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[bbnovice]

Latest from the BBC News web site:

Chinese telecom firms Huawei and ZTE have denied US charges that some of their equipment has been installed with codes to help spying.

They have been accused of using these codes to relay sensitive information back to China.

Concerns over their association with the Chinese government and military have hurt the firms' expansion plans in the US.

[Ixel]

Link? And very interesting news. I'm glad I've switched to a Fritz!Box 7390, not to mention I have more control over my line and will eventually scrap BT anytime in favor for the cheaper VOIP option .

EDIT: http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2205532/huawei-and-zte-refute-spying-allegations

The most interesting part of the article, and the last bit is not suprising really...

Huawei, which is now the second-largest telecoms firm in the world, has also been blocked in other western markets such as Australia, where it was was barred from bidding for work on the National Broadband Network, and both Huawei and ZTE face restrictions in India. In the UK, meanwhile, Huawei's telecoms equipment is being examined for hidden back doors by GCHQ.

However, in talks on Tuesday with prime minister David Cameron, Hauwei's CEO, Ren Zhengfei, announced a UK investment and procurement deal worth £1.25 billion, with the potential to create 700 jobs.

Most likely those jobs will be used for the 'slave labor scheme' aka the 'workfare scheme'.

[bbnovice]

As requested

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19595778

[GunJack]

so there's a good reason not to use either company's kit, it's endorsed by Cameron....typical Tory, putting money before everything else..... 

[burakkucat]

In the UK, meanwhile, Huawei's telecoms equipment is being examined for hidden back doors by GCHQ.

I am very surprised if that is true. My suspicion is that it was done long before the BT Group plc started to deploy such equipment.

Remember that GCHQ have direct access to -- if not overall control of -- this nation's core communications infrastructure and not "the shareholders".

[asbokid]

More a story about Yankee trade protectionism.   "Follow zee money", as my late aunt Olga from the Upper Volga used to say.

Financial interests have been veiled here in fake hysteria over "national security concerns".

Huawei and ZTE  are making huge dents in the profits of Western telco plant makers.  And many are understandably unhappy at that.   The likes of Cisco, Juniper and Alcatel-Lucent, can only watch as their sales volumes evaporate.  No chance of competing against Chinese giants with such vast economies of scale.

And so a handful of US 'pork-barrel' politicans (representing the interests of US telco plant makers) -  have whipped up this silly scare story.

See: http://www.docstoc.com/Docs/DownloadFile.ashx?docId=51224083

The gameplan is to conjure a political pretext for introducing protectionist legislation. To damage Chinese competition and boost the trade of their beleaguered corporate clients (Cisco et al).

Huawei: part of chinese communist party apparatus - riddled with spies = bad.
Cisco Systems: long-standing reputable NASDAQ firm from Uncle Sam = good.

Not really, imvho, much to this story. Just business as usual in the grubby world of Western politics.   

Huawei and ZTE are 100% owned by the goverment of China. So 'tis true: Huawei is owned and run by its Communist employees! Over 140,000 of them, in fact. 46% of whom work in Research & Design.    In 2011 alone, Huawei invested US$3.7 trillion in R&D.  Now that's how to do it!   Maybe a lesson there for Western firms hoping to compete in the global economy.

As for whether there really are any 'backdoors', or 'plausibly deniable' exploitable flaws in the firmware of their telco kit.  God knows. In theory, maybe. It isn't unheard of, although all these stores are more about smoke and mirrors.

Not something that personally worries. For those with an obsession in sniffing our internet traffic - whether GCHQ, the Yankee NSA, or even Red China -  it would be nice, however, if they could make a contribution (however small) towards our monthly ISP bills, for piggybacking our surfing (and no doubt slowing it down to boot!)   Thank you in advance!

Spy stuff aside.. What of the really important news for today?   The Duchess of Cambridge and her holiday snaps from Provence?!

cheers, a

[kitz]

This isnt the first time Ive heard rumours about this.    The last time would have been several years ago when concerns were raised specifically about Huawei MSANs installed in the local exchanges.

