
Google suspends some business with Huawei - samsonradu
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-alphabet-exclusive/exclusive-google-suspends-some-business-with-huawei-after-trump-blacklist-source-idUSKCN1SP0NB
======
windexh8er
This isn't surprising. What the US government wants the government gets. I was
working for a large ISP in 2010-2011 and we were considering long haul
transport gear between Huawei and Infinera. All things being equal Huawei had
a better cost/performance value prop. That was, until the FBI came in with a
heavy handed opinion. You see at that point in time the best place to siphon
data was at large ingress/egress. As I understand it there are two reasons the
FBI wanted Infinera: 1) Infinera is a US based company and had to abide, like
Cisco, to provide "LE" (law enforcement) capable firmware/software and 2) to
keep a Chinese firm from generally gaining that position in a large ISP.

So while it's huge Google was told what to do, it's not surprising as this is
business as usual. And back to an earlier point... The best place to siphon
data in 2019? Your phone. Times have changed, data collection by governments
hasn't.

~~~
yding
By LE capable firmware you mean that the FBI had a backdoor to eavesdrop? Wow.

~~~
windexh8er
Yes indeed [0].

[0]
[https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/10000/10008/fe...](https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/routers/10000/10008/feature/guides/lawful_intercept/10LIovr.html)

~~~
lone_haxx0r
So, the US having freedom really was just a meme after all.

~~~
jrockway
TLS is still legal. So is routing all your traffic through Tor if you think
the metadata is relevant.

I can't imagine much useful material comes from wiretapping these days. Maybe
once in a while, but the real value largely exists in the application layer,
which is obtained in a different way.

~~~
crehn
When TLS is everywhere, what's the most reasonable way for law enforcement to
surveil suspects?

~~~
parliament32
Bottom-up. The FBI sees that you're having a TLS conversation at X time with a
server in Facebook's IP range, so they just go ask Facebook for what you were
doing at that time.

Foreign-hosted services seem like they'd be hard to crack, but it's extremely
likely their data flows though Cloudflare, Amazon, GCE, or a similar US-based
company.

------
cromwellian
In a way, this helps Apple (and other Android vendors) and in a way, it hurts
it. Huawei phones recently have shipped market leading cameras that blow
pretty much all other Android and iPhone cameras out of the water. They took a
commanding lead as a premium device manufacturer. Hurting their non-China
markets gives breathing space to others.

However, if I were Apple, I'd be really worried about retaliation. Apple is
wholly dependent on manufacturing in China and its supply chain, and even
small disruptions could cause huge mounts of pain.

~~~
Despegar
The last thing China wants during a trade war is to have the 3 million people
in Apple's supply chain unemployed and angry.

This particular leverage is also why iMessage isn't blocked in China.

~~~
opportune
iMessage isn't blocked in China because it doesn't need to be. China passed a
law forcing Apple to put all Chinese users' iCloud data in a Chinese
datacenter. Since Apple allows for account recovery, they store account keys
in that datacenter. Anyone with privileged access to certain production
resources in iCloud China should be able to access basically all Chinese
users' data.

The one exception is apparently Apple's keychain as per
[https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-i...](https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2018/01/16/icloud-
in-china/). But, if the hardware used to enforce the security is different in
China, even that could be cracked.

~~~
xvector
IIUC if you disable iCloud backup of iMessages, you're safe here. This is
because iMessage is E2EE enforced by the Secure Enclave when iCloud backup of
iMessages is disabled.

------
ghobs91
To all those stating that Huawei should just make their own OS, it's nowhere
near that simple. Forking Android is the easy part, building an app ecosystem
that thousands of developers across the globe actively partake in is
incredibly difficult. Microsoft couldn't even pull it off with Windows Phone.

I predict their own Android fork and China-focused app store will do fine in
China, but struggle big time in other markets.

~~~
yskchu
The difference between Huawei's situation and Microsoft's situation is that
Microsoft's app store is not compatible with Android or IOS (obviously,
different OS)

While if Huawei uses the Android open source base, the only thing they have to
do is entice developers to submit another copy of their app to their store,
which is a much lower barrier than the one MS faced to develop a whole new
ecosystem

~~~
morpheuskafka
Not if that app depends on Google Play Services, which most developers
targeting "Android" take for granted.

~~~
askvictor
Perhaps Huawei will assist in the development of microg
([https://microg.org/](https://microg.org/)) - a free (as in freedom) drop-in
replacement for Google Play Services.

~~~
snaky
Huawei will never do that, the very concept of free or open-source is
absolutely alien to them. But they could develop some kind of their own Play
Services, compatible with Google.

