
U.S. blacklists Huawei - fspeech
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/u-s-blacklists-chinas-huawei-as-trade-dispute-clouds-global-outlook-idUSKCN1SL2DI
======
nimbius
Slightly better source:

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trump-
telecommu...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-trump-
telecommunications/trump-order-clears-way-for-barring-huawei-from-u-s-
telecommunications-networks-idUSKCN1SL2QX)

seeing the reasoning includes violations against ITAR (International Traffic
in Arms Regulations) its difficult to see how the US isnt creating some sort
of whipping boy for its own agenda. Bluecoat, Intel, IBM, and hundreds of
other companies have been accused of ITAR violations as well yet were not
subjected to a 7 month long PR campaign from Washington to ablate them from
the economic playing field. This feels like telco's flexing their close
relationship to washington and pushing for a scorched-earth policy rather than
be caught completely unprepared for 5G. "if we cant sell it, you cant have it"
sounds rather less like a capitalist nation.

it also bears remembering that none of their CEO's were detained in foreign
airports and led to Jail to await US extradition.

~~~
dreamcompiler
> 7 month long PR campaign

While 5G may be a new front in this battle, US suspicion of Huawei goes back a
long time -- at least as far back as the Bush administration. The current
administration might be antagonistic toward China, but in no sense did they
invent the war against Huawei.

~~~
luckylion
The suspicion might go back a long time, but the PR campaign is relatively
new, at least at the current level. I do remember the occasional story a few
years ago, but not this barrage of articles.

~~~
bertomart
i don't watch tv anymore due to the excessive 'spin' and sometimes straight
out lies. usually they start off by saying "allegedly" and by the time they're
done you'd think it's one of Newton's laws of motion

------
kabdib
I've got a Huawei laptop that's pretty nice . . . but I'm reluctant to use it
for anything even remotely sensitive.

Am I being overly paranoid? Or should I treat it as basically trustworthy as
any other major brand of computer?

The system requires a special app to update drivers and so forth, but frankly
this is not additional security exposure, since Huawei bits are all over the
machine to begin with.

I'm sure y'all got opinions :-)

~~~
majia
There is no perfect security in this world. You can only mitigate your risk
exposure.

If you have substantial business interests in China, you’d prefer a non
Chinese brand laptop.

If you are more worried about IRS going after your financial records, US based
advertisers tracking your online activities or NSA monitoring your contacts
with people in Arab countries, huawei may be a better choice, since it won’t
work with IRS, Facebook or NSA.

~~~
jimmaswell
Are there recorded instances of the IRS actually breaking into people's
computers remotely instead of, at the most, getting a warrant for the device
to be seized? I guess you'd never know if they did that for parallel
construction.

~~~
majia
IRS can ask dell (with certain legal procedures) to unlock your dell laptop
without you providing your password. It can’t do the same for Huawei devices.
That’s a big difference.

~~~
jorvi
Dell doesn't have a way into your TPM, or to into Windows its authentication
loop. Either would create a gaping security hole very likely to be exploited.
So no, Dell can't unlock/decrypt your laptop without your password. The most
they could do is bypass your BIOS/EFI password.

~~~
adrianN
It's not like gaping security holes in firmware are unheard of.

------
mrkstu
It will be interesting how the unintended consequences roll out with this.

With Chinese companies already having Google free software/service stacks in
China, being able to get adoption of those stacks internationally may allow
the full bifurcation of the Android ecosystem, essentially eviscerating
Google’s monopoly.

Long term it could be a turning point to deflating American dominance of the
most important market in the modern world.

~~~
luckydata
More likely that I will sprout wings and learn to fly. China producing a
global standard is just not going to happen.

~~~
peteretep
I’ve no actual data, other than to note that “Japanese-made” went from being a
sign of shoddiness to a sign of quality in a few decades.

~~~
luckydata
If you look at the comment I replied to, they were talking about replacing the
Apple store with some China-grown service. It's not happening, China is not in
any way culturally compatible with the rest of the world enough to pull that
off, just like Japan never managed to do that (and they were WAY more
westernized than China is now).

Chinese businesses just fundamentally don't understand what western cultures
want, they can just build cheap gadgets. For the next let's call it 35 years
it's simply not going to happen.

------
fencepost
_barring U.S. companies from using telecommunications equipment made by firms
posing a national security risk_

Huh. Did the US government just make my cell phone illegal to use? Replacement
is on my list of things to do, but I wasn't really planning on it this
month.....

Not to mention basically every other option I could look at is also made in
China, with the exception(?) of Samsung - which I'm not inclined to cough up
the $$ for.

