US Takes Baby Steps Toward Providing Actual Public Evidence Of Huawei Spying
from the ill-communication dept
We've noted a few times now how US claims that Huawei routinely spies on Americans haven't been supported much in the way of actual public evidence, a bit of a problem given that's the primary justification for the country's global blackballing efforts. Previous White House investigations 18 months in length couldn't find evidence of said spying, and many US companies have a history of ginning up security fears simply because they don't want to compete with cheaper Chinese kit.
The US has been making its blacklisting case for much of the last year, but had been criticized previously by Germany and the UK for being a bit light on actual evidence. That shifted slightly this week courtesy of a report in the Wall Street Journal (paywalled, here are Ars Technica and Gizmodo alternatives), which quoted US National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien as saying the US has hard evidence that Huawei has backdoor access to mobile-phone networks around the world:
"We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world."
Again, this is a step up from previous US claims that it didn't actually need to provide public evidence to justify a massive global blackballing effort that's been debated and discussed for more than a decade:
"The US kept the intelligence highly classified until late last year, when American officials provided details to allies including the UK and Germany, according to officials from the three countries. That was a tactical turnabout by the US, which in the past had argued that it didn't need to produce hard evidence of the threat it says Huawei poses to nations' security."
US officials quoted in the piece say they've known about the backdoors "since observing it in 2009 in early 4G equipment," though officials declined to say whether the US has actually observed Huawei using this access. The Journal notes how telecom operators are required by law to build backdoors for authorities to access the networks "for lawful purposes," but they "are also required to build equipment in such a way that the manufacturer can't get access without the consent of the network operator," restrictions the US claims Huawei is violating in several countries:
"US officials say Huawei has built equipment that secretly preserves the manufacturer's ability to access networks through these interfaces without the carriers' knowledge. The officials didn't provide details of where they believe Huawei is able [to] access networks. Other manufacturers don't have the same ability, they said."
Still, some were quick to note that claims of evidence isn't the same as public evidence, while some infosec reporters lamented the report for being a bit vague:
This story is vague and fuzzy. Needs more verification and details. https://t.co/tsE8B08dl8
— Kim Zetter (@KimZetter) February 11, 2020
Again, there are certainly plenty of valid security concerns about both China and Huawei. Huawei is certainly no saint, and like so many telecom giants has some truly grotesque and greasy habits. But a healthy chunk of the hand-wringing over China and Huawei is the product of competitors like Cisco, who adore over-hyping Huawei's issues in DC for competitive gain. Without public, verifiable evidence, it remains difficult to assess what percentage of the US hand-wringing is valid cybersecurity concern, and what percentage is just K Street bullshit (see: the "race to 5G").
There's also the fact that the United States continues to dole out surveillance ethics lectures despite having an abysmal track record on the subject. Recall the NSA broke into Huawei as early as 2009 to install its own backdoors, and has also been busted intercepting Cisco products in transit to embed them with surveillance tech. There was also this blockbuster Washington Post story this week highlighting how the US bought cryptography company Crypto AG, then abused that ownership for decades to weaken encryption and spy on its allies.
The US of course absolutely loves backdoors. And the US loves using companies like AT&T as an extension of its global surveillance efforts, to the point where you truly can't tell where the NSA ends and AT&T begins. But were foreign companies to then suggest that AT&T should be banned from doing business worldwide, the backlash and demands for transparent and open evidence from these exact same sources would register on the Richter scale. This "do as we say, not as we do" logic only has the effect of making it harder to take the US seriously when it suddenly expresses concern about rampant surveillance.
In short if the US truly wants to convince the world to not only ban Huawei, but to also spend the money needed to rip its equipment out of every network on Earth, (a particular issue for cash-crunched rural operators) it's going to need to provide more than some unverified claims in the Wall Street Journal.
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Filed Under: china, networks, surveillance, us
Companies: huawei
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there are people who are far more clever than all those who work for all the government bodies, security and otherwise and not one has been able to find any backdoors, spyware or anything else that would be contrary to what Huawei says. i am totally convinced that any evidence that has somehow now magically been exposed has been made up by the USA authorities and been done because the UK is still going to use Huawei in it's 5G network and the USA has got the right ache over it! this is just Trump trying to use something else to punish China and Chinese companies for producing better equipment that is cheaper and lasts longer than anything that can be produced in the USA! considering that USA mobile and internet companies have been proven to be doing for years what Huawei is accused of, it seems to be more jealousy than anything with no legitimate proof again!
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Re:
Conjecture.
It would be interesting to read analysis of a wireshark network snoop whilst said equipment was operating in a normal fashion.
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Re:all those black lines, lol
My money is on the lawful Intercept that the US has been deploying on its citizens since 2001 without a warrant, and with impunity.
The packet loss in those LI situations is quite striking too.
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Re: Re:all those black lines, lol
Maybe if they don't like the network spy tools you're running on your machine, they will sneek in and remove a couple of essential windows startup files from your OS..
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Re: Re: Re:all those black lines, lol
Spies hate being spied on.
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Re:
According to GDub there is no middle ground. "You are either for us or agin us." Tech is attempting to stand its middle ground and are they feeling pressure!
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Re:
Chinese kitchen knives sold to the US markets certainly suck. The (stainless steel) rusts. They will not keep a sharp edge and if you need to sharpen them, the edges flake off. Now One could see them using better alloys in networking components especially if they intended to use sold components for a series of intel gathering projects, but come on, I paid Top Dollar for a very disappointing kitchen set of knives. You let me down!
