Huawei Secretly Helped Build North Korea's Wireless Network, Leaked Documents Suggest (cnet.com) 83
Chinese tech giant Huawei could have helped secretly build a 3G wireless network for North Korea, according to internal documents leaked by a former employee of the company. From a report: Huawei worked with another Chinese company, Panda International Information Technology, on a number of projects in the region over the course of eight years, as suggested by work orders, contracts and spreadsheets published by the Washington Post on Monday. The revelations come as the latest blow to Huawei's reputation in a series of events over the past year, a period in which the company has come under fire from the US government amid its trade war with China. In January, the US Justice Department unsealed indictments that included 23 counts pertaining to the alleged theft of intellectual property, obstruction of justice and fraud related to its alleged evasion of US sanctions against Iran. President Donald Trump has blacklisted the company as a security threat, and Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou is under house arrest in Canada awaiting extradition to the US.
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The reason why US has been going like there is no tomorrow after Huawei mobile network business is that someone finally realised that the possibility to "see" any Stealth aircraft overflying a mobile network is now no longer in the realm of theory. You can now build it: https://www.fagain.co.uk/node/... [fagain.co.uk]
From that perspective China going as far as skirting a UN embargo on supplying tech to neighbouring country is not surprising. They just got someone bui
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Do you honestly think that's what this is about?
NK conducts cyber attacks against Japanese and Western businesses, a la Sony, at the behest of Winnie the Pooh.. but you think they are "bringing democracy 2 da pplz"?
Is that what goes on in your head, besides "Beep boop orange man bad."?
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1: You don't know what "a la" means, so don't use it.
2: No one believed the bullshit story about NK being involved in that hack.
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Do these "facts" add up to you?
-North Korea is a broke backwater of starving uneducated peasants with a population of 25 million people
-North Korea has developed nuclear weapons
-North Korea has launched rockets into space
Maybe we're not getting the complete story?
Yes, those facts add up. If you look at similar sized economies, it is fairly obvious that you cannot have number 2 and 3 without causing 1.
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Empowering the people to communicate will be a good step towards democracy.
Most of the citizens on NK that have access to technology only have access to a statewide and state sponsored intranet. It only hosts a relatively limited number of websites, all at least curated by if not outright published by the NK government apparatus. Think things like encyclopedias, newspaper websites (a common photo from NK is people lined up in the subway looking at the official newspaper which is posted up every day), and propaganda. It is only the political, military, and intellectual elite tha
"Democracy" (Score:2)
"Empowering the people to communicate will be a good step towards democracy."
Do you honestly think the Norks are ever going to allow this to be used in such a way?
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Huawei Secretly Helped Build North Korea's Wireless Network, Leaked Documents Suggest
And? ... Should we impose yet another embargo? The United States helped Israel covertly build nuclear weapons and nobody embargoed either country. Covertly helping N-Korea build a mobile network seem harmless by comparison.
Maybe, but the UN sees it differently. The Embargo is UN authorized because of DPRK's flaunting the UN's nuclear rules and developing their own nuclear weapons, missiles to deliver them and generally refusing to play nicely with the rest of the world...
China doesn't care that much about the UN, knowing that DPRK is unlikely to bite the hand that literally feeds them, so why not sell them some cell phones? Besides it just pokes the USA in the eye, economically at least.
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Not true. It seems to me that we ARE a participant in the "Nuclear non-proliferation agreement" and are keeping that agreement... https://www.britannica.com/eve... [britannica.com] Your article is about an outright BAN of nuclear weapons, which would make it necessary for us to unilaterally disarm, regardless of what everybody else did or didn't do. As such, it's a STUPID thing to sign. You NEVER unilaterally disarm because you simply cannot trust the likes of Russia or China to follow your lead.
Also, DPRK WAS a signa
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Is it even illegal? I mean maybe the US doesn't like it, but why would it be an issue for a Chinese company to sell to NK?
It's not exactly a secret either. All you need to do is look at the MAC addresses on the NK network to see whose gear they use.
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it even illegal? I mean maybe the US doesn't like it, but why would it be an issue for a Chinese company to sell to NK?
It's not exactly a secret either. All you need to do is look at the MAC addresses on the NK network to see whose gear they use.
From a cursory read of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] only weapons related and raw materials/commodities have UN backed export restrictions. General Tech restrictions seems to be a US (by Trump 2017), thing. So it would be illegal if the export contained US tech after 2017.
I'm a bit curious as to how NK payed Huawei?
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General Tech restrictions seems to be a US (by Trump 2017), thing. So it would be illegal if the export contained US tech after 2017.
There are plenty of tech restrictions predating Trump. I recall that my (European, tech) employer started imposing all kinds of internal restrictions on access to US-originated technology around 2014. That was about "strategically important technology", but the bar for that was pretty low: industrial equipment that could be used in a semiconductor fab that could be used to make chips for military purposes seemed to be classified as "strategic".
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If my wording of "weapons related", confused you to exclude " industrial equipment that could be used in a semiconductor fab that could be used to make chips for military purposes" I apologise for the imprecision.
It is not actually in China's interest (Score:2)
North Korea is unstable. If if it did do something crazy like launch a nuke, even into the sea, that would be seen by everyone as being backed by China.
