The “Huawei affair” from an operator’s perspective

The “Huawei affair” has dominated the media for the last few days. I have put the word “affair” in quotation marks, because the matter is occupying the media space even though no event has triggered it, apart from someone claiming something. In the paragraphs that follow, you will see that there is not a single reason to be afraid of smartphones from Huawei. The author of the article is Petr Kapounek, and we are publishing the text with his permission.

The “affair” is roughly about the Czech Republic joining countries that regard the Chinese maker of telecommunications technology, Huawei, as a security threat. The sad part of the whole thing is that the discussion takes place at the level of each debater’s faith in the trustworthiness of one side or the other, and apart from the claims of the individual parties, not many verifiable arguments are heard. The discussion is often so irrational that arguments such as “I’d rather be spied on by these than by those” or “it’s not true, but it could be” are heard. Most internet debaters, moreover, know absolutely nothing about telecommunications or security.

Let’s look at the issue more thoroughly and try to get our bearings…

WHY HUAWEI IS SO SUCCESSFUL

To begin with, it would be good to debunk the widespread myth that Huawei is successful because it is cheap and brazenly copies other companies’ technologies. The company’s beginnings were admittedly dubious, but after it faced criticism for not respecting patents, it put great effort into research and development. And for many years it worked to repair its name. So far, it seems to have succeeded.

Huawei offers solutions for telecommunications operators. Modular, scalable, reliable. They will supply everything for your network, from the modem to the routers and firewalls that form the interface with the public internet. This is extremely important for operators. You are building a network and you know that, however you expand it, change it or add new technologies, you do not have to throw everything out and build it all again with every change. Above all, you have a solution that works, and a partner who wants it to keep working so that you will buy from them again next time. And if that partner does not try to “fleece” you as well, it is a truly fairy-tale situation. That does not mean Huawei is the cheapest. For most parts of your network there is a cheaper alternative. But having 20 manufacturers on your network, each with a different fault in its solution, being a small fry to every one of them, and never knowing whether the chosen solution will end up in the bin straight away because it does not work, is something you simply do not want. Huawei supplies solutions for operators from A to Z, scalable, at reasonable prices and of very good quality. In the telecommunications business it has, in effect, no competition. 

WHAT IS AT STAKE

As the well-known saying goes, it is always about money first and foremost. Huawei is taking over the telecommunications market. The sums involved are enormous. Nobody knows when or whether Huawei will stop, or which segment of IT it will take over in a few years’ time. Huawei is now also supplying servers and data centres, for example to ČEZ. The model in which America invents and China manufactures does not work any more. Huawei develops, owns patents and builds solutions tailored to operators. It has left the others a long way behind and is the largest holder of patents related to 5G technology. It already holds around 1,500. For the others, that is understandably depressing. Pointing a finger at Huawei and saying “but they’re Chinese” is the easiest defence when you have no other argument.

Those who say that Huawei is a risk are also right. It is. So is Google, or Facebook. Technological dominance is always a risk. If each of our three main operators had a different supplier, it would probably not matter that one of them was Huawei. When they all have the same supplier, that is a risk, even if Huawei came from South Korea and its owners had haloes. A stupid software error, which need not even be deliberate, could, combined with a virus or an attack targeting that very flaw, take all networks out of service. In modern times that would be a real catastrophe, comparable to a weapon of mass destruction. But replacing manufacturer A with manufacturer B does not make the problem disappear. In the end, it was not Huawei but its rival Ericsson that left O2 customers in the United Kingdom without internet for roughly a day, and in the case of the operator SoftBank in Japan, the outage was “only” four and a half hours. 

WHO IS RIGHT

Both sides are right. Huawei is right when it says that it is being accused without evidence. For that reason, it has been seeking a security clearance from the NBÚ (National Security Authority) for several months now. Those who say that Huawei is a risk are also right. But they do not tell the whole truth. All other manufacturers pose the same risk. Espionage has, however, already been proven in the case of some other manufacturers, but not yet in Huawei’s case. Paradoxically, it was the American NSA that penetrated Huawei’s infrastructure and carried out espionage there. Seriously. On the other hand, carrying out espionage across a network without anyone noticing is not that simple. Just as your data flows through Huawei equipment, espionage carried out through Huawei equipment would flow through a range of other devices and would be detectable. If there were even hints that something like this was happening, we would already know, and Huawei would lose its enormous revenues. And it is those revenues that matter first and foremost.

