So this research is based on a subset of 590 million or more CVs that were leaked by Chinese recruitment platforms. The author uses keywords like "华为", "Huawei", "People's Liberation Army" and "PLA" to identify people who worked for multiple institutions.

That seems like a great dataset for some statistical analysis, but unfortunately we aren't even told how large the subsets are. (The figure of 590 million is from a news report about the leak.) So it's hard to tell how large the problem is, and how it compares to other companies or countries.

The results are presented as three profiles based on three CVs from the leak, but edited to obscure their identity. It's only mentioned in the conclusion that the profiles are actually composites, which I take to mean that they combine information from multiple CVs each. That's unfortunate, because many of the claims rely on one and the same person being involved in multiple activities. We'll have to trust the author that those modifications do not embellish anything.

The three profiles are:

1. A software engineer in Huawei QA since 2011 who from 2012 on also held a research and teaching position with the PLA's National University of Defense Technology, working on signals, remote management and scripting. The paper claims that this places them within a branch of the Strategic Support Forces (who are responsible e.g. for cyber warfare). It's not clear to me whether that's something specific to that person, or whether any similar research at NUDT is classed that way. NUDT also does civilian research, e.g. Microsoft was criticized for publishing a paper on beauty estimation co-authored with NUDT researchers: https://ecommons.udayton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=107...

2. A Huawei engineer who was responsible for building lawful interception capabilities, working on roll-outs in multiple countries. He served as a representative for the Chinese Ministry of State Security on one project "likely guaranteeing project specifications". The author tries to imply that this was to grant the MSS access to other countries' networks, but alternatively Huawei simply has product managers responsible for communication with the law enforcement agencies doing the intercepting in their own country's networks. The author also tries to link that person to a "backdoor" in infrastructure of Vodafone Italy. However, Vodafone has denied the allegiations in the Bloomberg article he cites: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48103430

3. A network engineer who developed civilian and high-security military communication systems at CASTC, then worked at China Unicom for a year and then went to Huawei to lead network expansion projects. At CASTC, he gained expertise using Cisco and Nortel switches. The author construes this to imply that he assisted in espionage attempts involving fake Cisco routers.

Of the three, I'm going to classify 1. as harmless research (otherwise Microsoft is just as implicated as Huawei) and 3. as "person with security clearance changes jobs". 2. however at least supports this part of the paper's conclusion: "the institutional relationship between Huawei and Chinese state security services directly contradicts Huawei claims that they have no relationship with these services." Huawei should probably clarify those statements to mean that the relationship doesn't grant Chinese security services access to other countries' data.

A lot of people in this thread are complaining that the US does this to but does anyone seriously believe that having Huawei tech embedded in American infrastructure is a good idea?

Tons of former NSA persons work in the US private sector,especially within infosec.

It seems that many of the commenters here forgot about the arrest of Huawei Poland's sales director suspected of spying: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46851777

It's sad to see these threads get quickly out of hand with emotions getting the best of some of the HN audience. I have been commenting from time to time in these threads, but it seems impossible at times to have rational discussion. I don't really feel strongly about China one way or the another, I just know they do not always uphold the same values as I do. (And so do many other things)

Anyway, I think it's important to look at this issue as a whole from also the viewpoint of the Chinese - to understand how the Chinese society works and why there is such strong emotional response when people start accusing China. Because I don't really have first-hand experience, I found these very interesting videos that I think are enlightening:

serpentza - How China stops Overseas Students Integrating

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uXreGimP-o

serpentza - China NEEDS an ENEMY to Survive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg2fUGBQDMQ

The author who is from South-Africa has been living in China for some time, and how he describes his life there is quite illuminating. In short: China seems to have mastered how to create an "us vs them" culture and blatantly aggravates their citizens to move their focus away from their internal problems. Well, I know it's a little bit tangential, but I thought it was quite interesting.

Can someone share the cited research? Twitter appears to be blocking Tor these days - what a disappointment:

> 403 Forbidden: The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it.

Arguing about which nation is spying on you better is like arguing about which cancer causing carcinogen is better for you. It all sucks and isn't going away anytime soon.

China will spy on you just as much as USA/Russia/UK/Israel/ad nauseum... if given the chance. So enjoy staring at your shiney tech and remember that any number of nation states are most likely staring back at you. Enjoy modern life.

My personal opinion is that I'm not at all surprised by this. The Chinese government is a one-party rule that controls all aspects of life. Criticize the government or the party there and you're gone. They would be foolish, with the things they're known to do, to not take advantage of such big opportunity to spy on many countries. I think it's very reasonable for western democracies to be careful before embedding Chinese (or any other authoritarian country) high tech in their infrastructure.

This is such bullshit. Head of an American online travel company based in Bangkok is Ex-CIA. Large rest of the C-suite is all Israeli Defence Forces. So now what?

So if a Chinese telecom wants to do business globally, it has to exclude all CCP members and avoid state intelligence personals all together?

I find it hard to take anyone seriously who posts their "breaking research" as a series of tweets; find the correct platform that fits your message; if you are a 10 year old girl, then a series of tweets might be fine.

so the take is do not have a job before working for Huawei. If there is someone working for American company before joining Huawei, American government is linked to Huawei :D

Also, there are large numbers of people in companies like huawei and cisco working on clandestine eavesdropping and "interception" is a public feature of the products. These people have to have close ties with users of the features.

wild - this thread appears to be brigaded by pro CCP posters

Forsooth, who would have guessed??

However with the same logic you can pretty much prove none if the big companies in the world is independent.

It is clear from the author other tweets, that he is on a mission..

So how long do you think he'll last until he magically disappears?