
Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted' - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-fedex-exclusive/exclusive-huawei-reviewing-fedex-relationship-says-packages-diverted-idUSKCN1SX1RZ
======
contingencies
Regardless of the cause of this particular set of events, corporate media
engagement as resistance against state actors is the only logical development
that can be expected following the Snowden revelations which confirmed that
long-theorized postal interception methods are in use. This creates additional
pushback for FedEx who now have to prove they aren't working for US
intelligence, or face losing additional customers. While other state actors
remain valid threats, given US involvement was proven by Snowden and FedEx is
so global I am kind of surprised that neither Deutsche Post[0] nor ZTO[1] nor
SF Express[2] shares are up on the news.

[0] [http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/stock/Deutsche_Post-
share](http://en.boerse-frankfurt.de/stock/Deutsche_Post-share) [1]
[https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:ZTO](https://www.nyse.com/quote/XNYS:ZTO) [2]
[http://www.szse.cn/English/siteMarketData/siteMarketDatas/lo...](http://www.szse.cn/English/siteMarketData/siteMarketDatas/lookup/index.html?code=002352)

~~~
maratd
> I am kind of surprised that neither Deutsche Post[0] nor ZTO[1] nor SF
> Express[2] shares are up on the news.

Why would they be up on the news? They're just as likely to be engaging in the
same behavior, only for a different set of government actors.

~~~
dmix
Intercepting it in the US or within their own country is one thing. Rerouting
a document being sent from Japan to China to the US multiple times is most
certainly not a common thing mail services would do for intelligence agencies.

Getting a private company operating in a foreign country to do your
intelligence work so blatantly is certainly news worthy. Maybe not stock price
shifting news though.

~~~
Mirioron
I think it should affect stock price. Espionage is usually punished pretty
harshly and you have no guarantee that said private company won't be charged
with it in the future when the political landscape changes in the country.

------
strooper
Not related to this package delivery drama, but the way we are observing the
live demolition of the world largest networking equipment maker and second
largest smartphone maker (by number) in the name of trade war will never bring
back the confidence in those who are flexing muscle.

The illusion of the rule of law, free world, globalization and the reality of
control is simply frightening, and worrisome.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _The illusion of the rule of law_

Rule of law has always been national. International politics are anarchic.
Huawei quite clearly broke the laws of the United States ( _e.g._ with respect
to Iran), repeatedly and wilfully.

~~~
tepidandroid
Huawei _may_ have broken the law with respect to violating U.S's sanctions on
Iran. These are still unproven allegations as of yet.

Meanwhile, Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, JP Morgan have
_provably_ done exactly that.

Yet there is only one C-suite level executive who is currently being held
personally, criminally liable for corporate actions. I guarantee you won't be
seeing Jamie Dimon threatened with prison time for JP Morgan's 87 violations
of Iranian sanctions and Weapons of Mass Destruction sanctions, anytime soon.

Laws which are enforced selectively lack credibility.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
Very simply, sanctions evasion is enforced differently from other domains. In
any case, China is a terrible foil for the rule of law. Meng will get a fair
trial in America. Nobody from anywhere would get the same in China.

~~~
Bendingo
> Meng will get a fair trial in America.

Your faith is US justice is admirable and patriotic. Do you believe Assange
would also get a fair trial in USA ?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Do you believe Assange would also get a fair trial in USA ?_

No. I don’t believe secret courts can be fair courts.

Meng, however, is being charged through normal channels by a prosecutor who
must make a case in the regular court system. The charges and decisions will
be made in the open. (There is a decent chance, due to the difficulty of
admitting large swaths of evidence, that she could win.)

------
SheinhardtWigCo
Hanlon's razor applies here. If there was truly something nefarious going on,
why would FedEx update the tracking status to say that the packages were re-
routed? Why not just say they were held up in the sending or receiving
country?

~~~
codedokode
Because there was nobody who thought about it.