~~~
gecho
"the very concept of free or open-source is absolutely alien to them"

white people have a way of saying incredibly insulting, demeaning things about
non-whites in a way that it is acceptable in common discourse.

statement such as these need to be called out for what they are - biased
opinions based on an irrational fear of "the chinese"

~~~
briandon
I would not agree with the statement you've quoted either, but can you see
that you've posted a comment shot through with the same attitudes that you
believe tainted his comment?

You've assigned a race to another poster based on your own preconceptions of
the attitudes and behaviors of members of that race (kicking off your reply to
snaky with "white people have a way of [...]") and lumped all members of a
race together (accusing all white people of making derogatory statements
regarding other races).

------
ahmedfromtunis
Huawei already saw this coming; at least that's what the company signaled last
march when they announced they have a 'backup OS':
[https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/03/14/huawei-confirms-
os/](https://www.engadget.com/amp/2019/03/14/huawei-confirms-os/)

~~~
wallmountedtv
A better source thats not google amp [https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-
tech/article/3001685/huawei-co...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-
tech/article/3001685/huawei-confirms-it-has-built-its-own-operating-system-
just-case-us)

~~~
microcolonel
From comment by StudentStuff, hidden below:

> _SCMP is owned by Alibaba, they 're far from impartial:
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_China_Morning_Post)
> ._

~~~
yorwba
They're the source for the Engadget article, so still a better choice in any
case. The change in ownership also hasn't affected the quality of their
reporting, as far as I can tell.

~~~
microcolonel
I was just reiterating the comment, it was hidden. Also kinda silly for you to
say so definitively that being owned by what is effectively a state venture of
the PRC doesn't have an effect on their reporting. I wouldn't say that about
basically any news outlet, because they all at least have a headquarters
_somewhere_.

And given the PRC's enormous, well-documented investments into perverting the
truth and framing the narrative worldwide, more developed than most; even an
arm's length relationship is too close for me to put that sort of trust into a
a venture like this.

------
timkly
As an Australian with a Hauwei phone, the writing is on the wall for me.

Google Android in no longer a universal platform and moving forward, I doubt
I'll ever buy anything again Google or US related again in terms of tech.

This si no longer a China vs US issue, it's the US vs the world.

~~~
PixyMisa
It's a China vs. the world issue. China has been spying on everyone, for
years. Political, military, commercial, makes no difference.

~~~
dx034
For the EU it's really just the question if you want to be spied on by the US
or by China. In recent years, trade with China has probably helped the economy
much more than trade with the US. At the same time, China (while certainly
acting out of self interest), is somewhat predictable in their actions.

Europeans are really critical of China and their policies (esp. their human
rights record). But they don't like the US that much more (apart from the
Brits) and with a struggling economy you really don't want to make them choose
between money and ideology.

~~~
mantas
As a european, I'll take US over China any day.

Anti-US circlejerk is mostly confined in Western europe (sans Brits). Eastern
europe has totally different sentiment.

------
wpdev_63
Sad to see as they make some compelling phones with outrageously great
prices[0]. I used to think about the privacy problems with buying a chinese
phone but this day and age where facebook is selling your data to the highest
bidder and the fusion centers crawling all over our cellphone - who cares? I'd
rather have the chinese have my data than the US companies/gov't(only because
I will never visit their country), though they wouldn't be exclusive in this
case.

[0]:[https://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Mi-Play-Global-
Version-5_84-...](https://www.banggood.com/Xiaomi-Mi-Play-Global-
Version-5_84-inch-4GB-RAM-64GB-ROM-MTK-Helio-P35-Octa-
core-4G-Smartphone-p-1436243.html?rmmds=home-mid-
moreItems1&ID=229&cur_warehouse=HK)

~~~
cyrix100
The outrageously great prices comment got me thinking about all the IP theft
allegations [0]. I wonder if the relatively lower prices are a reflection of
the reduced R&D overhead compared to other companies that would otherwise need
to recover that initial investment.

[0]:[https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-theft-bonus-
program-...](https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-theft-bonus-
program-955187/)

~~~
pishpash
So you think Apple is still recouping R&D costs, or just padding their margins
for shareholders?

------
andr
I may have missed this, but have there been any _specific_ accusations against
Huawei? It is clear Chinese actors hack and steal IP, but have those been
connected to Huawei, or are they just the easiest victim for the US to
retaliate against?

~~~
bartimus
When it comes to security everyone's guilty until proven innocent.

~~~
tehlike
China has apps with plenty of install base. That is probably the bigger threat
noone has really noticed yet...

------
Mikeb85
I wonder if this will be the catalyst for foreign companies to stop using US
technology. For everything that the US has done to other countries over the
years, US tech companies have somewhat maintained their independence. Now that
US companies are being compelled to not sell to various Chinese companies, it
could be a wake-up call to the rest of the world that US companies are now
simply another arm of the US government.

~~~
roca
These rules don't make US companies "another arm of the US government". US
companies can (and do!) push back against the US government, through the
courts, political parties, and ultimately elections.

Chinese companies, on the other hand, have no such recourse against their
government.

~~~
gonvaled
> These rules don't make US companies "another arm of the US government". US
> companies can (and do!) push back against the US government, through the
> courts, political parties, and ultimately elections.

Show me the push back to the following:

\- NSA backdooring

\- The whole Prisma scandal

\- The current trade war with China

And tell me how EU governments benefit from US companies avoiding taxes, and
repatriating revenues generated in the European market to the US.

The US is a highly unreliable, politicized provider. The US uses technology to
steal data and taxes from other countries. And abuses its position to impose
its will.

We can not build our digital infrastructure like this anymore.

I assume EU governments are following this very closely.

