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The U.S. is charging Huawei with racketeering

311 points by crivabene 7y ago

Dahoon 7y ago
So Huawei is coping US companies and still creating better equipment than those it copy from? Ask anyone (well maybe anyone outside the US) in the tele industry and they'll tell you that Huawei is cheaper, better and also faster to fix a problem in both software and hardware. At least I have never heard anyone state otherwise outside of anon people on a forum. So, ask a real person and see.
- otterley 7y ago
  The argument goes that Huawei would not be able to "create better equipment" had they been unable to wrongfully copy others' work in the first place. If the allegations are true, Huawei enjoys a position that resulted from unlawful and immoral behavior, and their ill-gotten gains should be confiscated from them. Who knows what would have happened had Huawei done all their own R&D in the first place. Maybe they'd be in the same place as they are today; maybe not. But when you start from a position of copying someone else's work, the presumption is that everything you added since is tainted, and any profits should be someone else's, not yours.
  - sand_castles 7y ago
    relax bro, we all stand in other's shoulders. also, you in what army ? are you going to invade Asia ?
    - otterley 7y ago
      There are two ways to stand on another’s shoulders. One is with consent; the other (to mix legal metaphors) is assault. It would be one thing if Huawei said, “do you mind if I use this?” and received permission. But if they had to use deception to gather information, that’s a pretty clear indication that it’s wrong and is done without consent.
      - sand_castles 7y ago
        The entire legal system that exists as of today is mainly to benefit rich folks. You should read the book "Code of Capital". The CCP has made it clear that "rule of law" as stated by Mr. Obama is about favoring western capital interests. I think it's a bigger crime that 6 billion people do not get to enjoy the same standard of living as the 2 billion people on top. By having no brittle IP rules, the CCP makes sure Chinese businesses stay dynamic and continue to dominate.
    - totalZero 7y ago
      Hypothetically speaking....the no-armies-involved solution would be to ban their products, take possession of their US assets, encourage allies to boycott their products, sue them in foreign courts, and repatriate manufacturing of US-based companies' devices to make the Huawei spying campaign far more difficult.
      - sand_castles 7y ago
        > ban their products which ? the cheap phone everybody uses while taking a dump ? > take possession of their US assets. which ? UST bonds ? in the situation you describe, the Chinese supply chain are far more valuable. > encourage allies to boycott their products nobody is stupid enough to allow their teenagers to fight a land war in Asia. > sue them in foreign courts. Sue them where ? Hague ? how does it stop them selling phones to africans / other asians exactly ? > repatriate manufacturing of US-based companies' devices Do you have a 300 million + healthy well educated labour force working for sub 15 dollars an hour ? Good Luck Bro !
- chaos_a 7y ago
  The problem with that is if Huawei succeeds with stolen technology, which at this point is known true, then who exactly will create new hardware and software? Since these companies aren't earning anything from stolen tech. Huawei will actually have to do something themselves and wind up charging the same amount as everyone else.
ep103 7y ago
You can charge a company with RICO? Maybe we can charge a political party then.
- derision 7y ago
  The Democrats?
- tharne 7y ago
  U.S. law says corporations are people. People can be charged with RICO. It may be weird, but it's consistent.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    Corporations are people mainly when it’s convenient. I am not aware of a company being sent to jail or sentenced to death. Regular persons can’t always settle things by paying a big (or small) fine.
    - tharne 7y ago
      > Corporations are people mainly when it’s convenient Exactly. Right now it's convenient for the DOJ that Huawei is a person and can be charged with RICO. Frankly I'm glad to see the "corporations are people" farce being used for good for once.
    - kube-system 7y ago
      The corporate death penalty (i.e. judicial dissolution) is a thing in the US, but is very rarely used. https://www.nytimes.com/1889/11/08/archives/against-the-sugar-trust-decision-of-the-supreme-court-general-term.html https://www.nytimes.com/1889/11/08/archives/against-the-suga...
- gruez 7y ago
  >RICO >Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act A corporation is an organization. Also, if you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Famous_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corru..., there's list of instances of companies and even government agencies being charged.
avocado4 7y ago
USA bad, China good Remember opium wars and Snowden
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway17_17 7y ago
  Remember Snowden? I guess you’re implying that the US intelligence service spies on its own population. Well, if that makes the US bad, China is objectively bad by the same criteria. Also, the Opium Wars was a British/Chinese issue, not America.
  - hduurht 7y ago
    Historically this is inaccurate and more complicated. Numerous colonial powers participated in carving china up and using opium to continue their rule. Britain just happened to be the face of empire in 1900, it's US now and likely China in 50 years. Governments are corrupt institutions. Power should be as distributed as possible.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    Pretty sure parent comment is irony. Also, yes, "that makes the US bad".
