Employees at some Chinese ministries must stop using iPhones before the end of September.

Employees at some Chinese ministries must stop using iPhones before the end of September.

  • downpunxx@kbin.social
    72·
    1 year ago

    Of course it is, for the Chinese. Listen, if it isn’t a homegrown tech product, it’s a threat to your national security, and even most of the homegrown ones are, regardless of what nation you’re from or in. This is fact.

    • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      1 year ago

      Agreed. Investing in local R&D and having at least enough production capacity to locally manufacture enough decent-quality devices for government use is essential for national security.

      But it is also very expensive. The US and China can probably afford it, and I suppose the EU as a bloc can. But for anyone else the cost would be prohibitive. India is a top-five economy, and yet we have only been able to develop 130nm (!) chips locally. (Taiwan makes 5nm chips and China is now reaching 7nm.)

      Perhaps a solution would be for many of the ‘other’ countries to band together. The blueprints could be open-sourced so all partners can trust each other. Whether something like this will work in today’s political climate is of course another question.

  • MartinXYZ@lemmy.ml
    652·
    1 year ago

    This seems like a logical step, both as a political counter move to the US limiting Huawei and TikTok, and as an actual security measure. If the Chinese state can get intel from Huawei devices, surely the US can get intel from iphones. I’m surprised they didn’t include Microsoft.

    Edit: a word.

  • Ertebolle@kbin.social
    463·
    1 year ago

    I mean it’s not like you’d catch a US government official carrying around a Huawei phone either - fair is fair.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
    371·
    1 year ago

    Of course they pose a national security risk. Imagine your government officials walking around with devices fully capable of recording bodily activities, location, sound, video, and transmit it to a foreign power, with or without the wearer’s knowledge. 🤯

    Then add the ability of third party powers to use Israel’s NSO spying capabilities for these devices.

    The moment I could replace these devices with my own home-grown ones, I would. If anything, it’s surprising it took them this long. Maybe they thought they had enough control over Apple.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
      221·
      1 year ago

      Imagine your government officials walking around with devices fully capable of recording bodily activities, location, sound, video, and transmit it to a foreign power, with or without the wearer’s knowledge.

      They don’t have to imagine it. They are actively DOING it with TikTok! Then there’s the not so small matter of all the spying that Huwaei was doing using their 5G network equipment.

      Here’s another one: Have you read the articles about Mozilla reporting what a privacy nightmare today’s cars are? China has banned Teslas from being parked in our around their Government Offices and Military bases. Today’s cars, especially EVs, are absolutely loaded with high end spy tech. Video recording in optical and non-optical wavelengths, audio recording, gps positioning, radar and ultrasound systems, remote control of those systems, remote data access to those systems…

      Since China banned Tesla’s cars from being parked in sensitive locations what do you think they are doing with their auto brands such as BYD?

      Everyone is spying on each other like mad.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
        82·
        1 year ago

        Haven’t read Mozilla’s report but I’m in the field and am fully aware. What I can tell you is that at least some of the Motown manufacturers are very privacy oriented at least for now.

        Huawei is an unmitigated disaster. Security analyses of their equipment from some years ago showed hundreds of security holes on a single piece of infrastructure networking equipment. Countless vulnerable copies of OpenSSL, you name it. Even if they didn’t have any backdoors, the equipment was such a Swiss cheese that you could enter it from many of the gaping holes. The only reason we use it is cost, making the moneys for the shareholders.

          • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
            72·
            1 year ago

            I really don’t have any way to disprove this. There have been two English language studies into Huawei’s structure. The earlier one by Balding et al tries to claim that it is employee owned in name only but there is a more recent one by a Japanese university that contradicts this fact. Interestingly neither of the studies raise issues about significatly unequitable profit sharing so there’s that. The founder of the company owns about 1% of the shares.

            • Gsus4@feddit.nl
              2·
              1 year ago

              As a gross generalisation I think large company management in China is broadly equivalent to provincial management (citizens have a say, but there is a hierarchy that responds to the party), is that what the Japanese report said?

              • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
                41·
                1 year ago

                The report says this:

                First and foremost, as discussed above, employees own the majority of the Huawei’s shares issued, and Huawei has been an “employee-owned company” at least since 2011 according to the available Annual reports show. Second, the highest decision-making body in corporate governance is the Commission, comprised of representatives directly elected by employee shareholders one vote one share. Shareholders’ representatives exercise voting rights on important management matters such as the election of directors and auditors, on behalf of employee shareholders. Third, BOD is the highest body in management strategy, business operations and customer satisfaction underneath the Commission. All directors and auditors are elected from employees. Currently, all of them are employee shareholders. Fourth, Ren Zhengfei has a right of veto.75 Ren Zhengfei himself responded to a reporter that “This comes with a time limit and when the new rules76 were passed this limit77 was extended. I do not exercise my right to veto unless there is a major problem78” (Bilibili Z Generation Paradise, 2019)79. In this regard, Jiangxi Sheng, the chief secretary of Huawei’s BOD, told reporters at the Southern China Morning Post that “These rules were the Governance Charter” and went on to say that the Governance Charter strictly stipulates the important matters subject to the exercise of the right of veto, citing management personnel and capital increase as two such examples.

                It’s a representative system within the company. I think this is what you meant.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
        33·
        1 year ago

        Surely quite a lot of it is owned by the Chinese government. I thought that was the point of the ban, in China essentially all companies are controlled in some level by the Chinese government, and so no Chinese company can be trusted.

        Perhaps some mom and pop equivalent corner shop isn’t controlled by the Chinese government, but certainly anything operating internationally will be.

        • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
          54·
          1 year ago

          It’s definitely likely that they collaborate with the government in some capacity because of how important Huawei is but that was only one part of why sanctions the enacted. IMO the bigger problem for the US was that Huawei was catching up to western corporations in crucial technologies like 5G so the sanctions were put in place in prevent them from competing. It’s just run-of-the-mill protectionism.

          • lambda_notation@lemmy.ml
            41·
            1 year ago

            They weren’t just catching up, the US had nothing, Ericsson had nothing and Huawei had functioning 5G base stations deployed. It took Ericsson another 6? months to get even basic shilled 5G of the ground.

  • hackris@lemmy.ml
    224·
    1 year ago

    If the US can do it, so can China. But, of course, both suck (iPhone and Huawei).

    • Bloops@lemmygrad.ml
      5·
      1 year ago

      China isn’t exactly happy with the US government right now due to the sanctions imposed over advanced chip technology, and this move could be viewed as part of a an ongoing reaction to that. So far, Micron has been the main target for retaliation. The US government already imposes its own restrictions on Chinese hardware and services. Notable, Huawei equipment is banned and TikTok can’t be installed on government devices.

      Already did. This is the tit-for-tat regulation. America did cause, and China did effect.

  • roguetrick@kbin.social
    142·
    1 year ago

    Any US technology has NSA backdoors. I’m surprised it took them this long to realize, since they do the same thing.

    • Buelldozer@lemmy.today
      8·
      1 year ago

      I’m sure they’ve known for years, there just wasn’t a lot they could do it about and relations with the US were good enough that it wasn’t a serious problem…until now.

  • Lemmylaugh@lemmy.ml
    2·
    1 year ago

    China bashing aside how likely is the us engaging in tech espionage of foreign countries? Are there any merit in the statement below? (Serious replies only)

    “Measures are believed to be aimed at eliminating perceived national security risks from telecoms devices made by a US company”