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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

#231

Post by transpute »

rightbyte wrote: post #167
blurbleblurble wrote: post #144

Why are the stakes so high? Well, research "integrated communications and sensing" to find out. IEEE is pushing this paradigm shift. The radio hardware isn't just being used for communications between active devices anymore. It'll be useable for passive and biometric sensing applications, including but not limited to passive localization and identification of people without phones. Next generation wireless standards…

> It'll be useable for passive and biometric sensing applications, including but not limited to passive localization and identification of people without phones. What? How? Why are all these tinfoil hat conspiracies turning into reality ... like your TV or alarm clock spying on you.

This is scheduled for 2024 via IEEE 802.11bf in Wi-Fi 7 Sensing, it's passive radar that passes through the walls of homes and business, e.g. neighbors or adversaries can identify humans, activity, typing, combination locks, etc. Anything involving motion which causes Doppler shift. Hundreds of papers have been published over the past decade and it can be done with hardware that costs less than $20.

Defenses are either cat&mouse electronic warfare or shielding the walls/floor/roof of some rooms (e.g. research labs in business, industrial systems, home offices, bedrooms) with materials like aluminum radiant barrier or expensive drywall (e.g. QuietRock) designed for RF shielding of SCIFs.

Prior threads: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31561338#31563572

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

#232

Post by bogomipz »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #218
bogomipz wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is equally fascinating and frightening. Is it correct to say Cross-Modal-ID is an application of "integrated communications and sensing" technology then? Am I understanding relationship correctly?

I'd say that's a good way of putting it, though the way I understand it is that "integrated sensing and communication" is an engineering approach intended to facilitate more applications like this and to push them to the theoretical limits. The main reason being to help communication and sensing applications coexist in the same spectrum.

Thanks, that helps as do your two links above. Cheers.

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

#233

Post by transpute »

bogomipz wrote: post #166
blurbleblurble wrote: post #144

Why are the stakes so high? Well, research "integrated communications and sensing" to find out. IEEE is pushing this paradigm shift. The radio hardware isn't just being used for communications between active devices anymore. It'll be useable for passive and biometric sensing applications, including but not limited to passive localization and identification of people without phones. Next generation wireless standards…

Could you elaborate on what exactly "integrated communications and sensing" is and why it's so important here. I tried to do some quick reading but I failed to find any good high level overview of what it is. Most of what I was able to find seemed like academic research papers around beam-forming.

Prior threads on Wi-Fi 7 Sensing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33758434

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

#234

Post by dilyevsky »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #224
dilyevsky wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been to their headquarters in Shenzhen it certainly didn’t look like much was being saved on r&d… I’d say much likely explanation is either aggressive government subsidy to price out competition with maybe some mix of wielding political blackmail later on (a la what US is doing with its chip restrictions rn)

I don't see what they could possibly gain, all it would take is for one genuine case of a backdoor to be confirmed and then all that investment would be nearly worthless.

People used to say same exact thing about russian gas

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

#235

Post by lupire »

namkt wrote: post #100
nazgulsenpai wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ouch, I own a few of these cameras. I chose Amcrest because they have a local US distributer who does all of the technical/warranty support. Interesting.

At this point you can't trust any 'cloud' camera regardless of who makes it.

"Non-cloud" cameras that secrety use cloud are also a problem.

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

#236

Post by lupire »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #216
dilyevsky wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I participated in technical due diligence for a purchase order of huawei tech back in 2011 (was lte back then). Their tech was good but there is no way in hell there isn’t some kind of trick how cheap they were compared to the europeans (there were no americans at that point since motorola was kaput). Like it was basically free. There needs to be some kind of regulation when techniques like that are being played whet…

Isn't it obvious why it's so much cheaper? Their pricing for market share and cutting costs wherever they can in terms of labour conditions. I don't see how spending many billions on R&D to develop the most intricately hidden backdoors in human history (that no one has been able to offer proof for) and eating that cost to deploy them when it will all become worthless the moment the first one is detected, makes any se…

"western" tech is made in the same factories.

