Google Joins The Evidence-Optional Assault On Huawei

from the intercontinental-blackballing dept

So we've noted several times now how the US efforts to blacklist Huawei from global telecom markets haven't much in the way of, oh, supporting evidence. The Trump administration and FCC have taken all manner of actions to try and blackball the company, from pressuring U.S. carriers to drop plans to sell Huawei phones to the FCC's decision to ban companies from using Huawei gear if they want to receive federal subsidies.

The underlying justification for these moves has centered on the idea that Huawei operates as a surveillance extension of the Chinese government, something that still hasn't been proven despite a decade's worth of claims to this effect, and an eighteen month investigation by the White House.

That's not to say the Chinese government is an innocent little daisy. Nor is it meant to suggest that it's impossible that Huawei spies on Americans. But the lack of any actual public evidence of spying remains troubling all the same, given that if the shoe were on the other foot, there'd be no shortage of face-fanning consternation on the part of American politicians and industry.

Enter Google, which this week decided that it'd be joining the evidence-optional festivities by announcing it would be severing Huawei's Android license. The move forces Huawei to rely on the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), cutting it off from critical Google apps and services. The move, as Reuters notes, could prove devastating for one of the nation's biggest smartphone manufacturers:

"The suspension could hobble Huawei’s smartphone business outside China as the tech giant will immediately lose access to updates to Google’s Android operating system. Future versions of Huawei smartphones that run on Android will also lose access to popular services, including the Google Play Store and Gmail and YouTube apps."

As some were quick to note, the move may actually prove to be counterproductive, given the negative impact it could have on deploying timely security updates:

For its part, Google stated it was simply complying with the US Commerce Department’s decision to place Huawei on the “Entity List," a move that was justified as essential to ensuring network security. But the company largely ignored any criticism that such a move might actually undermine end-user security. And in the press, it's almost bizarre how few reporters have noticed that public evidence of spying allegations is nonexistent:

It's perfectly fine if your gut tells you Huawei is a surveillance proxy for the Chinese government, but that's not the same as evidence. Also lost in this conversation is the fact that companies like Cisco have a long history of trying to gin up lawmaker hysteria on this subject for competitive advantage, or that this blackballing effort just mysteriously materialized at the same time US gear makers were worried about competing with cheaper Chinese gear as they rush to secure international fifth-generation (5G) network contracts.

Again, perhaps Huawei really is a spy and the last decade of similar hand-wringing is perfectly justified. But if that's the case, it shouldn't be hard to provide some public evidence supporting that allegation. And while some of the concern about Huawei may very well be driven by legitimate national security concerns, another significant chunk of these efforts is pretty clearly driven by good old vanilla protectionism. To ensure US policy is being driven more by the former than the latter, it might be a good idea if the press stopped playing parrot and demanded a little more in the way of actual proof.

Filed Under: android, china, donald trump, entity list, protectionism, security, us, white house
Companies: google, huawei

Forget Huawei, The Internet Of Things Is The Real Security Threat

from the somebody's-watching-you dept

We've noted for a while how a lot of the US protectionist security hysteria surrounding Huawei isn't supported by much in the way of hard data. And while it's certainly possible that Huawei helps the Chinese government spy, the reality is that Chinese (or any other) intelligence services don't really need to rely on Huawei to spy on the American public. Why? Because people around the world keep connecting millions of internet of broken things devices to their home and business networks that lack even the most rudimentary of security and privacy protections.

Week after week we've documented how these devices are being built with both privacy and security as a distant afterthought, resulting in everything from your television to your refrigerator creating both new attack vectors and wonderful new surveillance opportunities for hackers and state actors.

The latest case in point: a popular Chinese GPS tracker, used to track everything from vehicles to kids and the elderly, has been found to contain a significant flaw that can trick the device into handing over GPS data using little more than a text message. The devices, which are made in China and rebranded and sold by more than a dozen companies, can also be used as remote surveillance devices, notes cybersecurity researchers:

"Researchers at U.K. cybersecurity firm Fidus Information Security say the device can be tricked into turning over its real-time location simply by anyone sending it a text message with a keyword. Through another command, anyone can call the device and remotely listen in to its in-built microphone without alerting anyone.

Another command can remotely kill the cell signal altogether, rendering the device effectively useless."

While the device can be protected with a PIN, that setting isn't enabled by default, and the researchers found the devices can be remotely reset, bypassing the pin anyway. This is, if you hadn't been paying attention, kind of the norm when it comes to IOT devices. By the time flaws like this are exposed the company involved has usually moved on to marketing new devices with an entirely new array of vulnerabilities. And since most such devices don't offer much in the way of transparency, consumers usually are largely clueless to the fact that their devices are putting their private data at risk.

