Re: Telnet IS a backdoor
"There was. At least I hope there was a password. That's what Huawei said. Because they needed Telnet for troubleshooting and maintenance."
They didn't say that at all. They said, according to the article, "configure and test the network devices". Now this could very easily have been during manufacture as part of the QA with the final sign off, disabling the login or writing out the customer firmware to the device. There doesn't appear to be any suggestion that a login still remained on the device. If you've ever looked at a lot of electronics they have a diagnostic port that is often underneath the cover that is used for the same purpose.
As for your talk about no such thing as a telnet server? What are you on about, in client server computing you define one thing that accepts requests as a server and you connect to it with a client. A machine with ports open to accept an incoming Telnet connection can be referred to as a Telnet Server or Service, the machine you connect to it with can be regarded as the Telnet Client. What tool you use to fire this up or maintain it, or if it calls itself something different on your device is largely irrelevant.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
