Is China Wiring Africa for Surveillance?

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Some in the US have long expected that China's massive?telecom company?Huawei?is developing tools for the Chinese government?to commit cyber-espionage?around the world. Now that?Huawei's?getting serious about its?expansion?into?Africa, eyebrows are being raised again.

In 2012, a House committe?labeled?Huawei?a national security threat, and the US government has accused the firm of nefarious surveillance practices many times in the last several years. That includes?accusing it of?helping the Iranian government?monitor its citizens and quash dissent, and having ties to the Taliban. Each time the company has?denied the allegations,?and government investigations consistently?fail to turn up?any hard evidence.?

But now?Huawei?has invested billions of dollars in Africa over?the last two decades, providing?affordable cell phones, internet access,?and telecommunications networks to the continent. Over the last few months?Huawei?has closed major deals in Africa to get more areas?on the grid.?The company?says?it's?bridging the digital divide, but others suspect?it's?wiring the continent for surveillance.

The loudest concerned party is former?NSA?and CIA?head Michael Hayden, who has repeatedly raised warning flags about?Huawei's?suspected espionage. "The Chinese see themselves in a global economic competition with the United States, and they see real advantages of at least having the possibility of exploiting African?networks in the future," he told?Foreign Policy?yesterday.?

At this point,?Huawei?supplies back-end telecommunications equipment?wi-fi?routers, mobile networks, communications hardware?to?a third of the world. The thinking goes that if you build the infrastructure, you can easily build backdoors to get in and ascertain information. And not only is China laying the brick, so to speak. In many cases it's also running the networks for the African governments. If the allegations are true that?Huawei?provides a direct line to Beijing, it's about to have a huge peep hole into Africa.

"Even if there aren't any backdoors, which is a large hypothesis, just the Chinese state having access to the architecture of your system is a tremendous advantage for the Chinese should they want to engage in any electronic surveillance, any electronic eavesdropping," Hayden told FT.

Earlier this month, Hayden again?accused?Huawei?of spying at the Chinese government's behest, saying he had the evidence to back it up, but?the company?fired back, calling the allegations? "tired, unsubstantiated, and defamatory."?

Hmm, government backdoor access to data through communications technology. Where would the?NSA?get an idea like that? It could be tempting to assume that 40 years in the CIA and?NSA?is making Hayden see spies around every corner, but whether or not?Huawei?is involved, the Chinese government has been?named the world leader in cyber-espionage.

Evidence or no, the suspicions are strong enough that?regulators?continue?to block?Huawei?from entering the US market, despite the manufacturer's best efforts to break in.?

Source: http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/is-china-wiring-africa-for-surveillance

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