42 ms·
MIT cuts ties with Chinese tech firms Huawei, ZTE
- lordnacho 8y agoIs there any chance Chinese phones will stop working too?
- chrisjc 8y agoAs the owner of Huawei and Xiaomi devices, I would say the chances that they stop working is extremely high.
- ianai 8y agoIs there any evidence that these two companies aren’t Chinese government operatives?
- titanix2 8y agoDoes it make any difference when US companies are participating in PRISM anyway?
- farresito 8y agoAs an European, I would rather get spied on by the US than by China.
- ianai 8y agoThe US does not have execution vans for dissidents whereas China does, for instance.
- scottie_m 8y agoThey also don’t have re-education camps for religious minorities, a social credit score, and no rule of law. The U.S. is deeply flawed, especially when you take their war on drugs into account, but I’d still prefer them over China any day of the week.
- ngcc_hk 8y agoAnd we can “harm” by Facebook google outside of great china e-wall. Let us not be in the blessed communist state.
- throwaway29875 8y agoThe US does have execution drones that target people based on metadata [1]. > In 2014, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said in a public debate, “We kill people based on metadata.” > According to multiple reports and leaks, death-by-metadata could be triggered, without even knowing the target’s name, if too many derogatory checks appear on their profile. “Armed military aged males” exhibiting suspicious behavior in the wrong place can become targets, as can someone “seen to be giving out orders.” Such mathematics-based assassinations have come to be known as “signature strikes.” 1. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-to-survive-americas-kill-list-699334/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- cf498 8y agoI am not a Chinese dissident. China is not going around the globe putting people in execution vans there. So my personal consequences of Chinese surveillance are rather limited. The possible impact on my life is in no way comparable to the possible impact of the same by the US. I would like to not be mistook landing on no-fly lists, being banned from international banking as well as from making business with any company.
- CharlesColeman 8y ago> I am not a Chinese dissident....So my personal consequences of Chinese surveillance are rather limited. I would recommend that you think of yourself as a dissident, including as a foreign dissident, even if you aren't actually one. I think that attitude can be a great source of moral guidance and perspective.
- cf498 8y agoWhich has nothing to do with the question of what would be preferable to European citizens, US surveillance or Chinese surveillance. The possible effects are rather clear cut, which is why I dont understand why anyone would views this differently. I understand that for a lot of people this becomes a moral question quickly, but thats not whats up to debate here. Its not about the justifications for surveillance programs but their direct effect on people living in Europe. I also have less to worry about from North Korean surveillance, simply because I am not a north Korean. We dont have that luxus with the US, despite not being a US citizen. Or more fittingly because we are not US citizens.
- CharlesColeman 8y ago> Which has nothing to do with the question of what would be preferable to European citizens, US surveillance or Chinese surveillance. > Its not about the justifications for surveillance programs but their direct effect on people living in Europe. That's a bizarre question and pretty self-centered. Also, as a European, if you're trying to somehow choose between one or the other, wouldn't you want to most strongly oppose the surveillance run by the regime that's least aligned to European/Western values?
- Drakim 8y agoI'm actually not sure I agree. I have the nagging feeling that China spying on me is most likely to have zero consequences for my daily life, while the US spying on me can get me on a no-fly list or something.
- azinman2 8y agoWell when they copy and outcompete all your industries, then I think you’d notice some consequences.
- lexs 8y agoThe US has been caught doing industrial espionage as well, more of a pest or cholera situation here.
- azinman2 8y agoThe US is not regularly directing its hackers to break into the worlds companies to steal all their IP and then put it into play across all industries. The amount of blatant copying is insane... just head to any market in Asia to see the abundant fakes that flood the markets. There is no comparison.
- ineedasername 8y agoFalse equivalency. The US has not been caught on the scale of China and its forced tech transfer policies. US may have some limited targeted activity, but they aren't wholesale strip mining industry IP.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- aurailious 8y agoThis is an amazing case of whataboutism.
- 8y ago
- ummonk 8y agoReally? I would expect China to not have much interest in you individually, whereas the US might.
