Sprint/Softbank agrees to remove Huawei network gear in the Clearwire network to appease House Intelligence Committee

[Fraydog]

Isn't the Huawei gear used mostly in license protection deployments?

[twospirits]

I don't know, none of it makes much sense to me. I mean it's okay for our government to force backdoor access into everything, warrantless eavesdropping, all communications filter through the NSA, Utah Data Center, etc and we're overly hyped that China *might* be spying on us??

lol so true.

China is and has been spying on us. The idea is to not make it overly easy.

China isn't the only one, even our allies spy on us, UK, Israel, etc etc.

As for the decision not to use huawei equipment, I am wondering if it is to punish China or some fear that the equipment would have spying parts in it. Which brings me to this...

 

As for the "national security implications" of Huawei stuff, my take is that if the equipment relies on chips made in mainland China (and the whole network relies on Chinese-made chips, both at the user equipment and the network equipment level), it's just as easy to install backdoors on the silicon if it has a "Samsung" or "Alcatel-Lucent" or "Ericcson" label on the outside of the box as it is if it has "Huawei" on the box. So really this is all protectionist, nativist noise.

That sums it up for me too.

 

TS

[WiWavelength]

I think we need to send in Cartman and Butters to infiltrate Huawei and find out when the invasion is going to happen...

 

 

What is also amusing is that I have had dinner at the PF Chang's at FlatIron Crossing, the upscale shopping mall in Broomfield where this and other "South Park" episodes take place.

 

AJ

[S4GRU]

 

What is also amusing is that I have had dinner at the PF Chang's at FlatIron Crossing, the upscale shopping mall in Broomfield where this and other "South Park" episodes take place.

 

AJ

 

Emmm...Chang's Spicy Chicken. Yum!

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

 

[kct1975]

 

Emmm...Chang's Spicy Chicken. Yum!

 

Robert via Samsung Note II via Tapatalk

 

My favorite is the Crispy Beef

(PF Chang's in Tysons Corner VA)

[WiWavelength]

Emmm...Chang's Spicy Chicken. Yum!

My favorite is the Crispy Beef

(PF Chang's in Tysons Corner VA)

 

A lot of PF Chang's, eh? You guys in training to challenge Randy Marsh's record for the world's biggest crap?

 

http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/1112biz-buzz1113.html?nclick_check=1

 

 

AJ

[irev210]

You know, I still don't believe Huawei is doing anything wrong. The evidence of wrongdoing, at last check, is

• Ties to the Chinese government and military (and China is very bad)
  
• Unproven ties to the Taliban
  
• ...
  
• Well, they could be stealing our information. And sending it to China!
  

The whole thing with the house intelligence committee always seemed very "yellow terror"ish to me. That being said, what Sprint has to do to get done, they should get done, so this is still a smart move.

 

Serious question: How many hours have you spent researching publicly available documents on Huawei? If none, how can you have that opinion?

 

China's money is good but not their equipment right?

 

Sent from my little Note2

 

China's money is good? In what sense? That they buy US debt? The Treasury auctions debt, they do not sell it. Considering each auction is well subscribed, they don't need China to buy any of the debt. China chooses to. China buys US debt because it is in their best interest to do so (as well as Japan and Korea, etc). It's not really relevant other than a political talking point.

 

Not surprised since Huawei had already been blacklisted.

 

No, it's not.

 

Yeah I'm not sure why we are told to be fearful of China and, really, for no good reason. I mean, when's the last time China posed a threat to the United States (aside from with their growing economic prowess, which is a good thing in my mind for global competition and for raising the standard of living within their own nation)?

 

If it were North Korea, then, ok, maybe I could see that. But I won't just be told to be fearful of one nation by my government and blindly say, "ok, sure, I'll be your lemming." I mean, wtf??

 

Your kidding right? The problem isn't growing economic prowess. The issue is that unlike other countries (espionage for military secrets, etc) China is doing economic espionage. Just look at poor Kawasaki trains. The list goes on and on. Basically, we develop technology and then state-sponsored entities hack and steal it. They've been trying to steal the dupont titanium dioxide formula for decades now, it's sad.

 

More examples:

http://www.businessw...orate-espionage

 

NSA Director General Keith Alexander called cyber-espionage “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.“Symantec places the cost of intellectual property theft for U.S. economy at $250 billion a year

 

The fact that this has been directly linked to chinese military:

http://www.wired.com...inked-to-hacks/

 

I could go on for days... but go back to the Nortel hack and how for 10 years the Chinese had complete access to all of Nortel's data. What do you think built Huawei and ZTE?

