Whitehouse review will find no evidence of Huawei spying – report
Reuters says a wide-ranging classified report will exonerate the Chinese telecommunications company – but The Wall Street Journal finds shades of grey.
Reuters claims a Whitehouse report, yet to be released, will find no evidence of spying by Huawei.
The Chinese telecommunications company was recently the subject of a scathing Congressional report, which labeled Huawei a security risk.
The report was picked up on by Labour and the Greens, who question Huawei's involvement in New Zealand's public-private fibre rollout at a time when it has been blocked from Australia's National Broadband Network.
Quoting two unnamed sources, Reuters says the White House pressed the Congressional Intelligence Committee to produce a "smoking gun," but no hard evidence was produced.
Reuters says intelligence agencies and government departments involved in the largely classified Whitehouse review interviewed 1000 telecom equipment buyers.
One source told the news agency, "We knew certain parts of government really wanted. We would have found it if it were there."
In short, Reuters sees Huawei being comprehensively exonerated.
But the Wall Street Journal - via the paper's All Things D blog, finds shades of grey. Arik Hesseldahl writes:
Rather than spying, it turns out that Huawei’s gear suffers from the same kind of arguably unintended security vulnerabilities that occasionally crop up and that could in theory be exploited by hackers with the proper knowledge. The trick question — which is sort of an indicator of the multi-layered gray areas that make these questions so hard to answer — is whether or not someone put those vulnerabilities there on purpose.
Huawei New Zealand has reiterated the company's global response to the Congressional report: that no evidence has been produced of espionage, and that the company stands by its record.
Huawei also received backing from Telecommunications Users Association head Paul Brislen.
"I'm seeing mostly economic warfare mixed in with some good ole yellow peril and a smattering of technophobia," he told NBR ONLINE.
NBR staff
Thu, 18 Oct 2012
Thu, 18 Oct 2012
© All content copyright NBR. Do not reproduce in any form without permission, even if you have a paid subscription.
Whitehouse review will find no evidence of Huawei spying – report
24742