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China Steps Up Trade Secret Theft from US Companies
- spoiledtechie 8y agoThis article reads like a top-secret spy story. Its very worrying how deep their intellectual theft goes.
- prolikewh0a 8y agoSo? This is just rich people whining about someone else being able to make their products much cheaper. The whole world benefits from this, just not already super rich patent & trademark holders who are anti-competitive & hurt consumers. Can anyone even tell me a negative that isn't just capital?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shrewduser 8y agoBy that logic why have IP at all why bother protecting investments in new technology and inventions. the system isn't perfect but you're saying that there's no merit in it whatsoever.
- shittyadmin 8y agoThis distinctly isn't IP in any real way - it's not trademarkable or patentable.
- ridgeguy 8y agoThere's more to IP than trademarks and patents. You skipped over trade secrets.
- thaumasiotes 8y agoSo, the purpose of granting patents is that companies will take the temporary protection and put their techniques into the public record, preventing the technological loss that occurs when the only people who know a secret accidentally die. What's the idea behind legal protection for trade secrets?
- ridgeguy 8y agoLegal protection of trade secrets gives the trade secret owner the right to sue if someone steals the secret. So if employees of Coca-Cola conspire to steal the (trade) secret formulation for Coke, the company can sue them for damages. There can be criminal offenses as well. Trade secrets are used in situations where there's a secret (like some manufacturing process) that can't easily be reverse-engineered from the product. In that case, the owner can keep the secret as long as they wish. No patent to expire, no transfer of the IP to the public domain. For as long as the secret can be kept. Of course, there's no legal protection from reverse-engineering a trade secret. Somebody who RE'd Coke's formula would not only be free to use it but could patent it as well. The patent holder might even be able to sue Coke for patent infringement.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shittyadmin 8y agoBecause trade secrets are not a respected form of IP. - Patents serve to provide a temporary shelter for monopolizing new ideas and methodologies to allow them to be developed - Trademarks serve to guarantee consumers can differentiate products and their producers - Copyright serves to allow people to make money from creative works while distributing them widely. Trade secrets? Trade secrets allow a company to monopolize a market with no benefit to the public in the long run. They deserve exactly zero legal protections.
- ridgeguy 8y agoThe U.S. patent office disagrees with you and notes that the U.S is obligated to protect trade secrets [1]. The Coca-Cola company and defendants Williams and Dimson might differ, as well [2]. [1] https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/international-protection/trade-secret-policy https://www.uspto.gov/patents-getting-started/international-... [2] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1234095.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1234095.html
- prolikewh0a 8y agoThere is no merit. It's for capital only. Almost everything should be public domain. What real negative effect does the OP article have on society? None, it's actually likely beneficial, just again not for the already super wealthy.
- kodablah 8y ago> There is no merit. It's for capital Sounds like a self-contradictory position to the vast majority that consider capital as merit.
- hueving 8y ago>What real negative effect does the OP article have on society? All capital intensive innovation (i.e. anything hardware related) effectively comes to a full stop. The potential returns on capital are the only reason people invest in these companies in the first place. It takes a shocking amount of mental gymnastics to think billions are going to be spent trying new technologies if second comers can just steal the working result for free.
- booleandilemma 8y agoThis is just rich people whining about someone else being able to make their products much cheaper. Stealing is stealing though, isn't it? Regardless of who benefits.
- prolikewh0a 8y agoWhat are they stealing? Ideas? Thoughts?
- FullyFunctional 8y agoIs this a serious question? They are stealing results of very long and expensive R&D, commonly know as Intellectual Property, or "IP". Producing this locally would require a sufficient mass of experience talent and lots of time and money. It might not even be possible to catch up. The fact that this is being stolen from Micron who presumably weren't blind to the value of their IP make it all the more frighting. None of the companies I have worked for in the past few decades would have had any chance of resisting a motivated thief as locking down knowledge runs counter to fostering innovation.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago>They are stealing results of very long and expensive R&D, commonly know as Intellectual Property, or "IP". Producing this locally would require a sufficient mass of experience talent and lots of time and money. It might not even be possible to catch up. Can you tell me how stealing these results is actually a negative to society? Is it just a negative to already extremely wealthy individuals? I'm finding no negative here and nobody is really giving me anything other than capital.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIf capital is required for innovation, and capital won't invest when that innovation can't provide a return, it is a negative to society.
