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Huawei Trolls U.S. on Spy Claims with a Jab at Snowden
- morpheuskafka 8y agoPing makes a pretty clever reference directly to this NSA program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program). I've got to admit, it's quite apropos, although I don't think it dismisses the US's legitimate concerns over PRC tech influence.
- user982 8y agoPointing out hypocrisy is trolling.
- blackoil 8y agoWe should start with the assumption that every government, carrier, service provider, device manufacturer is rogue and will start spying on us. As a technologist, it is responsibility of the people here to create sustainable systems and services which are simple to adopt so can be used by billions of people while keeping there privacy intact. I'll be happy to fund (in my meager capacity) any effort by Mozilla/EFF to take back control.
- rchaud 8y agoThank you. The rest of these comments are involved in a circular argument about East v West, as thought these are fresh debates no one's ever had before. China v US dick-waving doesn't change the 'facts on the ground' for average people, which is that state surveillance exists, and many people don't know just how expansive it is. That's what people should be opposing, instead of cheering on two massive bureaucracies like they're sports teams.
- holdenc 8y agoReferencing Prism is a jab at the US, but hardly a jab a Snowden. Misleading headline!
- steamer25 8y agoI agree it's not worded well. I think they might have intended to mean a jab at U.S. surveillance dragnets via the Snowden affair.
- vinceiiikensin 8y agoHuawei is an arm of the Chinese government. The Chinese government has imprisoned millions of Muslims in a concentration camp monitored by Huawei equipments. No amount of trolling can misdirect the sins of a nazi like entity
- Bendingo 8y ago> millions of Muslims in a concentration camp Can you source this (rather outrageous) claim?
- qlk1123 8y agoPlease, it's an easy search: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/14/asia/uyghur-china-xinjiang-interview-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/14/asia/uyghur-china-xinjian...
- yesenadam 8y ago>"Please" meaning what? It's not ok to ask for sources? There was a link next to the 1 million figure in that article to a US Senate bill, which says "The purpose of this Act is to direct United States resources to address gross violations of universally recognized human rights, including the mass internment of over 1,000,000 Uyghurs and other predominately Muslim ethnic minorities in China..." ..but no source for that figure. From the article you linked to, it does sound like a horrific situation.
- pietroglyph 8y agoThis is unfortunately true: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang-un-uighurs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/world/asia/china-xinjiang...
- barbecue_sauce 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps How can anybody not be aware of this?
- dijit 8y agoI feel like this is fair. People like to paint enemies of the east while essentially letting the west get away with much more heinous stuff. The difference of course is that we implicitly trust US tech companies, of course we do, nobody else has such a monopoly on CPUs and Operating System production. Not to mention web browsers and all kinds of technology. Avoiding the USA in your tech stack is quite literally impossible. And we permit the US government (by extension the NSA and 5eyes) to do what ever they want to us without fear of repercussion because what course of action could we take? As long as we are not a US citizen we have literally zero protections. it’s to the point that my EU based company is applying US sanctions (to Crimea for instance, where no EU sanction covers telecommunications) because we would fall out of line in many of our contracts from US tech companies. It is clearly a double standard. But the answer is to hold the US to account. Not bring more of this hostile crap in.
- microcolonel 8y ago> People like to paint enemies of the east while essentially letting the west get away with much more heinous stuff. > It is clearly a double standard. But the answer is to hold the US to account. Not bring more of this hostile crap in. I mean, I think it's the nature of things like this that they are justifiable but not pleasant to suffer from. This is weaponry, not poetry; if theirs is better we suffer, that's it.
- dijit 8y agoEven if you're right it is not perceived that way. It's akin to economic dependence. The thought of Europe depending on Russia (or the USA) for energy/electricity is unfathomable, yet we allow the US in particular to be the "holder" of an enormous part of our economy. IT is literally used by every industry and in some cases is very central to it. (IE; power stations make heavy use of automation and computers with CPU's and Operating Systems living at the very heart of that.) It's troubling that we don't do more to offset this, especially if you're right, and holding this industry is a weapon of sorts.
- YUMad 8y ago
- CathayRe 8y agoNice, Huawei Finally pointed this out, so the next step is hopefully somebody pointing out the difference. There will never be a Snowden in China. You can guarantee their life, or their love one's life will be held hostage. So not only does the "West" ( So to speak ) has a system in place protecting these people, they also have a system to vote them out and elect a new form of government should the ultimate worst come to play. What can you do with the CCP?
- Leary 8y agoThe West has a system in place to protect people like Snowden?
- fucking_tragedy 8y agoAre you aware of the government using Snowden's relatives as collateral in order to get him to return to the US? Pretty sure they've been safe this whole time.
- sbov 8y agoNot only that, from what I can tell his girlfriend travels between Russia and the US to visit him.
- Dylan16807 8y agoThe people that know him are protected. And that is definitely worth noting. But I'm far less confident that he would be treated fairly.
- archgoon 8y ago> But I'm far less confident that he would be treated fairly. Maybe, maybe not, but there is precedence in America for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg > Daniel Ellsberg... precipitated a national political > controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, > a top-secret Pentagon study of the U.S. government decision- > making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York > Times and other newspapers. > > On January 3, 1973, Ellsberg was charged under the Espionage > Act of 1917 along with other charges of theft and conspiracy, > carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Due to > governmental misconduct and illegal evidence-gathering, > and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School > professor Charles Nesson, Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr. > dismissed all charges against Ellsberg on May 11, 1973.
