[close04]

Take it your mobile phone is built in Germany, with German components. ;)

It's just a matter of picking your poison. You think your Cisco router has no backdoors? Your Intel CPU? Your Windows OS? Your Gmail account?

This isn't about making you safer, it's about removing competition (as crappy as it may have been). And they eliminate competition both economically and in the spying game. The more companies there are that want to spy on you, the more you pay attention to security and you make life hard for everyone.

But phew, the spies were banned so no need to worry anymore :).

[roenxi]

Mmm. As an Australian, the main reason I'd be happy with using US telecom equipment would be the fact that Australia makes up 1/5th of the 5 eyes.

I'd expect our security people to have a very good idea of what backdoors are or are not present.

[lx3459683]

So US/AU government backdooring AU citizens is okay, but if China has access it's bad?

People actually think like this now? We just collectively rolled over and accepted mass surveillance?

[zby]

Even not looking on the democratic/dictatorship spectrum - outside interference will always be worse than what you get from insiders. Insiders at least depend on the country welfare - outsiders just don't give a fuck.

[close04]

And the US is an insider for AU... how? Because if the NSA brought any revelation it's that the US backdoored even their allies without them knowing.

I get choosing the least evil but this is a defense only as much as burning dows a building and saying "at least this little piece survived" is a defense.

[vermilingua]

Nope, FVEY was conducted very much with cooperation between the involved parties. We (Aus) have very close structural and cultural ties to the US, but China is approximately as foreign as it gets. The US may not be an insider per se, but in theory we share at least some core values.

(Not to say that I personally am ok with any of it, but from a societal perspective it makes a little sense.)

[BLKNSLVR]

But Australia's economic health relies far more on trade with China than it does with the US.

[BLKNSLVR]

I like the idea I've seen proposed elsewhere, that I'd rather be spied on by a government entity that's no allied with my government. Less chance of being black-bagged.

Luckily I'm an exceedingly boring person, so it won't happen either way, but it's still an interesting, and valid, point of view (pending ones travel plans).

[cs02rm0]

Maybe I have it wrong, but I'd prefer to have equipment from a rival of the 5 eyes.

If Huawei put a backdoor in the 5 eyes are incentivised to announce it and have it closed. If the 5 eyes want a backdoor in they're incentivised to not involve Huawei or their kit lest it be used against them.

A bit like sharing cake with my brother as a kid - one cuts, the other picks.

[close04]

That's exactly what I meant. Too much competition in the spying game means they'll all try to take each other out, or that people will start paying even more attention to security. Remove the competition and you can give the impression all is good and safe now.

[BLKNSLVR]

The UK is part of the 5-eyes and they've got Huawei gear deep in their critical infrastructure.

What I like is that the NSA actually hacked Huawei, and yet it's the Chinese company that we're fearful of being hacked by.

[bigcity]

As an EU citizen I certainly prefer to be spied on by a country with a working legal system.

[nunobrito]

An external country spying on you is not doing it for YOUR best interest, rather for the best interest of their own country and sometimes not even that much.

[lnls]

The US doesn't really have a working legal system for things happening outside its borders. In fact as a non US citizen outside the US you don't have much protection at all.

[lnls]

And as you can see by the downvotes, people are even ignorant of the fact that e.g. the bill of rights doesn't apply to people outside of the US. Which means no one in the US will even fight for you, which is even worse. This is exactly what you see happening today with the large tech companies where people working there are ignorant of effect of their own actions. The US already wire tapped much of the EUs financial transactions. Which they could do because it simply wasn't illegal by US law.

"It's also worth noting that as long as the agencies are focusing their activities on the actions of foreigners then there's not even anything illegal happening by our domestic laws."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/09/15/how-exce...

[JumpCrisscross]

> You think your Cisco router has no backdoors?

Accessible to a one-man dictatorship in Australia’s back yard? No. In any case, any backdoors in a Cisco product will be available to Canberra, a Five Eyes member.

[close04]

> Accessible to a one-man dictatorship in Australia’s back yard? No.

Are you qualified to make that statement? No. Just before every major hacking revelation someone like you victoriously claimed we're totally safe.

[jrockway]

What are the backdoors in my Gmail account?

[close04]

It's when nobody can read your Gmail emails except....