Huawei and Balkanization of IT

The Wall Street Journal reports on the continuing circus at the National Security Agency, where it continues its investigations into the security of IT products.  This is the same issue that we wrote about in 2012, except at that time the discussions were more open in the form of testimony before a Senate committee on Capitol Hill.

Today, Huawei, which is one of several vendors allegedly under investigation by the NSA, calls for avoiding the "balakanization" of IT products by political or national geographies.  Well, it seems that back in 2012, Huawei wasn't forthcoming enough for the standards of the Senate investigators.  Give the customers what they want if the market is important to you.

Of the companies mentioned, Cisco seems to have the most appropriate response in an accessible blog format.  To some extent, they are citing chapter and verse from their own internal controls over IT, and a customer can read the appropriate documents without having to search or call the company.  That itself is a comfort when something like the Der Spiegel article hits.

According to the Journal, HP is waiting for information and documents from Der Spiegel.  That isn't the best public response.