USA declares Chinese companies a security threat (Huawei and ZTE Corp)

[Wizen]

Hey all,

I know most, if not all of us are using Huawei VDSL2 modems with BT Infinity. I was just wondering how much BT is relying on Huawei as a vendor to provide hardware for their network. According to the article below, US ISPs and businesses are being dissuaded from using Huawei and ZTE products because of the potential security threat posed by control that the Chinese government could exert over Huawei and ZTE. Australia has also blocked Huawei out of their next generation fibre rollout. 

Here's the article:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-08/usa-declares-chinese-companies-a-security-threat/4302304

The US Congressional Intelligence Committee has labelled China's top two telecommunications manufacturers a security threat and says Huawei Technologies and the ZTE Corporation should be shut out of the American market because they are open to Chinese state influence.

I'm not looking to start a new tin foil hat association. I'm just genuinely interested in your opinions. I don't know much about networks, and this article might be a little sensationalist. I just thought it was interesting (especially seeing as we all rely on Huawei hardware to connect to the internet).

[plainview]

If we all stopped using goods manufactured in China within a matter of weeks we would all be back to living in caves huddled around a camp fire.

[bartman1967]

I would leave the Tin Foil Hats to the janks, they have personal problems with the Chinese, might do with one becoming more dominant in commerce than the other, leave it with you to judge that one

[Wizen]

I thought perhaps it was just a not so subtle attempt to boost the American tech industry and companies like Cisco, by shutting down Chinese solutions. And I also think it could be argued that any country could exercise influence on tech companies in their country... I don't know what to make of Australia's position on it though - perhaps just a knee-jerk reaction.

[jcampy]

it's just the yanks Bering paranoid as they think everybodys out to get them or trying to spy on them

[Jonkarra]

Ultimately as a residential customer I would put the tin foil hats away it would be impossible for the chinese to slurp all your data to China as I think BT would notice all that extra traffic on there links! For anything really sensitive just ensure you are using a HTTPS connection to the website in question or for business use consider setting up some sort of VPN. I'd be far more worried about someone sniffing out passwords on badly written websites on unencrypted wifi links. Historically there used to be a number of websites for all sorts of things including banks that sent the initial login information in clear text before switching to an SSL/TLS encrypted session, that sort of newbie error has been fixed for the most part though.