Brit MPs, US senators ramp up pressure on UK.gov to switch off that green-light for Huawei 5G gear

"utterly friendless among our allies"

We don't need Chinese network gear to obtain that status.

I also find it hypocritical when the government talks of human rights as Duncan Smith did in his speech when we are complicit through arms sales to Saudi Arabia for human rights abuses in Yemen and probably quite a few other places.

Control-freak USA again.

Tell 'em to mind their own business and carry on with their Coronavirus shambles.

I remember...

I remember when El Reg covered the opinions of movers and shakers in tech, instead of political dogshit peddlers.

Trade deal?

With the US?

Not gonna happen this year. There's already a constituency in the senate threatening to block a deal over the treatment of Ireland, and now we add Huawei to the pretexts. Then consider that from about June onwards, the entire US gov't will be completely absorbed in campaigning for (re/)election. And the sheer folly of even talking to Donald Trump, who would sooner rat on a deal than eat his own hamburgers.

Yeah... no. I don't know what fudge Johnson has in mind, but he'd better have something, because that deal is not happening.

Dear US protectionists

FUCK OFF and mind your own business.

Don't like it, well guess you'll have to find another partner to spy on your own citizens.

yanks desperate to retain market share

I seem to recall that resorting to Nazi references was considered one of the worst Internets cliches that retards resorted to.

Now here we have an ex-leader of a right wing UK political party resorting to said tactic.

Unfortunately that says an awful lot about the state of politics in said country.

The real virus threat is not the coronavirus or computer viruses or even terrorism, but the viruses of ignorance, selfishness, greed, intolerance, insensitivity and plain stupidity.

If you think Windows 10 running your system is retrograde, then look at the governmental systems running the major countries of the world to get a sense of just how bad retrograde can be.

Have a look at 5G in the US.....

5G coverage in the US is to all intents and purposes non-existent and is likely to be so for some time. The US is trying to put the brakes on this technology because it really doesn't have any competitive offerings yet -- Qualcomm's got early devices out there and Intel's announced their solution but nothing is what you'd call ready for prime time. So all this wailing and gnashing of teeth is merely to gum up the works until the US is competitive. The US has also pledged $1billion to replace Chinese kit in use (it got a foothold becaue Huawei was prepared to service low volume rural providers that the Verizons of this world were not interested in) and has been floating suggestions of a homebrew effort or maybe buying Nokia and Ericsson to try to get some kind of competitive response together.

It is a shambles and while I personally would like to have competitive local product (because people like me would like the work, thanks) I just don't see anything coming together -- the horse has bolted, the train's left the station and so on. Its a hard lesson but one that learned.

(Meanwhile, looking on the bright side Xilinx has started becoming useful again. We use quite a lot of their parts, some of them quite old, but in the last couple of years they've been moving away from smaller (i.e. mid-sized) customers and cheaper (i.e. commercial) components towards high value parts for big customers (think Huawei). We've been getting the PoS treatment, long standing customer or not. Now the government has effectively shut off sales of their parts for Huawei's base stations we're suddenly able to get support, parts and generally treated like a customer again. However, since they've forced us to move to Lattice for new development its opened the door to competition so maybe it won't be just another case of an absive partner being tkaen back by submissive one.)

Huawai or Cisco....can't see much difference security-wise except that the Chinese have to pay someone to translate. Mind you, making some "can't decide" noises now might get us a good deal on the Huawei kit.

Fucking everybody off and building our own kit (presumably with our own backdoors) would be favourite; but that's probably not an option...

Take back control

Go on, England - take back control, and do what the USA tells you. That's what the majority of you voted for.

Why is it a risk?

We buy the kit. We control the 1’s and 0’s, yes? Or at least can firewall them and/or disable malicious code?

Yours enquiringly,

A confused non-techie.

British Empire Exceptionalism

So at the behest of a country that annually celebrates its violent independence from us, to antagonise a country whom we drugged/gunboated into submission, and then held one of their regions for over 100 years.

I didn't realise that regaining our sovereignty from the EU would mean that we would end up as a pawn in a proxy war....

Really

"Given the significant security, privacy, and economic threats posed by Huawei, we strongly urge the United Kingdom to revisit its recent decision, take steps to mitigate the risks of Huawei, and work in close partnership with the US on such efforts going forward," the American gang stated.

As id the American can be trusted with our data and also their own...American Gov can hack everyone but complain bitterly when someone hacks them..

Typical Yank bullying - if you want a deal with us or we don't like your attitude - then roll over and we'll tickle your tummy the American way. Use Yank kit or shut up. We should resist.

How come that there seems no viable alternative to Huawei then - are potential competitors asleep or too bogged down in the short term financial returns for this longer term opportuntiy

One question for IDS, then..

It is our understanding that the security and privacy risks surrounding Huawei technology

Pray tell what they are, then? AFAIK, Britain's own GCHQ has had its nose in the source code of these facilities, so is IDS hereby declaring that he is going the Trump way, i.e. no longer trusting the advice of the government's own subject matter experts?

I would trust those "partners" a lot less, because there is at least proof of their untrustworthiness.

Note: I'm not for or against Huawei, I am for facts and truth over political BS, and so far, the US has not exactly covered itself in glory here.

From their website: "Ericsson produces 5G and 4G radio technology products at the factory..." which is in Nanjing in China! Do Cisco make all their kit in USA?