
Huawei’s Ace in the Hole: Undersea Cables - mlacks
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Undersea-cables-Huawei-s-ace-in-the-hole
======
X-Istence
> Specifically, on top of Japan, the U.S. and Australia, cables connected to
> NATO members should be off-limits to Huawei.

I don't understand this at all... if the communications across the cable are
properly secured then it shouldn't matter what cables it runs across.

~~~
kop316
The issue is probably availability. Assuming Huawei to be an adversary, if
they have control of communications, they can decide to drop all packets (or
slow or drop some, etc.). This would wreck plenty of havoc on communications.

~~~
mullingitover
> The issue is probably availability

I imagine every undersea cable would be cut in the first week of a US-China
conflict, regardless of who built it.

~~~
rusk
Well that's all good for the cables connecting USA and China but what about
cables elsewhere? I guess in such a situation you wouldn't want you opponent
to have control of critical infrastructure.

~~~
bilbo0s
Um...

I don't think you're thinking like a military person.

I mean, if it's total war? Well, sorry, but it's total war.

I wouldn't count on too many undersea cables not being cut.

~~~
amelius
I hope that countries have the protocols in place for prioritized satellite
communication.

~~~
mullingitover
Telecom satellites would be getting shot down in the first week, too.

~~~
bigiain
Elon's new constellation must be making for some fun plannig for those people.
60 new targets now, several hundred more new targets real soon now. I wonder
if SpaceX and Blue Origin are launching payloads they're designed to shoot
down their own payloads?

~~~
v-yadli
I assume sending up a comsat is more expensive than sending up explosive to
destroy it.

~~~
bigiain
Possibly. It's not like the military-industrial complex is known for it's
cost-effective solutions though...

Given the manoeuvring requirements for the orbiting explosives, and the
requirement to launch them with enough plausible deniability for it not to be
obvious "there's a bunch of commercial satellite killers!" \- I wonder if they
could build and launch 60 of them for less than SpaceX paid to get the first
60 Starlink birds in orbit?

~~~
v-yadli
Actually I guess... it is sufficient to send up mines (lots of them) and wait
for the satellites to hit them.

Nevertheless, this is such a terrible idea, I hope this is not the future.

~~~
bigiain
Space (even low earth orbit) is BIG.

Very very big...

~~~
v-yadli
Yeah, but the satellites are not too maneuverable. The trajectory is mostly
mechanical.

------
zengid
> _Huawei put the industry on notice late last year, when it completed a cable
> between South America and Africa._

Somewhat tangential, but not I'm curious about how undersea cables deal with
the tectonic plate movements and any volcanic activity on the plate boundary.
Then I found this interesting article:
[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/seafloor-cables-
carr...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/seafloor-cables-carry-world-
s-internet-traffic-can-also-detect-earthquakes)

~~~
ceph_
Undersea cables are laid with a significant amount of slack. It's needed for a
cable repair ship to be able to haul up the cable from the ocean floor and
perform repairs mid-span.

~~~
packet_nerd
Looking at the cable map [1] makes me wonder, what do they do when cables are
crisscrossed over and under each other?

[1] [https://www.submarinecablemap.com/](https://www.submarinecablemap.com/)

~~~
yyhhsj0521
If a cable is picked up with another cable on it, the latter one just slides
to the side?

------
PappaPatat
China Telecom’s Ace in the Hole: BGP Hijacking

"China Telecom (CT) entered North American networks at the beginning of the
2000s, and has since grown to have 10 PoPs, eight in the US and two in Canada,
spanning both coasts and all the major exchange points in the US. Few other
non-American ISPs has such a wide-spread presence on US soil."

"Using these numerous PoPs, CT has already relatively seamlessly hijacked
domestic US and crossUS traffic and redirected it to China over days, weeks,
and months as demonstrated in the examples below. The patterns of traffic
revealed in traceroute research7 suggest repetitive IP hijack attacks
committed by China Telecom. While one may argue such attacks can always be
explained by ‘normal’ BGP behavior, these in particular suggest malicious
intent, precisely because of their unusual transit characteristics – namely
the lengthened routes and the abnormal durations."

:s/CT/Huawei/

Source:
[https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...](https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=mca)

------
9nGQluzmnq3M
The US may be able to strong-arm some close allies into shutting out Huawei,
but it will not be able to do so globally. Huawei beaome the world's largest
telco manufacturer with low prices (their market share is ~32%, twice that of
#2 Nokia [despite absorbing Siemens, Lucent, Alcatel etc!]), but these days
their technology is better than the incumbents as well:

[https://phys.org/news/2019-02-european-telecoms-dilemma-
huaw...](https://phys.org/news/2019-02-european-telecoms-dilemma-huawei-
highway.html)

