OK, I've lived in the US but now live in China, where I once lived right down the road from a Huawei office. Recently, I was visiting my birthplace of Australia and met a friend who now manages IP networks for (one of?) the largest mobile data providers in the country. He said they were about to buy Huawei gear as it was cheaper and as featuresome as they required. Then the government came to visit. They said, you're welcome to buy it but there's no guarantee your licenses will be renewed. Of course, they didn't buy it.
There's a lot of this government and intelligence pressure on infrastructure providers going on. The general public is not informed. The situation appears to be global.
Our secret intelligence culture and process is antithetical to democracy, and enabling of plutocracy, neo-fascism, and the total corruption of our government. - Robert David Steele, ex-Marine, ex-CIA, Open Source Intelligence Expert, 'The Open-source Everything Manifesto'
A lot of the US capacity to break in to networks seems to come from just being aggressive paying individual hackers to sell them exploits out of public view. Some of these people have said to me 'I know it's unethical, but it's what I enjoy and I'm good at - the only other market is organized crime'. It's a constant digital arms race where the public loses. Hopefully the governments of the world will realize the futility here and begin to redirect resources toward open source systems.
And they have done well for themselves with protectionism. They have their own versions of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Ebay...why not their own Cisco and Intel next.
Wealth wont just keep accumulating in silicon valley. Not a bad thing.
Not just reverse engineering, but using an outright copy of the source code. I have worked at multiple huawei competitors (and even some non direct competitors) where some engineers joined and suddenly disappeared after it was discovered that they were still on the huawei payroll.
When I lived in Beijing several years ago, I interviewed a guy for a software development position. He worked for a network equipment provider (not Huawei). When I asked him about his work, he told me that his company based their router software on the same leaked version of Cisco's router OS that Huawei had used several years prior (IIRC, there was a court case over this, and Huaiwei switched to their own software).
Based on my experience, the Chinese now have the breadth, depth, confidence, and money to develop complex software on their own, so I expect to see less of this in the future.
As per this article, the Chinese can make a fair point to the US government that so long as Huawei is barred from the US, then there's nothing to discuss about telecom infrastructure equipment.
But I hope and wish the US and other Western governments will press for more media openness in China with the goal of ultimately getting China to tear down their system of censorship and the Great Firewall. Because, ultimately, I believe it hurts modern China more than it helps.
I was chatting once with somebody at one of Cisco's competitors. He mentioned that, some time ago, Huawei had copied there router designs down to the English silk screening on the PCBs. My friend also does a lot of contracting for them. They're famous for not paying their bills.
I do understand their security concerns though having read part of what the media reports of Edward Snowdens revelations.
I think some things China are doing some things that is worth a WTO investigation. For example that you cannot put up IT with media services in China without a local partner and a license from the Chinese state. Then surprise the local China partner may end up copying your services intellectual property. However Chinese companies are free to put up business in the West without local partners. That is unfair competition!
That's a superior bargaining position. Any other government could require the same things China does, but they don't, because companies aren't as desperate to do business there. The principle is no different from any other tariff, it's just paid in intellectual property rather than cash.
It could be that the Chinese government has legitimate security concerns - or it could be a convenient excuse to exercise some protectionism using an illegitimate excuse.
Either way, pressure on US companies to not blindly fall in step behind the US government is a good thing.
Even if it's the second, it's still a failure of the US government because of NSA's overreach, which has given the Chinese or Russian governments the excuse to do this.
It's basically the same argument civil liberties activists have for when a "freedom" country like US starts torturing people or censoring information. Doing that gives other much worse states the excuse to do it freely as well. If US then comes out and says "hey, you're such an awful government for torturing your people and whatnot", they will respond: "oh yeah? Right back at ya, buddy! Now will you get off your high horse?!"
That said, NSA spying is very much a national security issue. Why would you allow other countries to spy on you, hack you, and steal your secrets? I think it's natural to want to take any actions you can against that. It's actually disappointing that only "rival" countries such as China and Russia are taking measures against it. All the European countries should be doing it as well, especially since US doesn't seem to make any difference between China or say Germany.
Realistically thought the NSA may be celebrating now since truth is security is weaker in the home grown products compare to the big name american brands.
Better yet skilled foreign hackers won't be checking the security of these products since they most likely can't get their hands on them.
So it's security through obscurity for the most part.
The chinese skilled hackers are too busy snooping on their own citizens for their government. Hopefully the rest of the world can learn from this and move away from Chinese products.
Unlike China, Germany is under the thumb of the U.S. Their state prosecutor won't even start an investigation into the tapping of Merkel's phone because 'there isn't sufficient evidence'. Never mind that the U.S. gov't admitted to it.
I don't think Germany or any other E.U. countries will follow.
Germany is not "under the thumb" of the U.S as much as you seem to think. Just look at Ukraine or all the anti Google action that reeks of protectionism. There are simply too many rational arguments against starting a trade war over NSA rigged electronics.
