Well, both countries voted in ignorant, idiotic, nationalist clowns who have then led this decision. We only have ourselves to blameOriginally Posted by John_Amstrad
(well, those who voted for Boris and brexit really in our case, and just those voting for trump in the US).
cheesemp (30-09-2020)
Honestly this does feel like a complete waste of money....
There is nothing to prove that Huawei are not trustworthy other than say so from selective people who have an issue with China... there's also nothing to say that the Nokia stuff replacing it is any more secure either.
The thing is Huawei even offered to let anyone inspect the code/hardware who wanted to which in most cases would have cleared stuff up.
We'll also ignore the minor detail that a lot of chips are made in china too....
And to be honest we likely give more information away willingly to google/facebook etc than Huawei/China would be interested in... 'government' information should be encrypted in the first place but knowing how 'tech savvy' our government are I doubt it.
Indeed, if governments aren't encrypting their sensitive data they have bigger things to worry about than a Telco equipment provider.
As for personal information, if the worry is big brother and secret police, then the government where you live is likely to be a far bigger worry.
Because unless a foreign government is planning to actually invade a country their information gathering is unlikely to have the same dangerous potential as your local government.
Nokia make there stuff in China. If China wants to infiltrate they will.
wasted pounds here
Spud1 (30-09-2020)
At the risk of getting the obvious response, which points out that the point I'm about to make is purely speculative .... there's nothing known publicly proving them to be untrustworthy. But, it is perfectly feasible that one or more intelligence services have information that we, the public, do not.
I know that argument could be used to justify them "knowing" just about anything without having to prove it, but nonetheless, some of these services ate much better at keeping stuff secret than the public give them credit for.
Note: I'm not claiming they DO have such info. Just that if they do, we wouldn't know about it.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
As soon as something is found, you can bet bottom dollar it'll be screamed from the rooftops by american and american friendly media publications.
This is because it underlines with several paper tearing lines that Huawei is infiltrated by the CCP and being used as a trojan horse. Included in their articles would be that if the largest high tech company in China is compromised then all others are cast into doubt.
It'll also make Trumps trade war stop being a whiny baby crying to a full on eyes up actual issue.
The attack chain doesn't make sense and witholding data also doesn't make sense. Because neither of those things make sense, I'm going to continue to give Huawei the benefit of the doubt because their code and HDL has been examined in close scrutiny.
Spud1 (02-10-2020)
very good point here Also many major american tech companies make their stuff in China.
You are of course entitled to give anyone you like the benefit of the doubt, and withholding data makes utter sense from the perspective of an intelligence service. That sense is that publicising information gives clues or evidence of either the method of gathering it, or the source, so it only happens if the gain exceeds the risk, and that depends in large part on the nature of the method, or source.
By definition, we simply don't know what we don't know. But appropriate government ministers might. Or might not. Either way, we either will not find out for decades, or never will.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
In the last week, BT have served notice against all IT contractors, ending their current contracts and will be issuing new contracts with 20% rate cuts.Obviously the costs incurred won't be passed on to the consumer
The whole situation is ridiculous and entirely engineered by the USA because they got caught napping on 5G.
Huawei is years ahead of anyone else's 5G kit so now we replace it with inferior equipment at higher cost because of the USA's inferiority complex.
The equipment was approved by the security services, the only thing that has changed is that the USA has restricted Huawei's normal chip supplies and they therefore have to use other chips. These chips are an unknown risk and that has been used as an excuse to replace the vendor.
The risk wouldn't be there if the USA hadn't started it's ridiculous trade war.
The American Government would not withhold this information, especially with that leaking sewer piper they have as a president.
Withholding intelligence is one thing so you don't tip off your enemy but you keep schtum, you don't release a 46 page doc saying that they're incompetent and don't have faith they'll get much better.
I know what i know from my now previous day in day out job related to these types of issues.
I wasn't talking about the US government, byt even then, dovyoucreally helieve that all US intelligence agencies give raw data even to the president, if they believe he, or someone sufficiejtly senior on his staff, will do a do a sieve impression?
But I was talking about UK intelligence services anyway. The point I made about what we (the public) know comes from several sources :-
- common sense,
- just abour every half-decent spy book or film,
- refusal to prosecute some individyals because to do so would require publuc access to such information,
- a (now deceased) family member's comments which, having nothing to do with current cases, wouldn't discuss ANY details of actual cases, even with family, even long in the past, because sources may still be active, or may lead in turn to those that are.
The point remains the same. The mere fact that evidence isn't put in the public domain is not proof it does not exist, and assuming that it can't or it would have leaked is, frankly, ludicrously simplistic. That would only be true if everything our intelligence services found out subsequently ended up in the papers and if you seriously believe that.
