Huawei's Ace In the Hole: Undersea Cables (nikkei.com) 107
While the United States is banning the use of Huawei equipment from its fifth-generation infrastructure, the Chinese telecommunications company is working to expand its share in the undersea cable market, which is dominated by the U.S., Europe and Japan. Nikkei Asian Review reports: About a decade ago, Huawei entered the business by setting up a joint venture with British company Global Marine Systems. It expanded its presence by laying short links in regions like Southeast Asia and the Russian Far East. But last September, Huawei surprised industry executives in Japan, the U.S. and Europe by completing a 6,000 km trans-Atlantic cable linking Brazil with Cameroon. This showed Huawei has acquired advanced capabilities, even though it is still far behind the established players in terms of experience and cable volume.
During the 2015-2020 period, Huawei is expected to complete 20 new cables -- mostly short ones of less than 1,000 km. Even when these are finished, Huawei's market share will be less than 10%. Over the long term, however, the company could emerge as a player to be reckoned with. Huawei is estimated to be involved in around 30 undersea cable projects at the moment. It also reportedly has a hand in about 60 projects to enhance cable landing stations to boost transmission capacity. The reality is, even if the U.S. succeeds in shutting out Huawei from 5G networks in major countries, the Chinese company could still thwart American efforts to maintain leadership in handling global data traffic. The report goes on to say that the U.S., Japan and Australia are working to address this potential threat. "Steps they are considering include banning Huawei from laying cables connected to one of the three countries, and urging other governments to prevent the company from getting involved in the construction of any major cables Informed sources."
During the 2015-2020 period, Huawei is expected to complete 20 new cables -- mostly short ones of less than 1,000 km. Even when these are finished, Huawei's market share will be less than 10%. Over the long term, however, the company could emerge as a player to be reckoned with. Huawei is estimated to be involved in around 30 undersea cable projects at the moment. It also reportedly has a hand in about 60 projects to enhance cable landing stations to boost transmission capacity. The reality is, even if the U.S. succeeds in shutting out Huawei from 5G networks in major countries, the Chinese company could still thwart American efforts to maintain leadership in handling global data traffic. The report goes on to say that the U.S., Japan and Australia are working to address this potential threat. "Steps they are considering include banning Huawei from laying cables connected to one of the three countries, and urging other governments to prevent the company from getting involved in the construction of any major cables Informed sources."
Is that as much a problem though? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me like a provider sending stuff over long haul networks is much less of a potential security risk than letting Huawei provide equipment to run cellular traffic.
Traffic from cellular phones has all kinds of fun data you could capture and store and forward on to China for later use in blackmail. Long haul hardware would have to be able to decrypt http or other networking traffic to reveal much of use.
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Bill Clinton did not lie.
Need more detail (Score:2)
I didn't say it was not a concern, I just said is wasn't as much a problem...
While you may have some opportunity for more direct attacks you have much less metadata you are potentially collecting.
Can you outline how a TLS attack would work if you control the long haul pipe compared to some router handling network traffic?
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Sure, the Chinese government has access to signing certificates that your browser trusts. That makes it very easy to execute MITM attacks. Note that the US DoD root certificates were not included in browser distributions to build trust. However, the Chinese government can quietly compel any data from any Chinese entity, and routinely kills people who fail to comply. SSL/TLS are adequate against criminal enterprises, but not against nation states.
Re:Need more detail (Score:5, Insightful)
Recall "Tempora" and collect it all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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I didn't say it was not a concern, I just said is wasn't as much a problem...
True.
Can you outline how a TLS attack would work if you control the long haul pipe compared to some router handling network traffic?
Same AC. The technique is the same. You must be in control of a primary static link before the system comes on line. Replace root certs with your own forged versions or simply add yours as root certs in some conditions. It's how deep packet inspection of HTTPS and IMAP traffic is done in corporate environments to domain and BYOD systems alike.
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You've hit the nail on the head. Sure, SSL will protect you ... as long as you're confident that you have no certificates that could be compromised to the Chinese government.
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I mean, If its important you use your own certs anyways right?
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Sounds like non-senior IT is worthless then.
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From what you're saying, apparently so. you don't have to work in tech to understand good security methods. So that's flawed thinking on your part.
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How do you do that if you never get access to the cert? or a keyx? That was my point.
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Long haul hardware would have to be able to decrypt http or other networking traffic to reveal much of use.
