'You Need To Be Very, Very Cautious': US Warns European Allies Not To Use Chinese Gear For 5G Networks (reuters.com) 273
The United States sees the European Union as its top priority in a global effort to convince allies not to buy Huawei equipment for next-generation mobile networks, a U.S. State Department Official said on Tuesday. From a report: After meetings with the European Commission and the Belgian government in Brussels, U.S. officials are set to take a message to other European capitals that the world's biggest telecommunications gear maker poses a security risk, said the official, who declined to be named. "We are saying you need to be very, very cautious and we are urging folks not to rush ahead and sign contracts with untrusted suppliers from countries like China," the official said. The United States fears China could use the equipment for espionage -- a concern that Huawei Technologies says is unfounded. The push to sideline Huawei in Europe, one of its biggest markets, is likely to deepen trade frictions between Washington and Beijing.
Yes, use US gear so only the US spies on you! (Score:4, Insightful)
Or rather the whole world, when the NSA accidentally loses its access credentials and they end up being generally available.
Were Hunting Wabbits (Score:2)
be Wary Wary qwiet.
What's up doc?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
It is amazing how upset people can be about the idea of others committing the ethical violations they want to commit.
The whataboutism in you has reached dangerous levels.
So anyhow - do you believe that the VPN services or phoning home of that are based in China should be embraced by people since something something NSA!!! Something something 'Murrica EVIL Bad MURRICA - Hulk SMASH!!!!
Funny, but I don't want anyone spying on me. But your whataboutism reads like saying it's okay since read my last paragraph.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
lets compare Russiagate to what is going on in Venezuela and seriously you wonder the fuck why no one except utter morons trust the USA, stupendously arrogant hypocrisy and the sheer idiocy of those fucking morons stumping around the world stage absolutely bullshitting all over the place and carrying on like people believe it all. Given a choice I would take stuff out of China long before taking stuff out of the US, the Chinese stuff might be bugged but you know, you totally know the US stuff 'WILL' be bugg
Re: (Score:2)
lets compare Russiagate to what is going on in Venezuela and seriously you wonder the fuck why no one except utter morons trust the USA, stupendously arrogant hypocrisy and the sheer idiocy of those fucking morons stumping around the world stage absolutely bullshitting all over the place and carrying on like people believe it all. Given a choice I would take stuff out of China long before taking stuff out of the US, the Chinese stuff might be bugged but you know, you totally know the US stuff 'WILL' be bugged. Un-Suitable Arseholes, the government of the USA, corrupt as fuck.
Hey fellow, since you want to play the whatabout game, how about Chairman Mao's great colectivization that starved perhaps 10 million of his country's citizens. Then hero old Joe Stalin - his specialty was killing other Russians. It was pretty impressive that Russia held their own in WW2, after he killed so many of his generals Whatabout whatabout whatabout. 'Murrica shouldn't do bad shit, but you seem to approve of everyone else doing it.
I only engaged in stupid whataboutism because you seem really u
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly at this point, there's so much distrust you maybe shouldn't use anything from any company you don't have direct jurisdiction over. Huawei or Cisco may or may not have backdoors in the equipment, the point is you won't know for sure and won't be able to do anything in case they do, so...
Learn Wireshark. You'll know what you can and cannot trust in short order.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Back doors only broadcast when activated, so they won't show up in wireshark testing.
So backdoors don't send packet activity? Always monitor. keep a small window open
Re: Yes, use US gear so only the US spies on you! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Also see Bullrun AC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone gets the junk approved big brand crypto ready for the security services to collect on.
Junk crypto sold to all is not "specific".
Re: (Score:2)
More succinctly, open source (Score:3)
Huawei could likely do well by shipping clean hardware with open specifications, and allow their customer base to write the software.
Some might use Linux kernels for maximum functionality. Some might use various BSDs for security. Some might be ornery and choose ReactOS.
Microsoft had a chance with Edge, but they kept the source code secret. Huawei should not make this mistake.
