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Huawei Sting Offers Rare Glimpse of the U.S. Targeting a Chinese Giant
- grezql 8y agoThe point of the story is not whether the glass is "unbreakable" or not. It is about the extent of the Huawei scandal.
- yeahitslikethat 8y agoSuper long read only to find out at the end, it might be nothing at all.
- crispyambulance 8y agoYep, this isn't the first story in recent memory from Bloomberg that smells like much ado about NOTHING. What's going on with them?
- e40 8y agoPerhaps the agenda is just negative PR on Huawei.
- Gokenstein 8y agoPerhaps US police have shoved too many of these cases under the rug and now they need a scape goat because it is becoming too obvious that US companies cannot bribe, influence, or demand justice from their own government when the opposition is "businesses" with the backing and protection of China.
- justicezyx 8y ago"too obvious that US companies cannot bribe, influence, or demand justice from their own government" In what alternative universe this is happening?!
- Gokenstein 8y agoSorry, that should have been followed with an, "As they do in China." In the US its more like, "report the issue and watch US authorities sit on it and do fuck all"
- mruts 8y agoWell Bloomberg reporters get bonuses based on how much the their stories move the market. Huawei is traded on the Shanghai Exchange so the incentives for the reporter are to make the stock tank (or pop, I guess).
- withhighprod 8y agoAnd someone could make profit. Hmm it smells like crime
- ucha 8y agoExcept Huawei is not traded publicly.
- mruts 8y agoYeah my bad I guess Huawei culture Co LTD is something else.
- wybiral 8y ago> Well Bloomberg reporters get bonuses based on how much the their stories move the market. Do you have any evidence of this?
- LMYahooTFY 8y ago> Well Bloomberg reporters get bonuses based on how much the their stories move the market. This sounds made up?
- xt00 8y agoIt’s not made up, Bloomberg acknowledges it. https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensation-2013-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensa... FTA: We asked Bloomberg about the practice. A company spokesperson acknowledged it. "It isn't news unless it's true. At Bloomberg News, the most important news is actionable. That means we strive to be first to report surprises in markets that change behavior and we put a premium on reporting that reveals the biggest changes in relative value across all assets."
- docbrown 8y agoI wouldn’t necessarily say Meng being indicted is “nothing at all.” Nonetheless, the story does a great job of illustrating what type of activities LE must do during a type of operation and investigation of this magnitude.
- mikehines 8y agoA marketing ruse?
- sschueller 8y ago"They recall the gemologist saying he’d analyzed the diamond glass sample and concluded that Huawei had blasted it with a 100-kilowatt laser, powerful enough to be used as a weapon." What? how can you determine that from a piece of broke glass?
- krona 8y agoLaser melting is distinctive under a microscope.
- clort 8y agothe gemologist was > an FBI expert in forensic gemology and I can only presume they know what kind of power is required to melt diamond, and how it looks afterwards..
- crispyambulance 8y ago"melt" is really the wrong verb. It don't even think one can melt diamond. The correct verb would be "ablate". If one delivers enough energy to a material in a small-enough space (eg with short-pulse from a focused laser), the material "vaporizes" down to a certain depth and the process starts all over again at the bottom of the void that was ablated away. You can drill through any film this way.
- timdellinger 8y agoIt's a bit of a tangent, but there's an entire field of study called "fractography" which is all about doing things exactly like that. Further tangent: "a piece of broke glass" can exhibit interesting morphology... "mirror", "mist", and "hackle" are distinctive signatures of different fracture conditions.
- peter_d_sherman 8y agoFascinating! Did not know about that subject until now. For anyone that studies material engineering even casually, it's an important sub-topic (I never took material engineering in college, that's why I was ignorant about this subject prior to your comment). On a related note, I found this cool related link on Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fracture_mechanics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Fracture_mechanics. Anyway, thanks again for the comment!
