I have come across the name ”Huawei” in the news lately. I vaguely understood that it was an entity somehow involved in a geopolitical controversy related to USA, China trade. Not sure even how to pronounce it, I looked it up. It turns out it is Huawei Technologies Co, (HTC) a huge Chinese media tech corporation.
Huawei’s top management and its Chinese supporters in Beijing would like to integrate HTC into the new 5G wifi network. But serious question have recently arisen concerning security threats arising from such a decision for the western world. Many in the west see Huawei as a Chinese technical Trojan Horse.
From the west’s perspectives Huawei has two problems and both involve security issues. One is the alleged vulnerability of its software and hardware to security leaks. This, it is claimed by British detractors, stems from its “poor development and testing” regimes. ( See: “Huawie China State Hackers Rigging 5 G Tests Against Nokia and Ericsson”, June 1, 2019 by Sal Doffman) The second security issue is the potential for hacking by China’s defense and security networks into our national wifi networks . This latter problem exits because Huawei has known close ties with China’s powerful defense and spy agencies. The USA and other nations claim that Huawei surreptitiously collects data for the Chinese government. If that wasn’t bad enough, it also takes subsidies and soft loans from Beijing enabling it to engage in unfair pricing practices which permits it to muscle out western competition. In the same vein, it is know to have unfair access to closed government procurements, and is heavily protected and promoted by the Chinese government which supports its exports and defends its product’s market share (ibid.).
At present, the international cyber community is gearing up for the introduction of what is termed the the new “5G” WiFi network” Every ten years of so companies that make smart phones and the networks which link them up introduce new technologies, and new protocols, and they introduce new increased transmission speeds with which the instruments operate. These decade-staggered iterations are called “generations”. Today, we are operating on the 4G (fourth generation) wireless transmission. In the past, you may remember the old 2 G and 3 G days when we could only transmit and receive text messages and a few pictures. Under 4G, we are able to download complex games, and entire movies in a matter of a few minutes. Our present network can deliver as much as one gigabyte per second of data (or 1000 kilobytes/sec) to your phone or tablet. That is pretty good. But the new 5G proposed system will have a capacity twenty times that speed or 20 gigabytes per second. (Some techies even claim 40 gigabytes per second). With 5 G, users will be able to download large multimedia files, and as well the system will be able to handle the expected surge of increase new network traffic. It will also reduce to near zero the “lag time” between when the signal is generated and its arrival at your instrument. That will permit more effective use of robotics such as self-driving autos and trucks, smart homes, and medical advances. (See: “Will Millimeter Waves Maximize 5G Wireless?, Scientific American, June 23, 2015, by Larry Greenmeier)
The problem with Huawei is that it is heavily involved in the new 5 G system technology but it also has deep and disturbing ties to Chinese defense and spy agencies. These concerns seemed to have crystalized in the west early last year (2018). Plans for the introduction of 5G were well underway for installation protocols, when system developers began to question which research and tech companies should be included in the process.
The concern over Huawei inclusion seems to have initiated in Australia’s national security agency. While attempting to assess security risks of the new 5G system for Australia, technical experts proposed two hypothetical questions. How much damage could a rogue nation or individual do if (it) they had access to or were involved in the installation of the new 5G next generation mobile technology? After considerable effort the investigators concluded that the risks were indeed very great. They concluded that, if Australia were on the receiving end of a cyber attack from an agency which had full access to the new network, its entire cyber infrastructure (both military and domestic) could be sabotaged. (See “Trump’s Banning of Huawei Could Be The Beginning of the Biggest Trade War, by John Naughton, Opinion, theguardian.com, June 2, 2019) With this information in hand, Australian officials duly notified its “Five Eyes” intelligence partners (USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand) regarding their finding. President Trump who, early in his administration, put China in his sights regaling its trade policies was first to respond.
President Trump initially encouraged US intelligence partners to be more circumspect about allowing Huawei into the next generation system of wifi or to help develop the system. Soon after that —in a response to what the President perceived as a national security threat—the US moved to withhold intelligence from any country that allowed Huawei in. On May 15 of this year he barred American firms from using devices or parts built by Huawei in their systems. Huawei Technologies was added to a list of companies with which American companies can not do business without official government permission. There were other results. Intel—the processor company—has refused to supply processors for Huawei laptops, Qualcomm—the manufacturer of wireless modems indicated it would abide by the ban on sales to Huawei. ARM, the British chip designer whose processors power 95% of all the devices in the world, announced it would no longer sell licenses to Huawei as a result of the ban. This last was a devastating blow to the company since designing processor chips from scratch would be a massive and expensive undertaking (Ibid. Naughton 2019)
It is difficult to say how this will play out. But some may suggest that to solve the problem HTC establish some kind of “firewall”between it and the Chinese government agencies. But concepts such as that ignore the elephant in the room—the fact that China does not playing on the same soccer pitch or with the same rules as the rest of us. They have their own pitch and their own rules and a business culture that is very different than our own. Its time that we accept the fact that they do not and can not play by our rules. When we begin to understand that—as President Trump seems to—perhaps we can work for a more equitable level playing field and greater success in dealing with them.
But until that time we must not open the gate to the wooden horse sitting outside of our national palisade.
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