{"id":14672,"date":"2019-01-06T13:55:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-06T20:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=14672"},"modified":"2019-01-06T13:55:08","modified_gmt":"2019-01-06T20:55:08","slug":"whats-the-worst-china-could-do-with-access-to-canadas-5g-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/?p=14672","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s the worst China could do with access to Canada\u2019s 5G network?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Any hostile power with the keys to 5G systems could spy, disrupt traffic and even poison water supplies if things got nasty, warn experts. Hence all the fear about Huawei.<\/h2>\n

by Aaron Hutchins<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Dec 19, 2018<\/p>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00a0Allowing Chinese firm Huawei Technologies to build Canada’s 5G wireless network could give Beijing backdoor access to revealing data about Canadians, security analysts warn.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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On a personal level, Daniel Tobok is a fan of Huawei technology. From Canada\u2019s national security standpoint, on the other hand, he has concerns over the location of the company\u2019s headquarters: the People\u2019s Republic of China.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuawei is not necessarily a bad company,\u201d says Tobok, CEO of the Canadian cybersecurity consulting firm Cytelligence. However, \u201cunder [China\u2019s] national security legislation, in particular Article 7, it clearly states that if the state feels that they need to access to data from a private entity, they can do so at any given time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In short: if Chinese authorities want access to Huawei data, they can have it, a scenario all the more worrying as Huawei continues to help\u00a0<\/strong>build the next generation of Internet, known as 5G, across Canada.<\/p>\n

Besides faster Internet speeds at home, 5G will open up the potential of interconnected devices: self-driving cars, remote surgeries, and streaming virtual reality. But if, hypothetically, relations between the two countries were to hit a rough patch, then Beijing could conceivably decide it wants access to any of that vital data spanning across Canada\u2019s 5G networks via Huawei.<\/p>\n

The potential for conflict between Canada and China was underscored earlier this month when\u2014at the request of American authorities\u2014RCMP arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou for fraud charges related to violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. Meng is currently out on bail but confined to Vancouver and facing potential extradition to America; China has since detained two Canadians, entrepreneur Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig, which many observers saw as a direct retaliation.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0Is America \u2018unhinged\u2019, or does its case against Meng Wanzhou have merit?<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In a worst-case scenario, where international relations devolved further while China held the technological keys to disrupt\u00a0Canada\u2019s 5G network, \u201cwe\u2019ll be dealing with a state-sponsored situation where someone can turn off the lights in the middle of winter. Turn off the power. Turn off the subway. Turn off everyone\u2019s cell phone,\u201d Tobok says. \u201cIt\u2019s scary.\u201d<\/p>\n

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By 2020, there will be more than 50 billion devices connected to the Internet, according to a recent study by Cisco Systems, the U.S.-based tech giant.\u00a0Already, Canadians use programs to remotely control their thermostats, lights, security systems and even the locks on their front doors.<\/p>\n

The first concern for anyone in Canada who happens to be on Beijing\u2019s radar\u2014a dissident of China, for example\u2014is espionage.<\/p>\n

In addition to providing networking equipment, after all, Huawei makes and sells its own smartphones. In this scenario, \u201cone of the concerns is you could target updates to individual phones\u2014updates that allow a third party to activate the microphone or camera,\u201d says Chris Parsons, a researcher with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto\u2019s\u00a0Munk School. Besides the ability to listen in on individuals\u2019 conversations, track them via GPS or monitor them via their own smartphone camera, Parson notes, \u201cyou can start feeding false data into it [the program], \u00a0and you can make someone\u2019s life really difficult: the door won\u2019t lock or the heat won\u2019t go on, so people in northern Canada\u2014or Ottawa for that matter\u2014can\u2019t work in their offices.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for protection, Tobok adds this isn\u2019t anything a fire wall or anti-virus software from McAfee can fix. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to create a doomsday scenario,\u201d Tobok says. \u201cBut it\u2019s something we don\u2019t think about. Once the infrastructure is in place, it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0On Huawei, Trudeau fails to assert the Canadian values he touts<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even Canadians who don\u2019t think they\u2019d be of any interest to Chinese authorities could be affected. \u201cIf you work for a company or university that does interesting research, or you\u2019re a commercial competitor of China, if you\u2019re involved in national security, those are the people they\u2019ll be going after,\u201d says James Lewis, senior vice president at the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.<\/p>\n

Those who work in high-tech field should also be concerned, Lewis adds, pointing to the downfall of the defunct Canadian telecommunications company Nortel. Ex-Nortel employees have long accused Huawei of industrial espionage<\/a>, copying new technology developed by Nortel and using government subsidies to sell the product for less. (Huawei has long denied these claims,\u00a0<\/strong>and it\u2019s important to note that Nortel\u2019s demise was ultimately brought about by financial mismanagement and an accounting scandal.)<\/p>\n

