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Pentagon Paying China To Carry Data

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Re: Pentagon Paying China To Carry Data

#4
The Chinese already manufacture a large volume of our hardware as well (with some of it skewed toward Taiwan). They have plenty of opportunities to install monitoring devices surreptitiously on land-based stuff, if they've already haven't, so unless the U.S. is planning on developing all hardware for the base stations as well (chips and all) in-house, this isn't doing much more to deliver that precious satellite data to them on a silver platter.

That said, Huawei has such a big lead in the rest of the world in comm tech, they probably already are monitoring. A wise opponent lets his adversary volunteer information first, before prodding for it.

Re: Pentagon Paying China To Carry Data

#7

Isn't this exactly the sort of problem public-key cryptography was designed to solve?

Cryptography solves the problem of spying on or altering the communications, but not the problem of blocking them. If the US was engaged in a conflict that China didn't like, they could theoretically cut off satellite communications, rendering our drones useless.

Re: Pentagon Paying China To Carry Data

#8

Isn't this exactly the sort of problem public-key cryptography was designed to solve?

Signals intelligence is not just about reading enemy communications. Traffic analysis[0] would give the Chinese valuable insight into US military communication patterns. Changes in data patterns could alert them to changes on the ground.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_analysis

Re: Pentagon Paying China To Carry Data

#9

Isn't this exactly the sort of problem public-key cryptography was designed to solve?

Or cryptography in general. Doesn't need to be public-key, could just as well be symmetric crypto.

Well, sure. The one big advantage that public key crypto brings is that you don't need a separate channel for key exchanges.
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