We had a similar situation in Russia. A mobile operator was cooperating with
government to hack into activists' Telegram accounts. They disabled SMS
service for a user and then requested a password restore using SMS,
intercepted it and got access. But they forgot to delete this information from
their internal systems, so when the user called support, they told them that
SMS service was disabled, and later even gave a signed confirmation about it.

I don't know whether the story from the article is true or not, but people
tend to make such kind of mistakes. Imagine a typical accounting system,
written on bunch of legacy technologies during last 20 years, and think how
difficult it would be to remove all traces from all the databases and logs and
not break anything. And tell every employee that would process the package not
to scan it.

~~~
wybiral
Why wouldn't an intelligence agency just intercept it quietly? If I were
sufficiently motivated and had global assets willing to do my bidding I could
probably have found a way to intercept it at a sorting facility or en route or
by sending in an "inspector" or social engineering or something.

Why on earth would they do something so obvious to leave such a paper trail
when you know they could pull this off quietly?

~~~
bandushrew
Because they want to be able to do it at scale?

The ideal approach would be to have packages of the "interesting" kind
automatically diverted to a scanning location, and then continue on their
way...

Dont think of it as them being interested in a single package. They are
interested in setting up a mechanism by which ALL packages of interest can be
diverted with only very small effort on their part.

~~~
stickfigure
If they were doing it at scale this wouldn't be the first time we are reading
about it on HN.

~~~
grrowl
It isn't.

~~~
wybiral
It also wouldn't be the first time a shipping/logistics error caused a package
to be misrouted.

The obvious and most probable answer is usually the right answer unless you
have evidence otherwise.

Not every weird incident is part of some conspiracy.

~~~
fqye
Four packages... And Huawei called Fedex Vietnam customer service. They
explicitly said the package was reouted on request from Fedex U.S.

Check this: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/huawei-says-fedex-
diverted-p...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/28/huawei-says-fedex-diverted-
packages-to-the-us.html)

According to FedEx’s website, the status “exception” means an unexpected event
is preventing delivery of a package, for example a customs delay, a holiday,
or no one being available to accept delivery. FedEx declined to give details
on what the exception was in this case.

According to Huawei, a FedEx customer service representative in Vietnam
replied to their inquiry on May 22 when two expected packages did not arrive
on time, saying: “Please be informed that FDX SG received notification from
FDX US to hold and return the package to US. Hence, the shipment is not
deliver to consignee and now being hold at FDX station and under process to
RTS it (return to sender),” the representative wrote in broken English,
according to an email Huawei showed to Reuters.

------
the-dude
Not to a CIA "load station" ?

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-
nsa...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-
factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

~~~
wybiral
They were documents. Why wouldn't they have just intercepted them in-place
instead of sending them to the US?

It doesn't make sense to be anything other than an error and Huawei being
paranoid (rightfully so, but still).

~~~
peterwwillis
Possibly because if the USG were caught reading foreign companies' documents
on foreign soil it would be a violation of countless international treaties,
which would make the ongoing trade and infosec tensions worse, versus "whoops,
this landed on our doorstep, we can do whatever we want on our soil". The fact
that this can be easily chocked up to a logistical error is good cover.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
Let's be honest, America has been violation of so many treaties and rules they
themselves have written that it really doesn't matter anymore. Some countries
retaliate, but with different methods.

------
jedberg
Anyone who has shipped with FedEx knows how somehow everything you send goes
through Atlanta. I'll bet this was just one of those "logistical efficiency"
gone wrong kind of things.

Or US intelligence requested the documents be diverted. Either is about
equally likely I'd say.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Did you mean Memphis? Atlanta would love to take some or all that traffic away
from Memphis since the Atlanta airport is woefully under utilized after
midnight.

~~~
jedberg
Maybe? I just remember it was somewhere on the other side of the country where
my package from SF to LA had no business being.

~~~
krn
Yes, it's Memphis[1].

[1]
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=y3qfeoqErtY&t=1m51s](https://youtube.com/watch?v=y3qfeoqErtY&t=1m51s)

------
brd529
Having done logistics this happens all the time in international parcels. I
saw 0.5% of parcels have some massively weird routing error to countries that
made no sense.

