6 ms·

The Plot to Steal the Color White

46 points by nickles 11y ago

throwaway2048 11y ago
The Jingoistic tone of this article is pretty distasteful
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
aravindet 11y ago
What a terrible article. Lots of unprovable allegations and over-the-top adjectives, very light on actual facts. Looks like it was written by representatives for the prosecution or DuPont. The author throws "America" and "China" in there, and seems to assume that that’s enough to prove guilt.
- mc32 11y ago
  It's a story about industrial espionage, it includes allegations and claims from both sides; what did you expect, Xinhua news?
  - bostik 11y ago
    I find it fascinating that the article never uses that term. It comes close to it, using "economic espionage" twice, but otherwise refers to the activity as trade-secret theft, or just "plain" theft. Which it is, of course. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the author, and likely the editor too, have both made sure to avoid calling it industrial espionage. To me that term would have a very loaded connotation: "Company X is competing in an industry, and have inferior technology to someone else. Of course they will resort to espionage. They would be stupid and financially irresponsible not to." Or maybe I'm just too cynical and jaded.
    - becauseICan 11y ago
      Or Liew was charge for violations of the "Economic Espionage Act". And theft is more common as a charge since one doesn't need to prove as many extenuating facts i.e. only that it was stolen, not why it was stolen. I suspect the author was being careful to be factual. https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2014/walter-liew-sentenced-to-15-years-in-prison-for-economic-espionage https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2014/walter-...
- madaxe_again 11y ago
  No, this is a great article, because it shows that America is good and China is bad. Dupont are the innocent party here, they've been wronged, and we should pity them. Maybe we should start a kickstarter to try to raise some money for them?
- chaostheory 11y ago
  It's probably a submarine article commissioned by Dupont's PR firm.
simplexion 11y ago
"It’s about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It’s part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates." This may be a quote of the assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice’s national security division which can be easily ignored but the next paragraph just makes it seem like the author wants you to accept the quote as fact. "A 2013 study estimated that China accounted for as much as 80 percent of the $300 billion in losses sustained by U.S. companies from the theft of intellectual property." What absolute nonsense. It truly makes this article come across as American propaganda.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- troisx 11y ago
  Do you have facts that counter that 80 percent number? I'm curious why you think the Chinese aren't stealing American intellectual property. It's not propaganda if it's true, and everything I've seen indicates that the Chinese are trying to steal American IP on a regular basis, so please state anything you know that counters this article.
  - PakG1 11y ago
    The claim is about as hollow as the claim that software and media companies lose exorbitant amounts of money due to piracy. No, a large portion of that revenue would have been non-existent anyway for a number of reasons. It reminds me of the time I attended the annual American Chamber of Commerce Asia conference in 2010, that year in Beijing. One of the keynote speakers was the Asia CEO for Honeywell. They went into China, tried to localize their products, and were slaughtered by copycats. He said a common saying among those copycats was that Honeywell created the market demand for industrial products that previously didn't actually exist in China before, but it took Chinese companies to supply products that actually met market needs at prices customers were willing to pay. Honeywell didn't cry foul and pout. They revised their R&D strategy to be able to make good local products from the ground up and fought back the way market competition should happen. He said the lessons they learned now form the base of their strategy for entering any new foreign markets. Yeah, there are all sorts of shenanigans that can happen everywhere. The question should always be how do you fight back and win with something superior, not how do you cry foul.
Saad_M 11y ago
I'm surprised that a lot of the leaked information about DuPont's process came from disgruntled ex-employees. Surely DuPont's problem is with those ex-employees leaking sensitive information than anything else.
- ktRolster 11y ago
  Expect a lot more disgruntled employees now that DuPont is merging with Dow.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
linuxkerneldev 11y ago
The article liberally drops anti-Chinese sentiment at every paragraph. Things like: "Of Chinese heritage, Liew was born in Malaysia in August 1957." That would be the equivalent of writing: "Of Kenyan heritage, Obama was born in the USA".
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- chaostheory 11y ago
  I don't disagree with you. However the article does bring up a topic that isn't discussed that often yet. Where do the loyalties of naturalized US (and Canadian) citizens truely lie? I feel that this was less of an issue until the US began allowing dual citizenships i.e. you no longer have to renounce citizenship from your country of origin in order to become a US citizen / you can become a citizen of another country and still be a US citizen. On the surface, you'd expect this to be simple; these individuals would be most loyal to the US... As a naturalized US citizen of Chinese descent, I've had some interesting conversations with other naturalized US citizens of Chinese descent that would show that it's more complicated than that. I'm not sure how, but the topic of "what would happen if China and the US ever declared war on each other?" came up. To my surprise, the other naturalized Chinese Americans told me that they would be conflicted as to who they would support. For context, these are educated people with post-grad degrees from places like Berkeley with occupations to match. They also seem completely naturalized with accents that would fool people into thinking they were born and raised here. The kicker is that neither person was born or raised in China but each grew up in some Southeast Asian country, yet they're essentially comtemplating treason solely due to their race. I found it strange. Since what I have is just anecdotal, I'm guessing (and hoping) that most naturalized US citizens are way more loyal than that and I feel that Chinese Americans born and raised in the US don't have this issue at all. Still I have a feeling that this is probably only going to get worse when you have stuff like birth tourism happening i.e. You get US citizens who spend most of their lives in a foreign country resulting in loyalties to that foreign country http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-tourism_n_7187180.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-tour... To be fair, China isn't the only country related to this issue. I could be wrong but the US probably has the same problem with dual citizenships involving Russia, Israel, Turkey, or any other country that isn't 100% aligned with US interests Of course, this has a fix. Just don't allow dual citizenships in the US. Force people to choose.
jackgavigan 11y ago
This brings the movie The Spanish Prisoner to mind.
vacri 11y ago
I like how the DoJ makes it sound like spying is fine and dandy, but theft? Well, we can't have that...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

