
China drops leading technology brands for state purchases - peeyek
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/us-china-tech-exclusive-idUSKBN0LT1B020150225
======
contingencies
OK, I've lived in the US but now live in China, where I once lived right down
the road from a Huawei office. Recently, I was visiting my birthplace of
Australia and met a friend who now manages IP networks for (one of?) the
largest mobile data providers in the country. He said they were about to buy
Huawei gear as it was cheaper and as featuresome as they required. Then the
government came to visit. They said, you're welcome to buy it but there's no
guarantee your licenses will be renewed. Of course, they didn't buy it.

There's a lot of this government and intelligence pressure on infrastructure
providers going on. The general public is not informed. The situation appears
to be global.

 _Our secret intelligence culture and process is antithetical to democracy,
and enabling of plutocracy, neo-fascism, and the total corruption of our
government._ \- Robert David Steele, ex-Marine, ex-CIA, Open Source
Intelligence Expert, 'The Open-source Everything Manifesto'

A lot of the US capacity to break in to networks seems to come from just being
aggressive paying individual hackers to sell them exploits out of public view.
Some of these people have said to me 'I know it's unethical, but it's what I
enjoy and I'm good at - the only other market is organized crime'. It's a
constant digital arms race where the public loses. Hopefully the governments
of the world will realize the futility here and begin to redirect resources
toward open source systems.

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UnclePeepingSam
"China drops leading NSA partners for state purchases" might be a better title

~~~
Sven7
And they have done well for themselves with protectionism. They have their own
versions of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Ebay...why not their own Cisco and
Intel next. Wealth wont just keep accumulating in silicon valley. Not a bad
thing.

~~~
adventured
They already have their own Cisco: Huawei

Cisco went a few rounds with them in the past, accusing and suing Huawei for
essentially reverse engineering their products.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/29/cisco_huawei_case_en...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/07/29/cisco_huawei_case_ends/)

~~~
invaliddata
Not just reverse engineering, but using an outright copy of the source code. I
have worked at multiple huawei competitors (and even some non direct
competitors) where some engineers joined and suddenly disappeared after it was
discovered that they were still on the huawei payroll.

~~~
petermcd
When I lived in Beijing several years ago, I interviewed a guy for a software
development position. He worked for a network equipment provider (not Huawei).
When I asked him about his work, he told me that his company based their
router software on the same leaked version of Cisco's router OS that Huawei
had used several years prior (IIRC, there was a court case over this, and
Huaiwei switched to their own software).

Based on my experience, the Chinese now have the breadth, depth, confidence,
and money to develop complex software on their own, so I expect to see less of
this in the future.

As per this article, the Chinese can make a fair point to the US government
that so long as Huawei is barred from the US, then there's nothing to discuss
about telecom infrastructure equipment.

But I hope and wish the US and other Western governments will press for more
media openness in China with the goal of ultimately getting China to tear down
their system of censorship and the Great Firewall. Because, ultimately, I
believe it hurts modern China more than it helps.

------
acd
I do understand their security concerns though having read part of what the
media reports of Edward Snowdens revelations.

I think some things China are doing some things that is worth a WTO
investigation. For example that you cannot put up IT with media services in
China without a local partner and a license from the Chinese state. Then
surprise the local China partner may end up copying your services intellectual
property. However Chinese companies are free to put up business in the West
without local partners. That is unfair competition!

~~~
LLWM
That's a superior bargaining position. Any other government could require the
same things China does, but they don't, because companies aren't as desperate
to do business there. The principle is no different from any other tariff,
it's just paid in intellectual property rather than cash.

------
smoyer
It could be that the Chinese government has legitimate security concerns - or
it could be a convenient excuse to exercise some protectionism using an
illegitimate excuse.

Either way, pressure on US companies to not blindly fall in step behind the US
government is a good thing.

~~~
higherpurpose
Even if it's the second, it's still a failure of the US government because of
NSA's overreach, which has given the Chinese or Russian governments the excuse
to do this.

It's basically the same argument civil liberties activists have for when a
"freedom" country like US starts torturing people or censoring information.
Doing that gives other much worse states the excuse to do it freely as well.
If US then comes out and says "hey, you're such an awful government for
torturing your people and whatnot", they will respond: "oh yeah? Right back at
ya, buddy! Now will you get off your high horse?!"

[http://www.ibtimes.com/china-us-senate-torture-report-
americ...](http://www.ibtimes.com/china-us-senate-torture-report-america-
needs-clean-its-own-human-rights-issues-1745339)

That said, NSA spying is very much a national security issue. Why would you
allow other countries to spy on you, hack you, and steal your secrets? I think
it's natural to want to take any actions you can against that. It's actually
_disappointing_ that only "rival" countries such as China and Russia are
taking measures against it. All the European countries should be doing it as
well, especially since US doesn't seem to make any difference between China or
say Germany.

~~~
smoyer
I'm not arguing with you (my second paragraph says as much).

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alfiedotwtf
Get used to it. Watch Germany do the same in the future too.

~~~
NigerianPrince_
Unlike China, Germany is under the thumb of the U.S. Their state prosecutor
won't even start an investigation into the tapping of Merkel's phone because
'there isn't sufficient evidence'. Never mind that the U.S. gov't admitted to
it.

I don't think Germany or any other E.U. countries will follow.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Germany is not "under the thumb" of the U.S as much as you seem to think. Just
look at Ukraine or all the anti Google action that reeks of protectionism.
There are simply too many rational arguments against starting a trade war over
NSA rigged electronics.