Security researchers keep warning us that the check is going to come due on the internet of things front, and we're not taking the warnings seriously:

"This device is marketed at keeping the most vulnerable safe and yet anybody can locate and listen into thousands of people’s lives without their knowledge,” said Fidus’ Andrew Mabbitt, who wrote up the team’s findings. “This day and age, everything is connected one way or another and we seem to be leaving security behind; this isn’t going to end well.”

As security researchers have been saying for several years, it's likely going to take a major attack on significant infrastructure and some significant fatalities before we wake up out of our collective stupor. In the interim DC is obsessed with whether companies like Huawei are covert Chinese spies, but largely apathetic to the fact that the internet of broken things already provides all the spying opportunities a nosy government or rogue actor would ever need.

Filed Under: computer security, internet of things, iot, security
Companies: huawei

Bloomberg Appears To Flub Another China Story, Insists Telnet Is A Nefarious Huawei Backdoor

from the protectionism-dressed-up-as-natsec dept

So we've noted for a while now how the Trump administration's protectionist bid to ban Huawei from US networks is a bit light on, you know, public evidence. While Huawei is now routinely lambasted for helping the Chinese government directly spy on American consumers, there's still no public evidence that supports that claim. That hasn't stopped the administration from waging an all out war on the company, ranging from pressuring the FCC to pressure carriers to avoid Huawei phones, to banning ISPs from getting public subsidies if they use Chinese equipment.

The problem, again, is that despite an 18 month investigation the last time these concerns flared up, there's been absolutely no public evidence Huawei spies on US consumers. The other problem: numerous US hardware vendors have a bit of a history of drumming up lawmaker hysteria on this front to their own benefit.

The Trump administration's protectionist gambit has had a lot of help from a US media that isn't particularly keyed into this added context, or how patriotism may color their coverage of the issue. The latest case in point: Bloomberg this week issued what seemed like a bombshell report claiming they'd finally found evidence of Huawei installing seemingly nefarious backdoors in their gear:

"Vodafone Group Plc has acknowledged to Bloomberg that it found vulnerabilities going back years with equipment supplied by Shenzhen-based Huawei for the carrier’s Italian business. While Vodafone says the issues were resolved, the revelation may further damage the reputation of a major symbol of China’s global technology prowess.

Europe’s biggest phone company identified hidden backdoors in the software that could have given Huawei unauthorized access to the carrier’s fixed-line network in Italy, a system that provides internet service to millions of homes and businesses, according to Vodafone’s security briefing documents from 2009 and 2011 seen by Bloomberg, as well as people involved in the situation."

And while that sounds monumentally terrible, that's not actually what happened. Follow up reporting quickly told a different story:

"In a statement, Vodafone said: "The issues in Italy identified in the Bloomberg story were all resolved and date back to 2011 and 2012.

"The 'backdoor' that Bloomberg refers to is Telnet, which is a protocol that is commonly used by many vendors in the industry for performing diagnostic functions. It would not have been accessible from the internet.

"Bloomberg is incorrect in saying that this 'could have given Huawei unauthorised access to the carrier's fixed-line network in Italy'. "In addition, we have no evidence of any unauthorised access. This was nothing more than a failure to remove a diagnostic function after development. "The issues were identified by independent security testing, initiated by Vodafone as part of our routine security measures, and fixed at the time by Huawei."

A Huawei spokesperson said: 'We were made aware of historical vulnerabilities in 2011 and 2012 and they were addressed at the time.

In other words, it wasn't a nefarious backdoor, it was just a screw up -- and not a diabolical one at that. This falls in line with what the UK and Germany governments have been saying: Huawei gear may sometimes be shitty, but that's not synonymous with malicious espionage. Both countries have cast doubt on US demands that Huawei be blacklisted globally, stating the US has not provided suitable evidence to justify such a move. The UK recently stated it would be tightening overall security and restricting Huawei's use in some of its more sensitive networks, but wouldn't be supporting an outright ban. If this political cartoon in the Guardian is any indication, some folks didn't take the news particularly well.

Bloomberg, of course, has been widely criticized for recently flubbing a story that claimed Chinese spies had infiltrated the supply chain and embedded surveillance backdoors in equipment used by major companies including Apple and Amazon. Like that story (albeit different authors), all the companies involved in this latest report say Bloomberg appears to have misread the evidence provided the outlet by anonymous third parties.

Again, none of this is to say the Chinese government is a saint. Its treatment and surveillance of political dissidents and its critics is well established. But that doesn't change the fact that before you blackball a company you should be able to provide actual evidence, something the US would justly demand were the shoe on the other foot. Nor does it change the fact that US gear makers have been trying to have Huawei banned for years for one real reason: they don't want to have to compete with cheaper Chinese kit:

"What happens is you get competitors who are able to gin up lawmakers who are already wound up about China,” said one Hill staffer who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. “What they do is pull the string and see where the top spins."