- jbay808 8y agoBy definition, trade secrets are not patented, as patenting requires disclosure. What do they mean by an "effort that pilfered as much as $8.75 billion in patented American technology"?
- youeseh 8y agoUsing patents but not paying royalties and uncovering trade secrets through illegal methods.
- brianpgordon 8y agoYou can patent a technology and not put every single parameter and process optimization and detail of supporting systems into the patent. Semi fabrication is pretty much the most complex manufacturing process that humans do anywhere. It's like building a nuclear bomb. Any high school physics nerd knows perfectly well how it works, but the US performed over a thousand nuclear tests for a reason. The fine tuning is important.
- hiiq 8y agoThat would make your patent unenforceable in Germany.
- brianpgordon 8y agoI find that extremely hard to believe. If you invent a novel type of bicycle gear mechanism, German patent law requires you to write a tutorial on the most cost effective way you found to machine each part, the particular grade of steel you found to be the best trade-off between price and performance to maximize profit, and your process for assembling it in the factory broken down into the step performed at each worker's station? Do they make you submit your CNC programs directly to the patent office for publication? This is all potentially extremely valuable IP that's not going to be found in the patent filings.
- matt4077 8y agoFine tuning isn't really that important. That's easily demonstrated by the fact that "tests" #2 and #3 already happened in Japan.
- shrewduser 8y agoKick them back out of the wto
- squarefoot 8y agoI would rather kick those irresponsible suits who kept offshoring every damn piece of industry since the past century for immediate profit disregarding entirely the long term results. This is an effect, not a cause.
- freeflight 8y agoCached version to bypass GDPR block: http://web.archive.org/web/20181118233008/http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-china-economic-espionage-20181116-story.html?id=1231 http://web.archive.org/web/20181118233008/http://www.latimes...
- severine 8y agoThanks for the link, but would it be more accurate to call it the "LA Times euro-block" or something like that?
- TenaciousValor 8y agoYou could, but it's not just the LA Times that acts this way. Many websites have engaged in this behavior because of the restrictions imposed by the GDPR. Lots of issues with the GDPR...
- thedailymail 8y agoI just got back from a trip to several EU countries and can confirm that a lot of US publishers do not appear to have been ready for GDPR. Several newspaper websites simply blocked any access from an EU domain. (Of course VPNs let you get around this.) It was also interesting to see how GDPR slightly penalizes users of privacy features by placing must-click banners or entry pages in front of every access attempt. Since websites cannot memorize your preferences if you routinely remove cookies, you get a suboptimal user experience.
- TenaciousValor 8y agoPublishers knew about the GDPR; there was a two-year grace period before the GDPR went into effect, which ended earlier this year. No, it's a conscious choice rooted in business. News websites make substantial amounts of money through advertising. These ads serve scripts which collect information about users. The collection of the information isn't strictly the problem. It has to do with storage and consent. For any company operating globally, the GDPR created two zones of consideration: the EU and the not-EU. Data on EU citizens must remain on servers located in the EU, UNLESS explicit consent by the user is provided and the data is only used expressly for the purpose was intended. Say you link up ad networks into your news website. The scripts the ad agencies include with their ads don't ask for consent when collecting data. This is standard practice across the Internet. To comply with GDPR, a news website would have two options: scrap the ad scripts, or just don't let EU citizens on the site. The not-EU has a lot more people than the EU, so building a separate site wouldn't make financial sense. As a news organization in 2018, you also need every cent you can find to stay afloat. Subscription models don't work for every site, so you still need to provide "free" access to the site by using ads. Considering all of this, blocking the EU is often the best option for news organizations. Not all, but some.
- watertom 8y agoWhat's worse is that International companies have been just giving their technology to the Chinese for years and years. In order to do business in China, non-Chinese companies must partner with a Chinese company. The International company shares their IP with their Chinese counterpart, and the Chinese counterpart in turn shares the IP with the their partner, the Chinese government. The Chinese government takes the IP and shuffles the IP to the company or companies best suited to exploit the IP. This has been taking place as long as China has been open to International business. International companies in a rush to get access to the largest single market in the world have freely given away their IP, because they didn't think the Chinese could ever catch up. Companies are now moving partnerships away from China, and it's forcing the Chinese to steal the IP in order to keep their edge. I try very, very, hard to avoid buying products made in China. I"m OK with every other country in the world, except China.
