It wouldn’t be very secret if it was published on the internet. It’s definitely a credible concern given the level of control China demands of companies operating in the country. The US also essentially has backdoors into most communication, and possibly phones as well, so it’s not that crazy for China to also have them.
China is also very aggressive in hacking into companies. Even if they didn’t have a custom backdoor, them finding a way in and essentially banning Huawei from fixing it, is another option.
I was under the impression it was was common knowledge/rumor that Cisco hardware all has a US installed backdoor. Huawai having a backdoor specifically wasn’t the big revelation/concern. It was that it was Chinese/foreign government controlled. Everyone puts backdoors in, it’s just a matter of only having friendly backdoors you can control.
The rumor probably exists, but the US seems to just bully companies into getting access rather than building back doors into equipment, based on available evidence. They do maintain unpublished 0 day exploits though, so it could also be both.
@fishos It is emphatically not common knowledge. I’m reading everyone asserting that such and such governments have backdoors on phones or whatever device, but you’re the first person to cite an example. If you have more, I would appreciate you sharing those.
Let me do some digging and try to find you some sources when I’m not stuck at work. I know there are Wikipedia articles for the literal rooms inside of telecoms that are known to be government taps into telecom and internet infrastructure. I just can’t remember the room names off the top of my head. I’ll come back with a few different sources to hopefully get you going down the right rabbit hole.
This is the exact reason Lenovo is the way that it is. The US didn’t trust them not to have a back door and so they grew US operations to keep from getting banned. This has all played out before
It wouldn’t be very secret if it was published on the internet. It’s definitely a credible concern given the level of control China demands of companies operating in the country. The US also essentially has backdoors into most communication, and possibly phones as well, so it’s not that crazy for China to also have them.
China is also very aggressive in hacking into companies. Even if they didn’t have a custom backdoor, them finding a way in and essentially banning Huawei from fixing it, is another option.
I was under the impression it was was common knowledge/rumor that Cisco hardware all has a US installed backdoor. Huawai having a backdoor specifically wasn’t the big revelation/concern. It was that it was Chinese/foreign government controlled. Everyone puts backdoors in, it’s just a matter of only having friendly backdoors you can control.
The rumor probably exists, but the US seems to just bully companies into getting access rather than building back doors into equipment, based on available evidence. They do maintain unpublished 0 day exploits though, so it could also be both.
@fishos It is emphatically not common knowledge. I’m reading everyone asserting that such and such governments have backdoors on phones or whatever device, but you’re the first person to cite an example. If you have more, I would appreciate you sharing those.
Let me do some digging and try to find you some sources when I’m not stuck at work. I know there are Wikipedia articles for the literal rooms inside of telecoms that are known to be government taps into telecom and internet infrastructure. I just can’t remember the room names off the top of my head. I’ll come back with a few different sources to hopefully get you going down the right rabbit hole.
@fishos
Thank you so much for your kindness!
Cisco backdoors are common knowledge though:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/photos-of-an-nsa-upgrade-factory-show-cisco-router-getting-implant/
https://www.infoworld.com/article/2608141/snowden--the-nsa-planted-backdoors-in-cisco-products.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-defense/a-scramble-at-cisco-exposes-uncomfortable-truths-about-u-s-cyber-defense-idUSKBN17013U/
@YoorWeb Thank you for sharing the links! I was very unaware of this.
This is the exact reason Lenovo is the way that it is. The US didn’t trust them not to have a back door and so they grew US operations to keep from getting banned. This has all played out before