According to CNBC, T-Mobile and Sprint are expecting their merger to be approved by a U.S. national security panel as early as next week, after their respective parent companies said they would consider dropping Huawei. From the report: U.S. government officials have been pressuring T-Mobile's German majority owner, Deutsche Telekom, to stop using Huawei equipment, the sources said, over concerns that Huawei is effectively controlled by the Chinese state and its network equipment may contain "back doors" that could enable cyber espionage, something which Huawei denies. That pressure is part of the national security review of T-Mobile's $26 billion deal to buy U.S. rival Sprint, the sources said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been conducting a national security review of the Sprint deal, which was announced in April. Negotiations between the two companies and the U.S. government have not been finalized and any deal could still fall through, the sources cautioned. Sprint's parent, SoftBank Group, plans to replace 4G network equipment from Huawei with hardware from Nokia and Ericsson, Nikkei reported on Thursday, without citing sources.

hackingbear shares a report from Politico, adding: "This fuels the suspicion that the Chinese executive is held as a hostage for the ongoing trade negotiation with China." From the report: President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he reserved the right to weigh in on the Justice Department's case against the CFO of Huawei, if it would help him close a trade deal with Beijing or would serve other American national security interests. "If I think it's good for what will be certainly the largest trade deal ever made -- which is a very important thing -- what's good for national security -- I would certainly intervene if I thought it was necessary," Trump told Reuters. Trump added that President Xi Jinping of China had not called him about the case, but that the White House had been in touch with both the Justice Department and Chinese officials. Huawei's CFO, Meng Wanzhou, was arrested in Canada earlier this month at the request of American authorities, who allege that she violated U.S. sanctions against Iran. Yesterday, a Vancouver judge ruled that Meng would be released on a $7.5 million bail if she remains in British Columbia.

A judge in Vancouver, British Columbia, has set a $7.5 million U.S. bail for Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested last week on suspicion of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "The United States had asked the Vancouver court to deny bail for Meng, whose father is a billionaire and a founder of Huawei, calling her a flight risk," reports CNBC. From the report: Canada has been expected to extradite Meng to the United States over charges that the company improperly took payments from Iran in violation of sanctions against the country. Meng's next moves will be closely watched, but it is likely with her corporate and family connections that she will be able to make bail. The $10 million CAD ($7.5 million USD) includes $7 million CAD ($5.2 million USD) cash and $3 million CAD ($2.2 million USD) more from five or more guarantors, presented by Meng and her attorney's as sureties that she would remain in the country. As conditions of the bail agreement, Meng must surrender her passports, wear a GPS tracking device and be accompanied by security detail whenever she leaves her residence.

UnderAttack writes: Scammers are attempting to trick Chinese victims into sending thousands of dollars in order to secure the release of Chinese Huawei executive Meng who was arrested in Canada last week. The messages claim to originate from Ms. Meng and suggest that she found a corrupt guard who will let her go for a few thousand dollars. Of course, there will be riches for anybody who is willing to help (and more). The scam is reportedly targeting people via WeChat, which may have a higher success rate than more widely distributed scams.

One of the messages reads (translated): "Hello, I am MENG Wanzou. Currently, I have been detained by Canadian customs. I have limited use of my phone. Right now CIA is trying to get me into the hands of the US government. I bribed the guard of my room, and urgently need US$2000 to get out of here. Once I am out, I will reward you 200,000 shares of Huawei. I will be good on my word. if you are single, we can also discuss the important thing in life. The guard's name is David, the account number is 52836153836252, swift 55789034. I will be good on my word."

Tech executives worry China will turn to tit-for-tat arrests of Americans in response to the detention of Meng Wanzhou. And the worries don't stop there. Kara Swisher, writing at The New York Times: Imagine, if you will (and you should), a big American tech executive being detained over unspecified charges while on a trip to Beijing. That is exactly what a number of Silicon Valley executives told me they are concerned about after the arrest this week of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecom company Huawei, in Canada at the behest of United States officials. "It's worrisome, because it's an escalation we did not need," one executive said, referring to the already tense trade talks between the two countries. "What China will do, given all the existing tensions, is anyone's guess."

