[HN Gopher] FBI investigation determined Huawei equipment could ...
___________________________________________________________________
FBI investigation determined Huawei equipment could disrupt US
nuclear comms
Author : tusslewake
Score : 184 points
Date : 2022-07-23 04:29 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| Johnmelodyme wrote:
| Oh....
| juanani wrote:
| roenxi wrote:
| US nuclear comms is, without exaggeration, one of the highest
| risks to every life on the entire planet. I'd be surprised if it
| was just the Chinese.
|
| It is unfortunate but the situation with Huawei is a matter of
| great FUD. On the one hand, they probably are dodgy as any
| organisation & in league with the People's Liberation Army. The
| major risk they pose is doing _precisely_ what the the US is
| doing with their spy network and the risks of that are well
| understood.
|
| But on the other hand, while this may be a real story, but it is
| just one thread of a bigger story where the Asia keeps
| challenging the US's high-tech edge. CNN + the FBI is not a
| combination known for fair, honest and reasonable journalism and
| this could well just be stirring up muck, trying to discredit a
| superior Chinese solution.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| They keep challenging the high-tech edge because they bypass
| billions of dollars of research development.
|
| If a newcomer is able to bypass those costs it will kneecap the
| cycle of innovation which requires certain profit margin's to
| afford armies of PhD's. Otherwise game theory says the system
| goes 'poof'.
| saltman696 wrote:
| beebeepka wrote:
| Heh. CNN proudly televised the first US invasion of Iraq
| (Desert storm) for all to see what happens when you challenge
| the bully.
|
| Thanks to Snowden, we know for a fact they've been doing pretty
| everything they accuse China (and every other notable
| competitor) of doing, and much much worse.
|
| These American behemoths are anything but private in the sense
| they're trying to convey when they accuse companies of being
| close to certain governments
| FreqSep wrote:
| Saddam Hussein did quite a bit more then just "challenge the
| bully"...
|
| I suppose genocide of the Kurds is acceptable on the internet
| as long as your suitably anti-American while you do it. Those
| darn American imperialists!
| beebeepka wrote:
| cuttysnark wrote:
| > I also checked your account and it's nothing but right
| wing propaganda. Damn, dude
|
| This has to be a difficult way to operate on a daily
| basis. Even if your charge were true (it's not) why are
| you so quick to draw this card?
| Tostino wrote:
| Because dealing with bad faith arguments constantly gets
| tiring.
| FreqSep wrote:
| > I also checked your account and it's nothing but right
| wing propaganda. Damn, dude
|
| That's odd, as I generally vote Democrat and the only
| post here I've submitted is to a math blog post I enjoy.
|
| At any rate, let's try to avoid having this website turn
| into yet another Reddit or Twitter in terms of quality of
| comments and obsession about anything seen as not left
| leaning enough.
|
| I think we'll just have to agree to disagree about the
| merits of Saddam Hussein, here. Have a good weekend.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| > let's try to avoid having this website turn into yet
| another Reddit or Twitter in terms of quality of comments
| and obsession about anything seen as not left leaning
| enough
|
| +1
| bigbillheck wrote:
| The US is perfectly fine with Kurdish genocide as long as
| it's Turkey doing it.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The US was also fine with Iraq doing it.
|
| When Iraq gassed a Kurdish village in 1988, the US
| actually blocked condemnation of Iraq in the UN Security
| Council and tried to redirect blame towards Iran.
|
| The US only started making a big deal of Iraq's attacks
| on the Kurds years later, when Iraq had gone from being
| an ally to an enemy.
| oblak wrote:
| Mods decided to delete the post calling out your impressive
| post history. Almost 99% is attacking liberals, leftists,
| and the EU. Literally.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >>Almost 99% is attacking liberals, leftists, and the EU.
| Literally.
|
| I see 26 posts in FreqSep's comment history. I see posts
| about relatively non-political topics like iPads, IoT,
| vaping, and surge pricing among those 26 posts.
|
| I think you need to show your math. You might have
| misplaced a decimal point somewhere or something.
| [deleted]
| evilos wrote:
| I'm way more worried about Russian nukes than American ones.
| They can't keep truck tires maintained, who knows what sorry
| state their nuclear infrastructure is in?
