Europe Should Be Afraid of Huawei, EU Tech Official Says (reuters.com) 130
The European Union should be worried about Huawei and other Chinese technology companies because of the risk they pose to the bloc's industry and security, the EU's technology commissioner said on Friday. From a report: "Do we have to be worried about Huawei or other Chinese companies? Yes, I think we have to be worried about those companies," Andrus Ansip told a news conference in Brussels, days after a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested in Canada as part of an investigation into alleged bank fraud.
Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data.
He also said those companies produce chips that could be used "to get our secrets." "As normal, ordinary people we have to be afraid," he said, adding he did not have enough information about the recent arrest in Canada.
Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data.
He also said those companies produce chips that could be used "to get our secrets." "As normal, ordinary people we have to be afraid," he said, adding he did not have enough information about the recent arrest in Canada.
Why??? (Score:1)
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Precisely. It is american companies we should fear instead
That is a false dichotomy. You can fear China and also fear American companies. It's a "whataboutery" [oxforddictionaries.com] argument: saying we should fear American companies in no way cancels out the fact that we might want to avoid Chinese products with built-in back.
But second, these are two completely different fears. Basically, American companies want to know everything about you so they can sell you advertisements. That's fundamentally different from China, in which the government to control everything.
Really. The Chine
Re: Why??? (Score:1)
But my government will demand access to that data or grab it anyway so there really isn't.
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Fair enough, but all the froth about what "HuaWei + PRC might do" demands a calming dose of what âoeCisco+USA actually didâ.
Re: Why??? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you look how Chinese companies are structured, by their law, a Chinese official has to be on the board, and has the ultimate decision authority. It is equivalent to having someone from the NSA, CIA, DHS, or DEA be the deciding person on a US company's board in every decision made. Yes people argue, but US companies can give the middle finger to the government. Not so in China where attempts to do so will have people and their families send off somewhere to be "re-educated".
Even a foreign company doing business on Chinese soil cannot do so unless a Chinese counterpart (and thus the PRC) owns 51% of the venture.
So, yes, China is a threat, as anything Huawei gets, the Chinese government gets, and that info can be easily sold. They may not hurt you or your family, but they can find someone who can.
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If you look how Chinese companies are structured, by their law, a Chinese official has to be on the board, and has the ultimate decision authority. It is equivalent to having someone from the NSA, CIA, DHS, or DEA be the deciding person on a US company's board in every decision made.
Wait until the new Congress gets rolling. This is exactly what’s about to happen.
Re: Why??? (Score:5, Informative)
Even a foreign company doing business on Chinese soil cannot do so unless a Chinese counterpart (and thus the PRC) owns 51% of the venture.
That is a flat-out lie. You are fake news.
http://www.china-briefing.com/news/setting-up-a-wholly-foreign-owned-enterprise-in-china/
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If you look how Chinese companies are structured, by their law, a Chinese official has to be on the board, and has the ultimate decision authority. It is equivalent to having someone from the NSA, CIA, DHS, or DEA be the deciding person on a US company's board in every decision made. Yes people argue, but US companies can give the middle finger to the government. Not so in China where attempts to do so will have people and their families send off somewhere to be "re-educated".
Even a foreign company doing business on Chinese soil cannot do so unless a Chinese counterpart (and thus the PRC) owns 51% of the venture.
So, yes, China is a threat, as anything Huawei gets, the Chinese government gets, and that info can be easily sold. They may not hurt you or your family, but they can find someone who can.
Sounds like FUD.
No way is any of this even logistically possible.
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How is this any different when US companies receive secret FISA warrants?
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In US it is the other way around. The US officials have to have corporate people in the council, and they have the ultimate decision authority.
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So far, as far as my daily life is concerned, the chinese government minds their own business, whereas others try again and again to push their own draconian take on some laws on foreign countries, such as infinite length copyright.
Re: Why??? (Score:3)
Actually, government & commercial are additive in both countries, not mutually exclusive.
China: companies officially beholden to CCP, AND they want to know everything about you to sell you more stuff (though both are largely indifferent to you unless you're either a threat to the CCP *or* a potential consumer in China)
US: companies can be compelled to secretly do the federal government's bidding (upon the relevant law enforcement agency or intelligence agency getting a court order), and they want to kno
this sounds familiar "mandatory back doors" (Score:5, Insightful)
"Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data. "
to
"Apple, which generated $233 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in US, faces intense scrutiny from many nations over its orders from the US government, driven by concerns it could be used for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because US technology companies were being forced in FISA courts to cooperate with FBI investigations, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data."