No one I spoke to would talk on the record, out of fear of antagonizing either side and also because no one knows exactly what is happening. But many expressed worry about the possibility of tit-for-tat arrests. While everyone focuses on the drama of the arrest -- Ms. Meng was grabbed while changing planes at the airport -- and its effect on the trade talks and stock prices, to my mind there is a much more important fight brewing, and it is about tech hegemony. Specifically, who will control the next internet age, and by whose rules will it be run?

Until recently, that answer was clearly the United States, from which the Internet sprang, wiring the world together and, in the process, resulting in the greatest creation of power and wealth in history. While China has always had a strong technology sector, in recent years it has significantly escalated its investment, expertise and innovation, with major support from the government. That hand-in-glove relationship creates obvious issues, and the Trump administration is right to stop pretending that China does not present a threat both from security and innovation perspectives. Further reading: China summons U.S. ambassador, warns Canada of 'grave consequences' if Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is not released.

"Today, a bail hearing was held for Huawei's chief financial officer, who was arrested in Canada on Saturday at the request of U.S. law enforcement," reports The Verge. "The CFO, Meng Wanzhou, is facing extradition to the U.S. for conspiring to defraud banking institutions, according to the Star Vancouver." The Verge reports that her main defense is "a PowerPoint presentation that Meng had once given to explain to a bank in Hong Kong that Huawei had not violated any U.S. sanctions." From the report: Many lined up to see Meng's bail hearing today, after the extremely high-profile arrest that signified the first major break in a U.S. probe that has mostly been kept from the public. The U.S. has an arrest warrant out for Meng that was issued by a New York court on August 22nd. It has 60 days from the time of Meng's arrest on Saturday to provide Canadian courts with evidence and intent.

Meng served on the board for a Hong Kong-based company called Skycom, which allegedly did business with Iran between 2009 and 2014. U.S. banks worked with Huawei at this time, so Iran sanctions were violated indirectly, and Meng therefore committed fraud against these banks. Skycom reportedly had connections to Huawei and at the bail hearing today, Gibb-Carsley argued that Skycom was an unofficial subsidiary of Huawei's, using the same company logo. "Huawei is SkyCom," he said, "This is the crux, I say, of the alleged fraud." The hearing also examined whether Meng would be a flight risk if she was granted the $1 million bail, part of the argument Gibb-Carsley was pushing. "Defense lawyer Martin responded by explaining the Chinese emphasis on saving face, and how Meng wouldn't want her father and Huawei to look bad. Even more than that, 'she would not embarrass China itself,' Martin said."

Stephen Mihm, Bloomberg contributor and associate professor of history at the University of Georgia, argues against the use of noncompete agreements (NCAs) because they limit the free flow of employees and discourage innovation. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares an excerpt from his report: The agreements, known as NCAs, forbid workers from taking valuable skills acquired from one employer to a competing firm. They first appeared in the Middle Ages, when master artisans required them of apprentices because they didn't want to face direct competition once their proteges set up shop on their own. Courts eventually sanctioned these restraints, provided they didn't harm the public interest, establish a monopoly or unduly restrain an employee's right to work. But this trend toward wider use of the contracts, which gathered steam from the late 18th century onward, conveniently omitted that they originally applied to skilled laborers operating in a pre-capitalist society. Yet employers increasingly used noncompete clauses to limit the mobility of unskilled wage laborers along with skilled workers.

Have NCAs helped or hindered economic growth? The most famous study looked at California, one of only a handful of states that do not permit NCAs. The de facto prohibition of the agreements affected skilled and non-skilled workers alike, and employees high and low could jump from job to job without any fear of legal reprisal. The mobility seems to have disseminated innovation very swiftly from company to company, creating the kind of dynamism and technological spillover that helps foster long-term success. The prohibition of NCAs clearly benefited Silicon Valley. Further proof was provided by the comparison to another claimant to high-tech supremacy: Route 128 in Massachusetts. The conclusion was that California's ban -- and the embrace of the agreements in Massachusetts -- helped tilt the balance of power to California.

