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Chinese vendor Huawei has provided a longer response to US allegations of spying, claiming that it doesn't have the spying capability alleged by the US and pointing out that the US itself has a long history of spying on phone networks.
"As evidenced by the Snowden leaks, the United States has been covertly accessing telecom networks worldwide, spying on other countries for quite some time," Huawei said in a six-paragraph statement sent to news organizations. "The report by the Washington Post this week about how the CIA used an encryption company to spy on other countries for decades is yet additional proof." (That Post report detailed how the CIA bought a company called Crypto AG and used it to spy on communications for decades.)
Huawei's latest statement came in response to a Wall Street Journal report yesterday quoting US officials as saying, "We have evidence that Huawei has the capability secretly to access sensitive and personal information in systems it maintains and sells around the world." The US has been sharing its intelligence with allies as it tries to convince them to stop using Huawei products but still hasn't made the evidence public.
Huawei said:
US allegations of Huawei using lawful interception are nothing but a smokescreen—they don't adhere to any form of accepted logic in the cyber security domain. Huawei has never and will never covertly access telecom networks, nor do we have the capability to do so. The Wall Street Journal is clearly aware that the US government can't provide any evidence to support their allegations, and yet it still chose to repeat the lies being spread by these US officials. This reflects The Wall Street Journal's bias against Huawei and undermines its credibility.
[...]US allegations that Huawei secretly uses backdoors that were designed for law enforcement, if true, would bolster arguments from security experts that it's not possible to build backdoors that can only be accessed by their intended users in law enforcement.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Friday February 14 2020, @03:56AM (4 children)
Huawei pointing the finger to the NSA is beside the point.
For most Americans, it's a given that the NSA will be snooping your data, whether legal or not. That much can't be avoided. What we're talking about is (supposedly) putting extra snooping on top of that by adding Huawei gear, and sending data to an additional government (China) as well as the US.
Whether the US is stealing my data or not, I still don't want China (or any other country, for that matter) to collect data about me.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14 2020, @04:40AM (1 child)
While I agree with you, I also think you need some perspective. China typically looks for things like military and intellectual property secrets. On the other hand, NSA is looking to know about all your communications. Personal, private, business, whatever. Everything. This has been pretty well proven already. Who is the real threat (to you personally) here? And I diagree that this can't be avoided. All it takes is the political will to stop it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14 2020, @08:41AM
Here's. Since both the military and intellect are N/A, we're safe.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday February 14 2020, @05:15AM (1 child)
If it's a matter of choice, I'd rather China/Russia/Zimbabwe be spying on me than the NSA or other domestic services. At least until we get the Mossad and the globohomo out of our intelligence agencies and they re-learn how to focus on real threats instead of people voting for the wrong candidate or otherwise critical of Israel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 14 2020, @01:25PM
Those things do not go on black market for sale on their own, you know. Governments do not operate malware rings, just make their criminals an offer they cannot refuse, and it is not state coffers that are paying them.