Re:this sounds familiar "mandatory back doors" (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, it's always "EVIL" when it's the other side spying. Now if they had total control themselves, they wouldn't cry "wolf" like this, but they'd shut up about it and tell the denizens to go back to their normal lives and live it as if nothing was afoot.
Truth is - we need open source processors and alternatives, so we have an alternative to big corporations that can be forced to make decisions based on the powers that be.
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Truth is - we need open source processors...
Actually, processors/MCUs themselves aren't much of an issue as far as backdoors goes. The issue isn't hardware, it's always software.
With desktops/servers the problem is that AMD/Intel have an underlying control system that cannot be disabled. AMD PSP is less of a threat but Intel ME is a HUGE threat.
With "smart" phones the problem is a lack of an open source baseband processor for cellular phones, aka a cellular modem. The software stack to get on a cell network with a minimum of 3G GSM is enormous bec
Re:this sounds familiar "mandatory back doors" (Score:4, Insightful)
How about simply reality. YES, you should be very much worried about all foreign supplied technology in your countries infrastructure. It basically places you hostage to that other countries control of the companies that supply you that technology. It can be backed doored in all sorts of ways, to intercept data, to censor data, to shut down the transmission of data, YES, it is extremely risky to place the control of your countries infrastructure in the hands of other countries governments via their control of the companies supplying the technology.
Who would I trust the least, well, you know the easy answer would be the USA but in reality Saudi Arabia and Israel would be fucking worse, and a bunch of other corrupt countries but to be honest I would trust China ahead of the USA, quite a ways ahead. Other countries should really stop using code or electronics coming out of the US, it is way more back doored than most would believe, oh yeah, multiple back doors.
Re:this sounds familiar "mandatory back doors" (Score:5, Informative)
But so far Apple has resisted the mandatory decrypting and back doors.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/02/apple-other-tech-companies-continue-to-resist-encryption-backdoor-proposals-by-fbi-us-doj
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/apple-fbi-privacy-encryption-fight-san-bernardino-shooting-syed-farook-iphone
https://www.imore.com/why-apple-was-right-resist-government-demands-back-door-ios
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-wants-apple-to-help-unlock-iphone-used-by-san-bernardino-shooter/2016/02/16/69b903ee-d4d9-11e5-9823-02b905009f99_story.htm
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Australia just passed a law requiring companies to comply with law enforcement requests to introduce a way around end-to-end encryption.. they can attempt to force companies overseas like Apple and Facebook to provide tools to get around this encryption...
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-12-07/encryption-bill-australian-technology-industry-fuming-mad/10589962?section=politics
So whilst China might be a concern, you can add Australia to the list of countries who's tech sector is compromised by it's Go
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But so far Apple has resisted the mandatory decrypting and back doors.
Or so they say.... how do you think they stay in business?
A comment on other comments. CN requiring govt officials on their boards.... er, Dropbox anyone? But many of us use that without a whimper.
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But Still -- Who's Side Should You Pick? (Score:5, Insightful)
The U.S. government is not perfect but I think a great deal not as bad as the Chinese government, in so many ways. And China has been particularly aggressive in its spying, using technology and human assets in the United States and Europe. Chinese aggression against its weaker neighbors is legendary, pushing them around in the the South China sea and other places -- even Chinese fishermen boarding other nation's boats and attacking them with clubs.
Furthermore, the "disappearances" of people in all regions but particularly minority regions has been vast and relentless for decades. Chinese denials of shooting Tibetans crossing the border on foot toward Nepal, for example, was shut down after European mountain climbers video recorded it. China has led the world and the predominant supplier of human organs. The company that builds its "death mobiles" was bragging about growing production demand for them, about 5 years ago when production rates were 1000 per year. Those bodies exhibits, each holding around 200 bodies, in various cities around the U.S. simultaneously were interestingly stocked with Chinese youth, roughly in their 20's (almost exclusively). And of course, there are the camps with millions of minorities for re-education. How many Tibetan monks taken have every been seen again? At one time, over 8,000 were taken never to be seen again.
Our country (the United States) has all kinds of problems but I really think we need to not lose perspective.
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As a non-american (and non-chinese) I'm more concenrned about american espionage, because americans so far have a big lead in technology (that, granted, is going to erode over time), and a lot more resources to go into espionage. I'd prefer if you guys didn't engage in that kind of thing, but power corrupts, no two ways about that.