Journalists need to be careful not to be manipulated by US companies and their dubious shell operations hoping to gin up protectionist hysteria dressed up as natsec concerns. It also shouldn't be forgotten that the United States has engaged in much of the same behavior it has accused Huawei of, something usually ignored by journalists covering this story. That's not intended as "whataboutism" ("the US spies too therefore spying isn't bad!"), but to note that this is some important context that should be included in coverage but, somehow, usually isn't.

Meanwhile, China doesn't even really need Huawei to spy on Americans. Chinese gear is in pretty much everything from your smart doorbell to your router, and China's intelligence operatives are busy tapping undersea cables much like the US has for decades. Given Americans are busy happily attaching internet of things devices with paper mache grade security to every home and business network in America, there's a universe of attack vectors available to them that don't involve ruining the global reputation of one of their most successful companies.

Again, maybe Huawei does spy on Americans as a cutout for the Chinese government. But before engaging in a cross-continental blackballing effort of a hugely successful company, asking for some hard public evidence of that fact doesn't seem like too much to ask.

Filed Under: china, reporting, security, telnet
Companies: huawei, vodafone

US Huawei Blackballing Efforts Stall Due To Lack Of 'Actual Facts'

from the ill-communication dept

During the Trump era, the US government has dramatically ramped up claims that Chinese hardware vendor Huawei is a nefarious spy for the Chinese government, blackballing it from the U.S. telecom market. From pressuring U.S. carriers to drop plans to sell Huawei phones to the FCC's decision to ban companies from using Huawei gear if they want to receive federal subsidies, this effort hasn't been subtle.

While Huawei should never be confused with a saint (what telecom company would be?) there's several problems with the effort. The biggest being that despite a decade of hand-wringing and one eighteen month investigation by the US government, there's still no public evidence Huawei uses its network gear to spy on Americans. That's not sitting well with countries we've asked to join along in the fun.

The UK, for example, recently noted that while some Huawei products can pose risks by nature of simply being low quality, they've yet to see any threat posed by Huawei that necessitates a global ban. That position has since been repeated by other allies who have been pointing out how despite years of bluster on this subject, they've yet to see the US government release the slightest bit of evidence supporting the allegation:

"European and Asian officials have complained privately that recent American intelligence briefings for allies did not share any sort of classified information that clearly demonstrated how the Chinese government used Huawei to steal information, according to people familiar with the discussions. European officials have told counterparts that if the United States has evidence the Chinese government has used its companies to do so, they should disclose it.

One senior European telecommunications executive said that no American officials had presented “actual facts” about China’s abuse of Huawei networks.

Of course this is all hidden behind claims that this information is classified. But how hard is it to redact and provide at least some information proving your point? These allegations have also been bubbling up in fits and starts for over a decade now, and not a single security expert or any government official has been able to provide any evidence whatsoever to prove their point. While it's certainly not impossible that Huawei helps the Chinese government spy, evidence is important. Can you imagine the hysteria on countless fronts if a US company like AT&T was banned from other countries without any supporting data?

Unmentioned in coverage of this hand-wringing about Huawei has been the fact that much of the hysteria on this front has been drummed up by US networking companies, who simply don't want to compete with cheaper Chinese gear. With countless global gear makers rushing toward the trough as wireless carriers build next-generation 5G wireless networks, these efforts have only intensified. US gearmakers and their favorite lawmakers have a good schtick going: profess China must be banned from all global telecom markets based on claims of spying, then hide behind national security when anybody asks for proof.

Also ignored is that all of the hysteria about Huawei obfuscates a larger security threat (much of it originating in China): the lack of security in shitty internet of things gear. At this point you don't really need Huawei to spy on Americans, since we're connecting millions of poorly secured devices to our home and business networks annually voluntarily. Gear that often lacks any sensible security countermeasures whatsoever.

Similarly ignored is the fact that the US has engaged in most of the behavior we accuse Huawei of, including having broken into Huawei to spy on company executives. You'll often see stories like this one highlighting China's nefarious attempts to tap into undersea cables. But the press ignores that the US has been engaged in its own undersea cable and satellite communications wiretapping efforts for decades. Many of these efforts began decades ago (like Echelon), and were ridiculed as tin-foil-hat fantasy until the Snowden documents were revealed.

Again, none of this is to defend China's actual abuses, or to suggest that Huawei hasn't engaged in bad behavior. But imposing a global ban on a telecom giant for spying based on no actual evidence remains a shaky proposition, and it's something countless supporters of the blackballing effort would be screaming about incessantly were the shoe on the other foot.

