telecommunications
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TwelveSouth’s StayGo is the last USB-C dock you’ll ever need
The TwelveSouth StayGo is a new USB-C dock from a company that makes a ton of great and unique Mac and iOS device accessories. True to the company’s track record, it offers a slightly different take on a popular accessory category — and ends up excelling as a result.
The StayGo’s unique twist is a short USB-C to USB-C cable that slots right into a dedicated compartment on the dock, offering portable connectivity without any awkward stubby permanently attached cord. It also avoids the problem that direct USB-C dock connectors have, where they stick out and can potentially get damaged in your bag or scratch other stuff. There’s a second, three-foot cable included in the box, too, which you can conveniently just plug into your Mac at home if you switch between a desktop and a MacBook, or a Mac and an iPad.
It seems like a pretty simple thing, but having these two cables instead of just one, and the stowable short cable, make this far more convenient for anyone who travels or who does any out-of-home work at all. I’ve used a ton of these things, and StayGo is my clear favorite after having used it on a couple of trips over a month or so of testing.
I haven’t even talked about the ports yet — TwelveSouth nailed the right mix there, too, with three high-speed USB 3.0 ports, an Ethernet port, a USB-C connector (with pass-through charging at up to 85W), a 4K 30Hz HDMI port and both SD and microSD slots (which support UHS-I transfer speeds, and which can operate simultaneously). That’s just about everything a traveler or working photographer today needs, and nothing they don’t — all in a space-saving design that never makes you choose between it and other gear when you’re packing even the smallest bag.
In terms of performance, so far it’s been rock solid. There’s nothing worse than random unmounting of memory cards when you’re trying to transfer photos from a shoot, and the StayGo is definitely able to deliver solid, uninterrupted performance there. If I had any complaints, it’s that video output isn’t 60Hz, but that’s not really a necessary requirement for something that I’ll be using primarily to supplement my external monitor needs when I’m on the road, instead of a dedicated video connection for a video editing setup, for instance.
The StayGo can get a bit warm when operating, but it’s never been actually hot, and the aluminum case construction helps ensure it can shed excess temp quickly.
At $99.99 it may be a bit more expensive than some of the hubs you can pick up on Amazon, but in terms of reliability, specs, port load out and its interesting approach to blending portability and at-home convenience, TwelveSouth is more than justified in setting that price point for the StayGo.
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UK to toughen telecoms security controls to shrink 5G risks
Amid ongoing concerns about security risks posed by the involvement of Chinese tech giant Huawei in 5G supply, the U.K. government has published a review of the telecoms supply chain, which concludes that policy and regulation in enforcing network security needs to be significantly strengthened to address concerns.
However, it continues to hold off on setting an official position on whether to allow or ban Huawei from supplying the country’s next-gen networks — as the U.S. has been pressurizing its allies to do.
Giving a statement in parliament this afternoon, the U.K.’s digital minister, Jeremy Wright, said the government is releasing the conclusions of the report ahead of a decision on Huawei so that domestic carriers can prepare for the tougher standards it plans to bring in to apply to all their vendors.
“The Review has concluded that the current level of protections put in place by industry are unlikely to be adequate to address the identified security risks and deliver the desired security outcomes,” he said. “So, to improve cyber security risk management, policy and enforcement, the Review recommends the establishment of a new security framework for the UK telecoms sector. This will be a much stronger, security based regime than at present.
“The foundation for the framework will be a new set of Telecoms Security Requirements for telecoms operators, overseen by Ofcom and government. These new requirements will be underpinned by a robust legislative framework.”
Wright said the government plans to legislate “at the earliest opportunity” — to provide the regulator with stronger powers to to enforcement the incoming Telecoms Security Requirements, and to establish “stronger national security backstop powers for government.”
The review suggests the government is considering introducing GDPR-level penalties for carriers that fail to meet the strict security standards it will also be bringing in.
First policy response will be ‘soft’, common cybersecurity standards. Then regulations, with strict standards and #GDPR like fines. New powers allowing to compel telecoms to do something. And work to increase diversity. pic.twitter.com/nBLWneFUDK
— Lukasz Olejnik (@lukOlejnik) July 22, 2019
“Until the new legislation is put in place, government and Ofcom will work with all telecoms operators to secure adherence to the new requirements on a voluntary basis,” Wright told parliament today. “Operators will be required to subject vendors to rigorous oversight through procurement and contract management. This will involve operators requiring all their vendors to adhere to the new Telecoms Security Requirements.
“They will also be required to work closely with vendors, supported by government, to ensure effective assurance testing for equipment, systems and software, and to support ongoing verification arrangements.”
The review also calls for competition and diversity within the supply chain — which Wright said will be needed “if we are to drive innovation and reduce the risk of dependency on individual suppliers.”
