UK reportedly planning to phase out Huawei equipment from its 5G networks
After resisting pressure from the US for months, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is apparently preparing to phase out the use of Huawei equipment from the UK's 5G networks, the Financial Times reported. Citing national security concerns, members of the UK's Conservative party have pushed for Huawei technology to be removed from the UK's 5G infrastructure and the rest of its telecom network by 2023.
[...] Trump reportedly called Johnson earlier this year to discuss the matter, and at least one member of Congress said the US was reconsidering its intelligence partnership with the UK.
Johnson had limited how much Huawei equipment could be used for 5G networks in the UK, banning the use of the company's technology in the most sensitive parts of the network. He said in January that there were not a lot of other options available for the UK's 5G infrastructure, and telecom Vodafone said removing Huawei equipment from its networks would be extremely costly.
See also: Reports: UK to cut Huawei's involvement in 5G network
Boris Johnson forced to reduce Huawei's role in UK's 5G networks
Previously:
U.S. Intelligence Agency Heads Warn Against Using Huawei and ZTE Products
Huawei's Equipment Removed from UK Telecom BT's Network for Emergency Services
EU to Drop Threat of Huawei Ban but Wants 5G Risks Monitored
UK to Toughen Telecoms Security Controls to Shrink 5G Risks
How China Is Building A World-Beating Phone Network
Using Huawei in UK 5G Network 'Madness', Says US
Getting Huawei Out of US Networks Requires Gov't Funding, Senators Say
Huawei Fires Back, Points To US' History Of Spying On Phone Networks
TSMC Dumps Huawei
Related Stories
Intelligence agency heads have warned against using Huawei and ZTE products and services:
The heads of six major US intelligence agencies have warned that American citizens shouldn't use products and services made by Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE. According to a report from CNBC, the intelligence chiefs made the recommendation during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Tuesday. The group included the heads of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the director of national intelligence.
During his testimony, FBI Director Chris Wray said the the government was "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." He added that this would provide "the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information. And it provides the capacity to conduct undetected espionage."
These warnings are nothing new. The US intelligence community has long been wary of Huawei, which was founded by a former engineer in China's People's Liberation Army and has been described by US politicians as "effectively an arm of the Chinese government." This caution led to a ban on Huawei bidding for US government contracts in 2014, and it's now causing problems for the company's push into consumer electronics.
Verizon and AT&T recently cancelled plans to sell Huawei's Mate 10 Pro smartphone.
Don't use a Huawei phone because it's too Chinese. Don't use an Apple phone because strong encryption is not "responsible encryption". Which phone is just right for the FBI?
Previously: U.S. Lawmakers Urge AT&T to Cut Ties With Huawei
Related: FBI Director Christopher Wray Keeps War on Encryption Alive
U.S. Government Reportedly Wants to Build a 5G Network to Thwart Chinese Spying
Huawei's kit removed from emergency services 4G network
BT has confirmed that equipment made by Huawei is being removed from the heart of a communication system being developed for the UK's police forces and other emergency services. It follows a statement from BT earlier this month that it was swapping out the Chinese firm's kit from the "core" of its 3G and 4G mobile networks.
The Sunday Telegraph was first to report the latest development. It said the move could extend work on the late-running £2.3bn project.
BT is covering the cost of the switch. It does not believe the changeover will lead to a further delay.
See also: Defying US crackdown, Huawei ships a record 200 million smartphones in 2018
The European Commission will next week urge EU countries to share more data to tackle cybersecurity risks related to 5G networks but will ignore U.S. calls to ban Huawei Technologies, four people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
European digital chief Andrus Ansip will present the recommendation on Tuesday. While the guidance does not have legal force, it will carry political weight which can eventually lead to national legislation in European Union countries.
The United States has lobbied Europe to shut out Huawei, saying its equipment could be used by the Chinese government for espionage. Huawei has strongly rejected the allegations and earlier this month sued the U.S. government over the issue.