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Re:
"i am totally convinced that any evidence that has somehow now magically been exposed has been made up by the USA authorities and been done because the UK is still going to use Huawei in it's 5G network and the USA has got the right ache over it!"
Probably not made up from whole cloth, but very disingeniously presented. Take this sentence from the NSA politico:
"We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world."
...in other words, exactly like Samsung, Apple, HTC, Google, Motorola, and any other corporation which has the ability to roll out over-the-air OS updates to phones.
"Evidence" that Huawei is worse than any other on the market will need to be presented in the form of a phone or router where such a backdoor has been rolled out or clear evidence that this ability has been made use of.
Until then all the US is actually saying is that Huawei has the same capability as any other OEM which builds and updates it's own firmware and drivers.
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Is this an effort to get the world to switch from systems backdoored by China to systems backdoored by the USA.
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Re:
"Is this an effort to get the world to switch from systems backdoored by China to systems backdoored by the USA."
Short answer? Yes.
Neither system is de facto backdoored currently - but it could become so, if the OEM decides to roll out an "update" which presents such a backdoor.
And needless to say the US would rather have that option in american hands than in chinese ones.
It's for reasons such as this I usually advocate that the original firmware needs to be removed and the router reflashed with FOSS drivers. As long as you can assume no backdoors are built in on the hardware level you'll be secured.
Ironically the huawei routers, having been harshly examined for months, now have better credibility than Cisco's offers which haven't endured the same scrutiny...
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Backdoors...
I'm pretty confident that the chances of their being backdoors in Huawei equipement is as high as the chance of backdoors in Cisco equipement.
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Re: Backdoors...
So, pretty high?
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Re: Re: Backdoors...
Stack overflows have been giving the backdoor since macromedia and windows 3..
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Re: Re: Backdoors...
"So, pretty high?"
Oh, no. Extremely low.
Huawei's routers got taken apart by numerous experts looking for backdoors and the end result was, apparently that, as was the case with most other router brands the most notable security flaw was that the OEM could at any time issue a firmware update which opened such a backdoor.
In other words unless you're compromised at hardware level you're golden as long as you replace the proprietary firmware with FOSS drivers instead. And ironically huawei's routers have now been audited on the hardware level. Cisco's haven't.
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I am struck by the implications of this:
Combined with this:
So did they see a Chinese backdoor...or a US one that patched the manufacturer access?
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Re:
I could see the Chinese knowing about the NSA backdoors and using them for their own purposes. That doesn't make them Chinese backdoors. But it could be an excellent example of what happens when you have backdoors at all - ANYONE can take advantage of them.
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Re:
It could be any situation realistically. It could be nefarious Chinese plot, it could be a US plot that's been repurposed for Chinese spying, it could be a US plot that Huawei didn't know about until they started getting executives arrested.
At best, it's the Chinese getting caught doing exactly what the US have been doing. At worst, it's an example of why backdooring anything is a very bad idea no mater who you think the "good guys" are.
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Lest we forget
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150129/06262129848/nobody-saw-this-coming-now-china-too-wants-co mpany-encryption-keys-backdoors-hardware-software.shtml
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/technology/in-china-new-cybersecurity-rules-perturb-western-tech -companies.html
Lest we forget that China Regulations requiring hand-over of source code for networking equipment from all companies (foreign and domestic) was only a baby step too. Since Huawei is a domestic (to China) company who likely has footholds in their banking, it would be easy to grow from there.
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Looks like...
Backdoors of mass destruction.
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Re: Looks like...
You could be more right than you know. This is an exceptionally bad time to be calling a Chinese Firm a spy.
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Re: Re: Looks like...
That is unless you were TRYING TO PICK A FIGHT.
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Backdoor!
This might be very old news.
In the good old days, network equipment, including routers, could be accessed for management purposes from a computer on the network via a command line protocol called Telnet.
Many still can.
Telnet is relatively insecure and is deprecated for new equipment. The UK security authorities explained that the only security problem they had found with the Huawei equipment in UK public networks was due to lax coding including the failure to disable the Telnet port and code.
Even if Huawei managed to access the network equipment management, they would not be able to get customer, public network or government data from it. The one truly damaging thing they could do, possibly at the Chinese government's direction, is turn the equipment off or disable it. That has been dealt with, already, for G4 Huawei equipment and would be checked for in G5.
Most network equipment can be made to log and flag management access, so the network administrators would be able to spot such nefarious doings and identify the perpetrators very easily.
I'm surprised that the mobile network operators do not use out-band control and management of network equipment as is common in terrestrial networks.
Finally, if Huawei managed to inveigle code into their equipment to forward customer telephony and data calls to China GCHQ, how would they select the juicy stuff?
Only by enabling it from masts near government installations - just the ones that the UK government are excluding them from. This is Hatton Garden security for the rest of the network. The Chinese government is never going to spy on Daisy's Snapchat postings, this way.
Network administrators can also employ network sniffers and analyse the data they produce to identify rogue communications. I'm sure the UK authorities have server farms set up that can do just this work.
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vote with your feet
I moved to China, because of US/FVEY spying, and then the accompanying internet, cell phone, and other electronic harassment that the military and contractors direct at its own citizens, and other civilian targets
So, "the fact that the United States continues to dole out surveillance ethics lectures despite having an abysmal track record on the subject" made established communist countries more appealing than so-called western democracy, and the US in particular.
