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America's Latest Effort To Thwart the Growth of China's Huawei is Playing Out Beneath the World's Oceans (wsj.com)
A new front has opened in the battle between the U.S. and China over control of global networks that deliver the internet. This one is beneath the ocean. [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; syndicated source.] From a report: While the U.S. wages a high-profile campaign to exclude China's Huawei from next-generation mobile networks over fears of espionage, the company is embedding itself into undersea cable networks that ferry nearly all of the world's internet data. About 380 active submarine cables -- bundles of fiber-optic lines that travel oceans on the seabed -- carry about 95% of intercontinental voice and data traffic, making them critical for the economies and national security of most countries. Current and former security officials in the U.S. and allied governments now worry that these cables are increasingly vulnerable to espionage or attack and say the involvement of Huawei potentially enhances China's capabilities.
Huawei denies any threat. The U.S. hasn't publicly provided evidence of its claims that Huawei technology poses a cybersecurity risk. Its efforts to persuade other countries to sideline the company's communication technology have been met with skepticism by some. Huawei Marine Networks, majority owned by the Chinese telecom giant, completed a 3,750-mile cable between Brazil and Cameroon in September. It recently started work on a 7,500-mile cable connecting Europe, Asia and Africa and is finishing up links across the Gulf of California in Mexico. Altogether, the company has worked on some 90 projects to build or upgrade seabed fiber-optic links, gaining fast on the three U.S., European and Japanese firms that dominate the industry. These officials say the company's knowledge of and access to undersea cables could allow China to attach devices that divert or monitor data traffic -- or, in a conflict, to sever links to entire nations.
Huawei denies any threat. The U.S. hasn't publicly provided evidence of its claims that Huawei technology poses a cybersecurity risk. Its efforts to persuade other countries to sideline the company's communication technology have been met with skepticism by some. Huawei Marine Networks, majority owned by the Chinese telecom giant, completed a 3,750-mile cable between Brazil and Cameroon in September. It recently started work on a 7,500-mile cable connecting Europe, Asia and Africa and is finishing up links across the Gulf of California in Mexico. Altogether, the company has worked on some 90 projects to build or upgrade seabed fiber-optic links, gaining fast on the three U.S., European and Japanese firms that dominate the industry. These officials say the company's knowledge of and access to undersea cables could allow China to attach devices that divert or monitor data traffic -- or, in a conflict, to sever links to entire nations.
This seems like how we knew that Saddam used to have WMDs, we sold them to him, and we kept the receipts. Of course, since we knew how old they were, we also knew he didn't have them any more.
The only nations we know have actually tampered with undersea cables are the US and Russia, so I guess we know conclusively that China could do it because we've done it.
With that said, yes, it's a credible threat. And yes, Huawei probably could bring something to the table in that regard. But so what? That only means that China has come along to a party which was already swingin'.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
NYTimes had a pretty interesting technology article about the undersea "cloud" three days ago. https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
Gently reply
"...Current and former security officials in the U.S. and allied governments now worry that these cables are increasingly vulnerable to espionage or attack ..." ...by OTHER people.
I know US submariners that have talked vaguely about high tech cable-tapping missions since the 1990s.
So it's not so much a "OMG they're vulnerable" as "crap those guys can perhaps do it now too" thing.
-Styopa
The United States is worried that China is doing in 2019 what the USA did starting in the 1960s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Look, this whole Huawei is selling equipment that can be used to spy would be very simply solved if the U.S. would show some proof. If they can't do that then they are either lying, aren't technologically able too or haven't been able too because Huawei can come straight back with U.S. equipment and show how it is being used to spy. Since 9/11 the U.S. has been a political disaster on the world stage and they just aren't trusted anymore. Not even by their allies.
I reserve the write to mangle english.
"These officials say the company's knowledge of and access to undersea cables could allow China to attach devices that divert or monitor data traffic -- or, in a conflict, to sever links to entire nations" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... you know in the past 2 years it has been ... funny(?) to see the US accuse Huawei and china to prepare to do, or do, what they themselves did in the past.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
... the whole leverage that the US had on the EU and especially its key player, Germany.
The EU always played along. Even when it came out that Merkel's phone was tapped, and everybody's spying agency was a serf to the US.
But the last days, we saw, for the first time in my lifetime, that German officials told the USA straight up, the equivalent of "No. Fuck off."
People on the streets in Germany already haven't exactly been pro-USA for a few years now, especially since the NSA leaks. But officials always crawled up US asses.
Now, with Trump being such an incompetent dick and a joke on international levels (betraying even his supporters), we knew it might happen. And now, with that Huawei thing, he simply goes too far. It won't anymore. China and Russia are quite strong, and the EU is strong on its own too., but has been too much of a pussy to do it alone.
What we're seeing now, is the first kid on the schoolyard standing up to the bully, and going "NO."
If Trump doesn't stop... *now*... he'll have done it.
And of course we know Trump. He's gonna double down. Which won't work anymore. He's gonna double down again. Helplessly going down the spiral of ending the era of the USA being the dominant superpower.
People in Germany still wish you luck though. Let's hope he doesn't take all of you with him down the drain. Remember: It's your country. You're very likely more competent that your current president. So you do what you like with it. No hard feelings.
The US invented a clever (and super-secret) technique during the Cold War. This was to spy on the Soviet Union. They used a "cradle" to implement the tapping system. The cradle only passively held the cable from the bottom; it never pierced the cable, nor did it restrict movement of the cable up and down.
Why? Well undersea communications cables are not-uncommonly raised to the surface for maintenance and troubleshooting. The US wanted a system that could not be detected when this routine maintenance was happening. Even a full cable replacement would, if the spooks were lucky, drop right back into the cradle and surveillance would continue uninterrupted. And this system worked!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/security/a25857/operation-ivy-bells-underwater-wiretapping/
Google "Operation Ivy Bells" for more.
Although undersea cables could offer shorter data paths and lower latency than even mid-orbit satellite, using our new low-cost access to orbit to set up a large constellation would be a valuable hedge against loss of cable access.