~~~
soup10
This whole thing is about ease of spyware access by intel agencies, fuck em
both.

------
jiveturkey
I don't understand the comments here. TFA article says nothing about data
capability, just that Huawei is in the business of running physical cable. TFA
doesn't even state whether L1 repeaters are Huawei's equipment (part and
parcel with the cable) or someone else's (Huawei just being physical
installer).

This article is completely worthless.

~~~
YjSe2GMQ
Poorly done PR.

Breaking News: The Suit is Back!
[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

------
timwaagh
why are people so afraid of huawei? they are just a telco. they provide
infrastructure. sure they can snoop on unencrypted traffic, but thats not
their core business. so who cares if the 5g is american, russian or north-
korean. if i were the us, i'd be afraid of 1. google and 2. facebook. their
business is actually spying and selling that information. these know more
about americans than any other company. they see data that is actually
sensitive and encrypted. just because they are american companies, does not
mean they will not leak to foreign intelligence entities. heck those are very
likely on their client list already.

~~~
elorant
Because they allegedly have strong ties to the Chinese government. So
theoretically they could build backdoors to critical infrastructure used by
ISPs and other network providers.

As for you main argument, we can worry both for Huaewei and Google/FB. It's
not either or the other(s).

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
I don't think it is "strong ties to the Chinese government" as much as it is
"literally the Chinese government." If you can imagine how uncomfortable other
nations should be having the Chinese government running their next gen 5g
telecom infrastructure everything makes a lot more sense. It's not just the
USA that is refusing to use Huawei. Japan etc. have said hell no.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/20/cia-
offer...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/20/cia-offers-proof-
huawei-has-been-funded-by-chinas-military-and-intelligence/)

[https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-
founders/article/...](https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-leaders-and-
founders/article/2177194/japan-decides-exclude-huawei-zte-government)

~~~
anonymouslambda
So where is the actual evidence? Why won't the CIA present it publicly? Or
should we just believe the CIA that it has this "evidence"?

~~~
merpnderp
There might not be any evidence. It might simply be the possibility of an
update with backdoors/military payloads that gets pushed worldwide moments
before a shooting war begins, or as a way to paralyze the world when
negotiations become heated.

------
karmakaze
It seems I should be reading between these lines.

> The reality is, even if the U.S. succeeds in shutting out Huawei from 5G
> networks in major countries, the Chinese company could still thwart American
> efforts to maintain leadership in handling global data traffic.

> Security policymakers in the U.S., Japan and Australia have started working
> together to address this potential threat.

How is not maintaining leadership a threat? I would say it's a loss of market
share and control to do as you please with the infrastructure. It's a threat
in the same sense as citizens having encryption.

~~~
asdff
Because the Chinese government is dangerous and actively building a
surveillance state and running a little genocide experiment at the same time?

~~~
mantap
And the US doesn't engage in mass surveillance or war? I'm all for sanctioning
countries that don't respect human rights but if the US is really suggesting
that then they should be careful what they wish for.

------
djsumdog
> Japan and Australia have essentially closed ranks with the U.S., and the
> Donald Trump administration is pressuring Britain, Germany and France to do
> the same -- reportedly going so far as to threaten to withhold important
> security information if they refuse.