|
| The Chinese government has overt control over any Chinese
| corporation of consequence. This alone should be enough to
| disqualify Chinese telecom equipment from critical areas in my
| opinion. I'd expect the CCP to take similar precautions where
| feasible.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| What's the problem? I always thought most of these systems
| will fail closed not just randomly explode if not maintained.
| evilos wrote:
| It's true that modern nukes do not go off accidentally. But
| solid fueled rocket propellant in ICBMs can be pretty
| touchy and they have a shelf life.
|
| Or the failure could be on the command and control side
| like what happened in 1983 [1]. Soviet early warning
| systems malfunctioned and reported multiple ICBM launches.
| The officer in charge basically decided to ignore it and
| single handedly prevented the end of human civilisation.
| This was at the height of the Cold War before the Russian
| army was drained of competence. I can't imagine those
| systems are working as well as they did back then.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_fal
| se_al...
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Construction materials in diplomatic pouches... understandable
| for an embassy, but for a non-diplomatic building abroad? What in
| the world were they trying to build with? US customs isn't going
| to hold up any properly labeled containers of building materials,
| especially if the Chinese embassy asks the state department for
| help.
|
| (I get that "pouch" can mean shipping container)
| yellow_lead wrote:
| > According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the FBI
| determined the equipment was capable of capturing and disrupting
| highly restricted Defense Department communications, including
| those used by US Strategic Command, which oversees the country's
| nuclear weapons.
|
| If you write that they could capture these communications, it
| sounds like they could be read. But these comms must be
| encrypted, right? This story is a bit clickbaity - by that
| standard, some hobbyist with an antenna can "capture" DoD comms.
| And they could "disrupt" them as well with a cheap signal jammer
| near the receiver.
| MrPatan wrote:
| Exactly, so why would you place devices made by your
| adversaries all over the place, where they can disrupt your
| comms?
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It's like getting several spooks to say your network card could
| intercept or disrupt all your internet traffic. It's making the
| equipment's purpose sound scary.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| mlindner wrote:
| > And they could "disrupt" them as well with a cheap signal
| jammer near the receiver.
|
| Amateurs aren't running around the country placing transmitters
| near all the government comms. Also there's many types of
| encryption (onion routing for example) that depend on being
| able to intercept communications at multiple locations. Also
| there's still metadata that can be learned even without being
| able to read the comms directly, for example who's broadcasting
| at any moment. Even amateurs were able to figure out when
| Russia was launching missiles at Ukraine even from their
| encrypted comms, if you have a more advanced surveillance
| system in-country you can learn a lot more.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > multiple sources familiar with the investigation tell CNN that
| there's no question the Huawei equipment has the ability to
| intercept not only commercial cell traffic but also the highly
| restricted airwaves used by the military
|
| I am a bit out of date on the latest designs, but presumably
| antenna resonance, array phase (directionality) and radio
| spectrum are all controllable with software now. Any or all of
| these could be modified remotely and changed back to civilian
| cell parameters again in a matter of seconds. Additionally the
| firmware, and hence general capabilities, can be remotely
| updated.
|
| Hence, one can no longer look at a device like a modern radio
| cell and say "this is designed to work in such a way". If you
| impounded it, took it to a lab, what you'd see on the bench may
| have no relation to how it operated a few days ago. Given also
| that traffic to and from the device may be encrypted all the way
| back to Beijing, the operation of the devices cannot be attested
| even in principle.
|
| This is a serious general problem in modern security - one of
| unfalsifiability and plasticity of form and function. It applies
| as much to Windows and Apple computers as to Huawei.
|
| Unless we quickly reverse the trend toward vendor-trust models
| that give over total control to unverifiable remote entities
| we're all going to be seriously screwed soon. This is going to
| play out in the Intel microcode debacle, in Apple's iron control
| over devices in the face of EU interoperability edicts, and on
| many more fronts...
|
| And last I checked, our clinically insane UK government still
| hasn't fully buried the idea the Chinese might build us a nuclear
| power station over here!
| godmode2019 wrote:
| That was the same argument anti 5g people used for 5g arrays,
| they suggested the normal operation is safe but they can be
| turned up or focused on targets using software.
| LeonTheremin wrote:
| Microwave attacks with covert tech have been happening since
| 1G in the 80s thanks to Silicon Trojans.