Chinese mobile app companies pose the same national security risk to the US as telecom giants like Huawei and ZTE, Sen. Mark Warner said in an interview. From a report: Recent US legislation largely banned Huawei and ZTE from use by the government and its contractors, due to concerns about surveillance and other national security risks. Now Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is signaling that Chinese app developers may face similar scrutiny from lawmakers, corporate America, and the intelligence community.

Warner's comments follow a recent BuzzFeed News report that popular apps from China's Cheetah Mobile and Kika Tech were exploiting user permissions to engage in a form of ad fraud. Eight Android apps with more than 2 billion total downloads were said to be engaging in a form of app-install ad fraud. Google subsequently removed two of the apps from the Play store and said it continues to investigate. Cheetah and Kika deny engaging in app-install fraud. "Under Chinese law, all Chinese companies are ultimately beholden to the Communist Party, not their board or shareholders, so any Chinese technology company -- whether in telecom or mobile apps -- should be seen as extensions of the state and a national security risk," Warner said in an interview this week with BuzzFeed News. Further reading: Sen. Warner calls for US cyber doctrine, new standards for security.

The European Union should be worried about Huawei and other Chinese technology companies because of the risk they pose to the bloc's industry and security, the EU's technology commissioner said on Friday. From a report: "Do we have to be worried about Huawei or other Chinese companies? Yes, I think we have to be worried about those companies," Andrus Ansip told a news conference in Brussels, days after a top executive at Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested in Canada as part of an investigation into alleged bank fraud.

Huawei, which generated $93 billion in revenue last year and is seen as a national champion in China, faces intense scrutiny from many Western nations over its ties to the Chinese government, driven by concerns it could be used by Beijing for spying. Ansip said he was concerned because Chinese technology companies were required to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services, such as on "mandatory back doors" to allow access to encrypted data.

He also said those companies produce chips that could be used "to get our secrets." "As normal, ordinary people we have to be afraid," he said, adding he did not have enough information about the recent arrest in Canada.

China is demanding the release of a senior executive at Huawei after she was detained in Canada on extradition charges to the U.S. Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei's board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, is suspected of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. NBC News reports: The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer and daughter of the company's founder Ren Zhengfei, spooked investors with U.S. stocks tumbling on fears of a flare-up in Chinese-U.S. tensions. She was arrested in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Dec. 1. China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said officials have been contacted both in the U.S. and Canada to demand Meng's release. Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the ministry, said her detention needed to be explained, and both countries had to "effectively protect the legitimate rights and interests of the person concerned." A spokesperson for Huawei said in a statement that it "complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operates, including applicable export control and sanction laws and regulations."

Canada has arrested Huawei's chief financial officer on suspicion of violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. "Wanzhou Meng, who is also the deputy chair of Huawei's board and the daughter of company founder Ren Zhengfei, was arrested in Vancouver at the request of U.S. authorities," reports The Globe and Mail. From the report: "Wanzhou Meng was arrested in Vancouver on December 1. She is sought for extradition by the United States, and a bail hearing has been set for Friday," Justice department spokesperson Ian McLeod said in a statement to The Globe and Mail. "As there is a publication ban in effect, we cannot provide any further detail at this time. The ban was sought by Ms. Meng.

A Canadian source with knowledge of the arrest said U.S. law enforcement authorities are alleging that Ms. Meng tried to evade the U.S. trade embargo against Iran but provided no further details. Since at least 2016, U.S. authorities have been reviewing Huawei's alleged shipping of U.S.-origin products to Iran and other countries in violation of U.S. export and sanctions laws.