Freedom is where you find it.
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Re: vote with your feet
Voted "lol"
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'I got tired of the frying pan so I jumped right into the fire.'
That has got to be the funniest thing I've read all week.
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Re: vote with your feet
"I moved to China, because of US/FVEY spying"
Your reaction to US spying was to move to one of the few countries in the world known to have a worse record of such things than the US does? The character you're playing sounds like an idiot.
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Re: Re: vote with your feet
Suzie Dawson left NZ and moved to Russia because of 5eye harrassment.
https://suzi3d.com/
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Re: Re: Re: vote with your feet
That would appear to be a very different case to the type of thing the OP was referring to, so it's not a relevant comparison, though I'd certainly still question the choice of Russia if the concept of spying and harassment are what she's opposed to rather than the simple fact it was happening to her personally.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: vote with your feet
Um, actually, that AC provided a helpful link. And, her case echoes mine in many ways too..
Thanks AC!
(and everyone here knows I seldom thank ACs for anything)
And really, why is everyone so scared of Russia? Like, maybe they could put together a mob that's bigger than the K4 mobs or something?
Hmmmm....
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: vote with your feet
Russia can neutralize the US navy and airforce networks.. make them go dark, completely shutting down offensive and defensive capabilities. And they have 600 series nuclear powered nuclear armed missiles orbiting the planet 24/7/365/2000s. That seems scary enough.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: vote with your feet
"and everyone here knows I seldom thank ACs for anything"
Usually because you're normally the one claiming dumb shit as an AC and you finally caught on that people know it's you even when you make half-assed attempts at hiding it.
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Ahh! The ADL styled Ritual Defamation for the win!
Um, no, PaulT, you vapid liar. Not the case at all.
Maybe read up on ritual defamation, a favorite tactic of JTRIG/ADL/NGO affilliated derailers and trolls:
http://www.lairdwilcox.com/news/defame.html
While occasionally I do post as an AC in error or haste, I nearly always use some dumb ass moniker, usually about some dumbass liar or other TD in-house troll bait.
And, those dumbass liars like you who never address the substance of the articles at hand.
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Re: Ahh! The ADL styled Ritual Defamation for the win!
You lead a sad, pathetic life and are in dire need of mental help. That's proven. The only question is why you obsess so much over a fictional representation of me, rather than address any issue in play.
"And, those dumbass liars like you who never address the substance of the articles at hand."
He says in threads where I was doing exactly that before he decided that I was linking to the wrong image or made a typo...
It's hard to do when people like you decide that moronic personal attacks on an imagined version of what you wish I was saying is more important that the article. We tend to have reasonable conversations before you start ranting like an idiot.
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Re:known to have a worse record of such things
Evidence that China has a worse track record, PaulT? Have you ever been to China?
I haven't experienced human rights violations, or civil liberties infringements here ever. And, the average people have a much better quality of government-free life than anyone I ever met in the US.
And: what standard are you applying? You might have missed the memo that
the USA and its FVEYs companions in anti-democratic spying practices are no longer democracies in any way, shape or form.
So, yeah, if I am going to be used as unpaid HUMINT and worse in a country that has foregone due process, and monitored for my associations by a bunch of Fusion Center fed Paul Blarts with a median IQ of 97, it might as well be in a country that can use my valuable HUMINT and put it to good use against those who spied on me: and to use it with people of a higher IQ, who appreciate my caustic sense of humor.
Like Snowden said,if you got nothing to hide, you have nothing to say worth hearing.
Or more factually
"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say."
And besides, you there in Spain really have no idea how bad it got in the US after 911, much less did a damn thing for our so-called democracy.
SO, what do you have to say anyways? You are nearly always vapid snark, and substance-less antifa-like drivel, without any actual social value in your commentary drawn from any real experiences.
In fact, your commentary mirrors JTRIG type trolls and derailers by definition.
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Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
You haven't personally experienced a problem (tghat you know of) therefore China has no problems? That's your argument?
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Re: Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
Are you gonna answer my question to you, or not? That question up there above?
Otherwise, you don't get to ask another question here.
And, no, thats NOT my argument at all, but you know this already, PaulT in Gibraltar.
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Re: Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
Evidence that China has a worse track record, PaulT?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
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Re: Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
Still waiting for evidence on China's alleged rights issues.
And you still are not providing any. As usual PaulT.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
I'm not supplying evidence because it's far better documented than the issues you keep crowing about, to the point where you would have to be actively avoiding it not to be aware of at least some of it. Or, maybe you're just getting your information filtered by people who claim that Tienanmen didn't happen? That seems likely.
I will note that you've apparently spent all weekend obsessing over this, while I've had far better things to do with my free time.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
"Still waiting for evidence on China's alleged rights issues."
Because tiananmen square and the xinjiang province do not exist, eh?
Right. We're at the point where claiming China has no human rights issue is akin to a religious belief - with the fanatics screaming in hysterics, demanding the sceptics present evidence that God Does Not Exist.
We certainly have enough evidence of China's human rights issues to make a solid case. Your case to the contrary appears to be that you have heard none of it - while, according to your claims, living in an environment controlled by the chinese government.
The fact that you spend your weekend jumping like an irate monkey over that might, in charitable assumption, mean that you are just desperately in denial over where you've chosen to pitch your teepee.