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

#237

Post by ericbarrett »

2devnull wrote: post #188
blurbleblurble wrote: post #144

Why are the stakes so high? Well, research "integrated communications and sensing" to find out. IEEE is pushing this paradigm shift. The radio hardware isn't just being used for communications between active devices anymore. It'll be useable for passive and biometric sensing applications, including but not limited to passive localization and identification of people without phones. Next generation wireless standards…

In the future we won’t see tanks driving over dissidents. Such barbarities gone, a safer more technocratic dystopia awaits. Smart cities. Chilling.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri predicted it, again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwqN3Ur-wP0

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

#238

Post by clouddrover »

zokar wrote: post #90
iso1631 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people on HN arguing against sanctioning Russia for invading a sovereign state, they believe that the west should just turn a blind eye to it. It's quite interesting, it's pretty much the only place on the internet I encounter such posts.

They may be arguing against sanctions because they are ineffective and hurt the West. I haven't seen the stance to ignore the Ukraine invasion altogether. I wonder why you would single out HN for these posts. They appear in every comment section even of the mainstream press, on YouTube and other places. Ineffectiveness of sanctions is an old and legitimate topic. Certainly the topic is discussed behind closed doors e…

> They may be arguing against sanctions because they are ineffective and hurt the West.

Russians say otherwise. Sanctions applied since 2014 are one of the reasons for the Russian military's ineffectiveness in Ukraine:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/russian-federation/sources-ru...

To quote the article: "The Russian military industry was heavily dependent on Western-made components and products. It used U.S. and European tools to service drone engines and motors. It relied on Western producers to build gear for radiation-proof electronics, which are critical for the satellites Russian officials use to gather intelligence, communicate, and carry out precision strikes. Russian manufacturers worked with French companies to get the sensors needed for our airplanes. Even some of the cloth used in light aircraft, such as weather balloons, was made by Western businesses. The sanctions suddenly cut off our access to these products and left our military weaker than the West understood. But although it was clear to my team how these losses undermined Russia’s strength, the foreign ministry’s propaganda helped keep the Kremlin from finding out. The consequences of this ignorance are now on full display in Ukraine: the sanctions are one reason Russia has had so much trouble with its invasion."

Sanctions can be effective but they work best in the long term, less so in the short term.

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

#239

Post by MichaelZuo »

dilyevsky wrote: post #234
MichaelZuo wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what they could possibly gain, all it would take is for one genuine case of a backdoor to be confirmed and then all that investment would be nearly worthless.

People used to say same exact thing about russian gas

How does Russian gas relate to the fear of backdoors?

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

#240

Post by lordfrito »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #220
lordfrito wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, the sanctions aren't helping the Chinese tech economy. And I also agree that economic warfare has escalated recently. Battle lines have been being drawn for the last decade or so, and now pieces are moving around on the chess board (not just US and China, Russia Ukraine etc) As to how much beyond "not being friends" this is, I'm not sure that protecting the Chinese tech sector is anyone's responsibility but…

> This situation is regrettable for both parties. But resorting to "US bad" and "China victim" here is a gross simplification of the situation. It's clear which side is the aggressor here. The Chinese government doesn't want a tech war or a trade war, because every year that China can stably develop its economy plays in its favor. The US sees the same situation in exactly the opposite way: every year that China devel…

I don't understand how you can complain about unfair economic warfare being waged by the west, while at the same time downplay the systemic theft of western IP to build the Chinese economy. One is "economic warfare" and the other is a "minor annoyance"? Guess it depends on whose side you're on?

As for "American anxiety about being displaced as the world's top power". It's no secret that China wants to replace the western/liberal rules based system of international order with one of their own design. Whether or not they will succeed in doing this one thing is certain: it wont happen without major conflicts along the way, and will likely require a world war. The system put in place after WWII has served the world well enough, it's given the world relative peace and prosperity, and helped the great powers avoid major conflicts for a good 75 years. In many ways there's never been a better time to be alive.

It seems China seeks to return to pre-WWII conditions, where great powers have the opportunity to pursue their ambitions in absence of any group uniting to keep them in check. This will inevitably lead to rising tensions and conflict between overlapping spheres of influence. If this isn't a recipe for war, I don't know what is.

There is a period of conflict that is coming (and in some ways is already here). Russia invaded Ukraine shortly after announcing the Russian-China friendship was was "without limits". Russia wants to be free to pursue it's Imperial goals in eastern Europe, and China is willing to look the other way as they have their own designs on the pan-Asia geopolitical sphere. In many ways the invasion of Ukraine was a shot across the bow to the current world order, announcing that some power blocks are done playing by the current set of rules, and signaling to everyone that the period of relative stability may be over. We've moved from the "post WW-II" phase of history to the "pre WW-III" phase.

That fact alone is definitely anxiety producing.

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