If the long haul network is to/from China, the Chinese government is going to snoop it anyway, so it's a moot point.
As for Brazil-Cameroon: the Chinese have probably already infiltrated most African countries, so again it's moot.
* https://www.cfr.org/blog/african-union-bugged-china-cyber-espionage-evidence-strategic-shifts
Re:Is that as much a problem though? (Score:4, Interesting)
When an NSA submarine taps a Huawei cable people will know. When it taps a Google or AT&T cable it is using prebuilt backdoors and people wont know that the cable is being tapped. Huawei laying cables makes it more difficult for the NSA to spy. Thats the problem.
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Google and AT&T own undersea cables if you didnt know
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Tapping undersea cables shouldn't really matter. You can't trust anything on the internet, which is why you encrypt everything and validate everything. Assume every wire between you and the destination is untrustworthy, because it is.
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Long haul hardware would have to be able to decrypt http or other networking traffic to reveal much of use.
It wouldn't have to decrypt anything, they could just read the tracking headers of Verizon et al.
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Serves them all right. Wireless networking is filthy. It should be banned.
Re:Never Been Proven (Score:4, Insightful)
In Soviet Russia, evidence proves you!
I'm sure Xi is a great guy, but I don't need evidence to expect my government to protect me from perceived foreign threats. The nature of threats involves not only the past, where you find evidence, but also possible futures, which don't yet have evidence.
I haven't seen the evidence, and I hope we never go to war with China. But that said, I want my military to make national security assessments of their own. I don't want them asking YOU.
If China is claiming land beyond their 12 mile line, then I want the US military to be prepared for war with them at all times. That is a dangerous game for them to play. If China is threatening to invade traditional US allies, such as Taiwan, then I want the US military to be prepared for war with them at all times. That is a dangerous game for them to play.
And if there are multiple major problems like that that could lead to war, then we should probably start disengaging our economies generally, and not allowing their equipment in the communication networks of nations who have direct, high capacity network connections to the US. Countries that have that sort of equipment in their networks should be firewalled and rate limited from our side.
I don't need "evidence" of whatever you say. Nobody is disputing that China is making territorial claims in excess of international norms. Nobody is disputing that China is threatening Taiwan. If those things were both in dispute, evidence might matter.
Furthermore, China is forcing former Chinese nationals who are now American Citizens to act as intelligence assets, and that sort of behavior should result in major trade sanctions. Container ships with Chinese cargo shouldn't even be allowed inside the US exclusive economic zone when that sort of stuff is happening on US soil.
And I'm a liberaaal, go ask a Republican what they think about that stuff. LOL
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...when the countries banning Huawei refuse to let them connect their cables and cut the existing ones.
I think that in the modern world, intentionally cutting undersea cable would likely be a casus belli.
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Mmm. It seems that the only people that are in a hurry to declare war on the USA are Americans.
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Not if you're disconnecting the terminal of the cable in your own country.
Good luck also proving who cut a cable 4000 feet below the surface, or indeed that the fishing boat didn't accidentally snag that cable.
Threat against spying from NSA/5 eyes? (Score:1)
I think that's a potential win.
Pathetic (Score:2, Interesting)
the U.S., Japan and Australia are working to address this potential threat. "Steps they are considering include banning Huawei from laying cables connected to one of the three countries, and urging other governments to prevent the company from getting involved in the construction of any major cables
What's the fear here again? That they'll switch the cable off in a time of war? As opposed to just blowing the fucking thing up?
I despise my government so much it hurts.
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The fear is loss of competitive advantage in spying capability.
This is a terribly manipulative article (Score:5, Insightful)
This entire article operates under the assumption that Huawei are not motivated by profit, and that they are actually motivated by espionage, for which I have seen no actual evidence.
As a private citizen, I consider companies like Google and Facebook be far greater threats to my well being than Huawei.
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The CEO of Huawei is a PLA General. There is no separation between "corporations" and gov't in China. You don't have to look hard, this information is everywhere.
try this [youtube.com]
Re:This is a terribly manipulative article (Score:4, Informative)
He's no general. He was in their equivalent of the signal corps when he was younger.
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He was fired from his position in the army when the army got downsized.
That's why he started his own business in the first place.
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He was fired from his position in the army when the army got downsized. That's why he started his own business in the first place.
So what.