[renluop]

@asbo

Your link works, but unfortunately requires a log in, so is of very limited, if any use, to mortals like me. Might you care to quote from it?

[smurfuk]

  I gathered the chipset in the Fritz!Box 7390 is made in China anyway. Smoke and mirrors as others have said, and more about American politics than economics. Given the regular evidence of the UK bureaucracy's lax attitude to security I'd be more concerned about the activities of the UK Government than the Chinese "threat"! Name a major western IT or telecomms supplier that doesn't use Chinese manufacturing perhaps? And if they want to repatriate some of the money we are so keen to pay for their goods, then get a move on, I say.

[bbnovice]

Interesting comments from everybody. But its just not the US that has concerns about Huawei.   Australia is the latest country following the U.S. and India to ban Huawei from bidding to supply equipment to networks considered to be a critical part of national infrastructure  There are also rumours that other countries (eg South Africa?) have also been impeding Huawei in the background over similar security concerns, but do not want to say publically that this is the real reason why Huwaei have failed to win a number of large telecomms contracts.

As for ZTE, they appear to have a somewhat cavalier attitude towards "intellectual property rights" of foreign companies.
         

[asbokid]

@asbo

Your link works, but unfortunately requires a log in, so is of very limited, if any use, to mortals like me. Might you care to quote from it?

Hi Renluop, It's just a letter from eight dozy US senators, accusing Huawei of everything from the Sinking of the Titanic to the Murder of Lady Di! 
I still reckon this is nowt but sour grapes. Bitterness over plunging sales at Cisco et al.

Huawei has responded to concerns over its dominance by promising to create 1500 new jobs in the UK over the next five years. More of that please!  Not sure what the US/UK ('Coalition of the Willing'?) is hoping to achieve here by poking the telco giant in the eye.   If Huawei got malicious and pulled the plug on UK sales and support, this country's telecoms infrastructure would collapse overnight. And there's no way that Western telco plant manufacturers could fill the void if Huawei was frozen out. These days we have virtually no production facilities of our own. The Chinese government could close-off our access to their semiconductor foundries, for example.  And in any case, we couldn't compete on price with Asian rivals. So prices of telecommunications products and services would soar for end-users.  Also, since Huawei is 100% owned by the Chinese state, the retaliation could be a trade war (which is what this is brewing into) that explodes in a myriad of other directions.   We quite literally can't even make ball bearings in Blighty any more. Isn't that where Hitler went wrong?  Someone at Jaguar-Land Rover was telling me that JLR makes virtually no vehicle components today. All are imported from Asia.  p00 creek, paddle, anyone?

cheers, a

[smurfuk]

I think China and the West still need each other (just) - we still have something to offer them in R&D. But the basic problem is that labour costs in the West are just too high - and by a lot not a little. Sorry to be cynical, but I'll accept the criticism from the first person who offers to take a pay cut of 50-75% or more 'cause they're overpaid and we need to become competitive to survive - there might be no option in the future. We're addicted to cheap, and there's an old saying that beggars can't be choosers. The perennial suspicion of foreigners is the third oldest habit in the world, after prostitution and politics. Like espionage, those habits are always with us, and hugely overrated.

PS: I may be completely wrong, but I have a notion that we used to have a native telecomms supplier, called Marconi, who were in contention with Huawei (or it might have been another Chinese supplier) several years ago for national infrastructure upgrades, and we chose the Chinese (and Marconi went bust as a result). And nothing that's being said now wasn't being said at that time. So back to my original message, you makes your bed . . .

[kitz]

I don't know if anyone is watching Dispatches on Channel 4 atm..  But some of the things alleged on there are a wee bit concerning.  There's quite a few things covered, but points such as how much money certain Chinese companies are being pumped at our government officials and how much the likes of Prescott gets from huawei and the freebies he gets from them certainly raised my eyebrow.

[smurfuk]

. . .how much money certain Chinese companies are being pumped at our government officials and how much the likes of Prescott gets from huawei and the freebies he gets from them certainly raised my eyebrow.

That's always been the way of the world in international business hasn't it: look at the history of the arms and raw materials trades? Wherever politics is involved. An honest politician . . . hmm . . .