Trump Ponders Banning All Chinese-Made Gear From US 5G Networks

from the unintended-consequences dept

We've already noted extensively how the "race to fifth generation wireless (5G)" is kind of a dumb thing. While 5G is important in the way that faster, better networks are always important, the purported Earth-rattling benefits of the technology have been painfully over-hyped. And they've been painfully over-hyped largely for two reasons: one, mobile carriers want to give a kick to stalling cellphone sales numbers, and network hardware vendors like Cisco want to drive the adoption of new, more expensive, telecom hardware.

The "race to 5G" isn't a race. And even if it were, our broadband maps are so intentionally terrible, we'd have no idea if and when we'd won it. Regardless, 5G has subsequently become a sort of magic pixie dust of tech policy conversations, justifying all manner of sometimes dubious policy. But the underlying desire to simply sell more kit has also infected the Trump administration's protectionist attacks on companies like Huawei, which is based on about 40% actual cybersecurity concerns, and 60% lobbying efforts by US hardware vendors that don't want to compete with cheaper Chinese hardware.

The Trump administration's war on Chinese network manufacturers has not been subtle, even though evidence supporting wholesale spying allegations against companies like Huawei has been arguably lacking. This week rumblings emerged that the Trump administration would soon be accelerating this effort by potentially banning absolutely any Chinese-made hardware from being used in US 5G networks, at all:

"As the Journal noted, such a requirement would force European companies Nokia Corp. and Ericsson, which currently dominate the sales of equipment to U.S. wireless carriers, to move their operations out of China or potentially lose access to the American market. That could potentially have a bigger impact on the market than any deal to end the ongoing trade standoff, as it may permanently alter the global technology markets—though both Nokia and Ericsson have already started working on plans to pull out of China due to the Trump administration’s escalating trade war tariffs."

There's a few problems with this. One remains the fact that despite an 18 month investigation, nobody has been able to provide a shred of proof that Huawei spies on Americans wholesale, the very allegation that began this whole effort. Two, smaller US telecom carriers say such bans will have a profoundly negative impact on their ability to compete in the States, since cheaper Chinese gear helps them better manage the tight margins of deploying service to lower ROI areas:

"RWA’s members estimate it might cost from $800 million to $1 billion for them to replace all the potentially affected gear from their wireless networks—costs they believe the government is legally required to reimburse."

Guess who'll pay for that? Hint: not carriers or the government.

The other problem is the myopic focus on Chinese telecom equipment. If the concern genuinely is cybersecurity, what about the Chinese hardware that exists in everything from smart refrigerators to residential routers? This all contains a universe of Chinese-made hardware susceptible to supply chain attacks. And what about the vast universe of shitty, poorly-secured IOT Chinese hardware that Americans happily connect to their home and business networks every day? If cybersecurity, and not say protectionism, is the real motivator, why is the focus so narrowly tailored to just telecom equipment?

Another problem remains the US' hypocrisy on this subject. The NSA, with BFF AT&T, have been busted repeatedly spying on everything and everyone. The statement being made here is obvious to anybody not infected by patriotic fervor: it's OK to covertly spy on the world if you're the United States, but the faintest allegation of China doing the same thing will result in a massive protectionist ban. The same kind of ban we'd be freaking out over were the shoe to be on the other foot.

Again, none of this is to say that China is an angel or that it doesn't routinely engage in some terrible behavior. But the Trump administration's "solution" to these problems is light on evidence, myopic to a fault, largely hypocritical, and fails to really address the bigger problems at hand if concern for cybersecurity is genuinely the driving motivator.

Filed Under: 5g, china, infrastructure, surveillance, telecom gear
Companies: cisco, ericsson, huawei, nokia

Cell Phone Manufacturers Offer Carefully Worded Denials To Question Of Whether NSA Can Track Powered-Down Cell Phones

from the it's-not-so-much-what's-being-said,-it's-how-it's-being-said dept

Back in July, a small but disturbing detail on the government's cell phone tracking abilities was buried inside a larger story detailing the explosive expansion of the NSA post-9/11. Ryan Gallagher at Slate pulled this small paragraph out and highlighted it.