This is the point:
There is no separation between "corporations" and gov't in China
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You believe that without question just because you believe everybody believes that? You have been propagandized or just brainwashed.
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Bah. If you dig deeper into most of these allegations they are either flimsy or already settled. The code they allegedly "copied" from Cisco was a file named "strcmp.c". Anyone who is a C programmer will tell you what that is. The "backdoor" in Vodafone's equipment was a system administration console in a telnet port.
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I'm going to buy my next phone from Huawei.
what's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
So the idea is it's easier for the Chinese to tap into an undersea cable if they are the ones laying it and even if they are doing it with UK partners? If they wanted to tap an undersea data cable surely they have the ability to do that whether a Chinese company lays the cable or not. And are we trusting that the US and UK are not tapping the cables? Really? Personally I find the US a lot more scary than China. I'd be more concerned with the NSA tapping an undersea cable, but of course there is nothing I can do about it.
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Do you have a southern accent? Because that is what I am picturing. I am often embarrassed to be an American and it is because of people like you. We really are the English speaking country with the dumbest people.
Your nationalism is harmful and embarrassing and if you ever left your hometown you would realize that Chinese people are human too. I remember the cold war and all the spy paranoia and I don't want to go back to that era. I like being friends with Russia and China and hell even North Korea if pos
Re:what's the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh right, you don't remember it because the purpose of "Let's Encrypt" was to prevent the US government from spying. Whoops.
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Yes but that is not really what I meant. I mean I can't do anything about countries tapping into undersea data lines. Probably most countries do that. I'd be very surprised if the US didn't do it and I am more worried about the US government having my data than China. What is the Chinese government going to do with my data? Nothing that I care about. The US government is a different story though. If I encrypt it is to prevent them from eavesdropping.
What Triggered this? (Score:1)
I'm genuinely a bit puzzled about how the controversy with Huawei has come about.
As far as I can see there is a suspicion that the Chinese government may be using companies like Huawei to spy, but no published specifics. The Chinese laws requiring companies to provide information to the government when warranted, but such laws don't seem unique to China, although they would vary in extent between countries.
The claim by China that the action is politically motivated would be more convincing if it was just th
Re:MORON IS STUPID, NEWS AT 11. READ SOMETHING. (Score:4, Informative)
One electronics company accuses another of IP infringement. This is really outrageous. This has never happened in the past.
As for Vodafone "backdoors", that's a BS claim. It's a telnet service was present in most network equipment for management purposes. It can be turned off.
Re:What Triggered this? (Score:4, Insightful)
The other countries showing concerns have only started showing concerns after the US started putting pressure on them to show concerns. The other day Trump came out and tweeted that the Huawei situation could be taken care of as part of the trade negotiations. If there were really security issues then they wouldn't be able to be dealt with through talks. The US President is using "National Security" to put a stop to free competition.
So not an ace (Score:3)
"which is dominated by the U.S., Europe and Japan.....Even when [their new cables] are finished, Huawei's market share will be less than 10%"
Ah yes, the well known, terrifying "Ten Percent Monopoly" that no one has ever heard of.
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From the summary:
"which is dominated by the U.S., Europe and Japan.....Even when [their new cables] are finished, Huawei's market share will be less than 10%"
Ah yes, the well known, terrifying "Ten Percent Monopoly" that no one has ever heard of.
Methinks they are running out of substance to pain Huawei as that evil monster they want us to believe.
No matter how manipulative TFA is, it's effectively boring.
Funny how everything China does is a "threat" (Score:1)
Make mobile phones? It's a threat. Build communications networks? It's a threat. Lay down fiber optic networks to connect continents? It's a threat. And all threats need to be addressed.
But when America does it, it's for peace, democracy, and science. Even when they commit war crimes. Funny how media and racist shit-holes like /. spin these things.
This is Terrifying (Score:2)
Fuck China (Score:1)
American companies, Chinese companies...
Profit, Political gain...
Different coins, same currency.
What I can't believe is how may people area actually supporting Huawei.
They are no better than say facebook or google. In fact, they ARE worse IMNSHO.
Why? Because the Chinese government IS a murderous totalitarian government (let alone "communist") that DIRECTLY controls Chines companies.
NSA can get access into Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc, but they can be stopped by other branches of government; in China THE
Re:Linking Brazil and Cameroon (Score:4, Funny)
Still at least 40 IQ points above you.