Pentagon Blocks Clampdown on Huawei Sales (wsj.com) 25
The Commerce Department's efforts to tighten the noose on Huawei Technologies Co. is facing a formidable obstacle: the Pentagon. From a report:Commerce officials have withdrawn proposed regulations making it harder for U.S. companies to sell to Huawei [the link may be paywalled] from their overseas facilities following objections from the Defense Department as well as the Treasury Department, people familiar with the matter told WSJ. The Pentagon is concerned that if U.S. companies can't continue to ship to Huawei, they will lose a key source of revenue -- depriving them of money for research and development needed to maintain a technological edge, the people said. The Treasury Department wanted to make sure that Secretary Steven Mnuchin had a chance to weigh in, said one of the people. Cabinet officials are expected to meet on Huawei and other China issues in the coming weeks. The splits within the Trump administration on how to deal with Huawei show the difficulty of confronting China on technology without harming U.S. companies.
Predictable (Score:3)
Money trumps everything....ethics, morality, fairness, justice, faith and reason.
Even national security it would seem (LOL)!
Wake me up when a powerful country does anything right when it costs them money.
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To paraphrase someone or other, nobody knew managing an economy could be so complicated.
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When push comes to shove survival trumps everything. Money is the foodstuff of commerce and sales to the world's largest manufacturer of cellular equipment are not trivial. In addition the Defense Department may have a hidden agenda. For all of their bluster about security concerns with Huawei equipment it is our own government that pioneered the modification of commercial equipment to serve intelligence gathering purposes. It is probable that this activity has continued at the component level and that bari
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"it is our own government that pioneered the modification of commercial equipment to serve intelligence gathering purposes", yeah, the Chinese are too dumb to have figured this out on their own.
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Not at all. But when we start vilifying other nations for practices that our government pioneered it is sort of like the bull frog calling the cat fish big mouth. As they say all's fair in love and war. Also, Chinese culture is far more mature than our own and although there is a tendency to demean their technological accomplishments they are rapidly achieving parity in many fields. Those with a historical perspective are aware that the newly founded United States engaged in similar technological espionage
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If you truely think all this Huawei stuff has anything at all to do with national security you are having the wool pulled over your eyes.
ALL OF THIS is about money. Huawei is being used as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations.
We couldn't stifle research and innovation (Score:3)
Because then Chinese companies would just steal all our ideas, instead of us shipping our valuable product to them to reverse engineer.
Oh wait.
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Because then Chinese companies would just steal all our ideas, instead of us shipping our valuable product to them to reverse engineer.
Just like how the American industry had done [eh.net]? A thief always gets paranoid and suspects others being thieves. And by the way, the Europeans stole silk making tech from China [chinasimplified.com] in the very old days, thereby China was actually the original victim of IP thefts by the Europeans and their descendants.
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In ancient China, a foreigner would face decapitation trying to sneak out silk making tech, just like ones would go to jail trying to sneak out textile tech from Britain in ~18th century.
National Security threat (Score:1)
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When Americans can't win their argument, they will change the subject which they themselves haven't known much about except from distortions spread by their media outlets [wikipedia.org]. When the opponents win the game that was forced upon by the US, the Americans change the game.
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Yup, the Five Eyes surely couldn't figure out how to spy on the world without Huawei. It's critical to spying that Huawei equipment not be used. OSes riddled with bugs mean nothing, nothing compared to not using Huawei equipment.
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That's not the point. The point is that you either play ball or they will go to war with you economically.
The FBI can get into any iPhone it wants (because of said bugs) but they're calling out Apple anyway, because Apple won't publicly bend the knee.
Behind closed doors Apple is already sacrificing user privacy with unencrypted backups and iMessage intercepts, but this is a matter of perception.
Previous Slashdot article (Score:2)
Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents [slashdot.org]
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According to the Tor guy it's Seimens and Nokia who are aiding Iran. But they participate in Five-Eyes programs so no ban.
Tail wagging the dog (Score:1)
So the Pentagon ships spy chips to Huawei. (Score:2)
And they don't want to lose their backdoor access to Chinese targets.
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This seems most likely. It's not they are banning a ban on Huawei in the US. But they don't want to stop providing Huawei with backdoored products.
The Pentagon can't survive ... (Score:2)
Simpler explanation (Score:2)
Simpler explanation: Huawei has better lobbyists than most US tech companies, so they can get their word as high as commerce and defence departments