More Troubles for Huawei

[zeusthemoose]

Summary

 After a recent security report from the UK government which essentially said: 

Quote

These new measures [from the US] could have a big impact on the products Huawei is able to produce, which critics argue could make its equipment less safe to use.

(The Verge)

it was announced that Huawei involvement in the 5G network across the UK will be ending. Companies will be able to buy and implement Huawei products until the end of this year. After that, they cannot be bought anymore and must be phased out of use by 2027.

 

 

Quotes

Quote

• Buying new Huawei 5G equipment banned after 31 December 2020

• All Huawei equipment to be removed from 5G networks by end of 2027

• Existing ban on Huawei from most sensitive ‘core’ parts of 5G network remains

(UK Government Site)

Quote

Huawei’s networking equipment is to be phased out of the UK’s 5G networks, the government announced today. Telecoms operators will not be allowed to buy new 5G telecoms equipment from the Chinese firm from January next year, and they will have seven years to remove its existing technology from their 5G infrastructure at an expected cost of £2 billion. The announcement follows a new report about Huawei’s role in the UK’s national infrastructure from the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.

The decision marks a U-turn from the government’s previous position, announced in January, which allowed Huawei’s equipment to be used in the country’s 5G infrastructure, with certain limitations. Under that position, Huawei would be limited to a 35 percent market share, and its equipment couldn’t be used in core parts of the network or geographically sensitive locations. Now, however, its equipment will be completely removed from the country’s 5G networks.

(The Verge)

 

 

My thoughts

 I cant say i'm surprised this happened. I have not been following Huawei closely, so I dont know if any security vulnerabilities have actually been found yet or this is just to stop the potential of that happening.

 Even though telecom companies can still buy the equipment until the end of this year, I doubt they will because it will have to be replaced in 6 years at most.

 

Sources

 The Verge

 Bloomberg

 UK Government

[CTR640]

All I can say: we have to stay neutral. Any story/accusation has two stories and the truth will highly likely never be revealed.

[RejZoR]

7 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

All I can say: we have to stay neutral. Any story/accusation has two stories and the truth will highly likely never be revealed.

Especially how Murica always portrays itself as the good guys and China as the evil spying communists. Yet America is the one that does huge mass surveillance of their own people as well as people outside USA to really creepy levels. But hey, it's all fine coz Murica good guys and everyone else bad guys.

 

I wonder how America would feel if entire world banned their gadgets and services because their creepy PRISM program is spying on everyone using American services and products? It would look like this news, just with Huawei replaced with Google, Apple, Microsoft and the likes.

 

And this especially grinds my gears knowing what they did with Kaspersky not that long ago. NSA's contractor got caught handling hacking tools and Kaspersky Antivirus which was apparently on this idiots system caught the tool and submitted the thing to Kaspersky's virus lab via integrated KSN network (which is a cloud protection system, similar to ones employed by basically all antivirus companies). Kaspersky did exactly what it was designed for, scouting new malware, sending it to virus lab and getting it analyzed and issuing out protection for it. Apparently it pinged the virus lab guys to do a manual review which is common for really unique pieces of malware and virus analysts found out it was a hack tool that NSA was using to you guessed it, hacking into other systems. Yet US government and NSA portrayed the whole deal as Kaspersky being on the wrong, they started banning Kaspersky from government systems and started screeching how Russia is bad and all that crap. All for their own fuckups blaming Kaspersky literally just for doing their job. And while I know China does shady stuff as well, but US and also UK with their own creepy surveillance stuff and generally being America's bitch, should be the last ones to complain about it.

[Tan3l6]

Blurred lines between good survaillance and Fahrenheit 451...

 

[CTR640]

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

Especially how Murica always portrays itself as the good guys and China as the evil spying communists. Yet America is the one that does huge mass surveillance of their own people as well as people outside USA to really creepy levels. But hey, it's all fine coz Murica good guys and everyone else bad guys.

 

I wonder how America would feel if entire world banned their gadgets and services because their creepy PRISM program is spying on everyone using American services and products? It would look like this news, just with Huawei replaced with Google, Apple, Microsoft and the likes.

