Leaked Trump Plan To 'Nationalize' Nation's 5G Networks A Bizarre, Unrealistic Pipe Dream
from the intern's-brain-fart dept
There's been a lot of hand wringing and hyperventilation over a new report claiming that the Trump administration wants to nationalize the nation's looming fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks, despite the fact the proposal has a snowball's chance in hell of ever actually materializing. According to a leaked PowerPoint deck and memo drafted by a "Senior National Security Council official," the Trump administration wants the U.S. government to build and own a centralized, government-controlled 5G network in order to, purportedly, fight Chinese hackers.
More specifically, the memo claims this plan would be akin to the "21st century equivalent of the Eisenhower National Highway System," creating a "new paradigm" for the wireless industry and for national security. Fear of Chinese hackers drives the proposal from stem to stern, suggesting the plan needs to be completed in three years to protect American interests worldwide:
"The PowerPoint presentation says that the U.S. has to build superfast 5G wireless technology quickly because “China has achieved a dominant position in the manufacture and operation of network infrastructure,” and “China is the dominant malicious actor in the Information Domain.” To illustrate the current state of U.S. wireless networks, the PowerPoint uses a picture of a medieval walled city, compared to a future represented by a photo of lower Manhattan.
The best way to do this, the memo argues, is for the government to build a network itself. It would then rent access to carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile."
And while the Trump administration running our nationwide wireless infrastructure seems both equal parts fascinating and terrifying, it's hard to take the proposal seriously.
For one thing, it ignores the technical realities of the telecom sector and the path to 5G. Individual carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile already have their own 5G network builds well underway and spectrum already largely assigned, with commercial launches of the faster, lower-latency standard expected beginning in 2020 or so. Suddenly injecting the United States government into this process at this point makes little to no actual sense, at least for an administration that has stated repeatedly that telecom Utopia is achieved by government letting these entrenched carriers do whatever they'd like.
The proposal also tends to ignore political realities. AT&T and Verizon have more state and federal political influence than nearly any other companies thanks to their already extensive ties to domestic surveillance operations. They don't want their assets seized to help operate such a "nationalized" network, and any effort to do so would prove politically suicidal. That's why Trump's own FCC (you know, the agency that actually regulates publicly-owned airwaves) was quick to release a statement shooting down the proposal:
"I oppose any proposal for the federal government to build and operate a nationwide 5G network. The main lesson to draw from the wireless sector’s development over the past three decades—including American leadership in 4G—is that the market, not government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment. What government can and should do is to push spectrum into the commercial marketplace and set rules that encourage the private sector to develop and deploy next-generation infrastructure. Any federal effort to construct a nationalized 5G network would be a costly and counterproductive distraction from the policies we need to help the United States win the 5G future."
US Telecom, a lobbying organization backed by AT&T, was just as quick to shoot down the proposal:
"There is nothing that would slam the breaks more quickly on our hard-won momentum to be the leader in the global race for 5G network deployment more quickly than the federal government stepping-in to build those networks. The best way to future-proof the nation’s communications networks is to continue to encourage and incentivize America’s broadband companies -- working hand-in-glove with the rest of the internet ecosystem, and in partnership with government, to continue do what we do best: invest, innovate, and lead."
When I first read the proposal, my instinct was that it was just the random brain fart of some natsec advisor who doesn't understand how telecom works or the mammoth influence companies like AT&T have over such policy. And that seems to be supported by subsequent leaks in the wake of the memo's release:
"As multiple White House officials confirmed to Recode on Sunday, the document as published is dated. They also stressed it had merely been floated by a staff member, not a reflection of some imminent, major policy announcement — and probably might never be."
To be clear, none of this is to say nationalizing networks couldn't work or be beneficial in an ideal world that actually respected civil liberties. Data has suggested a nationwide, taxpayer-funded fiber network where ISPs come in and compete (aka "open access") would potentially provide America with cheaper, better service than the pricey dreck currently passing as American broadband. Of course, given incumbent ISP influence that proposal will never actually materialize either, since to do it correctly would mean increasing competition in the broken telecom market, and we certainly wouldn't want that.
