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 Bain and Huawei's $2,2bn first attempt to buy out 3Com has been amended with a second offer, under which the Chinese networking giant and the Investment Fund plan to gain control of the American networking giant, but having "limited access" to 3com's security products. This amendment has been introduced after the Treasury's Committee on Foreign Investments launched an investigation aimed to block the deal, fearing possible implications in having a Chinese company so much close to key security products, currently used by the American government's IT infrastructures.
Further skepticism was raised by those who didn't forget that Huawei's founder Mr. Ren Zhengfei was also a former Chinese People Liberation Army officer...
As a security professional, I am involved in the WSL startup, the company which is aiming to re-design
the security research market cycle, introducing the concept of an open
auction marketplace through which the security researchers' job should
be properly valued. When the Swiss-based WSL project was launched,
several observers labeled it as "controversial" or in worst cases as
"fishy".
"Who the hell are they?" - "They might be a front-end of a criminal organization" , words were spent.
Eye-browses were raised even by the same Tipping Point, the security
company belonging to 3Com, which is currently purchasing 0day exploits
from researchers.
Speculations on the opportunity of letting a Chinese company purchase
Tipping Point (which sells intrusion prevention technology to the US
government) through the 3Com buyout are too easy. Actually the
discussion is still open as apparently Huawei proposed
to spin-off Tipping Point before the completion of the 3Com acquisition
procedures.
Regardless this latter proposal and the related market's reaction which
might or might not welcome this marriage between IT giants, we should
all be concerned about the possible implications in having a Chinese
networking company controlling one of the largest western producer of
network and security appliances.
Here both stakes and risks are too high.
The question is: WHO OWNS YOUR DATA?
If your answer to this question was "ME", then we are sorry to wake you
up abruptly from your dreams. The owners of your data are (in order)
1) the producer of the network hardware, who knows very well that all
the today's companies rely on the data transmission through the
Internet. Your data might be secret, securely stored and encrypted, but
sooner or later they WILL pass through a sort of network appliance
(being it a network card or a router). The only entity which can
certify what was embedded at the hardware level (read: spyware-free) in
such network appliances during the production process.... is the same
hardware producer.
2) your ISP, as most of your data are transmitted in clear, therefore interceptable
3) the government, as data retention laws are getting tougher and tougher
4) your data-center administrator, who might decide to run away with your data.
5) the hacker, who probably already compromised your data-center and is
comfortably sitting on your hardware since a couple of years
6) ... probably you.
What's the menu today?
America's network cards in Tze Chuan sauce?
No, thanks.
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