
Another Reason U.S. Fears Huawei: Its Gear Works and It's Cheap - pseudolus
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-24/huawei-stokes-u-s-fear-with-low-cost-networking-gear-that-works
======
dlg
I don't know enough to have an opinion on either side of this article, but is
it journalistically ok to make your primary source for one side James Clapper
without noting his history of lying to Congress and the American people under
oath?

(Though, as-expected, he won't be prosecuted
[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180313/15105739419/clock...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180313/15105739419/clock-
runs-out-perjury-charges-james-clapper-ensuring-he-wont-be-punished-lying-to-
congress.shtml))

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mabbo
It's cheap because they save on R&D via utilizing the Chinese military to hack
into competitors and steal their R&D[0][1]. This reduces overhead costs to
creating new technology. It also gives the Chinese military an advantage, as
they can now tell Huawei to put backdoors into all of their gear.

[0][https://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/how-chinese-
hack...](https://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/how-chinese-hacking-
felled-telecommunication-giant-nortel-20140526-iux6a)

[1][https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-
ag...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-
working-with-huawei-1.1137006)

~~~
entity345
Huawei is among the world's top tech investors in R&D. In the top 3 to 5, I'd
say.

[0] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-r-d/chinas-
huawei-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-r-d/chinas-huawei-to-
raise-annual-rd-budget-to-at-least-15-billion-idUSKBN1KG169)

~~~
bsder
This does not preclude stealing IP, too. That is, of course, when the western
companies don't just _hand_ them the IP in order to get "entry into the worlds
largest market." LOL.

Huawei went so far when copying that they copied the _bugs_ on certain Cisco
gear. Yeah, they lost that one in court.

~~~
entity345
As long as we're clear that the noise around Huawei has nothing to do with any
'theft' but with the US feeling the heat and moving to protectionist tactics.

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sonaltr
This has to be BS. Ericsson's gear works, Nokia's gear works.

Both of those are in use, in prod in Canada right now (for Rogers) as far as I
know.

And as for it being "cheap" \- let's be real - There's a reason why it's cheap
- It's state sponsored.

This entire article is probably sponsored by China.

EDIT: I'm extra salty because of the fall of Nortel - which can easily be
attributed to Huawei.

~~~
interactivecode
aren't all big telco's state sponsored is a multitude of ways? either by
direct funds, tax breaks, support or expensive state contracts that the states
have to use because there aren't any alternatives?

~~~
dragontamer
There's a different level with Chinese corporations.

Remember that China is a single-party system. You're either with the party, or
you're not. In other countries, there are two (or more) major political
parties to be aligned to. Any corporation that tilts towards one political
group will lose power when the other groups come into office.

Ex: Farming corporations tend to be aligned with Republicans. Environmental
corporations tend to be aligned with Democrats. While they get benefits when
their party is in power, its hard to keep the subsidies going when the
opposition enters.

That's not true of China. If you're with "The Party", then you get all the
benefits of being with the party all the time.

~~~
HillaryBriss
> Any corporation that tilts towards one political group will lose power when
> the other groups come into office

not if they simply shift their campaign donations to the other groups. federal
level politicians spend a huge fraction of their time constantly and
aggressively looking for campaign cash.

~~~
dragontamer
Indeed. But that kind of shorter-term quid-pro-quo is less corrupt than the
depths of a single-party alignment over the course of decades.

------
smartbettor
There's very little competition because Huawei spent the 1990's and 2000's
stealing IP and driving competitors out of the Wireless business. In the 3G
competitions there were over a doze vendors of equipment, today there are 3 of
any real size. With rest either dead, merged because they couldn't compete
with the theft of their IP or just not stepping into game.

When Huawei got caught the Chinese government would "delay" certification in
china of the companies suing them for infringement. This would ultimately end
with an "understanding" that "no infringement" took place and that it was a
misunderstanding. Problem is that misunderstanding always included Huawei and
always western telecom vendors. Cisco, Lucent, Alcatel, Seimens all sued
Huawei at some point - and all settled. Nortel's old headquarters was so
riddled with bugs that IP Thieves left in their network the Canadian
Department of Defense when they took over the building ultimately delayed
moving in because of what they found:

[https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/dnd-may-abandon-1b-move-to-
for...](https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/dnd-may-abandon-1b-move-to-former-
nortel-site-because-of-surveillance-bugs-1.1477766)

Huawei has spent the past half dozen years trying to clean up their brand by
building consumer products, massive advertising sponsorships, free and paid
for "next generation trials" and colocating research centres in the cities and
countries where they drove the local competitors into the ground. They're now
the only partner local research institutions can turn to for funding. They
think they're like Cisco..

The Chinese governments IP transfer rules for international companies wishing
to do local sales provide their industries a chance to Learn, coerce, steal
and ultimately live within a protected market for these ill gotten gains. Is
China buying Western competitors Mobile network infrastructure? Hells no. Why
they're shocked that other governments are reacting in protectionist stance
and ultimately questioning the interaction between the company and the
government should become no surprise.

~~~
notacoward
> They think they're like Cisco..

They think way more highly of themselves than that.

