Conquer Club

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa came out strongly in defence of Chinese telecoms company Huawei on Friday at a conference focussing on the 4th Industrial Revolution.

"The United States has been unable to imagine a better future which goes beyond 4 plus 1G, where they have been unable to imagine what 5G can offer, and where now clearly they are jealous," said Ramaphosa.

"They are jealous that a Chinese company called Huawei has outstripped them. And because they have been outstripped they must now punish that one company and use it as a pawn in the fight that they have with China."

Ramaphosa referenced a letter he said he had received from local telecoms companies to say the tussle between China and the US around Huawei is hurting SA.

He said the telecoms companies told him: "We want to go to 5G and only this company Huawei can lead us to 5G and the United States is now punishing them. We have to say we support the company that is going to take our country and indeed the world to better technologies and this is 5G [...] because we cannot afford to have our own economy held back."

nietzsche wrote:as if apple or ms products didn't have backdoors for the US government to use at will, just mentioning patriot act.

mrswdk wrote:What do you think the Chinese government is going to do that the American government wouldn't?

mrswdk wrote:nietzsche beat me to it but why does that matter to me, or anyone else who lives outside of America? I'll take a cheaper and better Huawei phone over an expensive and shit iPhone any day.

mrswdk wrote:Interesting that you think the current American government is doing a good job of protecting American interests.

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:nietzsche beat me to it but why does that matter to me, or anyone else who lives outside of America? I'll take a cheaper and better Huawei phone over an expensive and shit iPhone any day.

Don’t get me wrong. The obvious answer is that the NSA is more likely to use it’s technological prowess and/or forced backdoors to benefit USA interests than Huawei is... this is self evident. Going deeper, I don’t ‘trust’ either entity... but I do think they are likely to use their ‘hacks’ in very different ways that could affect me.

The NSA may invade my privacy, but it’s not likely to affect me directly because my activities don’t generally conflict with the national interests of the USA.

I know nothing about the goals of Huawei... at the very least they’re commercial, but they’re also likely a pawn of the Chinese Gov’t. The Chinese gov’t doesn’t care about what I do, because my activities don’t generally conflict with the national interests of China. However, the commercial aspects of Huawei could mean that they sell my data or do something that could actively harm me... either directly or as part of some mass exploitation.

So there’s the obvious answer... and then there’s some less probable but not impossible negatives as well.

mrswdk wrote:Interesting that you think the current American government is doing a good job of protecting American interests.

I’m curious... where did I say this?

mrswdk wrote:
It's not 'Huawei or the NSA'. It's 'Huawei, linked to the Chinese intelligence services, or Apple, linked to the American intelligence services'.

Your data is not being collected directly by the NSA. It is first being collected by Google, Apple etc. (commercial companies) and then harvested by the NSA and FBI. If you're worried about what would happen if Huawei sold your data then shouldn't you also be worried about Apple, Google etc. selling your data?

mrswdk wrote:
You said that the Chinese government would harm American interests but that the American government wouldn't.

If you think the American government is not currently harming American interests then by extension they must be at the very least sustaining American interests.

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:
It's not 'Huawei or the NSA'. It's 'Huawei, linked to the Chinese intelligence services, or Apple, linked to the American intelligence services'.

Your data is not being collected directly by the NSA. It is first being collected by Google, Apple etc. (commercial companies) and then harvested by the NSA and FBI. If you're worried about what would happen if Huawei sold your data then shouldn't you also be worried about Apple, Google etc. selling your data?

Still more worried about Huawei. I ‘trust’ Apple and Google more... yeah they’ll use my data... but I don’t think they’ll sell it to criminal organizations, I am concerned that Huawei might do this.

mrswdk wrote:

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:
It's not 'Huawei or the NSA'. It's 'Huawei, linked to the Chinese intelligence services, or Apple, linked to the American intelligence services'.

Your data is not being collected directly by the NSA. It is first being collected by Google, Apple etc. (commercial companies) and then harvested by the NSA and FBI. If you're worried about what would happen if Huawei sold your data then shouldn't you also be worried about Apple, Google etc. selling your data?

Still more worried about Huawei. I ‘trust’ Apple and Google more... yeah they’ll use my data... but I don’t think they’ll sell it to criminal organizations, I am concerned that Huawei might do this.

You think that Huawei - one of the biggest, most high-profile companies and scrutinised companies in the world - is going to collect personal data of millions of its customers and sell that data to 'criminal organisations'? What possible reason would they have for doing that?

Maybe you're also concerned that Bank of China is taking money out of European customers' accounts and sending it straight to ISIS for them to buy bombs with?

mrswdk wrote:Planking? Next you'll be telling us about your pelvic floor exercises.

mrswdk wrote:

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:
It's not 'Huawei or the NSA'. It's 'Huawei, linked to the Chinese intelligence services, or Apple, linked to the American intelligence services'.

Your data is not being collected directly by the NSA. It is first being collected by Google, Apple etc. (commercial companies) and then harvested by the NSA and FBI. If you're worried about what would happen if Huawei sold your data then shouldn't you also be worried about Apple, Google etc. selling your data?

Still more worried about Huawei. I ‘trust’ Apple and Google more... yeah they’ll use my data... but I don’t think they’ll sell it to criminal organizations, I am concerned that Huawei might do this.

You think that Huawei - one of the biggest, most high-profile companies and scrutinised companies in the world - is going to collect personal data of millions of its customers and sell that data to 'criminal organisations'? What possible reason would they have for doing that?

Maybe you're also concerned that Bank of China is taking money out of European customers' accounts and sending it straight to ISIS for them to buy bombs with?

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:
It's not 'Huawei or the NSA'. It's 'Huawei, linked to the Chinese intelligence services, or Apple, linked to the American intelligence services'.

Your data is not being collected directly by the NSA. It is first being collected by Google, Apple etc. (commercial companies) and then harvested by the NSA and FBI. If you're worried about what would happen if Huawei sold your data then shouldn't you also be worried about Apple, Google etc. selling your data?

Still more worried about Huawei. I ‘trust’ Apple and Google more... yeah they’ll use my data... but I don’t think they’ll sell it to criminal organizations, I am concerned that Huawei might do this.

You think that Huawei - one of the biggest, most high-profile companies and scrutinised companies in the world - is going to collect personal data of millions of its customers and sell that data to 'criminal organisations'? What possible reason would they have for doing that?

Maybe you're also concerned that Bank of China is taking money out of European customers' accounts and sending it straight to ISIS for them to buy bombs with?

Maybe. I don’t know.

mrswdk wrote:

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:

jimboston wrote:

mrswdk wrote:
It's not 'Huawei or the NSA'. It's 'Huawei, linked to the Chinese intelligence services, or Apple, linked to the American intelligence services'.

Your data is not being collected directly by the NSA. It is first being collected by Google, Apple etc. (commercial companies) and then harvested by the NSA and FBI. If you're worried about what would happen if Huawei sold your data then shouldn't you also be worried about Apple, Google etc. selling your data?

Still more worried about Huawei. I ‘trust’ Apple and Google more... yeah they’ll use my data... but I don’t think they’ll sell it to criminal organizations, I am concerned that Huawei might do this.

You think that Huawei - one of the biggest, most high-profile companies and scrutinised companies in the world - is going to collect personal data of millions of its customers and sell that data to 'criminal organisations'? What possible reason would they have for doing that?

Maybe you're also concerned that Bank of China is taking money out of European customers' accounts and sending it straight to ISIS for them to buy bombs with?

Maybe. I don’t know.

Christ.