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Cellphones Android Google Government

Google Ends Android Collaboration With Huawei. No Gmail, Play Store For Future Huawei Phones (reuters.com) 293

Posted by EditorDavid from the phone-fight dept.
An anonymous reader quotes Reuters: Alphabet Inc's Google has suspended business with Huawei that requires the transfer of hardware and software products except those covered by open source licenses, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Sunday, in a blow to the Chinese technology company that the U.S. government has sought to blacklist around the world.

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd will immediately lose access to updates to the Android operating system, and the next version of its smartphones outside of China will also lose access to popular applications and services including the Google Play Store and Gmail app... Huawei will continue to have access to the version of the Android operating system available through the open source license that is freely open to anyone who wishes to use it. But Google will stop providing any technical support and collaboration for Android and Google services to Huawei going forward, the source said.
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Google Ends Android Collaboration With Huawei. No Gmail, Play Store For Future Huawei Phones More

Google Ends Android Collaboration With Huawei. No Gmail, Play Store For Future Huawei Phones

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  • Hmm, sounds interresting (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Casandro ( 751346 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @02:38PM (#58619154)

    I never considered getting a Huawei, but not having all that bloatware from Google certainly is a big point for it.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      I'm a little behind on this issue but why all the Huawei hate all of the sudden?

      • You're way past "a little behind" on this issue, it's been going on for months now.

        • Re:Hmm, sounds interresting (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:09PM (#58619338)

          Decades. But perhaps the body of court cases in which Huawei was somehow involved or responsible, combined with a president whose platform basically requires ruining trade relationships with China means they actually can be held accountable for what they do.

          The real problem perhaps is that Huawei was seen as unassailable until Trump decided he wanted to "renegotiate trade". While his particular method of "negotiating" and "helping America" are bizarre, one upshot is Huawei actually gets the scrutiny it has deserved. Whatever relationship we end up establishing with China, and whoever gets that done, needs to ensure that companies like Huawei can be held responsible for their actions and that we're free to forbid such entities from accessing our markets.

      • Re: Hmm, sounds interresting (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Huawei is pushing hard to be the major supplier of 5g hardware as various countries start rolling it out. The concern is that being a Chinese company means using that hardware for critical communication infrastructure is a possible security risk with how the Chinese government has control and influence over Chinese corporations â" control and influence that it routinely exercises.

        Huawei has basically offered a promise not to hand over access to the Chinese government at any point in the future, but th

        • Re: Hmm, sounds interresting (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 19, 2019 @07:08PM (#58620424)

          Yes but America does intercept nearly every nations communications. America also economically and physically engages in war with any nation it wants and there have been many. Where as it seems China does neither, in fact trading with nations it doesn't like quite freely. It would seem America uses it's spying for advantage it doesn't want China to have.

          The risks to nations seems much greater from America than China because of Americans persistent use of War against nations.

          So for a nations safety and the world's it would seem China is a wiser choice to partner with for communications equipment.

          This excludes to high probability that as America looses it's status of the world's most powerful nation it goes psychotic and starts WW3, which it is doing right now. Then I think we are largely all fucked as America has enough WMDs to fuck everyone unlike Iraq, North Korea, Iran or any nation it accuses as a "threat". The real threat is America.

    • Is this an anti-Trump thing? Serious question. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Shane_Optima ( 4414539 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:07PM (#58619332) Journal
      Or, you know, just get a LineageOS-compatible phone from some other vendor.

      I'm not sure why there's been so much cynicism/dismissiveness about the Huawei kerfuffle (is it because of Trump's China BS, is that why people scorn it?). For nearly ten years now, I've had friends who were contractors for three letter orgs warning me about suspected backdoors in phones from several different manufacturers. Surprised it took so long for people to start taking it more seriously. "The Chinese government doesn't really care about spying on *me*" isn't a good response. Any backdoors that do exist might end up being targeted by groups that do care about owning your device for their own profit.

