The administration of US President Donald Trump has imposed a global uproar on the Chinese Huawei, not only among those interested in pursuing the business world. This time, however, a large segment of users of social networks have come to discuss and analyze this step. Among the phones - Huawei phones operating Android from Google, which announced that it will have to stop cooperation with the Chinese company; in accordance with US law.
In this article, we will present and discuss the subject in a question and answer style, trying to cover all the points that the reader needs to know about the issue.
By: warzikine el, technical expert, Android expert.
What is the importance of Huawei?
Huawei's smart phone users are known as one of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers, but are also major telecom equipment manufacturers, the leading developers of the fifth generation equipment, along with Finnish Nokia and Ericsson.
The company employs about 80,000 employees in the R & D department alone and owns a large number of patents, mostly in the field of telecommunications. With up to one-third of the world's population. There is a high probability that your current Internet connection, or all of your phone calls, will all go through a Huawei facility in a communication tower or an Internet service provider.
Is America the only country that fears that China will use Huawei as a spy?
No! In addition to America, Australia also prevented Australian companies from cooperating fully with Huawei. While New Zealand, Japan and the United Kingdom were partially prevented (preventing the use of Huawei equipment within certain networks, including sensitive information about users, or allowing wiretapping).
Did the ban come for commercial reasons (fear of competition), and use espionage as a pretext?
No! Spyware is a real threat (as we will separate later). It is naive to believe that some of the world's largest economies, such as the United States, Britain and Japan, will conspire on just one company to keep Huawei away from competition. These countries do not already have companies that can be considered as competitors for Huawei in terms of their most important specialty (network infrastructure).
In fact, if Huawei were to be out of competition, the United States would have been able to hit Huawei in a fatal blow. Despite Huawei's great development, like other Chinese companies, it still relies heavily on Western technologies, which, if cut off from Huawei, would not be considered as fun and joking. Huawei's processors, for example, rely on the authorization of processor designs from UK-based ARM, manufacture processors, and many of its electronic chips at Samsung (South Korea is also a strong ally of the United States). If there is a plot to remove Huawei from the competition, it is enough to cut these services off. In addition to Samsung, Huawei is part of its Taiwanese TSM division, which the United States also has pressure on; the Taiwanese company has a large market in the United States.
In 2017, Trump issued a decree prohibiting US companies from dealing with China's ZTE because of its encroachment on sanctions against Iran. Because ZTE relies on Qualcomm's US chips in 70% of its phones, the company stopped production, lost $ 1 billion in days and almost declared bankruptcy without China's main bid at Trump, and promised not to resort to fraud again. Of course Huawei is much bigger than ZTE, but this example shows that Chinese companies are in great need of Western technology, and if the issue is fear of competition, the United States will take tougher methods.
Are fears of China using Huawei as a means of espionage?
Yeah! China has a long history of electronic espionage and information theft. Where it was accused of infiltrating US and international governmental institutions. It has recently been classified by a number of digital security institutions as being more dangerous than Russia in the field of cyber-attacks, sponsored by state-sponsored attacks.
China steals - and systematically - patents.
It is funny that China does not deny this, where in 2015 it signed an agreement with the United States to undertake to stop the sponsorship of patent theft, an implicit recognition of its actions. We should not ignore the fact that China is a dictatorial state, one-party rule state and one individual, and companies there are forced to carry out Chinese intelligence orders.
But is not the United States also spying? What is this farce?
Perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer is simply yes, but there is a difference:
- According to our information from the Snoden leaks, which included leaking the entire list of keywords that the NSA had asked companies to filter, spyware included surveillance of terrorism-related words such as Mail Bomb, VIP Protection, Information Warfare, etc.). According to Snowdon's leaks, the United States has not used US companies for the purpose of stirring up global turmoil in other countries, stealing patents from other countries, spying on businessmen and economic deals, all of which China would do, and would do more if it could. Note that I am not saying that the United States does not cause unrest, I just say that it does not use US companies - such as Google, or Apple - as a tool for this purpose, as we have available information and leaks.
- Free press: In the United States free press, Snowden leaks published by American newspapers. The release of leaks has led companies to take strong precautions, such as encryption of all instant conversations with end-to-end-encryption technology, since the companies themselves (eg Google, Apple or Facebook) can not read, You can provide information to US intelligence, if requested. I know that many non-specialists technically laugh at this talk; because they do not know their technical knowledge, they are not convinced, but it is true.