- dev_dull 8y agoWhy wasn’t it until 2016 until we actually started hearing tough trade rhetoric against China? It seems like they know the game is up and are doubling down on the theft.
- redial 8y agoWhat game? they already won. The US makes nothing and now it is isolating itself, great move.
- greatzebu 8y agoI don't think this is borne out by the data on manufacturing output: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS
- WillPostForFood 8y agoI agree, but the current situation in the US is more nuanced than the graph suggests. A lot of the growth is driven by the energy industry, like fracking, not building products like phones, computers, clothes, furniture, etc. We import 3 tons of steel for every ton we produce. Cars we manufacture in the US are dependent on imported components.
- tehlike 8y agoThe idea behind trade war, among many other things, is this. We are giving out our competitive edge. Getting fair trade is important, as much as the short term pain is real, long term benefits are there. US companies have been at a disadvantage in China due to government incentives for Chinese companies. This cannot go on.
- fleshfly 8y agoUnlikely. The US competitive edge is its human capital, its talent. As long as the US remains a welcoming and attractive place for people to work from all over the world, we aren't giving away anything.
- plazmatic 8y agoExcept the trade war is clearly being lost by Mr. Trump. The article itself indicates that China has only increased this type of activity. Rough times for the U.S. with such an inexperienced individual and administration in charge. And most indicators point to things only getting worse.
- edoo 8y agoIt can go beyond just simple incentives as well. Uber was effectively driven out of China by the government 'picking' Didi. They wanted to reduce the size of their military but didn't want unemployed soldiers and transitioned literally millions of them into Didi drivers. You can't compete with that.
- tehlike 8y agoI also read somewhere where uber drivers were "given tickets" while local law enforcement turned a blind eye to didis. Definitely hard to compete.
- mistermann 8y agoIt's funny, Chinese ride sharing companies enjoy this exact same advantage in Vancouver Canada. We remain a staunch ally.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- shantanubala 8y agoThis might be an unpopular opinion, but I'll express a counterpoint - viewing the same situation through a different lens. Put simply, the Chinese understand why American companies outsource their labor to China. Chinese labor is cheaper, and they are under no illusions - this outsourcing means that their own country experiences many of the negative externalities of Western consumption, including pollution. It's fair for American businesses to distrust Chinese companies and distrust the Chinese government, but can't we all agree that they brought it on themselves? Which multinational corporation reasonably expects that the Chinese government cares about their bottom line at all? And why do many ordinary Americans experience such outrage on behalf of these multinationals? Of course, I understand why their shareholders (and thus, many Americans) may be upset. If anything, I'm angry they jumped at the opportunity to eradicate their domestic workforce to a point where China has the opportunity to steal in the first place.
- lsseckman 8y ago> And why do many ordinary Americans experience such outrage on behalf of these multinationals These are companies we all helped build in one way or another. Their revenues boost our economy and pay for a lot of our govt services
- thr0waway2324 8y agoThis. These countries also export to the rest of the world, strengthening the US dollar and making our nation richer.
- edoo 8y agoOne of the primary reasons it is cheaper to build in China is they do not enforce pollution laws. We outlawed destroying the environment and all our friendly harmless corporations just moved production to where it is de facto legal. If we are not hypocrites we should be rejecting any products not built to our environmental standards.
- baybal2 8y ago
- jorblumesea 8y agoIf we really want China to play nice, there need to be consequences for their actions. For example, despite all of this, they're still in the WTO. Despite all of this, we will feed them trade secrets and establish Chinese offices. Bad behavior goes unpunished, and good behavior isn't rewarded. What incentive do they have not to steal from us? Our handling of their transgressions is naive to a fault.
- jxi 8y agoYou mean consequences like a trade war?
- georgeburdell 8y agoI’d be interested to know more about what the Obama administration threatened in 2015 that caused such a dropoff in corporate hacking, when attacks have dramatically increased in the face of a full-on trade war. The Micron story makes me think when the other shoe will drop for another company: AMD. They are (possibly, debatably) laundering X86 IP to China through a joint venture. I guess it’s hard to steal what’s being given away?
- throwawaytipe2 8y ago“We’ll stop hacking you guys if you stop hacking us?”
- greglindahl 8y ago"IP" means a lot of things. A license to produce a chip is one thing, a mask for a particular design is another, and neither one will do much to help you design new x86 products. You can see some stuff in the mask, but it's looking at the chip through the wrong end of a telescope. I don't know on what level AMD is cooperating with those folks, do you? And even if they did sell the top-level design details, that's not Intel's implementation.