46 points by nickles 11y ago

throwaway2048 11y ago

The Jingoistic tone of this article is pretty distasteful

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

aravindet 11y ago

What a terrible article. Lots of unprovable allegations and over-the-top adjectives, very light on actual facts. Looks like it was written by representatives for the prosecution or DuPont. The author throws "America" and "China" in there, and seems to assume that that’s enough to prove guilt.

mc32 11y ago
It's a story about industrial espionage, it includes allegations and claims from both sides; what did you expect, Xinhua news?
- bostik 11y ago
  I find it fascinating that the article never uses that term. It comes close to it, using "economic espionage" twice, but otherwise refers to the activity as trade-secret theft, or just "plain" theft. Which it is, of course. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the author, and likely the editor too, have both made sure to avoid calling it industrial espionage. To me that term would have a very loaded connotation: "Company X is competing in an industry, and have inferior technology to someone else. Of course they will resort to espionage. They would be stupid and financially irresponsible not to." Or maybe I'm just too cynical and jaded.
  - becauseICan 11y ago
    Or Liew was charge for violations of the "Economic Espionage Act". And theft is more common as a charge since one doesn't need to prove as many extenuating facts i.e. only that it was stolen, not why it was stolen. I suspect the author was being careful to be factual. https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2014/walter-liew-sentenced-to-15-years-in-prison-for-economic-espionage https://www.fbi.gov/sanfrancisco/press-releases/2014/walter-...
madaxe_again 11y ago
No, this is a great article, because it shows that America is good and China is bad. Dupont are the innocent party here, they've been wronged, and we should pity them. Maybe we should start a kickstarter to try to raise some money for them?
chaostheory 11y ago
It's probably a submarine article commissioned by Dupont's PR firm.