|
| The 5G crowd just didn't research fully. They are still
| right.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > That was the same argument anti 5g people used for 5g
| arrays, they suggested the normal operation is safe but they
| can be turned up or focused on targets using software.
|
| That's fascinating from a psyops/infowar perspective.
|
| As they say, "where there's smoke there's fire".
|
| I've never followed any of the 5G conspiracy tommyrot, but
| isn't it odd that in all likelihood they're quite literally
| correct, but for simply the wrong ends?
|
| Were I to don my master-manipulators black Pilgrim hat and
| apply some extra-strength twisting wax to my comedy
| moustache... I'd be be just delighted to insert such "almost
| true" ideas amongst a bunch of credulous idiots in order to
| suppress belief in my _actual_ plan.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Sorry I don't mean to dismiss all 5G sceptics... just
| speaking "as the evil manipulator". Some more quotation
| marks would have been handy.
| rob_c wrote:
| Well if Boris in a skirt gets in then yes we will probably have
| a Chinese mobile reactor outside of number 10...
| fxtentacle wrote:
| The solution would be quite easy: Disallow devices (and
| software, too) from phoning home. Disallow remote firmware
| updates.
|
| I predict that such a law would also be very popular with the
| citizens because people hate it when an automated software
| update breaks their workflow. And remote car firmware changes
| could be quite dangerous, too.
| https://twitter.com/anjilslaire/status/1537622856724426752
|
| And some companies have been pretty notorious with their bait
| and switch, like the ad-free Samsung $10k TVs that got
| "updated" with popup advertisements a year later.
|
| And all that e-waste from IoT products that no longer work
| because the manufacturer decided to turn off their servers.
| https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1516144514984923139
|
| BTW, I like reading https://twitter.com/internetofshit just to
| feel lucky that I didn't buy any of it :)
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| > The solution would be quite easy: Disallow devices (and
| software, too) from phoning home. Disallow remote firmware
| updates.
|
| But then how will network operators outsource all of their
| infrastructure maintenance to vendors? That's the problem.
|
| We have this naive idea that companies running networks
| employ staff to manage their networks. In reality, it hasn't
| been like that in a while because there has been a tremendous
| push in the industry to outsource everything to third
| parties. So the person who owns the cell tower likely has no
| idea who is maintaining it, much less has that person on
| their payroll.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Precisely :)
|
| This should be a political discussion: Do we want US
| internet infrastructure to be remote-controlled from China,
| in exchange for cost savings? Or do we mandate US internet
| infrastructure providers to train their own US-based
| employees?
|
| Looking at Comcast's 36% gross profit margin, I don't think
| they would have any issues employing +100 network engineers
| to maintain their phone systems themselves ;) They just
| don't want to.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Really? That's depressing. I wonder if it partly explains
| how Rogers (in Canada) was down for so long the other
| week...
| [deleted]
| Kuinox wrote:
| Until you get your firmware remotely updated by a malware
| exploiting security vulnerability.
| evilos wrote:
| But how could you ever really be sure that the device
| couldn't take an update assuming it must be connected to a
| network in order to fulfill its function? Hardware is so
| complex these days it's not really feasible to prove
| negatives.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| My first idea would be a government bug bounty.
|
| If you catch any of your own device doing that, you report
| it to a government agency and they'll check in their
| database if your finding is new, and if it is, they will
| immediately pay you $10k and announce it publicly.
|
| And then afterwards, the government can fine the
| manufacturer $100k to recoup their costs.
|
| Also, most of the updates that people hate have been pretty
| blatant. Like when your TV starts showing ads when it was
| ad-free before, it is pretty obvious that something
| changed.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The government tried high bounties on other issues. It
| creates perverse incentives.
|
| For example, kidnapping people who may or may not have
| information and torturing them.
|
| If the bounty got high enough, it would pose a serious
| risk to low-level Huawei employees.
|
| And do you think a bounty would help against a Stuxnet
| type attack? Stuxnet did almost nothing until it would up
| in a very specific type of device.
| evilos wrote:
| Seems you're more focused on the "my consumer device does
| new stuff I don't like" issue whereas I'm more focused on
| the "my nation's telecommunications backbone has a
| malicious FPGA hidden somewhere so it can man-in-the-
| middle critical communications" aspect.