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Re: The US prison system/NSA spying "democracy'
I never stated anything close to what you are saying about China, or human rights. But I think before we proceed, a note about modern think tanks and neo-tribal cults at Harvard and elsewhere that set the pace of online discourse in "democratic" societies:
https://www.humanisthub.org/
Then, re: claiming China has no human rights issue is akin to a religious belief
Nice word twisting there. I can see that western religious tribalism has formed the basis of your binary critical thinking, because religious analysis figures in to nearly everything you write.
I imagine because your viewpoints are formed by academic cults like the one I linked to above, who have literally formed the online dialectic as such via messaging about technological socialism.
But I never stated anything close to what you are saying about human rights or China.
All nations have their own human rights issues. In Sweden, where you come from, I imagine your secret services porn honeypots, or the Swedish Model defining a woman's children as pimps might qualify.
But I never stated anything close to what you are saying, and I know many people from all of those regions that the west likes to attempt to exploit via false second person narratives.
There are fewer people in Xinjiang "camps" than there are in US prisons on any given day, even according to US estimates, and:
fewer people on parole, or 'caught up' in the Domestic Violence Industrial Complex court systems (which functions as a slave net type apparatus), and
you can bet that institutionalized rape of lower tier males is NOT a part of the Chinese regimen
And Tian...en....er...
SDM, did you get caught in a 1980's wormhole with that line? Even soldiers here laugh at that stereotype in the west and how you people bandy that about, that somehow, a few wacky bourgeoisie professors back then meant shit in the bigger picture.
China is a developing Communists-capitalist system with an unimaginably huge population, and so, a US styled, religious-fanatic-tribal led democracy here would be a sad joke-an implosion of society (much as we see in the USA right now.)
And, a Jesuit/Protestant/globalist led Hindu nation like India is no solution either to human rights issues, because we see the west has failed at all of these, most notably by recently dumping depleted uranium on school kids in Iraq, etc.
On that note, please do cite a (non-tribal-sectarian) source that shows that somehow China is worse than the US and its FVEY prison-as-internment camp, racist/supremacist/dominionist based societies.
And for a lark, notice that EVERYTHING I write is from the so-called censored Chinese internet, as I get flagged around here, and community censored at the "pro-democracy" US based TD, the great thought and opinion leaders on matters of free speech, lol.
And, in case you missed the memo, I was gang stalked so bizarrely in the US by all of the good and trustworthy tribal religious fanatics and their NGOs and community policing agents that China was just one of many safer options, though I did consider Ecuador before what they did to Julian Assange.
Contradictions, ay?
Western democracy is over, pal, and the west is a TOTAL NSA supervised religion based surveillance and police state which itself could well be revealed to be one of the greatest human rights abuses of all time.
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Re: Re: The US prison system/NSA spying "democracy'
Your proof that China has no human rights violations is the fact that they are, for all intents and purposes, atheist? That's your damning point?
You haven't been to Xinjiang, have you?
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Sad Situation: the US prison system/NSA spying as a "democracy"
What is going on in Xinjiang closely resembles what the US did during the Appalachian exodus during the WPA era.
Yet somehow, without the accompanying eugenics programs carried out by the USA on those poor white trash and their black neighbors, which continues even today there, in the Freedum Lovin USA.
I know many people from that region, and none of them confirm the hyperbole of The Lyin' Spyin' USA.
The same was true in Tibet during the failed British/USA propaganda campaign against Chinese sovereignity there; and will be the same when China finally takes control of the KuoMinTang/CIA Air America Flying Tiger buddies in rebel held Taiwan.
By, bye, Miss American Pie. Hope you enjoy the trip....whoops, there it is!
Guantanamo!
And todays press carrying stories about Edward Snowdens movie to boot.
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Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
ECA you going rogue?
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Re: Re:known to have a worse record of such things
"I haven't experienced human rights violations, or civil liberties infringements here ever. And, the average people have a much better quality of government-free life than anyone I ever met in the US."
Of course not. 95% of the chinese people never will.
God help you if you're an uighur though. The situation is roughly comparable to a hypothetical scenario where the US decides to ship 1% of its population to Abu Ghraib.
If you ever found knowledge of human rights violations in China one of two things happen; You either pretend you never saw it and hope you don't get found out - or you raise your voice in protest and end up being the newest resident in a chinese reeducation camp.
"the USA and its FVEYs companions in anti-democratic spying practices are no longer democracies in any way, shape or form."
And they still don't get to build torture camps unopposed. In theory and practice the US could still be democratic. The main issue being the US citizenry not giving a shit. Whereas in China not giving a shit is mandated by government and violations of this severely curtailed.
"So, yeah, if I am going to be used as unpaid HUMINT and worse in a country that has foregone due process, and monitored for my associations by a bunch of Fusion Center fed Paul Blarts with a median IQ of 97, it might as well be in a country that can use my valuable HUMINT and put it to good use against those who spied on me..."
So you justify becoming a tool for a dictatorship out of a sense of butthurt outrage over an unhinged package of loose assumptions that you have any human intelligence worth using and that if used, would have any effect on the nebulous targets you envision? Check.
The US still has democratic principle. China has none.
"SO, what do you have to say anyways? You are nearly always vapid snark, and substance-less antifa-like drivel, without any actual social value in your commentary drawn from any real experiences."
I guess what he has to say closely mimics what I have to say here - that his drivel trumps yours when it comes to content because all you keep doing is parrot word salads you might as well have copied almost verbatim from some old soviet commissars how-to book after using a few word replacements.
