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Huawei routers espionage risk???

tim.jtq

Super Pro Member
Hi Everyone

As you will all know, a while ago, the British government banned all Huawei equipment in the infrastructure of British mobile networks. It must all be removed by the end of 2027. They did this in the belief that Huawei equipment possibly contains the means by which China could implement espionage and sabotage.

It seems, however,, that this ban does not extend to the Huawei routers that people have in their homes. (Correct me if I am wrong.)

In light of the first paragraph of this message, does anyone in this forum think that Huawei routers might pose any security risks?

Thank you very much.
 
The same could be said about any device made by a Chinese manufacturer.

Any Chinese company legally has to comply with any request by the Chinese government, so the fact they're singling out Huawei seems very odd to me.
 
Huawei are deeply embedded in BT infrastructure as well on both the CPE and exchange side. A lot of the badged BT stuff is actually Huawei underneath. Most of the BTOR ONT I have seen are.

I don't believe in putting all your eggs in one basket, especially with critical national infrastructure, be that telecoms, energy, electric, fuel etc
 
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Huawei are deeply embedded in BT infrastructure as well on both the CPE and exchange side. A lot of the badged BT stuff is actually Huawei underneath. Most of the BTOR ONT I have seen are.

I don't believe in putting all your eggs in one basket, especially with critical national infrastructure, be that telecoms, energy, electric, fuel etc
The raw Huawei numbers were/are capped by HMG (thirty something percent of the estate).

At the time they kicked out Huawei, Nokia were the only alternative supplier for the GEA estate (ECI being defunct), now they have Adtran and they’re no longer vendor locked so they can mix and match - Huawei OLTs can now support alternate vendors ONT in the premises.
 
I thought I read (Summer 2022) that BT were asking for more time to de-Huawei their network?
 
I thought I read (Summer 2022) that BT were asking for more time to de-Huawei their network?
The UK government has extended the January 2023 deadline for removing equipment made by Huawei in China from 5G and broadband networks.

A legal designated vendor direction has been sent to 35 telecoms companies in the UK to put the requirement to remove equipment on a legal footing. BT had previously highlighted the challenges of removing equipment from the core network by the preliminary deadline of January 2023.

The new deadline is the end of 2023, although equipment at ‘sites significant to national security’ has to be removed by 28 January 2023. All Huawei equipment has to be removed from 5G networks by the end of 2027.

“For a small number of operators, the two interim deadlines for the core and 35 per cent of the full fibre access network could have led to network outages and disruption for customers, due to delays caused by the pandemic and global supply chain issues,” said the government.
 
The UK government has extended the January 2023 deadline for removing equipment made by Huawei in China from 5G and broadband networks.

A legal designated vendor direction has been sent to 35 telecoms companies in the UK to put the requirement to remove equipment on a legal footing. BT had previously highlighted the challenges of removing equipment from the core network by the preliminary deadline of January 2023.

The new deadline is the end of 2023, although equipment at ‘sites significant to national security’ has to be removed by 28 January 2023. All Huawei equipment has to be removed from 5G networks by the end of 2027.

“For a small number of operators, the two interim deadlines for the core and 35 per cent of the full fibre access network could have led to network outages and disruption for customers, due to delays caused by the pandemic and global supply chain issues,” said the government.
Yep that's the one 👍
 
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I have a silly question on the back of all of this. Does anyone know if 3’s pole of wonders carry any huawei equipment. If so are they swapping that out with non huawei equipment? I am just wondering about my pole of wonder which has been installed for less than a year now. I am wondering if I can expect some disruption of service if they have to swap out equipment on that pole.
 
You can of course make your own mind up about Huawei folks.
Just sharing this video to waste some of your precious time. :giggle:
 
You can of course make your own mind up about Huawei folks.
Just sharing this video to waste some of your precious time. :giggle:
Didn't watch the whole thing, but there are quite a few things wrong with the "facts" that I have heard.

1. China may have stolen industrial secrets etc, there is no doubt about it, but for the most part we (the rest of the world) gave them to China, because you can't outsource without blueprints. Everybody threw everything they got and then some more to be able to produce their stuff for cheaper in China.

2. Innovation - to say China did not innovate would be a mistake. They often took the existing product (or blueprint) and came up with a better, more polished product. Pretty sure they came up with completely new products as well. Let's not belittle them.

3. 100% with the guy on the "5G hyper farce", as with many other things this has been milked the heck out of, because that's what marketing all over does. Look at the "cloud" as another example..

4. Of course China will protect Huawei and ZTE, it's their soft power, like Microsoft and Intel and Cisco and so on is USA's, both will go at great lengths to protect them and make sure they have maximum global penetration, often by illegal means. Why do you think Microsoft and Facebook etc are getting away with all the *%& they are pulling? They get a slap on the wrist in the Senate, then it's business as usual.

5. To be honest, beyond all the spying stuff which may well be correct, I for one am grateful to both "the West" and China for combining forces because this process has lead us where we are, in this incredible age of technological bounty the likes of which the world has never seen. I hope we'll be able to keep the peace and maintain this delicate balance.
5.1 As long as I'll be able to replace Windows with Linux, Android with LineageOS and RandomOS with OpenWRT, I'll be happy. :)
 
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If you setup shop in China then you can never own more than 50% of your company, the other 50% must be owned by local Chinese. So they are all joint ventures and any technology you transfer in terms of manufacturing and product becomes 50% owned locally. So as well as stealing Western companies have also given technology away.

