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Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

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Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#51

Post by cm2187 »

close04 wrote: post #44
ivanhoe wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Serbia it was primarily Israelis who sold all of the surveillance tech to the government, and now China seems to be pushing everyone else out of the market. It really makes a very little difference to common people, one foreign actor or the other, none of the sides is really altruistic in that game...

I think this is the real problem: China/Huawei are pushing their competition out of the "support an (oppressive) regime" business. They become the go-to partner for regimes that historically relied on western or middle-eastern partners maintaining their authority.

Maybe merely a quality choice! If you want to buy a nice car, you go for a German brand, if you want fine wine, go French, if you want software, go American, if you want an orwellian mass surveillance system, you go with the country which speciality it is!

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#52

Post by Barrin92 »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #31
tibbydudeza wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly it has been shown the United States circa 2019 is not an ally anymore ... it is an alien country to most of us now where you have somehow elected a nativist leader who is a racist. At this stage for us Africans the Chinese seems like a more dependable and friendlier lot.

It's still an ally, more than the Chinese will ever be. Just wait and see, the loans you are getting ( not investments) are for Chinese workers. The loans are at 4-6% if the work isn't executed by Chinese workers. That's not an ally

>It's still an ally, more than the Chinese will ever be.

The US has no concept for Africa, because unlike China which uses infrastructure projects and investment as a way to offload its export surplus the US is an overwhelmingly domestic economy.

There will never be an American 'Belt and Road' because it just doesn't make much sense for a country that has so little international economic exposure, whenever the US forms alliances it is towards purely political ends. In that sense one could indeed characterise the relationship with China as more stable. No Chinese leader is suddenly going to go isolationist over the next two decades just because they feel like it.

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#53

Post by luzjh »

cm2187 wrote: post #51
close04 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the real problem: China/Huawei are pushing their competition out of the "support an (oppressive) regime" business. They become the go-to partner for regimes that historically relied on western or middle-eastern partners maintaining their authority.

Maybe merely a quality choice! If you want to buy a nice car, you go for a German brand, if you want fine wine, go French, if you want software, go American, if you want an orwellian mass surveillance system, you go with the country which speciality it is!

Well said! Thanks for the gold, stranger!

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#54

Post by close04 »

cm2187 wrote: post #51
close04 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the real problem: China/Huawei are pushing their competition out of the "support an (oppressive) regime" business. They become the go-to partner for regimes that historically relied on western or middle-eastern partners maintaining their authority.

Maybe merely a quality choice! If you want to buy a nice car, you go for a German brand, if you want fine wine, go French, if you want software, go American, if you want an orwellian mass surveillance system, you go with the country which speciality it is!

> if you want an orwellian mass surveillance system

I think this misses the point. Countries like US or Israel are perfectly capable [0][1][2] of offering such systems. And they do because it gives them another solid "string" attached to the regime receiving it. Their problem is that now the string (and all the knowledge, power, influence that come with it) could go to China. Hence the campaign to discredit them simply by suggesting this behavior is limited to them. Putting the facts in perspective would undermine this.

[0] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israel...

[1] https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/report-saudi-arabia...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/17/how-us-sur...

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#55

Post by wil421 »

ivanhoe wrote: post #41
motohagiography wrote: post #13

Huawei will likely become the main competition for NSO group and companies like it, but that's the least of the worlds worries. Governments with resource wealth don't need large public services that would operate a sophisticated intelligence service, so they outsource it. So far these governments have been doing point targeting against dissidents w/ mercenary surveillance companies, but it's possible these companies…

In Serbia it was primarily Israelis who sold all of the surveillance tech to the government, and now China seems to be pushing everyone else out of the market. It really makes a very little difference to common people, one foreign actor or the other, none of the sides is really altruistic in that game...

There’s a giant empty Huawei building in Belgrade. Someone didn’t pay off the correct government official. I suppose the Israelis did.

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#56

Post by adinobro »

throw7 wrote: post #10
ETHisso2017 wrote: post #2

Seems these activities were conducted without Huawei corporate being aware or involved. Still an embarrassing compliance failure on their part.

I'm sure huawei corporate is correcting the issue right now. /s But who do you think trained the ugandan cyber-surveillance team in the first place? You can piece it together from the article: They had pegasus and were trained by the israeli company (probably not an advanced version... the one that just parses unencrypted comms). But they even said it was simplistic and needed/wanted more. Of course Huawei trained th…

Maybe it was an ex-Cisco employee? They helped China in the first place and the Huawei hardware is almost the same.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/04/ciscos-latest-attempt-...

I don't know if the Chinese firewall has been upgraded to Chinese hardware or if it is still running on US hardware. This kind of hardware often last for 10+ years so I would not be surprised if the hardware is still mostly from Cisco.

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#57

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

Nokinside wrote: post #35

Mobile networks can be considered strategic infrastructure. Normally US State Department would be working closely with US companies to push back against Huawei with all kinds of political tie-ins and perks. Except that the US is not in the market. US based mobile network infrastructure assets (Lucent Technologies and Motorola's wireless network infrastructure business) were sold to Europeans long time ago. Both of th…

No, there's no indication whatsoever that Huawei is government-owned. Stop spreading FUD. There are plenty of state-owned enterprises in China, but Huawei isn't one of them.

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#58

Post by DeonPenny »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #57
Nokinside wrote: post #35

Mobile networks can be considered strategic infrastructure. Normally US State Department would be working closely with US companies to push back against Huawei with all kinds of political tie-ins and perks. Except that the US is not in the market. US based mobile network infrastructure assets (Lucent Technologies and Motorola's wireless network infrastructure business) were sold to Europeans long time ago. Both of th…

No, there's no indication whatsoever that Huawei is government-owned. Stop spreading FUD. There are plenty of state-owned enterprises in China, but Huawei isn't one of them.

Theres a lot of evidence that they are state-owned. For example, a large number of board members being active in the CCP

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#59

Post by C1sc0cat »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #57
Nokinside wrote: post #35

Mobile networks can be considered strategic infrastructure. Normally US State Department would be working closely with US companies to push back against Huawei with all kinds of political tie-ins and perks. Except that the US is not in the market. US based mobile network infrastructure assets (Lucent Technologies and Motorola's wireless network infrastructure business) were sold to Europeans long time ago. Both of th…

No, there's no indication whatsoever that Huawei is government-owned. Stop spreading FUD. There are plenty of state-owned enterprises in China, but Huawei isn't one of them.

That is what is some times called "Not readily believable" Huawei certainly isn't a worker coop as it claims.

Re: Huawei Technicians Helped African Governments Spy on Political Opponents

#60

Post by dangerface »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #42
rolltiide wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, it is. It's only funds, not resources. Give me some trustworthy resources that say the IMF is both. The Western world has been giving back colonies from a dark past. That's a higher standard. Fyi, the entire world has dark pasts, some more successful than others.

> The Western world has been giving back colonies from a dark past.

No they won their independence from wars, most of the colonies that where "given back" won their independence through fighting in world war 1 and 2, there are very few exceptions to this rule.

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