Re: (Score:2)
Good opening comment, insightful mod deserved, even though it was so short. For now just expressing my surprise.
What I am actually looking for in this discussion of the topic is an analysis of who has the most to lose by getting caught spying on their customers. In theory the players with the most to lose might be the most likely to deliver truly secure devices.
Based on my understanding of how the laws are made in the US, I rather doubt it is the American companies. Corporations are clearly in charge in the
What features would indicate spying capabilities? (Score:2)
Disappointed by the rest of the discussion, but maybe there was some good stuff and my keyword searches failed to find it. These days I'm expecting the moderation to fail (though I also checked the moderated categories).
However, in addition to the presence of DRAM that is not backed up against power outages I did think of one more general category of features the hardware should have. I'm sure there are others, but...
The premise of the DRAM idea is that you (the spy) want the spyware to vanish easily, but t
Re: (Score:2)
Or rather the whole world, when the NSA accidentally loses its access credentials and they end up being generally available.
Or they just leave all the passwords on default values anyway.
Re: (Score:3)
https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/04/14/2017200/nsa-leaking-shadow-brokers-just-dumped-its-most-damaging-release-yet [slashdot.org]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, no, did you read it? That's basically a suite of tools to attack Windows boxes/servers. It says nothing about backdoored switches or routers or wide-net credentials being in the open. You lied.
Re: CITATION REQUIRED (Score:2, Informative)
How about these:
https://thehackernews.com/2013/10/backdoor-found-in-chinese-tenda.html
https://thehackernews.com/2014/08/hardcoded-backdoor-found-in-china-made_27.html
Or these:
https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/a4b11x/spiegel_a_backdoor_was_found_in_huawei_network/
https://www.isssource.com/backdoor-found-in-chinese-router/
https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1acqc9/chinese_routers_from_tplink_are_found_to_have_a/
Let me know if you need any more.
Re: (Score:2)
You're asserting that the NSA put the backdoor into D-Link products without proving the NSA did that, and frankly that's not credible given the sophistication level.
The backdoor could simply be one of many hard to find bugs in the functionality of anything. The NSA doesn't have to "put" them there, they have to find them.
Re: (Score:2)
NSA has never been shown to have backdoors in there, ...
In addition, NSA does not have legal physical access to American gear.
To start https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
That's cute you expect them to care about what is legal though. Good for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Or do you expect their latest methods to be public knowledge and unless some random on the interwebz can tell you exactly what they are doing with fully backed up citations then they aren't doing anything? Do you think the NSA does full disclosure on their fuckups or something?
Re: (Score:2)
The telco kit used are always NSA and GCHQ ready.
Re: (Score:2)
A list of what law enforcement will approve in a EU nation is the same a NSA ready.
Re: (Score:2)
Low costs for EU nations telco brands to add to their networks and not needing the NSA, GCHQ experts for their security services support.
Th EU nations save money on new tech while keeping the cost of using their new networks for consumers the same.
Pure profit.
Buying from China keeps profits up as savings can be had on expected generational network upgrade costs.
EU nations security services get the crypto codes and not have to invite US and UK experts into
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
State subsidy is state aid and officially banned within the EU, although there are some workarounds.
I am not sure what you mean by 'the EU' here anyway. The EU Parliament is relatively weak, although the President, elected by it, has some power. The main power lies in the Council of Ministers, so in the collective will of the constituent states.
Here’s an idea (Score:5, Insightful)
If the administration wants our allies to listen to our opinions, perhaps it shouldn’t be so hellbent on insulting and alienating them?
Just a thought.
Everyone Needs to Understand (Score:5, Insightful)
China is not their friend. They are a Communist Dictatorship and they will behave like a Communist Dictatorship.
You don't have to be best pals with anyone to remind them of this.