 

NSA Director General Keith Alexander called cyber-espionage “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.“Symantec places the cost of intellectual property theft for U.S. economy at $250 billion a year, with cybercrime a further $114 billion annually.

 

I'm sure it has something to do with allegations of state sponsored(china) corporate and government hacking.

 

They aren't really allegations at this point, they're well documented.

This is one of my favorite examples:

http://www.bloomberg...-companies.html

 

I don't know, none of it makes much sense to me. I mean it's okay for our government to force backdoor access into everything, warrantless eavesdropping, all communications filter through the NSA, Utah Data Center, etc and we're overly hyped that China *might* be spying on us??

 

It's not *might* (see above). The bigger issue is that they are stealing absolutely anything and everything they can get their hands on. It would be one thing if it was just "oh, well, we just want to see what's going on" - instead it's "we want to steel everything, nothing is off limits".

 

 

Given how much media attention this topic has received and how well documented this stuff is, I am sort of surprised that S4GRU members are pretty behind the curve on what's been going on in the cyber espionage world.

[koiulpoi]

Serious question: How many hours have you spent researching publicly available documents on Huawei? If none, how can you have that opinion?

Not enough, clearly. Just watching 60 minutes then 1-2 hours Googling. I'd appreciate it if you could point me to these documents, as a quick Google search turns up things like:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19988919

Which, um, says that they're not involved in any espionage.

[irev210]

Not enough, clearly. Just watching 60 minutes then 1-2 hours Googling. I'd appreciate it if you could point me to these documents, as a quick Google search turns up things like:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-19988919

Which, um, says that they're not involved in any espionage.

 

No, it doesn't say that. It says a report did not find any evidence. It also doesn't address what Huawei did to get to be in the position they are today. How much IP did Huawei steal? More or less, they (Chinese military) is interested in stealing technology to help "indigenous" chinese state-sponsored companies grow. The far bigger issue is how they basically steal technology to develop new industries, stealing without recourse, billions of dollars in IP. Why should they be allowed to do business here?

 

How are you supposed to fight rivals when they have your technology, and their cost base is so much lower,

-Kawasaki executive

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704814204575507353221141616.html

 

 

From an older post of mine:

 

Cisco Systems filed an IP infringement claim in 2003 against Huawei Technologies (a powerful Chinese MNC that produces telecommunications and networking equipment) for copying patented Cisco technologies, user manuals, and the source code used for Huawei’s counterfeit routers. In a 2005 interview with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Warren Heit, a partner at White & Case, states that display cases at some of Huawei’s offices contained ‘perfect’ knock-offs of Cisco telecom and Polycom equipment.

 

Huawei’s business model, for example, is partly based on selling counterfeit products in developing countries with poor IP protection. As Heit suggests: “Huawei is saying to itself… ‘I am going to knock (Cisco) products off and to the extent the IP law allows me to practice in these areas, I’m going to go there…Cisco, maybe you can have the U.S., but I’ll take you everywhere you haven’t gone.’”

 

A Huawei employee illegally took photos of Fujitsu circuit boards at Supercomm in 2003; Business Week speculated that the employee may have also collected proprietary information from AT&T, Cisco, Lucent, Nortel, and Tellabs.

http://www.hsaj.org/?fullarticle=5.1.7

 

 

On July 21, the general counsel of Fujitsu Network Communications sent a letter to Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, informing him that a Huawei employee had been caught allegedly trying to filch information on rivals' products at a recent trade show.

On June 23, Yi Bin Zhu was discovered after hours at the SuperComm show in Fujitsu's booth removing the casing from a $1 million piece of networking gear and taking photos of the circuit boards inside. According to a July 21 letter sent by Melanie Scofield, the Fujitsu unit's chief counsel, a security guard was summoned and confiscated the photo card in Zhu's digital camera along with a notebook containing notes and diagrams of other suppliers' gear.

 

 

On Saturday, The Australian newspaper reported that the country's national security ser-vice is investigating claims that the Australian branch of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei employs technicians in Australia with direct links to the People's Liberation Army and the Chinese government.

 

Their claims include that the Chinese government controls Huawei's operations and that the privately owned company is involved in cyber espionage against Australian interests, ac-cording to the paper.

http://english.peopl...83/6751276.html

 

But one telecom industry veteran said that around 2004, it was clear to many that Huawei was copying Nortel’s telecom hardware, and even its instruction manuals.

http://m.theglobeand...?service=mobile

 

 

As reported by The Wall Street Journal this month, hackers had free rein inside Nortel's network for more than a decade before the company went bankrupt in 2009.