Ansip will tell EU countries to use tools set out under the EU directive on security of network and information systems, or NIS directive, adopted in 2016 and the recently approved Cybersecurity Act, the people said.
For example, member states should exchange information and coordinate on impact assessment studies on security risks and on certification for internet-connected devices and 5G equipment.
Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser
UK to toughen telecoms security controls to shrink 5G risks – TechCrunch
Amid ongoing concerns about security risks posed by the involvement of Chinese tech giant Huawei in 5G supply, the U.K. government has published a review of the telecoms supply chain, which concludes that policy and regulation in enforcing network security needs to be significantly strengthened to address concerns.
However, it continues to hold off on setting an official position on whether to allow or ban Huawei from supplying the country’s next-gen networks — as the U.S. has been pressurizing its allies to do.
Giving a statement in parliament this afternoon, the U.K.’s digital minister, Jeremy Wright, said the government is releasing the conclusions of the report ahead of a decision on Huawei so that domestic carriers can prepare for the tougher standards it plans to bring in to apply to all their vendors.
“The Review has concluded that the current level of protections put in place by industry are unlikely to be adequate to address the identified security risks and deliver the desired security outcomes,” he said. “So, to improve cyber security risk management, policy and enforcement, the Review recommends the establishment of a new security framework for the UK telecoms sector. This will be a much stronger, security based regime than at present.
“The foundation for the framework will be a new set of Telecoms Security Requirements for telecoms operators, overseen by Ofcom and government. These new requirements will be underpinned by a robust legislative framework.”
Wright said the government plans to legislate “at the earliest opportunity” — to provide the regulator with stronger powers to to enforcement the incoming Telecoms Security Requirements, and to establish “stronger national security backstop powers for government.”
The review suggests the government is considering introducing GDPR-level penalties for carriers that fail to meet the strict security standards it will also be bringing in.
First policy response will be 'soft', common cybersecurity standards. Then regulations, with strict standards and #GDPR like fines. New powers allowing to compel telecoms to do something. And work to increase diversity. pic.twitter.com/nBLWneFUDK
— Lukasz Olejnik (@lukOlejnik) July 22, 2019
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
[...] But in the US and UK the rollout of 5G networks has been hampered by an international row over one of the most important suppliers of 5G equipment, China's Huawei.
Industry analysts like Edison Lee, an analyst from financial services group Jefferies, see the US pressure on Huawei as an attempt to break China's potential dominance of the global 5G market.
"The tech war is based on America's argument that China's technological advances have been built upon stolen intellectual property rights, and heavy government subsidies, and their belief that Chinese telecom equipment is not safe, and is a national security threat to the US and its allies," he says.
"As Huawei and [fellow Chinese firm] ZTE increasingly dominate the global telecom equipment market, the western world will be more vulnerable to Chinese spying," Lee adds.
Huawei has always strongly denied that its technology can be used for spying. While western nations worry about one of the key suppliers of 5G technology, China is racing ahead with its 5G rollout. On 31 October Chinese telecom companies launched 5G services in more than 50 Chinese cities, creating one of the world's largest 5G networks. Huawei has built an estimated 50% of the network.
BBC:
The US has warned the British government it "would be madness" to use Huawei technology in the UK's 5G network.
A US delegation presented the UK with new evidence claiming to show security risks posed by using the Chinese firm.
[...]Senior US officials handed over a dossier of technical information which sources claim challenged British intelligence's own technical assessment that it would be possible to use Huawei in the 5G infrastructure without risks to national security.
[...]The move is being seen as the latest round in an intense lobbying effort by the Trump administration as the UK government prepares to makes its decision on the 5G network.
Last year, the US banned companies from selling components and technology to Huawei and 68 related companies, citing national security concerns.
Is the security concern real, or is it all about the Benjamins?
The US government should spend at least $1.25 billion "to invest in Western-based alternatives to Chinese equipment providers Huawei and ZTE," a bipartisan group of six US senators said yesterday.
[...]