  - gdy 7y ago
    The US however took part in it on the British side.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
tibbydudeza 7y ago
I have a Huawei phone and home gateway ... oh dear. I wonder how much GM and Boeing depends on the Chinese home market , two can play that game since the soybean tradewar went so great they had to bailout oops sorry "aid" the farmers.
castorp 7y ago
The USA does exactly the same, so they can absolutely not claim the moral high ground here. The CIA even bought a company in Switzerland that produces encryption devices to be able to spy on everyone. And the NSA intercepted Cisco deliveries to do the same thing.
- kortilla 7y ago
  Please read the article and the definition of racketeering. This has nothing to do with the Chinese government using Huawei equipment to spy.
  - tssva 7y ago
    Your point is correct but could have been made without commenting regarding them having read the article. Doing so is against HN comment guidelines.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      It’s fine when it’s obvious none of the comment is actually related to the article.
- 14 7y ago
  China = bad America = good People here will argue that the US has at least some safe guards where the Chinese will do what they want no matter what. But from my perspective as a Canadian, neighbour to the north who used to dream of one day working in the US, the US is a total disgrace at this point in time. They have failed to lead the moral high ground in so many ways over the last 2 decades yet we are supposed to care when they cry fowl of China. Another case of do as I say not as I do. So I agree the US has been doing this for ever and a day so stopped crying fowl.
busymom0 7y ago
Here’s the DOJ statement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-co... Also here's Huawei Technologies Chief Security Officer Andy Purdy talking to Maria Bartiromo: https://youtu.be/iPczYamcruo https://youtu.be/iPczYamcruo
- throwaway3157 7y ago
  Wow, Maria really ruffled his feathers. I looked Andy up, and found that he's also a Board Member of George Mason Univ's Intl Cyber Center. He previously advised the white house on cybersecurity and a deputy director of DHS. https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/15060408 https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/15060408
- jkelleyrtp 7y ago
  That was a terrible interview - are they all like that? She was just shouting at him and every time he tried to elaborate on their testing mechanisms she just called him a communist. He asked for the evidence and she said that she doesn't need evidence... ??? !!! As much as I assume that Huawei and co have backdoors in foreign electronics, I can't get over the racism and hatred for China shared by her and the comment section. Are the comments real? Everyone is claiming that he's a traitor, a "Clinton friend", a liar, a commie, and that he should rot in hell. And the videos already got 80k views and a near perfect like/dislike ratio. Am I crazy for thinking this a bad interview, or does half the United States really feel this way?
  - Aperocky 7y ago
    It will get worse before it’s better. Sometimes I wanted to get off this planet so I can get away from humans and all of those irrationality and hatred. But in retrospect I probably just need to get rid of the part of me that are engaging the same.
  - totalZero 7y ago
    Bartiromo has become one of the nutjobs.
techslave 7y ago
finally! i’ll give credit to trump on this one.
- PenguinCoder 7y ago
  You'd be wrong.
KingMachiavelli 7y ago
While this doesn't directly have to do with the CCP having backdoors in Huawei products, it does seem a bit too coincidental that the DOJ is just happening to go after them since corporate espionage is a common theme when dealing with China. Hopefully this reflects a changing of the tides when it comes to enforcing IP laws in China rather than just an excuse to target a single company. I don't even like IP laws but if we are going to hold the rest of the industrialized world to the letter of the law then at some point China will have to be brought into the fold.
- Dahoon 7y ago
  >I don't even like IP laws but if we are going to hold the rest of the industrialized world to the letter of the law But we have proof that the NSA steals and shares secrets with US companies so throwing rocks in a glass house maybe?
  - Craighead 7y ago
    The scale is not comparable.
- DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
  I think the perception that people commonly have of IP protection in China is out-of-date by several years. From what I've read, the level of IP enforcement has increased dramatically since about 2014, to the point where there are more IP cases heard in Chinese courts now than in any other country. Likewise, more patents are now filed in China each year than in any other country. It's also not as if local companies always win disputes - foreign companies apparently have a very good track record in Chinese courts. There's a description of the changes in recent years here: 1. https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/05/07/rapid-changes-chinese-legal-system-attractive-venue-ip-litigation/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/05/07/rapid-changes-chinese-... 2. https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-progress-on-intellectual-property-rights-yes-really/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-progress-on-intellect... Back when China was in the earlier stages of industrialization, it really didn't care much about IP. But things aren't the same any more: China spends about as much on R&D as the US, and it has its own IP to protect. IP law was not on their radar before, but it very much appears to be now. But you can imagine how difficult it is to set such a system up. They've had to create an entirely new legal system, train judges, etc. China has changed so rapidly that it's difficult for these sorts of systems to keep up.
nostromo 7y ago
> The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential agreements with American companies over the past two decades to access the trade secrets of those companies, only to then misappropriate that intellectual property and use it to fund Huawei’s business. These American companies thought they could build their products for a fraction of the price in China and increase margins. They didn't stop to consider that by teaching China how to build their products they were creating a new low-cost competitor. And they've since lost their manufacturing ability. Oops. It's hard to feel too sorry for these companies. It's not exactly a secret that this is how China operates and has operated for a very long time.