Neither Germany nor Europe as a whole makes enough electronics equipment to replace everything that may have been rigged by the NSA or other nations' spy agencies. The NSA does not restrict itself to equipment clearly marked as "made in USA" either.
We cannot solve this problem by rolling back globalisation and division of labor, aiming for national self-sufficiency.
European electronics and surrounding technology could very well ease the problem.
That does not imply rolling back globalisation or division of labor nor is it aiming at national self-sufficiency, it's about competition and having choices.
It's virtually impossible to evade US-american or chinese products if you want to buy a modern electronic consumer device. That is what should change in my opinion.
And why are you assuming that European spy agencies are less inclined to spy? The Bundestrojaner made it pretty obvious that German authorities have no qualms about it and the UK ... well, I guess I don't have to elaborate on the UK. What makes the US special is its global reach, not its particularly evil intentions.
The choice that I would like to have is a radically more transparent, pluralistic design, development and production process. We need many eyes from all kinds of different people on every single piece of hardware and software. We won't get that by having one government take action against another one. This needs to be a global initiative.
It's the reason why Microsoft has always turned a blind eye to the extreme Windows piracy in China. If the Chinese couldn't pirate it (somehow), then Windows would have a much smaller market share, perhaps of 50 or 60 percent. And Linux would have a thriving ecosystem of programs. The lack of that is why Windows has such a strong lock-in now.
I would think it is also that Microsoft cannot do much much about it. The pirated versions of Windows XP are already out there. They could have tried to block updates, but that just means more unpatched Windows machines and bigger botnets.
Macs are not an option, and I really doubt 40-50% of Chinese users would start using Linux.
Macs are an option and are increasingly popular...not just by high end consumers but also in SOEs. Linux has done well enough via android and lenovo is making big bets beyond mobile devices with it.
This is really interesting not just from the security angle.
I read http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capitali... this book recently. It talks about how South Korea became an technological powerhouse so quickly compared to their neighbors.
China could be using the security fears, and protectionism to create their own version of silicon valley.
It wouldn't really surprise me, as some US cities like Boston are trying to create their own silicon valley styled area's http://www.technologyreview.com/view/516586/crowding-into-bi....
Boston has always had plenty of technology companies. Back in the days of minicomputers, three of the big players, Digital Equipment Corporation, Data General, and Prime were based outside of Boston.
Oh cool.
I've read articles fairly recently that seems to pitch Boston as the Silicon Valley of the East Coast or trying to compete with Silicon Valley for startups/talent.
Do you have thoughts about that, I'd like to hear them.
Not just China, but most of the world should have reservations about buying us products after recent revelations, but China has long had both covert and overt measures to disadvantage foreign competitors in all industries. These brands already had big hurdles due to the highly protectionist atmosphere in China, I do not think this change will be of any real significance.
I would be great if an independent lab would certify equipment and software as spyware free.
And it would be great if one could buy insurance to that effect on equipment and software.
The NSA has done great economic damage to US exports of software and IT equipment. I suppose that US government oversight of the NSA takes that into account.
> I would be great if an independent lab would certify equipment and software as spyware free.
That's just not possible. Devices are way too complex nowadays. Too much can be hidden.
A product will have multiple ASICs, SOCs, etc. Those in themselves are too complex for any single individual to really understand them. How much effort could an independent lab put into certifying them? It would literally take man-years.
How do you certify an SOC? Start with a gate level Verilog netlist? Good luck figuring out anything useful from that. You think a vendor will give an outside lab a higher level Verilog RTL to review for a design? Not likely. That's highly valuable intellectual property.
About all that could be done is monitoring the software or equipment to see if there is any unexpected network activity flowing in or out. That in itself would be a difficult thing to to.
> I would be great if an independent lab would certify equipment and software as spyware free.
I agree, but where would you put it such that the intelligence services of the Big-8 couldn't co-opt it? They don't always go to the owners and say "Hey, yo, mind if we put our spy stuff in your stuff?"
European tech companies are still doing well in the game. For example, Nokia is the 2nd or 3rd biggest manufacturer of telecom equipment (depending on how you slice/group the market).
Which is worse? Using a product possibly compromised by the US government, or using a product built with stolen technology possibly compromised by the US government, subsidized by a government whose surveillance state the NSA can't even aspire to.
There's a lot of this government and intelligence pressure on infrastructure providers going on. The general public is not informed. The situation appears to be global.
Our secret intelligence culture and process is antithetical to democracy, and enabling of plutocracy, neo-fascism, and the total corruption of our government. - Robert David Steele, ex-Marine, ex-CIA, Open Source Intelligence Expert, 'The Open-source Everything Manifesto'
A lot of the US capacity to break in to networks seems to come from just being aggressive paying individual hackers to sell them exploits out of public view. Some of these people have said to me 'I know it's unethical, but it's what I enjoy and I'm good at - the only other market is organized crime'. It's a constant digital arms race where the public loses. Hopefully the governments of the world will realize the futility here and begin to redirect resources toward open source systems.