Australia cut off Huawei first way back in 2012/2013 when they locked the
company out of Australia's 5G network.

I'm no fan of Trump but I don't see how it's relevant to bring his name into
this. This would have mostly likely been US policy under a democrat
administration as well. Who wants to bet in 10 years we'll find leaked
documents showing Apple and Samsung US lobbied the commerce department for
this? Who wants to bet Intel, Microsoft and Google are about to sue because
they're about to lose a few hundred million a peace?

I'm curious if we'll see a Federal Court case on this within the next three
months.

~~~
chrischen
Apple’s recent revenue cuts are from China. I don’t think it’s in their
interest to jeopardy that. They also need China for cheap assembly labor.

------
thepangolino
Given the billions western nations sink into “cyber security” you’d think
those governments would have done something to make sure all civilian
communications are properly encrypted. Instead we’ve got Parliaments writing
dumb laws regulating cookie policies.

~~~
simias
Those two things are orthogonal. Pervasive online tracking wouldn't be fixed
by implementing "proper encryption". Google will still track you, HTTPS or
not.

Besides something tells me that the same people who oppose things like the
GDPR wouldn't exactly applaud if governments decided to pass a law to make TLS
mandatory for instance. I'm sure if that were to happen we'd soon hit semantic
satiation for the phrase "regulatory capture" in this very forum.

So what exactly do you propose governments should do to solve this particular
problem?

~~~
scarejunba
I think you'd be wrong. Most ad tech companies use TLS and would be happy to
comply. The cost of compliance is low. The gains are pretty big.

~~~
drewmol
To second this, it's my understanding that Google for instance is a proponent
of transport security as it helps prevent middle men (ISP's, etc.) from
stripping and replacing ads in transport.

------
dillonmckay
Are there any good links about ‘landing stations’?

~~~
programd
Tangentially related is this classic long form piece by Neal Stephenson from a
1996 editon of Wired "chronicling the laying of the longest wire on Earth". A
great bit of recent transoceanic cable history.

[https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/)

~~~
wrycoder
And this piece served as his source research for the fiberoptic cable network
portion of the plotline in Stephenson’s novel, Cryptonomicon.

------
freeflight
Meanwhile, FiveEye countries have been intercepting data through these cables,
all over the world, for only God knows how long [0] [1].

Which is a common theme for this anti-China/Huawei push: Just accuse them of
everything we are already guilty of. Anybody pointing out the hypocrisy can
just be shut-up with a good dose of "whataboutism!".

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-
secre...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/jun/21/gchq-cables-secret-world-
communications-nsa)

[1] [https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/economy/telstra-s-
de...](https://www.smartcompany.com.au/finance/economy/telstra-s-deal-with-
the-devil-fbi-access-to-its-undersea-cables/)

~~~
shawnz
> Anybody pointing out the hypocrisy can just be shut-up with a good dose of
> "whataboutism!".

And that would be a completely appropriate response if someone were to imply
that the US' actions somehow justify China's actions. Or vice versa.

~~~
Barrin92
well if you're neither American or Chinese which is true for most people on
the planet and you have to weigh which supplier of infrastructure you choose
then you do indeed need to weigh who is the worse actor. That's not
justification, it's just an evaluation.

~~~
shawnz
Sure, but what you are describing is much different than "pointing out the
hypocrisy"

~~~
freeflight
Not really, because as a German I've been directly affected by said hypocrisy
and even when it came to light [0], quite spectacularly too, nothing changed.

That's why I consider this current push of "China spying on everybody" quite
cynical as it tries to sell a narrative where FiveEyes spying is the
benevolent BigBrother only trying to protect us, but Chinese spying is evil
incarnate.

At this point, Germany might as well just go full-on post-privacy and just
share all data about everybody with everybody, instead of playing these
pretend games of "We care about privacy, except when it's in the way of US
national security interests", which is an extremely weird stance to have for
any country that's not the US.