 

Still, neither the expert nor Mr. Shields was able to establish a direct link between the hackers and their mysterious benefactors. Mr. Shields' conviction that the Chinese government was involved on behalf of Huawei remains circumstantial at best: The Shenzhen based company had surpassed US$100-million in annual sales to international markets in 2000, the year many Nortel historians mark as the start of the former Canadian corporate champion's fall from grace. Huawei enjoyed rapid global growth from that point onward.

 

Armed with nearly two decades doing security for the now-defunct Canadian company whose technology still powers telecommunications networks around the world, he had spent a day just before Christmas 2008 digging through the Web browsing history of then CEO Mike Zafirovski, known to colleagues as 'Mike Z'. Mr. Shields was convinced there were criminals working on behalf of China's Huawei Technologies Co. accessing the CEO's files, but his hunch hadn't been enough for his immediate bosses to grant him direct access to the top man's PC.

http://www.canada.co...77-85427e0b97c2

 

 

 

Using seven passwords stolen from top Nortel executives, including the chief executive, the hackers—who appeared to be working in China—penetrated Nortel's computers at least as far back as 2000 and over the years downloaded technical papers, research-and-development reports, business plans, employee emails and other documents, according to Brian Shields, a former 19-year Nortel veteran who led an internal investigation.

 

The hackers also hid spying software so deeply within some employees' computers that it took investigators years to realize the pervasiveness of the problem, according to Mr. Shields and Nortel documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. They "had access to everything," Mr. Shields said of the hackers. "They had plenty of time. All they had to do was figure out what they wanted."

[jefbal99]

Reading many of the articles posted, Kawasaki really has nothing to bitch about. It got paid for transfer of IP, which was then improved upon and replaced with a better product. Kawasaki needed to better protect its IP in the contracts or it needed to hold onto the tech and force China to turn elsewhere or develop in house. They got squeezed out by bad business decisions to get cash now rather than play the long game and are now crying foul.

 

Reverse engineering has occurred all through history, almost everything is based on a better design or updating a previous product. Very few inventions are "new" innovations.

 

As for the Nortel data theft, that is seriously scary, however, there appears to be a bit of corporate greed there too. The Canadian intelligence agencies went to them years ago asking if they wanted help to review their deals, but were brushed off. Sounds like Nortel was in it for the all might buck, rather than being responsible.

 

Huawei copying Cisco hardware/software is an old story, but it happens. As stated in a couple of the stories, USSR stole electronics from the US for years and got stuck behind because they could not improve upon them and had no history of the development. Sad that some countries don't have more strict IP laws and allow that type of equipment to be installed/utilized. Cisco has moved on to a new generation of products and software. Do you want to be caught in the past with a cheap knock off or an up to date product?

 

The wind turbine story is pure corporate espionage/greed and is quite sad. Pay your licensing fees while developing a product the rivals/replaces the legacy product. However, there is also to blame an inside man who provided the source code to the hardware. There was no hacking to steal the product, it was a simple human theft.

 

Just based on the business practices of Huawei, I wouldn't do business with them if I was Sprint/Softbank/Clear.

[irev210]

Reading many of the articles posted, Kawasaki really has nothing to bitch about. It got paid for transfer of IP, which was then improved upon and replaced with a better product. Kawasaki needed to better protect its IP in the contracts or it needed to hold onto the tech and force China to turn elsewhere or develop in house. They got squeezed out by bad business decisions to get cash now rather than play the long game and are now crying foul.

 

True, to a degree. The problem is, China requires you to go with a domestic partner. Part of it is corporate greed, the other part of it is ignorance. They try to build contracts to protect IP but in China, they don't enforce the IP at all, so it doesn't really matter what you put into the contract. The Chinese company says that it's their own technology and Kawasaki can't really do anything - regardless of what the truth is (like the wind turbine story).

 

One of the more interesting stories is the signal systems. They stole the IP to the signal switches but beyond that, they didn't have the experience to implement the IP. There have been a few tragic train crashes as a result.

 

Reverse engineering has occurred all through history, almost everything is based on a better design or updating a previous product. Very few inventions are "new" innovations.

 

Agreed, we saw America do this with British goods, and Japan with American goods. The difference is someone had to reverse engineer it - China just steals the source code.

 

Check out the NetNanny story and what China did to the NetNanny company when they were trying to put up their "green wall".

 

 

As for the Nortel data theft, that is seriously scary, however, there appears to be a bit of corporate greed there too. The Canadian intelligence agencies went to them years ago asking if they wanted help to review their deals, but were brushed off. Sounds like Nortel was in it for the all might buck, rather than being responsible.

 

A lack of willingness for companies to step forward is a giant problem. Often times, facing embarrassment, they brush off serious data breaches. There is a good story today in the WSJ about how they hire law firms to investigate so they can keep attorney/client privilege.