      Anyway, you can dislike/hate Google crap and also not like the idea of Chinese backdoors. I haven't been keeping up with current developments but last I checked, plenty of phones from other manufacturers are compatible with LineageOS [wikipedia.org] or other ROMs [wikipedia.org], allowing you to selectively opt-in to only those Google Apps that you care about (if any.)

      Or is it really, honestly some sort of anti-Trump virtue signaling thing to either disbelieve or pointedly not care about this stuff? Serious question.

      • Re:Is this an anti-Trump thing? Serious question. (Score:5, Informative)

        by 0111 1110 ( 518466 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:28PM (#58619408)

        I don't think there is any evidence that Huawei or any other Chinese company is spying on users. That would actually be pretty stupid. There is as much reason to believe Apple is spying on its users. Baseless tin foil hat conspiracy theories until or unless there is actual evidence.

        • Don't really care about burden of proof here (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Shane_Optima ( 4414539 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @03:50PM (#58619508) Journal
          1) As I said, the presence of backdoors is concerning enough. Or do you trust the Chinese Communist Party to not only never own your device themselves but also to always keep the kings to the kingdom from falling into the hands of for-profit hackers? I don't know much about the Chinese Communist Party but I would go out on a limb here and say the corruption and selfishness are not unheardof.

          2) Well you can believe what you want to believe, but I've had people I know and trust warning me about several specific Chinese manufacturers years before mainstream media began to pick up on the story. I don't expect thirdhand information from a random poster to persuade you but on my end, there is zero reason for the guy I've known since middle school to lie to me about this. And there are reasonable security reasons to not publicly reveal the full scope of our knowledge (e.g. so China doesn't know that we've been overlooking something.)

          This isn't some weird science fiction thing. Israel and the USA have already [wikipedia.org] done it [wikipedia.org] with USB drives. There's every reason in the world to believe China is doing this sort of thing for their own reasons, and there's no reason to be totally apathetic about it as a knowledgeable end user except as some sort of dumb virtue signaling thing.

          I don't care if the details have been published or not; it makes all the sense in the world for there to be back doors. And back doors can get owned or leaked.
          • Oh I almost forgot, if it's true that the details of the back doors haven't been published (I've not been following this stuff in detail so I don't know if that's actually true or not; some AC is claiming it's not true), another even more compelling reason for that would be to make it harder for interested third party hackers to find those specific back doors and figure out how to use them for their own purposes.

          • As a Canadian, it is much safer for me to be spied upon by China than by the US. I don't intend to go to China and I know China won't give any personal info to my government.

            • As I've said a couple times now, back doors can be abused by third parties. If American back doors are discovered in some other cell phone, I'd suggest not buying that one, either.

              Also, China is nothing if not pragmatic. I wouldn't trust them to not to anything in particular. China's hostility towards Canada (or the USA, for that matter) is not so huge as to preclude the possibility that they would help them spy on their own citizens in exchange for something.

          • So dump the US too (Score:5, Insightful)

            by aepervius ( 535155 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @08:14PM (#58620674)
            1) the NSA has been known to spy on all coms, directing echelon, spying on merkel phone etc.... Let me repeat that in clear. They have been proved (unlike Huwai) to have spyed upon their ally, and there is quite a lot of hint they have their own listen device on some undersea cable.
            2) Media have been speaking of the US long before they spoke about china. But you nkow the difference ? So far there is no clean evidence about china having backdoor. Contrary to NSA. Elliptic algorithm with specifically chosen number anyone ?

            By YOUR standard of evidence, we should rather buy chinese than American.
            • Jesus Christ this is so cringy to behold. Yes, we engage in cyberwarfare. NSLs are scary as shit. But OTOH, western-based security firms do not cover up when American-designed malware [wikipedia.org] is found. On the contrary, they spread awareness and attempt to help people to remove it.

              Turn this into this apologetic either-or defense of China and "well they haven't released the full details of the vulnerability" is pathetic. Of course they haven't; why would they reveal to China the full extent of our knowledge? And

            • Re:So dump the US too (Score:5, Insightful)

              by Shane_Optima ( 4414539 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @08:49PM (#58620812) Journal
              P.S. Damn, once again I forgot to mention the most important part: Depending on the details, it's entirely possible the NSA could hijack China's back door for their own use.