~~~
mises
Just got a Galaxy J7 V 2 for less than $250. Does what I need it to, snappy,
expandable storage, and an _actual_ all-day battery life (probably day-and-a-
half). I guess I don't understand why people want super-powered phones: just
carry a decent laptop. It's not easy to make use of that much power in that
small a form factor any way, particularly now that very few manufacturers
allow bootloader unlocks and root. Also, people buy 8-core cpu, 8-gb-ram,
1440p screen phones and expect a long battery life? It's much easier to drive
a reasonable processor, reasonable ram, and a 720p screen.

I guess the market has different ideas. I get the "it's a slick piece of tech"
factor, but can some one who likes flagships talk about what makes them good?

For what it's worth, I consider the Samsung Galaxy S3 the pinnacle of
smartphone design. It retailed for $250 at launch. I feel like prices are
going up because the smartphone industry is trying to innovate faster than
chips are improving.

~~~
thrower123
Never had an S3, but I had an Aviator and an S5. I miss the swappable
batteries on those models...

On the other hand, I have an S8 now and it labors to render most websites.
That's more an indictment of the websites, but such is the world we live in.

~~~
fencepost
Try Firefox with ublock origin, see if that makes a difference. Since it's an
AMOLED screen, "Dark Background and Light Text" may also make a difference for
you.

------
fspeech
This move “bans the company from acquiring components and technology from U.S.
firms without government approval.”

~~~
samfisher83
They have their own chips. I don't think they have to be worried like ZTE.

~~~
AFascistWorld
Mobile SoCs are not the only chips in the world.

------
ksec
I will just repost this article here from Tyler Cowen, I don't think I read
anyone has said it better.

>The U.S.-China Cold War Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better. That’s because
the major issue between the two nations is not trade or ideology but a lack of
trust.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-23/u-s-
ch...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-23/u-s-china-cold-
war-will-get-worse-before-it-gets-better)

------
mylons
banning them from buying components from the USA is going to encourage them to
develop it themselves. stuff like this is how we lose our edge in tech, if we
haven't lost it already.

~~~
guitarbill
Canada/Nortel might disagree with that somewhat...

~~~
ZhuanXia
Canada is nice and all but China has a Japan-level quality of human capital
and an enormous population. Anything we can do they will be able to do, and
probably better. Absent crazy stuff like AGI or genetic engineering changing
the source of innovation, China will become the leader in high technology.

~~~
YUMad
China does not have Japan-level human capital. Even if it did, the 'Japanese
miracle' lasted for barely two decades.

------
ETHisso2017
Huawei has a ton of repos on Github. What happens to them?

~~~
a012
They would lose access from China

------
Leary
If this effectively bans Huawei from importing American chips.. Why no
reactions after hours in American chipmaker stocks?

~~~
axaxs
Genuinely curious...but what chips? Huawei is pretty well vertically
integrated, and has been for some time.

~~~
superkuh
The radio frequency IC chips like the tuner front ends and RF baseband. This
process technology is not nearly so easy to copy and implement as regular
digital elements on regular substrates. It's pretty important for mobile
handsets.