- nimbius 7y ago
  in a lot of cases the low-cost competitors are not only lower cost but have more features and/or better performance. They side-step a lot of the planned obsolescence and intentional feature scarcity US companies have become so dependent on to avoid meaningful R&D. Its hard not to see a lot of them as sort of a Robin Hood. On topic though, Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it.
  - tharne 7y ago
    > Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it. Nope. Pretty sure most of the issue has to do with the spying, backdoors, and overall lack of ethics. This is the from same country that brought us a potential global pandemic because they spent weeks lying and covering up a rapidly spreading illness simply because they didn't want to lose face.
    - clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
      b-b-but America bad! /s
    - 7y ago
ReptileMan 7y ago
Any lawyer that can pitch in? I don't think that this fits the spirit of the RICO laws.
- protocolture 7y ago
  Since when do lawyers care about the spirit of a law, instead of what the law makes possible.
  - thewileyone 7y ago
    Which is their billing rates.
thrownaway954 7y ago
so what does this mean? do they haul all the executives and workers into court? what happens if they are found guilty? do the executives go to jail, is the company forced to shutdown, or do they just have to pay a fine and all is good. hell, do they even have to pay the fine? so many questions :(
- A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
  Well, I am not an expert on that particular subject, but Huawei's CFO was arrested in Canada by the end of 2018. It seems US upped the ante a little and really decided to bring her in to face charges. Now that would bring some fireworks. I am not convinced China would not respond in kind.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - emptybits 7y ago
    > I am not convinced China would not respond in kind. Indeed. In diplomatic retaliation, China responded to the Huawei CFO's arrest in Canada by quickly arresting two Canadians on charges without evidence or explanation. Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. These Canadians have been in Chinese detention for over a year without access to a lawyer or the ability to speak to family or loved ones. Canadian pawns in a USA-China game. https://globalnews.ca/news/6410460/michael-kovrig-china-canada-detention/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6410460/michael-kovrig-china-cana...
- _bxg1 7y ago
  I assume it's mostly symbolic, like when Chinese military personnel were charged with cyber crimes. It's mostly outside of our jurisdiction, it just elevates the international rhetoric beyond "we don't trust you guys" to "we have hard evidence that you're committing crimes". Could have an impact on Europe's usage of Huawei infrastructure, for example.
euix 7y ago
I think the train on Huawei has already left the station. The most likely scenario is a U.S. maybe a few states highly dependent on U.S. security assurances vis-a-vis China toeing the line and everybody else using some combination of Huawei and Nokia/Ericsson in various combinations within their infrastructure based on how close they align with the U.S. or China. This whole thing looks just like AIIB a couple years ago where the U.S. made a huge stink about not joining the club and in the end everybody but Japan and Taiwan signed up.
anonobviosly 7y ago
My previous employer and my current one (both Fortune-50 tech companies) each had quiet policies that prospective job candidates who had Huawei on their resume needed extra clearing before they could even interview. Reading through the indictment makes the policies seem less paranoid or perhaps even not paranoid enough.
- allovernow 7y ago
  [deleted]
  - filoleg 7y ago
    While I hear your reasoning, and parts of it make total sense, it is explicitly illegal to discriminate against someone due to their citizenship (yes, citizenship as well, not just national origin or anything like that) during the recruitment process (exceptions apply, i.e., if they are in the US illegally or if the position requires some sort of security clearance). Imo the only way it would work is if there was a separate law passed that addresses hiring workers who have Chinese citizenship specifically (with no US citizenship at the same time, obviously, as dual nationals are a thing), but that would never happen unless the situation escalated dramatically way beyond what it is now.
crmrc114 7y ago
<quote>and using proxies such as professors working at research institutions to obtain and provide the technology to the defendants</quote> You know this talk about using American Professors as proxies for exfiltrating information reminds me of this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
>Charges also Reveal Huawei’s Business in North Korea and Assistance to the Government of Iran in Performing Domestic Surveillance // Surely evidence would reveal that, but this DOJ press release doesn't appear to be concerned with that. >As revealed by the government’s independent investigation and review of court filings, // Mwah-ha-ha-ha! They know how to tell 'em. >the new charges in this case relate to the alleged decades-long efforts by Huawei, and several of its subsidiaries, both in the U.S. and in the People’s Republic of China, to misappropriate intellectual property // Aren't new charges a new case? Aren't these extending speculations rather leading for a case that is in process, shouldn't they make the allegations and present any evidence - if they wish - rather than make extended claims bracketed by "allegedly". I can't believe that this has been written as anything other than a chance to make unsubstantiated claims ... have the courts hear the charges and then expound at length about the conviction. I thought these sorts of things from one of the main parties involved (the USA government) were strongly decried by courts as they tend to colour juries and judicial bodies; aren't the DOJ perverting the course of justice here with such a diatribe? >"Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated U.S. technology were successful. Through the methods of deception described above, the defendants obtained nonpublic intellectual property relating to internet router source code, cellular antenna technology and robotics. As a consequence of its campaign to steal this technology and intellectual property, Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage." That may all be true, but if you're currently prosecuting a case and have to determine if it's true it would be nice, as a DOJ, to not making statements that -- despite legal ass covering -- is clearly intended to presuppose the guilt of the defendant. When USA decided to go after Huawei to bolster their own telecoms companies, I wondered if they realised they'd end up stooping so low?