"In fact, your commentary mirrors JTRIG type trolls and derailers by definition."
So all you have in your bag of shit rhetoric is marginalization presented right after a big whopping rant of apologism over how China is somehow a better choice of heroism than the US?
Cute.
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God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point already....
I want to respond further, but right now, because I know you are live posting:
Do you understand the contradiction in your internal logic coming external, and why I have taken you to task over what appears to be your religious stance?
You said:
God help you
I don't want g-awd/lawd/G-ds/Dogs help, ever, and neither do the Chinese.
For my part, I put the Good in what God was supposed to be, without the tribal religious baggage, and I do it because its the right thing to do, not because some racial- supremacist or other sooper seekrit hidden power demands that I do it.
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Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point already....
Add to the list of things our resident moron does not understand: common colloquial phrases and idioms.
Although your chosen handle seems apt for your character (not a compliment, by the way).
"right now, because I know you are live posting"
He says in response to a post in a non-live format that was posted nearly 6 hours befgore his own post.
You really don't understand how reality works, do you?
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Re: Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point already....
Care to cite an example of what I dont understand borrachero?
Yeah, I thought so. Good, it leaves more blank space for ANYONE else to comment, who is NOT you.
Paul, please tell me that you are not too stupid to understand that even though we are across the world from each other, these posts are timestamped when they hit TDs server(with you seven hours and forty seven minutes away from me right now in cybertime according to Microsoft)?
You really should consider going through with that scrotumectomy (or hysterectomy, whatever your gender).
And, maybe that lobotomy might not hurt. Sure, I would support you in that.
You really arent that witty, are you?
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Re: Re: Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point already....
" these posts are timestamped when they hit TDs server"
Yes, they are, specifically in PDT by the look of the time difference (though, they could be recorded in UTC then converted by the web server to that time zone for display).
What does that have to do with the timestamp for the comment you're replying to being nearly 6 hours before your comment, since the time between comments will be the same no matter which time zone you're in?
Unless... wait are you thinking that the time logged is the time reported by the client and not the server?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point already..
Well, well. You DO have an intellect after all.
But remember: I have made the claim above, that SDM argues from a sort of religious viewpoint, and the example at hand is that he/she uses religious expressions and I/O binary, dialogic expressions in arguments. And, that I do NOT argue from a religious or tribal affiliation.
Now, seriously, who can even debate client server time functions anymore with so many possible attack vectors, and the possibility of MiM honeypots along the way, packet lag and loss, moderation, mirrored servers in the clouds, or other glitches-who can keep up with a lil old server stamp?
Much less for instance, if guy A is in Sweden, guy B seven hours and forty seven minutes away, saying (yesterday) "but he posted it BEFORE you!, and guy C exists in the space time continuum in my TODAY, BEFORE guy A has seen daylight yet, tomorrow
(Well, actually, he was there on the sweeping second hand of today.)
Just sayin'....
Then, there's this idea that I am not actually thinking anything per se, but rather probing; and rather than pen testing a server or other hard/software, I am pen testing people, or functions in dialectic space rather than cyberspace and its related hardware.
Because I have made no mystery of that here at TD, lol
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point alrea
"who can keep up with a lil old server stamp?"
So, you're saying that server logs are by default inaccurate, now?
"Much less for instance, if guy A is in Sweden, guy B seven hours and forty seven minutes away, saying (yesterday) "but he posted it BEFORE you!, and guy C exists in the space time continuum in my TODAY, BEFORE guy A has seen daylight yet, tomorrow"
The time the comment is recorded on the server doesn't magically change dependant on timezone. It may or not require conversion to some local timezone to display, but the time between the logs won't change.
"I am not actually thinking"
We noticed.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my point a
Well, these are not my specialty areas. I am a dialectic analyst.
But server logs are *open to being altered/manipulated" and I think that provides defendants with ample possibilities of exoneration, when investigated and explicated properly.
Obviously, that is your domain, not mine. I am a dialectic hacker, whereas you have other potentialities.
And: the time the comment is recorded on the server" depends upon the non-complicit and/or accurate reporting of the mod/agent, and the programs running against that comment, or speech agent, amirite?
Agents have agency in these matters.
So, with Infragard manipulation of switches/comments/platforms, we KNOW this is exploited, but many defense lawyers not so much yet.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: God help you? WTF, SDM, prove my poi
"But server logs are *open to being altered/manipulated" and I think that provides defendants with ample possibilities of exoneration, when investigated and explicated properly."
WTF are you on about here? I'm talking about your inability to understand that relative time between comments don't change just because the end user was in a different time zone.
There's no "defendant", except the dumbass who creates conspiracies based on his lack of knowledge about how things actually work - and he's been convicted by his own words..
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'Teacher, they're not sharing the security vulnerability!'
"We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world."
Given the USG(or at least the dumber, more short-sighted portions of it) has made it very clear that they don't mind backdoors in various security systems the immediate thought that came to mind to explain why they were freaking out so much about the claim is '... and they won't give us a copy of the keys.'
