The IT Nerd

It seems that despite the spying claims from the Germans, Huawei is apparently going to get some access to EU 5G networks. From the CBC:

The European Union unveiled security guidelines for next generation high-speed wireless networks that stop short of banning Huawei, in the latest setback for the United States’ campaign against the Chinese tech company.

The EU’s executive Commission on Wednesday outlined a set of strategic and technical measures aimed at reducing cybersecurity risks from fifth-generation, or 5G, mobile networks. The recommendations include blocking high-risk equipment suppliers from “critical and sensitive” parts of the network, including the core, which keeps track of data and authenticates smartphones on the network.

No companies were mentioned by name but the term “high risk” supplier was an obvious reference to Huawei, the world’s top maker of networking gear such as switches and antennas.

This is similar to what the UK did with Huawei yesterday. And it is likely to put even more pressure on Canada to make a decision on Huawei. Let’s see how fast that decision comes. And what that decision looks like.

Just a day after getting a win, Huawei is back in the news for all the wrong reasons. The German government is in possession of evidence that Huawei, the leading maker of telecoms network equipment, has collaborated with Chinese intelligence, the Handelsblatt daily reported on Wednesday. Something that the teclo gear maker denies:

Huawei [HWT.UL], the leading maker of telecoms network equipment, denied a newspaper report on Wednesday that alleged the German government was in possession of evidence that it had cooperated with Chinese intelligence.

“Huawei Technologies has never, and will never, do anything to compromise the security of networks and data of its customers,” the Chinese company said in response to the report in the Handelsblatt business daily.

“The Handelsblatt article repeats old, unfounded allegations without providing any concrete evidence whatsoever.”

This is what Handelsblatt said:

The Handelsblatt report cited a confidential foreign ministry document that intelligence shared by U.S. officials represented a “smoking gun” that meant Chinese companies were unsafe partners for building next-generation 5G mobile networks.

“At the end of 2019, intelligence was passed to us by the U.S., according to which Huawei is proven to have been cooperating with China’s security authorities,” the newspaper cited the document as saying.

This is sure to muddy the waters further. Is Huawei an agent for Chinese intelligence? Are the issues with Huawei overblown? At this point it isn’t clear and the only thing that will make it clear are facts. Something that seems to be in short supply at the moment when it comes to Huawei.

Today it was announced that the UK would allow gear from Chinese telco gear maker Huawei onto their 5G network. From the CBC:

Britain will allow Chinese telecom giant Huawei a limited role in building its 5G networks, the government said on Tuesday.

It said high-risk vendors would be excluded from the sensitive core of networks, and there would be a 35 per cent cap on their involvement in the non-sensitive parts.

The U.K. faced opposing pressures from the United States and China on the eve of Brexit.

The United States had wanted U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson to ban Huawei completely, arguing that Beijing could use the company’s equipment to steal Western secrets. Huawei has denied any involvement in espionage. 

Beijing had warned that blocking the company would hurt Chinese investment.

You can bet that US president Donald Trump will ratchet up the Twitter machine to complain about this. For fun I checked his Twitter feed and saw nothing related to this. That may be due to the fact that he has impeachment other issues at the moment. But you know the Tweetstorm is coming.

That begs the question. What about Canada? A decision on Huawei participating in Canada’s 5G network has been pending for a while now. Now that the UK has jumped aboard the Huawei train, does that mean that Canada will be next? Or will they toe the line that the US wants them to toe? It will be interesting to see which way they go.

Huawei has a ton of problems. And their foldable phone dubbed the Mate X is one of them. You might recall that it was recently delayed in the wake of the Samsung Galaxy Fold gong show. But they promised a ship date of “September”,

That ship date isn’t going to happen. TechRadar attended a Huawei event yesterday where it was announced that the Mate X was delayed again:

There’s no possibility of a September launch date anymore, which leaves the door open for the Samsung Galaxy Fold to be the first foldable to market. However, the company is certain the Mate X will launch before the end of 2019.

Clearly the company is being cautious as they don’t want to be Samsung. Thus it will be interesting to see what actually ships. Assuming that it does ship. Also of note, Huawei hinted at a follow up device or devices. But if I were them, I’d focus on getting this one out first.

This seems strange, but perhaps not surprising given how US President Donald Trump folded up like a cheap suit to the Chinese during the G20 Summit. A report from Reuters says the following:

The U.S. may approve licenses for companies to re-start new sales to Huawei in as little as two weeks, according to a senior U.S. official, in a sign President Donald Trump’s recent effort to ease restrictions on the Chinese company could move forward quickly.

Well, that’s great if you’re Huawei and you should be happy about that…. Or perhaps not:

A Huawei spokesman said “the Entity list restrictions should be removed altogether, rather than have temporary licenses applied for US vendors. Huawei has been found guilty of no relevant wrongdoing and represents no cybersecurity risk to any country so the restrictions are unmerited.”

So to be honest, I don’t know how to read this. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Boy is this situation weird.