              So it really is the worst kind of diseased thinking partisan hackery that could get someone to twist something like this around into "actually, it's a great idea to buy Huawei! Because we spy too, don'tchaknow???!"

              I despise and am worried about Snowden's revelations and I know that's just the tip of the iceberg. I know for a fact that other three letter agencies are involved in this too (including the NRO) and since they aren't under the microscope right now, they can probably get away with a lot more. I think the public should be educated. I think that all of these companies should have canaries to use in the case of NSL letters, and if there was a manufacturer that had an NSL canary I'd be happy to recommend them to anyone.

              In other words, I'M ON YOUR SIDE, you dumb fuck, but you've descended to such despicable and unrelentingly partisan depths of sophistry and/or sloppy thinking that, that... that we have to even be having this conversation.

          • 1) As I said, the presence of backdoors is concerning enough.

            It would be if they actually existed in any meaningful way.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Thanks to Snowden we have proof that some US hardware is backdoored. Internal NSA documents show that they intercept hardware during shipping to install malware, sometimes hardware based so it can't be removed. Other documents show that Apple was, probably unwittingly, part of the XKeyScore system that allows the NSA to view your private documents, messages and photos stored in the Apple iCloud.

          • Are any of these manufacturers installing it themselves and/or permitting the NSA to install it? Still? I'd be fairly surprised if that were true.

            I'm fine rooting out, fixing, and/or boycotting all exploits no matter where they come from. American firms openly and actively opposed and promoted awareness of Stuxnet and Flame, which were American-Israeli malware.

            The virtue signaling aspect of this is disturbing and weird. We should act on multiple levels to oppose Chinese back doors. That doesn't mean

            • I'm fine rooting out, fixing, and/or boycotting all exploits no matter where they come from.

              I strongly suspect iphones are backdoored, but I can't prove it. No one can. They do it in a way that is essentially undetectable. Boycott or not? Or rather do I wait until it has been proven or do I just assume it based on the fact that it is very very likely?

              • Well, I wouldn't run a closed source OS when there are very decent open source OSes available. I mean "boycott" is a binary concept, but if this is a sliding scale we're talking about, purely on a personal choice level iOS should be deep in the undesirable end of the spectrum. I'd have to think about it... but I don't want to. It's a waste of mental mhz. By far the most annoying thing about Apple is the amount of time one is forced to hear about and think about it even if you are not a fan or user.

                I fo

        • Re:Is this an anti-Trump thing? Serious question. (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @05:59PM (#58620154) Homepage

          I don't think Huawei is being accused of spying on users.

          It's being accused of installing back-doors. That doesn't mean it's spying on everyone (or even anyone) now, but (if true), it means that Huawei (or more likely, the Chinese government) could spy on anyone (or everyone) who uses that equipment at some time in the future.

          As for the presence/absence of evidence, nobody is going to come to your home and do a free penetration-test for you. OTOH, you can either find a security expert you trust, and take their word for it, or do your own security audit, if you have the skills to do so. The fact that you (like me, and most people) probably don't have the skills to directly view the evidence, doesn't mean that the evidence doesn't exist.

          • I thought I made that clear enough that I wasn't accusing anyone of active spying, but that the presence of back doors is worrying enough. I don't particularly want to own a device that has a known back door. And I don't care that it's specifically China that put it there.

            OTOH, you can either find a security expert you trust, and take their word for it

            I do. I have a guy I've known since middle school who has been doing spook jobs for three letter agencies for the past 10+ years and he warned me about this stuff long before the mainstream media picked up on it. He never told me very many

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Huawei isn't being accused of installing backdoors, the concern raised is that China has a law which seems to allow the government to force Huawei to install backdoors on request. Just like the US and UK governments can do with their domestic companies. But it's China, and there is a trade war on, so...