Filed Under: blackballing, china, competition, fear mongering, spying, telco equipment, us
Companies: huawei

UK Suggests US Worries About Huawei Spying Are Being Overblown

from the protectionism-by-another-name dept

So, while there's really no denying that Chinese smartphone and network gearmaker Huawei engages in some clearly sketchy behavior, it's not anything that can't be matched by our own, home-grown sketchy telecom companies. And while the Trump administration has been engaged in a widespread effort to blackball Huawei gear from the American market based on allegations of spying on Americans, nobody's been able to provide a shred of public evidence that this actually occurs. At the same time, we tend to ignore the fact that the United States broke into Huawei to steal code and implant backdoors as early as 2007.

In short, this subject is more complicated that the blindly-nationalistic U.S. press coverage tends to indicate, and a not-insubstantial portion of this hand-wringing is driven by good old-fashioned protectionism.

Throughout this whole thing, Huawei executives have been right to note that in the decade-plus of these allegations and hand-wringing, you'd think some security researcher would have been able to prove that Huawei gear is spying on Americans wholesale. And last week, as news emerged that the Trump administration was finally considering a full domestic ban on using Huawei gear, our closest surveillance allies in the UK made it clear that the Huawei threat is likely being overstated by the United States:

The United Kingdom could undermine an American-led campaign to keep Chinese tech company Huawei out of super-fast 5G mobile networks around the world. The National Cyber Security Centre, part of the UK intelligence service, has concluded that there are ways to limit the risks of using Huawei to build next-generation wireless networks, according to a report by the Financial Times.

The report reiterated past concerns that while some Huwei gear may pose a security threat, it's likely because the products can sometimes be shitty, but not because they're being intentionally backdoored by the Chinese government:

If anybody knows just how Huawei works and the threat it might pose to the UK's security, it is the National Cyber Security Centre.

This arm of GCHQ has been in charge of an annual examination of the Chinese telecoms giant's equipment, and expressed concerns in its most recent report - not about secret backdoors, but sloppy cyber-security practices.

That's of course pretty common with most hardware coming out of China (especially in the internet of things space), which sort of makes the point that the Chinese don't need backdoors in Huawei gear to spy on Americans, since we're willfully putting a wide variety of shitty, half-baked IOT gear on our networks, providing industrious hackers and intelligence agencies an entire universe of attack vectors into millions of U.S. homes and businesses. Still, the solution for this is to only install gear you know to be secure, not by banning an entire company from doing business (something we aren't all that keen on when it happens to us).

If you've paid attention, U.S. gearmakers have been ginning up Huawei security fears for years, simply because they don't want to have to compete with cheaper gear. The Trump administration appears pretty happy to play along, dressing up simple protectionism as national security. And because the U.S. tech press often can't see past its own patriotism, it's coming along for the ride. Again, none of this is to say that Huawei doesn't engage in sketchy shit, just that if we're going to blackball a company for spying--providing some actual evidence of said spying is a pretty important first step.

Filed Under: china, spying, telco equipment, uk, us
Companies: huawei

As Trump Prepares Ban On Huawei, Few Notice The Major Holes In The Underlying Logic

from the do-as-we-say,-not-as-we-do dept

During the Trump era, the government has dramatically ramped up claims that Chinese hardware vendor Huawei is a nefarious spy for the Chinese government, blackballing it from the U.S. telecom market. From pressuring U.S. carriers to drop plans to sell Huawei phones to the FCC's decision to ban companies from using Huawei gear if they want to receive federal subsidies, this effort hasn't been subtle.

This week, there are rumblings that the Trump administration is about to take things further with a total ban on Huawei gear anywhere inside of the United States. The news is to be formally announced ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, likely with a heavy emphasis on how the move will cement U.S. dominance in the "race to 5G," a largely nonsensical concept drummed up by networking hardware vendor marketing departments.

The problem: there's still no public evidence Huawei uses its network gear to spy on Americans, and much of the motivation for this assault on Huawei has been proven to be largely about protectionism, not national security.

There's no doubt that Huawei, like AT&T here in the states, isn't a shining beacon of ethical behavior. At the same time, the dulcet undertones justifying much of the blacklisting is based on the premise that the company spies on Americans. Yet nobody has provided evidence of that. In fact, one 18-month investigation into Huawei in 2011 (the last time we had a flare of up this hysteria) found that there was no evidence supporting that claim:

"We knew certain parts of government really wanted” evidence of active spying, said one of the people, who requested anonymity. “We would have found it if it were there."