- jorblumesea 8y agoWhat about the million Uighurs in Chinese concentration camps? The scale of state crimes are vastly different here.
- pishpash 8y agoWhat about the hundred thousand Japanese American internees in American concentration camps? I don't think the scale is that different, normalized by population and stage of development.
- jorblumesea 8y agoThat was almost 80 years ago, whereas China is doing this today. Past US actions don't somehow invalidate current complaints about massive human rights violations by the CCP. This is purely whataboutism.
- pishpash 8y agoI have no interest in pointing out current US atrocities around the world; there are many. Does any US action past or present invalidate anything? No. But it does make your words overall worthless and hypocritical. As they say, clean your own house first. It's energy better spent.
- jorblumesea 8y agoNo. We should be critical of human rights violations of every country, at every point in time. Past US violations are not some kind of excuse to allow China to put millions of people in concentration camps. This is a fallacious argument, the tu quoque logical fallacy.
- chrischen 8y agoThe issue isn't that China is doing bad things, it's that as someone who is not in China sitting in probably an armchair, providing opinions and guidance across the world is a terrible way to provide well-thought out political advice. One should stick to where they have legitimacy, and that's usually in their local politics. As a non-black person, it'd be like me criticizing black people for things they do. Since I cannot truly understand the black experience in America without being a black person, any criticism I levy against them would be wholly unfair.
- chrischen 8y agoFrankly if Huawei tech is at risk of being compromised, so can any tech, even US-based ones. Shouldn't be putting that much trust in the manufacturer regardless of where they are from. The fight then ends up being a squabble over power and who should have it. The US government is only saying what it says because it simply wants more power in its hands—nothing more. Same goes for the China side, although they're just trying to sell something. There's no way China can win this argument since it's just about power (unless they bend over).
- cm2187 8y agoThis is really not a smart defense. US accuses Chinese company of introducing backdoors in its products for the benefit of China. Chinese company says everyone does it, proves it based on Snowden revelations. The Chinese company is most likely right. But if you are a national carrier, do you then buy the product with the Chinese backdoors? The only defense that wouldn’t kill their sales would be arguing for the opposite, that backdoors undermine the trust of their customers, and that they have the same incentive as Google, Apple or Cisco to push back on those requests.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y agoIt may not be smart but at least it's refreshingly honest.
- calyth2018 8y agoBasically, choose the built-in backdoor. Nevermind the fact that nation-states with the capability will amass 0-days against them anyways.
- iknowstuff2 8y agoNo matter the pushback or faux pushback these companies engage in, they are one national security letter away from choosing between handing over data or shutting down completely. No judge or court required for NSLs right? That's if the NSA hasn't already scraped the data and they need to go through official channels.
- ataturk 8y agoI'd be fine with no backdoors for anyone as a strict policy. The whole "24" argument that government agents won't be able to head off a terror attack in time is so much bullshit when what they are really doing is spying on all of us and then using parallel construction to build legal cases against those they wish to attack. It's extremely autocratic, very one-down, freedom-less system we have here in the states right now. It's disgusting, quite frankly. Public ignorance of technology is what has allowed it. Love this thread--people need to start understanding that the West isn't better than China on spying, it's just a softer tyranny (for now) that we live under. It's still tyranny. By the way, this is why I own guns and support the 2nd Amendment--it will be necessary as the last stand against what we all know is coming.
- OG_BME 8y agoSome of these comments are... weird. Multiple accounts with broken English defending China and bringing up African Americans (somewhat irrelevantly) in every argument. I'll leave the speculation as an exercise for the reader.
- dijit 8y agoThis is spreading FUD and I'm not sure for what reason. I have no problem telling you who I am; I currently seem to have the top comment here[0] which makes me probably the prime target of this message. What about my English is broken? I am British[1], I have been around for a long time[2] and I currently live in Sweden. I have no obligation to any US or China based tech company and no affiliation with China at all (other than the fact I work for a games company that is 5% owned by Tencent[3], but I am definitely not directly involved and I consider their efforts an intrusion). If you think I'm a troll then I've been playing the long game, I have GitHub commits under this name since 2011. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19261105 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19261105 [1]: http://linkedin.com/in/jharasym/ http://linkedin.com/in/jharasym/ [2]: https://github.com/dijit https://github.com/dijit [3]: https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/20/17144094/ubisoft-vivendi-sells-stake-tencent-deal https://www.polygon.com/2018/3/20/17144094/ubisoft-vivendi-s...
- 687u655r 8y agoOperation Earnest Voice
- jorblumesea 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Water_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Water_Army https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party
- throw2016 8y agoThe crime is the action, not who is doing it. Why should US firms be allowed to not only get away but seek to normalize and profit from global surveillance while Huawei is penalized for FUD? What sort of global system is this? This just won't fly for anyone concerned with the ethical issues. The point is not that Huawei should get away with anything but no one should. This not only makes a mockery of concern with surveillance but also exposes globalization and free markets as self serving political tools. Huawei is a perfect example of how ethical issues are hijacked by vested interests with zero interest in the ethics to encourage an empty culture of jingoistic finger pointing that serve to distract and deny while advancing their own financial interests at the cost of everyone else.