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no fix
A simple example: Axes
Suppose America is the chief manufacturer and seller of Axes. Then we get greedy and decide to send the manufacturing of axes to China - because cheaper labor & consistent sales means more profit. Now we also have increased sales because we mandate that, in order for China to manufacture our axes, they must also agree to buy our axes. We're sitting pretty, until...sales decrease. China is not only in possession of our ax manufacturing (which means less American jobs), China is also in possession of our ax R&D (because IP theft - all "developed" nations do it, China is just now getting better at it). China starts selling their own (stolen from us) axes - first to their own citizens, and then to the world (cutting into our sales/profits).
TLDR: In the name of higher profits, Western companies have GIVEN China the tools (factories) to do what we used to do (manufacture). China is also gathering (via IP theft) the R&D to do what we're trying to do next - i.e new products. The only bargaining chip we have is our purchasing power, but China has enough citizens itself to replace even that.
I don't have a fix for this.
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Re: no fix
"I don't have a fix for this."
The fix is simple. Go back thirty years in time and convince US companies to retain their manufacturing capacity at home.
China formulated their policy of being the place where things get built in the 50's. They must have not believed their luck (or the shortsighted stupidity of the western barbarians) when the US decided to abolish it's hard-won status as the de facto global factotum.
It's one of the main weaknesses of democracies. We end up almost incapable of formulating and pursuing a coherent long-time national strategy, as a result of which western nations end up flip-flopping and rebuilding such policy every four years.
Whereas China doesn't see a problem about setting and pursuing a national goal which will only take real effect three generations down the line.
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OMFG You people are idiots. Proving something over 1 million separate times and saying it's not proven doesn't make you look good.
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Re:
If you've got some actual evidence to present then by all means do so, you'd be ahead of the USG in that because the 'trust us, they are totally doing X' they've been presenting so far doesn't by any stretch qualify as 'evidence' or 'prove' anything.
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Re: Re:
Idiot
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Re: Re: Re:
So you've got nothing, that's about what I figured.
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Re: Re:
There has NEVER BEEN EVIDENCE TO PROVE ANYTHING AT ALL on techdirt.. otherwise this sight would have been shut down long ago.
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Re: Re: Re:
site*
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
10/10 on the sockpuppeting, bro. Totally didn't notice!
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Re:
Can you point me to one case in which a backdoor is discovered that can be established as a Chinese Government backdoor? Every case brought forward so far have been industry standard access points that were poorly secured.
As I pointed out above, the US apparently became aware of this 'secret' backdoor where manufacturer access could bypass the normal teleco restrictions in 2009. The same year the NSA is known to have hacked Huawei to install a backdoor into Huawei equipment. It may be this hack revealed the vulnerability. It may be this hack IS the vulnerability. There is no evidence the vulnerability is installed on behalf of the Chinese government, nor that the Chinese government has any particular access that the NSA doesn't also have. If the known back doors the NSA installs in Cisco equipment lead to Cisco being banned in Europe, there would be an uproar from the US despite the evidence of the NSA literally diverting Cisco equipment to install backdoors. Why does the US and NSA backdoors get a pass but Huawei does not?
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Re: Re:
I can prove internet companies from China can't be legal in any other country but China due to international law violations.
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Re: Re: Re:
What is an internet compnay in this discussion? I would not have classified Huawei as an internet Company.
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Re: Re: Re:
I can prove....
So where is that proof?
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Re: Re: Re:
"I can prove"
It's always interesting when someone says this, but fails to even attempt to offer proof. Almost as if you don't have any.
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Re: Re:
Some usb chargers around the late nineties were in fact sending data to Chinese companies.
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Re:
"Proving something over 1 million separate times and saying it's not proven doesn't make you look good."
Claiming something is proven over a million times and then calling someone an idiot because they asked for evidence does not make you look good.
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Re: Is that you, Jesus?
Proof?
What would an AC chatbot like you know about that?
Where?
(sound of AC chatbot running away and licking its self-injured dog-like ass)
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Follow the money...
Ericsson, a Swedish company, has a dominant role in U.S. telecom networks and wants more. (Ericsson owns or controls companies that run the number portability database and the location database for all U.S. switching facilities. Its switches are used extensively by the big telcos.)
Small telcos, of which there are more than 2,000, can't afford Ericsson (or Nokia) switching equipment. They can afford Huawei.
Q.E.D.
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Re: Follow the money...
We should nationalize telcos anyway, and thereby force them to upgrade. If we can build a wall all the way across the southern border surely we can build fiber out to all homes, the same as we achieved in (technologically) antiquity rural delivery (of the snail mail).
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Re: Re: Follow the money...
"If we can build a wall all the way across the southern border "
Lol. I'd check up on the quality and progress of that particular escapade.
"surely we can build fiber out to all homes, the same as we achieved in (technologically) antiquity rural delivery (of the snail mail)"
That would require significant government investment in infrastructure, which is apparently "socialism" and cannot be afforded. Your money is apparently better spent on infinite wars and military hardware that lies rotting unused than looking after the needs of Americans.
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Re: Re: Follow the money...
"We should nationalize telcos anyway, and thereby force them to upgrade."
Historically any infrastructure company to nationalize has suffered downgrades, not upgrades. Far better for government to simply issue regulations forcing telcos to stay ahead of the upgrade curve to keep their license to operate.
"If we can build a wall all the way across the southern border surely we can build fiber out to all homes..."
If that metaphorical pig could only fly. Because I hope you realize that you have not, in fact, managed to build that wall. What you have so far is a very expensive fence someone with a ladder, a rope, a shovel or a bolt cutter finds to present to barrier. As for building fiber to all homes...it's bluntly obvious you have no conception at all to the fiscal scale of that undertaking. The fact that people are taking satellite constellation networks seriously as a possible alternative should tell you a little about it though.
