Huawei has a point when it says that it will committing commercial suicide if it let the Chinese put a spy back door.
My take is all the issues about Chinese Spying via Huawei gears are protectionist/scaremongering move. In other words business strategy dressed up as bogus national security concerns.
Western agencies are perfectly capable of vetting the gears without having to do what NSA did, i.e., hacking into Huawei to examine the source code.
It is, however, possible that Huawei’s relative lack of experience means their products is more vulnerable to hacking and so anyone, western and eastern spy agencies alike, can hack into it more easily than gears from established player.
Also there is nothing to say another Western Intelligence Agency did not plant anything on their gear when they are shipped off to friendly countries.
Therefore, Huawei’s gear is no different from similar gears from other supplier.
After so much ranting, I am getting to the reason for this post: While Huawei “commercial suicide” theory has a point, and after stripping away the protectionist interest and look at the gears in a more rational approach, Huawei still have a problem: people just don’t trust the company. That is why accusation like these has legs.
Huawei probably does not have a choice but to grin and bear it for now. I do not think it can ever get out of this trust issue, but the distrust will dilute away with time, especially if there is no scandal along the way.
CyberTech Rambler 