back to article Osborne to China: Keep watching Downton and we'll gloss over Huawei security worries

Chancellor George Osborne has said the British government will happily let a state-owned Chinese firm manage Britain's communications infrastructure – as long as the People's Republic keeps on watching hit British telly series Downton Abbey. Osborne kow-towed to infamous network infrastructure biz Huawei during a speech to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    China in my LANs

    Seeing as my own government spies on me already it does seem only good old British fair play to let the Chinese have a go as well.

    1. Dr Insanity

      Re: China in my LANs

      But surely if Huawei are spying on our packets, that's one less Export Osbourne has to thank them for... We can't exactly sell them our information if they're sniffing it themselves?

      <disclaimer>

      This is a bandwagon jumping joke, just in case anyone important is reading this, and any thoughts expressed within, whether the actual opinion of the author or not, are intended as jest and not to be taken seriously - Please don't send the boys round Mr NSA/Huawei/GCHQ spook

      </disclaimer>

      1. Professor Clifton Shallot

        Re: China in my LANs

        More likely we'll see this as a cost-saving opportunity and ask China to send us a copy of anything that looks interesting to save us the expense of looking for ourselves.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Given That Bill Hewlett And David Packard

    ..were Big-Time Electronic Warfare/Defence R&D types from the 1940s to (at least) the 1980s, I would ask El Reg to emit the same crap demand about HP and China: China must stop HP selling stuff in China. That would reciprocate the Huawei Ban in Murika and the Prisoner's Island.

    Don't like that, Anglos ? Then stop being knee-jerks.

    Facts: Bill Hewlett was an important Pentagon man on Electronic Warfare R&D. Dave Packard was even deputy secretary of Defense. Lots of HP R&D was effectively paid by hot, shooting wars like the Vietnam one.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Given That Bill Hewlett And David Packard

      How about where IBM were selling a lot of their computing machines in the 30s? By all rights nobody but the Germans, Japanese, Italians, and a handful of other countries should be buying IBM...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Good. That's shockingly sensible. I think I need to have a little sit down and think about what just happened in the universe.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      shockingly sensible.

      Yeah, it's amazing how simple things become if your only concern is money....

      (presumably you need a little sit and think every time our government pick their rich mates over the proles. You must do a lot of sitting and thinking.....)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: shockingly sensible.

        And who would you buy your networking kit from? I can only think of one or two companies that don't build their kit in Chinese factories, and one of those companies works hand in hand with a Government whose secret service has on several times used stolen British identities to assassinate people in foreign countries.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: shockingly sensible.

          so pick the other one then? Is that too straight forward for you?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: shockingly sensible.

            well if I was retarded then sure sourcing hardware would be easy. However when sourcing for any project you look at a vast array of things and "most secure" when nothing is secure is a pretty stupid way of going about it, as others have said if you want secure forget about the network layer. But for how many companies or nations is that the biggest issue? If you want to be secure turn you computer off, stick it in a block of concrete and drop it in the sea. If you want to do business look for the best deals, with the best support and the best implementation for what you're willing to pay, and know that if it looks to good to be true it probably is. Whether it's Chinese, or American gear it all has the same inherent likeliness of risk and threat to your business.

            Believe anything else and you need to stop sniffing the fumes from your keyboard.

  4. wolfetone Silver badge

    Osbourne would sell his own mother for a breifcase.

    True story, he received a nice black Samonsite after selling her to Switzerland.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Or

      ..maybe he is a realist and knows all the crimes of the "Land of the Free" (that one with the highest prisoner density worldwide). Maybe he thinks that "business" is better than war. Maybe he is not one of the Abrahamic-inspired madmen who wants to force his culture down the throat of others. Maybe he is not the Bush/BLiar kind of guy.

      Ever thought about that possibility ?

      1. sabroni Silver badge

        Re: Maybe a realist...

        ...would sell their own mother for a briefcase?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    More Rationally Arguing

    1.) Don't trust ANY crappy network component. Cisco, Huawei, Dlink - all Extremely Shitty Security. Security costs time and money. Customers want cheap stuff with lots of blinkenlights.

    2.) Use ssh, https/TLS(very secure if properly done with your own CA and so on) and the like to secure Computer-To-Computer communications.

    3.) Expect the entire phone and Public internet to be wholly subverted by any number of people because of point 1.

    4.) Lock your crap routers behind a Free Open Source Firewall to inspect outgoing traffic. And: DO LOOK at the log files.

    Why do you think governments use end-to-end crypto ? Because even they can't trust their OWN phone network.

  6. Crisp

    George Osborne doesn't have a clue does he?

    He's like a duck in a hot air balloon.

    He's got no clue where he is, how he got there, or what he's going to do next.

    And when this all goes to pot, we're going to get crapped on from a great height.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: George Osborne doesn't have a clue does he?

      The best thing he's done in his time in Parliament was stand there during the London Paralympics and be booed.