Brembo is a case in point, full Brembo products are made in Brembo factories during normal working hours. Then in overtime and the weekends the same factory makes the knock offs or the tooling is loaned out to the next door factory for them to make the knock offs. Result is Brand destruction.
 
I think if there were a problem with Huawei home routers, we'd probably know about them from some online security team or hacker group. What concerns me is the lack of updates for some of these devices, if there ever were a known flaw it's unlikely they'd ever get patched.

Having said that I think a lot of the fallout over Huawei/ZTE came about because the Orange man in the USA said they were bad and so the security services over there had to follow suit and say they're bad. We in the UK being a part of the ol five eyes spying brigade also had to follow suit. Nothing has ever been proven either with regards to deliberate flaws/back doors or their CEOs involvement with the Chinese Communist Party. The replacement of Huawei kit in favour of Ericsson/Nokia etc has already set us back and cost us billions. And how do we know there are no flaws in Ericsson/Nokia? that no Chinese-born software engineer on the payroll of the CCP took part in developing it?

I'll be keeping my Huawei CPE Pro 2 for a while longer and I'm not particularly concerned about it any more than I am any other bit of kit. Ideally as Lucian mentioned above if you can run opensource then you should.
 
To add to that, the reality is even sadder, as through rampant outsourcing both Nokia and especially Ericsson have very strong ties to China.. More here:
 
When I hear stories about this, and the likes of Kaspersky too. I always think. Do I have anything in my browsing history that the Chinese or Russian government would be interested in?

I hightly doubt they'd be bothered about looking up what the cast of Dexter is doing now on IMDB, watching Ben Shapiro on the Daily Wire or looking up youtube videos of someone's cat looking angry will peak the government's interest. So basically peak away.

Plus I am a lot more worried about my own government spying on me than a foreign government. As this will be used for nefarious purposes pretty much guaranteed.

In terms of the issue, could you not just install opnwrt onto the router to fix all of this?
 
I'll just leave this here for @Anth - and no, on most of the routers/equipment you can't just slap Openwrt or some other open source.

Selection_281.webp
 
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Huawei don't pose a security risk at all I have a AX3 dual core router.

American government couldn't give hardcore evidence that they posed a security risk and was spying on people via network equipments.

Huawei did ask for clear evidence didnt get nothing.

Cause of what the American government did banning them it went all over media making some people rethink about Huawei this might be true.

I dont believe it all now American tech companies are loosing big money due to the ban they where one of the biggest buyers.

Look at UK networks weren't happy at all when UK banned Huawei.

Huawei know there networks very well and get vaule for money and reliable.

My AX3 dual core still gets update cant for £24.99 which i bought in 2022 April I think it was released in 2022.

Now the price of AX3 dual core has gone up but still good price.
 
for my money, Huawei were a risk to American/European businesses. It's nothing to do with the Chinese Government or the spying etc. (I'm eyeballing Cisco personally)

I just feel like they were losing a chunk of the market to Huawei who were ripping off their tech (and software), and deploying it cheaply.

"Proper" Government contractors have been unable to use Huawei for many years. (Look at QinetiQ and similar) There's absolutely no way they'd make a preferred vendor list.


BT heavily invested in R&D with Huawei. There's a reason they were the preferred partner. (small example)

Huawei mobiles were really pushing the consumer market just before the trade ban which stopped Google Play being put on their devices. The P30 Pro in particular was polished and sleek. People have no issue wandering round with an Oppo/Oneplus but Huawei became a dirty name.

Places like Bloomberg sensationalize stuff they don't understand, but it gets under the technically ignorant persons skin and that's all that matters. Supermicro are another brand they tarnished.

Most of the things they claimed could be covered under iLOM.
 
Is Honor a bad name it was Huawei's subsidiary now Zhixin New Information Technology owns it, it was born from a consortium of over 30 agents and dealers of the Honor brand and the Shenzhen Smart City Development Group.

Honor smartphones are cheap i find apple a fashion statement here owning a iPhone makes you look cool but how often do you use camera smartphone.

I have Honor 9X which i think over 3 years old no complaint hasnt slowed down just battery is going.

Before all this US ban happended was Huawei a security risk no people where happy with there Huawei devices and uk networks where happy.

Huawei did ask US government to give evidence couldn't give any.

As someone mentioned people are happy to have one plus/ oppo etc.. Other china company tech soon as another company comes into fire people rethink make your own judgement.

Wheres the evidence any government which has concerns need to give clear evidence. US government haven't given any clear evidence at all.

Show me evidence then i will stop using Huawei.
 
The UK government has extended the January 2023 deadline for removing equipment made by Huawei in China from 5G and broadband networks.

A legal designated vendor direction has been sent to 35 telecoms companies in the UK to put the requirement to remove equipment on a legal footing. BT had previously highlighted the challenges of removing equipment from the core network by the preliminary deadline of January 2023.

The new deadline is the end of 2023, although equipment at ‘sites significant to national security’ has to be removed by 28 January 2023. All Huawei equipment has to be removed from 5G networks by the end of 2027.

“For a small number of operators, the two interim deadlines for the core and 35 per cent of the full fibre access network could have led to network outages and disruption for customers, due to delays caused by the pandemic and global supply chain issues,” said the government.

I know this is old news but just want to make a note that many of the new mast installations are by CK Hutchison (Three UK) which is a Chinese global conglomerate based in Hong Kong. What's to stop them from using Huawei or any other spyware in their installation equipment? https://www.ckh.com.hk/en/businesses/telecommunications.php
 
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