omoc writes:
"From the SPON article:
"The American government conducted a major intelligence offensive against China, with targets including the Chinese government and networking company Huawei, according to documents from former NSA worker Edward Snowden that have been viewed by SPIEGEL. Among the American intelligence service's targets were former Chinese President Hu Jintao, the Chinese Trade Ministry, banks, as well as telecommunications companies. But the NSA made a special effort to target Huawei.
According to a top secret NSA presentation, NSA workers not only succeeded in accessing the email archive, but also the secret source code of individual Huwaei products."
Related Stories
Exclusive: U.S. lawmakers urge AT&T to cut commercial ties with Huawei - sources
U.S. lawmakers are urging AT&T Inc, the No. 2 wireless carrier, to cut commercial ties to Chinese phone maker Huawei Technologies Co Ltd and oppose plans by telecom operator China Mobile Ltd to enter the U.S. market because of national security concerns, two congressional aides said.
[...] Earlier this month, AT&T was forced to scrap a plan to offer its customers Huawei handsets after some members of Congress lobbied against the idea with federal regulators, sources told Reuters.
The U.S. government has also blocked a string of Chinese acquisitions over national security concerns, including Ant Financial's proposed purchase of U.S. money transfer company MoneyGram International Inc.
The lawmakers are also advising U.S. firms that if they have ties to Huawei or China Mobile, it could hamper their ability to do business with the U.S. government, one aide said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Related: NSA Spied on Chinese Government and Huawei
Kaspersky Willing to Hand Source Code Over to U.S. Government
Kaspersky Lab has been Working With Russian Intelligence
FBI Reportedly Advising Companies to Ditch Kaspersky Apps
Federal Government, Concerned About Cyberespionage, Bans Use of Kaspersky Labs Products
Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
The U.S. Intel Community's Demonization of Huawei Remains Highly Hypocritical
We've noted for some time how Chinese hardware vendor Huawei has been consistently accused of spying on American citizens without any substantive, public evidence. You might recall that these accusations flared up several years ago, resulting in numerous investigations that culminated in no hard evidence whatsoever to support the allegations. We're not talking about superficial inquiries, we're talking about eighteen months, in-depth reviews by people with every interest in exposing them. One anonymous insider put it this way in the wake of the last bout of hysteria surrounding the company:
We knew certain parts of government really wanted" evidence of active spying, said one of the people, who requested anonymity. "We would have found it if it were there.
[...] This week, hysteria concerning Huawei again reached a fevered pitch, as U.S. intelligence chiefs, testifying before Congress over Russian hacking and disinformation concerns, again proclaimed that Huawei was spying on American citizens and their products most assuredly should not be used:
At the hearing, FBI Director Chris Wray testified, "We're deeply concerned about the risks of allowing any company or entity that is beholden to foreign governments that don't share our values to gain positions of power inside our telecommunications networks." Purchasing Huawei or ZTE products, Wray added, "provides the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage.
Which values would those be, exactly? Would it be the values, as leaked Edward Snowden docs revealed, that resulted in the NSA hacking into Huawei, stealing source code, then attempting to plant its own backdoors into Huawei products? Or perhaps it's the values inherent in working closely with companies like AT&T to hoover up every shred of data that touches the AT&T network and share it with the intelligence community? Perhaps it's the values inherent in trying to demonize encryption, by proxy weakening security for everyone?
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/huawei-sues-fcc-to-stop-ban-on-huawei-gear-in-us-funded-
Huawei has sued the Federal Communications Commission over the agency's order that bans Huawei equipment in certain government-funded telecom projects.
[...] The FCC voted unanimously on November 22 to ban Huawei and ZTE equipment in projects paid for by the commission's Universal Service Fund (USF). The order will affect many small telecom providers that rely on the companies' network gear.
[...] "The US government has never presented real evidence to show that Huawei is a national security threat," Song said. "That's because this evidence does not exist. When pushed for facts, they respond that 'disclosing evidence might also undermine US national security.' This is complete nonsense."
[...] "We've built networks in places where other vendors would not go. They were too remote, or the terrain was difficult, or there just wasn't a big enough population," he said. "In the US, we sell equipment to 40 small wireless and wireline operators. They connect schools, hospitals, farms, homes, community colleges, and emergency services."
Hoftstra University law professor Julian Ku said that "even a small [Huawei] victory in the case, one that makes the FCC go and start the process over again, would be a huge victory for them," according to The New York Times. But it may be a difficult case for Huawei to win because US courts usually give federal agencies "a tremendous amount of deference," Ku said.