The government will therefore pursue “a targeted diversification strategy, supporting the growth of new players in the parts of the network that pose security and resilience risks,” he added.
“We will promote policies that support new entrants and the growth of smaller firms,” he also said, sounding a call for security startups to turn their attention to 5G.
Government would “seek to attract trusted and established firms to the UK market,” he added — dubbing a “vibrant and diverse telecoms market” as both good for consumers and for national security.
“The Review I commissioned was not designed to deal only with one specific company and its conclusions have much wider application. And the need for them is urgent. The first 5G consumer services are launching this year,” he said. “The equally vital diversification of the supply chain will take time. We should get on with it.”
Last week two U.K. parliamentary committees espoused a view that there’s no technical reason to ban Huawei from all 5G supply — while recognizing there may be other considerations, such as geopolitics and human rights, which impact the decision.
The Intelligence and Security Committee also warned that what it dubbed the “unnecessarily protracted” delay in the government taking a decision about 5G suppliers is damaging U.K. relations abroad.
Despite being urged to get a move on the specific issue of Huawei, it’s notable that the government continues to hold off. Albeit, a new prime minister will be appointed later this week, after votes of Conservative Party members are counted — which may be contributing to ongoing delay.
“Since the US government’s announcement [on May 16, adding Huawei and 68 affiliates to its Entity List on national security grounds] we have sought clarity on the extent and implications but the position is not yet entirely clear. Until it is, we have concluded it would be wrong to make specific decisions in relation to Huawei,” Wright said, adding: “We will do so as soon as possible.”
In a press release accompanying the telecoms supply chain review the government said decisions would be taken about high risk vendors “in due course.”
Earlier this year a leak from a meeting of the U.K.’s National Security Council suggested the government was preparing to give an amber light to Huawei to continue supplying 5G — though limiting its participation to non-core portions of networks.
The Science & Technology Committee also recommended the government mandate the exclusion of Huawei from the core of 5G networks.
Wright’s statement appears to hint that that position remains the preferred one — barring a radical change of policy under a new PM — with, in addition to talk of encouraging diversity in the supply chain, the minister also flagging the review’s conclusion that there should be “additional controls on the presence in the supply chain of certain types of vendor which pose significantly greater security and resilience risks to UK telecoms.”
“Additional controls” doesn’t sound like a euphemism for an out-and-out ban.
In a statement responding to the review, Huawei expressed confidence that it’s days of supplying U.K. 5G are not drawing to a close — writing:
The UK Government’s Supply Chain Review gives us confidence that we can continue to work with network operators to rollout 5G across the UK. The findings are an important step forward for 5G and full fibre broadband networks in the UK and we welcome the Government’s commitment to “a diverse telecoms supply chain” and “new legislation to enforce stronger security requirements in the telecoms sector”. After 18 years of operating in the UK, we remain committed to supporting BT, EE, Vodafone and other partners build secure, reliable networks.”
The evidence shows excluding Huawei would cost the UK economy £7 billion and result in more expensive 5G networks, raising prices for anyone with a mobile device. On Friday, Parliament’s Intelligence & Security Committee said limiting the market to just two telecoms suppliers would reduce competition, resulting in less resilience and lower security standards. They also confirmed that Huawei’s inclusion in British networks would not affect the channels used for intelligence sharing.
A spokesman for the company told us it already supplies non-core elements of U.K. carriers’ EE and Vodafone’s network, adding that it’s viewing Wright’s statement as an endorsement of that status quo.
While the official position remains to be confirmed, all the signals suggest the U.K.’s 5G security strategy will be tied to tightened regulation and oversight, rather than follow a U.S. path of seeking to shut out Chinese tech giants.
Commenting on the government’s telecoms supply chain review in a statement, Ciaran Martin, CEO of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre, said: “As the UK’s lead technical authority, we have worked closely with DCMS [the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] on this review, providing comprehensive analysis and cyber security advice. These new measures represent a tougher security regime for our telecoms infrastructure, and will lead to higher standards, much greater resilience and incentives for the sector to take cyber security seriously.
“This is a significant overhaul of how we do telecoms security, helping to keep the UK the safest place to live and work online by ensuring that cyber security is embedded into future networks from inception.”
Although, tougher security standards for telecoms combined with updated regulations that bake in major fines for failure suggest Huawei will have its work cut out not to be excluded by the market, as carriers will be careful about vendors as they work to shrink their risk.
Earlier this year a report by an oversight body that evaluates its approach to security was withering — finding “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cybersecurity competence.