If this had been a us govt request they wouldn’t have scanned the packages at
the sorting facilities in the US!

------
Jerry2
Packages were probably getting a free "upgrade". The same upgrade that cost
Cisco billions in revenue over the past 5 years.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-
nsa...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-
factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/)

~~~
creato
Upgrades like what? Spell checking? These were packages of documents.

~~~
hrrsn
They were just making a backup copy, just in case.

------
threeseed
I wonder what the backstory is to this.

You don't issue a press release for two missing packages. And since they were
"important commercial documents" I am assuming that US intelligence must have
intercepted them for some reason.

~~~
pushpop
The back story could just as easily be a shipping error and Huawei trying to
drum up anti-American sentiment as a counter to all the bad press the US have
directed their way.

Sure, it’s highly suspicious that a Hauwei shipment end up in America but
equally it seems unlikely FedEx would be dumb enough to advertise that fact on
their tracking page if they were ordered to divert said documents.

I’m not suggesting there isn’t something deeper going on that governments are
keeping classified, however if there is then they’re doing a good job of
keeping it a secret by making this trade war sound like petty bickering.

~~~
samstave
Another backstory is that huwai has long believed to be backdoring to chinese
intel just as cisco has since the mid 90s...

We arrested their cfo in canada and have been on attack with them since.

The actual question is - the US has been doing this against them for quite
some time now Mr smith.

So...

Did huwai just realize, or do they have enough anomalous tracking that they
are leaking public to measure reaction.

Look, dont be a fool - WWIII - as Einstein stated, is not nuclear, its
informational - and we are in the midst;

Echelon <— nobody believed this existed in the 80s and 90s

Carnivore <— att guy went to jail for revealing this

Stuxnet <— israel fucked that one up

Duqu <— scary that this dropped off the map

PRISM <— one of many of the trackers

Lots more: too many.

Etc

Etc

There are a lot of subs in that list and a lot of ghosts we dont know about...

But only a moron would think that cyber war is NOT in full force

~~~
Gibbon1
I operate on the idea that everyone has been back dooring and breaking into
everyone else's stuff forever.

I remember a picture I can't remember the details now but think the East
Germans discovered a tunnel from West Berlin into a phone vault in East Berlin
with a bunch of taps installed. That was in the 1960's. The Soviets were
planting microwave recording devices on the east coast in the 1970's. The US
has been tapping under sea cables since the 1970's. Maybe earlier.

Everyone's been trying to spy on everyone else. Commercial companies are
either willing partners _cough_ facebook _cough_ or haplessly in the middle.
Notable they threw Joseph Nacchio in prison for not playing along.

------
majia
Fedex diverted huawei’s packet through the US by mistake. China telecom
diverted internet packets through China because it must be hacking.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18385920)

------
floatboth
Well, it's called FedEx, of course it _ex_ propriates your packages to the
_fed_ s,

------
djsumdog
I really hope any US Commerce dept plans against Huawei completely backfire.
Imagine in two years if Huawei has a stable, strong alternative to Android
that takes over the Asian markets and even gets imported by American
enthusiasts through 3rd party channels. I'd like to see someone break the
Apple/Google dual-olopy.

~~~
sixothree
> I'd like to see someone break the Apple/Google dual-olopy.

I am not sure that will happen here. But it sure does seem like that is the
trajectory for China.

~~~
quink
It’s not the trajectory, apart from a reliance on ARM the Android experience
in China is pretty independent of anything overseas already, lacking the Play
Store and all.

~~~
sixothree
[https://www.techradar.com/news/huaweis-os-to-be-rolled-
out-n...](https://www.techradar.com/news/huaweis-os-to-be-rolled-out-next-
month)

------
killjoywashere
Air shipping from any island in APAC is tricky, speaking as someone on an
island in APAC. There are only X number of flights and sometimes things go to
places you wouldn't expect based on whatever prioritization rules drive
FedEx's optimization algorithm that day. This costs my lab and our hospital
dearly, so I sort of sympathize. But I also know a FedEx pilot who flew this
area for decades and explained their end of the problem as well. It's a hard
optimization problem.

