World recoils in horror as smartphone maker accused of helping government snoops read encrypted texts, track device whereabouts In a report that has left lawmakers across the globe reeling, the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday claimed a smartphone maker helped government officials in Uganda access encrypted texts on a handset used by one of its own citizens, and track the device's whereabouts. It is, we think you will agree, virtually unheard of that a …
Maybe the author allows you to think for yourself, make up you own mind while providing some insight into the different perspectives? Reality is not easy, has an unlimited number of facets.
A journalist should not target someone but provide a critical view on the facts and the things that were said.
Reality is not easy, has an unlimited number of facets.
And as the number of facets approaches infinity, the surface of reality approaches a perfectly smooth curve, therefor reality is a perfect sphere. The WSJ is part of reality, but only part, which makes it a less than perfect sphere. I think we can posit at this point that it is pear shaped.
I am going to have a lie down now I've managed to confuse myself.
"I get a feeling the author is trying to be clever in their writing but I think they made it a bit too opaque - sorry."
Maybe stop taking those pills for your headache and stop hitting yourself with that hammer at the same time? You might find the headaches clear up AND you can manage to decipher the subtleties of ElReg articles.
I do like the way that it's targetting both Huawei the cell phone maker (to get s/w on the phone to log decrypted comms), and Huawei the network infrastructure vendor (for location info). Ignoring the fact that it's the network operator (MTN, Airtel, Vodafone or one of 4 other lesser known ones) providing the information.
Obvs the buried story is "Ugandan govmt spies on opposition", not "Uganda uses intercept techniques made available by Huawei (ignoring the fact that other vendors would do exactly the same thing at the very least if provided with sufficient in-country legal documentation)".
Huawei is not being "caught" doing the spying - it is more likely the operator responding to a legally-correctly framed request for information (or providing a back door to the info). And it's certainly not a hack, it's a standard interface provided by every network infrastructure vendor.
Americans like Trump would read this and miss the sarcasm. El Reg needs to add special tags to sarcastic statements just to ensure that Trump and the Trumpettes don't take it the wrong way and cite the article as more reason to do some further bashing of "not US so not USeful" companies.
I think it works fine. Normal educated people can't miss the sarcasm, which makes all the funnier when people reference it as a source to promote their agenda of bashing non-US companies.
They point at the two engineers helping configure a piece of software, whilst quietly ignoring facts like AT&T having federal eavesdropping centers scattered across the US.
Sarcasm?
'Murica and Blighty both have songs whose authors were being bitterly sarcastic about them, yet they sing with straight faces and patriotic fervour.
US: Guthrie's "this land is your land".
UK: Blake's "Jerusalem" (in Parry's bombastic setting).
Remind me, who "gets" sarcasm?
They take you back to the days - quite a long time ago - when the Eye was actually satirical.
Nowadays it has devolved into a near-duplicate of "Punch" - a magazine that the early Privateers always mocked mercilessly for being all jokes and no hard-edged satire.
It's not at all Punch (which was great in a different way). Today's Eye is full of serious investigative journalism that's lacking - or at best a token corner - in the more mainstream press.
And the best ever cover headline three weeks ago in its Loon Landing Souvenir Issue: "The Ego has Landed".
Uganda has authorities that spies on people. I worked there for some months 20 years ago, when a shared 64kbit wireless high latency connection was great.
After I got home, I was actually approached by somebody who wanted to recruit me to do hacking and spying on behalf of the politicians / secret police units.
I contacted my home intelligence service, and was told that I could take the contract if I wanted, as this was not targeting NATO or our citizens. I decided against it. So yeah, most governements outside western europe spies on its citizens.
So yeah, most governements outside western europe spies on its citizens.
Thanks for the laugh, have one on me.
Every government spies on its citizens, western ones just do it silently. After all, if you have nothing to hide why worry, right? Oh, yeah, and think of the children!
A client I worked for in the UK ran the elections in an African country that was in the middle of a civil war in the early 90s. The election team used modems to connect to the central cc:Mail server in the UK, but the line kept dropping and they couldn't work out why...
We did some analysis and when we listened on the line as the modem was handshaking there was a sudden, loud click on the line. The kit the regime was using was so old (and loud) that it was causing the line to be dropped. This caused the project leader to write a polite letter to the government representatives asking them kindly to stop listening on this line, it was only being used for email and if they were really interested, they could come by and look at the transcripts.
"So yeah, most governements outside western europe spies on its citizens".
Hahahahahahahahahaha! Very funny indeed. All the more so as the commenter's name looks Swedish to me.
For those who never took Logic 101, please note that the proposition quoted does not exclude the proposition "So yeah, most governements [sic] inside western europe spies [sic] on its [sic] citizens".
Do you really think that Her Britannic Majesties Secret Service thugs and slippers don't keep a very close eye on what her government and all those other pesky parliamentarians are up to? One has to know if they are actually going to do something rather than just produce hot air, after all. It's also such a good way to keep them in control.
