
US asks allies to avoid Huawei - LinuxBender
https://www.cnet.com/news/us-asks-foreign-allies-to-avoid-huawei/
======
JCSato
Other coverage that made it to the top of HN a few days ago: US asks allies to
drop Huawei -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18513249)

------
chrisco255
I openly wonder and worry if China will ever reach a point where it has the
influence to extend its social credit system beyond its borders? Imagine you
can't do business with China unless you agree to be spied on and data
collected? Perhaps if you've ever criticized China you suffer further
consequences?

~~~
s4vi0r
You mean in a manner similar to the united states at the moment? :^)

China has some serious issues, but people acting like this is out of the norm
is ridiculous. The US is afraid of Chinas rising influence/power and these
sorts of articles attacking it are a common tactic.

Like, great - there's no explicit social credit system in the US on an app
where you're barred from leaving the country because of who you're friends
with. Instead, there's an implicit one where the NSA gets to spy on all your
shit (similar to what happens in China), where you're arbitrarily put on a
watch list or no-fly list (similar to China), and depending on your ethnicity
and/or family you may get unjustly targeted by the state with no real way of
defending yourself (again, similar to China).

I'd almost prefer it be done the Chinese way, because at least then the
problem is obvious. As it is in the states, like half the country can't even
fucking agree that _maybe_ there might be a problem with women & minority
rights, immigration, police brutality, etc.

~~~
chrisco255
No in the U.S. a handful out of a million cops are bad apples. Some
legitimately find themselves in difficult-to-interpret life-or-death snap
decisions on a daily or weekly basis and they get paid 1/4 or less of what
some privileged engineer on HN does. And then a few bad apples plus a few
legitimate accidents are over-analyzed as some proof of systemic racism in one
of the most diverse countries on earth.

Meanwhile, you want to talk about abuse of minority rights, take a look at
China's treatment of its muslim population:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-
uighur-m...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-
muslim-detention-camp.html)
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-
uighur-m...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-uighur-
muslim-people-move-homes-xinjiang-china-religion-a8648561.html)

~~~
s4vi0r
ACAB.

The entire police system is inherently corrupt and racist and needs to be torn
down. Also, regardless of whether or not its a few bad apples (hint: given how
extremely fucking common these problems are, it absolutely is _not_ just a
few) the point still stands that the "not bad" cops are still guilty of
supporting their coworkers and enabling their unacceptable behavior.

~~~
chrisco255
No it's not. You have no idea how to build a better criminal justice system.
Your armchair HN comment about it is absolutely worthless. It lacks insight,
research, balance, and depth of any kind, not to mention practical experience
in the system itself. You want to remake a complex system? Go and learn the
pros and cons of it, spend a few years in it, then come back and tell people
how it can be improved.

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durpleDrank
I don't want to be that guy but as scary and threatening as this all sounds if
you just flip the script you can gain some empathy for citizens of every
country the NSA spied on. For once, Americans and Europeans are starting to
fear the same "invasion" that the rest of the world has been feeling for a
while now. I just hope my countries team wins I guess?

~~~
dtwest
That's kind of a weird point to make since the NSA spies on Americans and
Europeans too.

~~~
aplummer
Ah that would be illegal. The NSA asks Australia to spy on Americans and
report back and visa versa. Which is not against the spirit of the law at all
/s.

~~~
wpdev_63
Just so people out of the loop understand:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-
secret-d...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/20/us-uk-secret-deal-
surveillance-personal-data) The british government actually encouraged and
even paid 100 million dollars for the nsa(cia) to spy on their citizens.

While china's surveillance system is scary because it's in public, what might
actually be more dangerous is the massive surveillance campaigns the US is
carrying out. The US is more than happy to provide surveillance to all 5 eye
countries.

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alliecat
Makes sense. The NSA can't backdoor the kit if China already have, right?

I understand it's oft more nuanced than this, but the comment about glass
houses comes to mind.

~~~
toyg
Yes, they are all bad, but at some point you will have to choose the lesser
evil.

~~~
Merem
What is the "lesser evil" though? It highly depends on how you perceive things
and issues.