For example: it may have gone to Alaska, but that's actually closer to Japan
and China than any of their other hubs.

------
munk-a
I would assume this is part of the US government's recent attacks on Huawei
except... I'm familiar with FedEx and their terrible service, so I assume it's
just them being as terrible as they always are.

------
zupreme
So many US corporations are sacrificing potential billions in global comsumer
confidence and flat-out revenue loss backing the “trade war”. What assurances
are they getting which makes them willing to take the leap, I wonder?

At the end of the day any losses have to be explained to sharebolders,
regadless of political loyalties.

~~~
ETHisso2017
They aren't getting assurances, they're being threatened with the loss of
federal government business.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _they 're being threatened with the loss of federal government business_

Criminal penalties for their executives are the real stick.

~~~
kmonsen
The CFO and daughter of the founder is currently held in Vancouver awaiting
extradition to the US.

------
close04
> FedEx spokeswoman Maury Donahue told Reuters the packages were “misrouted in
> error” and that FedEx was not requested to divert them by any other party.

Scout's honor. Sounds a lot like Huawei saying it was just a coding error.
Would they get away of a spying accusation with this? If it can happen in the
US (FedEx, Cisco) it can surely happen in China.

It's strange seeing people defending this as "probably an error" and perfectly
acceptable when coming from one side but definitely intentional and totally
unacceptable from the other.

The hypocrisy is strong in this one...

P.S. For the casual observer, please note that this comment is _not_ about
which company is guilty and how (un)acceptable that may be.

~~~
rgbrenner
The difference is that Huawei has a board of CCP members that sits within
Huawei and has say over their actions. While FedEx is an independent company
that operates within the US, and has access to US courts to defend themselves.
It's 1st party vs 3rd party, when it comes to government influence.

Huawei is assumed to be working at behalf of the CCP because the CCP has
management control over the company. It's like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Do
you doubt that the US government has control over them? They are "independent"
government sponsored companies with oversight by the US government... just
like Huawei.

Everyone knows Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac implement policies put in place by
the US government. That's their job. But when it comes to Huawei, we're all
suppose to ignore the CCP control?

China likes to have state-run companies (far more than the US does). The
consequence is that no one trusts you. If they don't like it, and want to
build trust with their customers, then they can liberalize their markets (or
at least let Huawei be a fully independent company).

~~~
close04
OK, " _%Government% exerts non-transparent influence over %Company%_ ". Who am
I talking about? This is not a China thing, it's not a communist thing. It's a
thing, mostly a superpower thing. You can't nail one party to the cross while
praising the other one for the exact same thing. I mean you can but not
without a strong display of (misinformed?) hypocrisy.

Again, decide for yourself what's good or bad but be consistent, not selective
depending on who's doing it: "us" or "them" ;).

------
throwh28282
People saying 'just an error tbis ; US doesn't do this' should be reminded
that the same scenario played out, nationally, with Amazon routing Jacob
Appelbaum's laptop to Langley before reaching him.

------
nullwasamistake
What kind of sloppy 2 bit intelligence operation informs the customer their
packages are being redirected to the US? The article mentioned the packages
were in the process of being marked "return to sender"

To me, this is clearly a case of not being able to read the shipping label,
damage to packaging, or similar. It would make plenty of sense that manual
"human" decisions on what to do with undeliverable packages is handled by
FedEx employees in the US. I have had mail returned before and it always ends
up going to a random place, likely to be hand sorted, and taking forever to
make its way back.

This is likely a non-story trying to throw shade on US companies to distract
from negative press on Hauwei. Besides, the mail was shipped using a US based
carrier, probably airmail. A plane can make it across the world in 24 hours,
so it might make sense to route certain destinations through the US regardless
for logistical reasons. If I could ship something to Europe using China Post I
would not be fazed if my package ends up in China at some point.