Re:Everyone Needs to Understand (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's play a game. I will name one country where the US forced a "regime change" and you will name one country where China forced a regime change. Let's see who we should trust the least.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Most casualties in war across all of human history have been in wars involving China (usually on both sides). The current (unified) borders of China were arrived at through more bloodshed than all other nations combined. Every square foot of what is now China is a place where China forced a regime change - generally several in the course of history.
Communists dictators have killed about 160 million people, BTW, even before the war death tolls.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are you so obsessed with "regime changes"? They're near the bottom of the scale of evil. Communism and civil wars are at the top, followed by wars of conquest.
Re: (Score:2)
What are you talking about?
I assume you mean the 'waring states' period?
The Qin unification during the Warring States period was less than a million. Just the big ones:
* 40 M - Three Kingdoms War
* 20 M - An Lushan Rebellion
* 25 M - Qing Conquest of the Ming (1600s)
* 25 M - Taiping Rebellion (mid 1800s)
* 10 M - Dungan Rebellion (late 1800s)
* 10 M - Chinese Civil War (1930s and 40s)
* 20 M - Second Sino-Japanese War (WWII) - though Japan probably deserves all the blame
For comparison:
* ~50 M - WWII excluding Sino-Japanese War
* ~35 M - Mongol Conquests
* ~15 M - WWI
* ~1 M - US Civi
Re:Everyone Needs to Understand (Score:5, Funny)
and you will name one country where China forced a regime change.
China.
Re: (Score:2)
Not fair. China hasn't been in the game long enough.
That's if you start from 1949. If you do it the other way, then the United States hasn't been in the game long enough.
Still I would agree the insightful mod was earned.
Correction, they're a Kleptocracy (Score:2)
The US isn't far off from being the same but we're teetering on the edge right now and can go either way. I think 2020 is going to be t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the world does not think in these black and white terms.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Someone who is critical of what China's government is doing must certainly also love what Google and Facebook are doing.
Just like not cheering for a 3rd person to start pissing on your head, joining the two other people that already forced you to the ground and are kicking you, is apparently hypocritical and therefore invalid logic.
As someone living in Europe, China is not my friend. Russia is not my friend. The USA is not quite my friend. Of course this includes American co
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Good thought, but it appears you're confusing the "administration" = unelected apolitical professionals more than not with the PRESIDENT = feckless butt-scratching golfer who lies like that's his only duty to the American people.
The administration would like to maintain alliances and security. Trump would trade it all for a golf course on the border.
Credibility gap (Score:4, Interesting)
perhaps it shouldn’t be so hellbent on insulting and alienating them?
Re: (Score:2)
It is about the US being paranoia [phys.org] and hypocritical [engadget.com], as well as FUDing the American people like they did before the Iraq War.
Re: (Score:2)
It is not because his brain is damaged but because his brain is washed. And the US government will continue to make sure people's brains are washed through skillful PR and marketing trickery.
Re: (Score:2)
" when we know the US government has been doing exactly this with equipment form US companies " = Backdooring switches? You're lying, or you could prove it.
Overly specific. They have been and are spying on e.g. Germany, I don't care so much how:
http://www.spiegel.de/internat... [spiegel.de]
Re: (Score:2)
This article kind of goes into a bit more relevant spying related issues, if it's trustworthy. Bottom line is, there's rarely much evidence for any of this, but a good read nonetheless.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-19/5g-huawei-and-us-america-hates-competition [zerohedge.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Credibility gap (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-19/5g-huawei-and-us-america-hates-competition [zerohedge.com]
I'll just leave that here...
Re: (Score:3)
Hi kettle, i'm the pot?
https://www.pri.org/stories/20... [pri.org]
Care to count the number of times the US had been caught stealing british technology?
Re: (Score:2)
Keep lying, NSA faggot.
Well now, you must have ruled the debate class at your school. Who can argue with that?
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody listens to Trump (Score:2)
There's only two things his tariffs have really gone after: Steel & Soybeans. As for steel a big supporter/donor of his owns steel mills, hence the steel tariffs.