- georgeburdell 8y agoThe US government has banned Intel/NVidia/AMD from selling compute units to China for the purposes of supercomputers. AMD must tread carefully cooperating in any way with them.
- scarejunba 8y agoThey can just use the Hygon Dhyana (the repackaged EPYC or whatever).
- anon2775 8y agoBig whoop. Every developing country did it, including and especially the US; so getting self-righteous later about someone else also doing it is egotistical, convenient inconsistency. MYOB and protect your own tech as you would ordinarily. Fin.
- thr0waway2324 8y agoI used to teach undergrads and phds at a university Beijing back in the mid 2000s. What I see happening in China since I lived there absolutely frightens me. They spend heavily on the military and military technologies, which normally would not concern me had I not spent time living there. Among the younger students I taught I heard on multiple occasions statements along the line of "All Japanese must die". The younger the student, the more likely they were to harbor intense hatred for the Japanese. Yes, the rape of Nanking was horrible, but I would expect older Chinese to have the strongest emotional concern for the Japanese, not the younger generations that are decades removed from any atrocities from WWII. At the rate things are going, if we see the rise of a "fourth reich" so to speak with a genocidal demeanor, it's going to be from the PRC. In a way, they've already been doing this with the Uyghurs and the Tibetans. It first started off with ethnic cleansing via dilution, but has already taken a turn for the worse with the growth of re-education camps.
- booleandilemma 8y agoWe should boycott China and refuse to buy their stolen technology.
- throwawaytipe2 8y agoI thought piracy != theft?
- _cs2017_ 8y agoThere are some obvious measures that the US industry and government can take: improved cyber security, limited access to information, sophisticated employee surveillance, stiff jail term for offenders, background checks on employees with privileged access, etc. However, those measures are already in place in every company that has valuable IP to steal (and in many more companies that do not have anything of value, but like to pretend that they do). Of course, the US government can go all in, and require something similar to the "Top Secret" classification for all employees working in sensitive high-tech fields. This will certainly reduce trade theft, but that benefit is likely to be dwarved by the damage to the economy from the loss in efficiency, loss of access to foreign labor, and the change in culture: the smartest, most creative and most energetic people often shy away from working in organizations with military-grade security. Foreign labor is often mentioned as the root cause. Removing all foreign workers from sensitive areas will certainly make state-sponsored industrial espionage more difficult. However, history and common sense suggests there are plenty of US citizens perfectly willing to sell their corporate data to outsiders. So the benefits are unlikely to be dramatic. On the other hand, the economic cost to the US economy would be very high. Moreover, there's a chance this will backfire really badly. Today, it's hard for many countries to keep their best students from leaving for the US. If we solve that problem for them, it may be the very thing they need to close the technological gap with the US. In general, it seems that state-sponsored espionage can only be controlled with an agreement between states, which ultimately comes down to skillfully negotiating the terms.
- gerdesj 8y ago"Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most European countries. We are engaged on the issue and committed to looking at options that support our full range of digital offerings to the EU market. We continue to identify technical compliance solutions that will provide all readers with our award-winning journalism." Wot? Surely a reasonably decent bunch of journos should have got to grips with GDPR by now.
- TenaciousValor 8y agoSee my reply above for an explanation. TL;DR: the reason is business, not necessarily incompetence.
- ngcc_hk 8y agoIt is not a pros and cons style of argument that is call for. It is about dynamics. China has learnt from japan and india that just open up and even prosper is not a oath to independence. It cunning do what it does, so when the population age and the money war started it still goes a substantiable “empire”. After all it is a Hans empire of the Middle Kingdom. Now, the partnership and getting ip is not new. Look at the airplane espeically military one you sense they have a long plan. Just America does not. And it is just awaking. To be honest if china is a democracy and basic human rights (which may destroy the communist but may be a even greater power), it is another japan and Eu raise up vs American scenario. And china learn those two lessons. And hence it may win. It Open to get and close up key part so that yours are mine and Mine mine. Some part like e-wall, e-market etc. are closed. They have certain market segment (antibiotics, rare metal) and some weakness like argiculture (too many mouth - 1/4 population ; not sure how this play out) and oil (but shift to electricity like car and if wind/solar/nuclear/... work it can be mediated) But it does not have democracy and human rights. Cannot be on its side. But what if it has. We are all Hans or we can have a Tripolar world - right wing America, middle Eu and left wing china for anyone to choose. But we are not. And the Hans may want a empire of the world. We live in a sphere and middle meant nothing and a Middle Kingdom means conquering the world.