Further, I would expect South Korea, Japan, and ... Taiwan to use such an incident to obtain nuclear missiles of their own. The USA is an unreliable ally, and there is absolutely no guarantee that they would intervene in any East Asia nuclear dispute. The EU, of course, would just hold meetings.
It would actually be in China's interest for the Korea's to u
I think you missed a couple G's (Score:2)
helped secretly build a 3G wireless network for North Korea,
It's only a 3G network.
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
Huawei Secretly Helped Build North Korea's Wireless Network, Leaked Documents Suggest
And? ... Should we impose yet another embargo? The United States helped Israel covertly build nuclear weapons and nobody embargoed either country. Covertly helping N-Korea build a mobile network seem harmless by comparison.
Nope, that was the french and then the british. In fact Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all tried to dissuade the israelis. Also as you might figure from that list, it's not really a current issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Huawei Secretly Helped Build North Korea's Wireless Network, Leaked Documents Suggest
And? ... Should we impose yet another embargo? The United States helped Israel covertly build nuclear weapons and nobody embargoed either country. Covertly helping N-Korea build a mobile network seem harmless by comparison.
Nope, that was the french and then the british. In fact Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all tried to dissuade the israelis. Also as you might figure from that list, it's not really a current issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No they just sat on their ass and watched when Israel stole weapons grade radio active materials from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, didn't do a damn thing to stop the Israeli weapons program, did not threaten the UK or France with consequences when they helped Israel build nuclear bombs, did nothing to punish US citizens who helped advance the Israeli nuclear weapons program, provided the Israelis with the tech they needed to build their own nuclear tipped missiles and the jets they neede
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Huawei Secretly Helped Build North Korea's Wireless Network, Leaked Documents Suggest
And? ... Should we impose yet another embargo? The United States helped Israel covertly build nuclear weapons and nobody embargoed either country. Covertly helping N-Korea build a mobile network seem harmless by comparison.
Nope, that was the french and then the british. In fact Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all tried to dissuade the israelis. Also as you might figure from that list, it's not really a current issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
No they just sat on their ass and watched when Israel stole weapons grade radio active materials from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, didn't do a damn thing to stop the Israeli weapons program, did not threaten the UK or France with consequences when they helped Israel build nuclear bombs, did nothing to punish US citizens who helped advance the Israeli nuclear weapons program, provided the Israelis with the tech they needed to build their own nuclear tipped missiles and the jets they needed to deliver air drop nuclear bombs.
That is quite a conspiracy theory not backed by fact.
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The "possibility" of israelis getting their hands on NUMEC uranium does not in any way shape or form back up OP's claim that "The United States helped Israel covertly build nuclear weapons". NUMEC was a privately owned commercial company. On the other hand french and british government help is well documented.
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Huwawei is part of the government (Score:1)
A Chineese communist party tool. But Slashdot loves communism so I will be modded to -5
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Ownership of Huawei is shady to say the least, but lashing out doesn't strengthen your argument. (link goes to the wikipedia paragraph on Huawei ownership and in summary, yes it probably is government controlled) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Communism is the future
Dead right.
100 million times over! [wikipedia.org]
Fake news (Score:1)
Everyone knows that the Beloved Leader designed and prototyped the raw components with his own hands.
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Why would he need to build prototypes? The great leader's designs don't need testing, the first version is always perfect.
good then we can hack right in! (Score:1)
Thru all those back doors that equipment has
Why not openly? (Score:2, Informative)
Why shouldn't Huawei sell its products to North Korea? China is not ruled by Donald.
Re:Why not openly? (Score:5, Insightful)
The embargo on North Korea is a UN embargo, not a US embargo.
Theoretically, China should follow it as a member of the UN.
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Just because it is Huawei equipment does not make it Huawei. They would sell to contractors in China and those contractors would do what ever they can do to make money. So likely Huawei executives were aware some of the companies they sell too, were likely, contracting to North Korea. So those companies were in contravention and not Huawei, as long as those companies contracting to North Korea are independent of Huawei. Companies do not have to track what happens to their product once it is sold, they do no
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If there are chips in the Huawei equipment that are based on US technology, those may be subject to US export restrictions that explicitly disallow re-exporting to countries such as Iran and North Korea. Individuals who violate these restrictions risk prosecution if they set foot in the US. And companies who violate them can get in trouble as we see now.
I work in R&D at a European employer that uses American technology that is listed as being of strategic importance. Nothing military, just equipment rel
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>> I work in R&D at a European employer that uses American technology that is listed as being of strategic importance.
That is just pure bullshit
Your company is under no obligation at all.
Re:Why not openly? (Score:4, Informative)
That is just pure bullshit
Your company is under no obligation at all.
That's some dangerous and stunningly incorrect advice, my friend. OP was describing a textbook example of limitations on the reexport of technology subject to U.S. Export Administration Regulations. There's a plain-English overview here [doc.gov].
Pro tip: something can still be true even if you don't think it should be.
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>> I work in R&D at a European employer that uses American technology that is listed as being of strategic importance.
That is just pure bullshit
Your company is under no obligation at all.
He is and they are if they want to do business with US companies or even trade in us dollars (as seen by the current threats against european banks who laundered money from russian oligarchs). Not to mention this was already prohibited by earlier UN resolutions.
Missing jokes? (Score:2)
No jokes about "Who cares?" or "I hope they share the results of the bugged network with us?"