Huawei CEO Offers To License 5G Tech To American Companies In Peace Offer To Trump (bbc.com) 38
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Huawei's chief executive has proposed selling its current 5G know-how to a Western firm as a way to address security concerns voiced by the U.S. and others about its business. Ren Zhengfei said the buyer would be free to "change the software code." That would allow any flaws or supposed backdoors to be addressed without Huawei's involvement. Huawei has repeatedly denied claims that it would help the Chinese government spy on or disrupt other countries' telecoms systems, and says it is a private enterprise owned by its workers.
Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei made the proposal in interviews with the Economist and the New York Times. It would include ongoing access to the firm's existing 5G patents, licenses, code, technical blueprints and production engineering knowledge. "[Huawei is] open to sharing our 5G technologies and techniques with U.S. companies, so that they can build up their own 5G industry," the NYT quoted Ren as saying. "This would create a balanced situation between China, the U.S. and Europe." Speaking to the Economist he added: "A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei's survival." A spokesman for Huawei has confirmed the quotes are accurate and the idea represents a "genuine proposal." South Korea's Samsung and China's ZTE are other alternatives. "Huawei misunderstands the underlying problem," Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, from the European Centre for International Political Economy, told the BBC. "The issue is not the trustworthiness of Huawei as a vendor but the legal obligations that the Chinese government imposes on it.
"China's National Intelligence Law requires Chinese businesses and citizens to surrender any data or 'communication tools' they may have access to, under strict punitive sanctions," said Lee-Makiyama. "Any equipment or software that Huawei licenses to an U.S. entity would still fall under this obligation, and there is no way that the licensing entity or the intelligence agencies could scrutinize millions of lines of code for potential backdoors."
Huawei's founder Ren Zhengfei made the proposal in interviews with the Economist and the New York Times. It would include ongoing access to the firm's existing 5G patents, licenses, code, technical blueprints and production engineering knowledge. "[Huawei is] open to sharing our 5G technologies and techniques with U.S. companies, so that they can build up their own 5G industry," the NYT quoted Ren as saying. "This would create a balanced situation between China, the U.S. and Europe." Speaking to the Economist he added: "A balanced distribution of interests is conducive to Huawei's survival." A spokesman for Huawei has confirmed the quotes are accurate and the idea represents a "genuine proposal." South Korea's Samsung and China's ZTE are other alternatives. "Huawei misunderstands the underlying problem," Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, from the European Centre for International Political Economy, told the BBC. "The issue is not the trustworthiness of Huawei as a vendor but the legal obligations that the Chinese government imposes on it.
"China's National Intelligence Law requires Chinese businesses and citizens to surrender any data or 'communication tools' they may have access to, under strict punitive sanctions," said Lee-Makiyama. "Any equipment or software that Huawei licenses to an U.S. entity would still fall under this obligation, and there is no way that the licensing entity or the intelligence agencies could scrutinize millions of lines of code for potential backdoors."
Hosuk Lee-Makiyama misunderstands the proposal (Score:2)
The Chinese government would no longer have effective power to compel spying or data handover in such an arrangement, cause Huawei no longer operates the system and accesses its data, and no longer is the last to inspect and update the code.
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At least an interesting comment. Why am I unsurprised it received no favorable mod points? The artificial scarcity of mod points or the natural scarcity of fair moderation?
Mostly I'm sorry I was busy and missed this story as it flows off the front page. Part of my business was actually in a store where I coincidentally saw just how badly Trump's little trade war is hurting Huawei at the retail level. My focus was on anti-suicide watches, where Huawei has been driven to the edge of obscurity in favor of FitB
Unbelievable... (Score:1, Insightful)
> Huawei has repeatedly denied claims that it would help the Chinese government spy on or disrupt other countries' telecoms systems, and says it is a private enterprise owned by its workers.
Your feedback please, do even brainwashed leftists believe this?
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I am a brainwashed leftist libruuul and I do not believe that nonsense at all.
