EU’s hodgepodge tech policy exposes members to Chinese vendor risks, says think tank

Depending on Chinese technology for European infrastructure poses risks that not every country takes seriously. So says the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which suggests that the EU needs to do better in helping members assess the risk and take appropriate action to safeguard the entire bloc. The UK-based think tank …

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Royal United Services Institue

Aren't they on our side ?

Why are they helping the Europeans ?

We fight wars with them, that's what they're for (well except Portugal).

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Royal United Services Institue

It's a place where ddull politicians and their megaphone press 'audience' regurgitate the same old nonsense year in year out.

If Europe was serious about security, it would list Cisco, HP, AWS, MS, Google, etc as a threat. Oh look. They are all American companies, one of which has stated that it will not obey European law if instructed to do so by the USA.

[Tron]

Without China, we wouldn't have much of anything.

We don't get much from the US. Check around your house. If you chucked out everything that contained anything from China, you would be living in a pre-industrial hovel.

We need to learn to get on with people we disagree with. It's how trade works. It prevents wars in which politicians thin down their troublesome populations to a manageable size.

Plus the obvious point that Trump has been far more of a threat to the EU than China for years now.

I am up for a compromise. A pincer movement from the Children's Commissioner, who may well be happy to see the internet turned off in the UK to protect the children, and politicians, who can no longer afford to pay GAFA to get through the day any more. We could embrace the retro vibe and return to the tech of 1982. Back to paper forms, 28 days for delivery, jumpers for goalposts etc. We save cash, protect ourselves from foreign hackers and all the online harms vanish, because there is no online. Just a revived CEEFAX system. For those of you who really need to stay connected, we can bring back Fax machines.

[VoiceOfTruth]

Re: Without China, we wouldn't have much of anything.

>> Plus the obvious point that Trump has been far more of a threat to the EU than China for years now.

Trump's latest message to the EU is this: Accept USA tariffs willingly, destroy your economies, buy overpriced American oil and gas, all to be on the same side as the USA tries to battle China.

Elbows up, Canada. I wonder how long it will be before Carney caves in. Cleveland Cliffs will 'indefinitely idle' a steel plant in Hamilton next week. This is just the beginning. More American companies will follow. Trump is right: the USA doesn't need Canada. But it does want its resources. These are two different things.

[heyrick]

Allow me to fix this for you

RUSI stated that concerns about Chinese American IT vendors “are well-founded,” and that it is true that the Chinese American government can empower authorities to exercise control over companies like Huawei Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Meta...

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Sounds like a certain "think tank" is too heavily influenced by the American take on things; most nations don't seem to be suffering from anything using Chinese hardware other than their consistent-across-the-industry quality control issues that result in security holes, but even the US vendors produce hardware with such holes far too often for comfort. As per usual the Americans paranoia about their primary competition for global market and mind share is heavily clouding their judgement about the real world situation.

The simple fact of the matter is that sooner or later, every company screws up and leaves you exposed. In the age of internet-speed information spreading and AI-enhanced framework coding tools, those screw ups and security holes can be fatal to your enterprise' or governments' security, but there is no alternative other than mandating impossible to achieve testing metrics for IT industries. Even a "5-nines" test coverage requirement would be gamed and limited in effectiveness because what you test is as important as how much you test, and some scenarios require some really creative coding just to set up and execute a test case to cover it. AI emphatically does not have the skills required to code such edge case tests; all it is good for is the bread-and-butter "did my setter set the value" type tests.