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U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

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Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#51

Reminder of how this started... when Huawei and ZTE decided that because they weren't American companies, they didnt need to answer questions from Congress, and even outright lied about the structure of their companies to conceal CPC/government involvement: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rm226yb7473/Huawei-ZT...

Doesn’t everybody have the right to not answer questions? Americans don’t have to do this either

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#53
post #26
post #12

That took long enough! Glad we're finally looking out for national security interests, even if it was partially incentivized by economic protectionist ideas - it's naive to think China hasn't done the same to other foreign tech companies.

Ericsson and Nokia sell their 5G technology in China. Actually funny enough they were siding China too on this in Europe because a ban of Chinese tech in Europe could've resulted in a ban of European tech in China. and for anyone that doesn't live under a rock, they know pretty well that china is far a bigger market than Europe

Ericsson essentially lost its 2nd largest market because of Sweden's decision to ban Huawei.

From [0]:

> Swedish telecommunication equipment maker Ericsson plans to restructure its operations in China, its second-largest market, after its sales in the country plunged for a second consecutive quarter in the wake of its home government's move to exclude Huawei Technologies and ZTE from 5G mobile networks.

> Ericsson recorded a 74% drop in revenues from China, to 1.3 billion Swedish krona ($150.3 million), in the July-September quarter compared with a year earlier. This followed a 63% drop, to 1.5 billion krona, in China revenues in the second quarter when the company wrote off 300 million krona worth of Chinese inventories.

0. https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Telecommunication/Ericsson-...

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#54
Is this an executive measure? Does the executive have authority to do such a thing, based on vague and nebulous claims of threat to national security? Were these companies providing sevices/supplying goods in the US market subject to necessary US regulatory approvals? On which grounds can such approvals be rescinded without evidence that will stand in courts?

Moreover this is infact a restriction on US citizens/ firms from buying these goods? Does it not impinge on their rights to fair choice?

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#55
post #39

Every article I’ve ever read that cites “national security concerns” never, ever explicitly goes into the exact, computational mechanism in which it is a security concern. It’s always something like “Chinese company under Chinese government, therefore bad”. Never anything concrete or substantive from a software engineer POV, such as what exactly is phoned-home, or what actual subversions are happening currently, only…

Would this help shape policy in some way or are you just curious as a technologist? I don’t really need to know, as a long time infosec practitioner I have a fertile imagination for the shenanigans they could be up to.

Of course it will help shape policy, AND I want to know, as a technologist! How can we know what standard to apply in our work when we don’t know which standard has been broken?! As a fellow infosec practitioner who works at one of the world’s biggest security companies, I don’t want to leave it up to imagination, I want to know exactly what the wrongdoing is, because my job may depend on it in the future!

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#56
post #48
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a common stance in right-leaning circles, unfortunately.

Letting Europeans deal with Europe was the stance for all of American history until WWII.

It was a very common stance until the world changed and we learned better, yeah.

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#57

Reminder of how this started... when Huawei and ZTE decided that because they weren't American companies, they didnt need to answer questions from Congress, and even outright lied about the structure of their companies to conceal CPC/government involvement: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rm226yb7473/Huawei-ZT...

Yes, exactly. For those in a hurry, here's an excerpt from the executive summary.

``` Despite hours of interviews, extensive and repeated document requests, a review of open-source information, and an open hearing with witnesses from both companies, the Committee remains unsatisfied with the level of cooperation and candor provided by each company. Neither company was willing to provide sufficient evidence to ameliorate the Committee’s concerns. Neither company was forthcoming with detailed information about its formal relationships or regulatory interaction with Chinese authorities. Neither company provided specific details about the precise role of each company’s Chinese Communist Party Committee. Furthermore, neither company provided detailed information about its operations in the United States. Huawei, in particular, failed to provide thorough information about its corporate structure, history, ownership, operations, financial arrangements, or management. Most importantly, neither company provided sufficient internal documentation or other evidence to support the limited answers they did provide to Committee investigators. During the investigation, the Committee received information from industry experts and current and former Huawei employees suggesting that Huawei, in particular, may be violating United States laws. These allegations describe a company that has not followed United States legal obligations or international standards of business behavior. The Committee will be referring these allegations to Executive Branch agencies for further review, including possible investigation. ```

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#58

"National security" has been increasingly been used over the last 5 years as a justification for measures that are actually much more broadly geopolitical in nature. A private individual using a Huawei phone or router isn't a national security threat to the US. However, in a broader sense, the US government sees the technological development of China as a threat to American strategic dominance, and has been taking ev…

Chinese government takes a much stronger involvement in their companies than the US government. Do you know the chaos that would ensue if every Huawei router injected 100+V into the LAN cables connected to it at a fixed time? What if the phones all caught fire at the same time as well, and all the 5G modems jammed everything from GPS to WiFi bands, including aircraft communication, sattelite comms etc. This could easily bring a country to it's knees for a week, never mind the time spent cleaning up and purging the mess. Compare that, and the US's still ongoing reaction, to just two buildings in NYC being destroyed over 20 years ago.

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#59

Reminder of how this started... when Huawei and ZTE decided that because they weren't American companies, they didnt need to answer questions from Congress, and even outright lied about the structure of their companies to conceal CPC/government involvement: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rm226yb7473/Huawei-ZT...

I wonder how many countries treat American telecom equipment the same way due to NSA involvement.

Re: U.S. bans equipment from Huawei and ZTE, citing national security concerns

#60

Reminder of how this started... when Huawei and ZTE decided that because they weren't American companies, they didnt need to answer questions from Congress, and even outright lied about the structure of their companies to conceal CPC/government involvement: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rm226yb7473/Huawei-ZT...

Doesn’t everybody have the right to not answer questions? Americans don’t have to do this either

That's correct, they certainly have the right to not answer questions...and the US government has the right to interpret that lack of cooperation any way it chooses, and, say, ban their products.
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