"...the same as we achieved in (technologically) antiquity rural delivery (of the snail mail)."
Replacing a few thousand mounted couriers with a post office retaining or exceeding the same practical ability is a far cry from rolling out online access to 350 million people in one go.
Making it work is an even harder challenge.
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Re: Follow the money...
Adversity is the mother of invention, and easy solutions are the mother of shame (example: slavery). So let us block off China, and finally have some real innovation not requiring civil liberties arbitrage.
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Re: Re: Follow the money...
Wouldn’t “block[ing] off China” be an “easy solution” to this perceived issue?
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Re: Follow the money...
And no one has ever pointed out that the Nords, Swedes, Danes, etc have backdoors in their policies, or products, ever, because heretofore, they only targeted non-whites with that shit.
https://fee.org/articles/is-norway-a-role-model-for-democratic-socialism/
SO, why pick on China?
Oh, yeah....youbetcha, the Giant no longer sleeps, and the white alliances of the past are frazzled keeping up with the NWO, and its attendant racial-religious-tribal-supremacy.
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Re: Re: Follow the money...
"Giant no longer sleeps, and the white alliances of the past are frazzled keeping up with the NWO, and its attendant racial-religious-tribal-supremacy."
I'm not sure replacing the "white alliances of the past" with Imperial governance under the Xi dynasty is a step forward.
At least in our current "NWO" the main reason democracy keeps failing is because the citizenry is lazy. Under Imperial China the dissenting voice ends up in a "reeducation" camp.
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Re: Re: Re: Follow the money...
I'm not certain that what you call an imperialist China is a bad thing in any way, ,compared to other monarchies we watched tumble over the years (cheers to Prince Harry in Canada, lol)
Lets see:
Imperialist Babylon-First Temple-Greco-Roman (Viking marauders, Celts, mongols and other barbarians sprinkled throughout for awhile, then: post imperial Italy...Imperial Britain/Germany/Spain/Russia/France.../France....Imperial USA/FVEYs....
do you have death toll stats handy on any of that? Or even human rights records that reflect the lived experiences of western victims of so, so many bad things? I hear a few guys got fucked...over...in the Congo, S. Africa, etc. awhile ago cuz' colonialism, and de Boers, et al
But I do have some experience with China, and I think its amazing people, and its leadership is open to becoming a first world leaderwithout nuking anyone to get there.
And really: re-education? I watched American schools go from thesolid foundations of the three R's to constant messaging about the- isms in a short 30 years.
Hmmm...re-education...that term eludes me.
Prisons overflowing with rape victims, as western propaganda repeats the rape meme every second online, and holds up Hollywood hookers as victims?
Or, maybe, just one more product placement about Hate, the brand name, as babies in Gaza auto-explode?
What does that word reeducation mean any more in the west? A domestic violence related anger management session with some sweaty DVIC shrink who tries to convince him that his truck getting impounded and forfeited is somehow his fault?
Or maybe that one woman-anywhere-who says, yeah, this internet propaganda thingy trying to make me feel pre-raped, is really worse than MKULTRA on steroids.
In my view, its not lazy citizens, its actively passive aggressive and malicious citizens with that same little bit of power that Eichmann had, doing exactly what he did with it: cowered in a cubicle as people burned.
You are not from the US, but wowser-the ADL screened education and racial propaganda system is worse than any school or textbook I have seen here, ever. And Chinese kids can do math in the first grade, write with both pen and brush by the third grade, in two languages.
Does that worry you SDM?
It doesn't bother me a bit.
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Any company working in china has to hand over tech data ,source code etc to chinese partners ,the chinese government has employee,s in every company in china .
the nsa has back doors in many programs in the west ,
they can acess data ,audio,phone call,s txt,s email,s etc from any us person or company unless it usesend to end encyrption.
theres a big fight going on ,re will facebook encyrpt all FB messaging service,s ,
.So this fight is about back door,s in router,s and other networking equipment ,while all american routers have mandated backdoors.
its like an american pimp complaining about mexican people paying for sex or using escorts for sex.
this is another reason why banning encryption would be a disaster for
consumers, and for business .
data is the new oil, theres a host if bad guy,s ,hacker,s and state sponsored groups who want your data .
The american state has proofed woefully inept at safegaurding
important data ,including the data of army and secret service empoyee,s .
or follow the money,
american companys do not like competition from china .
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Re:
Americans would have a much more positive view of China if China innovated, but they copy. Huawei's factor is a (hilariously bad) copy of Versailles.
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Re: Re:
Yeah - nothing new and creative has ever happened in China
/s
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Re: Re: Re:
"Yeah - nothing new and creative has ever happened in China"
Not fair. They did invent a lot of stuff back in the day. That they've copied their way to contemporary parity isn't necessarily a condemnation of their current ability to innovate.
/s
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Copy what?
China has the best forgers and copiers in the entire world, bar none.
I suspect that's because they invented gunpowder, and also, that Marco Polo did some time there.
China seems to host really cool people.
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I wish the government would just drop the 0days on Huawei. Not because that's nice or a good idea, but because it would be funny. Besides, I've never seen anybody with a Huawei phone, I doubt anybody even owns one except ironically.