Mines the one with the dog eared copy Spycatcher in the poachers pocket...
"Do you really think that Her Britannic Majesties Secret Service thugs and slippers don't keep a very close eye on what her government and all those other pesky parliamentarians are up to?"
Absolutely. Still, given the number of times various home-grown bombers and terrorists turned out to have been "known to the security services beforehand", I'm uncertain as how close an eye a very close eye really constitutes...
Absolutely. Still, given the number of times various home-grown bombers and terrorists turned out to have been "known to the security services beforehand", I'm uncertain as how close an eye a very close eye really constitutes...
It's a question of priorities and funding. Since we've always been at war with Eastasia, our government can ignore them and focus on the citizens.
I like the insight it gives in the true nature of freedom of press in western democracy, the WSJ is a "renowned" media outlet, now watch publications all over the blindly republishing it. Chomsky called it the a propaganda machine.
Honestly I am surprised the register mostly escapes this, I suppose I the Chomsky model this is explained because ElReg caters to a niche of specialists, not the general mainstream.
Can't help thinking that with its reference to "Ugandan affairs", this piece really belongs in Private Eye.
Though I'm not sure that the Eye would have confected quite such a sarcasm-fest on the topic of criticism directed at Huawei. Yes, some of it is contrived tosh; but that doesn't actually change the facts. Perhaps El Reg could print an article explaining to itself the difference, in national security terms, between capabilities and intentions? Once this is firmly established in everyone's minds, much of the controversy around the question of whether a nation-state should trust Huawei, will simply go away.
Bearing in mind the fact everyone in the west is now subject to mass surveillance from various "Democratic" governments; this sounds like a misinformation hit job.
I'd like to see another newspaper investigate the WSJ investigation; pounds get you pennies, the evidence will be traced back to people working for (as an example) Apple, Samsung....... or more likely - The Donald.
China has huge interests in Africa - basically it's raping it for whatever natural resources it wants.
So... just thinking aloud here...
What if Uganda wanted this info from the phone and told Huawei that if it didn't help, it (Uganda) might be less cooperative in helping China fleece it (Uganda)?
Just a thought?
I have a new phone (1 week old) following a minor accident with the old one. Both Android, but I have yet to RTFM for the new one and tell it how to behave. It's openly tracking me: during the time I've had it, it's asked me to rate supermarkets and pubs I've been to, and would doubtless have asked about a (superb) concert if I hadn't been a spoilsport and left it at home that evening.
In spite of being very security conscious over the years, blocking and locking down my laptops and phones, OSes and Apps, Somehow my data has leaked. I'm sure everyone in the on-line database world could probably find out my underpant size and preferred type if they wanted. (Medium trunks) and where I buy them (Tesco)
My latest (second-hand) Samsung Galaxy S7 cannot [seemingly] be Rooted (to delete or disable ManufacturerWarez).
I'm not sure I believe that, but if it ain't easy, I'll probably brick it.
Anyway, keeping up with such things takes a lot of time and effort.
I prefer writing innocent rubbish on forums.
Security options, blockers, workarounds only work for a while before being ineffective and countered by the evil ones. I've given up, apart from 'reasonable' precautions.
------------
Current annoyances:
My Facebook Profile pic appears as icon on many sites. I haven't tracked down why.
Phone Upday default news feed is Off, but it still updates and chimes.
I get other bings and bongs at various points in the day too and no idea who is triggering them.
You aren't the only one. I think Samsung's "device maintenance" app is turning shit back on. I only ever turn on 4G to send/receive pictures or connect to the inernet when I'm out and about. I only turn on wifi to get on the network where I know I /can/ get on the network. I have disabled the builtin calendar, facebook installers, samsung pay et al, weather, voice mail, and every few days, they're all back on. I'm tempted to take a day off of work to backup my address book to paper and then root it so I can unstall all of the crap, starting with knox.
"The fact HUAWEI, allegedly, acceded to the demands of the Ugandan government to track a specific phone using someone else's software is not in any way comparable to the long-standing and absolutely above board and entirely fair systems that exist in the US, UK, and Australia to do more or less the same thing".
Wow that is some gaslighting.
One is a company that has solemnly vowed it does not and would never spy, the other 3 are sovereign states with security establishments.
Thats kind of like saying Ericsson has been caught spying for the Brazilian government. Imagine the outrage. Because there sure as fuck would be plenty.
Oh, NSO Group are a horrible bunch. They've appeared in numerous stories and reports from organizations such as Citizen Lab over the past few years.
But it's not like the Israelis have a monopoly on this sort of thing. Cellebrite, who claim to be able to unlock any iPhone and sell that tech to police, are also Israeli. But the US has Palantir, Italy has Hacking Team, and so on. There are plenty of these commercial bad actors in the IT security space who make surveillance tools for governments, and who display an impressive lack of ethics.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