- microdrum 8y agoAs an American, I would rather get spied on by the US than by China, too. All of the pro-China downvoters on this and many other HN threads.... I do not understand you. I recall from my political sciences courses in university that a hallmark of progressivism was being against imperialism. The basic idea here is that imperialism involves deliberately expanding a government's control of physical territory through violence, subjugation, cultural appropriation, theft, and many other means. The idea why imperialism is a moral BAD was that it inextricably involves suppressing the human rights of others. Now, China is an imperialist power. Full stop. It wants more land and more people. It has killed and is killing to get more land and more people. The same cannot be said of the US. So why the constant whataboutism on China issues here on HN?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nativeimigrant 8y agoAs a human being... I'm concerned by so much defeatism on this issue. If someone is spying on you and you are just a civilian, it's bad full stop! I get the feeling that most of the comments are just apologetic to the US govt because the hypocrisy is just sooooo obvious As for imperialism... How many countries has US invaded compared to China? Don't be silly
- mola 8y agoI'm not sure the US isn't imperialist by your definition. At the very least the second Iraqi war hints to the contrary. It appears the main agenda there was a grab for oil and not a security threat. Not to mention its behavior in South America during the cold war. Now, I prefer the US over China, because its ideals are at least against imperialism and pro human rights, democracy and freedom. They might not always do what they preach, but these ideals combined with soft power approach, is (was?) A source of good. (If only they didn't hate socialism so much, and didn't prefer corporation freedom over human freedom, it would have been even better... well, let's hope the EU can survive)
- thereare5lights 8y agoThe US is not an imperialist power? Are you kidding me? We have military bases and troops all over the world. Our black ops interferes in the internal affairs of any country it wants with virtually no oversight. We use our economic might to twist arms and bend other countries to our will. We have a ridiculous treaty with Cuba that cedes use of Guantanamo Bay to us in perpetuity for $2000 a year. We pretty much invaded Iraq for the oil. No one believes they fucked up so badly that they thought there were WMDs and then whoops couldn’t find any! And then there's Puerto Rico. We won't let them become a state despite multiple referendums with the outcome in favor of statehood. Instead we keep them pretty much in colony status. Sounds great for us. Sucks for them when they have no right to provide input into their own national government. The administration is threatening to invade Venezuela because they don’t like the government. And to go straight to your specific definition of imperialism, the only thing you have is that we are done conquering. And now that we’re done we get to tell others that they can’t do it right? I mean really there are good arguments that can be made here but “The same cannot be said of the US” is not one of them. We just make it look cleaner.
- rfwhyte 8y agoAs a Canadian I would tend to agree. My take on things is that while both countries spy, the reasons they do it are what matters. Broadly speaking the US spies to prevent terrorism and violence, where as China spies to steal IP, control their international diaspora for political purposes at home and abroad, and to destabilize democracies. The CCP worldview is incredibly cynical.
- chrischen 8y agoUS did, and still tries to destabilize countries. See Iraq, covert CIA operations. It’s well within the norm. I think what you mean is that The US is Canada’s ally so being spied on by the US is less of a risk.
- OrgNet 8y agoThe US says that it spies to prevent terrorism, violence, etc... but that is just a pretext to justify it. The main reason is to stay the richest.
- nativeimigrant 8y agoAs a European? What does that mean? It's not like it's a homogeneous continent? Also as a European ... actually as a human ... I'd very much prefer to prohibit anyone spying on me. Europeans have seen first hand what totalitarianism means, even if it masquerades itself as freedom ;)
- lern_too_spel 8y agoThe only companies that participate in PRISM are government security contractors. You appear not to have understood what PRISM is, which is astonishing given how much documentation we have about it.
- oscargrouch 8y agoReading the answers to your comment, can get pretty depressive. As people are just taking spionage for granted, trying to choose who we would want to let spy on us. Please, can we try, or at least pretend we are trying to defend our rights to privacy of data that should be private? I dont want to have to choose who should spy on me. We are entering into this dystopian reality, and somehow we are fine with it.. but there will be a time, we will understand it's too late, and theres no going back. I hope we wake up sooner than that. Dont just accept it as it is, it will have severe consequences to our future, if we let them to have all of our data, because this means complete control of our lives and the end of the little free will we still have. It feels to me like choosing which mob lord would be the less evil to me.. We need to understand we dont actually need to make this kind of choice. Resist. Dont let them have it.
- tasuki 8y agoIs there evidence they are? I don't trust Huawei all that much, rather I think whatever alternatives might also be whoever's operatives.
- SpicyLemonZest 8y agoAs a matter of government policy, all Chinese companies are government operatives. The Communist Party claims "overall leadership over all areas of endeavour in every part of the country".