"Death Mobiles" Had to look that one up... (Score:2)
Egads... The things totalitarian states can get away with.
https://gizmodo.com/5151377/ch... [gizmodo.com]
Re:But Still -- Who's Side Should You Pick? (Score:5, Insightful)
Chinese aggression against its weaker neighbors is legendary
Gimme a break. The United States is the world's leading bully. Does the United States require seventeen intelligence agencies that alone cost more than Russia spends on defense? Particularly when they have a long history of lying, incompetence and in some cases criminality (torture, murder, support of genocide, etc.). It seems to me that if Trump eradicates some (CIA), reduces some in size (NSA), merges those that overlap (NRO and NGA) and focuses on those that are any good (DIA), it'll make the United States safer and the world better. If anything, during the Cold War the KGB ran merry circles around western agencies that were all hilariously incompetent. You could have had German shepherds staff the CIA and get about the same result.
The US has repeatedly interfered in a multitude of elections, coups and power-struggles in an enormous variety of countries over the last hundred and fifty years. They're probably the worst offenders internationally. Here are a couple of highlights:
* Syria 1949: The democratically elected government of Shukri al-Quwatli was overthrown in a CIA backed coup. It installed a military dictatorship under Husni al-Za'im.
* Iran 1953: The democratically elected government of Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a CIA and MI6 backed coup. It reinstalled the Shah and indirectly facilitated the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
* Guatamala 1954: The democratically elected government of Jacobo Ãrbenz was overthrown in a CIA backed coup. It installed a military dictatorship under Carlos Castillo Armas.
* Chile 1973: The democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in a CIA backed coup. It installed a military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet.
* Let's not forget Iraq 2003. No WMD were ever found.
And I haven't even mentioned any of the many, many countries the US invaded during the 20th Century. Let's imagine China declaring itself an "East Pacific" power, intervening in America's back yard, installing nuclear weapons in Mexico and Venezuela and establishing a strong military presence in the Caribbean. The American will to dominate the planet with its nonsensical assertions that it's maintaining the international "order" and encouraging "democracy" is an updated version of the old colonial "White Man's Burden."
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The US has repeatedly interfered in a multitude of elections
Don't forget Canada, 2015. Numerous American commentators joined the "anyone but Harper" campaign, and were part of the reason we're currently stuck with a high school drama teacher leading the country, getting his ass handed to him economically by Donald Trump.
Whenever someone from the USA talks about the Russians "hacking their election" for posting a few memes on facebook, I have to laugh in their face.
Re:But Still -- Who's Side Should You Pick? (Score:5, Informative)
I won't speak to US related regime change in the Middle East, but here's the list of our activities in South America.
There are 11 countries listed. I didn't read the whole thing, but 30,000 people "disappeared" when the US helped overthrow a democratically elected president in Argentina (circa 1976).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
China does play with their citizens and their neighbors. The US does this stuff world wide (secret prisons, abductions, etc.).
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>The U.S. government is not perfect but I think a great deal not as bad as the Chinese government ....
>Chinese aggression against its weaker neighbors is legendary
Seriously, only ONE nation has meddled so much in other countries that it needs a whole article on Wikipedia for it self and it isn't China. If you put nations in leagues the US would be alone in Champions-league (well, maybe Israel would be up there too) and China would be down in 1. or 2. division.
What is it with people eating propaganda r
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US technology companies were being forced in FISA courts to cooperate with FBI investigations, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data."
Is there an actual link to this happening, or is this just more apples-to oranges fearmongering?
Both.
The FBI wanted a backdoor, and Apple fought it.
https://gizmodo.com/why-you-sh... [gizmodo.com]
Successfully, that time-- the FBI withdrew, and said they'd find a different way to crack the phone.
china... scary! Russia... scary! (Score:1)
im getting a little tired of these dog whistles because while it is concerning that China and/or Russia may be spying on us these same people have no problem with google or facebook spying on us!
Lets clean up our own house before we go throwing stones at others.
Classic whataboutery [Re:china... scary! Russia..] (Score:2, Insightful)
That's whataboutery.
We know that Russia and China are spying.
Replying "but what about X? What about Y?" doesn't mean that Russia and China aren't spying, or that we shouldn't worry about it: it is only an attempt to change the subject.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Whataboutism [rationalwiki.org]
yellow peril (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh noes not the yellow peril all over again. Reds under the bed, cue generic ranting...
Well actually I agree. And I spent a number of years actually examining the insides of Huawei kit for security evaluation. What Huawei are, are masters of shifting the blame, making "accidental" firmware features that shouldn't be on kit when its discovered, and calling racist on every single person who has the audacity to actually out flaws.
