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Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

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Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#71
post #10

So there is no story, but a potential story on a potential (fill in the blanks) So you outsourced some services as many companies do and failed to keep tabs on it, just like many companies do. Forgetting to audit outsourced work is extremely prevalent. A report by Capgemini, a leading Western supplier for outsourced personnel to telecommuncations companies. No conflict of interest there.

Oh man, the 50 cent army is out in force.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#72

American, here. Given that there is no hard proof that Huawei actually spies on their customers and that Huawei critics use the same talking points in the media to criticize Huawei and China, I am starting believe that this is not about China as a threat. That they could be a threat is not the same as the being a threat. Rather, Western leaders no longer have the willingness or belief that we can compete in tech with…

Do you even know how businesses are supposed to operate in China if they’re from the outside? My understanding from a security friend is there are all these hurdles and the Chinese government wants access to networks and source code for anything that’s operating within the country. Also, there have been plenty of stories on HN where American businesses are ripped off by China knockoffs and there’s no way to really su…

Since these companies operate only with the blessing of the CCP and are under its control, they all should be considered foreign agents when conducting business outside of china.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#73
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huawei doesn't really deserve the benefit of the doubt, a lot of their early success was due to hacking Cisco and Nortel then building competing products based on stolen information, all while the Chinese government was restricting non-Chinese telecom vendors from operating in the country.

I personally don't like to be manipulated by media. So for this case I am just saying be aware not to be a tool/pawn is some big player's game, I suggest you either do more digging , wait for some real evidence - but downvote if the mention of the Bloomberg fake article or innocent until proven guilty is a something wrong that needs to be hidden.

You're contradicting yourself here, as you don't want to be manipulated but are already convinced that this is part of anti-China propaganda.

Also, innocent until proven guilty should only apply to regular people, not state actors. Many historical events are only declassified after 50, 60 years, or never at all. Believe a story or not is your judgement, but asking for proofs are either naive, or just looking for excuses.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#75
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and the Netherlands are both allied members of NATO. That's why Huawei is a different story.

Are you saying it's worse for China to (be granted sufficient access by the Netherlands that, in theory, if they wished to abuse that access, they could) spy on communications in the Netherlands than for the US to spy on communications in the US?

I'm saying that the it's a reductionist oversimplification to say that it doesn't matter who the Netherlands picks for their telecom infrastructure because "everyone spies". Different countries have different relationships with each other, and the entire point of an alliance is to cooperate and establish trust.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#76
post #63
post #10

So there is no story, but a potential story on a potential (fill in the blanks) So you outsourced some services as many companies do and failed to keep tabs on it, just like many companies do. Forgetting to audit outsourced work is extremely prevalent. A report by Capgemini, a leading Western supplier for outsourced personnel to telecommuncations companies. No conflict of interest there.

We have another thread actively discusses potential issues with Google's FloC [0], which is only a proposal at this time, no harm done yet. Do you think Huawei/China is less of a potential thread than Google? If not why do you think there is no story here? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26854073

...a threat to who, and for what?

There are two main concerns at play here that are very different: consumer privacy and national security.

The consumer privacy concerns are generally subject to regulation by law, but national security concerns often are extralegal in nature. This makes a big difference in the availability of tools to address the problems. Google will follow your laws or pay fines until they comply. Spies won't.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#77
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally don't like to be manipulated by media. So for this case I am just saying be aware not to be a tool/pawn is some big player's game, I suggest you either do more digging , wait for some real evidence - but downvote if the mention of the Bloomberg fake article or innocent until proven guilty is a something wrong that needs to be hidden.

You're contradicting yourself here, as you don't want to be manipulated but are already convinced that this is part of anti-China propaganda. Also, innocent until proven guilty should only apply to regular people, not state actors. Many historical events are only declassified after 50, 60 years, or never at all. Believe a story or not is your judgement, but asking for proofs are either naive, or just looking for excu…

[deleted]

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#78
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US and the Netherlands are both allied members of NATO. That's why Huawei is a different story.

Are you saying it's worse for China to (be granted sufficient access by the Netherlands that, in theory, if they wished to abuse that access, they could) spy on communications in the Netherlands than for the US to spy on communications in the US?

I can't speak for the OP, but I'd say that, yes. The US's spying activity is an overreach (to put it mildly) and I don't agree with the extent or purpose in many cases. We also don't really have a well functioning democracy, in my opinion, due to the capture of the government by private corporations. But what we do have is still a democracy, and it is absolutely lightyears above and beyond the genocidal, anti-liberty government of China.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I can't read the actual report, this article does not support your claims. >Apparently also a list of numbers under surveillance by Dutch intelligence was found in possession of Huawei. Which was clearly well beyond those boundaries Wouldn't the ones running the network need to know which numbers were under surveillance to provide the intelligence agency access?

The article says: > The company gained unauthorized access to the heart of the mobile network from China. ... but then, in the very next sentence: > How often that happened is not clear because it was not recorded anywhere. This wording is a bit unclear. The first sentence states as a matter of fact that there was unauthorized access, while the second states that there are no records.

That is not conflicting. "did they" and "how often" are two different questions. Metadata can and often does indicate the fact that something was accessed but not how often. For example, the "last modified" user/timestamp on a file.

Re: Huawei was able to eavesdrop on Dutch mobile network KPN: Report

#80
post #5

The spin on this situation is dumb. What it amounts to is that KPN hired Huawei on a contract basis to administer its equipment, and as a result those contract administrators had... administrator privileges on the Huawei equipment. Now, obviously telco equipment can be used for spying, but there's absolutely no allegation of wrongdoing here at all. If there is any finger to point, it's at KPN for hiring an untrusted…

I feel we need to read all these stories with a skeptical eye because, frankly, Huawei's become a political football, and there is a very strong motivation to cast events in the most unfavorable light possible by officials who are working backwards from the conclusion. Perhaps they do have some kind of spying master plan but I have found a lot of the fanfare for these stories hasn't held up to scrutiny.

I agree that there is a lot of spin on these stories: efforts to paint bad and sloppy network security decisions as evidence of actual malice. I am sympathetic to the national security agencies who are likely driving this reporting, though. Giving untrusted foreign companies access to your communications infrastructure is generally a bad idea, and the evidence (from Western countries’ own actions) is that this kind of access will eventually be abused. But the problem is that there appears to be an effort to paint these security screwups as something more concretely malicious than they are, in order to sway public opinion.

From my perspective it does not make a lot of sense for Huawei or China to engage in overt spying at this stage of the game, even if (assuming the worst intentions) that is something they plan to do. Right now all of the incentives for that company are to gain the trust of customers during these early stages when everyone is looking for a reason to throw up protectionist barriers. A decade from now when Huawei systems are ubiquitous and the competition has largely been put out of business, then maybe the situation will be different. But why kill the golden goose by doing something stupid now?

That doesn’t mean there wasn’t bad behavior. Maybe people are behaving irrationally. But I tend to see sloppiness behind these stories rather than actual malice.

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