[0]
[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/20140...](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201403/20140307ATT80674/20140307ATT80674EN.pdf)

------
ineedasername
Maybe this will result in net growth of global telecom infrastructure. After
all, we can't allow there to be an underwater cable gap!

------
13of40
"Virtually all of the world's data transmissions go through cables on the
bottom of the oceans."

I'd be mildly surprised if me posting this comment went through a cable at the
bottom of the ocean, but who knows?

------
mikorym
Somewhat related: How difficult is it to access the "uncensored" internet for
Chinese nationals (in China)?

I can guess, but I'm sure other users know better.

~~~
hangonhn
Last time I was there it wasn't too hard. But it depends on if the Chinese
government is blocking your VPN or not. I usually connected to Seoul or Hong
Kong.

~~~
glhaynes
Are people there worried about being prosecuted (maybe severely) if they're
caught bypassing the censorship?

~~~
hangonhn
At the time no. But things have really changed. That said, my family lived
through the Mao era and the Cultural Revolution, etc. Terrible things can
happen but the rule of thumb for China, in my opinion, is that China (and
probably any other authoritarian country) does not tolerate another nexus of
power. Reading censor material is not so bad. Disseminating it will get you in
trouble. Trying to speak out against the government and disseminate that
opinion will get you disappeared. For example, Catholicism was banned in China
for a long time until the Pope made a deal that gave the government a voice in
the appointment of bishops. What made Catholicism problematic is that there is
another authority figure in Rome. Buddhism, in the form commonly practiced in
China, has no such figure which is why it was tolerated and sometimes even
promoted (with a very nationalist slant). Tibetan Buddhism, on the other hand,
has an authority figure not controlled by China. You get the idea...

~~~
mikorym
It seems like it is a simple concept that you are getting at. Authoritarians
want te prevent other seats of power. It makes me wonder about what the
growing Chinese middle class _wants_.

EDIT: But back to the question. I think the answers make sense. It's easy to
bypass if you are savvy (as we know already) but if you challenge govt they
would take offense. I guess the grey area would be anonomous critique, but I
digress; thanks for the response.

~~~
hangonhn
So your point about anonymous critique is somewhat true. It's actually a
little more sophisticated than that. Critiques often come in the form of
historical parallels. For example, rather than critiquing Xi for having a
bunch of "yes" men, some high up official in the party lauded the achievements
of Tang Taizong -- the second emperor of the Tang dynasty. He's generally
considered an exemplary ruler but the other trait known about him is that he
was open minded and sought out people who disagreed with him. China became
very cosmopolitan under him and the silk road connected China to far away
places (it's the inspiration for Xi's Belt and Road Initiative)

So in praising Tang Taizong, the official was critiquing Xi's inability to
deal with differing opinions.

This isn't a new thing, BTW. Chinese scholar-officials have been doing this
for ages. China has historically been a very authoritarian country and the
same ideas applied then (kind of). This is one reason why historical Chinese
officials were (ironically enough) criticized by the Communists for being
backwards looking. Straight forward critique wasn't allowed during the
imperial eras so they always had to find historical parallels to vail their
critiques and advices.

~~~
mikorym
Interesting! And quite ingenious to hide critique in praise.

------
maxdo
Here comes Spacex Starlink + bezos copycat company with better then cable
latency :)

~~~
gnode
They're unlikely to be competitive on capacity though. I expect, in most
cases, these satellites would relay you to a ground-based base station with as
few satellite hops as possible.

~~~
maxdo
With every launch, SpaceX will add about a terabit of “usable capacity,” Musk
said, and two to three terabits overall. You probably right. But all those
satellites that are above the ocean at the moment they can be used to transmit
data over sea's or between small islands. In this way it will compete with
optics. Think of countries like Indonesia.

~~~
jauer
Two to three Tbps aggregate won't change much except maybe for islands that
are currently dependent on VSAT.

