This article doesn't mention anywhere that Huawei hardwired a microchip onto server motherboards to spy on anyone (companies, governments, people) who bought the servers without their permission. That is the smoking gun, hard core proof and a fact, not a coding error, or a simple software mistake. If that’s not proof I don’t know what is.
If your interested in really reading about the problem Bloomberg wrote a good article back in October last year about this but there have been others written since. ( link attached: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-hack-how-china-used-a-tiny-chip-to-infiltrate-america-s-top-companies ).
The fact is the Chinese government like most governments feel they can spy on their people without mercy. However, the difference is they hardwired the devices they sold (instead of leaving software backdoors) and that’s a big NO NO because you can’t just close these doors, you must replace the door. The US had to replace 10’s if not 100’s of thousands of these motherboards. Some of the motherboards were fixed, most were replaced and in a lot of cases the servers were replaced entirely.
f8lee
Of course, in situations like this, where national security issues are involved, the lack of evidence that has been made public does not necessarily imply there is actually no evidence. But if the NSA, say, has discovered something egregious via means that they don't want the Chinese (or other bad actors) to know about, then not telling the public (and even the vote-panderers in government) makes sense - no different than when the Brits broke the enigma code in WWII but allowed a troop carrier to be sunk by a U-Boat in order to prevent the Nazis from realizing enigma had been broken.
bobpiazza
Thanks for the clarification. Appears to me that the Muller report is much more damaging than the case against Huawei
George Sidman
Thanks for a more clear headed review of the Huawei boogeyman. To clarify further, it makes no difference who provides the hardware. Software that hijacks packets and sends them to whomever can be planted on any router, switch, etc. Any sensitive information worth protecting currently moves, or should move, over the Internet fully encrypted. Hijacked packets that are encrypted are of no use to anyone. This attack on Huawei has no technical substance at all, which is why most other countries are not concerned. Huawei is simply offering better equipment at a better price. This is a US-driven xenophobic trade war gambit at best, and will be ultimately damaging to yet another aspect of global commerce.
misty45
Evil China might spy with insecure tech. Ban them all. You know they aren’t even Christians? Trump knows. He smart. What trade war?
vectornull
I did not see any mention of attempts to export technology to Iran, as per the Addition of Entities to the Entity List posted on 5/21/19. Also, the temporary license is effective through August 19, not April 19.
rude.dawg
Essentially, risk management is the process of minimising or mitigating risk. It starts with the identification and evaluation of risk followed by optimal use of resources to monitor and minimise the same. Huawei has been identified as a risk. It now needs to be analysed, evaluated, monitored, reviewed and treated accordingly. https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/how-australia-led-the-us-in-its-global-war-against-huawei-20190522-p51pv8.html
christopher
So, it's exactly the same as every other tech company, except that it's not American? They make phones and laptops that look exactly like Apple and Microsoft ones... Reminds me of Megaupload, where they destroyed an NZ company doing the exact same thing as Dropbox (an American company)... This is nothing to do with spying [not least because nobody's ever found them doing that]. It's simple commercial protectionism. Maybe also some payback for China banning USA companies? Everyone in the world knows (and with plenty of evidence thanks to all the leakers) that the US are the most blatant and pervasive spies of them all...
grtblu
Ever since the US has been spying on world wide communications of all types for decades. For the US to claim that others "may" be doing so is hypocrisy cubed. No proof, only bloviation from the most ignorant POTUS in history. Newton law "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction" applies. The Chinese, once happy to purchase US technology have lost trust in it and have been developing their own OS and hardware. The net effect is that one can expect the Chinese to eventually market and sell their OS and hardware worldwide competing with and against the US products they once bought and incorporated. So when it's over, Google, Qualcomm, and others will have less market share and a new and powerful competitor thanks to the blow hard in the blight house.
MattBD
Thank goodness the NSA of peace loving America will still have access to all Microsoft encrypted data other than that protected by special code used for example by the UK government to protect it from "our special relatives". Trumps Chinese spying any day. Has CISCO or Apple code been subject to the same (valuable) inspection? You guessed right! I wonder why not?