Sunday, November 06, 2016

Sunday Snippet - Canberra Times on NBN Chinese purchases

I blinked at this story, Revealed: China's Communist Party link to NBN. The story begins.
More than 1 million Australian homes and businesses have been connected to the National Broadband Network by components made in a Shanghai factory controlled by China's Communist Party.
The revelation comes at a time when China is suspected of mounting massive cyber-espionage attacks on Australia and after successive Labor and Coalition governments banned Chinese company Huawei from NBN involvement on security grounds.
Fairfax Media has confirmed that NBN contractor, France's Alcatel-Lucent, used its Shanghai-based subsidiary to make fibre optical and copper components used to link homes and businesses to the network.
Read with the cartoon, it suggests that a security risk has been created because the NBN has been buying "fibre optical and copper components used to link homes and businesses to the network" To support the allegation, the story contains a mix of information that actually has very little or anything to do with the primary allegation. Indeed, the story does not contain a single specific piece of evidence relating to the components in question.  

Do I believe that the Chines Government might use state controlled or influenced enterprises for espionage purposes? Yes. But that is a completely different issue from the sloppy reporting in this piece. 

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