- elefanten 8y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted. It's legally and practically true.
- nomnomray 8y agoisn't all companies subject to the laws of their respective host countries? The narrative of "party rules all" is way too simplistic to form an argument. At least I would be curious to look for past events of how the party exerted influence on non-state-owned-enterprises.
- FussyZeus 8y agoLaws, yes. Will, no. The Chinese Government regularly leverages influence on it's largest companies to great effect. Apple is subject to the laws of the United States (allegedly) but the US Government hardly has a say in what they do within the scope of those laws.
- nomnomray 8y agoAnd laws are the will of the government ratified by justice (sometimes meaninglessly). How did will of the people held up against the canning of net neutrality? What say did the people have in the sanction and re-sanction of Iran? The OP claims government policy dictates everything. Has anyone passed a thought what "policy" actually mean? Is it law or under the table practice? Not you nor the OP said anything substantial other than "they do it". No shit. FBI is also working their hardest to gain access privilege through everyway they can in the scope of their capacity. The real question to ask is not whether the Chinese government will influence Chinese companies, but HOW and whether companies like Huawei can resist or has resisted in the past.
- icelancer 8y agoIs there any evidence you've stopped beating your wife? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question
- talloaktrees 8y agoThat's not the same thing.
- aeze 8y agoRight, because it's an apt analogy.
- escapecharacter 8y agoCouldn’t you count any US based company that takes major government contracts, or has board members who were formerly high in government (eg. Dropbox/Condoleezza Rice) as a “government operative”?
- novaRom 8y agoIs there any list of such companies?
- bdcravens 8y agoAs long as National Security Letters are a thing, that can encompass most companies.
- ianai 8y agoNope. Presumably their former positions on their resumes are why former government employees are on such boards/in such positions. Expecting/wanting certain things on a resume are standard practice.
- elamje 8y agoMany large companies in China are partially owned by the state. Great for Chinese-domestic only companies as the government will give you favor, bad for international companies based in China as the government has power to use you like a trojan horse.
- 0xcafecafe 8y agoIn logical perspective it is very difficult to prove a negative even if absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 8y agoIt could be argued that if the news needs to introduce you as "an elite US school", you aren't really an elite school. That's an odd conclusion to draw about MIT though. Who's the target audience here? MIT really is internationally known.
- unethical_ban 8y agoElite != Culturally recognized Every American knows Harvard, many wouldn't know Cal Tech or MIT.
- floren 8y agoI'm going to call bullshit on Americans not knowing MIT. It's TV/movie shorthand for someone being a tech genius, same way Harvard is shorthand for being a top lawyer/politician/writer. "Top of his class at MIT"
- DoofusOfDeath 8y agoI see your point, but IMO "elite" refers to its level of excellence, not how well known it is. For example, my understanding is that IIT was elite well before many of U.S-born software developers had heard of it.
- philipov 8y agoNah, 'elite' refers to the level of prestige. Prestige != Excellence.
- deleted 8y ago
- PlayfulTrick 8y agoLackluster outline of implicated strategy regards placement of a fore-settled time-line(course of action); thoughts?
- CodeSheikh 8y agoI wonder if US carriers can start discouraging consumers from using Huawei, ZTE cellphones. They know the IMEI numbers.
- gruez 8y agoHow would this work? A monthly ZTE surcharge? The consumer already bought the phone. Retroactively punishing them when they already gave money to ZTE isn't the right solution. Just ban new phones from joining the networks.
- penagwin 8y agoZTE is super popular amount the more "budget" carriers like boost, cricket, metro, etc. Not to mention their parent companies like Tmobile and Sprint which I'd still consider semi-budget carriers. Source: Work in phone repair. We don't repair phones that cost 100USD new and have a non-existant parts market.
- chrischen 8y agoWhat is a “premium” carrier and what are they offering for the extra price?