The US government is reportedly trying to persuade its foreign allies' wireless and internet providers to avoid Huawei equipment. From a report: Officials have spoken to their counterparts and telecom bosses in Germany, Italy, Japan and other friendly countries where the Chinese company's equipment is already in use, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. The US is reportedly particularly worried about the use of Huawei equipment in countries with American military bases, since most nonsensitive communication travels via commercial networks, and it's concerned about Chinese meddling.

secwatcher shares a report from Threatpost: A design flaw affecting all in-display fingerprint sensors -- that left over a half-dozen cellphone models vulnerable to a trivial lock-screen bypass attack -- has been quietly patched. The flaw was tied to a bug in the popular in-display fingerprint reader technology used for user authentication. In-display fingerprint reader technology is widely considered an up-and-coming feature to be used in a number of flagship model phones introduced in 2019 by top OEM phone makers, according to Tencent's Xuanwu Lab which is credited for first identifying the flaw earlier this year. Impacted are all phones tested in the first half of 2018 that had in-display fingerprint sensors. That includes current models of Huawei Technologies' Porsche Design Mate RS and Mate 20 Pro model phones. Researchers said that many more cellphone manufacturers are impacted by the issue. The most popular phone in the U.S. that is impacted by this vulnerability is the OnePlus 6T. "[A]ll an attacker needs to carry out the attack is an opaque reflective material such as aluminum foil," reports Threatpost. "By placing the reflective material over a residual fingerprint on the phone's display the capacitance fingerprint imaging mechanism can be tricked into authenticating a fingerprint."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) paved the way for improved GPS and location accuracy today, approving an order that will allow U.S. phones to access a European satellite system. The order allows non-federal consumer devices to access the European Union's version of GPS, which is also known as Galileo. The system is available globally, and it officially went live in 2016. By opening up access, devices that can retrieve a signal from both Galileo and the U.S. GPS system will see improved timing estimates and location reliability. The iPhone 8 was the first Apple product to support it. Other phone models from Huawei and Samsung support the system, too. "Since the debut of the first consumer handheld GPS device in 1989, consumers and industry in the United States have relied on the U.S. GPS to support satellite-based positioning, navigation, and timing services that are integral to everyday applications ranging from driving directions to precision farming," the FCC said in a release. Now, the U.S. system will be able to commingle with the European one, making the way for better reliability, range, and accuracy.

According to a report in The Australian, Australia received intelligence reports that Huawei personnel provided Chinese spies passwords to hack a "foreign network." From a report: Though there are many broad allegations that telecommunications equipment providers Huawei and ZTE sabotage products so that spies can conduct espionage, the public is largely in the dark about how and if the nation has ever used that capacity. The Australian report claims: "Chinese espionage services used telecommunications giant Huawei's staff to get access codes to infiltrate a foreign network." The attack took place within the last two years.

The tablet market has now declined year-over-year for 16 quarters straight. According to new estimates from IDC, "Q3 2018 saw an 8.6 percent year-over-year decline: 36.4 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 39.9 million units in the same quarter last year," reports VentureBeat. From the report: The only silver lining is that the Q3 2018 decline wasn't double digits again. While 2017 quarters only saw single-digit declines, Q1 2018 and Q2 2018 were in the double digits. The estimates come from IDC, which counts both slate form factors and detachables, meaning tablets with keyboards included. Apple maintained its top spot for the quarter, with Samsung and Amazon rounding out the top three. Huawei was the only company in the top five to ship more tablets than the year before. The top five vendors accounted for 68.4 percent of the market, up from 67.1 percent last year.

OnePlus, a five-year old Chinese smartphone company whose high-end products are little known outside a tech-savvy niche is entering the U.S. market on Monday with the backing of two key local allies: chipmaking giant Qualcomm and mobile operator T-Mobile. Reuters reports: The foray by Shenzhen-based OnePlus comes after U.S. mobile carriers AT&T and Verizon this year backed away from plans to work with China's Huawei on high-end phones in face of pressure from the U.S. government, which considers Huawei a security risk. But the OnePlus alliance, to be announced today in New York, shows how many U.S.-China business relationships, including those involving the most advanced technologies, are marching ahead despite the U.S. China trade war. OnePlus has quietly become the No. 3 client for Qualcomm's most expensive mobile phone chips, behind Samsung and LG Electronics, according to data from market researcher Canalys.

