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China Businesses Communications Network Privacy Security

Germany Refuses To Ban Huawei, Citing Lack of Real Evidence (phys.org) 127

Posted by BeauHD from the show-me-the-evidence dept.
hackingbear writes: Germany's IT watchdog has expressed skepticism about calls for a boycott of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, saying it has seen no evidence the firm could use its equipment to spy for Beijing, news weekly Spiegel reported. "For such serious decisions like a ban, you need proof," the head of Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), Arne Schoenbohm, told Spiegel, adding that his agency had no such evidence. The U.S. has been pressuring German authorities for months to drop Huawei, according to people familiar with the matter, but the Germans have asked for more specific evidence to demonstrate the security threat. German authorities and telecom executives have yet to turn up any evidence of security problems with Chinese equipment vendors, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Separately, at a (secret lobster-themed) meeting in Canada in July 2018, espionage chiefs from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. -- all signatories to a treaty on signals intelligence, and often referred to as the "Five Eyes" -- agreed to do their best to contain the global growth of Chinese telecom (vendor) Huawei, the Australian Financial Review reported (paywalled). On the other hand, documents leaked by WikiLeaks and Snowden claimed that the NSA, the leader of the Five Eyes, tapped German Chancellery for decades and bugged routers made by Cisco, the leading American networking equipment vendor.
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Germany Refuses To Ban Huawei, Citing Lack of Real Evidence More

Germany Refuses To Ban Huawei, Citing Lack of Real Evidence

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  • Was the meeting in Canada a secret? Or was the lobster theme the secret? And also, what is a lobster themed meeting anyway?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      Geez, obviously the theme of the meeting was secret lobsters.

      But they can't tell you why the lobsters are secret. That's also secret.

      • Some lobsters migrate for hundreds of miles while holding hands.

        Some lobsters have secrets.

        Secret lobsters have even more secrets.

        This is totally going to be a best-selling ebook when I get done.

  • And why not? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by beep54 ( 1844432 ) <b54oramaster@NospaM.gmail.com> on Monday December 17, 2018 @08:33PM (#57820778)
    While using any foreign tech does have an element of risk, asking for some proof does not seem out of line.

    • Re: And why not? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by saider ( 177166 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @09:09PM (#57820950)

      The Five Eyes are concerned, not because the Chinese might spy, but because the Chinese equipment does not enable *them* to spy.

      • the Chinese equipment supports interception the same way other equipment makers do

        the problem is the network operators dont know how and when it might be enabled without them asking and with much of the SDN equipment the opportunity to detect it is reduced...

        everyone spy's on each other, its the very nature of the security posture that the world has adopted

      • What you mean... they can always upload ddwrt or tomato?

    • Re:And why not? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Tuesday December 18, 2018 @06:14AM (#57822762) Homepage Journal

      Huawei has spent a lot of money on independent code audits, and allows certain people to view the source code themselves (mainly government orgs and very large customers). What has Cisco done, other than get hit with literally hundreds of critical vulnerabilities, often backdoor accounts and hard coded passwords?

      At least Huawei are trying. We know for a fact that the NSA targets Cisco gear and they have done very little about it.

  • It's a network design question. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sique ( 173459 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @08:36PM (#57820796) Homepage
    What would happen if you route the traffic through your network in a way that it always goes from a Huawei to a Cisco and from a Cisco to a Huawei? Will now the NSA know what the Chinese are spying at, and the Chinese get all the INTEL NSA is looking for?

    Or will the Huawei block all steganographically embedded traffic to the NSA, while the Cisco deflects all secret traffic to the Chinese Ministry of State Security?

    What a conundrum!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Think of how the NSA and GCHQ could spy globally in the 1950-1980's.
      All about GCHQ locations in Africa, around America, Europe, Asia.
      Thats what Communist China wants, a start to its own global collect it all reach.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      This was already addressed in the Beijing Times article, which *somehow* ran the story several hours before any of the German news sources, or even the press release! :)

      hawk

  • It is about the future - not right now. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by willy_me ( 212994 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @09:30PM (#57821040)

    The problem that Huawei potentially brings is that the Chinese government could force them to embed spying functions into future firmware updates. Such a move would be difficult to counter once a country is highly reliant on Huawei for providing cell services. I am not suggesting that Huawei wants to so - but the Chinese government could easily dictate that they do so. In most other countries such requests would be challenged in court. For example, like how Apple refused to unlock a shooters iPhone a couple of years back. In China, we would never even know.

    • Indeed. Should demand source code (Score:5, Insightful)

      by aberglas ( 991072 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @09:57PM (#57821150)

      We should be demanding source code for all of our telecom gear, regardless of where it is made. And to be able to build from that source.

      Nobody will be understand the Chinese source, but at least it makes it possible to prove hacks after they have been found.