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Huawei 5G indecision is hitting UK’s relations abroad, warns committee
The U.K.’s next prime minister must prioritize a decision on whether or not to allow Chinese tech giant Huawei to be a 5G supplier, a parliamentary committee has urged — warning that the country’s international relations are being “seriously damaged” by ongoing delay.
In a statement on 5G suppliers, the Intelligence and Security committee (ISC) writes that the government must take a decision “as a matter of urgency.”
Earlier this week another parliamentary committee, which focuses on science and technology, concluded there is no technical reason to exclude Huawei as a 5G supplier, despite security concerns attached to the company’s ties to the Chinese state, though it did recommend it be excluded from core 5G supply.
The delay in the U.K. settling on a 5G-supplier policy can be linked not only to the complexities of trying to weigh and balance security considers with geopolitical pressures but also ongoing turmoil in domestic politics, following the 2016 EU referendum Brexit vote — which continues to suck most of the political oxygen out of Westminster. (And will very soon have despatched two U.K. prime ministers in three years.)
Outgoing PM Theresa May, whose successor is due to be selected by a vote by Conservative Party members next week, appeared to be leaning toward giving Huawei an amber light earlier this year.
A leak to the press from a National Security Council meeting back in April suggested Huawei would be allowed to provide kit, but only for non-core parts of 5G networks — raising questions about how core and non-core are delineated in the next-gen networks.
The leak led to the sacking by May of the then defense minister, Gavin Williamson, after an investigation into confidential information being passed to the media in which she said she had lost confidence in him.
The publication of a government Telecoms Supply Chain Review, whose terms of reference were published last fall, has also been delayed — leading carriers to press the government for greater clarity last month.
But with May herself now on the way out, having agreed in May to step down as PM, the decision on 5G supply is on hold.
It will be down to either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, the two remaining contenders to take over as PM, to choose whether or not to let the Chinese tech giant supply U.K. 5G networks.
Whichever of the men wins the vote, they will arrive in the top job needing to give their full attention to finding a way out of the Brexit morass — with a mere three months til an October 31 Brexit extension deadline looming. So there’s a risk 5G may not seem as urgent an issue and a decision again be kicked back.
In its statement on 5G supply, the ISC backs the view expressed by the public-facing branch of the U.K.’s intelligence service that network security is not dependent on any one supplier being excluded from building it — writing that: “The National Cyber Security Centre… has been clear that the security of the UK’s telecommunications network is not about one company or one country: the ‘flag of origin’ for telecommunications equipment is not the critical element in determining cyber security.”
The committee argues that “some parts of the network will require greater protection” — writing that “critical functions cannot be put at risk” but also that there are “less sensitive functions where more risk can be carried”, albeit without specifying what those latter functions might be.
“It is this distinction — between the sensitivity of the functions — that must determine security, rather than where in the network those functions are located: notions of ‘core’ and ‘edge’ ate therefore misleading in this context,” it adds. “We should therefore be thinking of different levels of security, rather than a one size fits all approach, within a network that has been built to be resilient to attack, such that no single action could disable the system.”
The committee’s statement also backs the view that the best way to achieve network resilience is to support diversity in the supply chain — i.e. by supporting more competition.
But at the same time it emphasizes that the 5G supply decision “cannot be viewed solely through a technical lens — because it is not simply a decision about telecommunications equipment.”
“This is a geostrategic decision, the ramifications of which may be felt for decades to come,” it warns, raising concerns about the perceptions of U.K. intelligence sharing partners by emphasizing the need for those allies to trust the decisions the government makes.
It also couches a U.K. decision to give Huawei access a risk by suggesting it could be viewed externally as an endorsement of the company, thereby encouraging other countries to follow suit — without paying the full (and it asserts vitally) necessary attention to the security piece.
“The UK is a world leader in cyber security: therefore if we allow Huawei into our 5G network we must be careful that that is not seen as an endorsement for others to follow. Such a decision can only happen where the network itself will be constructed securely and with stringent regulation,” it writes.
The committee’s statement goes on to raise as a matter of concern the U.K.’s general reliance on China as a technology supplier.
“One of the lessons the UK Government must learn from the current debate over 5G is that with the technology sector now monopolised by such a few key players, we are over-reliant on Chinese technology — and we are not alone in this, this is a global issue. We need to consider how we can create greater diversity in the market. This will require us to take a long term view — but we need to start now,” it warns.
It ends by reiterating that the debate about 5G supply has been “unnecessarily protracted” — pressing the next U.K. prime minister to get on and take a decision “so that all concerned can move forward.”
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No technical reason to exclude Huawei as 5G supplier, says UK committee
A UK parliamentary committee has concluded there are no technical grounds for excluding Chinese network kit vendor Huawei from the country’s 5G networks.