------
mark_l_watson
I am sceptical that Huawei is planting Trojans in its gear. Having a Chinese
company corner the world market is probably much more valuable to the Chinese
government than possible spying opportunities.

The battlefields in the current world are, I think, more economic battles.

~~~
pseudolus
I'm doubtful that there aren't backdoors in Huawei equipment just as I'm
doubtful that there aren't backdoors in the equipment of western
manufacturers. That said, it comes down to selecting the lesser of two evils.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thinking it over, you are probably correct.

------
pinewurst
I have some experience with Huawei "enterprise" products and they're awfully
cheesy - the hardware is very low rent and the software both limited and very
specific to a few common use cases. The configuration experience often needs
to be seen to be believed, with support beyond the trivial requiring Huawei
engineers flown out. Their products can be crazy cheap, though, and in Asia,
easy financing via China state banks is usually enough to close a deal.

------
amaccuish
"the U.S. has dispatched lawyers, diplomats and intelligence officials to
corporate and government offices around the world to press its case that
Huawei must not be allowed to run their 5G networks"

and

"U.S. officials, mindful of Huawei’s market advantages, are even trying to
develop packages of U.S.-made gear to provide foreign companies an alternative
to buying Huawei"

I think this is the crux of it. If Huawei was a security problem, the US would
just worry about itself. But Huawei is actually an economic threat to them,
which is why we've seen this anti-Huawei sentiment recently.

------
ptaipale
Another aspect is that with the equipment where we worked for a competing
product, Huawei was cheap because it cheated in electromagnetic compatibility
requirements, while our products were strictly required to comply. I suppose
the reason for more lax approach by customers to Huawei was simply the desire
to bring it up as a new competitor and cut prices.

Sure, the things worked well enough. They maybe caused interference in some
other equipment, maybe not, but in any case it was not too bad, because the
EMC requirements were quite tight for these products.

(This was 15 years ago and I have no specific references, I just remember the
frustration of our HW designers.)

------
TeckMonkeyLOL
Tech monkeys here did even realize that it is about the trade war. National
security is decades ago is the reason why Chinese gov banned tech giant unless
they have completely complied with Chinese laws. Now it's your turn America

------
newyankee
Has there been a thorough, independent and transparent audit of Huawei
components ?

How would a layman even start making up their mind about this ?

------
boynamedsue
This is not universally true of all of Huawei's products relative to
competition in terms of cost. Huawei's enterprise storage products, for
instance, are significantly more expensive than alternatives from companies in
the West.

------
devoply
Not a Chinese agent. But if anyone wants to actually be secure they need to
ban American equipment as well, which is well suited for only America... and
invest in making their own probably open source designs.

------
cletus
What many people here don't remember is that China is only a fairly recent
first-class member of the international trading community and that was hugely
controversial at the time.

Up until the Clinton administration there was a status of Most Favored Nation
that countries had to get. There was a lot of pressure from companies eager to
sell to China's 1B+ people and there was a lot of politicking about this. I
believe it was a big reason why "most favored nation" was renamed to
"permanent normal trade relations" in 1998.

Tiananmen Square was still fresh in peoples minds having only happened less
than a decade earlier. China at the time also sold military technology to
countries the US wasn't on good terms with.

So China obtained MFN/PNTR in 2000 and joined the WTO the year after. One
argument used for this was that the only way to make China play by the rules
is to be a member.

What's become increasingly clear however is that China did not, does not and
probably will not play by the rules. The examples that spring to mind are:

\- Wholesale intellectual property theft from Western companies. To be fair,
many Western companies are complicit in this. Eager to open up new markets
they agree to "partnerships" with Chinese companies that are thinly veiled IP
heists.

\- Theft of military secrets and technology.

\- Sale of products to sanctioned nations (eg ZTE).

\- A concerted effort to ensure that no foreign company ends up owning a
market in China. Take all the tech companies in the rest of the world and
there's a Chinese equivalent (Google -> Baidu, Amazon -> Alibaba, Apple ->
Huawei/ZTE/etc). This isn't an accident and it's not because foreign companies
don't "get" the Chinese market.

\- The Chinese government and military have a large-scale and active
electronic warfare program designed to steal IP, threaten companies and
control discourse (eg anyone critical of the Chinese government).

The big concern about this is that isn't rogue actors. This is state
sanctioned to the highest levels. The rest of the world seems completely
disinclined to tackle this.

But at some point in the future you'll expect to see things like:

\- Companies won't do business in China

\- Companies won't do business with Chinese companies

\- Companies won't employ Chinese citizens (for fear of IP theft).

On the last point, I'm honestly surprised the US government hasn't restricted
Chinese-born people from working with any classified tech given the history of
theft here.

As to Huawei, this is a real propaganda piece by Bloomberg as anyone who is
concerned about the security of their IP and their infrastructure should as
part of their due diligence be assessing the risk of using networking gear
from a company where there is a serious concern that the Chinese government or
military may have compromised the code that hardware runs.

------
vorpalhex
The cheapest bug in the world is still a bug.

~~~
shittyadmin
Unless I missed something, there's no evidence of actual bugs in their gear
though, right?

You can argue an update could deliver one I suppose, but the same is true of
just about anything if you want that standard.

