[Rancid]

Equating western governments to the Chinese government is just silly and shows no real understanding of how things work.

Of course, however, in a relative democracy like the US. You have more legal protections at least, there are more safeguards to keep from getting persecuted. Where as a defacto dictatorship under jinping, you don't (if you make the CCP unhappy, you are FUUUCKed). Further, the question here is also, what's better? Two governments (US, China) spying on you, or just one (US)?

I can post "I think Trump is a moron" over and over, and no one will come after me. Try that shit in China with Xi Jingping. I know people that have been rebuffed by the Chinese state when they spoke their mind a little "too much".

[skinster]

People from the American genocidal regime trying to act like they're better than China is the funniest shit.

[Rancid]

People from the American genocidal regime trying to act like they're better than China is the funniest shit.

I'm arguing governments in the west (which doesn't just include the US) tend to do better than a defacto dictatorship in terms of the freedom of citizens to criticize their own governments. That is not to say it absolves western governments of their wrong doing. I never said anything like that. These truths are not contradictory.

Ultimately you are just trying to confound the main point at hand here. Because as true as it may be that America is genocidal (i maintain all nations are genocidal, but that's besides the point here as well), it doesn't speak to the points at hand in this thread.

[Rugoz]

We're not talking about the phones, we're talking about the infrastructure though. If there's Huawei infrastructure, it doesn't matter what phone you have, Xi Jingping could potentially keep tabs on you.

Can he though, if the communication is encrypted? Also, shouldn't there be evidence of such eavesdropping before we ban the company of a WTO-country?

As far as I can tell the Huawei bashing is just a part of Trump's little trade war.

[Rancid]

Can he though, if the communication is encrypted? Also, shouldn't there be evidence of such eavesdropping before we ban the company of a WTO-country?

That can be easily cracked if you have access to the network. Further, you can get a lot of information on people even if you don't crack the encryption. That said, it's not just about eavesdropping. In fact, eavesdropping should really be the least of your worries (it's the least of my worries). I'm sure it's at the bottom of the list of the worries of the US government too.

If you have access to the 5G core network. You can spread malware to all devices, you can control the network itself (i.e. China could shutdown the entire mobile network to black out communications and cause all sorts of economic disruptions). One insidious easy thing you could do is slow down financial transactions ever so slightly. You can control/influence driverless car networks. You can control/influence smart city sensors/controllers. It becomes easier to spread fake news. Etc. etc. There's all sorts of neat shit that could be done if you you have control of the infrastructure. Your imagination is the only limitation in this case.

Should there be evidence before a ban? Depends on who you ask. My point is, it is not overblown to point out that there is a national security risk by using Huawei in your infrastructure. By the nature of the technology itself, this should be obvious to all. It all depends on who you are, and what level of risk you are willing to take. If you know their government is hostile towards you government, is it unreasonable to ban them without evidence? Maybe no... maybe yes...

As far as I can tell the Huawei bashing is just a part of Trump's little trade war.

Yes, this certainly a second thread on top of the main national security thread. This is certainly a part of the trade war. Let me preface and say, I did not vote for Trump. I also think he made a mistake by pulling out of TPP. That said, there is a silver lining here with some of his actions. Whether those actions are intentional or not.

Putting China to task in this way does certainly signal to China that the US is not afraid to put its foot down. Prior administrations have basically yielded to playing by China's rules. This serves notice to China that the really can't do whatever they want. This hurts them too. Moreover though, the benefit I see is that it puts pressure on western technology companies to come up with ways to not be so dependent on China (something we talk about a lot at he lunch table). I don't think it's wise for us as global citizens to allow the world economy to be jerked around by China. Better it be a consortium of sorts. A consortium where we have more cooperation. US-EU economic relations are a good example of how this works decently well. US-EU have a shared stake in the global economy, thus they are much more cooperative. We need to get on that kind of footing with China. However, my personal hypothesis is that China needs to be made to feel the pain of not playing ball with the rest of the world to get there.


Again, my top level point here is, this risk is VERY real. VERY VERY VERY real. The questions become, do we ignore it? Do we do something about it? For the last 15-20 years, we've been ignoring it because the risk hasn't been as high. However, with how sophisticated 5G is going to be, along with all the other technologies it will enable (driverless cars, smart cities, IoT, etc.). It's becoming riskier to ignore it. It's WAAAAAY more than just about spying at this point, it's about controlling core infrastructure in entire nations...

I think all of you need to take this information seriously, and really think about it, then answer the question for yourself.

Me personally? yes, I think we should be doing something about it. Hence why I'm not as resistant to this Huawei ban even if there is no hard evidence. If there's another way that avoids a ban, I'm all for it. The future risk is just too great in my eyes.