If China were to gain access to new intellectual properties coming out of Canada\u2014via Huawei\u2019s 5G infrastructure\u2014thus saving costs of research and development, and then subsidize Chinese competitors in the same field, \u201c[Canadians] will be effectively doing research to help a competitor build a product at a lower price,\u201d Lewis says. \u201cThere\u2019s competitive risk to companies like Bombardier or artificial intelligence work at universities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The auto industry would also be at risk, especially with 5G powering the future of self-driving cars, explains Arthur Herman, a senior fellow at the Washington D.C.-based Hudson*<\/a> Institute. \u201cYour autonomous vehicle-makers and artificial intelligence software that power them involve an enormous amount of intellectual property\u2014especially in the early stages of development,\u201d he says. \u201cIf you have the means, through Huawei\u2019s control of 5G of that intellectual property flowing to somebody else\u2014flowing to China\u2014for use in its development in its technologies, that\u2019s a big problem.\u201d The Chinese government would be able to watch patterns of autonomous vehicles to track, say, government officials, or the supply chain of the military.<\/p>\n

This would lead to the second major concern of Chinese influence with its control over technologies connected to 5G networks in Canada: interrupting critical infrastructure services.<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0For once, Canada didn\u2019t cave in to Huawei<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Self-driving cars, when they become the norm on the roads, are a perfect case in point, Herman adds. \u201cIf for some reason\u2014let\u2019s say the result of growing international tension\u2014the Chinese could disrupt traffic patterns across Ottawa, Vancouver or Toronto,\u201d he says. \u201cYou pick the place, and they\u2019re able to interrupt the flow of data that makes your autonomous vehicle drive safely in traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huawei, it should be noted, is not a new entity in Canada. Their smartphones have been for sale across the country for years. They\u2019ve partnered with Bell and Telus to test 5G technology, and the company is a presenting sponsor for Hockey Night in Canada<\/em>, the rights to which are owned by Rogers (the parent company of\u00a0Maclean\u2019s<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very easy to sell certain arguments about spying and back doors, but the reality is the company\u2019s been here for 10 years and there\u2019s never been an issue in Canada,\u201d says Scott Bradley,\u00a0Huawei Canada\u2019s\u00a0vice-president for corporate affairs. \u201cThe company is in 170 countries around the world and there\u2019s never been a documented incident of Huawei doing anything that retired spy officials love to accuse the company of.\u201d If anything, Bradley notes, his company has \u201czero margin for error\u201d with its operations in Canada.<\/p>\n

And yet, three of the five countries in the \u201cFive Eyes\u201d intelligence-sharing alliance\u2014the U.S., Australia and New Zealand\u2014banned Huawei from their country\u2019s 5G networks over national security concerns. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security has noted a government review of 5G networks<\/a> and technology is underway, and that \u201c[the Communications Security Establishment] and the Cyber Centre work closely with a wide range of partners and stakeholders\u2014domestically and internationally\u2014and will continue to contribute to the development of cyber security best practices that can be promoted in the interests of Canada\u2019s national and economic security.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the question of whether Canadians should worry about Chinese legislation opening a back door to Canada\u2019s networks, Huawei\u2019s Bradley says \u201cCanada doesn\u2019t base how they do their security on the laws of any other country. Canada bases their national security based on what Canada thinks is in their best interest. I guarantee you, if that [Chinese] law suddenly disappeared tomorrow, the guidelines from Ottawa wouldn\u2019t disappear.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll these issues\u2014mass disruption, mass data collection\u2014and how do you deal with them? What steps do you put in place to deal with them? That\u2019s been in place for nine years,\u201d says Bradley. \u201cIt\u2019s a new issue to some people, but it\u2019s not new to the [Canadian] government.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, penned an op-ed for the Globe and Mail<\/em><\/a>, about the double standard his country faces with regards to telecommunications security.\u00a0\u201cIf Huawei\u2019s telecom equipment poses a security risk, so do the devices produced by Western telecom equipment manufacturers, since they use the same science and technology. To find out who poses the biggest threat to the security of other countries, please refer to the United States\u2019 PRISM program,\u201d Lu wrote, referring the U.S. National Security Agency program that collects internet communications from American web companies like Google. \u201cThose who criticize China\u2019s Huawei should examine themselves in the mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tobok, the cyber security expert, says he isn\u2019t a futurist, but nonetheless predicts the battles of the future won\u2019t be done with tanks or warplanes. \u201cIt will be access to technology,\u201d he says. \u201cSomebody\u2019s fingers on a keyboard can do more harm than a million soldiers on a battlefield.\u201d<\/p>\n

An example?<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, a lot of water filtration systems work on computers,\u201d Tobok says. Those systems will add a certain amount of chlorine to destroy bacteria, fluoride for dental health and any other additive to keep the water healthy and safe to drink. \u201cIf we added more chemicals to the water supply, people would get sick, the hospitals would start getting full and then people would start dying.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/society\/technology\/whats-the-worst-china-could-do-with-access-to-canadas-5g-network\/<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Any hostile power with the keys to 5G systems could spy, disrupt traffic and even poison water supplies if things got nasty, warn experts. Hence all the fear about Huawei. by Aaron Hutchins Dec 19, 2018 \u00a0Allowing Chinese firm Huawei Technologies to build Canada’s 5G wireless network could give Beijing backdoor access to revealing data […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346,357,103,28,368,492,430,434,426],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5g","category-5g-antenna","category-canada","category-cell-tower","category-enode","category-gnode","category-huawei","category-millimeter-wave","category-small-cell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14672"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14673,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14672\/revisions\/14673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emrabc.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}