In a letter from the chair of the Science & Technology Committee to the UK’s digital minister Jeremy Wright, the committee says: “We have found no evidence from our work to suggest that the complete exclusion of Huawei from the UK’s telecommunications networks would, from a technical point of view, constitute a proportionate response to the potential security threat posed by foreign suppliers.”
Though the committee does go on to recommend the government mandate the exclusion of Huawei from the core of 5G networks, noting that UK mobile network operators have “mostly” done so already — but on a voluntary basis.
If it places a formal requirement on operators not to use Huawei for core supply the committee urges the government to provide “clear criteria” for the exclusion so that it could be applied to other suppliers in future.
Reached for a response to the recommendations, a government spokesperson told us: “The security and resilience of the UK’s telecoms networks is of paramount importance. We have robust procedures in place to manage risks to national security and are committed to the highest possible security standards.”
The spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport added: “The Telecoms Supply Chain Review will be announced in due course. We have been clear throughout the process that all network operators will need to comply with the Government’s decision.”
In recent years the US administration has been putting pressure on allies around the world to entirely exclude Huawei from 5G networks — claiming the Chinese company poses a national security risk.
Australia announced it was banning Huawei and another Chinese vendor ZTE from providing kit for its 5G networks last year. Though in Europe there has not been a rush to follow the US lead and slam the door on Chinese tech giants.
In April leaked information from a UK Cabinet meeting suggested the government had settled on a policy of granting Huawei access as a supplier for some non-core parts of domestic 5G networks, while requiring they be excluded from supplying components for use in network cores.
On this somewhat fuzzy issue of delineating core vs non-core elements of 5G networks, the committee writes that it “heard unanimously and clearly” from witnesses that there will still be a distinction between the two in the next-gen networks.
It also cites testimony by the technical director of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), Dr Ian Levy, who told it “geography matters in 5G”, and pointed out Australia and the UK have very different “laydowns” — meaning “we may have exactly the same technical understanding, but come to very different conclusions”.
In a response statement to the committee’s letter, Huawei SVP Victor Zhang welcomed the committee’s “key conclusion” before going on to take a thinly veiled swiped at the US — writing: “We are reassured that the UK, unlike others, is taking an evidence based approach to network security. Huawei complies with the laws and regulations in all the markets where we operate.”
The committee’s assessment is not all comfortable reading for Huawei, though, with the letter also flagging the damning conclusions of the most recent Huawei Oversight Board report which found “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence — and urging the government to monitor Huawei’s response to the raised security concerns, and to “be prepared to act to restrict the use of Huawei equipment if progress is unsatisfactory”.
Huawei has previously pledged to spend $2BN addressing security shortcomings related to its UK business — a figure it was forced to qualify as an “initial budget” after that same Oversight Board report.
“It is clear that Huawei must improve the standard of its cybersecurity,” the committee warns.
It also suggests the government consults on whether telecoms regulator Ofcom needs stronger powers to be able to force network suppliers to clean up their security act, writing that: “While it is reassuring to hear that network operators share this point of view and are ready to use commercial pressure to encourage this, there is currently limited regulatory power to enforce this.”
Another committee recommendation is for the NCSC to be consulted on whether similar security evaluation mechanisms should be established for other 5G vendors — such as Ericsson and Nokia: Two European based kit vendors which, unlike Huawei, are expected to be supplying core 5G.
“It is worth noting that an assurance system comparable to the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre does not exist for other vendors. The shortcomings in Huawei’s cyber security reported by the Centre cannot therefore be directly compared to the cyber security of other vendors,” it notes.
On the issue of 5G security generally the committee dubs this “critical”, adding that “all steps must be taken to ensure that the risks are as low as reasonably possible”.
Where “essential services” that make use of 5G networks are concerned, the committee says witnesses were clear such services must be able to continue to operate safely even if the network connection is disrupted. Government must ensure measures are put in place to safeguard operation in the event of cyber attacks, floods, power cuts and other comparable events, it adds.
While the committee concludes there is no technical reason to limit Huawei’s access to UK 5G, the letter does make a point of highlighting other considerations, most notably human rights abuses, emphasizing its conclusion does not factor them in at all — and pointing out: “There may well be geopolitical or ethical grounds… to enact a ban on Huawei’s equipment”.
It adds that Huawei’s global cyber security and privacy officer, John Suffolk, confirmed that a third party had supplied Huawei services to Xinjiang’s Public Security Bureau, despite Huawei forbidding its own employees from misusing IT and comms tech to carry out surveillance of users.
The committee suggests Huawei technology may therefore be being used to “permit the appalling treatment of Muslims in Western China”.
