
China used Huawei to hack network, says report - friedman23
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/national-security/china-used-huawei-to-hack-network-says-secret-report/news-story/510d3b17c2791cbcac18f047c64ab9d8?nk=d5a9cc7cdd8f5b742e4de1e5f1e6a854-1541255359
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majia
As revealed by Snowden, US can compel tech companies to help their intel
services too.

Instead of a total ban based on how friendly we feel towards certain
countries, a trust but verified approach should be adopted. Establish
comprehensive, robust and transparent security requirements and regulations
for foreign tech firms to comply and allow them to compete on a level field.
Review source code and hardware design for critical components, like what UK
and Canada are doing.

A competent government should be able to achieve security without imposing
unnecssary costs on consumers and companies using foreign suppliers.

~~~
Theodores
> As revealed by Snowden, US can compel tech companies to help their intel
> services too.

Precisely.

People have short memories and don't seem to see the pot calling the kettle
black. I expect better on HN. We have hard evidence that GCHQ/NSA have hacked
pretty much everything yet far too often people ignore this to jump on the
weakest of speculative hearsay to accuse without hard evidence our Chinese and
Russian friends of stooping to our GCHQ/NSA levels of evil-wrong-doing.

Is this what they call xenophobia once you get to the facts?

~~~
oculusthrift
no? you really don’t see the difference between a foreign hostile government
spying vs the domestic one doing it? i don’t think either is good but just
because one happens doesn’t mean it’s in our interest to allow another.
especially from the governments perspective. it has nothing to do with
xenophobia.

~~~
Theodores
From what I remember it was the NSA that hacked Huawei, the problem they had
was that there were routers on the market that they could not backdoor as
easily as products from Cisco and other Western vendors that were amenable to
their requirements.

It may not be xenophobia, it might just be plain paranoia, either way there is
some public diplomacy going on that is carefully crafted to get people to fear
the 'enemy' hacking everything. Why attribute everything to malice? Ultimately
there is good money to be made in selling routers particularly if you can get
a municipality to spend proper money on providing connectivity for a city
sized area. Huawei might not be a front for the Chinese army, they could be
wanting to make profit from a legitimate product. They know full too well that
any backdoor specials could compromise their entire business model to lose all
of their contracts to put themselves out of business. Why would they run that
risk?

Cui bono applies, by making accusations NSA/GCHQ can get them out of the
market so that the only option for customers is to buy equipment that is
hackable by them.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
Trade wars bringing updated versions of Yellow Peril narratives into the 21st
century.

------
mabbo
> Don't think about this in terms of just governments tracking you. Consider
> if you have any work emails containing company secrets in them. Consider if
> you have 2FA apps installed that you would use to unlock or change your work
> password. And since it was almost certainly the Chinese Intel/Military that
> helps Huawei and other companies, you can be sure that whatever information
> Huawei gets access to doesn't need to just help them out, but might help any
> other company the Chinese government wants to see succeed.

-Me, 3 weeks ago on this website

Don't buy Huawei hardware. Their incentives to help their customers is far
less than their incentives to help their government.

~~~
raprp
Yes. Buy Apple or Google's phones instead. They would never leak customer data
for the US government. Oh wait...

~~~
dforrestwilson
One government is vastly more transparent than the other. One company is
government subsidized and the others are not.

Hard to make a genuine privacy comparison with a straight face.

~~~
sametmax
Already forgot PRISM ? No wonder they do stuff like this when the public
attention span is so small.

~~~
bepotts
The Snowden revelations caused tech companies to implement strong encryption
for consumer facing communications. Apple, Google, and Facebook all offer
encryption protocols that now piss off the US government and caused friction
between the private and public sectors.

People saying "but PRISM" have missed the past five years of US politics. Even
Obama was getting mad at US tech.

~~~
gwhat
I always think of Ai Weiwei when considering just what's possible under the
Chinese government and system. It's nice that my property won't be demolished
and that I won't be kidnapped and beaten by police just because the government
doesn't like my criticisms.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Weiwei)

Evan Osnos has some interesting pieces about China and Ai Weiwei:

[https://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/ai-weiwei-at-
home-...](https://www.newyorker.com/news/evan-osnos/ai-weiwei-at-home-in-
absentia)

~~~
gdhbcc
Are we just ignoring the black site in Chicago?

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throw8910
The growing danger is apps originating in china that request excessive
permissions. Utility apps that claim to save battery & space are all suspects.
At a minimum they are adware, but most likely state owned malware.

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malshe
Article with paywall removed:
[https://outline.com/WfCzFe](https://outline.com/WfCzFe)

------
asadhaider
Non paywall archive: [https://archive.is/3Jt9R](https://archive.is/3Jt9R)

~~~
gaoshan
Link not working

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fit2rule
It seems more and more that the citizen of the world has to agree to the
sovereign will of the nation where their desirous objects are built.