"Every month that the US does nothing, Huawei stands poised to become the cheapest, fastest, most ubiquitous global provider of 5G, while US and Western companies and workers lose out on market share and jobs," Warner said.
[...]
The senators said these funds will help the US win "the race for 5G." The Federal Communications Commission's Republican majority has repeatedly cited the "race to 5G" as justification for eliminating federal rules and preempting municipal regulations that cover deployment of wireless equipment in US cities and towns.
[...]
The FCC in November voted unanimously to ban Huawei and ZTE equipment in projects paid for by the FCC's Universal Service Fund (USF), saying the equipment could have backdoors installed at the behest of the Chinese government. This ban affects only future projects and the use of federal funding to maintain existing equipment, but the FCC may also eventually require removal of Huawei and ZTE gear from networks that have already been built.
[...]
If the bill passes, recipients of FCC grants for replacing Chinese equipment with new 5G technology would have to submit plans outlining how they will switch to standards-based equipment.
Previously:
Huawei Denies Receiving Billions in Financial Aid From Chinese Government
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.
TSMC reportedly stops taking orders from Huawei after new U.S. export controls
Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract semiconductor maker, has stopped taking new orders from Huawei Technologies, one of its largest customers, according to the Nikkei Asian Review. The report said the decision was made to comply with new United States export controls, announced last Friday, that are meant to make it more difficult for Huawei to obtain chips produced using U.S. technology, including manufacturing equipment.
Huawei hits back at US as TSMC cuts off chip orders
Huawei rotating chairman Guo Ping has hit back at the US government's stricter export controls intended to stop the Chinese tech giant from obtaining essential chips, following reports that its biggest supplier has already cut it off. "We still haven't figured it out," Guo said on stage at Huawei's annual analyst summit. "The US government still persists in attacking Huawei, but what will that bring to the world?"
"In its relentless pursuit to tighten its stranglehold on our company, the US government has decided to proceed and completely ignore the concerns of many companies and industry associations," Huawei adds in an official statement. "This decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide. This new rule will impact the expansion, maintenance, and continuous operations of networks worth hundreds of billions of dollars that we have rolled out in more than 170 countries."
"We expect that our business will inevitably be affected," Huawei's statement continues. "We will try all we can to seek a solution."
See also: Huawei Braces for Latest U.S. Hit, but Some Say Loopholes Remain
TSMC Accepts US Kill Order & Suspends Future Huawei Contracts
Previously: U.S. Attempting to Restrict TSMC Sales to Huawei
Washington in Talks with Chipmakers about Building U.S. Factories
TSMC Will Build a $12 Billion "5nm" Fab in Arizona
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Dr Spin on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:58AM
Is a polite way of saying "a bunch of technological ignoramuses with money"
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:59AM (16 children)
I can't quite tell, are these early, middle, or late spasms? Is threatening other friendly nations part of the last throes of the decline of the US, or is it only just starting to happen?
Between bluntly demonstrating that all of the reasons for gov. control over the citizens is utterly worthless (terrible mismanagement of an actual emergency), its insistence on being able to spy on _everyone_, its loss of muchof the world to China's opening embrace (African countries, Middle East, etc) -- how quick is the rest of the fall going to come? What will be left when it hits bottom? What will the bounce be like, and where will it settle?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @07:15AM
China's embrace is a chokehold. They need to be opposed globally.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @07:18AM (1 child)
We've been in decline for a long time. This article is about the UK though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @03:48PM
How long have you got?
Britain peaked somewhere between 1800-1900, at least in terms of world influence.
This latest matter is just England practicing for when it becomes a single country for realz, in about... oh, 8 months. Here's a dick - you know what to do.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @08:02AM (11 children)
They had a couple of options here
UK is spied on by
>US
>China
UK is spied on by
>US
How much is it worth to be spied on by one country instead of two?