------
ETHisso2017
I can't see any Chinese phone company feeling comfortable with this move. If
someone sets up a viable non-US alternative to Android and the Play Store,
they could jump ship en masse.

~~~
lone_haxx0r
Lineage OS

~~~
yding
Lineage isn't good enough on its own. 99% of Lineage OS users also install
google play services and the google play store. You need to have a replacement
for all of the closed source Google APIs for app developers to use. It's a
much bigger undertaking than just recompiling the base OS from source.

~~~
Fnoord
You can install F-Droid or microG if you prefer; you don't _need_ to use
GApps.

Apart from that the other options you have, are (in random order): /e/,
PureOS, KaiOS, SailfishOS, Ubuntu Touch, Plasma Mobile, postmarketOS, among
others.

~~~
yding
I looked at MicroG and saw this almost immediately: This is alpha-grade
software and not yet ready for production use. Do not use if you don't know
what you're doing.

That's not going to be good enough for Huawei.

Similarly, all of those alternative OSes aren't going to work if they're not
binary, and more importantly API compatible with Android + GMS.

~~~
sanxiyn
If microG isn't good enough for Huawei, they can make it so. I mean, Huawei is
a billion dollar corporation. I hope they do.

------
plantain
No more updates for my Huawei phone then presumably. Really feeling more
secure now!

~~~
philwelch
Your phone was manufactured by a front for a foreign intelligence service. It
was never secure.

~~~
techntoke
American-manufactured devices are probably equally as infiltrated by American
foreign intelligence services. Hence why they don't just use a standard Linux
distro with open source firmware.

~~~
roca
Even if it was true that American phone companies are infiltrated by American
intelligence services, you have to ask yourself which government you trust
more. As a New Zealander, I think there are very good reasons to trust the US
government a lot more.

Heck, if you look at where Chinese officials try to stash their money and
their families, it's clear _they_ trust Western countries a lot more too.

~~~
AsyncAwait
> As a New Zealander, I think there are very good reasons to trust the US
> government a lot more.

As an EU citizen, idk, China seems more locally focused, the U.S reaches
everywhere. Speaking of NZ, the whole Kim Dotcom situation makes it look like
a U.S.vassal state, honestly.

~~~
stjohnswarts
Hardly, look at what the Chinese are doing in Africa and the "Silk Road"
initiative and how they load down countries with borrowing so they can come in
and clean up 10 years later.

------
onei
I guess this is a thinly veiled attack on China, but I'm a bit confused why
there's a feud between the US and China in the first place. Perhaps my
ignorance is down to being British and a bit out of the loop, but could
someone give a rough outline on what the underlying motives for this are?

~~~
Leary
China is the only country that can threaten the US' status as the number one
superpower in the world. Huawei's lead in 5G technology is broadly seen in
Washington as a threat to US interests even though the US government has no
concrete evidence of wrong doing.

~~~
roboys
China's population will actually age too fast to continue to be #1 in the
world, by the end of this century India will pass China in GDP & population
size, based on projections.

------
neilv
> _has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware
> and software products except those covered by open source licenses,_

Could this nudge an interesting (good/bad) development in open source?

~~~
atomicUpdate
Why would this cause any change in open source at all? This is already the
case for them in China.

~~~
neilv
For example, if party A wants party B using something S in particular, then S
being being made "open source". And/or the accepted meanings&cultures of "open
source" (or whatever the actual terminology is) changing, as A and S do their
things.

------
esolyt
Why isn't this titled as "Google revokes Huawei's Android license"?

"Suspends some business" is an understatement.

------
enriquto
That's great! We will finally be able to buy google-free android devices from
a major vendor!

~~~
usr1106
> We will finally be able to buy google-free android devices from a major
> vendor

What I read apps remain supported, but (security) updates to the firmware will
stop. So Google continues to sell user data and the NSA has even easier
access.

~~~
enriquto
But this is for existing devices. Forthcoming models will likely be google-
free. Yay!

------
onetimemanytime
Or they did the same thing every US company will _have_ to do thanks to the
blacklist.

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-
huaweitech/chin...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-
huaweitech/chinas-huawei-70-affiliates-placed-on-us-trade-blacklist-
idUSKCN1SL2W4) >> _The U.S. Commerce Department said on Wednesday it is adding
Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and 70 affiliates to its so-called “Entity List” -
a move that bans the telecom giant from buying parts and components from U.S.
companies without U.S. government approval._

------
cfarm
I think this creates a nationalistic retaliation -- "We don't need America. We
can do it ourselves, and better."

~~~
rorykoehler
Not only from China.

~~~
cfarm
It depends on what Trump does. He may start opening up other avenues for
America to get the same trade we had with China. For example, we might get
friendlier with Mexico or Vietnam. [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-
asia-48273550](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48273550)

~~~
rorykoehler
It doesn't because this shows that things can change on a whim. No one is
going to commit billions of dollars to anything in such a precarious
environment.

~~~
cfarm
So you think other nations will retaliate also?

~~~
rorykoehler
Nations I'm not sure but it will for sure impact strategy at all companies of
all sizes from large multi-national corporates down to bootstrapped startups
like my own.

~~~
cfarm
How does it affect your company?

~~~
rorykoehler
I'd rather not go too deep into it but if America suddenly changes it's
approach to the market as it looks to be doing it's a massive risk to rely on
services from any American companies (through no fault of the companies in
question).

------
dirtyid
If true, this is certainly a nuclear move. There's a variety of first party
app stores in China, though I doubt they'll see much success convincing
Western users to switch. Curious if there's going to be antitrust fallout from
markets outside the US for unilaterally crippling vendors at behest of US
foreign policy. Is Microsoft or Apple going to pull their app stores as well?
What happened to project Dragon Fly?

On the other hand, I wonder how Huawei / China will retaliate. Wouldn't be
surprised if this kills all Google manufacturing prospects in China which
pretty much kills Google hardware.