Its getting kind of like I wonder if the world will respond to these things by
bringing the tech local. Could I grow my own products closer to the border,
where inspection and compliance is much more trustworthy? Well, its a European
question .. perhaps it would happen. Perhaps also, the balkanisation of
technological manufacturing prowess in the European states, counter to this,
might just blow the whole thing out of proportion, too.

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gaoshan
Anyone have a summary or better source? Paywall is strong with this one.

~~~
onetimemanytime
China felt generous to build an entire new building for African Union. About
$200 Million cost, and it came complete with bugs (as in spy ones) and
backdoor-ed network that sent the data to China every night.

NSA would have done the same, that's what countries do. There I said it. But
the story, for me, is more about Huawei doing whatever their owner wants. Stay
away from them

~~~
IllogicalLogic
NSA would've bugged the building without investing anything in that country.
Not quite the same.

The original exploiters of Africa are mad that China is investing and building
infrastructure on that continent, which will raise historically low prices.

~~~
onetimemanytime
They'll regret most Chinese investments, there's already a major backlash
against the Chinese style "investment." You think China is doing this for
Africa's good? China is enslaving them with a signature.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-07-10/china-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-07-10/china-
s-belt-and-road-initiative-has-stalled)

[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-08/05/content_853264...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2009-08/05/content_8532644.htm)

NSA, if they haven't bugged them already, they already bought the IT staff
with money. Third world countries are NSA's dream countries.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
I expect the Chinese are less exploitative in their investment approach than
the Europeans that acted in Africa (slavery and just outright theft was the
modus operandi for centuries), yes.

At the end of the day, the roads, high-speed rail, bridges, harbors, etc...
the Chinese build can't be removed from the continent even if the individual
countries do reneg on debt. This could create the kind of stable environment
required to attract both Chinese and non-Chinese investors and talent in the
future.

China has 10,000 years of documented history and this is a long game, they
don't seem as interested in get rich quick schemes as some other
civilizations.

Time will tell.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Roads to transport it faster out of the country, airports that aren't used,
Chinese labor funded with domestic debts, lended by the Chinese bank.

It's a smart move, but even an elephant can fall when the ground isn't stable
( don't know the appropriate saying in English)

~~~
IllogicalLogic
Good observation, yes, a jobs program for the ridiculous number of Chinese
engineers being produced that is funded by Chinese banks and paid for with 99
year low interest loans and resources in exchange.

May not be the best model, but sounds better than the "bomb our way to
profits" approach we've seen employed elsewhere.

~~~
NicoJuicy
It's a smart move to keep their artificial 6% growth, funded by foreign debts.

------
withhighprod
It’s amazing to see Americans blindly trust their government and media even
after several systemic incident

~~~
azinman2
Over China? Yes.

~~~
harigov
But do you also realize where you are getting all your news about China from?

~~~
hnmonkey
Do you have proof that any of the news about China (from tons of different
sources, including other countries that are not America) is propaganda or not
accurate? You're implying a global conspiracy is afoot to besmirch the good
Chinese name when everyone has known for a while that they're generally bad
actors behind the scenes when it comes to spying and stealing of
secrets/IP/tech.

~~~
IllogicalLogic
IP theft aside, anti-Chinese propoganda goes back 200 years in the US and UK.
Is this question about proof a joke?

~~~
hnmonkey
Can I have some of the verifiable evidence of your anti-Chinese propaganda
from the last 10 years? You seem adamant that there's an abundance of it
across the globe and that it's so pervasive over the past 200 years. I'd love
to see just some of the recent bits.

~~~
Leary
[https://supchina.com/2018/03/12/kuora-the-bias-inherent-
in-a...](https://supchina.com/2018/03/12/kuora-the-bias-inherent-in-american-
media-portrayals-of-china/)

------
Leary
Clickbait article. The title suggests Huawei hacked Australia when it's about
old news from the African Union.

