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This morning, ARM announced that it was breaking ties with Huawei, in order to "comply with all the latest regulations enacted by the US government." This is a disaster for Huawei's device business, which prevents it from accessing current and future chip designs. and coming on the heels of similar breaks from Google and Microsoft. Huawei has big problems and we still do not know why.
Security experts have been warning Huawei for more than a year, but it was not until last week that these warnings turned into a total commercial blockade of the company's US partners. The US government has never fully explained why Huawei was such a threat, largely because of the interests of national security, which means that much of the evidence remains secret. But it's helpful to know exactly where the concerns come from and where they might go.
There are serious concerns about Huawei's provision of cellular network equipment
The first wave of concerns about Huawei was more about cell towers than cell phones. Huawei is one of the leading providers of network infrastructure (at the base of the hardware to which your phone is connected), alongside Ericsson and Qualcomm. While operators were eager to build 5G networks, legislators hastened to prevent Huawei 's hardware from entering construction.
There was never a solid trace of back doors in Huawei's cell towers – but, as the hawks saw, it was not necessary. As a hardware vendor, Huawei must be able to deploy software in the same way that Apple deploys iOS updates. But as long as there is a pipeline between Huawei's Chinese head office and cell towers in the United States, the Chinese watchdogs are likely to use it if they introduce malicious programs into the network, which they do it with the help of Huawei or pirate themselves. the middle. According to intelligence agencies, the risk was too great.
This may seem unfair, but it is at least a logical answer to a real problem. Cell networks are a very tempting target for espionage, and China has a long history of this type of espionage.
The ban on licensing Android and other components seems more like a business problem, not a security issue.
But what happened last week goes much further and does not make as much sense. The order on Friday forbids US companies to deal with Huawei, which led Google and a series of other companies to cut ties. But this rule has to do with that American companies to sell, not what they buy. As Huawei does not sell phones in the United States, the most popular Huawei products concerned would never be shipped here.
As a result, it is difficult to see in the last action the protection of the interests of national security. Revoking Huawei's Android license is irrelevant to US network equipment and Huawei's access to ARM chip designs. Instead, one has the impression that Huawei's device-related business has become collateral damage in a broader fight against 5G.
By hastily invoking emergency powers, the White House largely avoided publicly justifying the need for blacklisting, a move that has already caused political damage. However, the simplest explanation is that Huawei is too misbehaved to trust years of discrete IP infringement and theft of trade secrets.
But if that is the problem, this could pose a worrying problem to Chinese companies in the future, especially given the extended scope of the decree. It made sense to target the ban on infrastructure in Huawei because it was the only Chinese company to be able to plausibly build a network infrastructure for the United States. But if it is a predatory behavior of Chinese companies, many other companies could be exposed. The same Corning glass as that sent to Huawei will be sent to Xiaomi; The same Intel processor in Huawei's MateBook is also present in many Lenovo laptops. The question is to know where the White House wants to plead its case and how China will react.
For more, watch the video above.
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