~~~
yding
The biggest threat to Google in my opinion would be the possibility that
Huawei and China could try to "steal" Android from them.

Imagine in 2021 the Chinese government mandates that every Chinese smartphone
manufacturer needs to switch to ChAndroid for all of their product lines, with
a single unified app store, whether they sell the phones inside or outside of
China. Well, fully half of the top smartphone companies in the world are
Chinese. So all of a sudden Google would lose the ability to monetize on
almost half of the ecosystem.

And if it were open and successful, other Android manufacturers could move
over. Samsung would LOVE the ability to get a piece of the search and app
revenue on every one of their phones. Right now they're locked out because of
Google's licensing agreement for Android, but they must look at how much money
Google pays Apple every year to be the default search provider very longingly.

~~~
jmull
> And if it were open...

An OS mandated by the Chinese government. That’s pretty much the opposite open
in multiple ways.

~~~
yding
Open in this case meaning open source and open to other people to modify/build
upon, like Android is currently. But you're right that the Chinese bureaucracy
may not be nimble enough for this kind of move, and might stillborn it by
mucking it up with poor decisions.

------
mrosett
Alternative headline: “Google complies with law”. They didn’t have much choice
here.

~~~
judge2020
Otherwise, the article is good for showing the extent of the political
situation.

One might be able to stretch this to 'US aids potential cyber attacks in
China' since phones in China might no longer receive security updates in
Android.

~~~
scarface74
The open source version of Android is still available. Why wouldn’t that be
getting updates?

~~~
srrr
Will I, as a European customer of Huawei, still get app updates from Google
Play and push messages via firebase cloud messaging? Without the Google
framework my phone is a brick...

~~~
Markoff
WhatsApp and signal work fine without GCM/FCM, dunno about other apps but
WhatsApp it's international standard so you are fine

you can get updates through their own app store AppGallery, but your paid apps
are paid through Google, so don't expect them in order store, tying your money
to Google ecosystem was bad idea in first place

~~~
qxcbr
>WhatsApp and signal work fine without GCM/FCM, dunno about other apps but
WhatsApp it's international standard so you are fine

Probably not after Android 8.

~~~
Markoff
they both work fine on pie

------
lukaa
This is reason why verticaly integrated monopolies are bad.That is reason i
use F—droid and everyone should support open source(completely open sourced
programs).

------
eitland
And suddenly Samsungs stubborn idea of including their own app store and their
own apps makes a lot more sense.

It has always annoyed me but I guess events like this proves why they've
chosen to do it.

------
bubblethink
This has a few interesting potential repercussions that nobody is talking
about. Since this is a lose-lose situation for both, here are a some possible
outcomes: a) Google moves enough play services code into AOSP to make AOSP
more functional than it is now. b) Webapps become more of a thing c) Play
services become "downloadable" when you visit google.com d) Play services
become standardised and/or federated

~~~
cududa
All of these scenarios assume Google actively wants to help Huawei succeed.

~~~
bubblethink
Well, it's as much about helping themselves. Huawei is a pretty large android
manufacturer globally. It's a tradeoff between play services moat v/s higher
adoption at reduced lock-in.

------
dharma1
Think this will have long reaching ramifications. Huawei is much closer to the
Chinese government than ZTE was - this won't go without repercussions.

A version of Android/replacement to Android that is used by most Chinese
phones but not in the hands of Google seems like the inevitable outcome.

We already know China can produce world class hardware - I wonder how they
will fare at operating systems.

It's not an easy task.

~~~
xiechao06
Huawei ex-employee here, all Chinese private companies with employees over 30
must have a CCP committee, actually, Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, .etc. are fully
controlled by CCP.

------
fffrantz
If this also revokes the GMS agreements, it will have a much larger impact
than the updates part. A whole lot of things on Android are dependant on the
GMS, such as push notifications for certain apps, cloud storage of user data,
and a lot more. Let's see where the it all ends up, but this may turn to be an
enormous crippling move for Android on Huawei/Honor devices.

~~~
Markoff
considering Huawei, xiaomi, BBK, lenorola control majority of market
everywhere outside US one would say it's quite opposite, they just need to
convince Samsung to join them and Google with their Google play services it's
past and they can keep their small market with their pixel phones thinking
about their importance and that devs charging 30% it's moral

~~~
oblio
Samsung is extremely unlikely to join with the Chinese brands strangling them
right now.

And it would be way worse with Huawei/Xiaomi & co. for devs, considering how
those companies update the software on their phones...

------
fabianhjr
The US doing some market manipulation again; good thing they want to stop
companies and countries from spying on people. /s

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/PRISM_(surveillance_program)](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/PRISM_\(surveillance_program\))

~~~
kpU8efre7r
Are you against warrants?

~~~
fabianhjr
I am against warrantless searches and seizures. (Which PRISM and other
3-letter agencies' programs are notorious of doing)

