China used Huawei to hack network, says report • Hacker News Board

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#41

Post by freehunter » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 5:50 PM UTC

bordercases wrote: post #19

freehunter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Apple blindly trusts the hardware that comes from their factories? I have no evidence either way, but I would be very surprised if their hardware experts in the US didn't tear down and verify the parts that get shipped to them, like they did with the SuperMicro motherboards. The idea that there is a lot of spying hardware in an iPhone that Apple doesn't know about is an extraordinary claim.

> I have no evidence either way Should you blindly trust Apple's process?

If someone is going to accuse a company of having third party spy chips in their phones, they'd better be ready to prove it. Especially if that company is known for their insanely strict (not very strict, actually insane) supply chain management and have been known to put suppliers into bankruptcy for not meeting the company's supply needs exactly (GTAT sapphire). Especially a company very recently in the news for having picked apart every chip on a server motherboard to find out if any of those chips were not in the BOM.

I don't have to blindly trust anything to know the burden of that proof is on the person making that claim. If you're going to accuse that company of mismanaging their supply chain and compromising the security of their users and their products while crowing publicly otherwise, you'd better come with some evidence.

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#42

Post by IllogicalLogic » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #39

bepotts wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular to hate the US government and US tech companies, but the US government and US tech companies are far more ethical than the Chinese. It's ridiculous to assert otherwise.

Depends who is defining what is ethical of course. The fact that ethics is cultural will mean that each side will probably think they are the most ethical. To disprove that claim: try to come up with an ethical framework which makes no mention of a higher power as justification, and tell us why it is better than all others. Most land on some variant of utilitarianism and then disagree what the objective function shou…

We can dance around the idea of ethics or we can actually look at historical actions taken by both. Putting the Chinese & US government interventionism on the same plain for objective ethics judgements is a joke (regardless of whos cultural ethical standards you use).

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#43

Post by late2part » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:00 PM UTC

bordercases wrote: post #19

freehunter wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think Apple blindly trusts the hardware that comes from their factories? I have no evidence either way, but I would be very surprised if their hardware experts in the US didn't tear down and verify the parts that get shipped to them, like they did with the SuperMicro motherboards. The idea that there is a lot of spying hardware in an iPhone that Apple doesn't know about is an extraordinary claim.

> I have no evidence either way Should you blindly trust Apple's process?

Ever wonder why the keypad lights up to show you which keys are pressed?

Ever wonder why the security model is weakened to a central trust which can reset all device passwords from central Apple command?

Ever wonder why folks are encouraged to trade security (convenience)?

Remember when Edward Snowden put his hoodie over his computer before he typed in his password?

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#44

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#45

Post by bordercases » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:11 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #41

bordercases wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no evidence either way Should you blindly trust Apple's process?

If someone is going to accuse a company of having third party spy chips in their phones, they'd better be ready to prove it. Especially if that company is known for their insanely strict (not very strict, actually insane ) supply chain management and have been known to put suppliers into bankruptcy for not meeting the company's supply needs exactly (GTAT sapphire). Especially a company very recently in the news for h…

Assume innocence over guilt, assume guilt over innocence; false positives or false negatives. Where burden of proof stands depends on the kind of error you're attempting to minimize.

In this case I don't think it's warranted to try and minimize the rate of error of accidentally not trusting even if you have had some trust before. It's because security is a hard, induction-based problem. You counter it with vigilance in the long-run. Ignoring local rumors with high potential impact adds up.

Additionally unless you truly believe you can't be impacted by privacy theft or think your actions are so petty that they would never be useful to analyze by a bad actor; or, you additionally have Apple stock or some equivalent stake, I don't know why you wouldn't be willing to distrust vehemently. To me it seems like accidentally being wrong about Apple is not worse than any of those things.

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#46

Post by IllogicalLogic » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

hnmonkey wrote: post #26

harigov wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

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

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#47

Post by indemnity » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:26 PM UTC

IllogicalLogic wrote: post #38

bepotts wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's popular to hate the US government and US tech companies, but the US government and US tech companies are far more ethical than the Chinese. It's ridiculous to assert otherwise.

Are they though? Did the Chinese government spend the last century toppling democratically elected governments and subjecting the populations to the horrors that followed purely for economic gain? I guess not.

Hello whataboutism!

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#48

Post by IllogicalLogic » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

hnmonkey wrote: post #36

hatersgonnahate wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global conspiracy is not improbable. Think about Cold War, the drastic culture difference and the fear from the fact westerners know little about China

Huh? The Cold War was not a conspiracy in the way you're implying at all. It was very publicly out there as you had kids under desks to avoid nuclear war and both countries saying how awful the other is. Westerners know plenty about China... you seem to be referring to a time hundreds of years ago where China was this far-away place and no one knew about it or understood it because we primarily traveled by trains and…

What you are stating couldn't be further from the truth. The average US citizen actually knows very little about China (we can include most of the World) and are very easily manipulated into accepting views that do not reflect reality.

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#49

Post by pcardh0 » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #4

> 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…

But their product are so inexpensive compared to other vendors, and they seem to have the same exact features, right down to the bugs.

Re: China used Huawei to hack network, says report

#50

Post by IllogicalLogic » Sat, Nov 03, 2018, 6:36 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #29

gaoshan wrote: post #10

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

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

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.