Plus they get all of their larger corporate customers tied into a non disclosure
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He forgot to take his meds again.
... or watching Fox News.
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But they aren't worried about hordes of "immigrant" dedicated to destroying their cultures and replacing it with a death cult?
Not sure whether to mod this "troll" or answer it as a serious question. Guess I'll take it seriously and reply anonymously.
If you actually paid attention to the news, and which parties are taking power in Europe, you would know that in fact Europe is very worried about immigrants, and what they will do to their culture. Your post is wrong from the very first words.
Why is "immigrant" in quotes, by the way?
In general, the immigrants that Europeans are worried about are refugees. They aren't "dedicated to
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OK, so we get the occasional nutcase from North Africa intent on suicide for religious reasons, but they kill less people a year than a single home grown, god fearing, gun toting nutcase in America.
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The USA is 64th in the world in frequency of mass shootings per capita.
"Normal people" will be fine. (Score:4, Insightful)
This story isn't really about "normal people", which typically refers to an average citizen. Those have nothing that Chinese intelligence would want. It's the same reason why we "normal people" are relatively safe against the likes of NSA too. We have nothing NSA wants.
It's the corporations that are engaged in competition with China, and state structures that need to be worried. They actually have things Chinese intelligence wants. But that doesn't sound as scary to the "normal people" unfortunately, because they often have trouble connecting "myself" to "my state" and "large corporations in my state that directly affect my livelihood".
Re:"Normal people" will be fine. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why the intelligence agencies are getting freaked out and ringing the alarm bell - they don't have back doors in Chinese equipment. Thus, using Chinese equipment is safest for me, the ordinary American. I have much more to fear from my own government than any distant one. The US government kills people left and right with no conscience problems.
They're not protecting YOU, they're protecting themselves. It's all the compassion of a farmer installing electric fences when his cattle think they might be better off not being slaughtered. This isn't some kind of loony conspiracy theory, we know for a fact they lied about spying on us. On March 12, 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress that intel officials were not collecting mass data on tens of millions of Americans. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden soon revealed material that proved Clapper's testimony false: The government had been gathering and storing data from ordinary Americans' phone records, email and Internet use.
https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/12/1210665_obama-leak-investigations-internal-use-only-pls-do-not.html [wikileaks.org]
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Did you notice the last sentence in my post? Your writings presented a very good example of exact problem I outline. The security services in your country are ultimately about serving the interests of your country. Which in turn are you interests, because foreign entities would love to exploit you to the maximum potential.
Is the current NSA snooping regime bad on a principle? Absolutely. Not even a shred of doubt. Snowden was a hero for bringing what is happening to light. It needed to be brought to light.
B
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The security services in your country are ultimately about serving the interests of your country. Which in turn are you interests,
Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no, no. The interests of the intelligence community and the military-industrial complex are NOT my interests. Invading Iraq was NOT in my interest. Bombing and invading country after country is NOT in my interest. They have spent six trillion dollars on war since 9/11. You know what's in my interest? Spending one-sixth of that on our own pe
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You're missing the forest for the trees. You're talking about specific faults with specific people. I'm talking the general principle.
And when you're looking at individual bad trees, it's very, VERY important to keep in mind that they do not represent the forest in any way. Our primitive mind is very poorly equipped for this task, as we are optimized for existence in tribes where a total number of people that are in your group is in two digits or low three at the most. And modern governments are far, far la
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Would you like to provide a non-idealistic and non-utopian reasoning as to why?
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"interests of the state" is some coded language for interests of certain wealthy people in power. In a democracy, the interests of the state are the interests of the people.
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It's interesting that you derived that meaning from it. I was using it as it originated - as a geopolitical term.
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This is not a disagreement, but a simple nomenclature issue. I count people who are in places that hold such critical information as a part of such organisations, and "normal people" as those who don't have such access. Because frankly, overwhelming majority of people do not have such access.
Slashdot with its somewhat specialist field of interest is likely to represent a significant societal outlier on this topic.
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And now pretend you're on slashdot and actually understand mathematics and concept of relative vs absolute numbers.
What is the percentage of people that have access to the kind of information China would want out of total of workforce?
Exactly. Normal people have nothing to fear here. NatSec people don't give a fuck about your porn tastes or how much credit card debt you have unless you're one of the specific few that actually has relevant access.
As for "but if we conduct bank theft en masse" sure, you can p
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Not going to bother with your dumb dirt throwing, but I'll just point out that there's literally a campaign going on right now in China, and has been ongoing for a few years of Chinese government executing people on mainstream TV.