Also ignored is that U.S. hardware vendors like Cisco have a very long history of trying to gin up hysteria on Capital Hill on this front among lawmakers who aren't too keen on, well, facts:

"What happens is you get competitors who are able to gin up lawmakers who are already wound up about China,” said one Hill staffer who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. “What they do is pull the string and see where the top spins."

Also ignored in most tech press coverage of the moves against Huawei is the fact that the United States is guilty of most of the stuff we accuse Huawei of. In fact, Snowden docs revealed that the NSA (aka the United States) had broken into Huawei as early as 2007 in a bid to steal source code and covertly implant backdoors into Huawei products. Similarly you'll recall how the NSA was also busted intercepting Cisco hardware in transit, taking that gear to a special facility, then outfitting it with backdoors. That sends a pretty clear message: unethical behavior is okay when we do it.

Also ignored is the fact that our own telecom operators don't have stellar backgrounds on this subject either. AT&T, for example, is effectively bone-grafted to our nationwide intelligence apparatus, and almost certainly helps the United States spy on citizens all over the world. AT&T, a company just busted paying $600K to a dubious NYC fixer and confessed criminal, has a long history of turning a blind eye to all manner of frauds and cons being perpetrated on its own customers. Again, the message sent is: unethical behavior is okay when we do it.

Look, Huawei is no pillar of virtue, having been caught copying code and (depending on how the court battle goes) potentially violating sanctions. But a large portion of the justification for blacklisting them (in turn escalating an already troubling and costly trade war) is based on the idea that Huawei has been caught spying on Americans, something that hasn't been publicly proven. And in filings with the FCC (pdf), small carriers say they'll actively be harmed by a ban on this cheaper Huawei hardware, since the lower costs help them better compete with larger U.S. rivals.

In short, this subject is far more complicated than most press coverage suggests, and a little fuller context when it comes to discussing these moves doesn't seem like too much to ask. Especially given that the American press and government would be positively apoplectic were foreign countries to ban our own network gear as punishment for our own, well-documented sins. Patriotism oddly blinds us to our own hypocrisy on this subject, lending some wonderful cover to U.S. companies who've been pressing all the right buttons in DC in a protectionist bid to avoid having to compete with cheaper Chinese gear.

Filed Under: china, competition, donald trump, nsa, surveillance, telco equipment
Companies: cisco, huawei

Mystery Lobbying Group Using Huawei Security Hysteria To Target Sprint, T-Mobile Merger

from the ill-communication dept

So a few months back, a group mysteriously calling itself "Protect Amerca's Wireless" popped up on the internet and began attacking the Sprint, T-Mobile merger. The campaign, which has all the usual signs of astroturf, takes particular aim at both companies' use of Huawei network hardware -- gear that the organization insists "could give countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Germany, and Japan direct access to our networks through the use of foreign-made networking equipment and billions of foreign money."

In short, the mystery group is piggybacking on the recent hysteria surrounding Huawei to try and scuttle the merger, which is certainly a problematic merger, but largely for employment and competition reasons.

Like most policy and political influence efforts, the campaign doesn't list its funders on its website, simply insisting it's an organic coalition of a few think tanks and some "foreign policy and national security professionals." I reached out to the group for more details on its financing, and was told (falsely) that the group couldn't tell me who finances it because as a 501(c)(3) it's prohibited by law from doing so.

So we've noted for a while that while some of the criticism of Huawei has been justified, much of it has been manufactured by Huawei competitors like Cisco.

And while recent allegations that Huawei may have tap-danced around Iranian sanctions may or may not be true, the claims that the company routinely spies on Americans for the Chinese government has never been publicly proven. In fact, an 18 month study by the White House in 2012 (the last time this hysteria crested) found no evidence supporting such allegations. Germany just this week stated it wouldn't join the Huawei vilification party until somebody provides, you know, actual evidence.

US press coverage of the Huawei story usually fails to mention any of this. Nor is it mentioned that the United States has routinely been busted doing far worse. The Snowden docs, for example, showed how the NSA broke into Huawei, stole source code, and implanted backdoors, something that seems kind of important in conversational context. It's a solid example of how the US tech press isn't particularly keyed into its own nationalistic myopia. It also exemplifies the States' bad habit (both by government and the press) of pushing the idea that dubious and unethical behavior is only okay when we do it.

I'm still digging into who runs Protect America's Wireless (it's worth at least noting that former Rep. Mike Rogers, now an AT&T consultant, was at the outfit's launch). In the interim, it looks like both Sprint and T-Mobile believe are being told by the government that they'll likely have their competition-eroding merger approved if their owners (Deutsche Telekom and Softbank) are willing to remove all Huawei gear from their network and stop using the supplier moving forward:

"T-Mobile US Inc and Sprint Corp believe their foreign owners’ offer to stop using Huawei Technologies equipment will help with the United States clearing their $26 billion merger deal, sources said, underscoring the lengths to which Washington has gone to shut out the Chinese company."