Until the past few weeks (unless you have been watching since January) there was the general assumption of "well China did all they could and we assume they acted in good faith" to "China locked down travel inside China from Wuhan in early January, but allowed international travel to continue". This is a policy of actively seeding the virus in other countries, and is an extremely hostile act. They went from assumed ignorance to known malice. Why would you respond to such malice by giving them the keys to the palace?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @08:30AM (5 children)
All these self hating westerners who would rather be a slave in a factory than admit there is something wrong with the Chinese "Communist" Party. Thanks for the troll mod, I'm sure it will help you in your credit score so you don't get cut off from public transportation.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @08:55AM (2 children)
Worse than slave, they need to pay for their keep and heath themselves.
And, by God, they enjoy the freedom of choosing which of the corporates piss on them, both as a consumer and as a workforce provider working on a worse deal than a slave.
And, no, the negation of that is not "be a slave to the Chinese communists", don't try a false dilemma.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:39PM (1 child)
But given your context, it's the natural false choice, not even a false dilemma. You present a very one-dimensional argument here. In the first sentence, option B is presented as "worse" because some costs are higher for the individual. And then you follow that up with "freedom of choosing which of the corporates piss on them". So you mention slavery and this caricature of freedom. So doesn't even meet the low standards of a false dilemma.
I'll just note that in the developed world "pay for keep" is just not that much. And the same idiots who obsess over health care are globally giving us more expensive health care. As to the "freedom of choosing which of the corporates piss on them", that's a genuine powerful freedom that has made for a lot of happy people throughout the world. It turns out that there are nice employers out there, and you can choose to work for them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @11:16PM
Teehee, now I get it. The cause for the most expensive heath care in 'murica is because of the rest of the world conspiring to have lower cost of health care.
Welcome to the tautological conspiracy club.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @09:11AM (1 child)
China and the USA can both fuck off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @03:52PM
And the EU, NI and Scotland!
All of you, bugger off!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Sunday May 24 2020, @10:40AM
Either way, all this is overlooking two rather fundamental concepts in security - defence in depth, and assuming that you will be compromised and considering how you will contain the damage - the whole point of which is that if any link in the chain is compromised then you are still protected by the rest. The trick is to build your chain (design the system architecture) in such as way that even if Vendor A has state enforced backdoors then they are useless because all your other hardware from other vendors will prevent access. A simplistic example of this would be to use two different hardware vendors to provide firewalling capability; one at the outer perimeter of your DMZ and the other at the inner; even if both were backdoored by their respective vendors, the other firewall should still be capable of denying them access to the interior network.
Ultimately though it's a variation of the old procurement dilemma - you can only choose two from cheap, convenient, and secure - which is pretty much the same order that they usually get prioritised in.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Funny) by DrkShadow on Sunday May 24 2020, @04:16PM (3 children)
Wait, China left the the Wuhan International Airport open for business?? You could travel to other countries, but you could not travel throughout China?!? wtf?? I never heard about this!!
I heard that reporters couldn't get into China. I heard that Wuhan was so locked down that people were resorting to Tinder to get information from Wuhan. I heard... nothing of what you just claimed! That is astounding, and offensive to the extreme!! How could they do that?!?
That would be like the United States leaving the international border open despite the lead-in-water problem in Flint, MI! Despite the flooding and contamination along the Mississippi in the last couple years!
Or wait -- are you suggesting that for a localized incident with no known effects outside the given area that countries should lock down international borders immediately? and that this applies only to China? I'm confused.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @06:42PM (1 child)
The issue is that the CCP thought the issue serious enough to protect themselves, but not protect others. This thing doubles every three to five days unchecked. This virus followed that pattern since mid november, giving something like 50k cases at a minimum in Wuhan alone when they closed down domestic flights from Wuhan. Important enough for China to close their most important inland transportation route to other Chinese locations, yet not enough for them to worry about international travel.
Flint example would be the same if every person leaving flint would kick off three to five day doubling of lead poisioning anywhere they went, and if the US knew this so they refused to allow people from Flint to travel to NY or Texas but thought it was a-ok if they still traveled to London.