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..and this is why backdoors mandated for law enforcement is bad
From the article:
"U.S. officials say Huawei Technologies Co. can covertly access mobile-phone networks around the world through “back doors” designed for use by law enforcement"
Yup. They're talking about "Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act" (CALEA) Lawful Intercept interfaces. These are backdoors built into telco equipment specifically in order to allow for easy electronic surveillance in accordance with US Federal Law.
Information about those standards is available here: https://ndcac.fbi.gov/file-repository/listandardscip-1.pdf/view
So the US Government is claiming is that a telco equipment vendor (Huawei, in this case) has the ability to access the backdoors the US Government requires be built into telco equipment, to which the short reply should be:
"Of course they do - Huawei is required by the US Government to install the back door, which necessarily gives them access to the source code supporting it, and therefore access to the LI interface."
Funny that other, US-based telco equipment vendors in the exact same position aren't also being held up as spies.
This is a timely, real-world example of why "good-guy access only" crypto is a bad idea - provided by none other than the US Government itself.
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Re: ..and this is why backdoors mandated for law enforcement is
What "good guy?"
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Re: Re: ..and this is why backdoors mandated for law enforcement
"What "good guy?""
It's an old logical argument about why even the best intentions will cause great harm if they upset certain principles.
Similar to how it is a terrible thing if a dictator can unilaterally decide life and death no matter how benevolent the dictator or how even the devil himself deserves the benefit of law.
The logic still holds even if the participants in the specific example are "Bad guy" and "Worse guy".
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What happens, as far as spying, if s Huawei phone is not connected
I have an old Huawei with no service that I use as a gps with sygic maps when on road trips.
The only time it has a connection is when I am either updating sygic maps or the sygic application itself via wifi
That is why I ask why I ask what happens when there is no connection
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Re:
It's hard to guarantee that a phone won't connect to something. It's a matter of trust...
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Re:
Somewhere in China is someone with a screen and a global map and your position with a circle around it in red with crosshairs.
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God help us all...keep pointing fingers and ..
They might get chopped off, or you MIGHT be right..For the wrong reasons.
Lets say.
You are a major corp and install Hardware to monitor your systems, from remote.
Hmmm, Who would do this and why?
Well, remote access to determine if something is failing or wrong CAN, be a nice thing...ask Microsoft. Ask Cisco, Ask Apple..Ask every company that makes Android devices, Ask Google about siri.
Ask Mattel about Barbi. Ask LG and others about SMART TV, and being able to LISTEN to conversations remotely..
Ask about your TV, being able to use the internet and make Video Calls to anyone.
Ask any Bluetooth about codes 1111, 1234, and soforth..and why everyone uses the same codes for devices.
What is stopping any maker, or Any services from monitoring your Cellphone?? it can track you, it can be remotely turned on to listen to you and NOT ring.(if you didnt know) its fully hackable. Even by you.
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Re: God help us all...keep pointing fingers and ..
They can remotely turn on your phone and listen to your conversations even off your phone. We have known this for four or more decades. No one fixed that. Everyone just got tired of complaining about it.
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Re: Re: God help us all...keep pointing fingers and ..
"We have known this for four or more decades. No one fixed that. Everyone just got tired of complaining about it."
Not quite correct. Once google issued an open-source based phone OS people began building homebrews. If your phone OS and drivers are built without an OEM callback in mind, your only problem remains the data you leave in your voluntary logins and intermediates.
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I hear the Hauwei backdoors are buried right next to the WMDs
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Re:
China has tested nuclear weapons, and the view is not contested, China publicly states that it has a nuclear arsenal.
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Re: Re:
...and what does that have to do with the Iraq reference he was making?
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"We know there are backdoors in Huawei equipment, we mandated those to be there!"
Reminds of:
"The US have clear proof of Iraq having WMD, they just can't find the delivery receipts."
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Re:
Iraq did have WMD the US sold them to use against Iran. (anthrax) and tons of it.
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Re: Re:
That's the joke.
And just to be clear, the problem in 2003 was if they still have them, not if they had them prior.
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Re: Re: Re:
There are WMD's in iraq and the ownership of them is a contentious debate.
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To the victor goes the spoils.
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Re: Re: Re:
"And just to be clear, the problem in 2003 was if they still have them, not if they had them prior."
Mainly the problem was that the US couldn't find a convincing argument to launch a war of aggression unless they had a clear and present case of Iraq holding usable WMD's.
I recall the UN sent Hans Blix, on express invitation by Saddam, to search all of Iraq. They went everywhere then presented a 600-page summary on where they found exactly nothing and no indication that Iraq still had WMD's.
The report was "confiscated" by the US and then presented with onlya fraction of the pages still intact, upon which rumsfeld and Cheney started screaming that there was no evidence Iraq didn't have WMD's.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Spot on.
So, Saddam and bin Laden walk into a bar called "Netanyahu"...
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In Dutch we have a saying: The hosts trusts his guests as he is himself.
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Re:
I think something is being lost in translation. What exactly does that saying mean?
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Re: Re:
I'd assume it's something alone the lines of - if you're honest, you assume others around you are also honest, but if you're a liar you assume everyone else is lying to you. A thief will assume everyone is trying to steal from him, but it may not occur to an honest man that someone else is a thief.
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The Crypto AG story appears to be quite old
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Re: The Crypto AG story appears to be quite old
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/crypto-ag-cia-bnd-germany-intelligence-report
The mystery is precisely why nobody bothered to check, although everybody knew of the rumor.
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