 

And this especially grinds my gears knowing what they did with Kaspersky not that long ago. NSA's contractor got caught handling hacking tools and Kaspersky Antivirus which was apparently on this idiots system caught the tool and submitted the thing to Kaspersky's virus lab via integrated KSN network (which is a cloud protection system, similar to ones employed by basically all antivirus companies). Kaspersky did exactly what it was designed for, scouting new malware, sending it to virus lab and getting it analyzed and issuing out protection for it. Apparently it pinged the virus lab guys to do a manual review which is common for really unique pieces of malware and virus analysts found out it was a hack tool that NSA was using to you guessed it, hacking into other systems. Yet US government and NSA portrayed the whole deal as Kaspersky being on the wrong, they started banning Kaspersky from government systems and started screeching how Russia is bad and all that crap. All for their own fuckups blaming Kaspersky literally just for doing their job. And while I know China does shady stuff as well, but US and also UK with their own creepy surveillance stuff and generally being America's bitch, should be the last ones to complain about it.

Exactly. All Murica does is pointing at others while they are dirty too. And the worst: they seem to control other big continents too in the rest of the world too. Who are they trying to kid...

[LAwLz]

I've already posted this is several other threads but it's worth mentioning here as well:

 

On 5/31/2020 at 9:28 AM, LAwLz said:

Here is a thready reminder than the ban on Huawei is NOT about "we need to protect ourselves from Chinese spying". Right now there is 0 evidence of Huawei networking equipment being backdoored. 

The real reason for the Huawei bans can be found in this news article. 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/it-would-be-an-issue-malcolm-turnbull-intervenes-in-uk-s-huawei-debate-20200114-p53ric.html

Quote

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World at One program, Mr Turnbull said the main risk the Australian security agencies had identified was not through potential Chinese interception of intelligence but by denial of access to the network.

 

Yes that is correct. Australia is not banning Huawei because they are scared of Chinese spying. They are banning Huawei because they are deemed too secure and it would prevent national intelligence agencies from doing wiretapping. 

 

 

The UK were also threatened to be kicked out of 5 eyes if they went with Huawei. 

Quote

I think the fact that the other Eyes - the other parties to that Five Eyes relationship - are taking a different approach indicates it would become an issue

 

The reason for Huawei bans aren't that they are a Chinese company and would allow China to spy on other counties. It's the exact opposite in fact. If countries start using Chinese equipment it will become harder for agencies like the NSA and other 5 eyes countries to spy and collect data on each others' citizens. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes

 

 

Don't buy into the xenophobic anti-china bullshit that is being spread by counties which have time and time again shown that their primary goals are to collect as much data on their own citizens as possible. These Huawei bans are coming from the same agencies that were literally caught hijacking transports of networking equipment to solder on additional chips which allowed wiretapping inside switches and routers. Cisco even started sending packages to deserted addresses in an attempt to try and not have their transports intercepted by US state agencies. 

 

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/

 

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/18/want_to_dodge_nsa_supply_chain_taps_ask_cisco_for_a_dead_drop/

 

 

Basically, this is how it went:

US: Don't buy Huawei stuff.

UK: Why not? They seem safe to us. Hey everyone, it's okay to buy Huawei stuff! Just don't overdo it, okay?

Australia: But if you buy Huawei stuff then we can't conduct wiretapping as easily on your citizens.

US: If you don't stop buying Huawei equipment we will kick you out of Five Eyes.

UK: Ehm, hey everyone. You're no longer allowed to buy Huawei stuff for... security reasons... What, you want evidence? Just trust us, it's in everyone's best interest.

[Haro]

3 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Just trust us, it's in everyone's best interest

Seems trust worthy..

(Joke). 

[mr moose]

15 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I've already posted this is several other threads but it's worth mentioning here as well:

 

 

 

Basically, this is how it went:

US: Don't buy Huawei stuff.

UK: Why not? They seem safe to us. Hey everyone, it's okay to buy Huawei stuff! Just don't overdo it, okay?

Australia: But if you buy Huawei stuff then we can't conduct wiretapping as easily on your citizens.

US: If you don't stop buying Huawei equipment we will kick you out of Five Eyes.

UK: Ehm, hey everyone. You're no longer allowed to buy Huawei stuff for... security reasons... What, you want evidence? Just trust us, it's in everyone's best interest.

The thing you quote there as being attribute to mr turnbull is not what he actually said, that is the news papers representation of the interview, he actually said this:

 

"How serious an issue it became only time would tell, but I have to say that prudence would suggest that the better course of action is not to use high-risk vendors and 5G, there are alternatives, European alternatives".

 

And even if he did say what you claim, he could simply mean that with foreign equipment in such an important part of the network they could effectively block people from accessing the network whenever they liked.  And to be honest given how pissed China are with us right now over demanding a investigation into coronavirus and telling them to shove of with disallowing the extradition of Hong Kong residents I think that is a good thing.