Having watched the Trump FCC's other efforts to help blacklist Huawei, I'd be willing to bet that one of their only meaningful conditions affixed to their gushing approval of the deal will be promises by T-Mobile and Sprint that they won't use Huawei gear (omitted: the fact that neither currently does). This will help the FCC pretend that it hasn't abdicated its role as watchdog, with national security chatter obfuscating many of the terrible aspects of the deal (like the 30,000 potential job losses or the dramatic reduction in overall competition).

The duo get their unpopular merger, Cisco gets more business thanks to facts-optional protectionism, and consumers get bupkis. See how this game works?

Given all of the legitimately dubious things China routinely does, defending Huawei isn't exactly a hill I'm excited to die on. Still, I've been absolutely fascinated by the selective reasoning and hypocrisy as Huawei is increasingly blacklisted. It's particularly odd since the lax security in the internet of things and consumer network hardware space -- arguably just as big of a threat to national security -- receives only a tiny fraction of the same breathless attention by many of these same folks.

Huawei gets oddly singled out as some kind of unique bogeyman. In reality most major telecom operators, including US operators like AT&T, are every bit as sketchy as the allegations levied at Huawei. Dubious lobbying efforts? Check. Illegal and unethical efforts to screw consumers? Check. Massive corruption scandals? Check. Massive, legally-dubious wholesale domestic spying operations? You betcha. Most major telecom operators are government-pampered natural monopolies that don't have to play by the rules and more often than not win the most lucrative government contracts, thanks to their cozy relationship with intelligence.

Huawei may or may not have actually been involved in spying. Maybe someday somebody will actually provide public evidence proving they do. In the interim, it's pretty clear a sizable chunk of the current Huawei hysteria is being generated by the same companies that don't want to compete with Huawei, a layer of protectionism the press should at least mention in passing during the next round of pearl clutching.

Filed Under: astroturf, mergers, michael rogers, secrecy, transparency
Companies: huawei, protect america's wireless, sprint, t-mobile

When A 'Trade War' Involves Seizing And Imprisoning Foreign Execs, It's No Longer Just About Trade

from the it-kinda-leads-to-actual-wars dept

For years we've been writing about the weird US government infatuation with the Chinese telco equipment firm, Huawei. The company has built a widely successful business, but going back many years there's been a loud whisper campaign that the company's equipment would send information back to the Chinese government. Of course, when our own government investigated this, it could find no evidence at all that this was true. It also seems notable that Huawei itself asked for this investigation, claiming that it would clear the company's name, since it wasn't doing anything that people were accusing it of doing. This doesn't mean that the company isn't doing something nefarious, but such claims should have some sort of evidence to back them up, and so far they've been lacking.

Of course, this may have been one of those situations where people assumed that whatever we would do to others, others must be doing to us, because what we do know, is that the NSA broke into Huawei's computers and grabbed a bunch of emails and source code. That bit seems to get left out of all the fear mongering reporting about Huawei. Oh, and it later came out that much of the whisper campaign about Huawei spying for the Chinese government... originated from the US firm Cisco, which was seeing its market share eroded by Huawei.

So we've long taken the claims about Huawei with a large grain of salt, even as most in the media have been willing to repeat the allegations about Huawei without mentioning the lack of evidence, Cisco's involvement, or the fact that the US government swiped a bunch of stuff from Huawei, even though all of those things seem kinda relevant.

By now, of course, you've probably heard that Canadian officials arrested Huawei's CFO, Meng Wanzhou, who also happens to be the daughter of the founder, and there are plans to try to extradite her to the US. While no charges have been revealed, most people claim it has to do with violating US sanctions on Iran by shipping US made equipment to Iran. The details here will matter, but it's still incredibly unusual to have a friendly country arrest a top exec and then try to extradite them.

Even if the official charges have nothing to do with the ongoing trade war with China, as nearly everyone is pointing out, there's no way this doesn't create massive blowback on any new trade agreement. Remember it was just a few days ago (was it really just a few days?) that President Trump announced that he'd agreed to end the senseless trade war he'd started (which has created a massive import tax on American businesses and consumers). Of course, when the Chinese gave their version of the story, it sounded remarkably different than Trump's version.

But, at least it sounded like progress was being made, and maybe we could end the insanity. But, of course, by having an ally arrest a top exec, it's thrown everything up in the air. Imagine, for example, if Sheryl Sandberg was on a trip to Pakistan, and was arrested by authorities there and extradited to China to face criminal charges. That's kind of the equivalent of what the US has just done via Canada.