- apsec112 7y ago
  All indictments are written like this. Of course the prosecution thinks the defendant is guilty, that's why they're bringing the charges. In an adversarial legal system, it's their job to make the case for guilt.
- webpaymentsguy 7y ago
jorblumesea 7y ago
Isn't this what TPP was supposed to solve? It's ironic that the Trump admin killed Obama's China containment strategy, only to try to implement it in a half assed way without any allied alignment. Also doesn't help Trump is a highly polarizing figure. Pretty much describes the Trump admin in a nutshell. Whatever Obama did, get rid of it, regardless of its value, then implement a worse solution instead.
- mdorazio 7y ago
  I'm not sure how TPP was supposed to be a China containment strategy. I've heard this said a few times, but the explanations for how it was supposed to work always seemed like hand-wavey versions of "well, it would make US partnerships with non-China countries stronger and that would somehow contain China".
  - jorblumesea 7y ago
    It would have pretty much locked China out of the domestic markets of many Southeast Asian countries and closely coupled their economies to the US, making it harder to do business with China. It's basically what China does today with their neighbors. Economic integration -> domestic power.
    - mdorazio 7y ago
      Again, I'm not sure how TPP was actually supposed to accomplish what you're saying. As far as I know, TPP didn't restrict participants from trading with China, and it's not clear to me what would have economically discouraged them from doing so. Maybe I'm wrong - I genuinely want to know.
      - jorblumesea 7y ago
        The text of the TPP basically ensured a "special trade relationship" between signers that outside, non-singers, would not be able to compete with. I would re-read the text of the TPP and see for yourself. It was basically a group trade agreement that guaranteed favorable exchanges. It's not that technically, they wouldn't be able to trade with China, but practically speaking, there was little chance.
sunstone 7y ago
Pretty clearly Huawei is now the cow that the US and China will be fighting over. Meng is now likely to be caught up in this as well regardless of how the current charges go. The US standing right up to China and punching it the nose. It's an inflection point for the world economy.
rickety-gherkin 7y ago
US political and militarized forces protecting corporate interest for the sake of...what again? Upholding ridiculous IP law? Is it naive to think that IP law should be disintegrated? How would the world, and more specifically the digital landscape, look if there was no concept of IP.
- totalZero 7y ago
  There'd be little incentive to invest in long-term R&D projects. Where's the profit in research on a new drug if you'll have to immediately compete with other pharma companies in selling it?
throwawei 7y ago
Using a throwaway to share our $0.02 relating to this. AMA I guess. We're a US-based startup that does about $100-200k in business annually with Futurewei (Huawei's R&D subsidiary). I've never dealt with Huawei proper. I can say they're genuinely investing in R&D, and trying to build a product unlike anything being offered right now. We're working with tech that's floating around the academic conferences, but no one else commercially will touch. This in contrast to our experiences with established US companies which, a) don't want to deal with early-stage research, b) wouldn't work with us as a new, small company, and c) gave bad IP terms (ironically). Not excusing other activities, but for us it's been above-board and beneficial. If they want to pump their profits into the US ecosystem, I see that as beneficial.
- gramakri 7y ago
  I don't have a question but your throwaway username is fantastic.
  - stevens32 7y ago
    Wish I could add more value to this comment.. but I also upvoted for the name.
- duckmysick 7y ago
  How did the two of you get connected with each other?
  - throwawei 7y ago
    Originally had a friend that knew one of the people there. I was going solo-preneur at the time, so it essentially started as a consulting gig.
- clickme_zsh 7y ago
  Good username!