 

EDIT: and before people reply or just believe what they read, here's the link, read the article and be super critical of quote marks and attribution of comments. 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/it-would-be-an-issue-malcolm-turnbull-intervenes-in-uk-s-huawei-debate-20200114-p53ric.html

[Kisai]

On 7/14/2020 at 7:21 AM, zeusthemoose said:

My thoughts

 I cant say i'm surprised this happened. I have not been following Huawei closely, so I dont know if any security vulnerabilities have actually been found yet or this is just to stop the potential of that happening.

 Even though telecom companies can still buy the equipment until the end of this year, I doubt they will because it will have to be replaced in 6 years at most.

 

Some carriers had already installed Huawei equipment and now have to rip it out. Like had these decisions been made before bidding began/purchase decisions were made, then it would be not a big deal, just some anti-competitiveness to deal with.

 

But major carriers in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, etc have Huawei equipment in their networks. They even sell Huawei handsets. These kinds of rulings means that ALL telecom equipment with Huawei branding has to be removed, deactivated, denied access to the network. That also means that Huawei handsets and network bridges (eg 5G Wifi hotspots) also have to inevitably be deactivated since they carry the same risk.

 

Like major telco's in five eyes countries can rip the equipment out, but who is going to reimburse them for it? It will also set back rollouts by years. We might end up at 6G before any full rollout of 5G. Likewise go look at your carriers 4G rollout, chances are they haven't completely rolled out LTE today.

 

There is no manufacturer of 5G telecom equipment other than Ericsson and Nokia. They're based in Finland and Sweden.

https://www.lightreading.com/asia/as-ericsson-advances-nokias-5g-business-may-be-finished-in-china/a/d-id/759209

Huawei and ZTE are the lions share of 5G deployments in China with Nokia having ZERO.

 

So there is a case to be made that some kind of protectionism is in play in China and in Europe to protect their domestic telecom network equipment vendors. UK, US and Australia don't have any domestic telecom network equipment vendors.

 

And to what degree Huawei is being subsidized we will never know, but let's say speculatively speaking that China was subsidizing all the Huawei bids so they would get their teeth into every country's telecom networks. We have enough problems in the rest of the world with Chinese and Russian disinformation campains. What if they can intercept data and replace it with their own messages.

 

It's all very speculative. But even if the spying aspect wasn't true, the competitive aspect still is, and unfortunately some politicians aimed for a political advantage by denying Huawei access rather than maybe leveling the playing field and claim that Huawei was dumping 5G equipment to destroy domestic 5G telecom network equipment development.

 

Anyway, it's not simple, and there are far more moving parts in the story than there are people who understand them.

[cj09beira]

On 7/14/2020 at 3:45 PM, RejZoR said:

Especially how Murica always portrays itself as the good guys and China as the evil spying communists. Yet America is the one that does huge mass surveillance of their own people as well as people outside USA to really creepy levels. But hey, it's all fine coz Murica good guys and everyone else bad guys.

 

I wonder how America would feel if entire world banned their gadgets and services because their creepy PRISM program is spying on everyone using American services and products? It would look like this news, just with Huawei replaced with Google, Apple, Microsoft and the likes.

america aren't good guys when it comes to privacy, but china is much much worse on every aspect

[LAwLz]

20 hours ago, Kisai said:

There is no manufacturer of 5G telecom equipment other than Ericsson and Nokia. They're based in Finland and Sweden.

There are a couple more than just Ericsson and Nokia.

Cisco, Qualcomm, Samsung, ZTE (which you mentioned a bit later) and Datang all have the required equimpent to deploy 5G carrier infrastructure. The last two mentioned are Chinese bit in that last are also US (Cisco and Qualcomm) and Korean (Samsung) companies.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

There are a couple more than just Ericsson and Nokia.

Cisco, Qualcomm, Samsung, ZTE (which you mentioned a bit later) and Datang all have the required equimpent to deploy 5G carrier infrastructure. The last two mentioned are Chinese bit in that last are also US (Cisco and Qualcomm) and Korean (Samsung) companies.

I'm not sure if Cisco's solution counts, as they appear to be feet-first into cloud/software-defined stuff, it almost sounds like they're only pushing backhaul and not the actual MSC/antenna/Cell-site equipment.

 

Most of the stories I've read single out Nokia and Ericsson vs Huawei and don't mention anyone else, it's also possible nobody else is bidding on some of these networks.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-5g-the-bidders-and-whats-involved/a-47301598

Quote

Huawei already provides about 45 percent of Germany's 4G base stations and is a leading supplier to phone companies. 