I haven't figured out the grift on soybeans yet, but I suspect somebody on this forum can find it for us and post below.
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't figured out the grift on soybeans yet, but I suspect somebody on this forum can find it for us and post below.
In our area the soybeans have been left in the field to rot. Winning seems to take many strange forms, I guess.
Re: Here’s an idea (Score:3)
Here's me thinking that cunt Trump can go fuck himself the way he's been treating his 'allies'. You said it so much more politely though.
Re:Here’s an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
There is one more way to make it even. Go ahead, slash your military expenditure in half. We don't care.
-NATO allies
Re: (Score:2)
Europe is a free rider and net importer of security. How about sharing the burden? How about contributing instead of taking? From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, isn't that the quintessential European sentiment?
I guess these days Europe has made a lot of progress in dealing with hateful prejudice and bigotry. I mean you guys have managed to go a whole 25 years without committing genocide on the continent.
Re: (Score:2)
Europe is a free rider and net importer of security. How about sharing the burden? How about contributing instead of taking?
If I throw a brick at your head do I get to blame you for your endless taking of my bricks?
Re: (Score:2)
as I said. The US just has to slash its military expenditures by 50 or even 75%. This way Europe would no longer be a net importer of security.
Re: (Score:2)
I am talking about today. Nobody in NATO would notice a decrease in US military spending. The US has high military spending because it suits themselves (and the military industry has a strong lobby), not out of generosity to defend its NATO allies, especially the major ones.
Re: (Score:2)
"If it weren't for the US most of Europe would speak Russian today."
qft for all our tovarishchi out there.
Re: (Score:2)
Please, neither US or Russia was strong enough to handle Germany and Japan individually. Had Germany be able to mobilize their forces a couple months earlier in 1941 they would of surely made it to Moscow. Instead, they ended up getting stuck in the snow and the things get worse from there.
The allies would not of been able to pull off D-day at Normandy had the Germans won in Russia.
Russia did help the US out with Japan but even without Russia pushing them in the East the US would of just nuked their asses i
Seem to remember US remotely disabling Iraqs comms (Score:2)
Using some 'special sauce' embedded in the kit being used in their exchanges/comms centers. The media was of course lapping this up and waving it about at the time.
Awfully quiet now though. So yes, the US does exactly this as it has already been let out of the bag given they did it in iraq. Now they're worried about someone else doing it too? Yes we should be worried. We should (EU) also start asking questions about the US kit as well. Does this also extend to their planes that the EU buys, and ordnan
Sure, no problem (Score:3)
What/who are the the other options? I don't have a really good idea of how this space's offerings breaks down along country lines.
Re:Sure, no problem (Score:5, Informative)
Ericsson (Sweden) is another very major player...
Is there stuff made in China though? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
uh, you do know Ericsson has 23 facilities in China for manufacturing electronic components, switching systems, phones, telecom and data com gear.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL you think this is about actual security threats.
Re: (Score:2)
biggest global security threat (including to its own citizens): U.S. government
Re: Sure, no problem (Score:2)
Sure, Russia and China just want to be friends with everyone. The world not caring that their supplies chains are so entrenched in certain geographic areas was very short cited.
Re:Sure, no problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Israel, Middle east, Baltic randoms, European randoms, US, China. Europe seems like the safest bet due to the legal oversight with teeth. China is a lawless cabal, not a country.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you ever been to China? Lawless is not the word I'd use.
Europe needs... (Score:2)
... to intensify the development of domestic IT equipment. The European Processor Initiative [e-irg.eu] is one step in such direction. These messages from Trump's administration only reinforce such idea.
Some proof, please (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
So you're saying the Chinese devices are compromised because the code was stolen from US companies - as in "we know it's compromised because we wrote it in the first place"?
Re: (Score:2)
hahaha.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Is there any other option? (Score:2)
Really, really?
Re: (Score:2)
Buy expensive brands that the NSA says are approved.
