Huawei cancels MateBook laptop launch because of US export ban

MateBook launch cancelled for this week—and may not happen at all.

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[Abhi Beckert]

Thats not as much of a concern as the Chinese government taking control, pushing malicious updates, and or siphoning information from these devices through legit C&C servers in china. OEM malware would be easy to see, and not reliably allow timing of deployment of malware to make the attack more effective.

What do you mean when you say "these" devices? I have never seen any credible report claiming a Huawei was pwned by any government.

Its like the kaspersky issue. Its not that kaspersky is innately a problem, but the potential Russian control over that company does not give a lot of confidence.

When Kaspersky was banned, there were credible reports that they had been used by Russia to attack US intelligence services.

Also, the ban on Kaspersky is limited to US government employees. Everybody else can still use their products (if they trust them... I wouldn't). The Huawei ban applies to everyone all over the world.

But mostly it's the lack of justification that concerns me, not the scope of the ban. The Kaspersky ban had plenty of justification.

 

[Abhi Beckert]

Thats not as much of a concern as the Chinese government taking control, pushing malicious updates, and or siphoning information from these devices through legit C&C servers in china. OEM malware would be easy to see, and not reliably allow timing of deployment of malware to make the attack more effective.

What do you mean when you say "these" devices? I have never seen any credible report claiming a Huawei was pwned by any government.

Its like the kaspersky issue. Its not that kaspersky is innately a problem, but the potential Russian control over that company does not give a lot of confidence.

When Kaspersky was banned, there were credible reports that they had been used by Russia to attack US intelligence services.

Also, the ban on Kaspersky is limited to US government employees. Everybody else can still use their products (if they trust them... I wouldn't). The Huawei ban applies to everyone all over the world.

But mostly it's the lack of justification that concerns me, not the scope of the ban. The Kaspersky ban had plenty of justification.

Kaspersky had evident issues related to it not having full control, china has potential issues relating to it, but none have surfaced *yet*. Both justify some level of ban for the sake of infrastructure, and national security concerns.

How is a Chinese citizen with a MateBook Pro a threat to US infrastructure or national security? There's no way this is justified.

 

[Abhi Beckert]

Seems you do not understand what "state owned" really means...

Huawei is not state owned. They are owned by a "trade union committee" that represent union members the company (according to wikipedia, "about half" of their 188,000 employees are members).

Chinese law does not allow "limited liability" corporations to be traded on a public stock market - otherwise that would be their ownership model.

The allegation by the US government is that Huawei someday might be influenced by the Chinese government. I fail to see how this doesn't apply to pretty much every company in the world.