China's Huawei Banned from Aussie 5G

[Black Orchid]

The head of Australia's most secretive electronic spy agency has revealed Australia's "entire" emerging 5G mobile communications network could have been threatened if Chinese electronics giant Huawei had not been banned from supplying equipment.

Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) chief Mike Burgess has told Canberra's national security community "my advice was to exclude high-risk vendors from the entirety of 5G networks" because "a potential threat anywhere in the network is a threat to the whole network".

On the last full day of Malcolm Turnbull's prime ministership and on the eve of the Liberal party room decision to elect Scott Morrison, the government quietly announced the decision to block Huawei and another Chinese firm, ZTE, providing components into the next-generation networks being built by the major telecommunications companies.

Since the August upheaval, the Morrison Government has provided little further explanation as to why these "high-risk vendors" represented an unacceptable risk to the multi-billion-dollar 5G rollout.

In a speech titled "Coming out from the shadows", Mr Burgess set out to explain ASD's role and thinking behind the ban on Chinese involvement.

The decision was "not taken lightly" and was "supported by technical advice from our agency", Mr Burgess said.

Noting that 5G technology will be at the centre of applications ranging from driverless cars to power and water supply, the computer engineer declared "the stakes could not be higher".

"This is about more than just protecting the confidentiality of our information — it is also about integrity and availability of the data and systems that we rely on in our everyday lives.

In earlier versions of mobile and fixed communications networks, ASD has found ways to manage risky suppliers by locking them out of providing "core" elements, but its director general has concluded this was impossible to do with 5G where "the distinction between core" and the less significant "edge" of the network is hard to define.

A vulnerability in any single part could jeopardise the entire network.

Without mentioning China at any moment in his speech, Mr Burgess also planted seeds of doubt about the number of security pressure points that could be applied on Australia's critical infrastructure systems from the rise of high-tech industrial manufacturing in Asia.

The former Telstra executive observed that Australia's openness to trade "changes the industrial base we rely on for critical infrastructure".

"We will need to be open-eyed on the potential threats that any significant change of this kind poses to Australia's most important interests," he said.

Mr Burgess did not spell out which critical infrastructure drawn from foreign sources could pose a "potential threat", but previous decisions by the Government's Foreign Investment Review Board have halted deeper Chinese ownership of electricity assets as well as prohibiting Huawei from key sections of the National Broadband Network.

His comments suggest Australia may need to be more vigilant about the origins of all technological components within critical infrastructure, which is not only limited to communications and energy but also takes in health equipment, banking, traffic control systems, aviation and food transport and storage. Duhh!!

"5G is just one example of perhaps other technologies we need to think about and understand where those supply chains for those technologies may be and whether or not that represents a risk for us."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-30/ ... n/10444064

[FLEKTARN]

I heard that Huawei's batteries were pretty shitty.

[Black Orchid]

I have a Huawei modem but I didn't choose it. It was what my ISP provided.

[FLEKTARN]

Your ISP gave you "a deal" on a Huawei? I can guess how "good" that deal was. I get offered shit the same way here and I always refuse. I never get loan on anything, not even a phone.

[Black Orchid]

No deal. When you sign up with any ISP they provide you with their preferred modem.

[Neferti]

No deal. When you sign up with any ISP they provide you with their preferred modem.

Mine's an iiNet special. 14 years and they haven't annoyed me, yet.

[FLEKTARN]

ISP's modems are rubbish. I use TP-LINKs.

[brian ross]

No deal. When you sign up with any ISP they provide you with their preferred modem.

No they don't. You are given a choice - their modem or your own. I prefer my one. However, I've always been a "roll your own" sort of bloke. Their modems are usually adequate, if a little on the cheap side. My router-hub is more upmarket. I have three running at the moment.

[Rorschach]

No bwian that is not true in all cases at all.

Your modem and operating need to be compatible for starters and Telstra just to name 1, definitely always do the modem thing unless you already have one of theirs that is still compatible

[Black Orchid]

They don't always give you a choice. In fact some refuse to give you support unless you use the modem they supply.

EDIT: Not only that, if you use their VOIP for your phone and don't use their modem they can refuse to give you the settings (or whatever they are) for the VOIP setup.