Hacker News Reader

Comment by aroman | Hacker News Reader

I'm sorry, but this strikes me as ridiculously ironic. A Chinese company complaining that they're having a hard time reaching consumers in the US market? Is that not EXACTLY the same situation that countless American companies (esp. "Big Tech") face when trying to enter the Chinese market? To pass this off as "US is hurting its consumers by eliminating choice" is laughable vs the INSANE concessions US companies need to make to operate in China — which create hugely unfair advantages for domestic Chinese companies.

Is privacy the big reason? The article cites privacy as one of the pressures that caused AT&T to abort the deal — US companies don't want to let the government eavesdrop on their products, and Chinese government doesn't want US products and services that prevent the Chinese government from eavesdropping.

View on HN

It's really hard for me to feel bad for them at all. China loves to:

- Spy, eavesdrop wherever they can. Forcing vendors to turn over server controls to them.

- Constantly duplicate, steal other companies work.

- Create unfair advantages of China companies vs US companies.

- Can't forget the Great China Firewall!

Huawei is untrustworthy anyway, good riddance. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei#Espionage_and_security_...

Is ATT really better? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A Does the US not do any of those things? e.g. https://gizmodo.com/the-nsa-actually-intercepted-packages-to...

Dude called out the US for generally lacking on the mobile front, and I don't think he's wrong. Our mobile broadband speeds are terrible for a developed country largely because of the mobile carrier (and wired broadband) oligopoly.

If the CEO of Nokia said the same thing, would it be any more or less valid just because of the policies of the country that they're based in?

edit: typo

> Is ATT really better?

Yes. This is Communist China we're talking about here. They take eavesdropping to the next level.

> Dude called out the US for generally lacking on the mobile front, and I don't think he's wrong. Our mobile broadband speeds are terrible for a developed country largely because of the mobile carrier (and wired broadband) oligopoly.

You don't know what you're talking about. China's mobile network is a frigging state-owned oligopoly that, the favored carrier of which uses a weird and inferior TD-SCDMA protocol purely for political reasons. We've got it good compared to them. Source: https://www.samizdata.net/2012/06/here-is-the-rac/

> You don't know what you're talking about.

Whoa there. That escalated quickly.

You're absolutely right about the protocol, but protocol does not a complete wireless ecosystem make. You could have a shitty protocol and happy customers, or a great protocol and upset customers.

Also, just because two industries are dominated by oligopolies doesn't mean that consumers in both are suffering the same. One can put the customers' interest slightly ahead of another. It's like having the assumption that authoritarianism automatically means people are suffering. It's just unhealthy and unstable. Every once in a while you can still get benevolent dictators doing something nice ;)

Just from personal experience, I know the cell phone fees in China are a lower % of people's incomes than here. The speeds aren't amazing (but that's probably because I rarely browse any domestic sites while in China). But I've also never had a dropped call or lack of signal until I got waaaaaaaay out in the mountains / rural parts of China, where as here I will still occasionally get my calls dropped or have spotty reception near a well-populated suburb.

Trusting a Chinese company requires trusting the Chinese government. No thanks

How about we put it this way: Both Chinese and US consumers lose when their respective governments engage in arbitrary protectionism. You can find his comments "ironic" all you want, that doesn't mean his complaint doesn't have any merit.

It's like if Kid A complained about how getting bullied by Kid B's older brother sucks and you're like HA your complaint is laughable and insane because Kid A's brother is a bully, too!

If you presented evidence on why it's reasonable to suspect Huawei for being complicit in espionage in their hardware devices (and why other countries don't seem to be that worried about it), then you'd have a compelling counterpoint.

There is tremendous evidence. Here are some of the first search results for "Huawei espionage":

[1] Former head of CIA: Huawei engaged in espionage for Chinese state:

https://www.csmonitor.com/Technology/2013/0719/Former-head-o...

[2] Huawei spied, US federal jury finds:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/huawei_spied_us_jur...

[3] U.S. Suspicions of China's Huawei Based Partly on NSA's Own Spy Tricks

https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/us-su...

I agree entirely with your point that there is fault on both sides here. That's precisely what makes it ironic (see [3], in particular!). A better analogy would be that Kid A is bullying Kid B, and in response, Kid B starts bullying back. Ideally, this causes Kid A to "get a taste of his own medicine" and stops bullying Kid B.

That's how I hope the situation will end up, at least.

Right, your cited sources would actually be a more sound counterpoint than your original comment. Maybe it was just a spur of the moment thing. I guess my point is that if you want to get across the point that Huawei's comments are ironic, then attacking from the angle that there's good reason for AT&T to pull out of the deal and for the US govt to be suspicious would be much more effective.

The Kid A vs Kid B isn't really the situation here as it's the CEO of a company from country A complaining about country B influencing the decisions of a company from country B. That's why injected the bullying older brothers to help with the analogy. If Huawei actually screwed over AT&T in the past and now AT&T pulls out of a deal with Huawei and Huawei complains, then the Kids A/B bullying each other would be an accurate analogy.

Incidentally I've seen the Chinese government basically hype up problems or impropriety of foreign companies (e.g. Apple) in the past in order to bully them in to compliance. I'm not saying that the US government is doing the same thing to Huawei here, but the cynic in me also isn't ruling that angle out either :/

>US companies don't want to let the government eavesdrop on their products, and Chinese government doesn't want US products and services that prevent the Chinese government from eavesdropping.

Rather, US companies get pressure from the government to make it so that only the US eavesdropping works on devices. ATT has quite a history here. I don't think he's wrong; why are most devices here only available through carriers?

http://time.com/money/4808996/fastest-internet-countries-mob...

   We’re #28. Among the 62 countries included in the latest 
   State of the Internet Report from Akamai Technologies, the 
   United States ranks 28th for average mobile Internet 
   speed.

China puts their thumb on the scale when it comes to foreign companies operating in China, true. Does that mean that us doing the same is the best course of action? Many US companies practice profit offshoring, tax evasion / minimization, and lobbying to reduce their tax costs.

I don't believe that trying to look at this through the lens of ~what country is more hypocritical is very useful. US mobile broadband sucks, US mobile carriers suck, and the market for phones here for consumers isn't as good as it could be.

> story here. I don't think he's wrong; why are most devices here only available through carriers?

This is a rather facetious argument backed by the unsubstantiated premise that if most devices are “only available through carriers,” that it must be a ploy to integrate more citizens into the surveillance apparatus.

It may indeed be true that consumers relying on phone contracts to purchase their devices unavoidably become trapped in a net of surveillance. However, attributing that to malice on the part of the carriers is intellectually irresponsible.

The carriers offer “discounted” phones, quite simply, because they make more money that way, due to financing agreements and contractual lock-in. Perhaps a side effect is consumers locking themselves into surveillance. But it’s irresponsible to posit that this result, a side effect, is also the motivator behind the contractual schemes. The carriers offer these options for one reason and one reason only: because it makes them money.

finally some quid pro quo

Reply on news.ycombinator.com