[Sivad]

If you know their government is hostile towards you government, is it unreasonable to ban them without evidence? Maybe no... maybe yes...

Asolutely yes. It would be totally insane to allow a hostile government access to critical networks. It would be insane to allow any coporate entity that had dealings with a hostile foreign power to have access to that network.

[Rancid]

Asolutely yes. It would be totally insane to allow a hostile government access to critical networks. It would be insane to allow any coporate entity that had dealings with a hostile foreign power to have access to that network.

I don't blame you. I don't know if a complete ban is the right answer, but it is a logical and reasonable action to take if you really look at all of the risks involved.

Anyone that is brushing this off as more stupid Trump nonsense is simply letting their biases get in the way, or not understanding the gravity of what's at stake here.

[skinster]

I'm arguing governments in the west (which doesn't just include the US) tend to do better than a defacto dictatorship in terms of the freedom of citizens to criticize their own governments.

But we're not citizens of China here so wtf are you even talking about, dude who lives in America, where we already KNOW spies on everyone? (and much worse but I needn't make a list)

Your scaremongering about China potentially doing a thing we know the U.S. already does is lol and not really threatening.

Ultimately you are just trying to confound the main point at hand here.

No I'm not.

Because as true as it may be that America is genocidal (i maintain all nations are genocidal, but that's besides the point here as well), it doesn't speak to the points at hand in this thread.

Well you would "maintain all nations are genocidal" like your genocidal regime is, but that just shows how you don't understand the English language or stuff like reality, nothing more.

[JohnRawls]

It's unsettling from a few different perspectives for me:

As a consumer:
It basically means there's little competition, which means there's little or slow innovation, which means prices will not go down on things like data. It's far easier for these companies to even collude with each other to squeeze what they can from the consumer market.

As a citizen of a western nation:
Although there is no evidence to suggest Huawei is actually putting in back doors and whatever else for spying and sabotage. It is TOTALLY within the realm of possibility that they could do something like that (All servers have what's called a BMC chip which is used to access the server even if the main CPUs are turned off. This could easily be turned into a back door.). Given how hostile China is towards anyone that is not China. It really isn't an overblown concern with respect to China pushing Huawei to do its bidding.

Yes, there's no evidence at this time, but again, it's still a legitimate concern. If you entrench your architecture/ecosystem with Huawei, later on down the line, they can certainly introduce back doors and what not without you knowing. Now, to be fair to Huawei, this can be done by any of the infrastructure providers, but it's a little more unsettling when the company is backed by a country that is openly hostile towards everyone else.

As someone that has worked in the mobile industry, and currently is involved in it again from an IP perspective:
It makes it harder to sell your IP into the mobile industry. Makes my job harder. Fewer players to leverage against each other.

If there were more options than Huawei, Nokia, & Erickson. My concerns above would be mitigated as there would be a lot of freedom to choose alternative infrastructure providers. There would be more innovation as well.

Hopefully Nokia & Erickson don't get put out of business. Huawei has the benefit of being able to undercut everyone and take losses to kill off the competition.

Some good news for you. Nokia and Erikson are not going to disappear because Huawei, Erikson and Nokia are using relatively the same hardware that is manufactured in Asia. Huawei orders will simply go to Erikson and Nokia. 5g are hot cakes after all. Honestly Huawei had it coming. I don't know if they are at fault because of spying but I am almost 100 percent sure that they are guilty of stealing hardware and software data etc and reverse engineering them. Mostly it was possible due to part manufacturing happening in China. They are not competing fairly or at least within the limits of fairness.

[Rancid]

Some good news for you. Nokia and Erikson are not going to disappear because Huawei, Erikson and Nokia are using relatively the same hardware that is manufactured in Asia. Huawei orders will simply go to Erikson and Nokia. 5g are hot cakes after all. Honestly Huawei had it coming. I don't know if they are at fault because of spying but I am almost 100 percent sure that they are guilty of stealing hardware and software data etc and reverse engineering them. Mostly it was possible due to part manufacturing happening in China. They are not competing fairly or at least within the limits of fairness.

You're right, they probably won't disappear. What I'd like to see is more companies get into the fold and compete though. That is unlikely to happen. It's true there's a lot of money to be made with 5G, but it also takes a massive amount of capital investment. Which is precisely why there are only 3 main providers of the technology.

Yes, it's pretty clear they steal IP from various nations/companies (I've seen it first hand). It's really hard to do anything about that though. I'm of the opinion is that the best thing you can do is just continue to innovate fast/faster. In that way, you will always be ahead.

[JohnRawls]

You're right, they probably won't disappear. What I'd like to see is more companies get into the fold and compete though. That is unlikely to happen. It's true there's a lot of money to be made with 5G, but it also takes a massive amount of capital investment. Which is precisely why there are only 3 main providers of the technology.