By September 2004, the NSA had developed a technique that was dubbed “The Find” by special operations officers. The technique, the Post reports, was used in Iraq and “enabled the agency to find cellphones even when they were turned off.” This helped identify “thousands of new targets, including members of a burgeoning al-Qaeda-sponsored insurgency in Iraq,” according to members of the special operations unit interviewed by the Post.

Ars Technica reports that some security researchers are calling this statement into question and have contacted cell phone providers for statements on the NSA's claim. Only a few have responded at this point, and their denials have been worded very specifically.

Google had this to say:

When a mobile device running the Android Operating System is powered off, there is no part of the Operating System that remains on or emits a signal. Google has no way to turn on a device remotely.

Google may not have a way, but that doesn't mean the NSA doesn't.

Nokia:

Our devices are designed so that when they are switched off, the radio transceivers within the devices should be powered off. We are not aware of any way they could be re-activated until the user switches the device on again. We believe that this means that the device could not be tracked in the manner suggested in the article you referenced.

Once again, we're looking at words like "should" and "not aware." This doesn't necessarily suggest Nokia does know of methods government agencies could use to track phones that are off, but it doesn't entirely rule it out either.

Samsung's response is more interesting. While declaring that all components should be turned off when the phone is powered down, it does acknowledge that malware could trick cell phone users into believing their phone is powered down when it isn't. Ericsson, which is no longer in the business of producing cell phones (and presumably has less to lose by being forthright), was even more expansive on the subject.

The only electronics normally remaining in operation are the crystal that keeps track of time and some functionality sensing on-button and charger connection. The modem (the cellular communication part) cannot turn on by itself. It is not powered in off-state. Power and clock distribution to the modem is controlled by the application processor in the mobile phone. The application processor only turns on if the user pushes the on-switch. There could, however, be potential risks that once the phone runs there could be means to construct malicious applications that can exploit the phone.

On the plus side, the responding manufacturers seem to be interested in ensuring a powered down phone is actually powered down, rather than just put into a "standby" or "hibernation" mode that could potentially lead to exploitation. But the implicit statement these carefully worded denials make is that anything's possible. Not being directly "aware" of something isn't the same thing as a denial.

Even if the odds seem very low that the NSA can track a powered down cell phone, the last few months of leaks have shown the agency has some very surprising capabilities -- some of which even stunned engineers working for the companies it surreptitiously slurped data from.

Not only that, but there's historical evidence via court cases that shows the FBI has used others' phones as eavesdropping devices by remotely activating them and using the mic to record conversations. As was noted by c|net back in 2006, whatever the FBI utilized apparently worked even when phones were shut off.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.

Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.

While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.

Short of pulling out the battery (notably not an option in some phones), there seems to be little anyone can do to prevent the device from being tracked and/or used as a listening device. The responding companies listed above have somewhat hedged their answers to the researcher's questions, most likely not out of any deference to government intelligence agencies, but rather to prevent looking ignorant later if (or when) subsequent leaks make these tactics public knowledge.

Any powered up cell phone performs a lot of legwork for intelligence agencies, supplying a steady stream of location and communications data. If nothing else, the leaks have proven the NSA (and to a slightly lesser extent, the FBI) has an unquenchable thirst for data. If such exploits exist (and they seem to), it would be ridiculous to believe they aren't being used to their fullest extent.

Filed Under: mobile phones, privacy, surveillance, tracking
Companies: ericsson, google, nokia, samsung

Ericsson Sells 2,185 Mobile Tech Patents To Newly Minted Troll, Unwired Planet

from the 2185-EXPLOITABLES!-NIB!-BID-NOW!!! dept

Well, if it wasn't clear before, it's certainly official now. Unwired Planet (formerly Openwave), a former innovator in the WAP browser field, decided back in April that it was no longer interested in competing in the marketplace. Instead, it set the dials to "troll" and announced a new "corporate strategy," one that would punish actual innovators for innovating. CEO Mike Mulica announced a "multi-pronged strategy to realize the value of [Unwired Planet's] unique patent portfolio."

