It's called a mistake. People do things by mistake.
I carry my phone in my back pocket all the time, specialy in the office where I spend most of my non-home time. It's far more comfortable than cramming it into my front pocket.
Moving with a big phone in the front pocket is also annoying: my hip and leg bones make contact with the phone, and the pressure is noticeable. By contrast, my ass is soft.
Before sitting down, I remove it. Sometimes I forget and sit on my phone. And then I remove it.
If Google trade secrets are relevant for national security, non US governments shouldn't allow Google to operate without revealing those trade secrets to their intelligence agencies.
Your solution is (was?) to use your own email address (with your own domain) with email forwarding to your gmail address. This way you do not make your gmail address public, and can move frontends easily.
This does not solve the fact that your email archive is in gmail though.
I do not care what happens in the US. I am not in the US. I am not a US citizen. But I am affected by the decisions of what I consider an adversary, that is removing me the option of buying a perfectly functioning product.
I understand why this is happening. I understand the motivations.
What I am saying is that we outside the US should plan accordingly, and reduce our dependency to US technology.
I welcome this event, since I consider it a wake up call. I am convinced the Chinese will lead in making the technology stack a free market again.
That could very well be the case. But I don't care: Huawei has no power over me. Neither has the Chinese Government.
The US is equally eager (or more) to tamper with the free market, with the small difference that they are in a position to actually do it. From my point of view, the US is a huge problem, and is making my life difficult, but the Chinese are just another producer of cheap and good quality goods.
The point is that we have allowed US companies to have absolute control of the technology stack. There is no competition (at most between US companies).
There are several ways to mitigate this:
- Open Source. Android itself falls into this category, and it can not be taken away. This is the best way, but let's be realistic here: it is not for everybody.
- Multiple suppliers, from multiple countries, so that we have real competition.
Security considerations have absolutely nothing to do with the Huawei ban. The US has provided no evidence, and has refused the offer by Huawei to collaborate in any investigation.
This is part of the trade war, and the fact that the US is openly lying about the motives of the ban shows how risky the position of US customers have become: there is absolutely no recourse.
And even if the security claims were true (they are not), so what? Why I, an European customer, must be affected by security concerns of a far away country? Why is Huawei in a position to be forced to let down its customers?
Non-US companies must rethink the way they rely on an increasingly isolated and belicose US.
The US has pretty much withdrawn from all international organizations (or is simply ignoring them, see WTO). The US is not abiding by any international order.
The US is economically terrorizing the world by aggressively pushing the dominance of the US dollar. It has (successfully, to date) prevented the Iranian Oil Bourse (in €, 2008).
It interferes in the sovereignty of nations: for example, it has enforced the Iran embargo (against the will of the EU, which has been powerless to prevent it).
The world trade order is tilted in favor of the US, as are IP rules (favoring the incumbent power, with a head start of several decades), making the rest of the world subservient to the US, and forcing us to finance the life style of a minority of the planet's population (to be correct: to finance the lifestyle of a very small minority of the US population, since lots of Americans are also struggling)
The US has built its industrial and technological supremacy by industrial espionage during the late 19th and early 20th century, from the leading powers of the time (Europe).
The US has engaged in price dumping of agricultural products for ages, by illegally subsidizing farmers.
The US has interfered militarily, politically and economically around the world, often with devastating consequences in terms of life and property, creating power vacuums which have caused catastrophic consequences.
This is going on as we speak. The list is very long too.
I for one support the Chinese in this conflict, if for nothing else, simply for the possibility of putting some restraint on the out-of-control Hegemon.
I understand that US citizens will be siding with the US president on this one, and you may even feel you are being fair here.
You are not, and the rest of the world is pretty much not in agreement with the US.
A) all Huawei phones (old or currently being sold) with Google services will keep access to the services, even in the long term?
B) the only effect fo the ban on current Huawei phones (old or currently being sold) will be that updates will be stopped?
A is good news, but B is catastrophic. This means that the effects of this ban will be to put Huawei customers at risk.
One thing is to prevent customers to access a given service. Another thing completely different is to allow access to a service, and then let those same customers down regarding security updates.
I hope that at least security updates will be allowed.
The mere fact that this is possible, highlights the risk that international trade has become, specially regarding technology.
Any country holding a considerable share of the technology market should be considered a single point of failure, and diversification should take place.
The US is currently the 100-pound technology gorilla, and they are highly politicized. Very unreliable, and using its position to force its will into all kind of matters. No country should rely on the US as a single provider, to avoid being target of blackmail. It is actually surprising that we have reached the current status quo without realizing about these simple facts.
Re-decentralization of the Internet (and technology in general) is long overdue.
The same applies to other "industries". A frightening one is nuclear missiles. We are so used to the US (and the Russians) having thousands of nuclear heads that we do not care anymore. And simply because it has worked out in the past, we assume that the worse can be avoided indefinitely.
Nothing is further from the truth: the current situation guarantees that there will be a nuclear war. It is not a question of if, but when. We are a crazy president away from starting it (or maybe we have already hit the jackpot).
I carry my phone in my back pocket all the time, specialy in the office where I spend most of my non-home time. It's far more comfortable than cramming it into my front pocket.
Moving with a big phone in the front pocket is also annoying: my hip and leg bones make contact with the phone, and the pressure is noticeable. By contrast, my ass is soft.
Before sitting down, I remove it. Sometimes I forget and sit on my phone. And then I remove it.
Since my phone does not bend, nothing happens.