
The reason America is scared of Huawei: internet-connected everything - rbanffy
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612874/the-real-reason-america-is-scared-of-huawei-internet-connected-everything/
======
thefounder
It seems America is scared by mini-vans from Canada and sedans from Germany as
well and pretty much anything that creates an economic gain for anyone other
than America.

Huawei could pose a security threat but we already know by now that this is
all about the economy and maintaining America's indisputed supremacy at all
costs. After China, EU will be the next buggy man.

~~~
bracobama
You know how a tyrant acts when he is losing control of his empire? He starts
getting really insecure and conspiratorial. America's unipolar moment has
passed and it's about time they acknowledge it instead of continuing to drown
themselves in hubris.

~~~
skh
This is one positive aspect of Trump’s presidency. He has definitively shown
Korea, Japan, and Europe that the Pax Americana can not be relied upon as much
as it once was. Those countries will have to start leading more and have a
stronger voice. They may not like the accompanying expense and tough choices
this entails but I welcome it.

~~~
huffmsa
There are a lot of us Americans who no longer want to be a crutch for the rest
of the world.

We'd rather be fixing our own domestic problems like our crumbling
infrastructure.

Trump campaigned on that.

~~~
rookonaut
One viewpoint is that the USA are a crutch to the rest of the world.

Another viewpoint would be that this is based on self-interest.

The USA bombing Iraq because Hussein wanted to sell oil in another currency
other than the USD and leaving the so called rest of the world with the
humantarian crisis would be one counter example to the crutch-theory.

~~~
skh
From my perspective it has become a symbiotic relationship. The U.S. maintains
the Pax Americana at great financial expense but does so for the benefits it
provides. It’s not an altruistic act. Europe and Japan get benefits too. One
of the benefits for Europeans is that they get to avoid the messy moral
situations that come from wielding such power. Go back to the mess in former
Yugoslavia in the 90s to see how the Europeans made a mess of things trying
solve it on their own. I don’t want to get into a debate on the merits o that
intervention but the situation wasn’t resolved to the liking of the UK,
France, Germany, etc. until the U.S. got involved.

------
kerkeslager
As an American, I'd rather be spied on by the Chinese than by my own
government. The Chinese government has fewer ways they can use my data against
me. Add in the fact that Huawei products are cheaper, and I'll be buying
Huawei products for the forseeable future.

Privacy IS something I'd be willing to pay for, but that's not an option. If
the US government and corporations wanted me to trust them, they shouldn't
have spied on our communications at every turn and then attempted to silence
every whistleblower. The US calling out Huawei on security concerns is
obviously the pot calling the kettle black, and I don't think many people
internationally will be persuaded.

Any government could make a serious play for privacy by making some privacy
laws with civil and criminal penalties for violation, and protections and
rewards for whistleblowers. But as things are currently, lack of privacy comes
standard with communication devices from any country, and Americans calling
Huawei out for it is just inane posturing.

~~~
owens99
Don’t take this the wrong way, but you are probably not important enough to be
their target. Unless they could exploit you in order to exploit someone more
powerful they care about, like a corporate or political leader. This is more
to protect our leaders, which in turn keeps you more protected.

~~~
romanovcode
You are completely missing the point of government surveillance.

Yes, indeed, as an individual nobody cares about you. However you are a part
of general census and by spying on you and everyone around you they can
predict what you are thinking, what you are craving, what political stance you
hold, what are the risks of you being involved in some future problems for
them etc. You can go wider and wider to a city, to a state and finally to a
country. Then, for example China can really see what american citizens are
thinking in general and this is valuable information.

Also, second reason why you are completely missing the point. Let's say you
are one of those "I don't care if they spy on me, let them record me on my
toilet." \- Now your kids are involved in some political activity and you did
not pay your taxes for one month 7 years ago. Government wants to suppress
your kids political activity and just tell them either they stop or their
father (you) go to jail. At least this is how it works in totalitarian
countries.

~~~
dmurray
So the government shouldn't be able to record if you paid your taxes or not?
That's a very extreme position on privacy.

~~~
tomasdore
Or maybe he/she means that the government shouldn't be able to record your
kids' political activity? And connect this in a big database to you.

------
peter_retief
Lots of comments of how innocent China is being hard done by, really have a
look at what China has done to exploit developing nations and censorship of
their own people. People dont appreciate their freedoms until they get taken
away

~~~
ionised
> Lots of comments of how innocent China is being hard done by, really have a
> look at what China has done to exploit developing nations

Those is glass houses...

~~~
peter_retief
Not being American or Chinese I guess I can throw stones

------
aritmo
The spying fears look like an excuse to put the Chinese company at a
disadvantage.

