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President Trump yesterday signed a defense funding bill that included a sweeping ban on the US government using technology supplied by Chinese telecommunications giants ZTE and Huawei. The bill also includes a narrower ban on using surveillance gear provided by Chinese companies Hytera Communications, Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology, or Dahua Technology for national security applications.
The legislation directs federal agencies to stop using the Chinese-made hardware within two years. If that proves impractical, an agency can apply for a waiver to permit a longer phase-out period.
Obviously, being banned from selling to the US government is a significant blow to these companies. But overall the bill actually represents something of a reprieve for ZTE. Back in June, the US Senate passed a version of the bill that would have re-imposed an export ban that would have been a de facto death sentence for ZTE because ZTE is heavily dependent on components like Qualcomm chips and Google's Android operating system.
Previously: Verizon Cancels Plans to Sell Huawei Phone Due to U.S. Government Pressure
U.S. Intelligence Agency Heads Warn Against Using Huawei and ZTE Products
The U.S. Intelligence Community's Demonization of Huawei Remains Highly Hypocritical
Huawei CEO Still Committed to the U.S. Market
Rural Wireless Association Opposes U.S. Government Ban on Huawei and ZTE Equipment
ZTE Suspends Operations Due to U.S. Ban (UPDATED)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:34PM (1 child)
Congress can basically only tell government what to do.
Of course, a lot of businesses (and especially Big Businesses) depend on those government agencies and must therefore also bow to the law, but the rest of the The People can thumb their noses at Congress and do business as they see fit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @03:26PM
i don't know what kind of suck ass modded this flamebait. the op was stating the reality of the situation.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @07:55PM (2 children)
The world has become an oroboros (or maybe a human centipede is a better analogy) of backdooring. We shouldn't be buying ZTE and Huawei anymore than the slopes should be buying Cisco.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 16 2018, @02:58AM (1 child)
I'd much rather China spy on me than my own government. China has no legal/police power over me.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday August 16 2018, @02:59AM
I should add, perhaps it isn't necessary, but I'd rather not be spied on at all. I just feel that if (when) it happens, I'd rather be spied on by irrelevant entities than ones that have power over me.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:08PM (11 children)
All their network infrastructure products (for the ISP and corporate markets) are free open source and been verified by multiple governments and corporations. Their main competitor - US owned Cisco - has a closed source proprietary OS and a history of NSA requested (and delivered) backdoors.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:16PM (3 children)
GTFO
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:08PM (1 child)
Back when Huawei cloud app was leaking positional data to their clouds in China, some guy posted a sniffer report of how the Chinese servers were seeing two dozen kilobyte per hour of GPS and wifi hotspots data while the American Google servers are seeing megabytes of everything from how many seconds you're looking through your gallery pictures and what kind of spelling errors you're making when chatting with your co-workers and family... Also worth noting how we had Samsung TVs leaking raw audio captures and no one even bothered mentioning anything about not putting those in boardrooms or command tends...
Suffice to say, Huawei is definitely being targeted over their refusal to backdoor. And no it's not a Trump thing. It's been going on since the Bush years and throughout the Obama administration as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @10:17AM
I think you mean refusal to give the Americanos a backdoor. I am sure they give their chinee masters all the backdoors they want.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @03:30PM
it probably does, you stupid windows-using slave. these dumb ass politicians should be focused on buying the most open stuff, not who makes it. if both are closed, sure buy "american". if you have vile slaveware peddling whores like cisco and their competition's gear is open? fuck cisco.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:27PM (6 children)
Well, there's that, but also we've got a mental baby running a trade war with the vague intention of "winning" whose only card is just more and more escalation.
I'm not saying your thing is wrong, just there's another explanation where everyone and everything in 2018 is the dumbest, stupidest shit possible.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:01PM (3 children)
We have been in a trade war for a very long time, arguably since Nixon.
It is wrong to say that previous presidents weren't in a trade war. They were retreating and losing, failing to put up a fight, but that doesn't mean there was peace. That is just failure.