Quote

Who are the bidders?

1&1 Drillisch recently joined Telefonica Germany, Deutsche Telekom's local unit NatCo and Vodafone Germany in bidding in the auction.

So that's the actual carriers, not the equipment vendors.

 1&1 Drillisch :

Quote

 China's ZTE and Nokia of Finland as vendor partners.

Deutsche Telekom (T-mobile): 

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DT has installed Huawei systems in thousands of its wireless towers and the supplier's technology also forms the backbone of some of its cloud products. Huawei has about one-third of the market for telecoms equipment in Europe, but supplies at least half of the equipment used by DT.

Vodafone:

Quote

Vodafone Group said last week it was suspending some Huawei equipment purchases for the core of its networks in Europe, which could be provided by other companies such as Ericsson or Cisco.

Telefonica Germany:

Quote

The company and Nokia in December completed their joint 'Early 5G Innovation Cluster' in Berlin, which will be used to test and measure the performance and coverage of first 5G services in a dense urban area.

 

Meanwhile in Canada:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bce-5g-ericsson-1.5594601

Quote

BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. will both use equipment from Scandinavian component makers Nokia and Ericsson to build out their next-generation 5G networks in Canada.

BCE = Bell Canada

Telus = Telus Mobility

Both of these providers tend to work together to cover each other's locally installed systems (Telus in the West and parts of Quebec, Bell in the East/Atlantic) , and the actual installed cell sites in BC show next-to-none for Bell. Rogers is actually the carrier that's in every province except Saskatchewan, as Saskatchewan has it's own telecom. Previously Huawei was the winning bidder on the 5G deployments with Telus but then got sideswiped by RCMP arresting Huawei's Meng and thus Canadian carriers really have no choice but to drop Huawei. Bell's existing system is Nokia.  Telus had already selected Huawei but is now Ericsson and Nokia. Rogers is the only carrier that wasn't involved with Huawei from the beginning. 

 

Complicating the story with Telus

https://news.samsung.com/us/samsung-telus-5g-provider-canadian-operator/

yet this information is not on Telus's site, so I'm just going to assume this is for a separate section of the network (as I mentioned before there are east and west sections)

 

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-telecoms-5g-orders-factbox/factbox-deals-by-major-suppliers-in-the-race-for-5g-idUSKBN23O2G4

 

This article mentions Qualcomm and Samsung once but not anyone who is using them.

 

https://techblog.comsoc.org/2019/11/21/samsung-makes-major-progress-in-5g-network-equipment-sales-seeks-to-leverage-first-mover-advantage-to-lead-in-5g/

 

This article points to SK Telecom (Korea) and KDDI (Japan), with casual mentions of AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. Samsung's news site on 5G also points to New Zealand Spark, and Canada's Videotron (Quebec). There are several mentions of Verizon, but only in tests, which makes me wonder if that's actually a Samsung deployment or only in the test cities.

 

Looks like Samsung as a base station equipment vendor isn't that well known. The news items repeatably refer to 5G NR (New Radio), so it might just be one 5G type of deployment that upgrades/supplements LTE installations.

 

Looks like Qualcomm and Intel only make chips, not entire base stations:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/5G-networks/Intel-debuts-5G-base-station-chips-as-alternative-to-Huawei

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"The Intel Atom P5900 will start being deployed this year as a key component of 5G base stations," Daniel Rodriguez, Intel corporate vice president, told reporters. "Ericsson and ZTE have announced that they will use the Atom P5900 in their base stations."

One of the reasons the Broadcom - Qualcomm takeover was rejected was exactly over who controls the 5G radio parts. Everyone should be reminded of the kinds of patent skulduggery Qualcomm did to extort cellular handset makers who rolled out LTE without using Qualcomm's modems.

 

Qualcomm's news sites are almost entirely marketing 5G tech, no mentions of what their chips are in.

https://www.qualcomm.com/news/onq/2019/02/19/driving-5g-nr-technology-evolution-forward-unlock-full-potential-5g

 

 

Ericsson lists everyone they have a 5G contract with:

https://www.ericsson.com/en/5g/5g-networks/5g-contracts

 

Nokia lists everyone they have a 5G contract with as well:

https://www.nokia.com/networks/5g/5g-in-action/

 

[williamcll]

In the end that would just mean expensive phone plans, and the UK doesn't exactly have the cheapest plans in the world.