Licensing the tech seems like a viable solution to the problem of how to get Huawei paid and get us 5G faster without opening up to spying. They'd rather get paid than not get paid. The government wants to collect on its investment.
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Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: Check, and mate. (Score:1)
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I was speaking with some people more knowledgeable on 5G practicalities such as a person in charge of planning the rollout of the 5G towers. That person was a proper nerd, we ended up in a great conversation regarding power requirements, delivery etc... as well as discussing time regulation for mul
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There are a lot of areas where 4G is already saturated and is too congested, and it's just going to get worse. 5G is about higher capacity on the same amount of spectrum.
In the US, the big two carriers plan to use mmWave spectrum for 5G, which needs insane density. That's why they plan to put towers on utility poles through neighborhoods, they have no option. Do you think they really want to spend such an absurd amount of money on infrastructure if they didn't have to?
Carriers in the rest of the world, and
Re: Check, and mate. (Score:3)
I don't know where your get your information, but US telcos have been lobbying VERY HARD to be allowed to buy and deploy Huawei gear.
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That, and Huawei knows a sucker when they see one. All they need do is feed Trump's ego and the restrictions on them will be off.
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It's a clever move because it forces the US to either accept the deal or admit they were lying about the security concerns.
There is no "legal obligation" for Huawei force backdoors into US products either, that's a lie. The law states that they must provide what source code they have and technical knowledge to the Chinese government, presumably to aid the efforts to create exploits.
Note that the UK and US have the same laws. In the UK companies can be secretly forced to assist the government with hacking th
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Again sorry I mostly missed the story, glad to see you [nimbius] "won" the battle of moderation (against the trolls with mod points), and again I largely agree with your comments on both sides. Two extensions:
At this point I think it is impossible to honestly evaluate the 5G standards from a purely technical perspective. #PresidentTweety has managed to roil the waters so much that new international standards may no longer be possible. How can you have a standard that may get tweeted to death at any moment?
Lee-Makiyama is wrong, but where does code build? (Score:3, Insightful)
And where does the build firmware flashing take place?
When Makiyama says "there is no way that the licensing entity or the intelligence agencies could scrutinize millions of lines of code...", I think he misses the point that they have to offer a human-readable version of their codebase for it to even be desirable for purchase. This implies code being not only readable, but also compact enough that it is maintainable. Security concerns are automatic given this and source being open, even if for a small American organization. It's not like, you know, the code they are selling is in Chinese (it might be now, but they would prepare it in the event of a transfer).
But the real kicker here is: hardware would likely still be assembled in China. That means firmware would also likely be installed in China. Which further means source builds/compiles would DEFINITELY be handled in China - because there is no offline trustworthy way of ensuring integrity in a binary made by "Fruggle from Menlo Park" actually being flashed in a Shenzen warehouse. Unless you're matching against the Cloud in an Alice-Bob scheme, such as what Google does with Google Play-supported Android builds - OEMs customize AOSP using Google's toolchain, Google gets OEM's source back and "secures" it with airtight, home-calling-enabled Alice signings, which produces a signed binary OEMs are FORCED to flash as otherwise phones wouldn't play nice with Bob, the Playstore. And Bob is essential in today's Android phones if they are to sell (ironically, outside of China).
Without compelling reason for Huwaei to flash Fruggle's verbatim binary, they just don't - they decompile and inject whatever, they make the hardware, it will eat any package signed by whatever they want.
Another example of this would be root CAs but that example isn't as practical to this 5G, firmware/hardware-related topic.
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Missed a huge opportunity to what, kneecap intelligence services? Even Trump isn't that dumb.
Find the Door (Score:2)
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No, there's backdoors in the hardware.
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Huawei isn't licensing any hardware designs to anyone. Just software/firmware. You've still got to buy their kit if you want to use their 5G implementation.
Lavabit (Score:1)
Anyone remembers Lavabit?
Every US company is one NSL away from having to surrender all data to the US govt. Pot calling Kettle black?
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millions of lines of code - unlikely (Score:1)
Peace offer- bold spin (Score:1)
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