Your "escalation" is just basic self-defense. If we continue to have low tariffs while all the other countries do not, then they will pick our bones like vultures.
Obama said those factory jobs wouldn't come back. They are coming back. Obama mocked the idea that the USA could have 3% growth. We're well above that now.
I like winning. Why don't you like winning? Why do you hate America?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:29PM
Yep, here's why. People who view international trade as zero sum games where you win or lose. It's 2018 and everything is stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @09:25PM (1 child)
A tariff on foreign products to enable local production economical makes as much sense as breaking windows to create jobs for glassblowers. The fact growth is rising and unemployment is lowering isn't a positive thing when your exports aren't. It just means you're doing more work for less profits. And obviously it leads to reduced industrial production and inflation soon enough since demand and cash flow dies:
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/industrial-production-mom [tradingeconomics.com]
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/inflation-cpi [tradingeconomics.com]
This is where the spiral to the bottom really kicks in. Trump will try borrowing more money to infuse the system with cash or worse, print some. This pattern is so obvious to anyone with a lick of education it's ridiculous people actually think Obama wasn't right to oppose this and try to focus on higher efficiency innovative technologies instead. And lets not forget Germany did just what Obama tried and ended up fairing quite well for themselves...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 17 2018, @02:05AM
Um, you didn't hear about "quantitative easing" under Obama? That was what you claim Trump will do. It's already done, by Obama. He was printing money to infuse the system with cash.
It's cute to claim to "try to focus on higher efficiency innovative technologies". Everybody wants that. You can't force innovation. Innovation tends to happen near the factories though, which means China if we let them have the factories.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:55AM (1 child)
It's also a huge foot-shoot in terms of what video gear to USG will now end up with. Dahua and Hikvision are the world's largest manufacturers of surveillance camera gear, and they make some pretty decent kit. So what the decree is saying is that US agencies now have to buy from dubious third-party vendors instead of the major players with established track records.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday August 16 2018, @01:00AM
Sorry, forgot the hashtag for banning mainstream gear like Dahua and Hikvision: #MDubiousChineseManufactersGA!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:54PM (5 children)
My coworker bought surveillance gear for his home. He didn't want Chinese gear, so he bought something from a Canadian company... or so he thought. Picking apart the web interface source he finds "Hikvision".
It's the same with lots of stuff. Dell makes printers... or do they? No, they don't.
The security situation here is a disaster. China can use all these devices to spy on American homes and businesses, blackmailing people and swiping trade secrets.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:56PM (3 children)
Well the Chinese can't throw me into prison without a trial or just come to my home and shoot me if I step out of line. I think I choose their backdoors over our domestic government's backdoors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:08PM (2 children)
Suppose they reveal that they know some dark secret in your personal life. They offer to keep quiet about it... if you provide some help. You thus become a spy.
Think you don't have a dark secret? They can provide one! All they have to do is fill your computer with child porn and then tip off the FBI.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:20PM
That shows the problem with making possession of anything illegal: It's all too easy for governments to plant the illegal possession. This is especially true for data.
Also, this tactic could also be used by the US government; it certainly is not above it. I would still maintain that the US government is a much greater threat to US citizens than the Chinese government is.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @11:25PM
I'd say "Sir, yes Sir" because it is 100% FBI building yet another case.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @03:35PM
if you're using windows and/or don't have a real firewall, you deserve it. act like a slave, get treated like a slave.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday August 16 2018, @12:36AM
Great news! Thank god the American products are proudly made in the good ol US-of-A where they cant be tainted by the mean ol Chinamen!... Wait, whats that? My Cisco catalyst switch says made in China?
What the fuck America.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by deimios on Thursday August 16 2018, @05:32AM
If they are banned by the US they must be doing something right. As an added bonus I predict I will be getting massive discounts on these products, same as when they banned Kaspersky.
Tradewars are fine and dandy, just don't forget that the bigger wallet wins and the US isn't the biggest kid on the economy bloc.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 16 2018, @09:35AM
I like this, and I think it should go further.
Looking forward to President Trump signing a bill banning the US government from buying any kind of technology at all from anywhere.