- ambicapter 8y agoThis comment is borderline nonsensical. Please don't post comments via google translate.
- salimmadjd 8y agoOT - anecdotally, I'm seeing an uptick in anti-China reporting. Are you feeling that too or is just me? It almost feels like there is a concerted effort to confront China. Now it could be that these articles are coming out organically from bottom to top. Meaning ordinary journalists are seeing the potential threat of China economically and technologically and are becoming more vocal about it. Alternatively, it could be a top-down "agenda" to confront China and the media is gradually setting the zeitgeist to confront China. What are your thoughts?
- mk926 8y agoYes, I think so. Media too exaggerated
- phyller 8y agoThis pattern of behavior by China has been happening for a long time, the activity itself is nothing new. My theory is, Trump is extremely good at getting attention, especially of the many that hate him. He has put the USA's relationship with China in the spotlight, and when any American actually looks into it, right or left, it's pretty clear we are getting a bad deal. Now more people know about it, more people care about it, or are unhappy about it, so it gets more clicks. Plus the government is going to encourage this stuff instead of try to sweep it under the rug like they might have done in other situations when trying to smooth out relations. So yea, I think the zeitgeist is definitely heading towards a confrontation with China, whether that is by design or not. There also seems to be a sense of urgency as people are realizing (too late) that the longer this lopsided relationship goes the less chance the US has to salvage anything short of actually going to war, which would probably be a near world-ending situation.
- hydrox24 8y agoAustralian scholarship and media has substantially changed it's tone on China in the last five years. While there are undoubtedly some forces from "above" pushing for this change, I think that government and corporate interest is still largely aligned with China. Both out parties are fairly comfortable with Chinese investment and lobbying despite a couple of scandals in the last three years. Sam Dastyari is on of the few cases where a politician was burned for it. The bottom up forces include several University Chinese student clubs being ousted as both funded and influenced by the Chinese government. The Australian (centre right paper) is also focussing some of its limited investigative resources on this now too. Scholarship is also showing signs of changing directions, with many of the students I know working on the soft power and sharp power tactics of the chinese government. Things like Chinese Pacific Island nation investment and debt and the influence of Confucious centres in Universities. I'm sorry that I can't provide sources—I am at work at the moment.
- throwawaytipe2 8y agoIt’s funny how on many Show HN posts, the top comment is often “is it open source?” Not to mention all the comments on articles about patent trolls.
- lyrachord 8y agoIt sounds like Gollum's words. Shame. What we fear is? Be a man!
- addicted 8y agoHow does complaining about Chinese IP theft square with HN complaints about IP protections in TPP? Because pretty much the whole point of the IP protecrions in TPP was to avoid the situation we see in China.
- wangii 8y agoIt's going to be unpopular. I'd say it's the arrogance of American leads to the situation. >> The Yinhe incident (Chinese: 银河号事件) was a false claim made in 1993 by the United States government that the China-based regular container ship Yinhe (银河; "Milky Way") was carrying chemical weapon materials to Iran. The US Navy forced the Yinhe to stop in the international waters of the Indian Ocean for a month. The final inspection report signed by the U.S., concluded that there was no chemical weapon materials at all. However, the U.S. government refused to apologize "because the United States had acted in good faith on intelligence", even though the Chinese were proven innocent. What's not mentioned in the wikipedia page, is that US cut off the GPS of Yinhe container ship to force the search. It has been a wake up call for Chinese government.
- jorblumesea 8y agoWhat does that have to do with the mass theft of billions of dollars of IP? So, the US stops a Chinese ship in international waters, and therefore mass theft of trade secrets is acceptable? You're just making excuses. The Chinese government is an authoritarian state that is completely and totally ruthless, anything thing the US has done is just a pretense for this behavior. We're talking about a government that grounded up their own citizens with tanks and washed their remains down the drain: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-square-massacre-death-toll-secret-cable-british-ambassador-1989-alan-donald-a8126461.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/tiananmen-squa...
- wangii 8y agoIt is plain and simple: if you don't have total control of the technology you are using, you'll get bullied by US government. >> The Chinese government was and is an authoritarian state that is completely and totally ruthless. I don't see any value in your last line.