~~~
kpU8efre7r
PRISM use requires a warrant.

~~~
fabianhjr
From the wikipedia article:

> U.S. government officials have disputed some aspects of the Guardian and
> Washington Post stories and have defended the program by asserting it cannot
> be used >>>on domestic targets<<< without a warrant

I feel way better now, only US citizens get the benefit of warrants and the
rest of the world will still get spied on as much as possible. (I am not a US
citizen)

------
theossuary
I don't know anything about the supply chain for data center hardware, but it
seems more likely that China would intercept shipments of say Cisco and
Juniper gear and modify them (something the NSA has done) instead of building
hardware with a backdoor in it?

When you buy a Cisco router do they provide a "chain of custody" proving it
didn't come from or go through hostile countries? I understand these routers
have a Secure Boot feature, but I can't imagine that'd defend against physical
modifications.

If security was actually the goal, shouldn't we have a process to verify any
piece of hardware; instead of just completely trusting some companies and not
others?

This just feels like security theater, but I kind of get it. If the US is
fighting China economically, this move makes a lot of sense.

~~~
no1youknowz
> but it seems more likely that China would intercept shipments of say Cisco

Not sure if you have been paying attention to the stock market. Many of the
companies which are up are ones who have eliminated their ties with China [0].
Cisco is one such company whose stock rose recently [1] as a result of moving
from China [2].

[0]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-vck6ebnE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m-vck6ebnE)

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_uohGLOiK0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_uohGLOiK0)

[2]:
[https://www.ft.com/content/312f7b52-7765-11e9-be7d-6d846537a...](https://www.ft.com/content/312f7b52-7765-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab)

------
kerng
There should be a wide list of companies to whom this applies now. Is there a
more comprehensive enumeration besides just listing Google?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
It's every company in USA, isn't it?

~~~
kerng
Not every US company already makes business with Huawei - so in that case they
wouldn't have to stop selling/buying things, because they never started. E.g.
is Microsoft, Apple or Amazon impacted?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
The parents said:

>"There should be a wide list of companies to whom this applies now." //

I assumed the "this" was "the USA's trade blacklist". The blacklist applies to
all companies AFAICT, though you are right it will probably only affect a
small proportion.

Though any USA based company may have bought a Huawei phone, router, or
similar, and presumably will not be allowed by law to do so henceforth?

Not sure how things like peering with a company that uses Huawei kit, or
something, would work. How deep does it go? Can you buy phone service in
countries where the phone supplier has Huawei base stations?

------
jasoneckert
This is essentially another twist in the US/China tech war that is currently
going on. I don't feel I have enough knowledge to speculate on its effects,
but all war is bad.

~~~
mhkool
well, until today Google had a large stable market share with Android. Trump
initiated the end of that. Android will have a lower share and the market is
not stable any more. And everybody outside the US will think twice before
buying _any_ product where the US government can destroy its service.

------
gonvaled
The mere fact that this is possible, highlights the risk that international
trade has become, specially regarding technology.

Any country holding a considerable share of the technology market should be
considered a single point of failure, and diversification should take place.

The US is currently the 100-pound technology gorilla, and they are highly
politicized. Very unreliable, and using its position to force its will into
all kind of matters. No country should rely on the US as a single provider, to
avoid being target of blackmail. It is actually surprising that we have
reached the current status quo without realizing about these simple facts.

Re-decentralization of the Internet (and technology in general) is long
overdue.

The same applies to other "industries". A frightening one is nuclear missiles.
We are so used to the US (and the Russians) having thousands of nuclear heads
that we do not care anymore. And simply because it has worked out in the past,
we assume that the worse can be avoided indefinitely.

Nothing is further from the truth: the current situation guarantees that there
_will be_ a nuclear war. It is not a question of _if_ , but _when_. We are a
crazy president away from starting it (or maybe we have already hit the
jackpot).

------
kyboren
I assume Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor Graphics, Xilinx, Intel PSG, Microsemi,
Lattice, and Qualcomm are also affected by the Huawei blacklist.

Can Huawei survive without these critical components and EDA tools? If Huawei
ignores the loss of licenses and uses existing software and libraries to
develop future products, will those be banned from US and EU markets?

~~~
maimeowmeow
Do they even respect licenses to being with?

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
I doubt shipping phones with easily identifiable pirated Qualcomm IP to
western countries is going to work well.

~~~
sanxiyn
As I understand, Huawei doesn't use Qualcomm IP anyway. They have their own
LTE modem.

------
matiasb
In my country, Paraguay, the government just signed a contract with Huawei for
a fiber optic connectivity project.

------
chvid
I always wondered what would it take for a company to develop an alternative
mobile operating system?

To me the combination of Android and iOS always was the perfect mold around
the business of high-end mobile phones.

Android is given away for free; but to make a truly great end user experience
hardware and software needs to be integrated. Like it is for iOS. But that
requires an enourmous investment; and there is no "natural" piecemeal way to
grow there as your business always would be competing with peers that use the
"free" platform.

But this gives Huawei, a massive and capable engineering company, no choice
but to build an alternative.

This is an extreme situation; but hopefully there will come some true
innovation out of it.

~~~
stoppergoo
At this point I speculate a lot are on iOS to avoid android, and vice versa.
Any offering that hwei makes will surely not move the needle from either camp,
but it’s good to see some new competition

~~~
chvid
If this escalation is continued; Apple will likely loose access to the Chinese
market creating a huge open space for a high-end mobile phone offering.