      • I wonder how many people, even on Slashdot would be capable of reviewing, compiling code from source and ensuring it's free of back doors etc?

        That number is tiny.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      We know for a fact that the US already does that. The NSA intercepts Cisco gear being shipped, installs its own malware under the OS so that it survives updates and is very hard to detect, and then sends it on to the victim. No courts involved, we only found out thanks to Snowden.

      Maybe we should be buying NEC network gear. Maybe the Japanese government has it's hooks in it, but at least they seem fairly benign.

      • "Maybe we should be buying NEC network gear. Maybe the Japanese government has it's hooks in it, but at least they seem fairly benign."

        Japan, like so many other nations, is the USA's bitch. They're not permitted to have a meaningful military, and their nation hosts many of our forces... Can't trust them either. What we need is open network equipment, both hard and soft.

    • An interesting post, however Apple did not refuse to unlock the shooters phone (they provided all the cloud data they had except the keys they didn't have), but refused to implement a backdoor so that any apple phone can be unlocked on government request - a significant difference.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )

      The suggestion that Huawei is somehow more likely to have this happen to them than Cisco, Qualcomm, or other US-based telecommunication companies, is farcical.

  • I like the little remark at the end implying that since the US spied on someone then no one should do anything the try to contain anyone else from spying. As if it would be best to have a communist totalitarian government that imprisons thousands of innocent people a year be conducting intelligence operations and no one else.

    • Re:Nice one (Score:5, Interesting)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday December 17, 2018 @09:57PM (#57821152) Homepage Journal

      The NSA doesn't care about Chinese spying. They care about people using network gear they can't get a foothold in.

      There are dozens of Snowden files on these topics.

      • The NSA doesn't care about Chinese spying.

        Since when? Espionage is definitely better when only you have it. Caring about foreign entities spying is literally half of their job.

        They care about people using network gear they can't get a foothold in.

        Doubtful. They've always been able to lean on the peering providers so they can tap the big fat pipes regardless of who's routers are in use.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I'm sure the NSA does care about Chinese spying, if only because it justifies their behaviour.

  • You don't want them anywhere near your communications.

    Then again Apple and Google are also spies.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Ummm...what the FUCK do I care if the Chinese government spy on my communications?
      What are they going to do to me?
      Fine me 100's of thousands of dollars for copyright infringement?
      Put me in jail for sharing a movie?
      Put me in Guantanamo for leaking information about corruption?
      How about the US government???
      Yeah, thanks, I think I'll still with Huiwei if that's ok with you!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jofas ( 1081977 )
      You are aware that Google and Apple handsets are made in China, right?

  • Germany defies the USA? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alexo ( 9335 ) on Monday December 17, 2018 @10:11PM (#57821204) Journal

    Angela Merkel should avoid connection flights via Toronto.
    Just saying.

  • I donâ(TM)t know, man.
    This is what my Huawei Tablets wants to do, if I merely want to use a networked android app:

    https://twitter.com/BramStolk/... [twitter.com]

    Straight up evil, if you ask me.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      There were some articles that mentioned that the requirements are basically for their Cloud services. i.e. essentially like Apple's iCloud to simplify things for you.

      They even listed the kind of person info they collect (Huawei ID, IMEI, MEID, IMSI, MAC and IP address) , none of which need to be your real identity. Straight up evil? As evil as any big phone hardware company and less evil than most apps, if you ask me.

      • Right, but tablets aren't phones, they're just portable computers. Portable computers don't normally have any right to know any information about their user.

  • Since US government embedded spy module into Cisco network equipment, Huawei copycat, when pirating the Cisco stuff, copied the spy module and channeled that to Chinese government instead. So it's all a matter of choosing whose economy you want to support and whose spy department you want your communication to be tapped on. We can't escape.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 )

      Well actually you can. You can demand, that your government, build a facility to manufacturer network equipment upon fully audited production lines, and the code all FOSS. Calling it essential infrastructure and demanding that it be free from any foreign control whether government or private. So all the network equipment required from inside you home out through all the ISPs, one brand for all, secured and audited. Secure form the worst predations of the US government or the minor inconveniences of the gove

  • Sadly we're to puny to have an opinion...

  • Is this some kind of dig against Jordon Peterson?
  • Red danger! (purely ideological shit... New Cold War?)

  • Chinese over American. Any day. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    the evidence is on the table. The Americans have been proven to spy on allies, breach and sabotage their networks, and to subvert their own communication equipment before selling to the world. But no evidence of China doing this has ever been presented. None. There have only ever been baseless accusations.

    And given the U.S. track record of killing and murdering in foreign countries to get what it wants, over-throwing democratically elected governments, and more, China are saints in comparison. Even if Chin

  • The correct philosophy is to assume YOU ARE ALREADY COMPROMISED.

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