That said, the proposal does engage in all the usual hand-wringing about how the existing $700 billion defense budget isn't enough to counter the "Chinese threat" to American industry. So while the proposal isn't likely to result in nationalized networks, any runner up proposal is likely to just double down of all of our worst habits to date, including throwing countless billions at companies like AT&T, bone-grafting them to our global intelligence apparatus, then ignoring all the ways this power has been routinely and consistently abused.
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Filed Under: 5g, china, cybersecurity, fcc, national security council, nationalize, wireless
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Knowing this Administration, my first thought was that the advisor has a significant financial stake in a company that would get a contract to build this out.
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Win the 5G future??? Buddy, you're making it damn near impossible to even compete in the 4G present.
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To fight Chinese hackers.
...but not Russian hackers. Those guys are fine.
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Isn't that an old negotiating trick, to open with something so wildly beyond what you're actually hoping to get out of the deal that you've got plenty of room to walk it back and still get what you really want?
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Secure from Chinese hackers...
...the irony of this proposal is that it clearly envisions a secure network with a backdoor for US intel access, which could eventually provide access to Chinese hackers.
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These devices are now essentially a de-facto public utility.
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One imagines Stephen Miller angrily dictating it after being mocked online for his "the powers of the president will not be questioned" interview.
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Oh really? I don't think someone is giving NSA the proper credit. I feel pretty sure they are solidly ahead of China in the malicious actor department.
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The recode and axios links didn't work for me. Ars has some slides and source documents.
They claim "MUST take the opportunity to build it securely". I don't see any mention of metadata security. They need to do something like onion-route the phone traffic so people won't be tracked, but the government won't want actual security.
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Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
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Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
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Never mind that this has less than a snowball's chance in hell in ever getting anything beyond that power point presentation. Some one did a thought experiment/study and made a presentation. BFD.
No one in their right mind would think the US GOVERNMENT of all people could keep a nationwide consumer and industrial cellular network secure when they can't keep their own PCs secure, not to mention the nightmare of regulation and red tape any government run department or company (postal service, Amtrak) becomes.
Second, as we've already seen with the FCC, the telecom industry would simply talk to its cronies and get any chance of such a thing killed. Then you'd have the Republicans screaming bloody murder about government overreach, and the sin of all sins socialism/communism. The other side of the aisle would scream because they didn't think of it first and like the Republicans would come up with equally spurious political considerations that has nothing to do with anything realistic about its merits or demerits.
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Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
The NSA, FBI and CIA and their determination to be able to collect all communications without it being protected by encryption.
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Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
It worked out well for health insurance right?
It must've. Despite 7 years of voting to repeal it, when it finally mattered, the Republicans couldn't.
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By leaking this draft, they are opening for running a strawman campaign on this "Obama draft". If you can't find anything to agree about, you can always make up something to agree against!
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This is the U.S. equivalent of China's Great Firewall, complete with "man-in-the-middle" government-approved
VPN's.
The old East German spies are rolling in their graves.
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Re: Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
The federal government now regulates it and a fair number of liberals want the federal government to OWN it lock stock and barrel.
So why is a national government monopoly for your cancer treatment a good idea but national network infastructure a bad one?
Government owned networks shared by competing ISPs isn't exactly that radical of an idea really. This article seems to be all about spin and partisan hatred. Although wireless already avoids the usual problems with land line physical monopolies.
...and American wireless still blows anyways. (go figure)
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Re: Re: Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
Without Medicare and Medicaid, most hospitals and doctors offices close their doors.
The government owns Medicare and Medicaid. They are the biggest "insurer" in the country.
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Re: Re: Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
Let’s start with the fact that it’s not a government monopoly on the treatment, it’s a government administered healthcare plan. So maybe try to get your basic facts straight before you spin so hard we could use you as an alternative energy source.
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Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
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Government-owned infrastructure
Obamacare, despite all efforts to create a state-run plan as a standard (to which commercial plans could compete), it doesn't have one. All insurance plans are still privately owned.
But there's plenty of state-owned infrastructure, including the national highway system and plenty of electrical, sewage, water and garbage collection utilities (which are state- or county- owned.)
It was a point of jealousy during the rolling blackouts here in California that Southern California power was state-run, hence Enron couldn't create the artificial scarcity that allowed it to fleece PG&E. SoCal power was fine.