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NSLComm’s first spring-loaded expanding antenna satellite is headed to space
Spacetech startup NSLComm is gearing up to put its first satellite into orbit, aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket launching this Friday at 1:42 AM ET. Not only is the launch a first for the company, but it’s also the first deployment of a new kind of satellite technology, an expandable antenna solution created by NSLComm which is the secret ingredient that will unlock a number of different lines of business for the fledgling Israeli startup.
“Satellite communication is too expensive,” explained NSLComm CEO and co-founder Raz Itzhaki in an interview. “And this is the case, because satellites are expensive. A communication satellite is basically a dish in space, you want more communication, you need a larger dish. But a larger dish requires a larger satellite, and a larger launcher, so everything becomes more expensive. This is why if you launch a geostationary communication satellite you have to launch it for 20 years, because it has an ROI of more than 10 years. It weighs tons because it needs to live for 15-20 years, and when you sell the capacity, you pay hundreds of billions per megabit per second per month, because you need to return the amount of investment in the satellite.”
What Raz and his team saw was that much of the size and weight for these high-powered communication satellites was actually due to the antennas they need to use to ensure they can achieve a good signal from space. These are either large and fixed, requiring a lot of extra launch hardware and protection as they make their way to space (which is not needed once in orbit), or, for unfolding antennas that existed previously, they require a lot of additional hardware to actually do the unfolding antenna deployment in space, adding again a bunch of bulk and weight. All of which translates to higher launch costs, the need for longer productive life spans for the satellites and higher costs for connectivity consumers.
NSLComm’s solution was to develop a new kind of antenna that can deploy on its own, without the help of any additional heavy machinery, and that can extend to the sizes needed to provide truly high-throughput connectivity on a satellite that’s small and much easier to launch, providing about 100 times faster connectivity than the fastest nano-satellites in the same size class today at about one-tenth the launch cost.
“Our approach was to develop an antenna based on SMP — that’s a shape memory polymer,” Itzhaki said. “This antenna is actually a 3D spring; it memorizes its shapes, it needs no opening mechanism, because the antenna itself is its own opening mechanism. So when you open a hatch, it jumps out like a jack-in-the-box. We have an antenna that is compacted to a volume that is so small, that it fits less than 1U [around the space of one rack in a multi-rack server configuration, or about 1.75 inches tall] for a 60 centimeter [about two feet] diameter dish. And the antenna weighs 140 grams. Well, this changes the economics of satellite communication.”
NSLComm intends to launch 30 satellites by 2021 and hundreds in total by 2023, but launching its own network is only one part of its business plan, and there are other ways it intends to generate revenue in the more immediate term. Itzhaki explained that, in fact, the startup has four primary ways of doing business, including first offering cost-effective ways for customer companies to build their constellations using the startup’s technology. Next, there’s a “turnkey” option for customers that can purchase satellite terminals and ground stations for specific use, including one client already who is using this for an IoT application. Itzhaki says there are already “many” of these types of arrangements in the pipeline.
Third, NSLComm intends to offer a “private constellation” offering, where, for example, a cruise ship operator could build, launch and operate its own network constellation for its customers at minimal cost. Finally, there’s a “constellation as a service” model, where NSLCom would launch the constellation itself, partner with an operator and sell the capacity of the network on a subscription basis.
To date, NSLComm has raised $16 million, including $12 million from VCs, including Jerusalem Venture Partners, OurCrowd, Cockpit Innovation and Liberty Technology Venture Capital. It’s also backed by the Israel Space Agency and the Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel, which provided the remaining $4 million in initial funding.
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LTE flaws let hackers ‘easily’ spoof presidential alerts
Security vulnerabilities in LTE can allow hackers to “easily” spoof presidential alerts sent to mobile phones in the event of a national emergency.
Using off-the-shelf equipment and open-source software, a working exploit made it possible to send a simulated alert to every phone in a 50,000-seat football stadium with little effort, with the potential of causing “cascades of panic,” said researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder in a paper out this week.
Their attack worked in nine out of 10 tests, they said.
Last year the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent out the first “presidential alert” test using the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. It was part of an effort to test the new state-of-the-art system to allow any president to send out a message to the bulk of the U.S. population in the event of a disaster or civil emergency.
But the system — which also sends out weather warnings and AMBER alerts — isn’t perfect. Last year amid tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, an erroneous alert warned residents of Hawaii of an inbound ballistic missile threat. The message mistakenly said the alert was “not a drill.”
Although no system is completely secure, many of the issues over the years have been as a result of human error. But the researchers said the LTE network used to transmit the broadcast message is the biggest weak spot.
Because the system uses LTE to send the message and not a traditional text message, each cell tower blasts out an alert on a specific channel to all devices in range. A false alert can be sent to every device in range if that channel is identified.
Making matters worse, there’s no way for devices to verify the authenticity of received alerts.