- plandis 7y ago
  What company and why should anyone believe this?
mzs 7y ago
>The superseding indictment also includes new allegations about Huawei and its subsidiaries’ involvement in business and technology projects in countries subject to U.S., E.U. and/or U.N. sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea – as well as the company’s efforts to conceal the full scope of that involvement. The defendants’ activities, which included arranging for shipment of Huawei goods and services to end users in sanctioned countries, were typically conducted through local affiliates in the sanctioned countries. Reflecting the inherent sensitivity of conducting business in jurisdictions subject to sanctions, internal Huawei documents allegedly referred to such jurisdictions with code names. For example, the code “A2” referred to Iran, and “A9” referred to North Korea. edit from this superseding indictment itself: >For example, an official HUAWEI manual labeled “Top Secret” instructed certain individuals working for HUAWEI to conceal their employment with HUAWEI during encounters with foreign law enforcement officials. >Beginning in or about 2000, the defendants HUAWEI and FUTUREWEI misappropriated operating system source code for internet routers, command line interface (a structure of textual commands used to communicate with routers) and operating system manuals from a U.S. technology company headquartered in the Northern District of California (“Company 1”), an entity the identity of which is known to the Grand Jury, and incorporated the misappropriated source code into HUAWEI internet routers that FUTUREWEI sold in the United States from approximately April 2002 until December 2002. Toward this end, HUAWEI and FUTUREWEI hired or attempted to hire Company 1 employees and directed these employees to misappropriate Company 1 source code on behalf of the defendants. >In or about July 2004, at a trade show in Chicago, Illinois, a HUAWEI employee (“Individual-3”), an individual whose identity is known to the Grand Jury, was discovered in the middle of the night after the show had closed for the day in the booth of a technology company (“Company 3”), an entity the identity of which is known to the Grand Jury, removing the cover from a networking device and taking photographs of the circuitry inside. Individual-3 wore a badge listing his employer as “Weihua,” HUAWEI spelled with its syllables reversed. In official correspondence with Company 3 shortly after this incident, HUAWEI claimed that Individual-3 attended the trade show in his personal capacity and that his attempted misappropriation occurred “without Huawei’s authorization.” According to a purported official statement published in Reuters, HUAWEI claimed, “This is a junior engineer who had never traveled to the United States before. His actions do not reflect the culture or values of Huawei.” Notably, a resume that Individual-3 submitted to the U.S. government in approximately 2012 stated that he had been a “senior R&D Engineer” at HUAWEI from 1997 until July 2004, the time of the incident. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320499
sandoooo 7y ago
>In one case, a technology company looking for a partnership with Huawei sent over a presentation deck with confidential information about its business in order to generate commercial interest with Huawei. From the indictment: > Immediately upon receipt of the slide deck, each page of which was marked ‘Proprietary and Confidential’ by Company 6, HUAWEI distributed the slide deck to HUAWEI engineers, including engineers in the subsidiary that was working on technology that directly competed with Company 6’s products and services. These engineers discussed developments by Company 6 that would have application to HUAWEI’s own prototypes then under design. Well, yeah, what the hell else are you supposed to do when some supplier sends you a highly technical slide deck, except discuss it with your engineers working on the same thing? I seriously can't fathom why anybody involved here would have any expectation to the contrary.
jhallenworld 7y ago
Huawei clearly is on parity with western technology. The evidence is here: https://www.eetasia.com/news/article/Integrated-5G-Chips-Unveiled-by-Samsung-Huawei-Qualcomm https://www.eetasia.com/news/article/Integrated-5G-Chips-Unv... And in particular, with its 5G modem: http://www.hisilicon.com/en/Products/ProductList/Balong http://www.hisilicon.com/en/Products/ProductList/Balong Some news about this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/huawei-and-samsung-s-new-5g-chips-designed-to-threaten-qualcomm https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/huawei-an... And also for the base stations: https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/huawei-s-5g-ran-portfolio-beats-ericsson-nokia-and-others-report-says https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/huawei-s-5g-ran-port...
- gok 7y ago
  The evidence is a Huawei product announcement?
  - jhallenworld 7y ago
    This was a convenient find on the web.. better is that their equipment (for base stations anyway) has been through equipment evaluations.
- KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
  It's clearly ahead in some respect and behind in others. Particularly ahead in 5G where it's the clear world leader, behind in video recording though. The P30's EIS is seriously garbage compared to iPhone.
  - jhallenworld 7y ago
    Well here is one comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yvtfl3gp0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yvtfl3gp0M iPhone 11 and Pixel 4 do seem better, but I would be careful declaring it "garbage". I just think they have reached parity- where each vendor could leapfrog the others for any particular feature for successive generations.