State-run utilities suffer from different kinds of problems than private-run for-profit utilities, but they can work pretty well. We just don't like them because we're phobic of socialism.
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NASA Space Shuttle Redux
business, it was that utter disaster called the Space Shuttle.
When DoD saw how awful the Space Shuttle really was, they
decamped, and eventually used the Space Shuttle only a
handful of times.
Bad idea then & bad idea now.
Don't do it!
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So.....
But the government running the 5G Network is Totally NOT OK.
Interesting.....
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Yes, but please explain in terms of onion routing. My IP address is essential information for routing packets to me, and yet Techdirt doesn't know it. And my ISP doesn't know I'm viewing Techdirt.
Why should phonecalls be different? The tower-provider just needs to know I've paid, they don't need to know the ultimate destination. And the phone-number-provider needs my authorization but not my physical location. (BTW, I can do this over Wifi already: connect with random MAC and tunnel VOIP over my personal onion service. It's not seamless handover but nothing about 802.11 makes it impossible for me to be connected to two or more APs.)
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Phone systems, including cellular phones, use a routing system that is visible to the provider, and require that you give them the destination number to make a call. As you noted the way to avoid that is to use VOIP, but you should assume that only the other end and the contents are hidden from whoever is providing you connection to the network, as VOIP traffic is identifiable your connection regardless of any onion routing, because of the traffic patterns.
Onion routing does not hide your location from the communication provider that you first connect to, or you approximate location of where the traffic is entering their network. It does hide who you are and where you are from whoever you are connecting to over the Internet. Using a public WiFi, hides who you are from the communications provider, they know where you are.
Onion routings, assuming that nodes do not exchange data other that the packets being routed, restrict the visibility to source and destination addresses for routing to the next node. So any individual node in an onion network can identify and locate where a packet came from and where it is going, but other than entry and exit nodes, that is not the originator or destination of the traffic.
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Who will actually build it?
Pretty sure it won't be US contractors.
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Thanks for the explanation. There's a subtlety that might make the above quote misleading: the provider can locate my device, but that doesn't imply they know it's mine. IOW, they need to know which of the hundreds of devices on the cell to route the traffic to; they don't need to know who owns it (and they don't need an identifier that's known to any other cell). There are methods of anonymous paid network access using zero-knowledge proofs, by which the cell tower operator might see a bunch of "random" phones that can't be linked to anyone.
Potentially decryptable too based on the compression, timing, or both. And RF devices can be fingerprinted at the digital and analog levels, which could compromise anonymity.
Nevertheless, tracking is currently trivial for phone providers (and anyone with SS7 access on some providers) and the governments that have compromised them. I'd welcome any improvement.
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Taxpayers funded the private telecoms far and beyond what was eventually provided on high-speed internet infrastructure. Given that track record of failure -- why not?
Taxpayers should fund telecommunications infrastructure owned by the public to the benefit of the public. Allow telecoms to rent access to the infrastructure clearing barriers to entry for competitive services closer to what is seen in Europe.
Also, be sure to send a card to Verizon reading "Congratulations on the win. Dicks. -- The Public"
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Re: Who will actually build it?
They just wouldn't get paid.
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How quickly the winds of fashion change...
Just last week, Bodie McBodeface was spinning fantasies to the effect that government networks are better, faster, and cheaper than commercial networks.
But today, upon learning that his evil twin Trumpy McTrumpface wants to build the Mother of All Government Network, Bodie does a 180 and lashes out at government networks.
Where was all the handwringing about civil liberties when the Berkman (not really "Harvard") report on the magic of munis was on the table? It's local police departments, after all, that love Stingrays best.
You TD kids are certainly flexible.
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The good news is that reading this probably gave Pai a minor heart attack.
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But seriously, the US government has been trying to build a nationwide LTE network for first responders (FirstNet) for the better part of ten years and have little to show for it except an award to AT&T, made last year. How the heck are the heck are they going to build a commercial network?
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Not a pipe dream
If Mexico will pay for the wall, then China can pay for our national 5G network. And they can provide the equipment for it as well.
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That's exactly how an Onion Service works. It has a fixed cryptographic identifier, and we have no idea where it is. (There are attacks, sure, but it's not easy. Look how long it took to bring down Silk Road.)
