back to article Huawei says US stance is 'protectionism'

The Chairman of Huawei's Australian operations, John Lord, has proposed the nation create a national “cyber security evaluation centre” at which “all equipment implemented into major or critical Australian networks can be subjected to the same thorough security assessment.” Lord said such a centre would mirror the UK's Cyber …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Do I get to bring my own gear?

    Or will Cisco get to supply one specially for this certification?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Do I get to bring my own gear?

      So what guarantees that you ship binaries compiled from the same source code with your gear?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      The pot

      The pot calling the kettle black

      "Oho!" said the pot to the kettle;

      "You are dirty and ugly and black!

      Sure no one would think you were metal,

      Except when you're given a crack."

      "Not so! not so!" kettle said to the pot;

      "'Tis your own dirty image you see;

      For I am so clean – without blemish or blot –

      That your blackness is mirrored in me."

  2. solidsoup
    Holmes

    Crocodile tears

    Chinese company complains about state protectionism. In other news, North Korea complains about the West restricting access to internet and Pakistan complains about terrorism sponsorship.

  3. sidqq
    Megaphone

    If it is Protectionism, it's nothing new to foreign companies in China

    There's no such thing as 'free enterprise' for Foreign companies in China. They're subjected to a different set of rules and regulations compared to Chinese companies and usually have to form joint ventures with Chinese companies.

    Chinese regulations have been shutting out and causing many problems for foreign companies - while Chinese companies are freely doing business abroad - often profiting from intellectual properties that they've stolen (sorry, had to stuck the truth in there). I'm happy that there's sign some real 'Chinese equality'.

    This is slightly off topic, but if you're a foreigner in China, you'll see that the rights you have in China are almost nil while at the same time they are treated equality when they visit our countries.

    1. streaky
      Black Helicopters

      Re: If it is Protectionism, it's nothing new to foreign companies in China

      Of course you're totally right, but it doesn't make it any less than the naughty naughty blacklist being a protectionist issue. Certainly isn't a legitimate security problem.

      I mean of course potentially it could be but they haven't done anything wrong, yet, and it's easy to figure out if they did.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    meh

    meh, currently huawei don't sign their releases , so you have no way of verifying what is tested by the cyber centre is actually what makes it out in the distribution chain.

    Call me with reassurances when they do secret shopper style, walk into the telco blind and take the hardware off the shelf, take it away and reverse engineer the firm & hardware actually deployed. Until then its a PR exercise by Mr Lord.

    1. Yes Me Silver badge

      Re: meh

      So, you've done that for all Cisco and Juniper products, have you? Did you publish the report?

      I understand that China and Chinese companies are a bit hard to understand for the pink-fleshed English-speaking nations, but maybe we should make an effort instead of resorting to paranoia and protectionism.

      1. K
        Holmes

        Re: meh

        There are far too many armchair critics, most of their opinions who are based upon words taken from politicians.. as we all know, a politician would never lie to protect their own interests!

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some history

    You really ought to learn about what happened in the past before airing opinions that don't take account of the facts.

    The US federal government energetically built up its national economy in the late 19th century by carefully managed protectionism. That was because American industries were in their infancy and had to be protected against older, better established competitors (like the British, for example). Once the US industries grew big and strong enough to compete successfully in world markets - amazingly enough, the US government became a convert to the virtues of universal free trade. It now aimed to stop other nations putting up tariff barriers against US imports, the way the US government had used such barriers to screen out foreign competition.

    China is now, in many ways, in a situation analogous to the USA in 1850-1900. Its economy has vast potential, and is growing like a weed. Naturally, since it may have only one bite at the cherry, the Chinese government is keen to get everything just exactly right. So it uses the tools at its disposal.

    There is an awful lot of hypocrisy in the air these days, although often it's hard to distinguish hypocrisy from sheer ignorance. Anyhow, it's not fair (or smart) to blame other people for doing what we did just recently, or in slightly different circumstances. You never know when the wheel will turn again.

    1. keith_w
      Thumb Down

      Re: Some history

      Where do you get the idea that the American gov'ts believe in free trade - Most state/county/municpal governments these days require "Buy American" as part of their infrastructure spending

  6. This post has been deleted by its author

  7. Riscyrich

    Protectionism aside...

    .. has anyone actually tried to use their switch software or read their manuals (if you can find the right one)? They are substandard, badly translated and often miss out steps i.e. "navigate to the config web page". Well I would if the was a web server running on there Huawei-san (you have to install and enable it).

    Bought two devices to trial and I wouldn't let them run a tap, never mind a corporate network. Maybe they are too busy reporting data back to the Chinese - somehow circumventing all our network security :-)

  8. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    Could backfire

    We don't have any evidence that Huawei phones home or has any security links.

    We do know that US telcos supplied warrantless wiretaps to US authorities, we know US (and UK) companies are required to 'cooperate' with the authorities without telling their users.

    So we should assume that Microsoft software is a security risk and probably be a bit suspicous of any Intel network chipsets

  9. Jerome Fryer

    Rogue equipment vendor

    So, no NSA backdoor in Huawei equipment, then?

    In any case, inspection of these devices can only guarantee security if the entire system is understood and can be reviewed at the binary level. There are far too many ways to insert "undocumented features" in various components to make a simple review of firmware (presumably using Huawei supplied libraries) capable of assuring a clean device.

    Better to silently monitor the data stream from the equipment when hooked up to teh intertoobs to see if anything interesting happens.

  10. Munix

    Huawei Android source release is intentionally modified

    Until Huawei release un stuffed up source code that can actually be used to build a working binary. All the Australian CEO of Huawei efforts will not be believed. Maybe he should speak to his chinese counterparts and get this fixed asap. The developers at modoco have commented that the source release from Huawei has been intentionally corrupted so that the bluetooth, camera, and other systems will not even compile due to Huawei tampering with it intentionally.

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