- jorblumesea 8y agoChina has every right to control their own technology. They do not have the right to steal it in any fashion that they see fit. Develop your own without violating international laws and norms. Europe, the US and most of the world competes globally without resorting to such underhanded and damaging tactics. China is one of many global citizens, not the only global citizen, and the way they interact with the world leaves much to be desired. They will learn one way or another the consequences of their actions. >> I don't see any value in your last line. Then you don't understand the West. Freedoms and values are important. How your government is run is important.
- xmly 8y agoIs it because China stopped importing garbage from the western world? Once stopped acting as the trash can and labor cost becomes higher, China becomes useless and a threat?
- hiiq 8y ago"a stunning Chinese-backed effort that pilfered … patented American technology." Why, pray tell, if its patented did they have to steal it? Surely they just had to download and read the patent from the chinese patent office, in Chinese no less?
- fspeech 8y agoLet's look at some of the facts of the case at the center of the report. This is HN after all. 1. The Chinese company paid close to $300 million to UMC, a Taiwanese fab, for DRAM technology. The deal is reportedly structured highly favorable to UMC with larger future milestone payments upon delivery. 2. The transfer was approved by the Taiwan government. Taiwan is highly sensitive about technology transfer to China. It is at the 32nm node, a relatively dated technology node. 3. UMC is the 3rd largest fab in the world capable of 14nm logic fabs. Logic fabs used to be much more technologically sophisticated than DRAM fabs. Indeed before the great DRAM price war Taiwan had quite a few small DRAM fabs surviving on second hand equipment from logic fabs and logic fabs often tested their fab startup by making DRAMs (with their density DRAMs are a great way to flush out bugs in the manufacturing process). However DRAMs are very price sensitive commodities -- being capable of making DRAMs and capable of making profits from making DRAMs are two entirely different things. 4. Micron bought Rexchip of Taiwan, which was one of those standalone DRAM manufacturers that didn't survive. All the employees accused of theft are Taiwanese and former employees of Rexchip. 5. The Chinese company, Jinhua, had earlier out-muscled Micron in Chinese court, using patents transferred from UMC to ban some Micron products for sale in China. 6. LA Times started with: "It was the great microchip heist — a stunning Chinese-backed effort that pilfered as much as $8.75 billion in patented American technology." But it later said: "Prosecutors estimate the information was worth between $400 million and $8.75 billion."
- csense 8y agoIdea: Every time the Chinese (or any other nation) steals technology, calculate its economic value, multiply it by a factor of 4 or something for punitive effect, and send the Chinese government a bill. If they ignore it, just raise some tariffs and tax their goods until the fine's paid.
- sgift 8y agoThis would work if China was a small country the west wouldn't depend on in various ways. But China is literally "too big to fail" .. the west depends on China in a myriad of ways, so they can do whatever they want.
- baybal2 8y agoThey twist the facts quite a bit. The alleged "stealing" of 900 files on premises of Micron Taiwan was the famed incident with loss of USB flash with "keys to the kingdom." The biggest counterargument to US version is the fact that the alleged spy was the very person who sounded the alarm that he lost the USB flash. The only uncertainty here is about whether it was USB flash or a phone. News sources differ on that. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17375406 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17375406 >An employee from mainland who previously worked at a competitor company accidentally put coworker's phone into her bag along with papers on the table. They guy thought that his phone was stolen and called police, police found his phone in a locker of a coworker. >During investigation of that theft, they stumbled on some company docs on the phone, and opened an espionage case based on that. Why a defector would file a police report on his accomplice?
- 0x262d 8y agoThis forum only has a few kinds of purely political topics and one of them, oddly, is anti-China stuff. I don't understand it at all. About the headline... the US and its allies have stolen from and taken advantage of colonial countries like China for hundreds of years, and that is directly responsible for the technological and economic advantage currently enjoyed by the US - not western rationalism, "democracy" or some other warmed-over, quietly racist answer like that. American companies can pay Chinese people shit for grueling tasks and bring home superprofits from their labor and have been doing exactly that for decades and decades. The Chinese state sometimes goes along with this and sometimes does not and "steals" technology back. Stop buying into this nationalistic nonsense of us vs them. You are all going to get us sucked into a world war. Instead, consider asking if the interests of the billionaires who "own" these technologies that are being "stolen" align with yours. Spoiler alert: if you're not a billionaire, you have less interests in common with US billionaires than with Chinese workers. Class struggle is heating up in the United States and in China and competing companies have less room to continue exploiting people without violent resistance, so they need to distract people by telling them to go to war with Eastasia again. Please don't fall for it.