------
AsyncAwait
This was expected. Huawei now presents a serious competition to the likes of
Apple, so the 'free market' in the U.S. responds by...shutting down the
competition.

Now I know the counterargument is about Chinese protectionism, but it is the
U.S. who has always championed free market capitalism and led interventions in
order to forcibly open other markets to its exports.

As this shows however, this belief in the free market is anything but
principled.

~~~
ubercow13
It seems like the exact opposite is true. China in some sense doesn't abide by
free market or free trade principles, and this can be seen as a principled
stand against that.

~~~
AsyncAwait
Except China has not locked U.S. smartphone makers like Apple anywhere near to
the degree that the U.S. is targeting Huawei.

Also, China does not necessarily claim to be as free-market as the U.S. does
and as far as I am aware, has not let interventionist wars in order to open up
a foreign market to its companies.

What I am talking here is principle. The U.S. claims to have free speech for
example, China does not. But in that instance the U.S. sticks by its
principles and maintains its free speech protections, despite China not having
them.

Why is this different when it comes to the free market? A concept the U.S. has
in recent history definitely fought harder worldwide than the pursuit of free
speech.

------
Markoff
time to fully embrace their own AppGallery app store, in the end Google can be
shooting their own leg, users won't care what app store they use when they
find there what are they looking for and play store is shitshow for years
ignoring UX missing basic search filters or sorting

GMS is bigger issue though WhatsApp or signal work both fine without gapps,
not sure about other messengers I don't use and in general it's hard to find
app which has really problems without gapps other than ridesharing apps with
last devs relying on gmaps

------
rl3
I'd love to see a forensic level reverse engineering/technical audit of the
Nexus 6P hardware.

In reality Chinese intelligence likely wasn't stupid enough to try anything
there, but I often wonder how many eyes Google had on hardware security for
that project considering it was Huawei making their flagship phone at the
time.

I also wonder if there were any NSA efforts to tear the thing apart, since
they are likely better qualified and have more experience in that realm.

~~~
StavrosK
Why is China so likely to bug the phone but the NSA isn't?

~~~
roca
Even if the NSA backdoors phones, you have to consider which government you
trust more. The US government isn't great but China's is far worse.

~~~
A2017U1
I'm far more likely to be a 5eyes whistleblower or activist than Chinese
whistleblower.

Assume most people commenting here are in the same boat.

Pretty clear cut.

~~~
StavrosK
Yeah, exactly. I've never been to China but I work in and visit the US
frequently. I'd take China any day.

------
duxup
Anyone know anything about this able to break this down a bit further?

This sounds like it all revolves around Android / Huawei getting booted from
the Open Handset Alliance maybe?

~~~
DannyBee
It's because they were literally blacklisted by the US government. As other
comments say, all companies in the US will do the same, it's not about Google,
as much as the article tries to make it about Google

~~~
duxup
I'm thinking more about about the specifics of what exactly is being limited
here and etc.

------
stunt
I’m amazed with some opinions on data privacy by reading some comments here.

We are now discussing US vs. China and who is better to own our data?!

That’s really sad to see how many gave up on privacy.

------
jokoon
I avoided those phones like the plague, guess it was a good choice.

I bet it has a lot to do with the whole huawei backdoor story.

To be honest outsourcing such sensitive consumer device to a police state has
not been a good idea for a long time.

I hope it will give good reasons to consider designing either open
smartphones, or minimalist os designs with c++ or webasm apps. If smartphones
get bloated, they won't be affordable anymore.

~~~
johannes1234321
Not sure that giving it to a prism+xkeyscore state is thaaat much better. And
yes legal protection in the US is a lot better than China, while I as European
have little power in either, but also hardly an alternative.

------
CalmStorm
This doesn't affect much of Huawei's Chinese market as Google is banned in
China anyway. However, this will have a huge impact on Huawei's overseas
market, and it is hard for Huawei to come up with a backup plan. At the end of
the day, Baidu (and other Google equivalent Chinese counterparts) has a
negligible presence outside China.

------
attila_ferencz
bad news for eu mobile market. i guess we have to buy iphones again? half the
features and double the price :(

------
knocte
Well, Android is opensource so they will be able to just run it, but without
that google crap such as gmail, maps, assistant, etc... Which sounds like a
good thing to me. I'll try to buy a new Huawei phone soon.

~~~
stefan_
Heh, there will be a rude awakening when they try AOSP or the open-source
Android.. "wait, it doesn't have a launcher?"

No, seriously, AOSP is very far from useful. That's before you consider that
to run Android on any sort of recent hardware, you need manufacturer support
from the chips you are using, which you can't get if you are barred from trade
with them.

~~~
mappu
Hasn't AOSP always had a launcher?
[https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Laun...](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Launcher3/)
is the current one.

------
neilv
If this sticks, is there yet a comprehensive analysis of all the implications?

------
tzfld
>Huawei will only be able to use the public version of Android and will not be
able to get access to proprietary apps and services from Google

Sometimes this isn't a bad thing at all.

------
ETHisso2017
Quick question - if someone buys a Huawei phone without Play Store and Gmail,
could they just download those things later? E.g. could it be done
aftermarket?

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
I believe they cannot, Google demands certification before allowing their apps
to be used. It's impossible to sideload google apps.

