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Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

defense.gov

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Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#11

Post by austincheney »

philprx wrote: post #9
austincheney wrote: post #6

This is highly unusual from a technology perspective. Cellular communications are distinctly and deliberately not part of DOD missions outside the US because those transmissions are easily intercepted and not encrypted. Any use of international cell phones by DOD personnel is purely a matter of urgency and convenience severely limited in what they can be used for.

Part true, but to be precise: Public, notably 4G infrastructures, have been used as underlying networks for day to day military and security activity. The overlay network itself is still encrypted and resilient by using other networks if public network is not available. With 5G, it even accelerates. Therefore it justifies part of the ban of Huawei and the security needed for 5G networks. So this program does not look…

I am an Army signal officer with 5 deployments. The military considers cell phones inherently insecure and not a mission asset, regardless of what you may read.

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#13

Post by Frondo »

aWidebrant wrote: post #8
supernova87a wrote: post #5

Sigh, these always read like such PR department unclear jargony press releases. "...The 5G Challenge would leverage the innovative capabilities of the software development and telecommunications technology communities to enable more open implementations of 5G systems, including end-user equipment, the radio access network, and the core network, with a focus on the 5G protocol stack software. " How about: "We want to…

Personally, I'll have the former style of business jargon over the latter. Sure, "leverage the innovative" doesn't mean anything, but at least it's not actively infantilizing.

Yeah, seems like trying to get away from the business speak got us to job descriptions that call for ninja rock stars. I'll take the business jargon.

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#15

Post by Daho0n »

gostsamo wrote: post #10
supernova87a wrote: post #5

Sigh, these always read like such PR department unclear jargony press releases. "...The 5G Challenge would leverage the innovative capabilities of the software development and telecommunications technology communities to enable more open implementations of 5G systems, including end-user equipment, the radio access network, and the core network, with a focus on the 5G protocol stack software. " How about: "We want to…

Or you can read this as: We are behind in the game and we don't have anyone capable in this sphere. Nokia, Erikson, Huawey, and Samsung have all the market now and we need american presence there. We can't create a state company, so we will try to break the leaders either by sanctions or by diminishing the value of their IP through open standards until the moment when the standards are open enough to favorite our pro…

/end thread

Sorry, but I just had to. This is likely the exact scenario. Well put.

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#16

Post by Daho0n »

balia wrote: post #7

Interesting. So basically a state driven economy?

I don't think that is the reasoning. IMO this comment by gostsamo is spot on:

>We are behind in the game and we don't have anyone capable in this sphere. Nokia, Erikson, Huawey, and Samsung have all the market now and we need american presence there. We can't create a state company, so we will try to break the leaders either by sanctions or by diminishing the value of their IP through open standards until the moment when the standards are open enough to favorite our proprietary IP using them.

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#17

Post by LatteLazy »

gostsamo wrote: post #10
supernova87a wrote: post #5

Sigh, these always read like such PR department unclear jargony press releases. "...The 5G Challenge would leverage the innovative capabilities of the software development and telecommunications technology communities to enable more open implementations of 5G systems, including end-user equipment, the radio access network, and the core network, with a focus on the 5G protocol stack software. " How about: "We want to…

Or you can read this as: We are behind in the game and we don't have anyone capable in this sphere. Nokia, Erikson, Huawey, and Samsung have all the market now and we need american presence there. We can't create a state company, so we will try to break the leaders either by sanctions or by diminishing the value of their IP through open standards until the moment when the standards are open enough to favorite our pro…

>Having dropped the ball on cisco being shit, the DOD is now willing to spend some cash to look like they are holding at least one ball in this market...

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#18

Post by hatmatrix »

austincheney wrote: post #11
philprx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part true, but to be precise: Public, notably 4G infrastructures, have been used as underlying networks for day to day military and security activity. The overlay network itself is still encrypted and resilient by using other networks if public network is not available. With 5G, it even accelerates. Therefore it justifies part of the ban of Huawei and the security needed for 5G networks. So this program does not look…

I am an Army signal officer with 5 deployments. The military considers cell phones inherently insecure and not a mission asset, regardless of what you may read.

Don't a lot of other devices use the 4G network for data tranfer (with encryption)?

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#19

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

austincheney wrote: post #6

This is highly unusual from a technology perspective. Cellular communications are distinctly and deliberately not part of DOD missions outside the US because those transmissions are easily intercepted and not encrypted. Any use of international cell phones by DOD personnel is purely a matter of urgency and convenience severely limited in what they can be used for.

5G benefits IIoT and edge processing, and there is little that suggests that 5G is more secure than 4G. It still has the same flaws but only the data rate is so huge that only a well funded and sophisticated lab has the ability to conduct research, but reduces access to doing research for most.

5G has even bigger implications on defense outside the small niche (of MIL spec) smart-phones. The risks are massive for a military to rely on such a consumer-grade tech. But never mind bug/back-doors Trusting foreign (multinational) vendors with this (no matter how friendly) will never work because the trust assumption beneath is already flawed.

Edit: Looking at it from a EU perspective: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/5g-elephant-in-the-room/

"> Just to let that sink in, Huawei (and their close partners) already run and directly operate the mobile telecommunication infrastructure for over 100 million European subscribers."

Re: Department of Defense and Department of Commerce to Develop Open 5G Systems

#20

Post by Foivos »

austincheney wrote: post #6

This is highly unusual from a technology perspective. Cellular communications are distinctly and deliberately not part of DOD missions outside the US because those transmissions are easily intercepted and not encrypted. Any use of international cell phones by DOD personnel is purely a matter of urgency and convenience severely limited in what they can be used for.

Network slicing and Edge computing can change that.

It is possible to have all military traffic either terminate at the edge of the military (for example a 5G installation at an army camp) or use a dedicated slice (fully isolated from the normal user traffic) to reach a trusted cloud. Usually, they use both at the same time, so if the connection to the trusted cloud is lost, you rely on the edge cloud.

As far as I know, NATO has several such projects.

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