The researchers said fixing the vulnerabilities would “require a large collaborative effort between carriers, government stakeholders and cell phone manufacturers.” They added that adding digital signatures to each broadcast alert is not a “magic solution,” but would make it far more difficult to send spoofed messages.
A similar vulnerability in LTE was discovered last year, allowing researchers to not only send emergency alerts but also eavesdrop on a victim’s text messages and track their location.
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Huawei says US ban will cost it $30B in lost revenue
Following a string of trade restrictions from the U.S., China’s telecoms equipment and smartphone maker Huawei expects its revenues to drop $30 billion below forecast over the next two years, founder and chief executive Ren Zhengfei said Monday during a panel discussion at the company’s Shenzhen headquarters.
Huawei’s production will slow down in the next two years while revenues will hover around $100 billion this and next year, according to the executive. The firm’s overseas smartphone shipment is tipped to drop 40%, he said, confirming an earlier report from Bloomberg.
That said, Ren assured that Huawei’s output will be “rejuvenated” by the year 2021 after a period of adjustment.
Huawei’s challenges are multifaceted as the U.S. “entity list” bars it from procuring from American chip makers and using certain Android services, among a list of other restrictions. In response, the Chinese behemoth recently announced it has been preparing for years its own backup chips and an alternative smartphone operating system.
“We didn’t expect the U.S. to attack Huawei with such intense and determined effort. We are not only banned from providing targeted components but also from joining a lot of international organizations, collaborating with many universities, using anything with American components or even connecting to networks that use American parts,” said Ren at the panel.
The founder said these adverse circumstances, though greater than what he expected, would not prevent the company from making strides. “We are like a damaged plane that protected only its heart and fuel tank but not its appendages. Huawei will get tested by the adjustment period and through time. We will grow stronger as we make this step.”
“Heroes in any times go through great challenges,” reads a placard left on a table at a Huawei campus cafe, featuring the image of a damaged World War II aircraft (Photo: TechCrunch)
That image of the beaten aircraft holding out during hard times is sticking to employees’ minds through little motivational placards distributed across the Huawei campus. TechCrunch was among a small group of journalists who spoke to Huawei staff about the current U.S.-China situation, and many of them shared Ren’s upbeat, resilient attitude.
“I’m very confident about the current situation,” said an employee who has been working at Huawei for five years and who couldn’t reveal his name as he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press. “And my confidence stems from the way our boss understands and anticipates the future.”
More collaboration
Although 74-year-old Ren had kept a quiet profile ever since founding Huawei, he has recently appeared more in front of media as his company is thrown under growing scrutiny from the west. That includes efforts like the Monday panel, which was dubbed “A Coffee With Ren” and known to be Ren’s first such fireside chat.
Speaking alongside George Gilder, an American writer and speaker on technology, and Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab, Ren said he believed in a more collaborative and open economy, which can result in greater mutual gains between countries.
“The west was the first to bring up the concept of economic globalization. It’s the right move. But there will be big waves rising from the process, and we must handle them with correct rather than radical measures,” said Ren.
“It’s the U.S. that will suffer from any effort to decouple,” argued Gilder. “I believe that we have a wonderful entrepreneurial energy, wonderful creativity and wonderful technology, but it’s always thrived with collaboration with other countries.”
“The U.S. is making a terrible mistake, first of all, picking on a company,” snapped Negroponte. “I come from a world where the interest isn’t so much about the trade, commerce or stock. We value knowledge and we want to build on the people before us. The only way this works is that people are open at the beginning… It’s not a competitive world in the early stages of science. [The world] benefits from collaboration.”
“This is an age for win-win games,” said one of the anonymous employees TechCrunch spoke to. He drew the example of network operator China Mobile, which recently announced to buy not just from Huawei but also from non-Chinese suppliers Nokia and Ericsson after it secured one of the first commercial licenses to deploy 5G networks in the country.
“I think the most important thing is that we focus on our work,” said Ocean Sun, who is tasked with integrating network services for Huawei clients. He argued that as employees, their job is to “be professional and provide the best solutions” to customers.
“I think the commercial war between China and the U.S. damages both,” suggested Zheng Xining, an engineer working on Huawei’s network services for Switzerland. “Donald Trump should think twice [about his decisions].”
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Unveiling its latest cohort, Alchemist announces $4 million in funding for its enterprise accelerator
The enterprise software and services-focused accelerator Alchemist has raised $4 million in fresh financing from investors BASF and the Qatar Development Bank, just in time for its latest demo day unveiling 20 new companies.
Qatar and BASF join previous investors, including the venture firms Mayfield, Khosla Ventures, Foundation Capital, DFJ and USVP, and corporate investors like Cisco, Siemens and Juniper Networks.
