Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 104 posts

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#31

Post by ByThyGrace »

sschueller wrote: post #11
Rjevski wrote: post #6

I wish they'd bad this equipment not because it's Chinese, but simply because it's shit. Seriously, pretty much all mobile network equipment (including EU-based Ericsson) has critical vulnerabilities. I wouldn't worry about Chinese backdoors when anyone can get privileged access to the core network.

They should ban any 5G millimeter wave (30GHz-300GHz) devices until enough testing on humans has been done. It is unclear what affects these waves have on our corneas and requires more research.

Why especially the corneas?

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#32

Post by joshschreuder »

jazoom wrote: post #29

"This new architecture provides a way to circumvent traditional security controls by exploiting equipment in the edge of the network – exploitation which may affect overall network integrity and availability, as well as the confidentiality of customer data." Hey Australian Government. You know what also protects confidentiality of customer data? Encryption.

The laws of mathematics don't apply in Australia

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#33

Post by close04 »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #18
roenxi wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mmm. As an Australian, the main reason I'd be happy with using US telecom equipment would be the fact that Australia makes up 1/5th of the 5 eyes. I'd expect our security people to have a very good idea of what backdoors are or are not present.

Maybe I have it wrong, but I'd prefer to have equipment from a rival of the 5 eyes. If Huawei put a backdoor in the 5 eyes are incentivised to announce it and have it closed. If the 5 eyes want a backdoor in they're incentivised to not involve Huawei or their kit lest it be used against them. A bit like sharing cake with my brother as a kid - one cuts, the other picks.

That's exactly what I meant. Too much competition in the spying game means they'll all try to take each other out, or that people will start paying even more attention to security. Remove the competition and you can give the impression all is good and safe now.

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#34

Post by jazoom »

joshschreuder wrote: post #32
jazoom wrote: post #29

"This new architecture provides a way to circumvent traditional security controls by exploiting equipment in the edge of the network – exploitation which may affect overall network integrity and availability, as well as the confidentiality of customer data." Hey Australian Government. You know what also protects confidentiality of customer data? Encryption.

The laws of mathematics don't apply in Australia

Seems like he didn't believe the mathematics in the polls either.

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#35

Post by nunobrito »

bigcity wrote: post #17
close04 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it your mobile phone is built in Germany, with German components. ;) It's just a matter of picking your poison. You think your Cisco router has no backdoors? Your Intel CPU? Your Windows OS? Your Gmail account? This isn't about making you safer, it's about removing competition (as crappy as it may have been). And they eliminate competition both economically and in the spying game. The more companies there are th…

As an EU citizen I certainly prefer to be spied on by a country with a working legal system.

An external country spying on you is not doing it for YOUR best interest, rather for the best interest of their own country and sometimes not even that much.

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#36

Post by mkj »

jazoom wrote: post #29

"This new architecture provides a way to circumvent traditional security controls by exploiting equipment in the edge of the network – exploitation which may affect overall network integrity and availability, as well as the confidentiality of customer data." Hey Australian Government. You know what also protects confidentiality of customer data? Encryption.

Encryption doesn't prevent denial of service, which is probably one of the big concerns.

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#37

Post by criddell »

throw2016 wrote: post #15

This destroys the logic of free trade, competition that countries and a plethora of global organizations like IMF, WB promote and enforced aggressively over the last 40 years especially when looking for markets in other countries. But if its only applicable to a favoured set and suddenly has all sorts of qualifiers when it comes to your own markets then the whole thing collapses. And everyone can see its politics wit…

> This destroys the logic of free trade

That depends on the calculation. Maybe there's a non-zero risk that China could remotely turn off their 5G network and including that in the calculation makes local sources a better value even when the dollar price is higher.

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#38

Post by vermilingua »

close04 wrote: post #22
zby wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even not looking on the democratic/dictatorship spectrum - outside interference will always be worse than what you get from insiders. Insiders at least depend on the country welfare - outsiders just don't give a fuck.

And the US is an insider for AU... how? Because if the NSA brought any revelation it's that the US backdoored even their allies without them knowing. I get choosing the least evil but this is a defense only as much as burning dows a building and saying "at least this little piece survived" is a defense.

Nope, FVEY was conducted very much with cooperation between the involved parties. We (Aus) have very close structural and cultural ties to the US, but China is approximately as foreign as it gets. The US may not be an insider per se, but in theory we share at least some core values.

(Not to say that I personally am ok with any of it, but from a societal perspective it makes a little sense.)

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#39

Post by sschueller »

ByThyGrace wrote: post #31
sschueller wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should ban any 5G millimeter wave (30GHz-300GHz) devices until enough testing on humans has been done. It is unclear what affects these waves have on our corneas and requires more research.

Why especially the corneas?

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10762-018-0497-z

Re: Australia bans Huawei and ZTE from supplying technology for its 5G network

#40

Post by Jhsto »

jazoom wrote: post #29

"This new architecture provides a way to circumvent traditional security controls by exploiting equipment in the edge of the network – exploitation which may affect overall network integrity and availability, as well as the confidentiality of customer data." Hey Australian Government. You know what also protects confidentiality of customer data? Encryption.

Cellular base stations allow a database of SIM cards to be created. This could be considered a superior tracker to advertisement IDs of Apple and Google. This is because the ID is retained between user equipment changes. This information is exchanged before actual data transmission, i.e., it does not matter even if the actual data would be encrypted.

I think it's inevident that the more precise geolocation data of 5G (due to an increased base station installations required by the mmWave frequencies) will be sold to advertisers. Essentially, Australia is betting that European manufacturers will respect privacy better than China - and sure, at least European companies do not need to hand over their data to authorities. Having seen surveillance implementations installed in Chinese IoT devices, it is more or less true that China is at least keeping the doors open for an intertwined database where information from various different Chinese companies can be built.

Post reply on HN