This does not mean that the United States will not continue spying. But my information and information is safer in Google or Apple than in a Chinese company, where there are no limits, no accountability, no accountability, no press, no one who is sad.
Does this decision mean that the United States hit the free market, and the laws of trade and global competition are in vain?
We do not disagree that Trump's protectionism is very serious, and really stupid, but when we talk about China, it seems that the Western governments have had enough to do. China is hit by a lot of (signed) world trade agreements.
China does not adhere to free trade agreements and ethics. Where they are constantly suing foreign companies operating in China. These claims are under the pretext of monopoly, but their real purpose is to force companies to disclose some of their techniques, which are considered secrets of the profession, so that China can benefit from these techniques. It does not give Western companies the same investment space as local firms, which is contrary to WTO agreements. Western companies have opened their doors to Chinese investments since 2001 (the date of China's accession to the World Trade Organization). The West has been questioned and scrutinized only recently.
With full reservations and objections to Trump's economic policies, from imposing tariffs on Chinese and European goods, but China is not a victim, it must also respect the rules of world trade and show that it wants to be a non-problematic player in the world.
Has Huawei already been spied on its own communications equipment?
According to several reports, there have been many gaps and rear gates in some Huawei equipment, but it has not been proven that the company (or the Chinese government) has exploited these gaps for espionage purposes. According to a Bloomberg report last month, Vodafone said it had found backlinks in some of the communications equipment used by Huawei between 2009 and 2011, but the company did not announce the matter at the time, Where it stated that replacement of infected devices would be expensive.
According to British security organizations - some of which are expensive by the government or telecommunications companies to check Huawei's equipment periodically (since 2005) - Huawei's products are full of software vulnerabilities that can be adapted by hackers and turned into backgammon ports. They look like ordinary holes, usually free of software, that hackers can find (by accident), and exploit them not to look like they're planted.
Huawei itself acknowledged the holes in its hardware, and promised to invest $ 2 billion to improve and develop its software, in terms of security.
One of Britain's e-intelligence agencies said 70 copies of four different versions of the Openssl communications protocol were found within a Huawei facility. This protocol is a standard in the world of communications, and it is very secure, but always find gaps in it, and occurs continuously, and it is interesting to find in some Huawei devices different versions of it, some old. No one knows if all this is due to software negligence, the rush to sell equipment, or it is deliberately implanted, but it is highly doubtful.
Why is the fifth generation of communication the main driver of Huawei's Western fear?
The fifth generation offers a great deal of communication, not only the high speeds of its Internet connection, but specifically designed for Internet objects. The fifth generation will be built to build smart cities, with everything connected to the Internet, from cars and traffic lights, to surveillance cameras. The fifth generation enables the devices to communicate directly with one another (imagine traffic signals that automatically adjust their traffic, according to their immediate analysis of traffic, through a set of sensors and then communicate with other traffic lights; Auto-driving will become able to communicate with each other; to improve traffic, avoid accidents).
This is just one example of a fifth-generation application. Now imagine a country like China that has had accurate access to real-time traffic in a Western city, with the ability to monitor and track a particular vehicle, its owner and its movements. It's a scary scenario, is not it?
The idea of the fifth generation is that the Internet is coming out of its centrality. The Internet is no longer in certain servers that are afraid of penetrating it, but it is everywhere around us, in everything from the car to the microwave oven. That is why the United States also wants to urge its allies not to use Huawei in the fifth-generation equipment.
Let's the fifth generation, what Huawei's fate after Android?
Google, like other US companies, can not violate US law and therefore has been forced to announce the suspension of the license to use Android in its new phones, but here we should clarify some things:
- Android is an open source system, and therefore Huawei has the right to continue using it regardless of penalties.
- What Google does not have the right to use is Google services. This means that they can not provide their future phones with the Google Apps store, or any Google apps like YouTube, or Maps. Worse, many non-Google Android apps use behind-the-scenes services provided by Google, such as a location service or messaging service via Google's servers. This means that many applications will not work on Huawei's version of Android, Google services.
- Huawei has been developing its own operating system for years but we know nothing about it yet. Its system may be based on the open source version of Android, and may not be. Huawei already has its own app store. But Huawei's phones are unlikely to achieve any success outside the Google framework. In the end there are giant companies lost the competition, and emerged from the smart phone market, most notably Microsoft. Even BlackBerry which had its deliveries and tours surrendered and moved to Android in the end.