~~~
friedman23
The lesser evil is the non American or Chinese alternatives. Namely Nokia and
Ericsson.

------
notlisted
Hmmmm, protectionism much? Apple recently issued forecast warnings due to
weakened demand. Meanwhile HuaWei is killing it [1]

This nonsense has been going on for a while. It's also happening in banking
[huge fines for foreign banks], in car manufacturing [diesel scandal, airbag
recall] etc. etc.

[1] [https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/01/technology/huawei-apple-
iph...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/01/technology/huawei-apple-iphone-
samsung/index.html)

------
AndyMcConachie
One has to wonder how much the lobbying arms of US telecom equipment
manufacturers have a say in this decision. Companies like Cisco and Juniper
must be loving this news. They effectively no longer have to compete with
Huawei in numerous markets.

~~~
krona
In the UK, Cyber Security Evaluation Centre (HCSEC) Oversight Board exists
solely to oversee Huawei’s activities in the UK. You can read the latest
report:
[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/727415/20180717_HCSEC_Oversight_Board_Report_2018_-_FINAL.pdf)

 _Huawei’s processes continue to fall short of industry good practice and make
it difficult to provide long term assurance. The lack of progress in
remediating these is disappointing. NCSC and Huawei are working with the
network operators to develop a long-term solution, regarding the lack of
lifecycle management around third party components, a new strategic risk to
the UK telecommunications networks. Significant work will be required to
remediate this issue and provide interim risk management._

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SideburnsOfDoom
A pity. If you're looking for a 8-inch android tablet then the Huawei is a
good offer - reasonable price, recent OS version, usb-c connector. I don't
know of another to match it.

~~~
icebraining
This is about ISP equipment (routers and such), not consumer stuff.

~~~
SideburnsOfDoom
You can get the aforementioned Huawei 8-inch tablet in Europe. You can't in
the USA. So there does seem to be an impact on Huawei consumer stuff.

------
LiterallyDoge
Does this extend to devices made by Huawei? Wasn't Google using them as a
manufacturer for their phones?

~~~
Mikeb85
Google devices are now produced by HTC as they bought their smartphone
division. In the past, LG, Samsung, HTC and Huawei all produced Google
(Nexus/Pixel) phones.

~~~
dragonwriter
Google bought HTCs smartphone design team (finalized earlier his year), but as
far as I've seen there is no reported exclusive manufacturing arrangement tied
to that.

~~~
Mikeb85
Gotcha. In that case probably just built by Foxconn like everything else.

------
zimablue
All the 10,000 arguments about "the US does this". Yeah but the US is a
democracy, and criticize it all you like but that means something. It means
that Trump is there because the average American (accounting for the broken
electoral college, voter suppression etc) wanted him to be. And that there are
real limits on his power, and a term limit.

Feels like the critics of western democracies who rightfully want to improve
them have forgotten that there is a worse level and a distinction between a
capitalistic system that is very rigged and one in which the average guy has
absolutely no power and no recourse to injustice. Random NSA people knowing
stuff they shouldn't isn't the same as 1984 on machine-learning steroids
tracking your every thought.

~~~
jstanley
> Random NSA people knowing stuff they shouldn't isn't the same as 1984 on
> machine-learning steroids tracking your every thought.

I'm pretty sure the Chinese government has some sort of "1984 on machine-
learning steroids" type stuff as well, so they might not be as different as
you think.

~~~
zimablue
Sorry I haven't written clearly so you've missed what I was saying. I mean
that the privacy violations of the US are of a lower order than the
industrialised scale of the Chinese, and not just collecting and filtering for
terrorist flags but plugging into eg. citizen scores.

~~~
TremendousJudge
You realize that automated credit scores are a thing in the US right? China is
taking the concept a step further, but it's not unique to them

~~~
walterbell
US credit scores are subject to _many_ laws, including the length of time that
data records can affect scores and processes for disputing data records.
Individual businesses have the option of ignoring credit scores, e.g. by
charging a premium for high-risk customers, or implementing their own
proprietary scoring mechanism tailored to specific markets and risk profiles.

This is a world of difference from opaque centralized scores without due
process.

------
pteredactyl
What about ZTE?

