As someone from Europe, I certainly am at least equally uncomfortable with products from the US. Made in USA to me equals zero concept of privacy protection but plenty state surveillance (CLOUD Act, Cisco having hard coded back doors every two weeks etc.) and recently even lack of rule of law and even threats of annexation of European land and interference in domestic elections.
Sure, China will probably also spy and conduct industrial espionage, just as the US, but they appear to be a rational actor and have never threatened the sovereignty of European countries.
the US has a recent history of extra-terrestrial law enforcement, both in ally countries (kim dotcom, meng wanzhou), and non-ally countries (bin laden). that's the main fear. w.r.t. the US, everybody is at risk, all the time.
if you don't do anything wrong, you won't get into trouble, and out of 8 billion people in the world, only a handful of people get in trouble. the problem is, the definition of trouble can change.
Who can guarantee that the Cisco/UniFi or whatever Made in USA gear won't be a host to a state sanctioned "lawful interception software" politely pushed to many devices with the help of a National Security Letter?
Is this supposed to be some kind of gotcha? Of course this can happen. and not only I support it but I think they should do it more and use it to get a shot on any criminal or foreign power.
We can do it, but we shouldn’t expose ourselves for the possibility of our opponents doing it. That simple
Can you link to a source where that's demonstrated? If these devices have a backdoor surely both HN hackes and the NSA would have found it by now, right?
The same is true of any country, including the USA. Australia & the UK have laws to that effect, and the USA backdoored RSA and Juniper off the top of my head.
Unless you run purely open source, your only choice always has been which country had open slather to spy on you. There are no real contenders for open source phones right now, so for most of us guaranteed privacy was never a choice. (I have high hopes for Halium in the future, as I hate this.)
For those of us in East Asia or some country like Iran or Venezuela that the US likes to bomb periodically, China is the least objectionable spy master. Those of us in the West chose USA, as they were a reliable trusted ally. Then Trump arrived on the scene and make things complicated.
atwrk|3 months ago
Sure, China will probably also spy and conduct industrial espionage, just as the US, but they appear to be a rational actor and have never threatened the sovereignty of European countries.
princeb|3 months ago
if you don't do anything wrong, you won't get into trouble, and out of 8 billion people in the world, only a handful of people get in trouble. the problem is, the definition of trouble can change.
unknown|3 months ago
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bayindirh|3 months ago
falleng0d|3 months ago
We can do it, but we shouldn’t expose ourselves for the possibility of our opponents doing it. That simple
dontlaugh|3 months ago
Definitely.
tonyhart7|3 months ago
because in some parts of the world like middle east,south american,africa etc
the US is deemed more evil than china etc
Cthulhu_|3 months ago
Hendrikto|3 months ago
rstuart4133|3 months ago
Unless you run purely open source, your only choice always has been which country had open slather to spy on you. There are no real contenders for open source phones right now, so for most of us guaranteed privacy was never a choice. (I have high hopes for Halium in the future, as I hate this.)
For those of us in East Asia or some country like Iran or Venezuela that the US likes to bomb periodically, China is the least objectionable spy master. Those of us in the West chose USA, as they were a reliable trusted ally. Then Trump arrived on the scene and make things complicated.