German intelligence said they have evidence China told the WHO in the same timeframe to push that the virus did not have human-to-human transmission, yet other documents they gave to the WHO showed they knew about h2h transmission in December.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday May 24 2020, @11:23PM
I don't quite get it. Are you saying you'd like to be protected by the CCP?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 25 2020, @05:00PM
Ah yes I too remember the great Leaded Water Warning Agreement (LWWA) in 1985 that required the US to inform signatory countries of situations where communities had too high of concentrations of lead in their water.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday May 25 2020, @04:33AM
>Between bluntly demonstrating that all of the reasons for gov. control over the citizens is utterly worthless (terrible mismanagement of an actual emergency)
China demonstrated that government control of citizens absolutely *can* be effective in an emergency. I guess the lesson for the US is that you can't half-ass it; if you can't do it right (and quickly), you might as well just be like Sweden and do nothing at all and let the pandemic take its course, because their results haven't been that much worse than ours. Just a few minutes ago, I saw a headline that the US is now going to restrict travel to Brazil because of Covid. Now? I'm just some guy on the internet and I've noticed on the trackers that Brazil is turning into a major hotspot (now #2 in cases worldwide), and has been for weeks. So *now* they want to shut down travel? Isn't this like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped?
At this point, between how terrible the federal government's handling has been, and how poorly half the citizenry has been dealing with it (having armed protests, refusing to follow safety measures, etc.), I really wonder if we should just throw in the towel and go back to normal, and let the death toll be whatever it'll be. If your society isn't united enough to handle an emergency situation together, then why even bother?
(Score: 2) by Username on Sunday May 24 2020, @12:42PM
If all those cases of damaged 5g towers were of one specific manufacture. Like that one time where all of samsung's washer and fridge doors got bent by some, umm, coronavirus conspiracy theorist, at a trade show.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @09:49PM (2 children)
Are you enjoying COVID-19, Boomers? I hope you are, because your political response to the pandemic has completely destroyed the economy. Did we really need a Great Recession in 2008 caused by you, and a Great Lockdown in 2020 caused by you? Are you proud of yourselves for creating an economic depression even worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s? Are you proud of yourselves, Boomers? Your legacy will be economic ruin for all. You don't care as long as you Boomers continue to receive your pensions. You Boomers don't have jobs. You Boomers don't create jobs. You Boomers don't do anything for anyone ever. You Boomers are utterly worthless parasites. You don't care about anybody except yourselves. Everybody except you is forced at gunpoint to wear a facemask while you Boomers sit in your giant mansions laughing and waiting to die when you will be buried with your fortunes so nobody will ever touch your precious money.
Boomers did COVID-19.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 24 2020, @10:24PM (1 child)
President https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_Jae-in [wikipedia.org] and Prime Minister https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chung_Sye-kyun [wikipedia.org] are from the 50s, boomers. So is Taiwan's President https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsai_Ing-wen [wikipedia.org] . Vietnam? Too, or a bit older https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ph%C3%BA_Tr%E1%BB%8Dng [wikipedia.org] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Xu%C3%A2n_Ph%C3%BAc [wikipedia.org] Surely the ones below them are just like in the rest of the world: people from 40s-60s are in charge. Pretty much same age than the ones that handled Ebola not long ago, in some cases the very same people (in my country, the "Doctor in Chief" handled it smoothly then... and fucked it hard now, because he was blinded by politic shenanigans).
One country could be luck, but three places having minimal problems with the Chinese mishandling of health issues? Try a different reason.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 25 2020, @04:37AM
Those aren't Boomers. The term "Boomer" doesn't refer to all humans within a certain age bracket, it refers to a specific generation of *Americans*. Those people aren't American, so just like their parents aren't from "the greatest generation", and their kids aren't "Gen-X", they aren't "boomers". The whole term is short for "baby boomers", and refers to the population and economic boom that happened in *America* after WWII; it's something very unique to America (though people of that generation in Canada might count; they fought in WWII with us and also reaped a lot of economic benefits afterwards, since our countries are such close partners).