The phone to be unveiled Monday, called the 6T, will sell for a price of $549 (for the base model, which offers 6GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage) but packs features that are typically present only in pricier handsets. Xiaomi, a Chinese rival that also focuses on feature-packed phones at bargain prices, has said it plans to launch in the U.S. next year, but did not respond to a request for comment on whether those plans are still in place. The OnePlus 6T will laregely offer the same specs as its predecessor -- the OnePlus 6, which was launched earlier this year. Some of the key changes include a smaller notch on the front display and a built-in fingerprint scanner that is embedded in it. Full specs and review here.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has shipped 100 million units of phones as of October 26, completing its annual target more than two months ahead of its original plan, Xiaomi's founder and CEO Lei Jun announced on the company's Sina Weibo account. ZDNet: The smartphone brand, currently sitting behind Huawei and Oppo in China, is reporting a better sales result this year. It only shipped 70 million smartphones for the first 10 months in 2017, though it nevertheless also completed its shipment target for last year ahead of time, according to Lei's Sina Weibo post in November 2017. The 100 million shipment benchmark set in less than 10 months this year is also higher than the full-year shipment result of Xiaomi, which shipped a total of 90 million mobile handsets last year.

China's foreign ministry has some suggestions for the Trump administration if it is worried about foreign eavesdropping on the U.S. president's iPhones: use a Huawei handset instead. Or just cut all forms of modern communication with the outside world. From a report: The riposte came after the New York Times reported that American intelligence reports indicated that Chinese and Russian spies often listen in on President Donald Trump when he uses his Apple cellphones to chat with old friends. Aides have repeatedly told him that his cellphone calls are not secure, but although the president has been persuaded to use his secure White House landline more often, he has refused to give up the phones, the Times said. Trump called the Times report incorrect on Thursday, and dismissed it as "long and boring." "I only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell phone. Story is soooo wrong!" Trump wrote on Twitter. In a later tweet, he said, "I rarely use a cellphone, & when I do it's government authorized. I like Hard Lines. Just more made up Fake News!"

Xiaomi really wants to shed its down-market image. China's No. 2 smartphone maker is counting on its most expensive device yet to face off against Huawei and Apple at home while carving out a bigger footprint in Europe. From a report: The Chinese smartphone maker on Thursday unveiled the MIX 3, the fourth generation of a series introduced in 2016. Xiaomi's latest effort to acquire a premium gloss features a bezel-less 6.4-inch screen, Qualcomm processors and slick ceramic body. It now sports front-facing cameras on a sliding structure nestled behind the screen, doing away with the notch popularized by the iPhone. The device will go on sale from November starting at 3,299 yuan ($475) and going all the way up to 4,999 yuan for a "Forbidden City" special edition. It marks Chairman Lei Jun's effort to make greater headway into a more profitable premium market dominated by Apple, Samsung and -- to an increasing extent -- Chinese rival Huawei. That's where customers have deeper pockets to pay for services such as music and games that Xiaomi deems the future of its business. Xiaomi claims that its MIX 3 handset is the first commercial handset that is 5G ready (though the variant with 5G capabilities will go on sale in Europe only in the first quarter of next year.) Other specs of the handset includes: Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 845; Screen: 6.39-inch FHD+ AMOLED (1080Ã--2340, 19.5:9 aspect ratio); RAM: 6/8/10GB; Rear camera: 12-megapixel, f/1.8 + 12-megapixel, f/2.4; Front camera: 24-megapixel, f/2.2 + 2-megapixel; Battery: 3,200 mAh; Internal memory: 128/256GB.