Comment by edraferi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by edraferi | Hacker News Reader

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I think your analysis is correct. Before jumping to the “US is a bully” narrative, one should consider:

- they whole problem here is that Hauwei and other state-sponsored Chinese firms are flooding the market with below-cost, compromising devices in order to give the Chinese government broad access to sensitive information [0]

- Hong Kong is dying under the Chinese boot [1]

- China is running concentration camps [2]

Our community isn’t used to thinking about open source software - or technology in general- in the context of geopolitics. We seem to agree IBM was wrong to help the Nazis manage the Haulocaust [3] but don’t apply that logic to China. Yet. Maybe our children will; that’s on us.

This is another skirmish in the long war around the Chinese Rise. America is by no means perfect, but I think we’ll miss Pax Americana when it’s gone. We need to search our souls and find our spines.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/17/18264283/huawei-security-...

[1] https://www.vox.com/2019/11/18/20970453/hong-kong-protests-2...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/fina...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

> Our community isn’t used to thinking about open source software - or technology in general- in the context of geopolitics

I'm old enough to remember when open-source distributions had special "non-US" sections for cryptography that actually worked.

All I ask is that if you have a "this software may not be used to run an internment camp" license, it gets even-handedly applied.

Open-source crypto has no export controls. Private crypto by Raytheon, Lockheed and others has export controls

That was not what people believed at the time, and indeed I don't think any of the relevant laws have ever mentioned "open source" or similar. It's actually still in force, it's just that there are large enough exemptions for HTTPS to work.

e.g. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/complying...

> they whole problem here is that Hauwei and other state-sponsored Chinese firms are flooding the market with below-cost, compromising devices in order to give the Chinese government broad access to sensitive information [0]

Spying aside ( probably - just like US firms ) - isn't the real reason this is an issue at all is because Huawei actually has a technological lead.

Even this very biased article acknowledges that lead. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/12/huawei-china-5g-race-te...

To paint them as winning because they are 'flooding the market with below-cost' is frankly xenophobic - note they have out innovated - not copied - you can't copy yourself a technological lead.

The US appears in panic - imagine a world where CISCO kit ( a company that has obligations to the US state ) isn't installed everywhere - rather some other countries stuff.

If you want to constrain China, then you have to accept the rules that constrain everyone. The time where the US can lord it over everyone ( for better or worse ) is coming to an end - just as the British empire came to an end.

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