I bought a Huawei scale. (Score:2)
The app want to know my web history, bookmarks and installed apps.
I think I'll return it even though it's cheaper.
Also bought their semi-broken tablet, I have no idea how that spy or whatever it will be fixed (breaks apps + shit antenna) may return that too.
S3 32 GB 3999 SEK
Vs
Mediapad M5 64 GB 3333 SEK.
Scale AH100? 290 SEK Vs Nokia Body+ for 590ish or beuer bf700/750 for 400-500ish or possibly Amazon but I live in Scandinavia.
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It also measure resistance in the body or whatever and hence give some estimates of body fat, muscle mass, bone mass (?) and such and transfer those over BlueTooth to an app (but their stupid app doesn't work with their own Mi Band if you own one nor does it link to Google Fit or Apple Health or if they are named the other way around.) It also can guess who are using the scale in a household with multiple persons and hence track different individuals values. Also the mechanical house-hold weight scales are
China copies US (Score:4, Interesting)
Over the years we have learned that many US high tech products (processors, motherboards, USB devices,...) contain backdoors, and US developped cryptographic algorithms are deliberately weakened. Now the Echelon states warn EU that China does the same. Smokescreen to the EU ?
Probably more concerned about not spying for us. (Score:4, Interesting)
The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) just came up with eTLS, a version of TLS1.3 that can be decrypted by middleboxes because it uses static keys instead of ephemeral keys from a DH key exchange. This eTLS version is to be used so that companies can decrypt TLS connections to inspect for viruses, information leaks, etc., but also so that data inspection requirements of law enforcement can be fulfilled. American companies are subject to American spy agencies and can be forced to implement backdoors that they cannot tell any of their customers about. The existence of National Security Letters leave not a shred more trust in these companies' products than the reign of the Chinese government over Huawei leaves in their products. Nobody's warning about using Erricson, Nokia, Alcatel, Juniper or Cisco in our networks. These are companies which are beholden to "the good guys", right? They are not more secure, but we can tell them to give us backdoor access. We cannot tell Huawei to open a network for us. I think that's the actual reason behind those warnings. Nobody is trustworthy. The difference is who will cooperate with us.
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Has he ever made a statement on Cisco and Juniper (Score:1)
both of whom have been caught multiple times inserting backdoors and spyware into their equipment? No? Seems he's being paid off.
And the fact still remains: it has never been proven that Huawei has inserted backdoors in their telecom equipment. Only accusations, but no proof whatsoever.
"Secrets"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's be honest here, China doesnt give a flying fuck about *my* secrets, and frankly I'd rather the Chinese or Russians had a backdoor to my data than my own fucking government, Duh.
Funny how the government(s) here dont like backdoors in their *own* shit, but want to mandatory install them in *everyone else's* shit.
Yeah, little trouble ginning up sympathy here for anyone other than joe and jane consumer, who get fucked either way.
bank fraud? (Score:3)
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I don't understand why a Chinese person is held to US sanctions against Iran.
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The US is able to take action because Huawei allegedly committed bank fraud to do so. That's illegal. The "bank fraud" is the basis for the arrest/detention.
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Alternative to Huawei (Score:3)
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Viable alternatives to Huawei on operator level are really either NSN or Ericsson. Both are EU based manufacturers
And there you have the basis of their "fear". The just want to make sure that *what goes in the EU stays in the EU*
Simple ideas of what to do about it ... (Score:2)
If one wants to talk about something meaningful it would be a good idea to go outdoors, say running in a park or woods, without smartphones.
Carry a smartphone in a backpack, in a zipped pocket, in order to reduce sensitivity of the microphone (an electromagnetic radiation).
Use text messages instead of phone-calls, not to keep it in a jacket pocket all the time.
At hom
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Carry a smartphone in a backpack, in a zipped pocket, in order to reduce sensitivity of the microphone (an electromagnetic radiation).
Wait what?
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Text messages are way easier to store and process than audio.
Get the cuffs! (Score:1)
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Be very afraid... (Score:4, Interesting)
hmmm.. (Score:2)
EU, like the rest of the west, should only use.... (Score:2)
EU should be afraid of US technology... (Score:3)
We have an huge dependency on US products... and US has killswitch on many of them...
Countless iPhone/iPads that can be remotely locked by Apple
Army's planes like the F-35 which "phone home" continuously and can be remote-disabled
Microsoft that can remote disable any computer by saying that "the key has been used for pirate distribution"
HDMI peripherals that can be revokec by the HDCP
and so on...
Reliance on US device is very dangerous... should one day US decide to go against us...