- vincnetas 8y agoThis descriptions does not sound like it's about something that is "virtually unbreakable" : "The sample looked like an ordinary piece of glass, 4 inches square and transparent on both sides. It’d been packed like the precious specimen its inventor, Adam Khan, believed it to be—placed on wax paper, nestled in a tray lined with silicon gel, enclosed in a plastic case, surrounded by air bags, sealed in a cardboard box—and then sent for testing to a laboratory in San Diego"
- sschueller 8y agoAlso according to the agreement Huawei was not supposed to "break" it. I am not sure how they are supposed to evaluate it without scratching at it.
- sharpneli 8y agoThis one stood out to me too. What benefit it even is to get a sample of protective glass if you are not allowed to test it? ”Here. Look at it. Trust us that it’s super resistant to scratches”.
- eulalila 8y agoThey literally describe Huawei sending a picture to Akhan of a deep scratch in the sample, proving they’re testing it properly. Read the fucking articles people: The first sign of trouble came two months later, in May, when Huawei missed the deadline to return the sample. Shurboff says his emails to Han requesting its immediate return were ignored. The following month, Han wrote that Huawei had been performing “standard” tests on the sample and included a photo showing a big scratch on its surface. Finally, a package from Huawei showed up at Gurnee on Aug. 2.
- dsl 8y agoThere are plenty of "unbreakable" coatings. It sounds like what makes this unique is that is was suitable as a display cover. An initial evaluation would be measuring things like how much light energy of what frequencies is able to penetrate the coating. Is the viewing angle acceptable for a consumer device, etc. Hitting it with a hammer can always come later when they determine that it is a good display glass first.
- vfclists 8y agoIs there anything that Huawei does that Western companies don't do, such as trying to steal their competitors secrets? https://www.digitaltrends.com/business/google-sues-uber-over-self-driving-car-secrets/ https://www.digitaltrends.com/business/google-sues-uber-over... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43010348 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43010348 For any older person this is no news. Didn't we something like this with Hitachi in the 80s? Of course the authorities try to ban purchases from foreign companies that steal American company's secrets, but they don't apply the same rule to American companies that steal other American companies secrets. They also don't seem so eager to launch sting operations against American companies who aim to steal other American companies secrets.
- Didymos 8y agoMy instinct is anything our government screams at another country about, security-wise, is simply projecting the fear that everyone else is going to do the exact same thing our government is doing. Huawei might have back doors for the Chinese govt.? Oh, you mean like the FBI, NSA, and CIA have tried to (or maybe successfully) force(d) Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Google to do?
- Gokenstein 8y agoWhen US intelligence goals directly oppose US business goals then the enemy has already won.
- Didymos 8y agoThe goals of the US intelligence community should be completely independent of US business goals, unless they intersect legitimately because of security concerns, rather than anti-competitive practices.
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- onecool 8y ago
- KangLi 8y agoI've read so many stories proclaiming Huawei's misdeeds yet nothing solid thus far, with all scenarios hanging on the hypothetical thread. Yet oddly, it is somehow working and skepticism after all is rooting certainty.
- ShorsHammer 8y ago> The FBI asked them to travel to Las Vegas and conduct a meeting with Huawei representatives at last month’s Consumer Electronics Show. Shurboff was outfitted with surveillance devices and recorded the conversation while a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter watched from safe distance. Is this common practice for criminal investigations?
- Wohlf 8y agoSeems like a pretty typical sting operation, except for the reporter.
- clubm8 8y ago>Seems like a pretty typical sting operation, except for the reporter. I think that's the part that parent thought was unusual
- ShorsHammer 8y agoIndeed, I would have thought it entirely compromises the judicial process too.
- ETHisso2017 8y agoSounds like the FBI is just flailing around, and latching onto bottom feeders in the smartphone components industry in an attempt to find dirt on Huawei. This case is a good example: AKHAN had 28 employees and was going on 80 in 2014, but now it only has 5 employees and has zero revenue. https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140917/BLOGS11/140919854/akhan-semiconductor-gets-3-5-million-to-stay-in-illinois https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140917/BLOGS11/140... Also, how does a startup without any sales dollars afford the services of Thompson Coburn LLP? And just LOL at Adam's final claim around disclosing the FBI investigation to help with landing a customer: do you think federal agents would have allowed him to break his non-disclosure agreements if this investigation had merit? Whole thing is pretty fishy
- z2 8y agoThe Bloomberg reporter watching from a distance part was a bit weird. Also, independent of this alleged wrongdoing, the product itself clearly failed to get traction in the (mobile device) market, for reasons we can only speculate. Sure, they probably can't compete at the same level as juggernauts like Corning, but Gorilla Glass was adopted within a year of announcement back in 2008. Here we are 3 years after 2016, and presumably zero manufacturers are interested in the glass.