Over the weekend, I wrote about the fact that President Trump folded up like a cheap suit and said that the ban on everybody’s favorite telco gear maker Huawei would be lifted. But that seems to be in doubt now based on this report from Reuters which cites sources within the DOC who say staff members have been told by leadership that US companies are still prohibited from selling stuff to Huawei:

In an email to enforcement staff on Monday that was seen by Reuters, John Sonderman, Deputy Director of the Office of Export Enforcement, in the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), sought to clarify how agents should approach license requests by firms seeking approval to sell to Huawei.

All such applications should be considered on merit and flagged with language noting that “This party is on the Entity List. Evaluate the associated license review policy under part 744,” he wrote, citing regulations that include the Entity List and the “presumption of denial” licensing policy that is applied to blacklisted companies.

He added that any further guidance from BIS should also be taken into account when evaluating Huawei-related license applications.

So you have to wonder if Trump was just making stuff up as he is known to do, or he doesn’t know how things work in Washington, or maybe both at the same time. All to placate the Chinese who he crossed paths with at the G20 summit. Whatever the deal is, this is clearly a grade A gong show with no clear path to resolution or clarity.

It appears that President Donald Trump who was talking a good game about going after Huawei has appeared to cave “big league” to the Chinese at the G20 summit. Here’s the details:

US President Donald Trump has appeared to soften his tone on Chinese communications giant Huawei, suggesting that he would allow the company to once again purchase U.S. technology. Speaking at a press conference in Osaka, Saturday, Trump said that the U.S. sells a “tremendous amount of product” to Huawei. “That’s okay, we will keep selling that product,” said Trump. “The (U.S.) companies were not exactly happy that they couldn’t sell.”

Now it isn’t a lifting of the ban that Trump signed, but it really is going to throw Huawei a lifeline. But more importantly, Trump has really made himself look stupid in his rather desperate attempt to get some sort of trade deal with China which is what I think this is all about. He’s effectively taken Huawei from being the devil incarnate to being perfectly fine to do business with. If he walks back all the security claims too, then his credibility which is already in shambles, will take a hit that he will not recover from with just a year to go before a presidential election.

In an ironic twist, telco gear made by China’s Huawei is far more likely to contain flaws that could be leveraged by hackers for malicious use than equipment from rival companies, according to new research by cybersecurity experts that top U.S. officials said appeared credible.

Over half of the nearly 10,000 firmware images encoded into more than 500 variations of enterprise network-equipment devices tested by the researchers contained at least one such exploitable vulnerability, the researchers found. Firmware is the software that powers the hardware components of a computer. The tests were compiled in a new report that has been submitted in recent weeks to senior officials in multiple government agencies in the U.S. and the U.K., as well as to lawmakers. The report is notable both for its findings and because it is circulating widely among Trump administration officials who said it further validated their policy decisions toward Huawei.

“This report supports our assessment that since 2009, Huawei has maintained covert access to some of the systems it has installed for international customers,” said a White House official who reviewed the findings. “Huawei does not disclose this covert access to customers nor local governments. This covert access enables Huawei to record information and modify databases on those local systems.” The report, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, was prepared by Finite State, a Columbus, Ohio-based cybersecurity firm.

If you buy into this report, you don’t have to worry about getting pwned by Huawei if you use their gear. Instead, the pwnage will come from others and the Huawei gear is just the vehicle for the pwnage. Lovely. Assuming that this is true. We’ll have to see if this report is fact of fiction and hopefully the clarity will come via a third party that can be trusted.

Huawei who revealed a foldable smartphone at the Mobile World Congress earlier this year has now decided to put the product on pause. Here’s the reason that was given via a Huawei spokesperson to CNBC:

We don’t want to launch a product to destroy our reputation

Clearly that’s a not so subtle reference to Samsung who’s Galaxy Fold product has become an bit of a joke at this point because of the screen issues that were highlighted by reviewers before the product actually shipped. Clearly Huawei, who has 99 problems at the moment, doesn’t want a sub par foldable smartphone to be one of them. And a tip of the hat to them for their expert trolling of Samsung. Well played.

Could Huawei be on the verge of becoming a patent troll? That was my first thought when I read this Reuters report which details that the troubled Chinese telcom gear maker wants (insert Dr. Evil voice and place your pinky finger next to your mouth) $1 Billion dollars from American telco Verizon for them using 238 of Huawei’s patents without compensation:

Verizon should pay to “solve the patent licensing issue,” a Huawei intellectual property licensing executive wrote in February, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier. The patents cover network equipment for more than 20 of the company’s vendors including major U.S. tech firms but those vendors would indemnify Verizon, the person said. Some of those firms have been approached directly by Huawei, the person said.

The patents in question range from core network equipment, wireline infrastructure to internet-of-things technology, the Journal reported. The licensing fees for the more than 230 patents sought is more than $1 billion, the person said.

One thing to note here is that while Verizon doesn’t directly purchase equipment from Huawei, it relies on other vendors using the technology that Huawei is going after them over. If this latest move by Huawei spreads from Verizon to other telcos, I think it would be safe to assume that the words “Patent” and “troll” will be added to the things that Huawei is known for.