Huawai killed Marconi
Slap it up em.
A law bill introduced into the US House of Representatives would, if passed, ban Uncle Sam's agencies from using stuff made by Chinese mobile giants ZTE and Huawei. The proposed legislation, drafted by Rep Mike Conaway (R-TX), would bar government staffers from purchasing or operating any hardware, software, or services from …
I believe the US Defense Department budget, as well as several other agencies' (including the one I work for), allow purchasing of any tech only from an FBI-approved list, and Huawei is definitely not on that list. Don't know about ZTE. Believe that's been in place for ~ six years now.
It's not really that odd when you consider two things:
1) The U.S. Code is a vast, labyrinthe nightmare of overlapping and contradictory statutes. I doubt that even the most studied and erudite lawmaker knows them all.
2) Conaway may very well realize that his proposed legislation is redundant, and not care. Every Congresscritter wants to be able to go back home and tell constituents, "Look what I did for you!"
HuaWei should use an American proxy and supply redesigned products, to conceal their origins, then use automation for assembly, then sold in the USA.
Without a doubt this is another example of the USA bending the international trade rules of which it has an historical record (ask Canada). With the idiot president they have it might be also tinged with racism.
If HuaWei products are vetted by GCHQ, and GCHQ was sharp enough to spot Trumps Russian contacts before the USA, it must be sufficient to accept that HuaWei products are clean. Of course, it could be the NSA can't re-engineer them to allow them to be tapped by the USA.
BTW, check your 'American' products to see how many have been made overseas.
According to Conaway, the aim of the bill is to protect the US government from efforts by the Chinese administration to use the products of its largest companies as a way to collect intelligence on America.
If the good lawmaker follows the established career path, the next move will be to "retire" from Congress, set up an office in Washington, D.C., and become a megabucks Consultant/Lobbyist for HuaWei to "facilitate" their entry into the US market.
Not that elected office in the US is to be considered a stepping stone to rewards & riches, mind you. "Public Servants" they are, each & every one...
"BTW, check your 'American' products to see how many have been made overseas."
That's easy, the one ones that are badly built, behind the times and feel like they are about to fall apart at any time..that's the genuine US ones
There's an important difference between the Chinese spying on you and the US / UK spying on you. If you break a law, engage in a protest, say something unapproved or affiliate with people your government doesn't like - the Chinese wont give the slightest fuck about it. Whereas ours will be paying you a visit shortly.
These new Congressional Bills demonstrate the idiocy of thinking here in the USA regarding bans against Huawei, ZTE and other Chinese companies that the USA "think" (but not know) may covertly send technology information to Beijing, at the same time "knowing" that the USA National Security Agency (NSA) "actually" and illegally (by International Laws) spied on friend and partner Democracies and every one else, to the exclusive benefit of USA only, including for Industrial Espionage.
What is the USA going to do if Canada, "most of" European countries, Australia and major Asian nations adopt any one or more of Huawei or ZTE technologies for their governments' official communications technology platforms? Will the USA refuse to communicate with these jurisdictions, unless they adopt USA only technology?
Idiotic thinking here in USA is spreading faster than the actual adoption of Chinese communications technologies by major and thousands of smaller American corporations and organizations.
What to do?
It happens periodically. The US has a long history of trying to limit encryption, originally I believe classifying it as a "munition", and then limiting the size of SSH keys. Unfortunately the rest of the world fails to co-operate. When it comes to backdoors one guesses the assumption is that until recently only the US was able to do it - because all the cpu makers were US based - and now Samsung can turn out an Exynos and Huawei can make Kirins there is a loss of control. Which is bad because the US is #1, world policeman and the rest of it.
A pluralistic world is going to be more dangerous for people in the West, but people elsewhere have traditionally been treated as disposable by the US (and sometimes their own governments) so probably won't notice the difference.
The answer is to do nothing and wait. Either Marx is right and eventually capitalism will fail due to its internal contradictions, or he's wrong and it won't, but you and I can't influence it. In the meantime, just don't have unorthodox thoughts, citizen.
This is about protectionism. Huawei was approaching finalization of a deal with a large US carrier (rumoured to be AT&T). This has been in the works for a long time. In the UK market it is not quite as important to have a network agreement but in the USA phones are overwhelmingly sold locked as part of a package deal. If you're not a partner of one of the big players, you're small fry.
The deal has fallen through because the Trump administration intervened. The Trump administration is much more protectionist.
Huawei have been assessed by both UK and US experts for spyware and no evidence has ever been found (in contrast to when the USA installed firmware spyware on a large number of harddrives sent to China some years back, as it happens). Huawei have provided hardware to BT in the past and received the GCHQ go-ahead.
Sites like Stratfor attribute this to Trump's 'America First' trade policies and determination to bring jobs back to American soil. The Register seems to either have no awareness of the wider context or simply doesn't wish to question the US govt. line. Either way, this is very weak journalism.
Several members of both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees wrote to the FCC about their opposition to the ATT deal. This isn't the first time Huawei and ZTE were cited as security risks. Several years ago the same thing was brought up concerning their network equipment. That was under Obama so you really can't blame Trump's protectionism on this issue.
I presume (or hope) those Congresspeople actually know something. It does make me wonder how we know that all the iPhones and other electronics that are manufactured in China are clean.