Robin Harris
Yes
or
No
David Gewirtz
Best Argument: No
Audience Favored: No (79%)
The moderater has delivered his final verdict.
Opening Statements
America needs strong competition
The House Committee's report is merely a Republican effort to look serious while pimping dollars from Cisco. It's Republicans who are blocking rules for corporate cyber security.Locking out Huawei and ZTE from the American market is bad for competition, bad for America, and bad for relations between the world's #1 and #2 economies. Only by integrating China into the world economy do we give them incentive to behave.
Companies are penetrated every day who don't have Huawei or ZTE. Cisco's bloatware is a standing invitation for hacking.
This isn't an all-or-nothing game. Huawei and ZTE should fund a US security lab, staffed by Americans with security clearances, to beat up their gear and test for backdoors. ALL large companies have Chinese R&D. The Chinese already have access to America's latest and greatest.
America needs strong competition in network gear. Cisco is praying we don't get it.
No reason to take a chance
What value do you place on your security and the security of your customers? That's really the question we're asking. I suppose it's possible that Huawei is a perfectly legitimate company. However, the House Intelligence Committee, acting with rare bipartisan agreement, recently warned against buying gear from Huawei and ZTE.Huawei was started by Ren Zhengfei who, as a former member of the Chinese military, was responsible for Chinese military telecommunications research. Huawei has sparked concern not just within the American government, but also in the governments of India and the U.K.
Because there are so many American technology providers who offer such exceptional equipment and services, there's absolutely no reason to take a chance on a highly-suspect vendor. Doing so puts your own data and that of your customers at risk. It may also prevent you from closing deals with customers unwilling to take a chance that your gear contains some kind of nasty Trojan Horse originating from a company initially funded by the Chinese government.
Talkback
watch the smart guys at work
How I wish that were true...
Oh how I wish that were true.
Robin mentions that
Good question - why haven't Huawei and ZTE offered that up? Are they afraid of something?
Thanks to melamine, lead, drywall,
Email Links
Must be because of a ...
Hungry...
Keep your friends close
To many GOOD American companies out there like Enterasys to bother with ZTE
Oy...
Also, David calls for Hauwei to be moved to completely open source. I doubt Cisco or other competitors would ever do that, so why should they?
Stryode, get real! That is an exploit, its going to be pretty tough for you to convince me that an EXPLOIT was put there purposely as a backdoor (esp, a buffer overflow). I mean, Windows has issues every time a new patch comes out, yet I don't see you questioning them.
I don't see you questioning Cisco Safeharbor for telling me NOT to update to a certain patch to ensure my network setup is stable.
It appears that once again the public can't distinguish GOVERNMENTS from CORPORATIONS. Yes, China is quite heavy handed in dealing with their own corporations as well as external corporations. But how many companies over here do research for the US government? How many former military men and cops are in high positions in the IT world in the US? How many corporations would fold if the government asked for information?
I agree with Robin, and add my own information:
It is a security professionals JOB to ensure that everything they put on their network is safe. NOT THE COMPANY THEY BUY FROM.
Also, it is a security professionals job to assume anything that is untested is unsecure.
Simple as that. It doesn't matter what company it came from, or what country. If your allowing compromised products on your network, your not doing your job. And sure, as scary as it sounds for an entire network to fall into the hands of the Chinese at the click of a button, use your technical knowledge and remember how improbable it is.