~~~
the_pwner224
Unless this google certification is stored in hardware, that's not the case.
You can flash Android phones with a custom bootloader, use that to flash AOSP
(open source core android)/LineageOS, and for most people doing that the next
step is to flash gapps on top of that.

Here's a popular gapps distribution:
[https://opengapps.org/#aboutsection](https://opengapps.org/#aboutsection)

Google's requirements mainly apply to OEMs bundling gapps into their stock
images.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
locked bootloader in huawei I think, even if they open it it's not really a
normal sideload and will be hard enough to not be a generally applicable
solution.

~~~
lucb1e
I've got root on my Huawei P10 lite since day one (would have returned the
phone if it were closed), not sure where you got the idea that unlocking the
bootloader is not possible.

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
That's just what I heard online, but maybe it's different between models.

------
kanishkdudeja
Wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese government retalitates by blocking all
iPhone sales in China.

------
mtw
Was Huawei explicitly named in the executive order? To my understanding, no,
so I don't get why the story focuses on Huawei. For example, Motorola, owned
by chinese company Lenovo, One Plus, Xiaomi or Oppo should not use Android
either.

Trump also named many other countries as threats to national security, such as
Canada, Germany, Mexico, and many others. There's no reason one day South
Korea enters the list and Samsung will also get blocked by executive order .

~~~
sanxiyn
Huawei is explicitly named in Federal Register 2019-10616. Lenovo, Xiaomi,
etc. is not.

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-
inspection.federalregister.g...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-
inspection.federalregister.gov/2019-10616.pdf)

------
cfarm
This will also affect Huawei in other countries in Emea if they can't access
Google play.

------
sofaofthedamned
How does this affect Huawei's base station business? They are massive in
Europe.

~~~
martinald
Also interested to know. AFIAK Huawei is being used for all UK 5G rollouts,
and there are already 1000s of masts up (though not commercially active yet)
for 5G. Plus I imagine they have a very big marketshare of LTE kit going in as
well.

Huawei is also the vast majority of cabinets for VDSL in the UK (the ECI
alternative which was deployed has been pulled as was really low quality
compared to the Huawei kit). My rough guess there is at least 20,000 DSLAMs on
nearly every streeet corner that are built by Huawei.

At least in the UK it is hard to see how the country can run without this kit,
and it would be an enormous undertaking to pull it out. I'm sure many other
European countries are the same as Huawei's kit is definitely technically the
best for this kind of stuff as far as my knowledge goes.

------
stunt
Google has a long history of F...all altitude. Not a surprise.

------
ChildOfChaos
There is an arguement for making sure a company controlled by an outside state
that cannot be trusted has nothing to do with providing important
infrastructure, in fact it makes sense that this is monitored and perhaps
somewhat produced by the local government to ensure maximum security.

However it’s something else entirely when a ruling given under that premise
effectively knocks out that companies other businesses. I have a feeling this
is more to do with Trump’s trade war than overall security.

Stopping Huawei getting android licenses effects it’s global business, it has
nothing to do with the security of the communication network in the US.

------
gonvaled
How is this going to work exactly?

The world supply chains are supposed to avoid Huawei in the coming months /
years, local politicians will be painfully explaining their citizens that
Huawei is a security risk (we will need to take their word for it, no evidence
is being provided) and once the US government (is this just Trump now, is the
US a dictatorship?) changes its mind, then the whole world is going to start
using Huawei again?

This is not going to fly.

------
Kwpolska
> Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will immediately lose access to updates to the
> Android operating system

Android security updates are part of AOSP [0]. The article explicitly mentions
that Huawei still has access to Google’s OSS stuff. And besides, they couldn’t
really block Huawei from accessing open-source stuff without making it closed-
source or otherwise heavily restricted.

[0]:
[https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2019-05-01](https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/2019-05-01)

------
partiallypro
You do know that China actively has concentration camps, right? They use data
and tech they've stolen to do it. You really think that's the same as Facebook
serving you ads? Give me a break.

~~~
dang
This comment crosses into nationalistic and political flamewar and that is not
ok here.

No (I sense I need to add), I'm not defending concentration camps, just
defending HN against burning itself to a crisp. If you want to participate on
HN, please contribute to thoughtful conversation. "Concentration camps [...]
give me a break" does not qualify.

Moreover, we've had to warn you about this exact thing before. Would you mind
reviewing
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and taking the spirit of this site more to heart? Our hope is not to be one
more place on the internet where people bring bags of clubs to bash each other
with.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19955289](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19955289)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
partiallypro
I don't see how pointing out a country has concentration camps (reported by
multiple outlets, like the NYTs) is "nationalistic," or against the spirit of
the site. In fact the story has been reported here...A LOT.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=china%20muslims&sort=byPopular...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=china%20muslims&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=china%20concentration&sort=byP...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=china%20concentration&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

I don't see anyone being "warned" about their -submissions- on this very
topic. Maybe I'm missing something, but it feels like this "policy" is not
evenly enforced. In fact a US political topic in regards to rights is
currently on the front page:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19959428](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19959428)

~~~
dang
I'm aware of how often the story has been submitted and also how often people
bring it up in comments, including where it breaks this site guideline to do
so:

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something
genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

The issue is that your comment was taking the thread further into flamewar.
That's not ok here. Is the policy evenly enforced? No, because we don't see
everything. That doesn't make it ok to break the rules though.