If its "local" identifier is changing constantly, it could be (somewhat) difficult to do in an automated way. The network wouldn't be doing it implicitly, someone would have to be trying to compromise privacy.
They can always send an officer to tail me. But they can't send officers to tail everyone, like how the NSA et al. can track all the phones.
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Re: How quickly the winds of fashion change...
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Brakes vs. breaks
Oh, well; I suppose them's the brakes.
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Re: NASA Space Shuttle Redux
business_
was 1 second ago, regardless as to when you read this. WTH are you talking about? The DoD _is_ commercial business, more than anything else.
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Re: How quickly the winds of fashion change...
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No, it's possible to use zero-knowledge proofs of payment. The Zero-Knowledge Freedom Network did it 15 years ago. All they'd know is that you're a person who paid, not which person.
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Citation: Untraceable Nym Creation on the Freedom 2.0 Network (Samuels and Hawco, 2000). "Given the lack of an anonymous e-cash standard, the challenge is how to use proven payment mechanisms to ensure the transaction's fiscal integrity, yet ensure that a nym's owner is untraceable. This document describes such a system"
See also: Freedom System 2.0 Architecture.
(There have been great advancements in zero-knowledge proofs over the last 18 years, like the zk-snarks used by zcash. We could do better now.)
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Re: Re: How quickly the winds of fashion change...
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SOCIALISM!!
So... socialism — where the state owns the means of production, in this case infrastructure — is okay when the Trump regime does it because China?
Are you kidding me?
Come on, Trump supporters, defend this nonsense — if you can.
Meanwhile, smart people realise we'll always need some kind of a mix of public and private enterprise to foster a healthy open (and mostly free) market, and that moral panicking over ideology causes more problems than it solves.
Seriously, though, I will jerk my thumb at this post next time a Trump supporter calls us leftists.
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Re: Government-owned infrastructure
Give me pragmatism or... give me pragmatism, damn it!
That said, America is so vast it'd probably work out better to let local municipalities collaborate with private industry to build the infrastructure than to leave it to the Federal government. Wouldn't there be more accountability that way?
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Trump supporters
Trump supporters do not follow rhyme or reason. There's no logic to supporting Trump, except that maybe he gives his fans permission to hate, and convenient people to blame.
Trump doesn't have policy, hence how he's been described as negotiating with jello. Once his capitalist hardliners and corporate lobby friends advise him, this nationalized internet idea is going to vanish.
What surprises me is how capitalist hardliners stand that we have a public military, a public mail service and a public bank and stock exchange. If we're going to get all purist with our ideologies, we should go the distance.
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Federal infrastructure
The National Highway System was build on a national scale. The Federal department set the standards (signs, stripes, concrete durability, tarmac thickness, etc.) and then would turn to the states to subcontract out the construction.
Trump aside, if we took a nation-wide internet network plan seriously, I suspect they'd do the same thing: create the standards at the top and then turn to the states to figure out how to do it at the ground level.
The notion of contracting such a huge project to a single bidder should be absurd like building a Death Star. There's just no company that should be big enough to do it.
Should being the operating term here. It's possible that our anti-monopoly regulations are so lax that some companies have merged into entities that big. But that would mean they're big enough to threaten global policy, let alone national policy.
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Re: Trump supporters
Sad but true: the privatisation of the military, mail service, bank and stock exchange are in progress.
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Re: Re: Re: Why not? Worked for Obama Care?
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Thanks From Dlink Technical Support
This is a wonderful information, Thank you.
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The PowerPoint presentation says that the U.S. has to build superfast 5G wireless technology quickly because “China has achieved a dominant position in the manufacture and operation of network infrastructure,” and “China is the dominant malicious actor in the Information Domain.” To illustrate the current state of U.S. wireless networks, the PowerPoint uses a picture of a medieval walled city, compared to a future represented by a photo of lower Manhattan.
The best way to do this, the memo argues, is for the government to build a network itself. It would then rent access to carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile."
And while the Trump administration running our nationwide wireless infrastructure seems both equal parts fascinating and terrifying, it's hard to take the proposal seriously.
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For a change, there is an article that focuses on a specific topic and is not all over the places. I like the fact that it is actually problem-solving and not just random and baseless subject. Great going!
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