There's no Huawei we're taking this lying down: Chinese mobe maker denies US govt racketeering charges

Huawei has pleaded not guilty on Wednesday a New York court to Uncle Sam's charges it robbed, racketeered, and wire frauded itself to technology success. The case was brought by the US government against a bunch of Huawei firms and subsidiaries, including Huawei Tech, Huawei Device USA, Futurewei Tech, and Skycom Tech. The …

[Anonymous Coward]

Discovery?

Ah yes. Where the US Government redacts every word in the interests of National Security.

If anyone thinks that we'll get to see or hear about what it is that Trumpton has on Hauwei then I would not hold my breath.

Uncle Trump wants them made the enemy of the state so that all assets can be confiscated.

[First Light]

The indictment has quite a bit of information, unredacted.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1248961/download

Some redactions seem to conceal the identity of Huawei informants.

If they can prove it in court, with testimony and documentary evidence, then forfeiture of a proportional nature is appropriate.

Not all federal government prosecutors are necessarily in the President's pocket.

[Yes Me]

The President's pocket

Interesting & unusual pattern of up/down votes on this comment and the previous one. Seems like the US Govt has some fingers on buttons on El Reg's site. I suppose that can be taken as a compliment.

"Not all federal government prosecutors are necessarily in the President's pocket." Well no, but the ones who don't do what they're told tend to get fired. No US company would ever get prosecuted over such alleged behaviour. This is just more of the politically organised campaign against a successful foreign competitor.

[cornetman]

Had a quick look at the Cisco blog article.

One of the charges is that they copied source code from their implementation of strcmp.

That's what constitutes a smoking gun these days? WTF?

[Steve Davies 3]

strcmp?

think back to SCO vs IBM and the contents of 'errno.h'.

Scumbag lawyers will use the smallest most insignificant thing and blow it out of all proportion in the service of those who line their coffers with $100 bills.

[henryd]

Where did Cisco get the code from?

Hey, that might be my code. In a previous lifetime I was one half of a team that developed, in Intel, gcc for the new 32 bit 80386 processor.

For the Whetstone measurements I had to write, from scratch, all of the standard C library in ANSI C.

Some of my code contained Easter Eggs so that I could identify it later. Can’t remember if the string library did though.

(Depressing thought, I just realized that was over 35 years ago)

[sanmigueelbeer]

Switzerland files criminal complaint over Crypto spying scandal

The technology Crypto sold to dozens of governments including those of Iran, India, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Chile, and Argentina had deliberate flaws or built-in back doors that made messages easily readable to US and German spies. In effect, those client countries paid millions to be spied on.

In essence, there are two rules in this world: One rule for the US government and the rest of the world.

[Babalegi Eish]

Spot-on comment. Utter hypocrites are Yanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huawei stick?

This really smacks of throw it against the wall and see what sticks.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a later charge of unregistered foreign agents but conspiracy to avoid parking tickets can't be ruled out.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

China's Captured "Princess"

"Analysis" on BBC Radio4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fwd0

https://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/https/vpid/p084vs4q.mp3

[Babalegi Eish]

Who is America to decide anyone is in breach of 'sanctions' or is guilty of anything? The CIA and Deep State are the biggest industrial espionage leeches on the planet. Always the same American arrogance and hypocrisy.

[martinusher]

There's more than a touch of racism in here

One thing you'll learn if you come to live in the US is just how close to the surface racism is -- its baked into the culture and although its now illegal/unconstitutional its still very much in existance. It leaks out in comments like the one made recently by an administration official about "China joining the civilized world" or some such. Its a bit of a nonsense for us who live on the Left Coast since anyone who lives and works in technology here will have had numerous Chinese colleagues but even given this our history here has been one of constant denial of rights and persecution of people of Chinese origin. So this case is in keeping with our fine tradition of passing laws and generally stomping on national groups who aren't like us and who we think are getting a bit too big for our boots.

This loathsome administration opened the floodgates but there are many, many, of us who will willingly seize the opportunity to dogpile, especially if there's money to be made from it. I read recently that the FBI has about a thousand active investigations into Chinese espionage -- its definitely not a good time to be a Chinese alien working in the US. (Which is actually shooting ourselves in the foot -- we need the labor!)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: There's more than a touch of racism in here

One thing you'll learn if you come to live in the US is just how close to the surface racism is

Well, OK, but that is a problem in the UK too, at least in London (cannot speak for the rest, although the few people I know from Norwich don't seem to have that problem). I married someone who was clearly identifiable as from abroad (non-white, bright and rather decorative :) ), and I was appalled at the attitudes on display when she started to look for work. I don't have the impression that has changed much, regretfully.

[BigSLitleP]

Re: There's more than a touch of racism in here

I'll back this up. The UK's racism is a bit more subtle than the USAs but it still runs pretty deep. I've lived all across our green and pleasant land. Strangely, it tends to be against different ethnicities depending on where you are at the time.

[EnviableOne]

Re: There's more than a touch of racism in here

thats the big diffenence

in the US its blatent and on the surface

in the UK its still there, but its more subtle and nuanced and they are likley to disguse their exact motives

[_LC_]

On closer inspection, these accusations all fall apart!

> Other allegations include a Huawei staffer creeping around a trade show in the middle of night and removing covers from networking gear in order to photograph the circuitry inside.

This sounds like something to someone who doesn't have a clue of today's technology. It would have worked in the 70's or 80's, maybe. Today, those circuits come on boards with several layers. A photograph from the top, typically, doesn't give you much.

> Another engineer is accused of sneaking into a rival firm’s lab in order to pinch a robot arm used for testing mobile phones. The robo-arm was measured and photographed before being returned, the US claims.

This is the old Telekom accusation. A German tech-media site (Heise) commented on this, that they had built such a device themselves with little trouble. Students can do this in a few days. The accusations are ridiculous.

[Will Godfrey]

Progress?

It seems the bully child has reached the point of rolling around on the floor screaming.

[Ben 56]

Photos of a robot arm!

Lol at that one.

How can anyone take the claims seriously with allegations like that?

Espionage in the US used to be stealing F35 blueprints from servers, or copying designs for space shuttles. Now it's taking photos of robot arms like it's technology that hasn't been around for the last 60 years, and most of it made in China for the last 40.

[Jamie Jones]

"The wide-ranging case covers Huawei’s alleged trading with Iran and North Korea in breach of UN Security Council embargoes"

And when will the US punish Israel for its UN violations?

Maybe when the Trump administration stops revoking visas from IOC members investigating US warcrimes in Afghanistan (https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/05/politics/icc-afghanistan-pompeo/index.html and https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/05/politics/icc-prosecutor-visa-revoked/index.html), or they rejoin the Paris accord, or just generally stop pissing on world decisions they don't like, then maybe we'll stop laughing when they come out with bullshit like that.