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Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

reuters.com

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Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#101

Post by bandushrew »

wybiral wrote: post #95
codedokode wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there was nobody who thought about it. We had a similar situation in Russia. A mobile operator was cooperating with government to hack into activists' Telegram accounts. They disabled SMS service for a user and then requested a password restore using SMS, intercepted it and got access. But they forgot to delete this information from their internal systems, so when the user called support, they told them that…

Why wouldn't an intelligence agency just intercept it quietly? If I were sufficiently motivated and had global assets willing to do my bidding I could probably have found a way to intercept it at a sorting facility or en route or by sending in an "inspector" or social engineering or something. Why on earth would they do something so obvious to leave such a paper trail when you know they could pull this off quietly?

Because they want to be able to do it at scale?

The ideal approach would be to have packages of the "interesting" kind automatically diverted to a scanning location, and then continue on their way...

Dont think of it as them being interested in a single package. They are interested in setting up a mechanism by which ALL packages of interest can be diverted with only very small effort on their part.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#102

Post by 9HZZRfNlpR »

peterwwillis wrote: post #14
wybiral wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were documents. Why wouldn't they have just intercepted them in-place instead of sending them to the US? It doesn't make sense to be anything other than an error and Huawei being paranoid (rightfully so, but still).

Possibly because if the USG were caught reading foreign companies' documents on foreign soil it would be a violation of countless international treaties, which would make the ongoing trade and infosec tensions worse, versus "whoops, this landed on our doorstep, we can do whatever we want on our soil". The fact that this can be easily chocked up to a logistical error is good cover.

Let's be honest, America has been violation of so many treaties and rules they themselves have written that it really doesn't matter anymore. Some countries retaliate, but with different methods.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#103

Post by stickfigure »

bandushrew wrote: post #101
wybiral wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't an intelligence agency just intercept it quietly? If I were sufficiently motivated and had global assets willing to do my bidding I could probably have found a way to intercept it at a sorting facility or en route or by sending in an "inspector" or social engineering or something. Why on earth would they do something so obvious to leave such a paper trail when you know they could pull this off quietly?

Because they want to be able to do it at scale? The ideal approach would be to have packages of the "interesting" kind automatically diverted to a scanning location, and then continue on their way... Dont think of it as them being interested in a single package. They are interested in setting up a mechanism by which ALL packages of interest can be diverted with only very small effort on their part.

If they were doing it at scale this wouldn't be the first time we are reading about it on HN.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#105

Post by grrowl »

wybiral wrote: post #95
codedokode wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there was nobody who thought about it. We had a similar situation in Russia. A mobile operator was cooperating with government to hack into activists' Telegram accounts. They disabled SMS service for a user and then requested a password restore using SMS, intercepted it and got access. But they forgot to delete this information from their internal systems, so when the user called support, they told them that…

Why wouldn't an intelligence agency just intercept it quietly? If I were sufficiently motivated and had global assets willing to do my bidding I could probably have found a way to intercept it at a sorting facility or en route or by sending in an "inspector" or social engineering or something. Why on earth would they do something so obvious to leave such a paper trail when you know they could pull this off quietly?

Probably easier to make the re-routing seem legitimate/boring so the handlers don't think something is amiss. More subtle than a G-Man telling you "when package #ABC-123 is scanned put it in the other pile, and tell no one", or workers noticing their co-worker is putting packages in the wrong pile.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#106

Post by grrowl »

stickfigure wrote: post #103
bandushrew wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they want to be able to do it at scale? The ideal approach would be to have packages of the "interesting" kind automatically diverted to a scanning location, and then continue on their way... Dont think of it as them being interested in a single package. They are interested in setting up a mechanism by which ALL packages of interest can be diverted with only very small effort on their part.

If they were doing it at scale this wouldn't be the first time we are reading about it on HN.

It isn't.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#107

Post by LorenPechtel »

jedberg wrote: post #17

Anyone who has shipped with FedEx knows how somehow everything you send goes through Atlanta. I'll bet this was just one of those "logistical efficiency" gone wrong kind of things. Or US intelligence requested the documents be diverted. Either is about equally likely I'd say.

Everything domestic. It doesn't make sense to do that internationally, though.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#108

Post by hindsightbias »

samstave wrote: post #24
pushpop wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The back story could just as easily be a shipping error and Huawei trying to drum up anti-American sentiment as a counter to all the bad press the US have directed their way. Sure, it’s highly suspicious that a Hauwei shipment end up in America but equally it seems unlikely FedEx would be dumb enough to advertise that fact on their tracking page if they were ordered to divert said documents. I’m not suggesting there…

Another backstory is that huwai has long believed to be backdoring to chinese intel just as cisco has since the mid 90s... We arrested their cfo in canada and have been on attack with them since. The actual question is - the US has been doing this against them for quite some time now Mr smith. So... Did huwai just realize, or do they have enough anomalous tracking that they are leaking public to measure reaction. Loo…

“Echelon The Puzzle Palace came out in the early 80’s and 2600 was on the library shelf not much later. It was widely believed that telegram and international calls were intercepted.

I knew lots of crackpots before then who insisted every domestic call was recorded and was printed speech-to-text into some giant filing cabinet, where, they couldn’t say.

Re: Huawei reviewing FedEx relationship, says packages 'diverted'

#109

Post by pdabbadabba »

grrowl wrote: post #106
stickfigure wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they were doing it at scale this wouldn't be the first time we are reading about it on HN.

It isn't.

I know there are other accounts of packages being intercepted, but is there a previous example where Fedex's tracking information openly states that a package was diverted to the U.S.?

My impression from the prior accounts was that the interception was far more clandestine.

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