huawei (ZTE too)

Thu Jun 13 19:44:21 UTC 2013

Is that also not possibly the case with Cisco, Juniper, XYZ network
equipment vendors? If the Chinese are doing it, I would imagine we (along
with our pals) are doing it as well. It'll be interesting to see what NSA
dox this guy drops in the coming days and weeks ahead. All of the TV
pundits were screaming Hong Kong was going to give him up, until he
released information on a program relating to penetrating foreign
government networks. I think the dynamics of China and their behavior
after the release(s) will factor in greatly into contract awards in the
future. Granted he hasn't released any information on compromising
physical hardware for the moment, but if that were to come to light it
would murder .cn imports of gear almost immediately. If we were doing it,
and they weren't .. They will now.

At the end of the day, we are almost ALWAYS more than willing to give them
our IP and state secrets in order to (a) buy something really cheap or (b)
sell something really expensive. I'm sure it's completely understood
within the intelligence communities what capabilities the Chinese have,
mostly because we probably gave or sold it to them at some point. They
haven't ALWAYS made their own hardware, and they still bring quite a bit
in through creative channels.

On 6/13/13 12:28 PM, "Bryan Fields" <Bryan at bryanfields.net> wrote:

>On 6/13/13 1:35 PM, Warren Bailey wrote:
>> They are a state controlled company. You think the PRC's party members
>>dont
>> call the shots? I've been to Beijing for work.. I can assure you the
>> government has a very known presence through the private community.
>>Often
>> times, graduates of their state run colleges enter the "private" sector
>>to
>> help their collective needs. China is an odd place, but in my opinion
>>often
>> they are underestimated. Look at their stealth plane, that's a good
>> starting point on their ability to borrow technology and implement it
>> quickly. It's about numbers over there, not sense.
>
>My objection to ZTE/Hauwei when I was at a cellular telco was just this.
>I
>said "there was no way I can agree with Chinese nationals having
>unfettered
>access to our network".
>
>Sure the CLI was crap/nonexistent and full of bugs, but I never thought
>the
>product was phoning home.  I assumed there was a backdoor, like every
>other
>product and this was dealt with via ACL's and bastion boxes.
>
>I did not think highly of the product, and did not want to select it.
>However
>ZTE made the offer to put 6 support engineers in our main switch office
>24/7
>for the first year, and open an office down the street.  Our SVP creamed
>himself over this level of "support" and they got the contract.
>
>It's an awesome idea, build gear that's cheap enough you can't say no to,
>and
>use the support personnel as spies.  It provides a perfect cover story to
>cycle in loads of engineers.  Only one or two does the support, the rest
>can
>observe/record/share the internal details of everything they see.
>
>They are playing our love of "But Wait There's More!". Give us everything
>at
>deep discounts or for free and receive direct access to the core of every
>major telecom company on the planet.  For a few hundred million dollars
>the
>Chinese government has intelligence on anyone or anything world wide, and
>their agents are welcomed with open arms.
>
>
>-- 
>Bryan Fields
>
>727-409-1194 - Voice
>727-214-2508 - Fax
>http://bryanfields.net
>