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Comment by S_A_P | Hacker News Reader

I disagree- I think Huawei would have to defeat the notion that their products have a backdoor that allows the Chinese government to directly access them and spy on/ attack the US. I think the stigma of made in china being cheap or second rate is largely gone now and replaced with the fear of china is gunning for us.

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They even offered their source code for the government for review, but Australian govt refused. They clearly mean business, and not spying.

http://www.cso.com.au/article/440054/huawei_offers_australia...

You need to read Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

Merely having the source available for review is hardly a guarantee of safety, without a way to verify that what's embedded in the ROM and microcode is identical. And why should Australia pay to make this verification when it would bump the TCO higher than competing kit?

Eg, the problem of hardware backdooring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRxDvkKBMTc

http://www.extremetech.com/computing/133773-rakshasa-the-har...

Source for huaweis bid being more expensive?

There are ways to verify, surely, checksum builds/roms etc.

I'm not talking about Huawei's bid being more expensive.

I'm talking about the cost of hiring Australian-certified source code auditors, developers of software to be used to certify Huawei kit, ongoing re-certification of Huawei firmware updates, the time spent by regulators even worrying about this on an ongoing basis, etc., etc.

It all adds up to the total cost of ownership (TCO). So I feel sorry for Huawei but if people are truly worried about the Communist Party of China forcing them to sell pre-hacked kit then it's going to be a rough slog for them. Trust is easy to lose but hard to regain.

I think the stigma of made in china being cheap or second rate is largely gone now

Do you actually live in America, or are you just speculating? That's an absurd statement for someone who actually lives in the US.

Not really. I live in Houston, Tx. I cant say that aside from intentionally cheap things like disposible electronics or guitars, no real stigma exists from the people I associate with. I think that the nationalism surrounding all manufacturing leaving the US may upset people but I dont think that people find chinese goods "inferior" to anything...

Okay - quick test: would you feed your children (if you have them) food that was imported from China? Your average American citizen would say, "WTH is wrong with you? Of course not!"

Or how about this if you don't have kids: "Would you drive yourself across country in a Chinese made car with no other means for acquiring another car if there are severe problems with said car along the way?"

If you said, "Sure!", then I just really have no other choice to believe that you either have some bias, very little world/life experience (teenager, younger 20-something), a counter-bias against what you perceive as a bias, or an agenda going on. If you were of Chinese descent, for example, you might have an agenda/bias that would explain such a statement. If you were an idealistic teenager, you might be rebelling against the unfairness of the world with such a statement. If you were of Asian descent and felt some need to "protect" Asian heritage/reputations in America, you'd make such a statement. Any adult who has spent more than 10 years continuous time in the USA in the past 40 years just would not have such an opinion.

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