      1. Elmer Phud
        Pint

        Re: George Osborne doesn't have a clue does he?

        now that's a happy memory - have a pint

        1. wolfetone Silver badge

          Re: George Osborne doesn't have a clue does he?

          Cheers! *clink*

  7. FordPrefect

    Seems like the Americans regard the Chinese like a girl's father regards teenage boys. IT IS TOTALLY NOT ALRIGHT FOR YOU TO DO THE SAME AS ME!

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Very much so. Now then, do you have a list of teenage daughters I could chat to?

      Thanks - a complete cad & bounder.

  8. HereWeGoAgain

    America's block on Huawei

    is to do with a lack of American backdoors. Nothing else.

    1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

      Re: America's block on Huawei

      Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You have to admire the Chinese

    And they way they manage to hide their contempt for people like Osborne and Johnson who are so willing to kow-tow to them.

    1. Elmer Phud

      Re: You have to admire the Chinese

      When Chris Patten was governor of Hong Kong the Chinese called him a 'running dog' and I don't think to this day he understood what they meant.

      1. Chimp

        Re: You have to admire the Chinese

        Actually, they called him " criminal of a thousand years". The implication being that his role was to subvert the process of returning Hong Kong.

        I never really understood the " running dog" translation. More like " tail following dog" actually... so, in modern parlance, " poodle". Not at all what they accused Mr Patten of.

  10. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    George Osborne...

    ... is only interested in helping line the pockets of his rich mates whilst everyone else gets screwed. Hence why small investors only got a fraction of the shares they wanted in his massively underpriced Post Office sell-off, whilst the big institutions got all the shares they wanted and a tidy profit as the price rocketted!

    PS interesting factoid: A professional dominatrix is about to publish a book which features George Osborne. A few days ago, out of the blue, she was raided by the Drugs Squad. Odd co-incidence, that...

    See http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/10/13/natalie-rowe-mistress-pain-george-osborne_n_4093138.html fpr details.

  11. breakfast Silver badge

    I don't know how the UK stands in this regard but as far as I can tell the Chinese own the dollar, so if America want to kick up a big fuss or start getting lairy, China could just render their currency worthless overnight. In the light of that, seems a bit trifling to worry about a bit of network infrastructure really. They already own the US, might as well let them have a play with it if they want to.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Just a few factual errors.

    That and the fact that the Chinese dont wear Kimonos the Japanese do; I hope the Chinese dont read the Register because they HATE the Japanese and get rather annoyed if Japanese customs are mistaken for their own.

    The Chinese (Han), womans traditional dress is the Qipao; of which there are two hung in my wifes wardrobe (her being Chinese).

    My biggest fear with the new relaxed visa rules for the Chinese is that my MIL may turn up on the doorstep; having her 8 1/2 thousand miles away was one of the big advantages of marrying a Chinese woman!!!

    1. sabroni Silver badge

      Re: The Chinese HATE the Japanese.

      All the Chinese are racists? Sounds like a bit of a racist thing to say....

      1. Paul Crawford Silver badge

        Re: The Chinese HATE the Japanese.

        "All the Chinese are racists?"

        No, that comes under xenophobia I think and not race. And it is down to history mostly. A bit like Europe's last several centuries of bloodshed...

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOL tell em what they want to hear

    Despite what George may say, you cant install Huawei hardware in a secure accredited government class data centre nor let Chinese engineers in one.

  14. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Gimp

    GCHQ has pimped *your* data to the US, why not the Chinese as well?

    Osborne's just another sock puppet where this is concerned.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: GCHQ has pimped *your* data to the US, why not the Chinese as well?

      Be honest every Brit government ( and lots of other governments) have pimped our data to the US.

  15. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    I wonder whose the down voter?

    Some GCHQ apologist?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Become a shill for a CHINA SEO

    China State Enterprises welcome you with several RMB if you shill for PetroCHIna like Australia's previous Foreign Minister, or for Huawei like Australia's Foreign Minister before that .. do I detect a pattern here? And if you can print banknotes we have a first class ticket and DIplomatic passport for ou no questions asked.

  17. codejunky Silver badge

    To me

    It seems that Osborne is taking a gamble. Like em or not the tories inherited a duff economy, a load of debt and serious shortfall to balance the books, a bloated public sector, a population bribed heavily and unwilling to give up their vote buying bribes, lack of power generation, poor quality public services, front end public sector workers who were overworked and in some cases underpaid, the EU demands and people demanding jobs.

    I dont agree with everything the tories have done (its a short list) but I have respect for his guts (or contempt for his will to sell out) to take the up and coming country in this world and instead of shunning them like others who cling to power, he welcomes trade. I hope his gamble pays off and we get more jobs, better education and improvements to the economy.

  18. Wolfclaw

    Cost Cutting ?

    Osborne has ordered GHCQ to offshore spying to the Huawei .

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