Then, take it a step further. White House officials have told the press that they believe Meng "could be used as leverage with China in trade talks," and you realize this has fuck all to do with Iranian sanctions. No, that's the White House more or less admitting that they've taken a hostage in a trade war. That's hellishly dangerous. Because China will not hesitate to retaliate. If I were an American business exec, I'd stay far away from China or any of its allies right about now.

Arresting an executive over such a thing, and then admitting you want to use her as "leverage," just as you're negotiating a complex trade deal is... the kind of thing that turns a trade war into an actual war. It's an incredibly dangerous move that should concern everyone.

Filed Under: arrests, china, donald trump, extradition, hostage, iran, meng wanzhou, surveillance, trade war, war
Companies: cisco, huawei

Huawei Says U.S. Blacklisting Will Only Raise U.S. Networking Hardware Prices And Delay 5G Deployment

from the blackballed dept

So we've noted for a while now how the U.S. government has deemed Chinese hardware vendor Huawei a nefarious spy for the Chinese government, and largely blackballed it from the U.S. telecom market. From pressuring U.S. carriers to drop plans to sell Huawei phones, to the FCC's decision to ban companies from using Huawei gear if they want to receive federal subsidies, this effort hasn't been subtle. But there's numerous problems with the Trump administration's efforts here, ranging from protectionism to blistering hypocrisy.

While it's certainly possible Huawei helps the Chinese government spy on American consumers en masse, nobody has been able to provide a shred of actual public evidence supporting that allegation. That despite an eighteen month investigation by the White House finding no evidence of actual spying on U.S. consumers. Also ignored: the fact that U.S. hardware vendors like Cisco routinely like to hype this threat to scare gullible lawmakers toward protectionism and providing Cisco an unearned advantage in the network and telecom market.

Even if you want to ignore those facts and still claim Huawei routinely spies, you'd have to ignore the fact that countless hardware, including gear made by U.S. companies, contains an ocean of Chinese-made parts that could just as easily be used to spy on Americans. The reality is that China doesn't even need Huawei to spy on Americans. The internet of broken things sector alone provides millions of new potential attack vectors annually that are often exploited by intelligence agencies.

If you still want to assume Huawei is up to no good without any public evidence, you'd also have to ignore the United States' blistering hypocrisy on this subject, given how Edward Snowden documents revealed that not only did the NSA break into Huawei starting in 2007 to steal source code and implant its own backdoors, but that the agency also intercepted Cisco hardware en route to customer delivery for the same purpose.

None of this is to say Huawei doesn't engage in bad behavior like every other telecom industry giant, only to state that we've let nationalism and protectionism get in the way of clear thinking on this subject. Occasionally you'll see a bigger media outlet courageous enough to bring up the fact that the evidence justifying total blackballing is shaky at best, but not often. Even reporters who traditionally chatter at length about objectivity in reporting aren't particularly good at seeing how nationalism can infect a hot take.

While the folks pushing this stuff may seriously think they're doing the U.S. a favor by trampling a security threat to help boost Cisco revenues, a filing this week by Huawei argues that the United States is only shooting itself in the foot. By banning carrier access to cheaper Chinese hardware, the government is only driving up prices for domestic network gear, while also potentially slowing U.S. next-gen wireless (5G, or fifth generation) deployment plans:

"Huawei’s lack of presence in the U.S. would raise prices, harm competition, hinder innovation, and ultimately delay 5G deployment. Huawei’s entry into the U.S. market provided much-needed competition,” argued Huawei’s Dowding in the filing. “As a result of the lack of competition, equipment prices in the U.S. market in general tend to be about 20-30% higher than they are in other developed regions, for example in Europe.

This isn't just Huawei's take. Smaller companies with tight margins opposed most of the blacklisting as it only hurts them. And even AT&T and Verizon opposed the effort, though they were willing to overlook the hypocrisy to protect their own cozy spying relationships and contracts with the U.S. government. Amusingly, Huawei also takes time in the full filing (pdf) to note that with the U.S. broadband industry as messed up as it is, blacklisting makers of cheaper hardware isn't likely to help things:

"...Various studies have shown that the United States’ telecommunication infrastructure is falling behind those in other developed countries...In 2018 rankings, the U.S. ranked #44 for mobile network speed and #9 for fixed broadband. A 2016 report shows the mobile network speed of United States is about 2/3 of China’s."

And while there's certainly numerous ways to fix the lack of competition and regulatory capture responsible for mediocre U.S. broadband, blacklisting one of the leading global makers of cheaper network hardware, smartphones, and other tech isn't the answer. Of course Huawei's arguments will likely be ignored by Uncle Sam, but it's still worth documenting for the next time this particular game of patty cake gets played by folks who like to disguise vanilla protectionism as noble national security defense, while ignoring the U.S.' own terrible track record on this very same subject.