Yes, it's pretty clear they steal IP from various nations/companies (I've seen it first hand). It's really hard to do anything about that though. I'm of the opinion is that the best thing you can do is just continue to innovate fast/faster. In that way, you will always be ahead.

If you invest 100mil in to new technology and it gets reverse engineered within a month you return on that investment will be really bad. What the Chinese do goes against innovation in a big way.

[Rancid]

If you invest 100mil in to new technology and it gets reverse engineered within a month you return on that investment will be really bad. What the Chinese do goes against innovation in a big way.

yes, you are right. However, technology these days is so complicated that it can be hard to reverse engineer something to the point where you can replicate it perfectly.

Example:
Boeing 737-max (the one with the anti-stall issue). China is already reverse engineering that airplane and making their own copy-cat version. However, the Boeing version is still 30-50% more fuel efficient. It's just not something they can reverse engineer so easily. Thus, Boeing still has an edge over the Chinese airplane manufacturer (forgot their name). Same with airbus, they (China) are reverse engineering those planes, but cannot replicate them exactly, thus they are still behind.

I agree, they are playing dirty tricks, but there's nothing you could do to stop that. The best thing to do here is to continue innovating and let them stay behind trying to copy everything.


Engineering talent is the one thing that China could "steal" by paying them lavishly I guess. But who wants to live in China for an extended period of time? There's a reason Chinese folks jump at the chance to move to the west. As good as things are getting in China, relatively more freedom is golden.

[JohnRawls]

yes, you are right. However, technology these days is so complicated that it can be hard to reverse engineer something to the point where you can replicate it perfectly.

Example:
Boeing 737-max (the one with the anti-stall issue). China is already reverse engineering that airplane and making their own copy-cat version. However, the Boeing version is still 30-50% more fuel efficient. It's just not something they can reverse engineer so easily. Thus, Boeing still has an edge over the Chinese airplane manufacturer (forgot their name). Same with airbus, they (China) are reverse engineering those planes, but cannot replicate them exactly, thus they are still behind.

I agree, they are playing dirty tricks, but there's nothing you could do to stop that. The best thing to do here is to continue innovating and let them stay behind trying to copy everything.


Engineering talent is the one thing that China could "steal" by paying them lavishly I guess. But who wants to live in China for an extended period of time? There's a reason Chinese folks jump at the chance to move to the west. As good as things are getting in China, relatively more freedom is golden.

I agree but only partially. Some projects are very complex (Airbus or Boeing planes) Other projects are less complex.(5G) So there is a degree of waste when it comes to reverse engineering that you mentioned. (Lesser efficiency etc)

Having said that i believe you can reverse engineer any project with almost no waste if you put enough resources to the task. Reverse engineering is more efficient compared to researching from scratch also. I think the Soviets and the US proved it during the cold war to a great degree. Both sides stole from each other and the end of cold war saw US military leaching 80% of most advanced military tech from the collapsed parts of the USSR.

The same reverse engineering is heavily dependant on what you can get your hands on. Boeings are not manufactured in Asia/China while 5G tech is. So it is way easier for them to get access to 5G than Boeing or Airbus technologies. Under normal circumstances Huawei shouldn't have access to hardware solutions that Nokia and Erikson use. The reality is that they do.(Besides some parts that are manufactured in Japan) On the other hand, they do not have access to plane technology that Boeing uses. (Composite materials are manufactured in Russia and hardware in the US while the assembly takes place in the US)

P.S. How i know all this? Well coincidentally i have a friend working in Erikson. And also i have a friend in Russia who used to work in industrial optimisation. He is doing a PHD right now in Murica in that industrial valley or whatever it is called.

[The Sabbaticus]

Wasn't it recently mentioned that China was using Boeing/Airbus tech to build their own fleet of mid-range airplanes, to be delivered to Asian partners? And Airbus does have an assembly plant in China, and Boeing does as well.

[JohnRawls]

Wasn't it recently mentioned that China was using Boeing/Airbus tech to build their own fleet of mid-range airplanes, to be delivered to Asian partners? And Airbus does have an assembly plant in China, and Boeing does as well.

Perhaps. The problem is that the most sensitive parts are usually produced in America or Europe. While the production of parts of 5g is in China. One thing is to put the parts together like a lego constructor or assembling your own computer. A totally seperate thing is to see how the most advanced semicondunctor technology is manufactured, what processes are used, etc

Almost anybody with half a brain can put a CPU in to a motherboard but it doesn't necessarily mean that you can manufacture the same CPU/Semiconductors even if you have the finished technology on hand without actually seeing how it is done and what processes are used.

