back to article UC Berkeley reacts to 'uni Huawei ban' reports: We unplugged, like, one thing no one cares about

Reports that University of California Berkeley will remove Huawei kit from its networks are overblown, the institute has told The Register. Reuters got the "university ban" ball rolling with this article, which claimed the Berkeley and Irvine campuses are unplugging Huawei kit. The rationale behind the piece was that the …

  1. Chunky Munky

    That's on the back of 200 billion smartphones (revenue more than US$50 billion) shipped last year

    1. Tigra 07
      Holmes

      RE: Chunky Munky

      I highly doubt Huawei shipped anywhere near 200 billion smartphones last year. Even 1% of that figure sounds made up.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Headmaster

        Re: RE: Chunky Munky

        200 million is the actual number.

        (And despite the article already being updated, I still managed to misread it.)

      2. CheesyTheClown

        Re: RE: Chunky Munky

        Congratulations, you won the $52 gazillion jackpot... you're 100000000% correct!

        In case you were wondering. There is no $52 gazillion jackpot. In fact, there's no so thing as a gazillion that I'm aware of outside of literature.

        Also, 100000000% is meaningless, its only value is to say you're 100% correct but I wish I could give you bonus points if it were possible.

        The poster above was making the point the Huawei sold A LOT of smart phones... in fact, so many that the number is ridiculously big and as a result, it shouldn't make too big an impact on their revenues if UC Berkeley turns off a box.

    2. Spacedinvader
      Thumb Up

      Tips and corrections at the bottom of the article

      Is the link you are looking for...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    UC Berkeley Stazi

    Yet the UC Berkeley are continuing their Stazi-like behavior of recording all Internet traffic on & off campus.

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/05/uc_berkeley_profs_up_in_arms_about_secret_monitoring_system_on_campus/

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: UC Berkeley Stazi

      It's Stasi - Staatssicherheitsdienst - no "z" in the name.

      1. teknopaul

        Re: UC Berkeley Stazi

        I'm all for zuperfluuz zeez in ze german zounding wordz.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: UC Berkeley Stazi

          At the risk of being accused of being a grammar Nazi, it's actually verdz, not wordz.

          ;)

        2. CheesyTheClown

          Re: UC Berkeley Stazi

          I have no idea what has me smiling more

          1) The comment itself... it was lovely

          2) The use of the word superfluous in daily conversation.

          3) The fact that you could spell superfluous that way and it was still recognizable.

          I can go on... I'm practically pissing my pants in happiness of this comment and the AC's correction of your spelling of wordz :)

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Donated videoconferencing equipment.

    That doesn't sound dodgy at all.

    ( Mine's the one with the camera built into in the buttons )

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BT Infinity uses Huawei and no one seems to care

    BT Infinity uses Huawei fibre cabinets and no one seems to care that China can spy on everything the majority of UK home broadband users do.

    1. Paul Smith

      Re: BT Infinity uses Huawei and no one seems to care

      Why should they care when they know that most US TLA's, GCHQ, their local council and even their bloody school board can all spy on their activities with impunity.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: BT Infinity uses Huawei and no one seems to care

      "BT Infinity uses Huawei fibre cabinets and no one seems to care "

      Let me rephrase that for you .....

      BT do a lot of things badly that many people care about, use of Huawei appears to be one of them.

      However, let me riddle you this .... what are we supposed to do about it ?

      OFCOM are BT's bitch. They do nothing.

      Complaining to the great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies otherwise known as your local MP is a fat waste of time. They are BT's bitch, and even if they were not, they don't have the brainpower to comprehend the problem, let alone the motivation to do anything about it.

      Need I remind you those that inhabit Westmonster are those who gave BT a blank cheque for broadband, whilst not supervising what was done with the money, and then acted all surprised when BT cherry-picked the easy targets and left the rural and other hard to reach areas back in the dark ages.

      You may not have noticed, but the UK lags behind a great many countries in terms of technology infrastructure ? Why, because of OFCOM and the MPs allowing BT to get away with just about anything they can get away with.

    3. Jellied Eel Silver badge

      Re: BT Infinity uses Huawei and no one seems to care

      Huawei's not just in the cabinets, they're in mah home! Ohnoes!

      More specifically the FTTP Infinity install I've just had done came complete with Huawei's EchoLife HG8110 GPON terminal. Supports up to 1.2Gbps upstream, 2.4Gbps down. So I guess that's me future proofed. And being amused thinking that was backbone speeds only a decade ago.