deadEndDave 7y ago
This type of behavior is rampant in the Agricultural industry: (2013): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-seeds-china/three-chinese-men-charged-with-stealing-u-s-seed-technology-idUSBRE9BB1AA20131212 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-seeds-china/thr... After a two-year investigation, a man working for a Chinese conglomerate was arrested on charges of stealing inbred corn seed from production fields in Iowa and Illinois and trying to smuggle it into China, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa Nicholas Klinefeldt said. The man, Mo Hailong, director of the international business of the Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co, a part of DBN Group, was in the United States legally. (2019): https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/chinese-monsanto-staffer-charged-stealing-secrets-191122090315300.html https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/chinese-monsanto-staffer-... A Chinese national who worked for US agricultural technology firm Monsanto has been charged in St Louis, Missouri, with stealing trade secrets for China, the US Justice Department said. Haitao Xiang, 42, an employee of Monsanto and its Climate Corp subsidiary from 2008 to 2017, was stopped by federal officials at a US airport before he could board a flight to China carrying proprietary farming software, the department said in a statement on Thursday. These are just two stories that made it into the news cycles. I have a lot more anecdotal evidence from farmer's I know who have seen the same thing in their fields in North Dakota. It's interesting that its usually the tech secrets they steal that make into the headlines, but the agricultural research Pioneer and Monsanto are doing is just as valuable to the Chinese and they're willing to send people anywhere to walk into these farmer's fields and start digging up experimental seeds? That's a major problem.
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
> "Huawei is alleged to have stolen source code for Company 1’s routers, which it then used in its own products." I've never really understood how IP theft works. I've been a software engineer for a long time and I know that Reading and making sense of an existing million line code base is a hella of a lot harder than just writing new code from scratch. Why on earth would anyone want to steal source code from a competitor?
- lostmsu 7y ago
  Million lines of code from scratch is not easy in any way. Especially if you are talking about battle-tested code, which had already faced and accounted for many corner cases.
  - carlmr 7y ago
    Maybe the best way is to write it yourself and when you face an issue you try to see how they solved it? It's fairly doable to understand a small part of the code until you see what they needed to do. I wouldn't call it reading all the millions of lines,I agree with OP that that would most likely take longer.
- sneak 7y ago
  I encourage you to read this. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
  - thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
    That's a great article i read a long time ago. :) But, That's different. We're not talking about rewriting an existing codebase that already exists and has a ton of legacy behavior that needs to be maintained. They're supposedly writing new code with new functionality, and instead of writing it themselves, the implication is that they'd rather use someone else's smelly old legacy code, rather than write it themselves. I would love to have seen the look on those engineers faces when some spy dropped off the packet of code they were supposed to integrate. I just don't see that happening. Reading existing code bases is hard enough. But then to go and try to integrate another company's codebase into your own, especially if it's millions of lines of code, I'd say thanks but no thanks.
resters 7y ago
Ironically, this is an attempt by the Trump administration to steal IP from China. US firms are behind in 5G because they have sat on the sidelines while Huawei engineered the chipsets. It's tremendously ironic that these charges will likely allow US firms to steal money and/or IP from Huawei through what is for all intents and purposes the Trump administration's fiat. Worse yet, as has been the pattern with the Trump administration so far, many aspects of the economy that were relatively stable and allowed planning and investment have been destroyed, like when a child throws a tantrum and upsets a board game sending the pieces onto the floor. Many international agreements, standards, and trade and diplomatic relationships have been set back decades by the administration. Note that the major claims have all been false so far: - The daughter (a journalist) of the Huawei CEO was harrassed and detained without cause, in what was essentially a kidnapping for ransom/extortion. How did the American people not feel outrage when Trump did this? - There have been repeated accusations of backdoors into 5G hardware, but yet no example of a device that has been hacked by the US or any private sector researchers. - US officials have (quite inappropriately) tried to foment xenophobia and hatred of Chinese immigrants in the US. This combined with Trump's xenophobic comments show the US's hand quite clearly. China is now a rival and no dirty tactics are off limits. As an American, I am so deeply embarrassed by all of this.
- plandis 7y ago
  > Ironically, this is an attempt by the Trump administration to steal IP from China. US firms are behind in 5G because they have sat on the sidelines while Huawei engineered the chipsets. Proof for the claim that US is trying to steal IP from Huawei?
- peeters 7y ago
  > The daughter (a journalist) of the Huawei CEO was harrassed and detained without cause, in what was essentially a kidnapping for ransom/extortion. How did the American people not feel outrage when Trump did this? This is news to me and I can't find anything with a search. Are you referring to Meng Wanzhou? If so, your facts are muddy at best. Meng was arrested in Canada on request of the US, and is currently in the Canadian legal system (under house arrest) facing extradition. She's also directly named in the new charges. Far from being a journalist, she's the CFO of Huawei. And while she was neither harrassed (she's been very complimentary of her detainors) nor detained without cause (the US government was clear about what charges they alleged), China on the other hand arrested two Canadians in retribution fully without cause on bogus espionage charges, in an attempt to assert leverage over Canadian officials to circumvent due process. Trump's comments over China and Huawei have been inflammatory and frustrating to Canadians, but let's not straight up make stuff up, if this is what you were referring to.
plandis 7y ago
What the fuck is up with these comments? Are you all really okay with blatant lawbreaking with no consequences?
