cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/34531692
US energy officials have found unexplained communication equipment inside some Chinese-made inverter devices.
[…]
Reuters reported the presence of undocumented and “rogue” communication devices in a number of Chinese-made solar inverters. These could potentially introduce unregulated and undocumented remote communication channels to the inverters, by which an actor could remotely bypass the cybersecurity firewalls that utility companies use to prevent direct communication back to China.
[…]
(I hate it when a technical take makes me side with authoritarian propaganda, but well…)
There is zero technical information in that article, yet plenty of people jumping to politically-loaded conclusions. Reminds me of the time when there was a (totally legitimate imho) scare about Huawei backdoors but zero technical details about what was actually found.
So from what I understand, some inverters “phone home”. A despicable habit of too many hardware in the industry, but the phrasing suggests without even confirming that it may be more nefarious than “mere” telemetry that plagues any connected device out there.
“Rogue device” suggests that it is additional hardware. They imply that the add connectivity channels that were not present in the device. Are we talking offline devices that were stealthily loaded with a 5G simcard or a Lora device waiting for a bricking code? It is implied but not stated, which makes me extremely suspicious.
If Chinese authorities can remotely brick solar inverters, it is a matter of national security to disclose the models and the modus operandi asap. It is irresponsible to not help us mitigate the potential of attack. Also, if there are “rogue devices” designed to sabotage your grid, that’s international sabotage, that’s state terrorism. It is important to state it if it is the case, instead of implying it.
“This is a serious issue that the industry needs to address, and it’s even more reason for Congress to maintain tax credits that are onshoring the production of inverters and the entire solar supply chain in the United States."
I suspect that this is the core reason actually. Don’t get me wrong, manufacturing crucial equipment locally is definitely a good idea, but I suspect strongly that these accusation are just a way of dodging the embrassement that Chinese companies’ market share is annoyingly high in a market that westerners were too slow to recognize as critical.
Are we talking offline devices that were stealthily loaded with a 5G simcard or a Lora device waiting for a bricking code?
To my understanding, they found undeclared communication interfaces. Something that shouldn’t have been there according to specs, but was.
Investigating how those could be used to brick a device would take a bit longer.
Yes, well, from what sources do you gather that?
“Our interviewee likened the prospect to Russia restricting gas supply to Europe after its invasion of Ukraine. “Probably 99% of people would have said ‘No, there’s no risk [of that happening].’ But it did. We saw it. And I see the same risk here.””
Oh, look. Let us back up new lies with old ones. People are going to fall for it again, for sure.
I guess that security researchers will be taking apart a lot of inverters in the near future.
Then we’ll know.
Considering previous incidents, e.g. the cyber-sabotage performed in Poland by a train repair company Newag to prevent third party repairs, this kind of matters should be taken seriously. Back doors and logic bombs have been done before, and will be regularly re-visited as soon as people forget about their risk.
Inverters! Backdoors in disguise!
Okay… And US equipment likely has the same backdoors for Trumps Gov. How about you guys make an affordable inverter and solar equipment that actually helps the green adoption rather than hindering it, without going full capitalism mode making everything as expensive as possible?
Strange how in NA any time we get a solar subsidy or grant for homeowners or anything like that suddenly the already 20x marked up equipment goes up in price the EXACT amount of the subsidy or grant 🙄
I think i’ll just go with the Chinese equipment and rip out any networking antennas inside. None of this IOT stuff should be networked anyways unless its on a isolated vlan atleast.
This is an easy smear to make if no one can verify anything, because no product is mentioned.
Are you a lost tankie?
They’re right, you should try being less gullible
Hey buddy, you should have further insight into what you’re commenting on before you make highly regarded statements.
I know a few things about PV equipment. Nearly all modern inverters have communication systems for mointoring the system’s output so you can determine whether panels stop working or if the inverter is on the fritz. Nobody except maybe a private homeowner would want an inverter that doesn’t communicate. Also what would the Chinese government get from disrupting PV equipment? No grid is going down because PV isn’t working. Remember the sun isn’t always shining. As of now these allegations are just that, allegations.
@Dogyote @phoenixz @technology The propaganda campaign is endless. Remember when Bloomberg accused Chinese computer makers of implanting spyware chips in their servers.
Completely fabricated. Weird how similar this story is to that one.
https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/02/12/bloomberg-big-con
Bloomberg isn’t real news. It’s on par with RT News.
No true Scotsman would ever lie about Chinese spy technology.
Reuters is citing “two people familiar with the matter” and people in the US federal government not even speaking through an official announcement. While I trust Reuters not to have made up those people’s words, this does mean that so far the only source is semi-random US government employees.
So it literally is just the word of people working for Trump we’re going on.
And for context, it is quite common for reputable news agencies to misreport things, or to take the word of a government employee as final when they really shouldn’t. I personally saw a video of a car running into a climate action protest1, only for the ‘reputable’ Dutch state news agency (NOS) simply going by the police spokesperson’s statement that the climate activists had scratched the car before it hit them2. But the NOS just said the spokesperson said it, so reputation-wise they were in the clear.
Now I’m not saying the genocidal dictatorship known as the People’s Republic of China is not putting spyware on devices shipped to the west. I’m just saying that we need more than an unofficial statement by an employee working under Trump, even if that statement is being signal boosted by Reuters. Skepticism is warranted.
1: At 48:50 in this livestream, in the left part of the splitscreen. Luckily it was at walking pace so nobody was injured as far as I know.
2: This article, in Dutch.
My opinion (shared by independent observers of journalism and propaganda) of Bloomberg had nothing to do with this story. Bloomberg is propaganda. Like RT, they include unslanted stories along with their worked stories. That’s just how propaganda works.
I just said something obvious. Some American asshole took a shit on some European sidewalk. Garbage you wish to be true, would have more substantive credibility if the accusation were specific and verifiable.
Propaganda is too easy, when you’re this gullible.
How much subsidies did Obama admin provide to solar industry?!
Where did all that money go?
It is amazing how how we funnel state aid to these parasites and got nothing to show for it but now we depend on Chinaman for this tech and equipment.
Sheepooh must be big happy haha
Wait until you find out about networking equipment haha