If you don't want something to end up in the US don't ship it using a US based
mail carrier that is a private company allowed to send your package in any
manner it desires. Hauwei complaining to the Chinese government about how
their packages are being routed through the US on the way to their destination
by a US based mail carrier, what a joke

------
Taniwha
This is bad for US companies because it will likely result in the rise of a
Chinese worldwide Fedex/UPS competitor - you're already sort of seeing this
happening in the bulk mail services that are used to ship stuff form
Aliexpress

------
CriticalCathed
Probably happens all of the time. The unlawful spying organizations in the
United States have no true bounds, especially not trivial things like borders
or corporate integrity.

------
fqye
I am Chinese, living in China and have been pro-U.S / democracy my whole life.
But the recent actions by Trump government, U.S corporations, Fedex etc., and
academics (IEEE etc.) made me angry. The U.S government provided no evidence
of Huawai spying or backdoor but acted hysterically to kill Huawei. And your
corporations and intellectuals are helping it.

And there are lots of Chinese like me feel the same. Trump and his China
haters are pushing away a large group of influential Chinese elites in all
different professions, intellectuals, government officials, (yes, there are a
lot of pro-U.S / democracy government officials in China), entrepreneurs,
engineers, doctors even who used to admire the U.S.

This is far more damaging... There will be cost.

------
notaplumber
Wow, I'm surprised Huawei went to the press with this-- but it's certainly
bizarre.

------
WestCoastJustin
Routing mistake?

~~~
threeseed
You often get the tracking number either before you send the item or as you
are sending it.

I think it would be suspicious if you sent a package and weren't given one.

~~~
simonk
The packages are being delivered in the end, they just seem to be going
through the US first.

------
devoply
Could you not plant something on these devices then find them like mythical
WMDs never found to justify things against Huawei?

~~~
wybiral
They were documents.

------
oxfordmale
It looks like Huawei's retaliation to Trump's ban. They must have been combing
Fedex deliveries for mishaps they could use to build up a case Fedex is
working together with US intelligence agencies.

------
pbhjpbhj
>Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the records. Shown the images of
the tracking records, FedEx declined to make any comment, saying company
policy prevented it from disclosing customer information. //

So they're confirming that the images are customer data, which makes them
authentic. If they weren't authentic then they wouldn't be customer
information, no?

>FedEx spokeswoman Maury Donahue told Reuters the packages were “misrouted in
error” and that FedEx was not requested to divert them by any other party. //

Which doesn't tell us anything as NSA letters, for example, can IIUC require a
company to lie to cover up executive activity.

>The U.S. Department of Commerce did not reply to a request for comment on
whether the incident might be related to its move on May 16 to add Huawei to
the so-called “Entity List,” //

Which is basically "hey are you being a shithead?", "oh, no comment!". Not
even bothering to deny it??

>FedEx declined to give details on what the exception was in this case. //

I mean, it sounds a lot like the response of someone caught with their pants
down (ie in the act of committing a nefarious offense).

What is clear is that this is more shots fired -- and TBH the message of "you
can't trust USA not to be using security letters to pry in to foreign
businesses confidential affairs" isn't anything like unbelievable.

~~~
vinay427
> So they're confirming that the images are customer data, which makes them
> authentic. If they weren't authentic then they wouldn't be customer
> information, no?

I don't think that assumption works. Reuters asked for specific customer
information: in particular, whether the records were valid. Answering in the
affirmative or negative is divulging customer data, and FedEx would be wise to
avoid doing so whether or not it's valid.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
You're right, I skipped over the "decline to make any comment" part.

But still, "this is not a valid receipt" doesn't reveal data about a customer
transaction.

~~~
elliekelly
But then when the reporter comes back a few days later with a _different_
receipt that _is_ valid and FedEx tries to give the canned response about not
revealing customer transaction data... they inadvertently have. Because if it
_wasn’t_ customer transaction data then they would have simply said as much,
as they did the last time.

Companies always respond with “no comment” for a good reason: to prevent
people from drawing incorrect conclusions by reading between the lines as you
are doing now.