- protocolture 7y ago
  laws =/= morals
thorowawaytoga 7y ago
In a small town in Israel, called Hod Hasharon there was a company named "Toga Networks". This company was paying as twice as you currenly earn, if you work at Cisco or Juniper. Just like that, as twice as, just ocme work with us. One year went by, and it turned out that Toga Network is no other than Huawei. So I do not know about stealing source code, but I know they looked after its IP which is in people's mind.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Aperocky 7y ago
  > IP which is in peoples mind I think a general term for acquiring that IP is called employment.
  - thorowawaytoga 7y ago
    when you target crowd from 2 specific companies and offer 2x market value salaries it is more aggressive than just "employment".
    - IMTDb 7y ago
      Yep, it's called job poaching.
- emmelaich 7y ago
  What year was that? Huawei bought Toga in 2016. https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/07/huawei-reportedly-acquires-israeli-it-networking-company-toga-networks-for-150-million/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/07/huawei-reportedly-acquire...
  - thorowawaytoga 7y ago
    Toga started 2008. Was owned 100% by Huawei - in a chain of holdings. The came out of the closet in 2016 once established.
kimsant 7y ago
All low level geopolitics from Trumpist USA. The message is, you Chinese can do some tech but don't grow too big! Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, Amd, Google, AWS, Cisco. Those big must remain American. Mobile World Congress suden cancelation because Huawei represents half of it... Same same
- MeltySmelty 7y ago
  Trump rents space in your head at a _deep_ discount.
pastime 7y ago
Something seems off. If China steals all the US IP, why are US technology companies still so valuable? For example, Apple is a very valuable US technology company that also has extensive dealings in China.
- LO22m 7y ago
  Two things come to mind: 1) Consumers want an iPhone, not an iPhone equivalent from China, 2) Apple might have enough influence and connections to evade blatant theft.
- sumedh 7y ago
  > why are US technology companies still so valuable? Marketing plays a big role.
- totalZero 7y ago
  I see it this way, apologies if it seems off topic or judgmental but.... The third world is a place where many people have an idea of astuteness that differs from intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to design, build, create, manage, or otherwise achieve something in a novel way. Astuteness is the ability to take an advantage when one presents itself. Think Diego Maradona, or Aladdin. US technology companies have a great deal of creative intelligence, institutional knowledge, trust from customers, access to talent, and freedom to execute on corporate strategy. But even the company you mention, Apple, is arguably being outdone by Samsung (moved production out of China) and Huawei (Chinese).
jariel 7y ago
"A ‘competition management group’ was tasked with reviewing the submissions and awarding monthly bonuses to the employees who provided the most valuable stolen information." Just wow. How could any nation, let alone any company, allow any employee of Huawei anywhere near their operations? Literally, they are incented to steal whatever they can from you, out in the open, systematically, with nary much effort to cover it up it seems.
jbduler 7y ago
This another example of what is called the Master-Slave dialectic from Hegel, an 18th century philosopher. Something that I studied in a philosophy class and had a profound influence on my understanding of work. Please take 10' to understand it and it applies to the relationship between engineers and salespeople, to the relationship now between China and the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_dialectic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_dialectic
- qtplatypus 7y ago
  Can you explain how this relates to this story?
djrogers 7y ago
About a dozen years ago I was working for a small-ish hardware company ($350-400M revenue), which was acquired by a bigger company. BiggerCo had a Joint Venture with Huawei (let’s called it JVco). About 6 months Post acquisition one of our employees found that Huawei was selling a 100% complete rip-off of one of our products. JVco had access to some of our development resources, but Huawei was never supposed to see any of that per the agreements. The box looked, acted, and functioned the same - all they did was localize the language, barely rebrand it, and repackage our weekly updates for their customers the day after we released them. Legal from BiggerCo got involved, and it was all papered over as a ‘misunderstanding’ by the Joint Venture company. Haven’t trusted a thing with their name on it or any company that does business with them since...
- totalZero 7y ago
  Kind of makes you wonder why Boeing would build a finishing plant in Zhoushan and Apple would put so much of its iPhone production in Zhengzhou and Shenzhen.
  - Fragoel2 7y ago
    Because its cheap, if you only look at the immediate profit without considering the long term implications
    - cianmm 7y ago
      Apple have been there for quite some time, they’re probably happy enough with the trade off.
      - ur-whale 7y ago
        Apple is so far gone in the closed ecosystem game, they're pretty much impossible to copy.
    - addicted 7y ago
      The long term implications have been that American companies are richer than ever before.
thatiscool 7y ago
It is all about backdoor. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/us-german-intel-owned-swiss-crypto-used-by-dozens-of-countries/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/us-german-intel-...
killjoywashere 7y ago
Here's my question: which American companies are so insanely dumb that they actually thought sharing any version of any of this made any sense? are these the organizational consequences of rich people not actually managing the companies that the engineers are working for? Maybe the engineers are like "Just to hell with my country, my company, my neighbors my family and futire myself, I'll do whatever it takes to get my raise. The left-wing folks at Berkeley are right, everyone's here for the common good, we just don't really understand the Chinese. We should share more, and gain their trust."