This is reflected in the way 5G is being rolled out in China. Mostly new
sub-6GHz 5G NR modulation basestations are being put in. Millimeter band is
not being attempted initially. This gets them 15-20% modulation gain in
thoroughput over LTE in the same circumstances at _most_.

~~~
beatle_sauce
Gallium nitride technology is used for the higher frequencies in 5G chips.
Currently only suppliers outside of China produce such chips.

From a business perspective, pushing 5G as fast as it is pushed now by China,
does not make sense. Chinese network operators would not want to deploy 5G
quite as fast as they are being forced to, but China’s government is imposing
it.

So why impose it? There might be several reasons, e.g. to have a dominant
position in setting industry standards, but one reason stands out: The complex
5G standard requires frequent software that make it harder to enforce security
software reviews and anti-espionage measures.

------
supernintendo
This might be an unpopular opinion but I'll post anyway. I'm skeptical of the
motivation for this blacklist. Prohibiting the use of Huawei products by
government agencies and contractors is an action one could reasonably justify
in respect to national security. Mandating that my private company seek
approval from the government before doing business with Huawei is a pretty
extreme rule that limits my options on the global marketplace. I am now forced
to accept the claim that Huawei devices are "tainted" and significantly more
dangerous than other products. I'm having trouble accepting that argument or
seeing this as anything more than trade war saber rattling.

When I think of American companies that actually care about data privacy only
a few come to mind. I do believe Apple makes a good faith effort toward
protecting user data, despite the company's many anti-consumer practices.
There are a number of smaller companies like Purism and Yubico that go further
in making this a part of their core business strategy. But generally my
experience has been that American companies give a backseat to these concerns.
Remember when Equifax, an American company, leaked the personal data of 143
million U.S. citizens in 2017 [1]? What about the Citrix hack from just a few
months ago where 6TB of sensitive information was stolen by Iranian hackers
[2]? What makes these companies more trustworthy than Huawei or any other
Chinese company?

Finally, there's a line you can draw from the decisions of the past to what's
happening today. The U.S. is largely responsible for the design of the modern
web for both good and bad. The Internet is an amazing thing that has uplifted
people around the world, including in developing countries where opportunities
are needed [3] [4]. At the same time surveillance and proprietary software has
become pedestrian to the point where most people (myself included) just accept
it. We used Chinese manufacturing to scale this vision, from cheap Internet-
connected devices to the servers that store and deliver our personal
information. What kind of example did we set for China or other countries to
follow? Where would we be had we followed the advice of people like Richard
Stallman who warned us decades in advance?

We seem to be moving toward a more isolated world as of late. I hope we can
get to a point where we're having productive conversations on a global scale
about how tech could make our lives better (and potentially worse). The
alternative is to let the chips fall where they may. In a world of IoT, AI and
autonomous weapons, that's not a game I'd like to play.

[1]
[https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/07/technology/business/equifax...](https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/07/technology/business/equifax-
data-breach/index.html)

[2] [https://www.techradar.com/news/hackers-steal-6tb-citrix-
data...](https://www.techradar.com/news/hackers-steal-6tb-citrix-data-haul)

[3] [https://www.cta.tech/News/Blog/Articles/2015/July/How-
Mobile...](https://www.cta.tech/News/Blog/Articles/2015/July/How-Mobile-
Phones-Are-Changing-the-Developing-Worl.aspx)

[4]
[https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000227436](https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000227436)

~~~
RyanShook
Based on the actions taken by multiple agencies in the US and other
governments it sounds like Huawei is actively working with the Chinese
government to monitor devices they’ve sold. I don’t think the US has ulterior
motives behind the ban, I think they’re genuinely concerned about the risk. I
hope we eventually get a report on what they know about the devices.

~~~
cnf
That so far has not been proven. OTOH, Cisco devices [0] have been proven to
contain backdoors in the past.

I am cautious of any government tampering in devices, but as it stands such
tampering has not been found in huawei devices, but HAS been found in devices
coming from US manufacturers... Yet no one is asking a ban on those?

[0]: [https://theintercept.com/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-
insid...](https://theintercept.com/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-inside-
story/)

~~~
tssva
The article references intelligence agencies hacking routers, shocking routers
have bugs and vulnerabilities just like all other computers and software, or
intercepting them in shipment to implant devices. No where is there any
implication that Cisco purposely created a means for US or any other
intelligence agencies to access their routers or otherwise cooperated in
intelligence gathering which is Huawei is being accused of.

------
thevagrant
Didn't they do this with ZTE also? As I recall the issue was resolved when ZTE
paid a fine and promised to change board members and leadership? Could the
same happen with Huawei?

~~~
Smoosh
There may have been extenuating circumstances in the ZTE case:

[https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-zte-order-after-
chi...](https://www.businessinsider.com.au/trump-zte-order-after-china-gave-
millions-to-trump-organization-tied-project-2018-5/)

------
firstinstinct
Perhaps the reason is they think they will be left behind?

------
kabwj
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19923655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19923655)

~~~
fspeech
That’s a separate action independent from this.

------
jorblumesea
Not really surprised, why would you allow US companies to build a network
backbone using a company that has close ties with your strategic rival? Ren
Zhengfei was in the PLA and the public private partnership operates very
differently in China. As if the IP theft and espionage problems aren't bad
enough.

It's not a coincidence that many Chinese devices have "bugs" that have them
phone home.

