beleaguered Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei described the continued investigations by the U.S. into the Chinese firm -- including the arrest of his daughter and company CFO, Meng Wanzhou -- as politically motivated.
The US has squandered its credibility. I can't say that Huawei inspires me with trust, but US accusations mean nothing.
" I am sure Huawei spies. Most tech companies do. " - Ok... do most companies spy for China's Communist Party? Do you think there should be nothing done about that, or evading US sanctions laws surreptitiously? Really?
If you want to cure racism you're not going to find much luck. If you want to uphold the law that's going to be more practically applied.
" There is like a Nazi guy all over this site " - There are at least 50, and probably four times that lurking, nazi cowards on this site. So? Fuck em. Rope.
But if you're going to let a few fascist reich-wing cowards disrupt our debates irreparably, you're letting those idiotic trolling inbreds win aren't you?
The real problem would be finding evidence that American companies can be trusted, eh?
From the purely economic perspective, China has the most to lose if they allow any private companies to get involved in spying. I'd go even farther and say that the Chinese leaders (including Xi) have redefined "communism" to mean "whatever makes money". That means it would now be an attack on "The Party" if Huawei did anything that threatened their corporate profits.
Having said that, I think the real threat to Huawei's profits is bad customer service. I've actually owned about 6 Huawei devices going back more than a decade. Technically they have all been on the scale from good to excellent, and the prices have put them on the scale from excellent value to superior, but the customer service has always been on the scale from none to miserable. I think if Huawei seriously wants to be an international player in broader areas of consumer electronics, they desperately need to rethink and redo their entire customer service operation. Nuking the support part of their website would be a good start. (Maybe it isn't so gawdawful in Chinese? I'm sure it can't be worse.)
Then again, there are some features to look for to determine if ANY maker's devices have been designed with espionage in mind. Level 0 would be things like unmentioned microphones, but the google just won that boobie prize. Level 1 would be reasonable features like EEPROM that has legitimate purposes but which could be used to install malware. After all, every device may need an upgrade at some point.
Level 2 would be clever design for fail safe concealment of the espionage-related capabilities. For example, a DRAM without power protection could be used for holding malware that would automatically disappear when the power is cut for any reason. Part of the POST could check for the network environment so as to detect if the device has been moved into a trap or DMZ (thus preventing re-installation of the spyware).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
When the British are willing to publicly turn their nose at their 'ally' in a big way like this, you know it is bad.
Personally, having used rooted Huawei phones, and having previously had them be one of the few phone companies to allow unlocking without having to phone in, I can say that Huawei phones are/were nicely engineered, had unique features compared to their competitors and were immensely reliable (I only stopped using mine after misplacing it for a few weeks, and having a replacement purchased for me.)
Having said that, the US and its corporations are more of an immediate threat to my security and freedom than the Chinese are. If they really want everyone backing their horse, they need us to not feel like we're just getting their brand instead of the Chinese one.
ROTFLMAO.
When the French bombed the "Rainbow Warrior", where was the USA, that's right , saying nothing, doing nothing because New Zealand had gone antinuclear.
The US even put in trade barriers (while giving China Favoured Nation Status).
At the Peal Harbour remembrance, the New Zealand navy was not permitted to be in the military base but in the civilian port.
The US has ben taken multiple times to the WTO (which the US set up for its benefit) by NZ to fight trade barriers, tariffs , agricultural subsidies, etc.
We have a centre left government.
We were the first country in the world to set up a welfare system, we have universal healthcare and education.
But, we are more "free" than the USA, are more democratic, less crime, fewer murders, greater freedom of speech, freedom of the press, education, welfare, etc etc etc are all better than the USA.
Trust me, we don't want to sink to the levels the USA is heading to.
And we have Huawei routers and switches, and wireless access points in our universities.
And have a look at this to see how well the USA treated the UK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk_zpjK3cTo
And understand that US citizens were the main supplier of weapons and money to the IRA.
And the US has not only supported, but funded and equiped terrorists, though they called them freedom fighters, all over the world.
The US only cares about the US, if they thought dropping a Nuke on London was the best for the US that plane would already be in the air.
Britain is facing Brexit and a bunch of trade and economic issues. They'd rather stay in the good graces of the Chinese, the idea being they can replace stuff they would have bought from Europe with Chinese goods. And then there's the idea that if they don't get on board with 5G at a price point they can afford, their economic disadvantages will be worse yet.
The Germans probably figure they're just too smart to worry about hacked Chinese equipment, especially if they can isolate it with some good homegrown or European sourced technology. Plus they may well have come up with counter-espionage techniques that defeat Russian and American penetration that defeating the Chinese can't be any harder.
And in both cases, we can blame Trump's idiotic foreign policy for some of this. I'd wager if we had made Britain feel like they had a trade ally in Brexit and not shit all over German foreign policy, they might have gone along with us on Chinese telecom equipment.