~~~
partiallypro
Still fail to see how this is an unrelated controversy or generic tangent,
when Huawei has been accused of aiding in human rights violations with the
Chinese government. That is very much on topic. If it were just China in
general, that would be a tangent...but this is about Huawei which was accused
of this by "Reporters without Borders" just last month, of assisting in
Chinese concentration camps imprisoning Muslims
[https://rsf.org/en/reports/rsf-report-chinas-pursuit-new-
wor...](https://rsf.org/en/reports/rsf-report-chinas-pursuit-new-world-media-
order).

The reason I say this is unevenly enforced is that people constantly point out
US companies aiding the NSA via PRISM from years back...but new reports of the
Chinese government doing the same thing, if not worse, are marked as
"nationalist" and "flamebait." Either both are, or neither are. It seems like
one comes under much more scrutiny than the other. Maybe that's something you
and the mod team need to figure out.

------
Creationer
At what point does China just develop its own mobile OS?

There seems value in just taking the reigns, and making whatever you create
open-source, so that ZTE and all the other Chinese manufacturers can use it as
well.

Its certainly a major blow to the value of Huawei phones.

~~~
jorblumesea
Even if they develop a mobile OS, will it be the quality and usefulness of
Google services? Android is just linux + google services. Without those, it's
hard to make the sell to western audiences, at least.

Google Maps is a masterpiece of engineering and it's hard to imagine that
Huawei will be able to compete, near term. If I'm reading the situation right,
this might mean the end of Huawei in the western phone market unless something
changes.

~~~
pascoej
You can’t really use Google Maps in China. Even over VPN it’s outdated and
often displays the wrong location due to the GPS scrambling that the
government enforces on maps.

Baidu Maps is very good though, I would even say on par with Google Maps and
better in some areas. It does however have more obvious ads which is annoying.

~~~
jorblumesea
Huawei's market is international as well as domestic. Western users are used
to Google services. So while they can work around the issue for Chinese users,
they basically lose the western market. Who wants Android without the spectrum
Google-like services?

Which is a huge deal for Huawei, imo.

------
wswkb
>the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to
blacklist around the world

Around the world?

~~~
nisa
In Germany it was in the news that US hinted that if we wouldn't participate
in banning Huawei we are excluded from further sharing of intelligence and
stuff like this. For 5G and T-Mobile i.e. Deutsche Telekom AG they basically
said: Dare to buy Huawai and you gonna have a bad time.

It's these liberal and western high ethics at work here...

~~~
rasz
Like building Putin gas pipeline behind EUs back?

~~~
gonvaled
Behing the EU's back? The project is public since years. The former German
chancellor is publicly involved in it.

The project is very much European: lots of countries involved.

Why can't the EU buy gas from wherever we want?

Who is the the US to tell us where to buy our gas from?

~~~
rasz
Project is so European it goes against interests of 1/3 EU: Czech Republic,
Hungary, Poland, the Slovak Republic, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and
Croatia. Its not "EU buy gas from wherever we want", Its Germany making deals
with Russia once again, remember Ribbentrop/Molotov? Russia is already hard at
work making you forget [https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-after-
russian-pr...](https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium-after-russian-
pressure-ap-issues-correction-on-nazi-soviet-alliance-1.6468895), buying gas
from Russia while bypassing other EU member states.

~~~
nisa
It's still in the public and debated - even if controversial - quite a
difference to blackmail behind closed-doors...

~~~
rasz
Its neither debated nor in public. It was negotiated in secret and being build
as we speak while company behind it prepares to sue EU.

------
robertAngst
Instead of letting companies do international business, the government creates
an artificial war.

It only takes the Republican Party winning 1 election to destroy economic
freedom.

My political thoughts are going to change drastically if we can resew economic
conditions with China after Trump leaves office.

~~~
ralph84
Lol, yes the economic conditions with China previous to the current
administration were oh so free. Unless you were Google or Facebook and wanted
to run a website in China. Or you were a manufacturer and wanted to
manufacture in China without transferring all of your IP to a state-owned JV
partner.

------
product50
This is likely going to hurt Huawei a lot more than Google. Losing access to
latest Android versions or Google apps will make it more difficult for their
phones to gain adoption globally.

~~~
stefano
It's pushing chinese firms to create an Android competitor. In the long term,
this might hurt Google a lot.

------
angel_j
All I know about Huawei is that they produced what seemed like at least half
of welfware phones—the kind available to anybody on most any kind of welfare,
including EBT—and these phones were utter garbage. Reasonably, one could say
they had ripped off the government, these phones were such crap. Screen a .5mm
pane of brittle glass that a tap could break. Barely ran android, laden with
crapware, basically needed to be plugged into a power source at all times.
Some you couldn't get the SIM card out, like to put in your late model Samsung
Galaxy. Pure garbage, yet the welfare service the phones are supposed to
support is extremely valuable to a lot of people.

~~~
scarface74
And this is different than almost all of the sub $100 phones sold through
companies like MetroPCS?

~~~
angel_j
Your Tax Dollars At Work different.

