Trust in Telecomms Matrix

Angela shows off her new phone which (fingers crossed) can't be
tapped like the last one was

There's been a lot of discussion in the media recently about Huawei.  Is it safe to buy equipment from a company with such close ties to the Chinese state?  Governments around the world have come under a lot of pressure from the Trump administration in the US to ban the company from involvement in their 5G rollout.

But can we trust American or British equipment manufacturers any more than the Chinese?  Here's my Trust in Telecomms Matrix to help you decide:

	USA/UK	CHINA
Are they spying for commercial gain?	Yes, according to the EU, and they have been for a long time.  From https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/may/30/eu.politics "[Echelon's] primary purpose, the report said, is to intercept private and commercial communications, not military intelligence"	Yes, according to US State dept https://www.newsweek.com/china-involved-90-percent-economic-espionage-and-industrial-secrets-theft-1255908
Are they using mobile phone antennas to listen in on us?	Yes.  There is only one global satellite phone network: Iridium.  All calls that use it are routed via the US.  Federal law requires Iridium to allow intercept of all such calls (whether the users are American citizens or not). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_Law_Enforcement_Act NB, the US DoD is a big customer https://www.satellitetoday.com/government-military/2019/09/16/iridium-awarded-738-5-million-us-dod-contract/	No direct evidence they are doing this at the moment.  However there are accusations that they may in the future be compelled to intercept and pass information to the state by the China Internet Security Law. However, some industry analysts claim this is not possible if equipment sourced from China is not used in the core network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_over_Chinese_involvement_in_5G_wireless_networks
Have they used telecoms products to perform fishing expeditions on the general public?	Yes, massively. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/09/edward-snowden-nsa-whistleblower-surveillance The amount of data the NSA stored is mind boggling.  Back of the envelope calculations suggest it was pretty much every digital communication anyone sent anywhere in the world ever. Since these revelations the US has passed further laws banning this kind of activity, but it was already illegal when it occurred, so that's not much of a guarrantee.	Not that we are aware of
Have they used telecoms products to target allied governments?	Yes, of course.  German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone was bugged by the Americans. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-28055768 However, the Germans aren't blameless either.  Their intelligence agency the BND joined forces with the CIA to secretly own Crypto AG - a Swiss firm selling secure communication devices.  This link was kept secret for decades and allowed the Americans and Germans to spy on friendly governments including the British.	Yes.  The Chinese helped to build the African Union headquarters (and install all the telecoms equipment there).  Obviously they set it up so that they could listen in on literally everything that happened. https://www.ft.com/content/c26a9214-04f2-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5
Have they compromised the security of international standards?	Yes.  In an act of incredible recklessness NSA and GCHQ managed to get vulnerabilities included into the standard for SSL and HTTPS From https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/05/nsa-gchq-encryption-codes-security "methods include covert measures to ensure NSA control over setting of international encryption standards" This allowed them to decrypt our communications.  However, it would only have taken a simple leak and then other governments - as well as organised criminals - would have had the same access too.	Not that we are aware of
Are they using AI for mass facial recognition and surveillance?	Not that we are aware of	They'd like us to think so https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/business/china-surveillance-technology.html It is widely believed by the Chinese population that the government can track every person individually using AI and cameras, even in a  large crowd. However, in her book about AI "You look like a thing and I love you", researcher and blogger Janelle Shane says that experts in the AI world doubt this claim.  According to Shane the Chinese are seeing massive reductions in crime and greater willingness to confess to crimes, as a direct result of the belief that the government has these capabilities, so it makes sense for them to "big up" what they can actually do.
Have they inserted backdoors into end-user equipment?	Yes.  Speculation that this was happening started in 1999 when a variable named _NSAKEY was found in versions of Windows NT.  Obviously Microsoft denied this meant that they had provided the NSA with a backdoor, but it was eventually confirmed that they were doing just that when the Snowden files were released https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data	Not that we know of.  (But you'd have to be mad not to believe they would)

 

My conclusion is that you can't trust anyone.  If the Chinese have compromised our privacy and security as much as the Americans and the British then they've done a slightly more professional job of keeping it secret.

What we can say, however, is that the accusations made by our governments towards the Chinese are, to say the least, a bit rich.