odysseus2000 wrote:Does anyone have first hand Information or a link as to whether the US complaints against 5G and Huawei are true or are they just trying to protect US manufacturers?
It's not entirely either. At least not directly.
The threat that started the whole thing off is entirely trumped up. The fact that sensitive data are encrypted makes it mathematically impossible for the Huawei gear widely used in our communications infrastructure for many years to spy on our communications. The post-hoc "it's not just spying on us" rationalisations are feeble, too.
But neither is it obviously about US manufacturers. Sure, delay 5G and they have some more time to catch up, but right now the nearest Western rivals to Huawei are not American at all, they're Scandinavian - Nokia and Ericsson.
There are some further possible reasons for this:
(1) The US government's own spying on us all. Historically they had "lawful intercept" built into network infrastructure. Encryption defeats that, and legislators have been arguing about how to deal with it: apart from the minority who genuinely believe in privacy, the argument is about what is possible, with a lot of wishful thinking about a government-only backdoor. The Aussie government recently passed the first overt backdoor legislation that pushes privacy to DIY.
The network infrastructure can't itself spy on encrypted traffic (unless the implementation of the encryption is defective). The role it could conceivably play is as an accomplice to a spy on your 'puter or 'phone, to help smuggle data home undetected. There's one government whose companies dominate Windows and Mac, Android and IOS, and it ain't China!
(2) An IP land-grab for the future. 5G deployment will lead to an explosion of new applications and devices. Most will be dross, but among them will be some gold, and the effort will give rise to lots of IP, and of course patents. The more Trump can hold back 5G deployment in Europe (and Asia), the more of that IP land-grab goes to US companies.