Filed Under: 5g, blacklisting, china, wireless
Companies: huawei

Latest Privacy Fracas Drops Facebook In The Middle Of Anti-Huawei Hysteria

from the evidence-optional dept

Facebook is under fire yet again for potentially being far too casual in its treatment of private consumer data.

Earlier this week, the New York Times issued a report noting that Facebook had struck deals with more than 60 different hardware vendors since at least 2010, providing them with "vast amounts" of private user data. According to the report, these partnerships allowed some devices to retrieve personal information even from users’ friends who believed they had barred any sharing with third party vendors, potentially violating a 2011 FTC consent decree that banned such sharing without obtaining express customer permission.

To be clear, the partnerships are notably different from the deals struck with companies like Cambridge Analytica, which we now know routinely let app makers hoover up private data under false pretenses, then use that data for other purposes (like oh, riling up partisans ahead of an election). And Facebook was quick to issue a blog post trying to downplay the scope of the revelations:

"This is very different from the public APIs used by third-party developers, like Aleksandr Kogan. These third-party developers were not allowed to offer versions of Facebook to people and, instead, used the Facebook information people shared with them to build completely new experiences."

And while that's all well and good, the problem for Facebook is that nobody trusts that they routinely policed whether this data was being abused. And while the data was all stored locally on user devices, privacy experts were quick to point out that this could still wind up being a problem:

"You might think that Facebook or the device manufacturer is trustworthy,” said Serge Egelman, a privacy researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the security of mobile apps. “But the problem is that as more and more data is collected on the device — and if it can be accessed by apps on the device — it creates serious privacy and security risks."

These are all legitimate questions that Facebook will need to answer in the wake of the Cambridge scandal.

That said, this story was initially reported on Sunday without too much attention. But things took a turn with additional reports by both the Washington Post and New York Times indicating that some of these partner companies included Chinese gear makers like Huawei.

"The agreements, which date to at least 2010, gave private access to some user data to Huawei, a telecommunications equipment company that has been flagged by American intelligence officials as a national security threat, as well as to Lenovo, Oppo and TCL. The four partnerships remain in effect, but Facebook officials said in an interview that the company would wind down the Huawei deal by the end of the week."

Given that the Trump administration is currently trying to blacklist companies like Huawei amidst allegations of being proxies for the Chinese government, the story's overall tone quickly shifted to one of mass hyperventilation:

The problem: as we've noted a few times now, the allegations that employee-owned Huawei routinely spies on American consumers for the Chinese government isn't backed up by any publicly-available evidence, something both the Post and Times oddly don't mention.

An 18 month investigation by the White House found no evidence of such spying, and companies like Cisco have been caught routinely fanning such fears among gullible lawmakers in the hopes of thwarting overseas competitors. That hysteria has been notably escalated in recent years thanks to U.S. networking vendors being afraid to compete with cheaper Chinese gear as they jockey for 5G deployment contracts with wireless carriers worldwide.

While it's certainly possible Huawei spies on the U.S., there's just not much evidence for it. And you'd also have to ignore the U.S.' epic hypocrisy on that particular subject. You know, like the time Snowden docs revealed that the NSA was caught hacking into Huawei, stealing the company's source code, and attempting to install backdoors in Huawei gear so they could spy on countries that were avoiding the use of U.S. networking gear. You know, the exact thing we're accusing Huawei of. Except with supporting evidence.

Again, it's certainly plausible that Huawei might spy on U.S. citizens. But you'd think somebody could reveal some public evidence of this nefarious behavior before the Trump FCC pondered blacklisting them, a move that's opposed by NSA bosom buddies AT&T and Verizon. The reality is that the entire Huawei fracas is driven more by protectionism than national security, largely because, as one DC insider told the Washington Post back in 2012, it's extremely easy for U.S. networking makers like Cisco to get gullible lawmakers all hot and bothered on the subject:

"“What happens is you get competitors who are able to gin up lawmakers who are already wound up about China,” said one Hill staffer who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. “What they do is pull the string and see where the top spins.”

But some experts say these concerns are exaggerated. These experts note that much of Cisco’s own technology is manufactured in China."

That's not to say Facebook still doesn't need to answer some questions about whether all of these partnerships have been unwound, and how it ensured that the data stored on these vendors' devices wasn't abused in any fashion. That said, the focus should remain on the 60 companies in total that Facebook struck these deals with, without getting too hung up on the CHINA CHINA CHINA aspect of the story. Lax treatment of private data is the norm, not the exception (especially in the telecom sector), and getting too hung up on Huawei alone tends to miss the forrest for the trees.

Filed Under: data sharing, evidence, hacking, privacy
Companies: facebook, huawei