Good old British 'fair play' is the answer to vexed Huawei question, claims security minister Solving the Huawei 5G security problem is a question of convincing the Chinese to embrace British "fair play", security minister Ben Wallace said yesterday without the slightest hint of irony. During a Q&A at Chatham House's Cyber 2019 conference, Wallace said the issue of allowing companies from non-democratic countries …
Properly Warranted - That's the bit we expect to be ignored by spooks.
Oversight - That's the bit we think will be airbrushed / rubber stamped etc.
Backdoors - That's the bit we expect 'Evil Gits' tm to break in through.
Fair play - Only happens when there's consequences to being caught.
'...Wallace also declared he wants the British public "protected online as well as they are offline..." '
Does that include online/offline protection from the overweening power of the state?
Unless the answer is a meaningful 'Yes' then surely everything else that is claimed is just so much vacuous political bullshit.
In particular, we need protection from arbitrary, mistaken, corrupt and just lazy actions of the state. As there is no way for anyone to know when one of those actions has taken place, and hence get relief, the only feasible protection is to make such actions hideously expensive/difficult (same thing) so they will be used sparingly and only in the most extreme circumstances (and with a lot of visibility and clear responsibility at a high level).
This aligns with all security discussion: which is always not about absolutely preventing some undesirable effect but making it more expensive than the opponent wishes to spend.
As the famous John Catt case proves, if authorities get data about someone they will keep it and act on it in the future, including in ways which are clearly unreasonable. In order to be "protected online as well as they are offline", there are several key principles:
Data collection must be precisely targeted, based on compelling evidence, and approved in advance by an experienced judge.
Data collection must be very hard and expensive, so it occurs only in the most serious cases.
Collected data must be forced to be destroyed quickly.
Targets must be informed about the collection, and destruction, within a reasonable time so that they can take legal action if necessary.
I take the view: he's a hypocrite
That's the most fundamental British value of all (along with self-deception).
If he's calling for fair play, I take it he calls for rejecting the enemies of fair play? In this case, Trump. Leave decisions for or against Huawei to those whose business it is and who have the expertise: Vodafone, BT, etc.
Well, maybe the Far Asians got a stranglehold on tech manufacture because the neo-liberal governments since 1978, here in Britain [ and also those overseas ], detested native workers so much they did not want the high costs of such manufacture here, which would include not only high wages, upsetting God's Plan of the Rich Man in his Castle and the Poor Man at his Food Bank, but an associated increase in political heft and Trade Unionism for the lower classes.
@Claverhouse
Since the war successive governments have minimalised and eroded British industry while crowing about British scientific research that in the same breath was being denied support.
By the time we got to Thatcher she made made as sure as she could that the country should develop into a nation of clerks working in the service industries.
Britain does make some excellent products but thanks to all of our governments no matter their alleged position to the right or left, there isn't enough industry left to fight a war against the Isle of Wight.
Personally I would prefer to do business with Chinese companies that spy on me than make a trade deal with the States that has US corporations asset stripping the NHS (such as it is) along with everything else they can get their hands on until Brits have no employment rights and no welfare state.
Its a question he should be able to answer without any trouble. Its all about how capitalism works, specifically about 'return on investment'. Developing a large scale technological capability requires significant ongoing investment. Most commercial markets can't take that level of investment because there's no viable return on that investment for some considerable period of time. The money flows to more productive areas -- real estate, financial services and so on -- and what companies that were working in this field are closed or sold off and the products they produced are replaced by imports. In financial journalist terms, its more 'efficient'.
This isn't a new phenomenon. I joined the UK's engineering workforce when it had a vestigial computer industry, an industry that got run down and sold off to a Japanese conglomerate who then used the rump to sell software services to government and the like. There was no room for me in the UK so I eventually found a job in the US where -- surprise -- the process repeated itself over my working life. Communications was big business in the 90s but a decade later the R&D was being hollowed out, offshored and in the process a generation was dissuaded from becoming engineers. While we were running ourselves down China was doing the exact opposite, stealthily (actually, not so stealthily) building up their capability by being the 'workshop of the world', making stuff cheap so that our corporations could boost their profits without the inconvenience of having to invest. The inevitable result....
@MartinUsher
Agree! But it's worse than the hollowing out of local industries.
At my alma mater, there are senior academics spending months in China, rounding up Chinese (paying) students, with the result that the majority of Engineering undergraduate students are.....Chinese.
Public policy has hollowed out our engineering industry....and we're actually teaching the next generation of tech to the Chinese. I hope that the next generation here in the UK appreciate that academia has sold the farm!
Because all that mattered was short-term profit. The stock markets and speculators are only interested in shareholder value tomorrow or possibly next week. They simply do not give a stuff about the long term. The Chinese on the other hand do think long term and are very good at it.
Compound this with a Western culture that is only interested in the next piece of consumer tat, fashion item or whatever at the lowest possible price. Everything has been about cost reduction and short term profit with the result that we are drowning in debt, don't make anything and are approaching the point that it is going to be pointless doing much about it as climate change will have buggered everything.
"If we don't trust them in the core, why should we trust them in the edge?“
Because, engineers have put loads of effort into the security architecture of 4G and 5G. Such that the standards-defined term “Core Network” indicates which elements have a security implication. And worked out to ensure that the edge doesnt actually need to be trusted, to keep data and identities secret.
If he doesn’t want contracts to go to Asia for money reasons, fine, but just say so rather than invent “trust” issues.
Quote from Ben Wallace: "...We would like, obviously, where necessary, to have access to the content of communications...."
Here's some "content". But about "access".....not so clear! Who sent it? Who are the recipients? Also not so clear!
1AhF1VQv147A0OfP1bf80HmQ1Jc21PCd1OZ51T1I
140n1kod1k==1ooC1V1818NA1TeZ1pl400fy1Bg$
0aQg0qYi05Kw1ftb1cfE1cEi1lP714y91FHp1fjP
16c$0csB0DjN0suW0I8s0lBF14d=1fLR1e6K1Afy
0Ujr1hcg0OK715oZ0eI50L590ORF10HJ0a0v1X$k
0EkP0LhU007G187S17CZ0qbH11UQ1Hfc01MK0tGD
0loH1NaQ0lrE1eXZ0MqM15S60KpS0oyA0sQI0XTC
14$E15100uht07FQ0sMJ0BQ208q20ok511RO1LVB
0t3g0K8J0Eln0MBt1b1B1miR1S6a14Vj0giK1q96
0qAL069G0jqk05Wp1mwz0Ryw0As00$no0iJ81TZE
0Naw15QJ0Qnx1HHb1Bc$1IYd0sOc1JbN08qI0Ht2
0ZS$1pQz0jUY1cBQ0EiL0fpT1Rpm013=09l=1Z38
"A ruthless minority of people seem to have fporgotten certain good old-fashioned virtues. They just can't stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game, they'd get a lot more out of life."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGge4rj4v_Y (from 1m 30s)
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