 

Huawei copying Cisco hardware/software is an old story, but it happens. As stated in a couple of the stories, USSR stole electronics from the US for years and got stuck behind because they could not improve upon them and had no history of the development. Sad that some countries don't have more strict IP laws and allow that type of equipment to be installed/utilized. Cisco has moved on to a new generation of products and software. Do you want to be caught in the past with a cheap knock off or an up to date product?

 

I think China's goal was to essentially jump start industries that would take decades to build and then throw massive amounts of bodies to keep updating products and move toward "indigenous innovation". Suitcases full of motorola trade secrets and cash always helps.

 

The wind turbine story is pure corporate espionage/greed and is quite sad. Pay your licensing fees while developing a product the rivals/replaces the legacy product. However, there is also to blame an inside man who provided the source code to the hardware. There was no hacking to steal the product, it was a simple human theft.

 

The problem is, if that happened in the USA (or most other countries) the offender would be jailed, the company would be facing a serious investigation, and people would be going to jail. There would be no way that the company could keep doing business.

 

In China, it's a little different when that sort of behavior is not punished but encouraged, nourished, and backed by the state.

 

Just based on the business practices of Huawei, I wouldn't do business with them if I was Sprint/Softbank/Clear.

 

Me neither!

[jefbal99]

True, to a degree. The problem is, China requires you to go with a domestic partner. Part of it is corporate greed, the other part of it is ignorance. They try to build contracts to protect IP but in China, they don't enforce the IP at all, so it doesn't really matter what you put into the contract. The Chinese company says that it's their own technology and Kawasaki can't really do anything - regardless of what the truth is (like the wind turbine story).

 

One of the more interesting stories is the signal systems. They stole the IP to the signal switches but beyond that, they didn't have the experience to implement the IP. There have been a few tragic train crashes as a result.

 

I don't think it is at all fair to call ignorance. Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, but not in the last 10. China has always been suspect as a business partner.

[irev210]

I don't think it is at all fair to call ignorance. Maybe 15 or 20 years ago, but not in the last 10. China has always been suspect as a business partner.

 

I agree completely, yet people still seem to fall for it. Even if you don't partner with them, they'll go after your trade secrets that took 50+ years to develop, knock off your process, stop doing business with you, and undercut you on price.

 

Look at the DuPont story about Titanium Dioxide. When DuPont refused to sell process technology to China, China's government basically green-lighted as much theft of DuPont's titanium dioxide manufacturing process as possible. It's a crazy story - yet the response by the federal government is basically nothing.

 

Either way, companies can't win when only a few street-level pawns are getting punished.

[centermedic]

 

Serious question: How many hours have you spent researching publicly available documents on Huawei? If none, how can you have that opinion?

 

 

 

China's money is good? In what sense? That they buy US debt? The Treasury auctions debt, they do not sell it. Considering each auction is well subscribed, they don't need China to buy any of the debt. China chooses to. China buys US debt because it is in their best interest to do so (as well as Japan and Korea, etc). It's not really relevant other than a political talking point.

 

 

 

No, it's not.

 

 

 

Your kidding right? The problem isn't growing economic prowess. The issue is that unlike other countries (espionage for military secrets, etc) China is doing economic espionage. Just look at poor Kawasaki trains. The list goes on and on. Basically, we develop technology and then state-sponsored entities hack and steal it. They've been trying to steal the dupont titanium dioxide formula for decades now, it's sad.

 

More examples:

http://www.businessw...orate-espionage

 

 

 

The fact that this has been directly linked to chinese military:

http://www.wired.com...inked-to-hacks/

 

I could go on for days... but go back to the Nortel hack and how for 10 years the Chinese had complete access to all of Nortel's data. What do you think built Huawei and ZTE?

 

 

 

 

 

They aren't really allegations at this point, they're well documented.

This is one of my favorite examples:

http://www.bloomberg...-companies.html

 

 

 

It's not *might* (see above). The bigger issue is that they are stealing absolutely anything and everything they can get their hands on. It would be one thing if it was just "oh, well, we just want to see what's going on" - instead it's "we want to steel everything, nothing is off limits".

 

 

Given how much media attention this topic has received and how well documented this stuff is, I am sort of surprised that S4GRU members are pretty behind the curve on what's been going on in the cyber espionage world.

 

 

I agree with most of what you stated. However. Huawei was previously blacklisted....http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/27/technology/huawei/index.htm

I also called the spying allegations because I was to lazy to cite my information

[bigsnake49]

And yet we keep educating and then hiring ethnic Chinese to work in some critical infrastructure industries with absolutely no consideration give to either security or IP theft concerns. We deserve what we get because we're freaking naive.