~~~
throwaway8879
I think it's okay to want to do that. Yes, I don't want anybody spying on me,
but as someone who's neither from the US nor China, I'd much rather choose to
have the NSA/etc have access to my data than the Chinese.

~~~
luckylion
Why though? We don't know what the Chinese will do, but we're somewhat
informed what the US will.

Sure: the Chinese might be much worse. But they might also not be. So far, I
haven't heard of intensive drone usage by the Chinese to bomb weddings half
way around the world.

~~~
thefounder
>>> So far, I haven't heard of intensive drone usage by the Chinese to bomb
weddings half way around the world.

But you surely heard of "missing people" in China after speaking against the
government. What if this very comment would put you in prison for the rest of
your life or worse, get you a death penalty(with or without trial) ? I'm
pretty sure China would do some atrocious things given the chance to fight a
foreign enemy. There is no real rule of law in China. That's the issue with
all the communist/dictatorship system.

~~~
8note
Surely you've heard of the most recent American version, Guantanamo?

~~~
thefounder
You can't compare them. No American accused of terrorist activity on US soil
has ever been held at Guantanamo Bay.

If you hang around with terrorists in a war zone(i.e Afganistan) you can
expect your rights to be violated. Surely mistakes are made in a war. That
quite different than being kidnapped from your home for expressing different
political views.

~~~
luckylion
> If you hang around with terrorists in a war zone(i.e Afganistan) you can
> expect your rights to be violated

Or in such places as Italy, just walking around, being an imam. Google Abu
Omar.

~~~
thefounder
So there was an abuse and it seems there was a trial to prosecute. Some people
got jail time for that. You may say that it was not perfect and some people
didn't get what they deserved. I agree.

But, have you seen any such trial in China? You may be put in jail for even
demanding prosecution of the officials responsible for such acts. The press is
not allowed to talk/write about such things.

China like all the communist countries and authoritan states(i.e Russia) has
no real rule of law. In practice the party leaders are the law.

~~~
luckylion
> But, have you seen any such trial in China?

They have show trials of corrupt politicians, just like we do. What does that
matter, though? The CIA will continue exactly the same way, with or without
some show trial. As will those Chinese government officials who weren't used
as an example of Xi's latest war on corruption.

> You may be put in jail for even demanding prosecution of the officials
> responsible for such acts. The press is not allowed to talk/write about such
> things.

I'm not saying they are great. I'm saying maybe stop pretending we are. Sure,
we have great explanations for all the extra-legal things ("they were
terrorists", "this was a special case, it will never happen again", "it was
wrong, the low level official responsible was punished") we do, but so do
they. It would be so much easier to criticize them for the stuff they do if
the CIA didn't have torture camps all over the world and wouldn't kidnap
people "just because" and get away with it by pointing the finger at China or
Russia and saying "look, they are much worse than we are".

------
nrb
Spying stuff aside, I feel the bigger reason we should think long and hard
about this is the same reason we don't source parts for our weapons program
from foreign countries: mobile networks are now critical infrastructure and
any form of sabotage would be devastating to our national security.

Sourcing foreign components alone massively increases risk surface area, never
mind a full-scale nationwide implementation of an astoundingly complex tech.

------
skilled
Outline:

[https://outline.com/VMWqxS](https://outline.com/VMWqxS)

------
cletus
As much as you can (rightly) criticize the US, particularly the current
administration, the US still has the rule of law to a degree far larger than
almost all of the rest of the world. While there are failures (eg holding
anyone accountable for the subprime mortgage fiasco) there are also positives
(eg it seems the US is the only developed nation that goes after the banks
that enable tax evasion; see all the actions and settlements with Swiss banks
as examples). The US has a largely independent judiciary that isn't afraid to
say no to the administration (eg all the injunctions against the travel ban
from Muslim countries).

It's also true that the US government spies on its own citizens to a degree
that's debated in the post-Snowden era. So I certainly believe all phone call
(and probably email) metadata is spied upon (and no doubt a sampling of the
content for each). And NSLs and pen registers are obviously a thing. I
certainly don't believe the tinfoil hats who think that a significant portion
of Internet traffic of the tech giants is eavesdropped upon however just based
on how much data that is.

Contrast this to China. Questionable rule of law. Chinese companies and their
leaders are certainly complicit with the Chinese government and intelligence
agencies. There have been recent stories about how the Muslim population is
spied upon and/or put in "re-education" camps (this has also happened with
other groups like Falun Gong). China continues a policy of erasing Tibet. Xi
Jinping is largely installed himself as a Putinesque dictator (eg term limits
for the presidency were recently abolished).

Given a choice between the US spying on me and China, it wouldn't even be
close. The US "wins" hands down. At least I have some faith that there are
limits to what the US can and will do and that the government can be held
accountable to some degree (at least a far larger degree than in China).

China has aggressively pursued an agenda to further its national interest that
includes the arguable exploitation of developing nations (through loans for
capital programs), intellectual property theft from the developed world
(through forced "partnerships" as well as repatriating Chinese nationals and
outright hacking eg Google).

As largely tech people here we all know something about security. To me it's
_obvious_ that ceding control of your network (with all the potential harm
that could do) to a foreign government is a national security issue.

Huawei (and others eg ZTE) have been caught here as bad actors and not actors
I personally would trust if I had anything worth protecting.

China plays favourites with its own companies. It has clearly decided that it
doesn't want a foreign company to control a local market, _any_ local market,
which is why you have the likes of Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent instead of
Google, Amazon and Facebook. And no it's not because foreign companies don't
understand the Chinese market. It's because the Chinese government wills it.

Access to China's 1B citizens has been dangled as a carrot to the developed
world for years. It should be clear that the game is rigged.

So, if China has decided not to relinquish control of domestic markets to
foreign companies, why shouldn't the US respond in kind?