------
lostgame
Can I ask, who exactly is an ally of the USA at this point?

Up here in Canada, and from talking to my friends in the UK, nobody is a fan
of that country, for reasons like:

\- It's corrupt-at-best[1], ignorant[2], contradictory[3] and racist[4]-at-
best leadership, not to mention the fact that the general populace was
ignorant enough to vote for that leadership, even if the popular vote[7]
showed someone else won, the corrupt voting system of the states, which allows
anyone to be bribed, essentially, means that this turd keeps his office.

\- It's constant placement of self-importance above all other countries
('America is the greatest country in the world!'),

\- Its tendency for meaningless war[5] - to the point where it actually made
an attack on it's own country in the form of 9/11, something (I will pull up
the source for this to validate) the _majority_ of people _outside_ the USA
know/believe to be true.

\- The consistent denial of climate change, and the instance on making it
worse - check out the climate change report the US govt. cleverly hid by
releasing on Black Friday, for example.[6]

Are there any other countries who, right now, especially under Trump's
'leadership', actually think the USA is OK? The fact that I've been able to
pull up 5 sources confirming these things is...disturbing at best.

No offence to anyone who lives in the states, I'm just expressing what I've
seen the rest of the world express, and backing it up with references, so I
don't get a slew of downvotes.

I imagine my opinion won't be popular to those who live there, but it is quite
a real thing, especially the climate change stuff. That's just awful.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/opinion/trump-
administrat...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/opinion/trump-
administration-corruption-conflicts.html) [2]
[https://www.vox.com/2018/10/14/17975644/trump-60-minutes-
int...](https://www.vox.com/2018/10/14/17975644/trump-60-minutes-interview-
transcript) [3] [https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-
trump...](https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-
trump-2016-contradictions-213869) [4]
[https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/media/nbc-trump-
immigration-a...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/05/media/nbc-trump-immigration-
ad/index.html) [5] [https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-us-militarys-
streng...](https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-us-militarys-strength-
being-wasted-pointless-wars-21826) [6] [https://globalnews.ca/news/4695268/al-
gore-trump-climate-cha...](https://globalnews.ca/news/4695268/al-gore-trump-
climate-change-report-black-friday/) [7]
[https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-
hillary...](https://www.cnn.com/2016/12/21/politics/donald-trump-hillary-
clinton-popular-vote-final-count/index.html)

~~~
richliss
I'm from the UK and I'm extremely grateful that the USA is an ally. All
politicians are self-interested and every now and again they'll do something I
shake my head at but as a general rule the US people are good people and over
the years have sacrificed their loved ones and spent breathtakingly large
amounts of money to keep my little island (amongst others) in peace during my
lifetime for very little in return.

------
Mikeb85
So basically strongarming everyone into using hardware that the US government
has a backdoor into.

Not going to lie, simply based on historical US international interventions,
I'd rather be spyed on by the Chinese. They're less likely to start a war or
overthrow governments.

~~~
zimablue
Really? Do you think the US government would use your information in a more or
less restricted way than the Chinese? Would your answer change if you were: a)
a citizen of the US, b) a citizen in China, c) a citizen of a country where
china has massive influence, d) a citizen of a country where the US has
massive influence, e) a citizen of a strongly independent country?

Your answer is so baffling to me that I checked whether you're a real person,
and you seem to be. I'd be surprised if either China or the US launched a war
because of your personal communications so the question seems to come more
down to who you trust to abuse the information more/screw you in an
unaccountable way.

~~~
Mikeb85
Canada. Well, the US is using national security as a reason to urge people to
drop Huawei. Meanwhile it's an obvious economic as well as soft power play.

In recent years we've had several trade disputes with the US, illegal
immigrants pour in to our borders from the US, and US sponsored environmental
activists have disrupted many of our natural resource industries.

So can't say I'm too keen on the US attempting to restrict our trade with
China who, for all their faults, haven't been a bad partner.

~~~
ameister14
Well, they aren't exactly an equal partner, but it isn't bad. Your PM signed a
mutual extradition treaty with them and you accept any investment they want to
make while they don't need to make any concessions to you so they have no
reason to be.