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- hammock 8y ago>Sounds like the FBI is just flailing around, and latching onto bottom feeders in an attempt to find dirt... I find that hard to believe.
- aurizon 8y agobeauty is skin deep, Huawei is ugly to bone...
- TheForumTroll 8y agoAnd yet less corrupt than 99% of US business and government. Says a lot.
- boomboomsubban 8y agoSo after Businessweek's story about Supermicro sending hacked boards to companies, the FBI director Wray deflected questions by saying >“We have very specific policy that applies to us as law enforcement agencies to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation,” Why are they now seeming to break that policy by confirming this investigation?
- acct1771 8y agoPolitical gain. Basically, same as when 60 Minutes showed US bombers against protocol a short bit after Russia started waxing ISIS in Syria.
- ENOTTY 8y agoDoesn't seem like the FBI is confirming the investigation in this story. My read on this is that Bloomberg sourced it entirely to the Ahkan people.
- jaclaz 8y agoAs a side-side note, I do understand how journalists may want a career as writers and US articles tend to have pointless details/descriptions, but this is IMHO way too much: >Khan was casually dressed in a dark peacoat, black button-up shirt, gray pants, and sneakers. Shurboff’s attire was more businesslike: a light blue dress shirt, gray sports jacket, black trousers, and brand-new leather shoes.
- gumby 8y agoThank you for saying this -- this kind of fluff filler annoys me too. It always makes me think me of a kid padding an essay to reach the teacher's limit though I'm pretty sure that's not actually the case.
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoIt's trying to add some "human interest" to the story. It annoys those of us who want "just the facts". But for others, it makes the story come alive.
- ridgeguy 8y agoI'll be slightly pedantic: the coating is almost certainly diamond-like carbon (DLC), not diamond. DLC is a complicated class of materials, generally composed of amorphous carbon (no long-range order - kind of like glass) with the same kind of interatomic bonds you see in diamond (sp3 bonds). It's often applied by sputtering or ion beam deposition. Diamond is sp3-bonded carbon with long-range crystalline order. It's most often made by chemical vapor deposition, which is slow and expensive compared to DLC deposition methods. The DLC coating described in the article won't do much to reduce glass breakage. But it will greatly increase scratch resistance because it's nearly as hard as diamond. Diamond doesn't melt unless you're heating it while it's also under enormous pressure to keep it from turning to graphite. It does ablate, or vaporize when hit with laser pulses. This is used to remove small graphite inclusions in diamond.
- aarongough 8y agoOff topic: over the next couple of years I'm looking to develop a small-scale ion-beam coating system for applying DLC as part of a single-piece-flow process cell. I currently send out my products for DLC coating, and the coater does a good job but they keep making process changes (which affects color) without warning me, so I want to bring it in-house to avoid that and to eliminate the need to batch components for them. I would release the design as open source after it's completed. Sounds like you have some knowledge in this area so let me know if you'd be interested in collaborating!
- londons_explore 8y agoIs it really standard practice to demand a sample be returned in original condition in 60 days? Especially a sample of glass? Surely the buyer would want to bend it, scratch it, coat it, paint it, etc. to determine if it's suitable for their usecases? In my experience, it's typical for samples to be provided free (or for a nominal cost), with no strings attached. If there was anything 'secret' in them, they would be protected by copyright, trademarks and patents.
- londons_explore 8y agoIt sounds to me like this company didn't have any patentable technology, and was hoping they'd be protected by dubious 'no reverse engineering' contracts... Which they weren't...