    • Uh, you do understand it will have different bloatware, not less... right?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Indeed. Will definitely consider Huawei for my next phone.

      • Wow, I should bookmark this one for the next time you attempt to hold yourself up as some sort of security expert.

        Yeah, let's buy a phone with back doors just to be Google-free instead of simply installing LineageOS or Replicant or one of the many other Google-free derivatives on a device that has no known back doors.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          I am a security expert. You are not. And it shows drastically.

          Here is a hint: Why would I ever trust anything secret to a _phone_? And who says I would not install Lineage? I do, in fact, expect that this will increase support for Lineage.

          • I'm demonstrably more of an "expert" than you are. You've refused to explain most of your claims. (I have Security+ as it happens, not that I consider that laughable piece of crap test to be worth anything.)

            You also had some hysterical lie and said (I'm paraphrasing from memory; forgive me if I get it slightly wrong) that a fire at a single nuclear waste facility would result in such a radionuclide release as to actually sterilize the entire Earth.

            You apparently like to say dumb shit on the internet

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by skegg ( 666571 )

              And if you're gonna install LineageOS than obviously there's no reason at all to specifically buy Huawei

              So because he's replacing the OS, it doesn't matter what hardware he chooses? Okayyyy ... sure.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                Ever heard about that little thing called "compatibility"? No? Shame, because otherwise you would know that Lineage has to be supported on a specific phone to work reliably, because hardware is not very standardized on phones.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by gweihir ( 88907 )

              Well, I see what you problem is: Messed up memory. I never said that thing about sterilizing the earth. There is this scientifically sound number that you can kill about 1M people with 1g of PU (lung cancer), but you need to deliver it and global delivery of dust does not work due to weather. Even if fine dust can travel astonishing distances. I might have said that if the spend fuel pool at Fuckupshima had caught fire and the wind was right, that Tokyo may have become inhabitable. And that is actually a re

  • I sure wish I knew why my government had such a big burr up it's ass about Huawei. I can read all the speculation, WAGs, and official statements I want, and yet none of it is particularly enlightening.

    • I can read all the speculation, WAGs, and official statements I want, and yet none of it is particularly enlightening.

      Gotta call bullshit on that one. If you don't know, it means you did not try to understand their feelings. That is on you. They've explained their feelings clearly already.

      The reason I talk about feelings is because the decisions aren't decisions you will make. So the part for you to become enlightened about is why they're doing it, which is about their conclusions, not your own.

      But really you're simply pretending not to know why, because [personal reasons.]

  • Walled Gardens (Score:2, Insightful)

    by peppepz ( 1311345 )
    This is yet another reason why walled gardens are unacceptable. Even without taking into account the ethics of concentrating all the power into a single entity, the problem is that they impose a single point of failure.
    • Most people prefer to have a walled garden than the risky stuff that is running MS Windows. I would prefer applications to be whitelisted by somebody with authority rather than keeping track with any new hazard myself. In this case, I do not know best.
      • You can enforce digital signatures on runnable software yourself without having a single and external entity impose its trust store on you. Besides, the amount of malware present on the official Play Store tells that as a whitelisting authority Google aren't doing that great of a job anyway.

      • Most people prefer to have a walled garden than the risky stuff that is running MS Windows. I would prefer applications to be whitelisted by somebody with authority rather than keeping track with any new hazard myself. In this case, I do not know best.

        But how do you know that the state of not knowing is worse than the state of being credulous that somebody else both knows, and also cares about your interests?

        It may be that knowing you don't know is the specific type of knowing that prepares you to protect yourself!

        For example, if you know you don't know if an app is safe, maybe you don't install every app that you saw somebody else using, or every app in the list that included your search term?

        Maybe if you know you don't know, then when an app asks to ha

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jeremi ( 14640 )

      In the long run, is any system acceptable?

      - "Walled gardens" are unacceptable because they are only as safe and secure as the company that is providing the wall.