- penagwin 8y agoMostly just AT&T and Verizon, and Verizon is definitely the more "premium" one. I consider them premium because they cost more, they don't try to be the most affordable, they own other brands for that (cricket, etc.). The biggest difference is their coverage. If you live in, and mostly travel within a metro area you're fine with sprint/tmobile, but anybody who's ever travelled will find that verizon is the only option if you work in, or go to the middle of nowhere at all. Basically Verizon has towers everywhere, including farmland that I can't figure out why they'd want to cover, but hey you get coverage while picking blueberries! (This only goes for the USA, and includes my experience living in Michigan working in phone repair/retail, as well as my travels with other people/their carriers outside of Michigan)
- eob 8y agoI was a PhD student at MIT CSAIL a few years ago and recall an incident where a visiting scholar from a corporation who had donated money had to be asked to leave because he essentially scraped every piece of internal data and code in the lab and sent it back home. What was amazing to me was that he was allowed to return a few months later with the explanation “it was just a cultural misunderstanding” I want to be careful not to point fingers at a particular country or culture, but that experience taught me that a grey-area version of corporate espionage is _very real_ in academia — an environment that operates with all guards down and no defenses against it. [Edited to fix tappos]
- frozenport 8y agoAnother hilarious example is Steve Johnsons (and companies)s casimir force paper which was copied figure by figure by some Chinese researchers. Absolutely nothing happened to those Chinese "scholars".
- ryacko 8y agoWhat grey area? It was bad enough they decided to send him home.
- Dirlewanger 8y agoIt's bad because MIT reprimanded him for "scrap[ing] every piece of internal data and code in the lab and sent it back home"? That's felonious territory. He should have been deported indefinitely.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- coldacid 8y agoOr imprisoned locally indefinitely.
- sidr 8y agoBut not bad enough that they could resist the pressure to have him back with just an excuse of "oopsies".
- novaRom 8y agoI just finished reading 'AI Superpowers' and I hardly understand now if US has any single chance to compete with China's Tech fairly, openly, democratically, with respect.
- tdaltonc 8y agoYou should go back and read that book much more skeptically. That whole book is a PR piece from a VC trying to generate deal flow. Scratch below the surface and there's not much substance to his 3 big arguments. http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- elkos 8y agoWell, thank you this was a pretty good read. I'm volunteering in a small nonprofit and do believe we work on interesting stuff but when I try to reach out to the press I feel they are totally uninterested. (Most of the time... The state/public TV usually is more open to us)
- varjag 8y agoChinese tech is impotent, so there's a fair chance for America.
- visarga 8y agoIn regard to AI, Chinese researchers can efficiency apply everything that has been published and can even make valuable original research, though not at the same volume and level as US.
- techntoke 8y agoIf US wants to compete and be a leader in tech, then they are going to have to focus on an open-source mostly patent-free future.
- mark_l_watson 8y agoHmmm. From the article: "MIT is the latest top educational institution to unplug telecom equipment made by Huawei and other Chinese companies to avoid losing federal funding." It seems like my government is pulling out all the stops trying to compete internationally against Chinese companies in the 5G market. I understand that other countries also pull out all the stops in trying to help their industries compete internationally.
- coldtea 8y agoThis is what a commerce war looks like. It's not about China being an oppressive state, spying, etc. The former didn't matter all these decades, and the latter goes on forever from all sides and nobody bats an eye. It's about China catching up to (and surpassing in some cases) US tech, and not being content to be the mere "factory of the US" but sell its own stuff. Like Korea, Taiwan, and Japan each did in their own timelines decades ago (from laughed at copycats and cheap foreign manufactures, to competitive themselves). Expect to see more of China as the "enemy du jour" going forward.
- acchow 8y agoJapan caught up and surpassed the US without the corporate espionage or subsequent commerce war.
- chrischen 8y agoThey did this decades ago, and without time for the US to react. Also the US shaped Japan’s government so it’s difficult to criticize them due to competition.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Japan caught up and surpassed the US without the corporate espionage or subsequent commerce war. No, Japanese corporate espionage against US firms, Japanese transfers of sensitive US-origin technology to regimes the US wanted it kept away from, and a US-Japan trade war are all things that happened and were notable news items during the Japanese run up. This despite the US and Japan being geopolitical allies at the times involved.
- Barrin92 8y agoYou should brush up on the history of Japanese-US trade relations during the Reagan era if you are seriously convinced that is a remotely faithful retelling of history.
- Balgair 8y agoEnlighten us?
- ycombonator 8y agoUltimately the freedoms we take for granted here stand on preserving sovereignty.
- monksy 8y agoI wonder how China will retaliate after this. This is a pretty public thing.
