For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By PaulB
#1690358
There's a massive hoo-haa going on about the leak from the National Security Agency that the UK will allow Huwawei to be involved in the building of the UK's 5G infrastructure.

AIUI, the US & Australia have refused to allow it to be involved in theirs.


I guess there's 2 issues here, the first relates to the technicalities of their involvement and whether it is technically or politically a good idea. If we banned them, who else could take over?

The second is that this information has leaked from such a supposedly secure source and presumably from a reasonably high level, and the whispers about restrictions in press freedom that are being heard.

Any views or informed comment on those (as ever, keeping overt party politics out of it)?
By PaulB
#1690365
Paul_Sengupta wrote:I'm staying out of this one! ;-)


I was hoping for some informed comment, but understand exactly why you need to refrain!
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By Pete L
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690366
Didn't we already have discussion on this in the Chinese thread?
By JoeC
#1690463
I don't think the issue is about the technology or Huwawei in particular but that, quite simply, that if the **** did hit the fan between our two countries then China as a one party state military dictatorship could easily rock up to Huwawei HQ and get them to disrupt our telecoms through their embedded technology with no compunction at all. Much more difficult, although not impossible, for that to happen in a more democratic country.
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By Lindsayp
#1690500
Personally whilst I have a lot of sympathy for the "don't buy HuaWei" argument, I do think it's disingenuous when the govt is so utterly wedded to Microsoft and Amazon for cloud hosting of critical national infrastructure and software products, to the exclusion of locally owned and non-proprietary products.
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By eltonioni
#1690523
Theresa May.


(Is a more fulsome answer even necessary for yet another shambles?)
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By kanga
#1690597
PaulB wrote:There's a massive hoo-haa going on about the leak from the National Security Agency ...


I guess there's 2 issues here,..

The second is that this information has leaked from such a supposedly secure source and presumably from a reasonably high level, and the whispers about restrictions in press freedom that are being heard.

..


[National Security Council. The other is a US Federal Agency.]

[longish :oops: but angry .. :evil: ]

The second is the big (to me, huge) issue. All Ministers and officials are meant to leave all internal and partisan politics at the door, and are then briefed on the most sensitive information available to the defence and security agencies. The representatives of those agencies have hitherto been able to brief there in full confidence that nothing briefed there will be leaked, however leaky other supposedly confidential forums of Cabinet (including Committees thereof) may be; and often are when there are active political disputes or personality clashes, as now. The officials of UK agencies have assured their sharing foreign partners that shared sensitive intelligence will not be leaked by their Ministers. Hitherto, the UK had a much better record as guardian of allies' secrets than, say, parts of the US Government, Executive and Congressional.

[IIRC, the NSC was a new body set up by the then PM at the start of the Coalition Government to accommodate the fact of Ministers of two Parties might have relevant responsibilities requiring their attentance. It replaced or supplemented longstanding Cabinet subcommittees, eg the 'Defence and Foreign Policy' one. AFAIK, in both, Ministers are accompanied by their relevant necessary Departmental officials, but not by Special Advisers; nothing discussed should be shared with SAs, who may see their principal function at times leading up to Leadership challenges as advancing the cause of 'their' Minister over others, eg by selective leaking. I really hope this has not happened in this case, although a former SA of a currently involved Minister had 'form' in this, and the Minister was slow to sack him]

Therefore, the relative triviality (disputes over actions and policies between Ministers, which happen all the time) of the topic of the leak is relatively unimportant. It is the forum from which the leak occurred which is very worrying, and to my knowledge unprecedented. For those who may be personally imperilled by leaks of sensitive information (as I have been, and had colleagues and comrades killed by such), I very much hope the culprit(s) is/are identified, dismissed and at least publicly shamed. I have no sympathy with the 'press freedom' argument in this context, but it is not the journalists' fault: it is absolutely the leakers'.
By avtur3
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690621
Someone in that room was pushed to the limit, severly so. This is a reflection of the total frustration at the way Mrs May operates. She listens to eveyone and then does her own thing.

In some senses, this is a serious breach ... but perhaps we're in unchartered territory where this has pushed someone too far.
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690623
deleted, sorry strayed into politics in inappropriate thread
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By Korenwolf
#1690624
Today's Torygraph lead with this story on the front page....apparently head(s) are going to roll over the leak, which lead to the story being run in the paper on Wednesday.

Ministers are handing over mobiles and other devices for inspection, although I do wonder why if it's of such importance why don't the Powers That Be just interview whoever wrote the article and demand the name of their source?

As an aside, the DT also stated that all Huawei products are dismantled and checked by GCHQ upon import into the UK, looking for anything sinister. Apparently they've found nothing aside from some slightly dodgy quality control issues...

I think I know what I will be replacing my current Samsung with :wink:


and no, not one of the new foldy ones
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690667
I think the Telegraph may misunderstand the role of GCHQ. What they actually did was go through the code and found that some Huawei programmers are a bit rubbish :D
By JoeC
#1690671
Korenwolf wrote:why don't the Powers That Be just interview whoever wrote the article and demand the name of their source?


No journalist would say. If they did then no one would ever speak in confidence to a journalist again. There is no legal precedent to compel them either.

How do the 'powers that be' demand the source? Luckily we’re not China.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1690706
PaulB wrote:
Paul_Sengupta wrote:I'm staying out of this one! ;-)


I was hoping for some informed comment, but understand exactly why you need to refrain!


Ok, just a little bit for now. There's a lot of talk about 5G, but already a fair bit of the UK's 2G, 3G and 4G mobile phone network architecture is run on HuaWei equipment. They have also entered the "managed services" market where they actually look after networks for the operators regardless of who supplies the equipment.
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