The real risk to security is, above all, market dominance, whoever it is that dominates.

WHICH ESPIONAGE IS THE RIGHT ONE

The final argument, then, is that it is better to be spied on by allies than by our enemies. But we overlook how much our allies spy on our enemies. So it is surprising that Western technologies can still be sold in China. Apple, for example.

The PRISM affair, Edward Snowden. In the United States he faces prison for revealing how worldwide espionage was carried out through precisely such technologies. The argument that it does not matter because it is done by a democratic country is one that Snowden probably will not be hearing. Backdoors in the network equipment of Western manufacturers, the wiretapping of Chancellor Merkel. And it is precisely the USA, and by extension its agency the NSA, that constantly tries to plant backdoors in various technologies. And such cases are not rare. The attached links are just a small sample.

Our allies monitor and wiretap us, but are we supposed to assume they do it to protect us? Isn’t that twisted logic? The reality is much simpler. A nuclear war with China is most likely not awaiting us in the coming years. The war is being fought economically: tariffs, sanctions, industrial espionage. In this respect, our allies pose risks similar to those of our arch-enemies.

But please notice one more thing. The idea that a hostile foreign power could, even hypothetically, see into all of our communications is not pleasant. Yet that is exactly the feeling most of the world has experienced for many years, thanks to our (meaning Western) technological dominance. Now the card has turned, and someone has the upper hand over us in one single thing. And suddenly we do not know what to do. 

DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO? LET’S BAN IT!

So far, NÚKIB (the National Cyber and Information Security Agency) has only issued a recommendation, but this may be a harbinger of a de facto ban. It is perhaps part of our traditional culture that when politicians or officials in our country do not know what to do about something, they issue some kind of ban. In this case, the temptation is all the greater to, so to speak, ingratiate ourselves with our allies and have NÚKIB show some activity. But the risks of that step are high.

The main benefit of a free internet and the technologies and services associated with it is that it is international. For us, the democratic world, this has unpleasant consequences in the form of propaganda, disinformation, hoaxes and all sorts of social bubbles. Agencies of hostile countries such as Russia or China have influence through the internet that they could otherwise hardly gain. This is certainly unpleasant, and our democratic system must find ways of coping with it. But how many wrinkles does the internet give the leaders of totalitarian regimes? Splitting the technological world, and with it the internet itself, into Western and Eastern halves would bring us no benefits beyond a false sense of security. It would, however, open the way for a number of Eastern non-democratic regimes to gain total control over the network, and thus over its users. That is the real threat.

It would be extremely naive to think that by removing one particular leading technology manufacturer from our networks we would secure cyber security. A rational security policy should work differently. How?

→ Operate the key systems of the state and public administration separately

→ Back up their operations with a combination of equipment from several manufacturers (this measure is also necessary from the point of view of reliability)

→ Audit the equipment rigorously and monitor its own communication, or even restrict its access to the internet

→ Require manufacturers to cooperate in security audits, or to provide access to their source code

→ Have crisis scenarios ready for the failure of any element in the technology chain

In the Huawei affair, the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) stated that it lacked the evidence needed to ban Huawei. The manufacturer reportedly cooperates and has made its code available to them. No problem has been found so far. The German BSI is not an institution that stands above us, and we probably should not follow it blindly either. Equally, there is no reason to blindly follow the claims of the United States, which has its own interests in the affair. There is, however, the EU Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA). It should analyse the situation and the technologies in question and issue a responsible opinion that takes into account the interests and position of European countries. Only that should guide us. Throwing out all the Huawei equipment now, in a panic, would be hasty and short-sighted.

Petr Kapounek

If this topic interested you, you can also read the article Wireless communication in internet network infrastructure, or our latest articles.

Updated 5 March 2024