simplexion 11y ago

"It’s about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It’s part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates." This may be a quote of the assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice’s national security division which can be easily ignored but the next paragraph just makes it seem like the author wants you to accept the quote as fact. "A 2013 study estimated that China accounted for as much as 80 percent of the $300 billion in losses sustained by U.S. companies from the theft of intellectual property." What absolute nonsense. It truly makes this article come across as American propaganda.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
troisx 11y ago
Do you have facts that counter that 80 percent number? I'm curious why you think the Chinese aren't stealing American intellectual property. It's not propaganda if it's true, and everything I've seen indicates that the Chinese are trying to steal American IP on a regular basis, so please state anything you know that counters this article.
- PakG1 11y ago
  The claim is about as hollow as the claim that software and media companies lose exorbitant amounts of money due to piracy. No, a large portion of that revenue would have been non-existent anyway for a number of reasons. It reminds me of the time I attended the annual American Chamber of Commerce Asia conference in 2010, that year in Beijing. One of the keynote speakers was the Asia CEO for Honeywell. They went into China, tried to localize their products, and were slaughtered by copycats. He said a common saying among those copycats was that Honeywell created the market demand for industrial products that previously didn't actually exist in China before, but it took Chinese companies to supply products that actually met market needs at prices customers were willing to pay. Honeywell didn't cry foul and pout. They revised their R&D strategy to be able to make good local products from the ground up and fought back the way market competition should happen. He said the lessons they learned now form the base of their strategy for entering any new foreign markets. Yeah, there are all sorts of shenanigans that can happen everywhere. The question should always be how do you fight back and win with something superior, not how do you cry foul.

Saad_M 11y ago

I'm surprised that a lot of the leaked information about DuPont's process came from disgruntled ex-employees. Surely DuPont's problem is with those ex-employees leaking sensitive information than anything else.

ktRolster 11y ago
Expect a lot more disgruntled employees now that DuPont is merging with Dow.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

linuxkerneldev 11y ago

The article liberally drops anti-Chinese sentiment at every paragraph. Things like: "Of Chinese heritage, Liew was born in Malaysia in August 1957." That would be the equivalent of writing: "Of Kenyan heritage, Obama was born in the USA".

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
chaostheory 11y ago
I don't disagree with you. However the article does bring up a topic that isn't discussed that often yet. Where do the loyalties of naturalized US (and Canadian) citizens truely lie? I feel that this was less of an issue until the US began allowing dual citizenships i.e. you no longer have to renounce citizenship from your country of origin in order to become a US citizen / you can become a citizen of another country and still be a US citizen. On the surface, you'd expect this to be simple; these individuals would be most loyal to the US... As a naturalized US citizen of Chinese descent, I've had some interesting conversations with other naturalized US citizens of Chinese descent that would show that it's more complicated than that. I'm not sure how, but the topic of "what would happen if China and the US ever declared war on each other?" came up. To my surprise, the other naturalized Chinese Americans told me that they would be conflicted as to who they would support. For context, these are educated people with post-grad degrees from places like Berkeley with occupations to match. They also seem completely naturalized with accents that would fool people into thinking they were born and raised here. The kicker is that neither person was born or raised in China but each grew up in some Southeast Asian country, yet they're essentially comtemplating treason solely due to their race. I found it strange. Since what I have is just anecdotal, I'm guessing (and hoping) that most naturalized US citizens are way more loyal than that and I feel that Chinese Americans born and raised in the US don't have this issue at all. Still I have a feeling that this is probably only going to get worse when you have stuff like birth tourism happening i.e. You get US citizens who spend most of their lives in a foreign country resulting in loyalties to that foreign country http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-tourism_n_7187180.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-tour... To be fair, China isn't the only country related to this issue. I could be wrong but the US probably has the same problem with dual citizenships involving Russia, Israel, Turkey, or any other country that isn't 100% aligned with US interests Of course, this has a fix. Just don't allow dual citizenships in the US. Force people to choose.

jackgavigan 11y ago

This brings the movie The Spanish Prisoner to mind.

vacri 11y ago

I like how the DoJ makes it sound like spying is fine and dandy, but theft? Well, we can't have that...

deleted 11y ago
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deleted 11y ago

[deleted]