| ryanmercer wrote:
| >"my nation's telecommunications backbone has a malicious
| FPGA hidden somewhere so it can man-in-the-middle
| critical communications"
|
| Not just that, for about a decade now I've had a thought
| that you could just have a chip "self-destruct" when a
| signal goes out and _bam_ a chip re-writes itself to be
| bricked.
|
| If you bake this into some common chip (or just include
| it in a firmware update), or something used in say
| backbone level network hardware, or something in millions
| of cellphones you could send out the instruction in some
| previously routine traffic to and from the mothership and
| then a clock starts counting down. You build in long
| enough of a delay to ensure you get most devices to
| receive the signal, say a week or even a month, and you
| suddenly cripple millions of devices and create mild to
| moderate chaos which gives gives you a leg up for an
| invasion or has a massive impact on the markets, or
| cripples internet access for a large area for weeks or
| months until hardware can be replaced.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I'm pretty sure if you offer a high enough bounty, some
| of the people working to deploy your infrastructure will
| go searching for those FPGAs.
|
| Also, I expect enthusiast users and large companies to
| purchase similar devices as small telcos. Scorned network
| administrators are probably even better bounty hunters.
|
| But yes, I was focusing mostly on the end-user aspect
| because if you want to create such a law, you need your
| citizens to like the idea.
| evilos wrote:
| IMO proposing we "disallow remote updates" because we
| don't know what backdoors could be sneaked into devices
| is akin to proposing we outlaw fudging spreadsheets
| because we don't trust accountants.
|
| It's not really practical or enforceable. If a world
| power wants to hide something nasty in silicon or
| software, a bug bounty program isn't going to cut it.
| Maybe if the government had a genius-savant who could
| stare at silicon dies and find malicious circuits.
| rob_c wrote:
| Welcome to a security nightmare the likes of which we've not
| seen before...
|
| No implementation is perfect and it just takes one determined
| clever person to break or weaken wpa2 a bit more and it would
| be chaos.
|
| Banning the devices all together because they're not worth a
| dam and are a security nightmare when not setup correctly
| though.
|
| Now there's an idea.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > shut down a high-profile regional consulate believed by the US
| government to be a hotbed of Chinese spies
|
| Every consulate - Chinese, American, you name it - is a hotbed of
| spies. The closure of the Houston consulate was just a political
| move by the Trump administration.
| [deleted]
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| What you're casually dismissing as "just a political move"
| seemed to be a very well understood target which required state
| department cooperation to act against.
|
| https://cset.georgetown.edu/publication/chinas-foreign-techn...
|
| > HOUSTON AS A GLOBAL S&T HUB Before its closure in the summer
| of 2020, the Chinese Consulate in Houston, Texas was a major
| hub in China's global S&T information gathering operation. From
| January 2015 to July 2020, Houston Consulate staff identified
| more S&T projects than any other PRC diplomatic post in the
| world, and referred 89 percent of the projects originating from
| the United States.56 During that time, the United States was
| the largest source of information technology projects targeted
| by Chinese S&T diplomats.57 From 2017 to 2019, the Houston
| Consulate cosponsored a series of "matchmaking" events with
| several Chinese technology transfer centers, attracting
| approximately three hundred U.S. businesses each year.58 Since
| the consulate's closure in July 2020, the MOST bulletin of
| "international technical cooperation opportunities" has
| registered only one additional project from the United States,
| a virtual reality therapy company in Massachusetts.59
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| Houston is not a particularly important science and
| technology hub in the US. The idea that Houston would be the
| most important focus of Chinese industrial espionage is non-
| sensical.
|
| > From 2017 to 2019, the Houston Consulate cosponsored a
| series of "matchmaking" events with several Chinese
| technology transfer centers, attracting approximately three
| hundred U.S. businesses each year.
|
| This is a very good example of how completely normal
| diplomatic activity is being cast as somehow malign. The
| Chinese government seeks foreign investment. Part of that
| involves the type of public events this passage is
| describing, in which the government invites a bunch of
| companies to a trade fair and pitches the idea of investing
| in China. The US does this abroad. Pretty much everyone does.
| This document is trying to blur the line between espionage
| and normal diplomatic activity.