Now, an aider and abettor has thrown Unwired Planet 2,185 additional trolling devices.

Last week, Unwired Planet, a patent licensing company that once upon a time was an Internet services company called Openwave, announced a deal to acquire a portfolio of 2,185 U.S. and international patents and patents pending from Ericsson.

The company said the deal “significantly broaden[s] Unwired Planet’s Mobile Internet-focused portfolio,” including 753 U.S. issued patents related to 2G, 3G and LTE technologies. Ericsson will also contribute 100 additional patent annually to Unwired Planet from 2014 through 2018. Terms call for Unwired Planet to compensate Ericsson with certain ongoing rights in future revenues generated from the enlarged patent portfolio. Unwired Planet will also grant Ericsson a license to the Company’s enlarged patent portfolio.

In other words, Ericsson will profit from any litigation or settlements Unwired Planet manages to extract from tech companies. Pretty good money, if you don't mind being part of the problem. Mulica was on hand again to put lipstick on the troll-pig with plenty of words that dance around the shakedown-and-sue "business model" Unwired is calling a "corporate strategy" these days.

Unwired Planet CEO Mike Mulica said in a statement that his company looks forward to “leveraging a strong, multi-dimensional patent portfolio and furthering discussions with key industry players who are interested in licensing these inventions to protect and further build their product strategies.”

Well, just replace "leveraging" with "exploiting" and "furthering discussions" with "shakedown letters" and "interested in" with "forced to" and we've got ourselves a sentence! For that matter, let's replace "protect and further build" with "tentatively move forward in a highly litigious atmosphere, infested with tapeworms sporting UP/E logos."

The costs inflicted by the new hybrid tapeworm will, of course, be passed on to the end users in the form of increased costs, fewer innovations and East Texan accents. Ericsson will receive, in exchange for patents covering a broad swath of "telecommunications infrastructure" (and part of its soul reputation), 20% of the first $100 million, increasing to 70% should Unwired be able to hit the $500 million mark. Unwired has already fired an opening salvo in the direction of Apple and Google, so the sky's the theoretical limit.

In addition, America itself will be blessed with several million more reasons for newly minted lawyers to embrace the patent field, which despite the best (but still very poorly done) efforts of the US government, still offers a good chance to make big money by doing little more than spamming successful companies with threatening letters. 

Filed Under: mobile, patents, wireless
Companies: ericsson, unwired planet

Nortel Patents Sold For $4.5 Billion To Apple, EMC, Microsoft, RIM, Ericsson & Sony

from the this-won't-end-well dept

Well, it wasn't too difficult to see this one coming. A year ago, all that was left of Nortel was a giant patent portfolio that everyone knew would result in a bidding war. At the time, people predicted the portfolio was worth an astounding $1.1 billion. Back in April, Google made news by placing a $900 million "stalking horse" bid for the patents, which had many people shaking their heads at the size of the bid. Google had made it pretty clear that it was seeking to buy the patents to keep them from being used by others to sue and block Google. Of course, Microsoft whined and complained to the government about how unfair it would be if Google won the patents. The government was apparently unconcerned.

So, Microsoft apparently got together with Apple, EMC, Ericsson, RIM and Sony... and coughed up an insane $4.5 billion. It's kind of brilliant in a nefarious way. With six companies together, they could each spend less than the $900 million initially pitched by Google... and then just all agree not to sue each other, but leave open the option to sue anyone else. And, given just how aggressive these companies have been with patents lately, you can rest assured that "license" demands will be made and there will almost certainly be lawsuits. Progress via the courtroom, apparently.

Filed Under: patents, wireless
Companies: apple, emc, ericsson, google, microsoft, nortel, rim, sony