Neither Germany nor Europe as a whole makes enough electronics equipment to
replace everything that may have been rigged by the NSA or other nations' spy
agencies. The NSA does not restrict itself to equipment clearly marked as
"made in USA" either.

We cannot solve this problem by rolling back globalisation and division of
labor, aiming for national self-sufficiency.

~~~
madez
European electronics and surrounding technology could very well ease the
problem.

That does not imply rolling back globalisation or division of labor nor is it
aiming at national self-sufficiency, it's about competition and having
choices.

It's virtually impossible to evade US-american or chinese products if you want
to buy a modern electronic consumer device. That is what should change in my
opinion.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
And why are you assuming that European spy agencies are less inclined to spy?
The Bundestrojaner made it pretty obvious that German authorities have no
qualms about it and the UK ... well, I guess I don't have to elaborate on the
UK. What makes the US special is its global reach, not its particularly evil
intentions.

The choice that I would like to have is a radically more transparent,
pluralistic design, development and production process. We need many eyes from
all kinds of different people on every single piece of hardware and software.
We won't get that by having one government take action against another one.
This needs to be a global initiative.

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tormeh
No Windows. How cool wouldn't it be if there was a single place on earth where
they didn't have a monopoly on OSes for generic x86?

~~~
higherpurpose
It's the reason why Microsoft has always turned a blind eye to the extreme
Windows piracy in China. If the Chinese _couldn 't_ pirate it (somehow), then
Windows would have a much smaller market share, perhaps of 50 or 60 percent.
And Linux would have a thriving ecosystem of programs. The lack of that is why
Windows has such a strong lock-in now.

~~~
TorKlingberg
I would think it is also that Microsoft cannot do much much about it. The
pirated versions of Windows XP are already out there. They could have tried to
block updates, but that just means more unpatched Windows machines and bigger
botnets.

Macs are not an option, and I really doubt 40-50% of Chinese users would start
using Linux.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Macs are an option and are increasingly popular...not just by high end
consumers but also in SOEs. Linux has done well enough via android and lenovo
is making big bets beyond mobile devices with it.

~~~
TorKlingberg
I am not saying the nobody in China buys Macs, but it is probably not the same
people who would otherwise run pirated Windows.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
7 years ago I would have agreed with that. Today I'm not sure.

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kryptiskt
Good, if they can't get any orders from the Chinese government, they have less
reason to dance to China's pipe.

~~~
tomp
Good, if they loose money because of US Government, they have more reason to
oppose it.

~~~
CalRobert
Lose, but those are both good things.

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MollyR
This is really interesting not just from the security angle. I read
[http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-
Capitali...](http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-
Capitalism/dp/1596915986) this book recently. It talks about how South Korea
became an technological powerhouse so quickly compared to their neighbors.
China could be using the security fears, and protectionism to create their own
version of silicon valley. It wouldn't really surprise me, as some US cities
like Boston are trying to create their own silicon valley styled area's
[http://www.technologyreview.com/view/516586/crowding-into-
bi...](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/516586/crowding-into-biotechs-
densest-supercluster/).

~~~
cafard
Boston has always had plenty of technology companies. Back in the days of
minicomputers, three of the big players, Digital Equipment Corporation, Data
General, and Prime were based outside of Boston.

~~~
MollyR
Oh cool. I've read articles fairly recently that seems to pitch Boston as the
Silicon Valley of the East Coast or trying to compete with Silicon Valley for
startups/talent. Do you have thoughts about that, I'd like to hear them.

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invaliddata
Not just China, but most of the world should have reservations about buying us
products after recent revelations, but China has long had both covert and
overt measures to disadvantage foreign competitors in all industries. These
brands already had big hurdles due to the highly protectionist atmosphere in
China, I do not think this change will be of any real significance.

------
SlipperySlope
I would be great if an independent lab would certify equipment and software as
spyware free.

And it would be great if one could buy insurance to that effect on equipment
and software.

The NSA has done great economic damage to US exports of software and IT
equipment. I suppose that US government oversight of the NSA takes that into
account.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
> I would be great if an independent lab would certify equipment and software
> as spyware free.

That's just not possible. Devices are way too complex nowadays. Too much can
be hidden.

A product will have multiple ASICs, SOCs, etc. Those in themselves are too
complex for any single individual to really understand them. How much effort
could an independent lab put into certifying them? It would literally take
man-years.

How do you certify an SOC? Start with a gate level Verilog netlist? Good luck
figuring out anything useful from that. You think a vendor will give an
outside lab a higher level Verilog RTL to review for a design? Not likely.
That's highly valuable intellectual property.

About all that could be done is monitoring the software or equipment to see if
there is any unexpected network activity flowing in or out. That in itself
would be a difficult thing to to.

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chinathrow
Can't blame them, really.

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dang
Url changed from [http://qz.com/351256/its-official-china-is-blacklisting-
appl...](http://qz.com/351256/its-official-china-is-blacklisting-apple-cisco-
and-other-us-tech-companies/), which points to this.

~~~
peeyek
Thanks!

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happyscrappy
This should give European tech companies a chance to get back in the game.

~~~
tellarin
European tech companies are still doing well in the game. For example, Nokia
is the 2nd or 3rd biggest manufacturer of telecom equipment (depending on how
you slice/group the market).

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kjs3
Which is worse? Using a product possibly compromised by the US government, or
using a product built with stolen technology possibly compromised by the US
government, subsidized by a government whose surveillance state the NSA can't
even aspire to.