|
| There is actual espionage that occurs out of embassies and
| consulates around the world. This isn't it.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >Houston is not a particularly important science and
| technology hub in the US.
|
| I'm sorry, _what_? The city that hosts the Christopher C.
| Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center is not a science and
| technology hub? There is science and technology outside of
| social media apps and internet ad surveillance tech.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| > The city that hosts the Christopher C. Kraft Jr.
| Mission Control Center is not a science and technology
| hub?
|
| Yes, it's not a particularly important hub in the US.
| Boston, SF, and countless other cities are more important
| hubs. Having one space mission control center does not
| make a city into the foremost American science and
| technology hub.
|
| The Trump administration decided to close down one
| Chinese consulate as a political message. They probably
| chose Houston because closing the consulate there is less
| disruptive than closing, say, the NY consulate. When the
| Chinese retaliated, they also chose a relatively
| unimportant US consulate to close.
| remflight wrote:
| Your response is absurd. You think China would only focus
| on a few cities? They likely have multiple efforts going
| in every major city all at the same time. They have more
| than enough money and motivation to do that. To dismiss
| Houston just because it's not Silicon Valley is absurd.
| Any strategic advantage is still an advantage. They have
| the luxury of not having to worry about profits and
| losses like a corporation.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The document that was cited above claims that Houston was
| a major global hub of Chinese science and technology
| espionage. That's what's absurd.
|
| Practically every consulate and embassy around the world
| is crawling with spies. "Diplomatic cover" is a standard
| way of sending spies to a foreign country. That's not why
| the US would close down a foreign embassy.
|
| The closure of the Chinese embassy, with a big
| announcement and almost no forewarning, was meant as a
| political statement. It came in the middle of an
| escalating trade war, initiated by the Trump
| administration.
|
| The post facto rationalizations about the Houston embassy
| being some extraordinary hotbed of espionage were absurd
| on their face, and I'm surprised by the level of naivete
| in this thread towards these sorts of official government
| explanations for what are obviously political moves.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| If it is it is NOT a political move but a necessarily state vs
| state diplomats or spy protection action.
|
| Ignore the trump part. Protect USA interest. Just like china
| protect theirs. And when Taiwan invasion occurs see how much
| protection USA has may I note.
|
| Trump is a dirty hand, a wake up call, ... ignore the dirty and
| call part. Need the hand and the wake up guy.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| ethagknight wrote:
| I guess a city-wide network of cell towers could surreptitiously
| function as a phased array missile detection and air traffic
| radar too? The resolution but deep across enemy lines.
| midislack wrote:
| Come on, the Chinese already produce the majority of all
| components for major US infrastructure. What's the harm in giving
| them a little more? Heck they made John fuckin' Cena learn
| Chinese to apologize to Xi for saying he supports democracy.
| China won.
| yazzku wrote:
| tusslewake wrote:
| jollybean wrote:
| I don't know why all comms infrastructure doesn't require all
| hardware/software designs to be handed over to US gov. with some
| kind of security review for all updates.
|
| Obviously there are competitive problems there, but it's better
| than the alternative.
|
| Either that, or, more easily, no 'critical' infrastructure from
| China, Russia etc..
|
| You gotta buy it form US, Canada, Europe etc..
|
| You can buy grain, toys and beef from China, just not 5G gear.
| lizardactivist wrote:
| mlindner wrote:
| Pakdef wrote:
| > Where are these said comments? They've either been deleted
| or you're trying to stir things up for no reason. At time of
| posting there are no comments critical of the report.
|
| You need to have show-dead enabled to be able to view them.
| [deleted]
| Pakdef wrote:
| closewith wrote:
| This seems like an absurd claim to me (as a Western European
| social democrat). The comments on Hacker News skew very far
| to the right on everything from fiscal policy to taxation to
| gun rights to employment rights to unions to data protection
| to corporate regulation.
|
| The only areas where HN could be considered centrist is the
| hot-button social issues in the States like LGBT+ or abortion
| rights. Certainly not left-leaning, anyway.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| The site is definitely filled with left leaning
| individuals. I think the only reason why HN is not more
| blatantly left leaning (like Twitter, reddit) is because
| the average HN poster works in tech and likely makes a lot
| of cash. I know I definitely got a lot less radical in my
| liberal beliefs once I jumped up a couple tax brackets
| after college.
