Don't tell us to go Huawei, Chinese ambassadors tell UK and France The Chinese state has gone on a diplomatic offensive over Huawei and 5G, with ambassadors to the UK and France both accusing their host countries of discriminating against the company. In a missive posted on the website of China's Paris embassy, Ambassador Lu Shaye bemoaned what he said was "difference of treatment of …
@LDS: China certainly have some issues within their sphere of influence, but that is largely for the populations of the countries to deal with. China is no risk to anyone outside that sphere (at least, not at the moment). The anti-China rhetoric is just the old anti-Russia stuff, only less believable.
Until Trump started his trade war with China, there was no real concern about Huawei - its kit was used widely. There is still no evidence of concern, yet, all of a sudden, the kit is a risk. I have no particular problem with "making America great again" as long as it does it fairly.
If you think we should break the free market and/or embark on protectionism simply because you disagree with a country's government/political makeup, then that's a lot of trade we'd have to stop.
Similarly, should other countries put an embargo on our goods because we're part of the largest spy network in the world, or they don't like us selling arms to the Saudis and countless other unethical actions?
I still can't help but laugh. It's just so ironic.
The governments complaining about unproven "possible backdoors" in kit are the very same governments who for years have been demanding tech gives them backdoors.
Of course it's totally different right? China is always the bad guy.
Meanwhile when other nations do the exact same thing, it's not bad.
Irony...
Indeed.
"did not explain why the Chinese state is mounting a multi-nation diplomatic effort to back said private company"
Sorry ? The US has been doing that for decades, promoting Boeing everywhere the POTUS could. France has been doing that as well, defending Airbus while doing "diplomatic" stuff.
Presidents these days are just high-class salespeople. It's hardly new.
"Presidents these days are just high-class salespeople."
Did you not mean to write exactly the opposite? Some presidents/leaders may show some kind of reserved decorum (a varnish which may very well hide some nasty covert deeds) but these days, it’s seems the current trend is: the more crass, vulgar and/or blatantly corrupt, the better. Or may I’m watching the wrong kind of fake news :)
https://www.telecomreview.com/index.php/articles/reports-and-coverage/3634-us-considers-buying-controlling-stakes-in-nokia-and-ericsson
Spying to the left of them , Spying to the right
Into the valley of the surveillance State rode just about everyone.
<Quote> “There are only two companies that can compete with Huawei right now: Nokia and Ericsson,” Barr said in a speech on the Chinese economic threat. “The main concern about these suppliers is that they have neither Huawei's scale nor the backing of a powerful country with a large embedded market like China,”</Quote>
So, create/prop up a 5G alternative to Huawei - shoulda done that before they told countries not to use the kit.
As it stands currently, noone provides a viable alternative....
The HCSEC Oversight Board annual report* mentions that a general requirement staff for working for it is "Developed Vetting (DV) security clearance, which is the same level required in Government to have frequent, uncontrolled access to classified information and is mandatory for members of the intelligence services."
I wonder why. They are obviously not concerned with protecting Chinese state secrets here.
* https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/790270/HCSEC_OversightBoardReport-2019.pdf
I wonder why. They are obviously not concerned with protecting Chinese state secrets here.
Because, O Brain of Britain, finding a backdoor or, more likely, a vulnerability in a piece of Huawei kit which may also exist in sensitive networks in the UK would be a matter of UK national security. It also facilitates discussions with the spooks about the possible implications of bugs and vulnerabilities in such equipment.
And, oddly, it probably reassures the Chinese that the UK is taking this seriously.
And Airbus is a private company nothing to do with any European govt and Boeing are totally independent of the DoD (although in that case it is Boeing that own the DoD)
I wonder who a security prudent Chinese govt should buy airplanes from?
They should by Chinese copies of Boeing/Airbus planes, manufactured in China.
If they tell two citizens who are qualified engineers: get yourself hired by Boeing or Airbus, and you'll know what to do. Only one has to get home with the plans for them to save enough that they can then send an official overseas to protest vehemently when the other is arrested for espionage.
Its been many years since having a copy of the blueprints is all you need to make a copy of the product.
The Chinese do copy western aircraft. No matter how secret or stealthy a plane is as soon as anyone has half an idea of what it looks like you're able to buy a flying model from your choice of any number of Chinese suppliers. Of course, shaping a bit of foam isn't quite the same as building a commercial airliner but it shows that the basic skills are there to quickly make something and make it fly.
Airbus make planes in China
China are working on their own arcraft manufacturer, COMAC their first product is testing and should be in production later this year or early next the C919 a competitor to the A320 and 737
Have you studied the history of (say) the British computer industry. In 1970, you could have written
"ICL is a private-owned company, nothing to do with the British government."
People would have laughed very loudly. To quote Wikipedia: "ICL was an initiative of Tony Benn, the Minister of Technology, to create a British computer industry..." It didn't work out, but that's beside the point. All this is business as usual: of course the Chinese government supports Huawei, but that doesn't mean they control it.
Just a reminder that writing stuff that looks like terrible convoluted code is a tried and tested way of deliberately introducing exploits as they're not easily spotted, especially when writing low level code that looks like an entry into the international obfuscated C contest. The usual excuse to cover up the nefariousness is that it was done that way "for efficiency and high performance reasons". Trying to spot sneaky stuff by looking at the binaries is a pointless needle in a haystack finding exercise : it's almost impossible if the exploit was cleverly created.
Isnt the saying- you wont find someone more capitalist than an old socialist. I can understand the Chinese being miffed about free trade, since their progression out of socialism they have been learning the way to prosperity quickly. While people in the west are glorifying the ideals of socialist poverty the old commies in China are reducing the number of poor through considerable progress.
As to the security implications of this there are for and against which I can see the conflicting points of view.
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