- om3n 8y agoHere's an anecdotal story. My team was interviewing engineers last year. We had a Chinese engineer come interview with us. She was in the States on a work visa, and her first job here was for a state government project. She was on a team building a web application that had public-facing and internal-facing UIs, and she was apparently working on both of these. Anyways, she comes in for the interview, and shortly after our conversation begins she pulls out her work laptop, opens up her work project, and start going through the code with us! I asked "is this open source?" and she said no. I could even see slack messages coming up from her team mates. I honestly couldn't believe it. We asked her to stop. As you can imagine, she didn't get an offer from us.
- StudentStuff 8y agoSounds like a FOIA request should fix that "open source" problem. If its software developed by or for a governmental agency in the US, we as citizens have the right to access it as the public domain work it is. The recent ORCA fare enforcement app shenanigans with Sound Transit is a great example, even with a contracting company as a layer of indirection for developing said software doesn't escape said code's FOIAbility.
- Calib3r 8y ago>ORCA fare enforcement app shenanigans with Sound Transit Can you please provide a source for the details?
- StudentStuff 8y agoSee Fare Enforcement Apps: https://www.muckrock.com/agency/washington-54/central-puget-sound-regional-transit-authority-sound-transit-6356/ https://www.muckrock.com/agency/washington-54/central-puget-... Edit: Litigation is here: https://kevin.wallace.seattle.wa.us/v/vix/ https://kevin.wallace.seattle.wa.us/v/vix/
- throw2016 8y agoThere has been a lot of fud and scaremongering on China and Russia with very little evidence and facts. This makes it look like the commitment to competition, free markets and due process is hollow and self serving and the moment it doesn't benefit you you try to change the rules. China is now running into some of these invisible barriers and constraints that have been in place all along and this brings them into light and exposes the self serving hypocrisy of the current system to the rest of the world. There are global mechanisms to take complaints with evidence yet this 'war' is not being fought in the trade commissions but in the public press with innuendo and smears and political pressure on allies. How do we then even talk about words like competition, free trade and innovation in neutral terms when companies like Qualcomm can succeed unhindered while others like Huawei are politically demonized and constrained in market access.
- edm0nd 8y agoWithout a doubt, China, Russia, AND the US are most certainly engaged in large scale espionage and stealing each others intel and corporate R&D via any means necessary by nation-state backed hacking and etc.
- srndh 8y agoFirst off, I am not pro or anti USA or China. Just curious and hoping to have a constructive dialogue. What moral high ground is USA on in the Snowden era? Why trust Cisco or Apple or Google or Facebook or Microsoft in USA's Prism? With the "Five Eyes", how to trust Nokia or Ericsson or Blackberry? What ethical high-ground are the tax evading tech giants on? Lets not forget how the pharma mobs are gaming the patent system to run an extortion ring on life saving medicines like insulin or the planned obsolescence when the world is rushing to reduce global warming. Its sad to see a place of learning is getting into politics & business. How different is this from the patent battles between Oracle & Google or Apple, Microsoft & Samsung? Google is poaching chips guys from various sources to compete with Apple. Then all the poaching in AI & self driving & electric cars. Lets not forget the "borrowing" done my Jobs & Gates from Xerox PARC that founded the Silicon Valley. As a consumer, due to Huawei & Mi. Samsung & other brands have started lowering the price. Hope Google poached the right team to make a better chip than what Apple has. Hopefully Apple also will start selling sensible priced devices. MIT should instead be working for growing an opensource culture in China. Which already seems to have something of that sort but limited due to all being in Chinese language.
- smsm42 8y ago> Why trust Cisco or Apple or Google or Facebook or Microsoft in USA's Prism? You don't have to trust them. Definitely you better not to. But that doesn't make you to trust Huawei either. At least Google/Facebook are subject to US government, which is controlled by a (still) functioning democracy. Huawei is controlled by a violent authoritarian dictatorship. I'd say however I mistrust Google, I'd probably still mistrust Chinese Communist Party more. There are mechanisms in the US that prevent or impede governmental abuse. They are not faultless - they still get a lot of abuse through. But some is caught, and some becomes public (yes, Snowden - but the things were starting to seep through even before he blew up the dam). In China, I don't see even these partial and faulty impediments to government control. > Its sad to see a place of learning is getting into politics & business. Most major educational institutions are already billion-dollar businesses. And with this size, connection to politics is inevitable. And if Huawei does business in the US, it would be subject to the same rules other US businesses playing by - where being suspect of performing surveillance on the users on behalf of the government - let alone the government like Chinese one, - or enabling widespread human rights abuse - is a big black mark. The one which mere lower prices are not going to erase.