While the roster of successes from Alchemist’s fund isn’t as lengthy as Y Combinator, the accelerator program has launched the likes of the quantum computing upstart Rigetti, the soft-launch developer tool LaunchDarkly and drone startup Matternet .
Some (personal) highlights of the latest cohort include:
- Bayware: Helmed by a former head of software-defined networking from Cisco, the company is pitching a tool that makes creating networks in multi-cloud environments as easy as copying and pasting.
- MotorCortex.AI: Co-founded by a Stanford engineering professor and a Carnegie Mellon roboticist, the company is using computer vision, machine learning and robotics to create a fruit packer for packaging lines. Starting with avocados, the company is aiming to tackle the entire packaging side of pick and pack in logistics.
- Resilio: With claims of a 96% effectiveness rate and $35,000 in annual recurring revenue with another $1 million in the pipeline, Resilio is already seeing companies embrace its mobile app that uses a phone’s camera to track stress levels and application-based prompts on how to lower it, according to Alchemist.
- Operant Networks: It’s a long-held belief (of mine) that if computing networks are already irrevocably compromised, the best thing that companies and individuals can do is just encrypt the hell out of their data. Apparently Operant agrees with me. The company is claiming 50% time savings with this approach, and have booked $1.9 million in 2019 as proof, according to Alchemist.
- HPC Hub: HPC Hub wants to democratize access to supercomputers by overlaying a virtualization layer and pre-installed software on underutilized super computers to give more companies and researchers easier access to machines… and they’ve booked $92,000 worth of annual recurring revenue.
- DinoPlusAI: This chip developer is designing a low latency chip for artificial intelligence applications, reducing latency by 12 times over a competing Nvidia chip, according to the company. DinoPlusAI sees applications for its tech in things like real-time AI markets and autonomous driving. Its team is led by a designer from Cadence and Broadcom and the company already has $8 million in letters of intent signed, according to Alchemist.
- Aero Systems West: Co-founders from the Air Force’s Research Labs and MIT are aiming to take humans out of drone operations and maintenance. The company contends that for every hour of flight time, drones require seven hours of maintenance and check ups. Aero Systems aims to reduce that by using remote analytics, self-inspection, autonomous deployment and automated maintenance to take humans out of the drone business.
Watch a live stream of Alchemist’s demo day pitches, starting at 3PM, here.
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UK gives Huawei an amber light to supply 5G
The U.K. government will allow Huawei to be a supplier for some non-core parts of the country’s 5G networks, despite concerns that the involvement of the Chinese telecoms vendor could pose a risk to national security. But it will be excluded from core parts of the networks, according to reports in national press.
The news of prime minister Theresa May’s decision made during a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday was reported earlier by The Telegraph. The newspaper said multiple ministers raised concerns about her approach — including the Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Defence Secretary, International Trade Secretary and International Development Secretary.
The FT reports that heavy constraints on Huawei’s involvement in U.K. 5G networks reflect the level of concern raised by ministers.
May’s decision to give an amber light to Huawei’s involvement in building next-gen 5G networks comes a month after a damning report by a U.K. oversight body set up to evaluate the Chinese company’s approach to security.
The fifth annual report by the Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre Oversight Board blasted “serious and systematic defects” in its software engineering and cyber security competence.
Though the oversight board stopped short of calling for an outright ban — despite saying it could provide “only limited assurance that all risks to U.K. national security from Huawei’s involvement in the U.K.’s critical networks can be sufficiently mitigated long-term.”
But speaking at a cybersecurity conference in Brussels in February, Ciaran Martin, the CEO of the U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), expressed confidence U.K. authorities can mitigate any risk posed by Huawei.
The NCSC is part of the domestic GCHQ signals intelligence agency.
Dr. Lukasz Olejnik, an independent cybersecurity advisor and research associate at the Center for Technology and Global Affairs at Oxford University, told TechCrunch he’s not surprised by the government’s decision to work with Huawei.
“It’s a message that was long-expected,” he said. “U.K. officials have been carefully sending signals in the previous months. In a sense, this makes us closer to the end of the 5G drama.”
“With proper management most risk can be mitigated. It all depends on the strategic planning,” he added.
“I believe the level of [security] responsibility at telecoms will remain similar to today’s. The main message expected by telecoms is clarity to enable them to move on with infrastructure.”
The heaviest international pressure to exclude the Chinese vendor from next-gen 5G networks has been coming from the U.S., where President Trump has been leaning on key intelligence-sharing allies to act on espionage fears and shut out Huawei — with some success.
Last year Australia and New Zealand both announced bans on Chinese kit vendors citing national security fears.
But in Europe governments appear to be leaning in another direction: toward managing and mitigating potential risks rather than shutting the door completely.