Previously:
Huawei Funds $56M in Academic Research in Canada. That Has Some Experts Concerned
How China Is Building A World-Beating Phone Network
FCC Tells US Telcos: Buy Chinese Kit And You Won't See Another Dime From Us
American Giants Get 90 Days To Wrap Up Deals With 'Dangerous' Huawei
Huawei's First Google-Free Phone Stripped And Searched: Repair Not Too Painful... Once You're In
U.S. Chief Technology Officer Urges Europe to Take a Stand Against Huawei
Microsoft President Says US Government Isn't Being Open About Huawei Ban
Huawei: ARM Cortex-A77 Cores Would Shorten Battery Life
Huawei Might Put its IOT OS on Mobile Phones After All
Huawei Announces HarmonyOS, a Smartphone OS and Android Alternative
Huawei Doesn't See Open Source as the Fix for Spying Accusations (but They Should)
Huawei Reportedly Helped North Korea Build Out 3G Network in Secret
Huawei's Android Alternative Lives on... for IoT
What Huawei To Go: Hundreds Of Chinese Tech Giant's US Workers To Get Pink Slip
Trump Administration Will Loosen Restrictions Against Huawei
Huawei Soldiers on, Announces Nova 5 and Kirin 810
Huawei Blacklisting Predicted to Cause DRAM Prices to Drop 15%
NSA Spied on Chinese Government and Huawei
(Score: 5, Interesting) by omoc on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:59AM
Industrial espionage is not the purpose of any intelligence agency. The US itself called this an "act of war" in the pre-Snowden days. It's good to see that these kind of revelations surface at the right time when China-US meetings
are on the schedule.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mendax on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:09AM
It is when the technology being stolen can be used to penetrate a foreign government's communications system. Surely you don't believe that the Chinese government buys their networking hardware from Cisco.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:14AM
so, according to their own standards, they just declared war on china?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by mendax on Sunday March 23 2014, @06:24PM
so, according to their own standards, they just declared war on china?
Well, a cold war at least. Guess what's, folks? It's back. Only we do a lot more business with this alleged enemy. Although in this case, the "enemy" is not an ideological one, it's simple an economic competitor.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @09:11AM
The NYT released the respective slides of the document by now http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/03/23/worl d/asia/23nsa-docs.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 1) by Buck Feta on Sunday March 23 2014, @02:38PM
Huawhy?
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:07PM
Because they have the Cool Huawhip
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Adrian Harvey on Sunday March 23 2014, @02:38PM
As huawei have been essentially banned from government contracts in the US supposedly due to concerns about their equipment not being trustworthy it makes you wonder if they found back doors in the source code and then told the government not to buy it... Of course that's just speculation, and they could have put the back doors in and then said don't use it now it's not safe.... But I'm just wondering if there's a link between the hacking and the purchasing ban?
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @05:30PM
Maybe they found Huawei products to be too secure so they tried to discredit them publicly
(Score: 2, Interesting) by sigterm on Sunday March 23 2014, @07:09PM
>it makes you wonder if they found back doors in the source code and then
>told the government not to buy it... Of course that's just speculation,
>and they could have put the back doors in and then said don't use it now
>it's not safe.... But I'm just wondering if there's a link between the
>hacking and the purchasing ban?
You just highlighted what is possibly the most important question raised by this leak: what, if anything, did they find? The answer to that question is highly relevant for establishing the NSA's motives for getting involved in industrial espionage in the first place.
These are the facts:
a) We know the NSA spied on Huawei, and since they reportedly made "special efforts" to target them, it stands to reason that they should have obtained secret documents and source code.
b) We know the US government decided to outright ban Huawei equipment, but we don't really know why. There have been no announcements from the NSA about them having confirmed the existence of backdoors in Huawei gear, so the claims about security issues remain unsubstantiated.
That leaves 3 possibilities:
1) The NSA made "special efforts" to target Huawei, but obtained nothing of interest. That would indicate lack of competence and ability on NSA's part.
2) The NSA managed to get their hands on lots of information, but found no major security vulnerabilities or intentional backdoors in any Huawei equipment. That would make the US government's decision not to purchase Huawei gear a misguided (not to mention treaty-violating) attempt at protectionism.
3) The NSA obtained information and found vulnerabilities/backdoors, but decided against informing the public at large in order to exploit these vulnerabilities themselves. They may or may not have informed government officials. That would mean the NSA values their ability to spy on everyone so highly that they're willing to jeopardize the interests of American businesses and individuals in order to retain and increase that ability.
Alternative 2) is the most unlikely of the three, as I'm sure anyone who's ever performed a security audit of Huawei equipment can vouch for. For everyone else, a quick search for "huawei" at www.cvedetails.com (or a Google search for "huawei security vulnerabilities" for that matter) should prove an enlightening experience.
That leaves either 1) or 3), and those scenarios imply that the NSA is unable or unwilling to protect the assets the organization was in fact founded to protect.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Adrian Harvey on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:01PM
I'm not sure that those are the only possibilities - we could also have the scenarios
4) The NSA broke in, got their hands on information, found some backdoors, and decided not to inform the public because it would reveal their "special efforts" and/or their intelligence sources that had made this possible. However they did inform their government which stopped purchasing the kit, and informed the public that it had concerns, but not why or what. [this is, perhaps, the most positive possible interpretation]
5) Some part of the government decided to ban Huawei for political reasons (say, domestic protectionism) and the NSA is sent to look for some dirt to graease the wheels on the decision. These were kept secret from the public to prevent embarrassment.
6) The events were simply correlated, with no causation.
My chief worry is that there was actually a real known 0-day type exploit that stopped the government from buying them. I had formerly assumed that it was mostly political games with China or an 'if we. can't instect the source we can't be sure' problem rather than a real, known problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 23 2014, @08:57PM
If anything of interest would have been found, it would have been documented in that very presentation/documents that were leaked. So we can safely assume, nothing of interest was found.
Another theory is, if they invaded Chinese network gear on this level it is not too far fetched to imagine that "Chinese hacker attacks" may originate from the NSA as well. They can use this to further discredit Huawei or even plant backdoors in their products, the potential for false flag operations is tremendous.