      But am I bothered that the Chinese can now spy on me? Nope, because that would require some method for the Chinese government to access my data stream and watch me typing this (No, we're not- Luv MSS) which would be easily detected. Eyebrows should be raised at any requirement for Nx100Gbps connections to China for OAM or support. But some monitoring capability is present simply because that's a legal requirement under the UK's Communications Act, and other countries legislation.

      Thing is, UK wants every home to have high speed broadband. Users want high speed broadband. Users also expect cheap, so networks need a vendor that can produce ONTs by the million. Which Huawei does. So do other Chinese companies and stick lables like 'Cisco' on them. Which is of course the concern. Huawei's simply the most visible target of trade wars, but the real issue is Western tech companies relied on China for low cost production, and now seem suprised that China's selling direct.

      That didn't surpise me, and Huawei's kit is good, cheap and works. Ok, some initial stumbling blocks while they geared up, but they make it simple to buy and support huge volumes of tin. Naturally Huawei's competitors are unhappy, so lobby against them using FUD. So then politicians pile in, and now there's the possibility that China could just say 'Ok, we'll block exports of Huawei and other Chinese IT kit' and compensate those companies for the duration.

      Of course that would quickly lead to the real security concerns highlighted when the FUD started flying, namely security of supply..

    4. CheesyTheClown

      Re: BT Infinity uses Huawei and no one seems to care

      Telenor Global Services runs a Tier-1 LTE service provider on Huawei which most western governments depend on for secure communication... and Huawei has administrative credentials for all the devices since they also have the operations agreements for the hardware.

      None of this is classified information if you can read Norwegian.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    missing the point

    While there may well be "concerns" about Huawei-sponsored research, the main problem is with the presence of their equipment on university (and other) networks. That is, whether they donated the equipment as part of a grant or it was purchased on the open market or by other sponsors is moot. It is there, and it is almost certainly providing access to connected networks and nodes to the government of China, PLA, Huawei themselves, and other state actors. If UCB really think that's not a problem simply because all the research they do is going to be published openly anyway, they are too naive to exist. Don't you see any commercial or military advantage in having access to papers 6 or 12 months before they are eventually published? And all the raw data as well, normally not published at all? Really? And then there are student and personnel records that are supposed to be confidential, patient information at research hospitals, and on and on. Time to grow up and get tough, or step aside so people with a realistic attitude toward security can take over.

    1. Tom 35

      Re: missing the point

      Maybe it lacks the backdoor for the US TLAs.

    2. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: missing the point

      Apart from the (bleedin') obvious which is that our own agencies are quite happy to collect traffic statistics the universities themselves are in a good position to verify that the kit isn't doing anything untoward.

      I am more than a little concerned about the level of technical ignorance displayed by people who should know better. There was the Chinese 'spy chip', a part of mythical capabilities, and now we have people quite openly suggesting that all Chinese designed kit comes from the same government design house (in a volcano, probably) which incorporates its own supercosmic firmware of incredible capability. We are all technical people here so we should be able to rationally evaluate potential problems or threats and manage them, not just run around like headless chickens because of some political gambit. Because.....

      Its more than likely that all this noise is to do with the relative competitiveness of their kit and, in particular, where they are placed in the nascent 5G market. Has it occured to anyone that in our modern society we seem to regard spending huge sums on lobbying as a viable alternative to actual R&D and manufacturing effort? (....anyway, a lot -- most -- of this kit is made offshore regardless of who's name gets painted on the box)

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Regarding Canada: To paraphrase Australia's joke of a leader Martin Turnbull

    The laws of the World Police come second to the law of Canada.

    Yeah right.

    LOL

  7. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    in the light of public concerns

    Back in Britain, last week suspended all research grants and donations from Huawei "in the light of public concerns raised in recent months surrounding UK partnerships with Huawei."

    Public concerns in that the general public have raised concerns or concerns that have been raised by interested commercial and political entities that have been raised in public? I suspect the latter, since I don't see any public groundswell by the "man in the street" against Huawei. 99% of them have probably not even heard of them, let alone understand the possible issues.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: in the light of public concerns

      And will be grateful to Huawei for the best ever mobile phone they've ever had...

  8. RZaciu

    UC Berkeley, you can’t be so naive. Nobody is saying you would be involved in research sponsored by Huawei. But, with simple means, as donating a video conferencing device, the donnor, in this case Huawei, has a backdoor for stealing intellectual property. Wake up! UC Berkeley is together with other universities at the cutting edge of technological research. You are and, as long as you are good, will be subject to espionage and intellectual property theft!

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