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293 points doener | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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BrandoElFollito ◴[] No.23832631[source]
All providers had their infamy moment at some point, leaving a backdoor behind.

Maybe for spying, maybe because QA failed.

Huawei is on the US radar but somehow when Cisco left a backdoor on some routers it was "just a mistake".

Every country is guilty of stabbing in the back others (occasionally or all the time), it has been the case for centuries and is not likely to change.

I am French, we do not have our own tech so we get stuff from everyone around - we are probably in the worst spot from that perspective.

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VWWHFSfQ ◴[] No.23840528[source]
I've wondered how EU people feel about things like this. Euros have been inundated with "Americana" for the last 40 years or so. They watch TV shows about Americans, movies about Americans. They use American social media networks. It's like a culture-overload like USA is always "in your face". USA never had any problem with Skype as a Danish company being used by a significant number of Americans. But TikTok, a Chinese company, is stirring up national security issues.
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arp242 ◴[] No.23840679[source]
I think the issue is that the United States – for all its faults and Snowden leaks and whatnot – can still be trusted, somewhat, to do the right thing. There clearly are trust issues (for good reasons) but I would sure trust the US gov't more to not install backdoors in equipment private companies deliver to befriended foreign nations.

China, on the other hand, has no clear separation between the state and large private companies, and has a state which does not acknowledge basic human rights in a myriad of ways. Again, the US is not perfect here either, but it sure is better.

Personally, I wish Europeans would use more, well, European equipment for this kind of stuff. This isn't out of some nationalistic sentiment (I have no problems using foreign equipment as such), but given the state of the world's affairs and the direction I fear it might be heading, a strong and independent Europe will probably be more important than ever in the coming decades.

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1. DiogenesKynikos ◴[] No.23852927[source]
One lesson from Snowden's leaks is that the US is engaging in surveillance on supposed allies - not just enemies. This includes intercepting and modifying network equipment during delivery (Tailored Access Operations), and intercepting internal government communications of allies during trade negotiations. The consequences of the latter are quite significant, since knowing the other side's strategy and bottom line gives the US a serious leg up in negotiations.