[JohnRawls]

Here is a video that summarises things a bit in a fun format :

[Rancid]

I agree but only partially. Some projects are very complex (Airbus or Boeing planes) Other projects are less complex.(5G) So there is a degree of waste when it comes to reverse engineering that you mentioned. (Lesser efficiency etc)

Having said that i believe you can reverse engineer any project with almost no waste if you put enough resources to the task. Reverse engineering is more efficient compared to researching from scratch also. I think the Soviets and the US proved it during the cold war to a great degree. Both sides stole from each other and the end of cold war saw US military leaching 80% of most advanced military tech from the collapsed parts of the USSR.

The same reverse engineering is heavily dependant on what you can get your hands on. Boeings are not manufactured in Asia/China while 5G tech is. So it is way easier for them to get access to 5G than Boeing or Airbus technologies. Under normal circumstances Huawei shouldn't have access to hardware solutions that Nokia and Erikson use. The reality is that they do.(Besides some parts that are manufactured in Japan) On the other hand, they do not have access to plane technology that Boeing uses. (Composite materials are manufactured in Russia and hardware in the US while the assembly takes place in the US)

P.S. How i know all this? Well coincidentally i have a friend working in Erikson. And also i have a friend in Russia who used to work in industrial optimisation. He is doing a PHD right now in Murica in that industrial valley or whatever it is called.

Fair enough. Still, I don't think it's as doom and gloom as you say.

It is a problem, no doubt, but dunno, maybe I'm optimistic.

[JohnRawls]

Fair enough. Still, I don't think it's as doom and gloom as you say.

It is a problem, no doubt, but dunno, maybe I'm optimistic.

I understand why China does it and i understand why we have tolerated it for such a long time.(We thought it isn't a big problem) Having said that it is time to rein them in and squeeze China until they introduce proper market rules and exclude the government from private enterprise. If they can't do it then they should feel the pain. Chinese sanctions are justifiable on many levels.

So the following needs to happen:
1) Companies need to be able to operate freely. No need for Chinese partner BS within China.
2) Services that are blacklisted by the Chinese need to be removed from the blacklist (Facebook, youtube, wikipedia etc)
3) Companies in China will have to start respecting global IP laws. (Or face being banned)
4) Private and Public enterprises should not be cooperating with each other.(We scratch your back and you scratch ours)

I don't particularly care about Chinese propaganda and Chinese censorship but please do it to your own companies. European and US companies should have full protection for their IP rights and Chinese government has no business in partnering them with some Chinese companies to eventually copy the tech. Eventually people will decide what to believe in, be it Chinese propaganda or our European or US views. And if China doesn't like it then we need to start exluding them from the global trade system at least on our parts.

[Nonsense]

Can he though, if the communication is encrypted? Also, shouldn't there be evidence of such eavesdropping before we ban the company of a WTO-country?

As far as I can tell the Huawei bashing is just a part of Trump's little trade war.

Is there any difference between Big Brother in the West or East?

In the U.K we have have virtually complete retention by the state of all telephone,mobile,banking,tax,social security(insecurity)NHS data,road tax, auto insurance ,internet,surveillance cameras on so many streets, in effect, virtually every type of electronic transaction you ever engage in, the state can, at the touch of a keyboard button tell you more about yourself than you could ever dream that they could..

So, what's the difference between a police state, dictatorship or a 'liberal' democracy?

I think there is much hypocrisy in the West between the different state system's, but which, in fact, vary little.

Japan cloned many a consumer product after the war, like China, there goods were second rate, but, like China has recently claimed, in order to expand their market share of world trade in the future, they have to manufacture superior quality than hitherto, that is what Japan did then, it's what China is aiming for now.

If they achieve that end, it's up to the consumer in the market to determine who the 'winners' are.

[Rancid]

I understand why China does it and i understand why we have tolerated it for such a long time.(We thought it isn't a big problem) Having said that it is time to rein them in and squeeze China until they introduce proper market rules and exclude the government from private enterprise. If they can't do it then they should feel the pain. Chinese sanctions are justifiable on many levels.

So the following needs to happen:
1) Companies need to be able to operate freely. No need for Chinese partner BS within China.
2) Services that are blacklisted by the Chinese need to be removed from the blacklist (Facebook, youtube, wikipedia etc)
3) Companies in China will have to start respecting global IP laws. (Or face being banned)
4) Private and Public enterprises should not be cooperating with each other.(We scratch your back and you scratch ours)

I don't particularly care about Chinese propaganda and Chinese censorship but please do it to your own companies. European and US companies should have full protection for their IP rights and Chinese government has no business in partnering them with some Chinese companies to eventually copy the tech. Eventually people will decide what to believe in, be it Chinese propaganda or our European or US views. And if China doesn't like it then we need to start exluding them from the global trade system at least on our parts.

I agree.