Inside Cyber Warfare - Jeffrey Carr [127]
[62] “Yuri Milner Will Clean Up The Internet,” InFox.ru, September 12, 2009.
[63] Email from Daniel Tench to Lewis Dvorkin re: Jeffrey Carr’s Forbes article, “Facebook Investor Leads New Russian Internet Police,” February 11, 2011.
[64] John Bonar, “Russia’s Mail.ru IPO a resounding success on London Exchange,” BSR, November 8, 2010, http://www.bsr-russia.com/en/mergers-acquisitions-a-ipos/item/1109-russias-mailru-ipo-a-resounding-success-on-london-exchange.html.
[65] “Digital Sky Technologies (‘DST’) Changes Name to Mail.ru Group,” Business Wire, September 16, 2010, http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/16/idUS43356+16-Sep-2010+BW20100916.
[66] Kevin O’Flynn, “Russia Launches Initiative To Police Internet,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, February 8, 2011, http://www.rferl.org/content/russia_laimches_initiative_to_police_internet/2301671.html.
[67] “Kremlin’s Plan to Prevent a Facebook Revolution,” The St. Petersburg Times, March 2, 2011.
Globalization: How Huawei Bypassed US Monitoring by Partnering with Symantec
Although the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) blocked Huawei’s effort to acquire 3Leaf,[68] and AT&T[69] was officially discouraged from purchasing equipment from Huawei by the National Security Agency, NSA, Huawei successfully formed a joint venture with Symantec in 2007 called Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. (HS). Huawei is the majority partner at 51% ownership. HS headquarters are in Chengdu, China. According to the Huawei Symantec website (http://www.huaweisymantec.com):
Huawei Symantec Technologies Co. Ltd. (Huawei Symantec) is a leading provider of network security and storage appliance solutions to enterprise customers worldwide. Our solutions are developed to keep pace with evolving risks and demanding availability requirements facing enterprises. As a joint venture, Huawei Symantec combines Huawei’s expertise in telecom network infrastructure and Symantec’s leadership in security and storage software to provide world-class solutions that address the ever-changing needs in network security and storage for enterprises.
A 2008 “Corporate Briefing”[70] describes the history, capabilities, and business goals of HS, one of which is to “build China’s first laboratory of attack and defense for networks and applications” (slide 12). This essentially means that Symantec, a major US information security company, is assisting China’s cyber security research in computer network attack and defense; research that has high potential for abuse by state and nonstate actors in the PRC.
In early 2010 HS formed two new joint ventures with US companies SYNNEX (http://www.synnex.com/) and Force10 Networks (http://www.force10networks.com/):
SYNNEX (NYSE:SNX): “As part of this agreement, SYNNEX will distribute Huawei Symantec’s storage and security products to its resellers throughout North America.”[71]
Force10 Networks: “Huawei Symantec is pleased to establish this strategic partnership with Force10 Networks, and expects the relationship to further drive strong results for our existing North American customer base as well as tap into new business opportunities.”[72]
Both SYNNEX and Force10 Networks currently sell to the US government. Force10 Networks’ website says it sells its products to “...defense, intelligence and civilian agencies to advance the bandwidth needs and reliability demands of government IT infrastructure while ensuring the economics and performance of mission critical networks.” Since Huawei’s growth strategy includes financial support from Chinese banks, enabling Huawei to offer very low-cost bids on key contracts, and since many governments (including India and the United States) have legal provisions requiring them to go with the lowest bidder, these partnerships provide an apparently winning strategy. SYNNEX and Force10 Networks secure government sales thanks to Huawei Symantec’s low manufacturing costs—and HS’s name never appears on the contract.
In May 2011 Huawei Symantec secured its first high-performance storage cluster win: the University