- blub 8y agoIt's not odd at all, what is odd is how many defend China and point out the US's past sins. If China feels it was ill-treated it should ask for reparations, not freaking steal any piece of technology it can. Furthermore: 1) China is stealing technology from everyone, not just the US. 2) They're also doing some hobby colonialism of their own in Africa. Not to mention bullying anyone that dares call them out for their concentration camps. So China seems to be one more bully on the international stage. There's enough of those already.
- 0x262d 8y agoI never said China's ruling class weren't "bullies". What I am opposing is the myopic belief in a nationalistic, us-vs-them mentality that transparently exists to make people ignore the class differences staring them in the face at home. Also, ask for reparations? Like all the other times the US has happily granted those?? And finally, at least you are seemingly frank about believing that the US should be able to exploit other countries as the supreme "bully".
- scarejunba 8y agoInformation wants to be free, I suppose.
- throwaway487548 8y agoThis is what globalization is all about. Someone, lets say US and EU, do very costly and high skilled labour intensive R&D and then sell the results all around the world (just take a look at what is going on in genetic engineering and pharma - billions and billions are being paid in salaries and other expenses every year, look at Uber, which develops its own AI software, while losing billions, etc). Of course, the soviets and chinese are unhappy, because they are self-proclaim themselves as being no less "great" and capable, while, in fact, they have nothing even vaguely comparable with the US R&D machine, fueled with top talent and endless investment bank's money from all over the world (Saudis, Softbank, Norwegian sovereign fund, etc). And, of course, being an R&D hub of the world is absolute win in the long run. The tiny Swiss being the world leaders of R&D in industrial robotics is another great example. And soviets and chinese have nothing but propaganda, false claims and unsupported imperial ambitions.
- neolefty 8y agoIs the complaint, then, that China gets to profit from US-funded R&D? Because genuinely, the human race as a whole is benefiting from that R&D — and also from China's appropriation of it — by getting cheaply produced implementations!
- balls187 8y agoI imagine the anger here is the frustration that the Chinese seem to be so brazen about their IP theft, but IP theft isn't just relegated to the Chinese government and Chinese companies. In light of all the "bad" things the US does with little oversight, ensuring US Technology is still top must be a major priority, and probably has droves of covert operations to help US companies be competitive if needed. It's just likely that the US doesn't have many sources to steal from. I also have to believe this anger is cultural as well. As Americans, we're brainwashed into black and white thinking, and to attach very high weight to moral and ethical implications of decisions. "Always pay back your debts. If you take out a mortgage, if you go bankrupt, you are a bad American." I expect that Chinese culture has a different take regarding what we consider "cheating."
- electrograv 8y ago> I also have to believe this anger is cultural as well. As Americans, we're brainwashed into black and white thinking, and to attach very high weight to moral and ethical implications of decisions. I find it very strange that you are effectively calling culture “brainwashing”. Would you prefer we have no cultural values at all? How do you think that would even play out? Without a shared value system, you cannot have civilization. That said, your overall point is correct: Sometimes cultural value systems differ in incompatible ways, unless reconciled somehow. Often, this means being faced with the cold, hard reality of weighing the cost vs benefit of “acting out” against a law or moral code expected of you by the other party (whether or not your culture agrees with those laws or morals is irrelevant, when we’re purely talking about tangible consequences). If there are no consequences from us, I don’t think it’s fair we “play the victim”. If we (the US) don’t want this behavior to continue, we must specify and enforce a policy of tangible consequences that will occur in retaliation for every single instance of IP theft that occurs.
- balls187 8y ago> I find it very strange that you are effectively calling culture “brainwashing”. Would you prefer we have no cultural values at all? How do you think that would even play out? Without a shared value system, you cannot have civilization. That's an extreme conclusion from my argument--that we (as Americans) are indoctrinated into moral and ethical thinking even if such decisions aren't in our best interest, while other Americans avoid such thinking and are able to find success because they're not constrained by such beliefs. There is much more to American values than blind obedience wrt paying back debts. American's can have a shared sense of moral and ethical standards without creating an extreme adherence to such beliefs.