|
| Other sites like reddit are filled with left leaning
| individuals from all walks of life. It's easier for a
| barista living barely above the poverty line to have more
| far left beliefs out of pure resentment for the structures
| that allowed them to go $150k into debt after majoring in
| something like Eastern Gender Studies.
| closewith wrote:
| I think the Overton window of your bubble must be very
| far right if you consider the commentary on Hacker News
| to be left-leaning.
| djmips wrote:
| I concur. I find HN to be right-leaning. haha.
| mlindner wrote:
| I'm right-leaning but CNN is not universally bad. You should
| be paying attention to who the writer is more than what
| platform it's published on.
|
| Full hatred of one news website versus another is as absurd
| as complete allegiance to a single political party no matter
| what they do.
|
| Fox News and CNN are both legitimate news sites.
|
| Also since when is being anti-China a US political party
| issue? Last I checked it was one of the few things with broad
| agreement among US political parties.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Pakdef wrote:
| > Fox News and CNN are both legitimate news sites.
|
| I avoid both.
| rob_c wrote:
| Wait, I thought this was orange man racist?
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/16/business/huawei-trade-war/ind...
| https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/11/business/huawei-apple-china-t...
| kjellsbells wrote:
| I have to ask a dumb question here. Lets say that a piece of
| equipment was installed, with a secret backdoor chip to send data
| to another country. Surely the unexpected network flow would be
| detected outbound and investigated? I mean, if my firewall
| detects outbound traffic to weirdness.com, its going to stop it
| and alert, because weirdness is not in the predefined envelope of
| expected places to send things to.
|
| I feel I must be missing something big.
| pyinstallwoes wrote:
| Exfiltration can be masked in any channel with a signal. So the
| exfiltration can be hard to detect when it is only sending a
| bit every 23 minutes for example. Longer time is harder to
| trace. Think of very intelligent algorithms using multiple
| channels for exfiltration.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| If it only sends a bit every 23 minutes, the bitrate will be
| so low that nothing of interest can be sent.
|
| These sorts of vague accusations have been made against
| Huawei for several years now, but to date, no one has ever
| produced a shred of evidence that Huawei installs backdoors
| on its telecommunications equipment. Huawei devices are
| installed all over the place, and it's not as if there's been
| a lack of scrutiny. In the UK, Huawei even submitted to
| regular audits by British intelligence, and nothing was ever
| found. Every claim that's been made has turned out to be
| along the lines of, "We discovered that Huawei uses industry-
| standard tools to update firmware on its devices, and the
| network operators have the ability to oversee the updates."
|
| The accusations are pure assertions, backed up by a general
| suspicion of everything Chinese. This really began with
| Trump, and it's been sad to watch Western countries fall ever
| deeper into paranoia and hatred towards China. It's Yellow
| Peril v2.0.
| richbell wrote:
| > The accusations are pure assertions, backed up by a
| general suspicion of everything Chinese.
|
| > This really began with Trump, and it's been sad to watch
| Western countries fall ever deeper into paranoia and hatred
| towards China. It's Yellow Peril v2.0.
|
| Canadians have been skeptical of Huawei since at least
| 2012.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-
| ag...
|
| I think it's a reasonable security posture to treat
| technology from a country you don't trust with suspicion.
| Especially when they have long history of hostile
| espionage.
|
| - https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/dnd-may-
| abandon-1b-move...
|
| - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-lab-
| securit...
|
| - https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wanping-zheng-china-
| comapny...
| ncann wrote:
| If you don't want to use stuffs from a country you viewed
| as adversary in your infra, government, army etc. that's
| totally reasonable, but just man up and say that out
| loud. Having these vague accusations thrown around like
| "Huawei phone is spying on you, and so is other Chinese
| brands like Xiaomi, so don't use them" is honestly just
| insulting as a customer when there's not a single shred
| of concrete evidence that something nefarious is going
| on.
| richbell wrote:
| > you don't want to use stuffs from a country you viewed
| as adversary in your infra, government, army etc. that's
| totally reasonable, but just man up and say that out
| loud. Having these vague accusations thrown around like
| "Huawei phone is spying on you, and so is other Chinese
| brands like Xiaomi, so don't use them" is honestly just
| insulting as a customer when there's not a single shred
| of concrete evidence that something nefarious is going
| on.