Buy from Communism and save on tech costs.
Who will the EU follow?
The generations of NSA and GCHQ experts in NATO saying only approved tech allows for EU security?
The budget pressure to save on costs and use tech from China?
The third option would be to make a treaty in the EU and build on EU nation tech.
Designed in Denmark, made in Bulgaria. 100% police ready and NATO approved.
W
Be vewwy vewwy quiet.. (Score:2)
We'we Huawaiing WAN bits!
There are only 4 credible options for 5G (Score:5, Informative)
It will be VERY, and I mean VERY hard to avoid the chinese in 5G rollouts.
For telecom gear, worldwide, there are only four big guys. All the other are very small players (in telco space).
Those are:
Ericsson (sweeden)
Nokia* (Finland, germany,france,US, and a little more US to boot).
Huawei (China)
ZTE (China).
Of all the 4, Huaweis is the one that has the most complete portfolio for 5G things.
Al the other players are rather small, say samsung with some basestations and optical telecom gear, NEC with some switches.
Having said that, mobile operators would be dumb to depend on one provider alone, and rarely do.
Mobile Operators have certain strategies in place since the dawn of time to mitigate this type of risk.
For example, in RF you divide the country, say 70-30, 60-40 or 50-25-25 (depending of the size of the country) and assign each region to a different basestation provider. If one of those providers drops the ball (say, by spying on you), you eject them with prejudice. This can also be done in other access technologies, like the DSLAMs in de case of ADSL/VDSL/G.fast. Telefonica/Movistar is one of the operators that does this.
Other Example, Some operators have what they call provider uniformity in different layers, so, for example, British Telecom uses Huawei gear in the optical transport layer (DWDM). As soon as they bought EE, they ripped all Huawei Switches from the mobile network (of course, they also ripped also all optical equipment that was not Huawei, and replaced it with Huawei equipment). Since all the data is encripted end-to-end, good luck with the optical equipment doing much spying.
Other techniques exist. So, if an operator (or a country) are concerned about "Chinese Spying", they may as well use chinese gear only in the areas less succeptible to spying. That way you get all the advantages of chinese providers (low cost, easy mass deployment), and lessen the impact on security.
I have to say that, in general, the more sucess Huawei and ZTE had in the international scene, the less spying they do. Anecdoticaly, the last case I heard about was in the late 00's or early 10's (can remember exactly), when some guys with some operator in LatAm caught a mobile switch beaconing china. A big hoopla ensued, Huawei profusely appologized, swore, crossed their hearts and hope to die never to do it again. Those switches were put under close observation for years, as well as other Huawei gear in other countries (this operator operates in multiples countries), and so far more or less a decade later, no other incidents to report... (If the non Anon Coward comentators can tell us more, jump right in. My NDA was over a few years ago, I you still are under NDA, do not post, anon or not).
As many have said, thanks to Edward Snowden, we know that the NSA and the five eyes were tampering with western gear to spy. So for many countries, in particular countries in LatAm, Asia, Africa and the middle east, you will either be spied by the 5 eyes or by the chinese, since we do not care one way or the other, let the most cost effective gear win and spay us all.
* Nokia (from finland, not japan) is the voltron of telecom, having borged Siemens telecoms arm (Germany), Alcatel(france)-Lucent(US), and the Mobile gear arm of motorola(US) (the cellphone arm went to google, and from there to lenovo, and the motorola that remain today is the goverment and emergency services comunications arm)
Re: (Score:2)
Both as collect it all networks and a mil communications networks.
Communism then has a network deep in the centre of decades of once fully NSA and GCHQ protected Western EU networks.
Re: (Score:2)
So since I am unable to control the Chinese by voting, I pick the five eyes.
If , and only if, you are a citizen of one of the Five eyes countries, you can control them by voting. Lucky you!
But, by definition, most everyone living in LatAm, Asia, Africa or the Middle East is not a citizen in a five eyes country, and therefore, can not control the five eyes as much as they can not control the chinese...