Just to be clear - I'm not saying there is evidence about Huawei. I'm merely saying that IF there is, we cannot assume it would be leaked,0 let alone deliberateoy put into the public domain, and that we therefore cannot assume the absence of public knowledge is proof of it's non-existence.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
I think people have forgotten that GCHQ (& therefore the UK Government) were fine with Huawei and said as much until Trump banned it from buying any US made tech (or rather, prohibited US companies from selling to Huawei). At that point GCHQ changed its position because Huawei would have to go to different suppliers of a now unknown quantity and they believed that there was now an unacceptable risk. From what I've seen, the UK Government simply acted on GCHQs advice.
So Trump effectively forced the UK Government to change position. Not something I think anyone should be happy about.
You have taken a couple of separate issues and drawn a conclusion not supported by the fairly limited public statements. It's a bit like looking at a box of eggs and concluding "omelet" when not realising that with the additional ingredients not mentioned (or not aware of) it could be anything from a souffle to a Victoria sponge.
Firstly, other factors come into play, not just the US stance. The oversight report of HCSEC reported a "nationally significant" vulnerability discovered last year so serious that it wasn't even reported to Huawei. This is not a suggestion that it was either deliberate, or an assertion that it was at the behest of the Chinese state, Rather, the report says it is that
and goes on to assertpoor software engineering and cyber security processes lead to security and quality issues, including vulnerabilities
is of significant concern.the increasing number and severity of vulnerabilities discovered
The next question is what to make of things like this. One potential conclusion is "that would say that, wouldn't they", but that suggests a level of cynicism about oyr own security services well worthy of the tinfoil-hat group I'm regularly accused of belonging to over privacy concerns.
A more solid conclusion would be the point I've made repeatedly - we don't know what we don't don't. Put put that another way, and indeed to paraphrase (or maybe even directly quote) a former head of SIS, an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Where you are right is that atrump has an involvement in all this. Where we part company is over why he has taken the stance he has. There is an assertion in this thread that it's simply an aspect of Trump's "trade war". And maybe it is. Maybe. But we, again, don't know what various US intelligence services have told Trump.
Yes, there are leaks, both here and in the US, but IMHO anyone that believes everything leaks is guilty of an incredible level of nativity. The CIA has, for sure, had it's problems. Some of them I wholeheartedly welcome both on grounds of morality, and because the Aldrich Ames affair (among others) wiped the smugly condescending smirks of the CIA's collective faces after the Philby (and that bunch) treacherous acts here.
But I would invite consideration of the hugely likely probability that for every leak we do find out about, there's a mountain of intelligence that doesn't get leaked and, once again, [I]we don't know what we don't know[I]
What we do now know, thanks to reports of the HCSEC report published as recently as yesterday, is that contrary to claims made, there have been major concerns in intelligence circles growing over the last year or more about the above vulnerabilities. So to take the timeline of two facts, those being initial GCHQ comments and a subsequent change of heart and then attribute that solely to Trump's interference is to assume a singular causation when we now have evidence that, at the very least, there's more to it than that, and possibly that Trump had little to do with it.
What I find more credible than it being Trump's bombast, is that significant concerns from several "5 i's" members that did emerge in public, suggesting that Huawei in our network put information sharing at risk, was likely to be a major factor in the UK government's volte-face from their initial decision to go with Huawei.
Like it or not, and whether there is just cause with Huawei or not, any significant loss of trust among the 5 i's absolutely represents a serious risk of damage to our national interests. Is that a factor in the about-face? I don't know any more than anyone else not in extremely senior government and intelligence service positions does, but I do find it highly plausible, whether Huaeei itself is a risk or not.
All told, there's a lot we simply don't, and realistically, can't know. This latter data about "vulnerabilities" can at least be put into the public domain, in limited fashion, without risking intelligence sources or methods, but much cannot be.
One final point.
We can't forget that among other intelligence services tricks, it's not just keeping stuff secret. It's also famous for deception and misdirect. Just as we "don't know what we don't know" because it's kept from us, we also cannot be sure that we really do know what we think we know. Don't assume that all "leaks" actually are either leaks, or true, because they could just be misdirects.
And before anyone says it, no, that's not my tin-hat-it's coming out. It's well documented SIS and even SOE (absorbed by SIS) history.
When it comes to what intelligence services are, or are not, telling us, or gets leaked, do not automatically assume any of it can be taken at face value. That is to say, we really, really don't know what we don't know .... or even what we think we do know.
/Where'd I put that codeine? My head hurts.
A lesson learned from PeterB about dignity in adversity, so Peter, In Memorium, "Onwards and Upwards".
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