Operating system is not everything, even if Huawei has developed the best operating system in the world, but the most important is the services surrounding the operating system. Huawei will not succeed in what Microsoft failed. This is certain!
The second problem is that the issue is not about the operating system alone. Huawei relies on many other pieces in the manufacture of its phones and buys them from US companies. Of these pieces are memory modules, 3G and LTE connection chips, some camera parts, and so on. After ARM announced today that it has stopped dealing with Huawei, the company is seriously threatened to stop producing phones unless it finds alternatives, which is difficult and expensive.
Should I throw my phone into the trash?
Wait do not rush! The US government issued a resolution allowing US companies to continue to deal with Huawei for three months, during which they will be able to use your phone normally, including receiving updates. It is also possible to reach an agreement during this period that will lead to a return to normal.
If no agreement is reached, you will be able to continue using your current phone normally, but your new Android updates will stop coming to you. If you are considering buying a new phone this time, definitely do not buy Huawei!
Does the decision include other Chinese companies such as Shawomi or Lenovo?
Not currently, but the door is open! President Trump issued two resolutions, the first of which did not mention China or Huawei, but merely mentioned the dangers to US national security, which he described as external attacks and attempts to spy on the United States by planting and exploiting the gaps in digital devices. He then identified Huawei by name in a later decision. This means that the possibilities remain open to add other companies to the black list.
What is the fate of US companies manufacturing their machines in China?
There is nothing to prevent it from continuing its work, and I think it is unlikely that China will respond to Trump decision another decision, which prevents Chinese companies from dealing with US companies. The Chinese government recognizes that its companies are in dire need of US technology. China is actually going to calm, try to resolve the matter, not escalate it; because escalation is not in its favor.
Why do not Western countries simply resort to competitors such as Nokia and Ericsson to run fifth-generation networks without all the hype?
Western communication companies need Huawei. Vodafone's president warned that Huawei's prevention would delay the adoption of fifth-generation technology for at least a year, at a much higher cost. The idea is that Huawei competes with Western companies in terms of capacity and potential in the field of fifth-generation equipment, and can execute large projects with skill and cost less. Simply put, the number of companies capable of installing fifth generation networks is relatively small, meaning demand is more than supply, even with Huawei. Global communications companies want to install and operate the fifth generation networks before their competitors; to be a leader in this market, and can not afford any delay.
Is Europe expected to block Huawei as well?
Is not a complete prevention, but some European countries actually prevented the installation of equipment Huawei within the networks with security sensitivity. The United States threatened to stop intelligence cooperation with Germany if Huawei awarded contracts to operate the fifth generation network. Some countries may respond fully or partially to the United States. But this will be limited to telecommunications equipment only, and will not include the prevention of the sale of phones. But there are no clear or final European decisions in this regard.
Will Europe seize the opportunity and prevent Huawei from supporting its local companies?
This is highly unlikely. According to a report in The Economist, Europe is making a big profit from its trade in the Chinese market, and the prosperity of European telecoms companies will not compensate for what Europe could lose if China decided to respond with a trade war with it. Huawei's exclusion will delay the launch of the fifth generation in Europe, which is already underdeveloped by an estimated 3 to 4 years from the United States in the spread of the fourth generation! The newspaper also described the full prevention of Huawei in Europe will be catastrophic; because about 200 operators of the fourth generation in the continent depends Huawei equipment, and prevent the company means to stop maintenance and modernization of this equipment.
Is there a chance to solve?
Hope exists to find a solution. Huawei said it is ready to offer all possible cooperation with the US government to resolve the issue. The United States does not seem to aim to destroy Huawei as much as it wants to ensure its national security, and the manual has already reversed ZTE's sanctions after promising to cooperate. I expect that if the United States can obtain assurances from its European allies not to use Huawei's equipment in security-sensitive networks, and only to prevent US telecommunications companies from using Huawei's fifth-generation equipment, it could lift the total ban and go back to Huawei's investments in smart phones. If you do not find a solution, you may not see a new Huawei phone, at least outside the Chinese market.
But this is not enough. The Chinese government must also make pledges and promises to stop using its companies as a tool of espionage and stop acting as a rogue state.
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