The European Commission has also eschewed pushing for a pan-EU ban — instead issuing recommendations encouraging member states to step up individual and collective attention on network security to mitigate potential risks.
It has warned too — and conversely — of the risk of fragmentation to its flagship “digital single market” project if member state governments decide to slam doors on their own. So, at the pan-EU level, security considerations are very clearly being weighed against strategic commercial imperatives and technology priorities.
Equally, individual European governments appear to have little appetite to throw a spanner in the 5G works, given the risk of being left lagging as cellular connectivity evolves and transforms — an upgrade that’s expected to fuel and underpin developments in artificial intelligence and big data analysis, among other myriad and much-hyped benefits.
In the U.K.’s case, national security concerns have been repeatedly brandished as justification for driving through domestic surveillance legislation so draconian that parts of it have later been unpicked by both U.K. and EU courts. Even if the same security concerns are here, where 5G networks are concerned, being deemed “manageable” — rather than grounds for a similarly draconian approach to technology procurement.
It’s not clear at this stage how extensively Huawei will be involved in supplying and building U.K. 5G networks.
The NCSC sent us the following statement in response to questions:
National Security Council discussions are confidential. Decisions from those meetings are made and announced at the appropriate time through the established processes.
The security and resilience of the UK’s telecoms networks is of paramount importance.
As part of our plans to provide world class digital connectivity, including 5G, we have conducted an evidence based review of the supply chain to ensure a diverse and secure supply base, now and into the future. This is a thorough review into a complex area and will report with its conclusions in due course.
“How ‘non-core’ will be defined is anyone’s guess but it would have to be clearly defined and publicly communicated,” Olejnik also told us. “I would assume this refers to government and military networks, but what about safety communication or industrial systems, such as that of power plants or railroad? That’s why we should expect more clarity.”
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Zoom addresses CFO’s past workplace conduct ahead of IPO
Zoom, the only profitable unicorn in line to go public, priced its initial public offering at between $28 and $32 per share Monday morning. The video conferencing business plans to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “ZM.”
Zoom, valued at $1 billion in 2017, initially filed to go public in March. According to its amended IPO filing, the company will raise up to $348.1 million by selling 10.9 million Class A shares. The offering will grant Zoom a fully diluted market value of $8.7 billion, a more than 8x increase to its latest private market valuation.
Although the company has garnered praise for its stellar financials — Zoom posted $330 million in revenue in the year ending January 31, 2019, a remarkable 2x increase year-over-year, with a gross profit of $269.5 million — the road to IPO hasn’t been without hiccups.
The company’s founder and chief executive officer Eric Yuan last night published an open letter concerning the conduct of Zoom’s chief financial officer Kelly Steckelberg. According to the letter, Zoom was recently informed by an anonymous source that Steckelberg had an “undisclosed, consensual relationship” during her tenure at a previous employer.
Steckelberg was most recently the CEO of the online dating site Zoosk; before that, she was a senior director in consumer finance at Cisco . The letter does not specify where the relationship took place, when or with whom.
Losing a CFO mere days before an IPO would have been a major loss for Zoom. CFOs often become the face of the IPO, handling the grueling tasks associated with crafting an IPO prospectus, leading the roadshow and more, while also maintaining day-to-day financial operations.
Yuan writes that the Zoom’s board of directors conducted a full investigation into the matter and determined that Steckelberg would stay on as Zoom’s CFO: “Kelly expressed regret for what transpired at her former employer, took ownership for the situation, and made clear to us that she had learned valuable lessons from the experience,” he wrote.
“We appreciated Kelly’s openness and candor during this process,” he continued. “It is clear that this matter related only to circumstances at her former employer. During Kelly’s tenure at Zoom, she has been an incredible contributor, as well as a model steward of our culture, values, and high standards since joining the Company.”
We reached out to Zoosk for comment. Zoom declined to comment further.
Zoom, expected to make the final call on its IPO price next Wednesday, will likely price at the top of the range and see a clean pop on its first day on the markets given its clean track record and positive financials. The business was founded in 2011 by Eric Yuan, an early engineer at WebEx, which sold to Cisco for $3.2 billion in 2007. Before launching Zoom, he spent four years at Cisco as its vice president of engineering.
Zoom has raised $145 million to date from investors, including Emergence Capital, which owns a 12.2 percent pre-IPO stake; Sequoia Capital (11.1 percent pre-IPO stake); Digital Mobile Venture (8.5 percent), a fund affiliated with former Zoom board member Samuel Chen; and Bucantini Enterprises Limited (5.9 percent), a fund owned by Li Ka-shing, a Chinese billionaire and among the richest people in the world.
Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs are leading its offering.
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