|
| People are saying both of those things, for the same
| reason. Do you not think that having unprecedented access
| to the data of civilians poses a risk to national
| security?
|
| Modern technology (smart phones, apps, websites, etc.)
| collects a terrifying amount of information on people. It
| also exerts a tremendous amount of influence, be it
| Facebook or China.
|
| I also think that writing off the concern as "vague
| accusations" misses the point. As the current top comment
| points out[0], it's nearly impossible to verify what a
| device is doing. And even if you were to somehow do a
| complete software audit, malicious behaviour could be
| patched in at any time in the future.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32201044
| leaflets2 wrote:
| > the predefined envelope of expected places to send things
| to.
|
| Also, in some cases the expected destinations have been
| hacked already, I'm guessing
|
| > multiple channels for exfiltration
|
| If they can send via wifi, it could be almost impossible to
| detect? So much noise in the wifi space?
| tester756 wrote:
| >Critics see xenophobic overreach
|
| huh, that's why security is hard.
|
| Everything is fine until it isn't, the war starts and reality
| checks comes in.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| every country should manufacture its own entire telco stack -
| clearly anything foreign made is a higher security risk than one
| that is domestically made. Imagine an adversary being able to
| remotely trigger a nuclear war by issuing commands to a router
| tablespoon wrote:
| > every country should manufacture its own entire telco stack -
| clearly anything foreign made is a higher security risk than
| one that is domestically made. Imagine an adversary being able
| to remotely trigger a nuclear war by issuing commands to a
| router
|
| You're weirdly implying every country is an adversary of every
| other. There's no good reason for "every country should
| manufacture its own entire telco stack," but it is reasonable
| for them to only source equipment from ideologically-aligned
| natural allies.
| foverzar wrote:
| > You're weirdly implying every country is an adversary of
| every other.
|
| Isn't it? Ideology is a lie, people are all the same all over
| the world (except maybe for some peculiarities like western
| chauvinism). Everyone wants to live contented lives, be free,
| raise kids in peace and so on.
|
| Every country should have it's own sovereign tech stacks
| simply to avoid effects of corruption or irresponsibility of
| global elites. Otherwise we see stuff like US' economic and
| sanction wars, which create pools of poverty, which
| inherently cause plunge of observance of human rights, which
| causes immense suffering of ordinary folk -- all that so
| someone could make money on something like cheap rare earth
| metals mining for selling electric car batteries.
| housedrafta wrote:
| Can you expand on what you mean by western chauvinism? My
| time in eastern Asia has taught me that many of them see
| members of others Asian (and non-Asian) races/countries as
| inherently inferior.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| huge risk to rely on _any_ other country though, friends
| today may become enemies tomorrow.
|
| Have we already forgotten that US dropped atomic weapons on
| Japan yet are now fast allies or that US supported the
| Islamic fundamentalism in Afganistan before now becoming
| enemies. US + Saddam bosom buddies in the Iran vs Iraq war.
|
| The sample size is not exactly small.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > huge risk to rely on any other country though, friends
| today may become enemies tomorrow.
|
| Real life isn't some RTS game. If a flip like that happens,
| it won't happen very quickly.
|
| Also autarky isn't even possible for most countries, and is
| probably a weakness for most of those that could pull it
| off.
|
| > Have we already forgotten that US dropped atomic weapons
| on Japan yet are now fast allies...
|
| That's an example of an enemy becoming an ally, so not
| exactly relevant.
|
| > or that US supported the Islamic fundamentalism in
| Afganistan before now becoming enemies. US + Saddam bosom
| buddies in the Iran vs Iraq war.
|
| Those are allies of geopolitical necessity, not
| "ideologically-aligned natural allies." For the latter, I'm
| thinking of things like NATO (maybe sans a couple of
| members) and "the Anglosphere."
| codefeenix wrote:
| Some countries can't. The countries that can't probably do not
| have the resources to ignite a nuclear war.
| hunglee2 wrote:
| yes indeed, the world might be crudely divided into those
| which can exercise true sovereignty and those which might
| have to compromise sovereignty
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