~~~
jgome
> As much as you can (rightly) criticize the US, particularly the current
> administration, the US still has the rule of law to a degree far larger than
> almost all of the rest of the world

And, conveniently, there are ad-hoc courts (FISA) for when you have to
"legalize" massive surveillance.

> see all the actions and settlements with Swiss banks as examples

Meanwhile, banks at home apparently have no problem with this... As long as it
benefits american corporations, of course.

> Contrast this to China. Questionable rule of law. Chinese companies and
> their leaders are certainly complicit with the Chinese government and
> intelligence agencies

Oh, I'm sure the NSA didn't have their support...:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
srv/special/politics/prism-collection-documents/)

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-
in...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nsa-infiltrates-
links-to-yahoo-google-data-centers-worldwide-snowden-documents-
say/2013/10/30/e51d661e-4166-11e3-8b74-d89d714ca4dd_story.html)

> There have been recent stories about how the Muslim population is spied upon
> and/or put in "re-education" camps

Meanwhile in your country, 2% of your population is imprisoned (more than any
other country in the world), and illegal immigrants are being detained FOR
YEARS. Talk about "re-education camps"

> Xi Jinping is largely installed himself as a Putinesque dictator (eg term
> limits for the presidency were recently abolished).

The Clintons have been in power for how many years? What about the Bush
family, Bolton and friends?

Also, have you ever questioned the amount of power US corporations have?
Apparently not...

> Given a choice between the US spying on me and China, it wouldn't even be
> close. The US "wins" hands down.

I'm sure the US "wins" too, they can spy on you freely, and are said to be
able to collect practically all your phone calls and 10% of all internet
traffic (i.e., all data, excluding videos and other irrelevant stuff).

> China has aggressively pursued an agenda to further its national interest
> that includes the arguable exploitation of developing nations

They are literally copying what the US and Western powers have taught them. At
least they don't bomb random countries thousands of miles away from their
homeland under the argument of "freeing" them and "defending democracy",
unlike US & EU neocolonial powers.

> As largely tech people here we all know something about security. To me it's
> obvious that ceding control of your network

And that includes trusting your own govt., right? People who "know something
about security" should know that you simply can't do anything against
governments... Much less against the most powerful govt. on this planet.

> Huawei (and others eg ZTE) have been caught here as bad actors and not
> actors I personally would trust if I had anything worth protecting.

Unlike those "accidental" backdoors in Cisco equipment, which your ISP
probably trusts 100%?

> China plays favourites with its own companies

Exactly what the US govt. does when it talks about "national interests". Or,
do you think your government is there to defend YOUR interests?

> It has clearly decided that it doesn't want a foreign company to control a
> local market, any local market, which is why you have the likes of Baidu,
> Alibaba and Tencent instead of Google, Amazon and Facebook. And no it's not
> because foreign companies don't understand the Chinese market. It's because
> the Chinese government wills it

And they are right to do so. Why would they let a government that is known to
play dirty control of their population? Obama, the democrat, a Nobel peace
prize, bombarded 8 countries, even more than Bush Jr., yet people still
believe he was a "good leader" and "better than Bush". It doesn't take much
intelligence to notice the brainwashing...

> Access to China's 1B citizens has been dangled as a carrot to the developed
> world for years.

The US has been doing that for decades. And anyone who dares disobey gets a
coup d'etat or destroyed.

> It should be clear that the game is rigged.

Indeed... It is rigged by the US (govt and corporations), against anyone who
wants to compete fairly.

> So, if China has decided not to relinquish control of domestic markets to
> foreign companies, why shouldn't the US respond in kind?

Yeah, the US should mind its own business, leave China AND the rest of the
world alone, and not play world police, stop cheating, stop imposing its
ideology, and so on.

Seriously, go read some history books.

