Fake Photos, thanks Huawei

Huawei's new motto is "Activate Intelligence".

Coming from a company that flat-out admitted to stealing Cisco source code for their OS,

Huawei Admits Copying Code From Cisco in Router Software

And then lying about it years later-

Huawei and Cisco's Source Code: Correcting the Record

I would be hesitant to buy anything from a company that sells a device that can monitor your every move and can "Activate Intelligence" on you. Faking photographs using a DSLR- maybe it is just the corporate culture.
 
If Bose or anyone else starts selling Internet connected speaker systems with built in cameras and microphones, I'll avoid them.

Some Alexa customers learned that the hard way.

Amazon's Alexa Hacked To Surreptitiously Record Everything It Hears

I used to tell friends, "This is what happens when you use software that you did not even write yourself".

You can download the source code and test files for Huawei Android based phones. It expands to about a GByte on disk, That is insane.
 
Well, the real problem isn't so much the software as it is the concept of perpetually connected Internet Devices/Internet of Things.

After Security, Privacy takes a distant Third to considerations in design. Most consumers won't take the time to understand cascade implications when buying or using electronics that are IoT. I love spinning up older relatives as to the possibilities of what happens to their information when they speak into their Voice Controlled Cable Box controllers. :rolleyes-74:
 
I've used the Internet since 1980, it has its uses.

Blindly trusting devices that can watch your every move, "be an educated consumer" comes to mind.

Australia banned the use of Huawei equipment in their 5G infrastructure.

Australia bans Huawei and ZTE 5G networks

"Good on you, Mate"

I'm sure faking the camera phone pictures was the last straw.
 
Well, not to turn this into a nation-bashing exercise, the end was nigh when IBM sold out Lenovo which in turn became a wholly owned Chinese holding. Ironically, I still see a LOT of Lenovo equipment in critical industries and government agencies. I just continue to shake my head and make sure I don't leave a big digital footprint on those machines. Unfortunately, my employer is one of them. Gack.
 
Well, not to turn this into a nation-bashing exercise, the end was nigh when IBM sold out Lenovo which in turn became a wholly owned Chinese holding. Ironically, I still see a LOT of Lenovo equipment in critical industries and government agencies. I just continue to shake my head and make sure I don't leave a big digital footprint on those machines. Unfortunately, my employer is one of them. Gack.
IBM still buys thousands of Lenovo laptops every year. Also plenty of Macbooks now, but the Thinkpad is still pretty much the standard device.
 
More on the Australian ban of Chinese telcos products,

Marise Payne defends 5G ban on Chinese telcos Huawei and ZTE

This is a good write up of the Chinese law being referred to.

China’s intelligence law and the country’s future intelligence competitions - Canada.ca

Think of it as the opposite of GDPR.

A 10 second Google Search on

Lenova Trojan

comes up with all the reasons necessary to avoid that company at any cost.

Lenovo’s Superfish Scandal Is One of the Worst Consumer Computing Screw-Ups Ever
 
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