      - "Open countryside" is unacceptable because the vast majority of phone users are not knowledgeable or conscientious enough to handle security issues themselves.

      So what's left? There's never going to be a mass transformation of consumers into information-security experts (sorry), and we aren't all going to throw away our cell phones and go back to

      • In the long run, is any system acceptable? - "Walled gardens" are unacceptable because they are only as safe and secure as the company that is providing the wall. - "Open countryside" is unacceptable because the vast majority of phone users are not knowledgeable or conscientious enough to handle security issues themselves. So what's left? There's never going to be a mass transformation of consumers into information-security experts (sorry), and we aren't all going to throw away our cell phones and go ba

  • I am wondering what is next. Windows Phone did die because of lack of Google applications, among other reasons. If Huawei mobiles cannot access Play services nor Google apps, does it mean mobiles cannot get updates? Is this one going to be retroactive, that is, does it affect phones already in users' hands? Is Facebook going to be the next one vetting its apps on those mobiles?

    Can eBay handle the large amount of listings for almost useless Huawei phones?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Huawei cannot put the Play Store or Google apps on the phone. Users can install them by themselves though. If anything, this probably makes the Huawei offering superior. Clean Android.

  • The irony (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    So the govt. that owns the NSA and its bulk data collection & surveillance programmes, & Google, which is the biggest bulk data collecting & surveillance corporation, say that Huawei shouldn't be allowed to collect US citizens' data & surveil them. Pot. Kettle. Black.

  • The US government has added Huawei to the sanctions list, so Google has their hands tied here. But I have to wonder whether the end result will harm Huawei as the whitehouse intends, or it will help Chinese software companies such as Baidu and Tencent who can step in to fill the void especially in India, and other South East Asian markets which may be more receptive to Chinese alternatives to Google.

    • Indeed. This will split the Android market. There will be a Chinese only version which might even be open source, with the big Chinese players working on it, all beholden to the Chinese government. It will have all the major apps that Google and others provide, just not the obscure ones.

      It will further isolate China further from the west. Which is a very mixed blessing.

      • Re:Chinese Android (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Sunday May 19, 2019 @08:36PM (#58620762)
        China is already isolated with their own app ecosystem, as Google (the search engine) was shut out for a long time, so the full Google app bundle (which they push on vendors as all or nothing) was unavailable there. I'm more worried about what happens in the surrounding countries, where Huawei has a strong market presence, currently with the Google ecosystem, but soon to be replaced with the Chinese equivalent. Already WeChat is starting to take over from WhatsApp as the messaging app of choice across South East Asia, thanks to its payment system, as Google and Apple have been slow to roll out to the region, so the market may be receptive to the rest of China's ecosystem, as could Africa, where China has been the leading investor for some years now.

  • "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." --Confucius

    Confucius forgot to mention "by copying everything on their smartphones".

    (Consider this weak joke an invitation to do better.)

    P.S. Actually, many people argue that Huawei's main sin was the "by imitation" point. Maybe Confucius knew something after all?

  • If they choose Tizen (or Maemo/Meego/Sailfish, if that were remotely possible) to replace Android, I will give them a chance for sure. It's gonna be hard for them either way.
  • This couldn't have happened to a nicer company. The very first Huawei device I ever saw booted and said "Welcome to Someone Else's Operating System". They've been stealing tech so long that I doubt they know how to engineering anything themselves and since this is one of China's "Champion Companies", it receives a lot of sponsorship, funding, assistance, and protection from the Chinese Government. I wonder what they stole from Google since Google will basically give an Android license to almost anyone. O

  • They will lose access to updates? This is not good. My new Huawei phone is so damn good, it's so good.

    It has a flat NON stupid curved screen
    It has a headphone jack
    It's so stupid fast, it's out of this world, it's nutty how quick this is
    Battery life is ASTOUNDING
    It still has a notification LED
    I think the blutooth is actually v5 even?

    The settings menu blows me away, I find cool new features every couple of months:
    I can enable a charge mode, to charge OUT of my phone, charging another phone off mine.
    I can not

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