So, my example stands.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense to compare China to USA (Score:2)
Sure both do dubious spying, and the USA is not perfect.
But the USA really is the land of the free compared to China. Try to express any political opinion in China and you will be penalized and end up in jail if you persist.
China has a aggressive foreign policy, with explicit eyes on Taiwan. That is quite different from the USA's bumbling incompetence in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they would love to be able to leave.
That said, I would be considering Ericson.
Re: (Score:2)
I do not live in china, and none of my customers do (my customers are the telcos in LatAm). I do not live in the USoA, and none of my customers do. I do not live in a 5 eyes state, and none of my customers do.
I (and I am almost certain that my customers as well) will be considering the combination of Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia and ZTE which gives (me/them/us) the best optimizationin terms of technical features, security, support and financing.
And if the equipment needs antivirus, karpesky will be considered al
Re: (Score:3)
Nokia had two parts.
The part that made cellphones was the more visible to everyday non nerd people. That was digested and excreted by microsoft, but, in a true circle of life fashion, turned into a blosoming flower called HMD global, owned in part by FoxCon, and in part by laid-off nokia employees (most of them from the mobile division).
The telecom arm is alive and well, as they undesrtood quite well the need to consolidate to survive. They are still based in Finland and doing Quite OK. Gearing up for the u
Hypocrisy (Score:5, Informative)
The United States are known to lie to their allies in order to promote their national interests [wikipedia.org], and for this reason their word has no value. Besides, they were caught doing exactly what they are now accusing the Chinese of [wikipedia.org]: by preferring US gear to Chinese gear, Europe would be exchanging possible espionage with certain espionage.
Re: (Score:2)
You seriously think that the intelligence community is under the control of Trump? They're not. They control themselves and are not under the control of the elected government.
This is them, under their own authority, declaring that everyone should NOT use gear that is not backdoored by them.
And yeah, the EU and NATO have been real shitheads to America. Ungrateful freeloading jerks who take American security for granted and have no problem unloading vile abuse on a daily basis. There is absolutely n
Re: (Score:2)
To the US? They worship their culture, purchase their products, uphold their doctrine, blindly follow them into all the wars that they have started for domestic interests and that have made Europe a less safe place. I don't think so.
Can you make some examples of a political leader of the EU telling anything vile or abusive about the US, or any other country? (Visegrad countries don't co
Re: (Score:2)
Of course Trump gets more hate, but this is a result of his incendiary behaviour, that he consciously adopts, knowing what will result
Re: (Score:2)
I believe that it is difficult to hide a generic spying device inside of an extremely low level hardware component which, in production, will only be able to communicate with the external world through channels that are defined, configured and operated at a much higher level. I'm not saying that it is impossible, but whoever claims the contrary should be giving very detailed explanations and this, so f
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How many times is Slashdot going to run this story?
As many as is necessary. Maybe some decision maker somewhere will think twice before getting in bed with china.
Right africa? How's your chinese masters treating you?
Re: (Score:2)
Who was it that just lost a shipping port to china essentially by foreclosure?
Of course in the U.S., China just buys them.
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously better than their American masters since they decided to go from America to China.
You're thinking of the UK. The USA doens't quite play in the African region.
China's building roads, schools, etc. in africa. And while on the surface that looks "good," it'll blow up in Africa's face.
Re: (Score:2)
Until it sinks in?
I see what you did there. Umbridge sends her regards.
Re: (Score:2)
I live in a western country, and I'm not planning to visit either China or the US. If China spies on me, nothing will happen with any of the gathered info. If the US spies on me, this info MIGHT be shared with my country's secret services. I'm slightly safer with China spying on me than with the US spying on me.
Re: (Score:2)
Tou know, kinda like this [slashdot.org]?
Facebook Ordered To Stop Combining WhatsApp and Instagram Data Without Consent in Germany; Company Says It Needs That Data To Fight Terrorism and Child Abuse