Do you think China would allow their telecom companies to build out using
Cisco gear?

~~~
pishpash
Pretty sure China used a lot of Cisco gear, including to implement the Great
Firewall: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-
attempt-...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-attempt-
dodge-responsibility-facilitating-human-rights-abuses-export)

~~~
jorblumesea
Sure, after transferring their IP and source code ;)

That's the game China is playing.

~~~
Laforet
Cisco did sie Huawei over the alleged violation of EIGRP patents. Other than
that I couldn't name any single case of IP theft, can you?

~~~
millstone
Yes an enormous amount, from every economic sector. Too many to name and
trivial to find via Google.

~~~
Laforet
This is the typical handwaving response I expected, thank you for confirming
my suspicion that you can't actually name any.

------
sunstone
So finally Canada is getting the support that they sought and deserve.

------
radmuzom
I find it interesting that the moderators were quick to remove the word Israel
from the headline of the Whatsapp exploit article, but not China in this
article.

~~~
mirimir
The US blacklisted Huawei because it's closely tied to the Chinese government.
So it's arguably relevant.

But regarding the Whatsapp exploit, the association with Israel is arguably
less relevant. The company is closely tied to Israel, but the US has a far
less adversarial relationship with Israel than with China.

Edit: I was just stating the obvious, I guess. Doesn't mean that I agree with
it, however. Just sayin'.

~~~
Taniwha
Which was essentially the point of the gp comment .... Israel gets special
treatment in the US ... even when a spinoff from their secret service is
caught hacking people's phones worldwide

~~~
mirimir
Not really. The comment was about HN policy, not US policy.

And yes, Israel is the primary US proxy in the Middle East. And is widely
supported in the US. So of course they get lots of slack. There's little doubt
that the NSA has some role in this, or is at least OK with it.

~~~
Udik
> Israel is the primary US proxy in the Middle East

Frankly, it looks like the opposite. The US are the primary Israel's proxy in
the West. Israel is causing the US much more trouble than gain in the Middle
East.

~~~
mirimir
That's implausible. Not impossible, I guess. But it's hard to see a mechanism.

I don't pretend to know what US goals really are in the Middle East. Maybe
nobody does. So assessing trouble vs gain is iffy at best.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
The US is a huge ally of Israel but for very strange reasons. For one, it has
a lot of Jewish people. But the biggest pro-Israel force in the US is actually
the minority (still more than there are Jewish people) of fundamentalist
Christians who believe that Israel's existence helps the fulfillment of
biblical prophecy of the new temple in Jerusalem and the Rapture. It might
sound like I'm just being fantastical, but it's sadly very real:
[https://www.vox.com/2017/12/12/16761540/jerusalem-israel-
emb...](https://www.vox.com/2017/12/12/16761540/jerusalem-israel-embassy-
palestinians-trump-evangelicals)

~~~
Udik
I've heard the Evangelical Christians mentioned very often in relation to
their support for Israel. However I'm not fully convinced that they're the
_major_ force behind the US's unwavering support. For example, the article you
linked states that only 53% of evangelicals actually support the recognition
of Jerusalem as Israel's capital: it's not an overwhelming majority.
Meanwhile, 63% of all Americans oppose it, so it's overall an unpopular move:
why was it made then?

Also, the expert interviewed in the article says that "the gathering of all
the Jews in exile to the Holy Land is a prerequisite for these events
unfolding" (the end of times, etc.). But then, absurdity for absurdity, why
don't the evangelicals call for the Jews to be expelled from the US, which
would advance the evangelical cause even more? And more, to a Christian
fundamentalist, a non-converted Jew is basically an infidel, so you'd expect
them to be regarded with suspicion and contempt- which doesn't seem to happen.
The Evangelicals then seem to entertain their beliefs only insofar that is
beneficial to Israel. Isn't that strange?

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
> And more, to a Christian fundamentalist, a non-converted Jew is basically an
> infidel, so you'd expect them to be regarded with suspicion and contempt-
> which doesn't seem to happen.

It does happen. The US right simultaneously loves Israel and isn't
particularly fond of Jews.

------
cnf
Meanwhile, it has been shown [1] that the NSA DOES in fact compromise cisco
equipment. Huawei hardware has yet to be found to contain backdoors, but we
should ban Huawei, but not Cisco?

While compromised hardware from _ANY_ player worries me, I worry more about
American hardware than I worry about Chinese hardware at this point in time...

[1]: [https://theintercept.com/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-
insid...](https://theintercept.com/2014/12/13/belgacom-hack-gchq-inside-
story/)