- mrunkel 7y ago
  Is it truly so hard to understand that what is the best action for oneself isn't necessarily the best action for the community (however one defines community)? American companies want to sell their products in China. Quite often that requires them to base some part of production in China. As for the last, yes, there is a large cultural gap between the US and the Chinese and frankly that gap exists mostly on the US side. I'd argue that without understanding the language, you'll never really understand another culture. Sure, you can base your understanding on a few people that do understand the language, but your understanding will always be skewed by their prejudices. In my lifetime, I've dealt with business people from a variety of cultures. Some are honest, some aren't. Some are cheap, some believe you have to spend money to make money. Some are successful, some aren't. None of that aligns with any particular culture. We assign attributes to remote cultures based on reports of the extremes (because the day to day doesn't get reported). When the same behavior gets reported in our own cultures, we simply say well, it's those guys that were bad, not the entire culture.
secfirstmd 7y ago
I wonder when the US will start charging Israeli companies for IP theft?....
jonathaneunice 7y ago
Copying successful technology is a goes-around, comes-around cycle. In 1780-1850, the USA was the premier pirate, stealing the world's premier technology and know-how, from Britain. By 2050, the Chinese will be fighting the very same battle with someone else (Nigeria and Angola maybe?), and bitterly bemoaning IP theft in the same terms.
cityzen 7y ago
Irony that a country led by Donald Trump is charging companies with racketeering. Shows what a joke we have become.

311 points by crivabene 7y ago

So Huawei is coping US companies and still creating better equipment than those it copy from? Ask anyone (well maybe anyone outside the US) in the tele industry and they'll tell you that Huawei is cheaper, better and also faster to fix a problem in both software and hardware. At least I have never heard anyone state otherwise outside of anon people on a forum. So, ask a real person and see.

otterley 7y ago
The argument goes that Huawei would not be able to "create better equipment" had they been unable to wrongfully copy others' work in the first place. If the allegations are true, Huawei enjoys a position that resulted from unlawful and immoral behavior, and their ill-gotten gains should be confiscated from them. Who knows what would have happened had Huawei done all their own R&D in the first place. Maybe they'd be in the same place as they are today; maybe not. But when you start from a position of copying someone else's work, the presumption is that everything you added since is tainted, and any profits should be someone else's, not yours.
- sand_castles 7y ago
  relax bro, we all stand in other's shoulders. also, you in what army ? are you going to invade Asia ?
  - otterley 7y ago
    There are two ways to stand on another’s shoulders. One is with consent; the other (to mix legal metaphors) is assault. It would be one thing if Huawei said, “do you mind if I use this?” and received permission. But if they had to use deception to gather information, that’s a pretty clear indication that it’s wrong and is done without consent.
    - sand_castles 7y ago
      The entire legal system that exists as of today is mainly to benefit rich folks. You should read the book "Code of Capital". The CCP has made it clear that "rule of law" as stated by Mr. Obama is about favoring western capital interests. I think it's a bigger crime that 6 billion people do not get to enjoy the same standard of living as the 2 billion people on top. By having no brittle IP rules, the CCP makes sure Chinese businesses stay dynamic and continue to dominate.
  - totalZero 7y ago
    Hypothetically speaking....the no-armies-involved solution would be to ban their products, take possession of their US assets, encourage allies to boycott their products, sue them in foreign courts, and repatriate manufacturing of US-based companies' devices to make the Huawei spying campaign far more difficult.
    - sand_castles 7y ago
      > ban their products which ? the cheap phone everybody uses while taking a dump ? > take possession of their US assets. which ? UST bonds ? in the situation you describe, the Chinese supply chain are far more valuable. > encourage allies to boycott their products nobody is stupid enough to allow their teenagers to fight a land war in Asia. > sue them in foreign courts. Sue them where ? Hague ? how does it stop them selling phones to africans / other asians exactly ? > repatriate manufacturing of US-based companies' devices Do you have a 300 million + healthy well educated labour force working for sub 15 dollars an hour ? Good Luck Bro !
chaos_a 7y ago
The problem with that is if Huawei succeeds with stolen technology, which at this point is known true, then who exactly will create new hardware and software? Since these companies aren't earning anything from stolen tech. Huawei will actually have to do something themselves and wind up charging the same amount as everyone else.

ep103 7y ago

You can charge a company with RICO? Maybe we can charge a political party then.

derision 7y ago
The Democrats?
tharne 7y ago
U.S. law says corporations are people. People can be charged with RICO. It may be weird, but it's consistent.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  Corporations are people mainly when it’s convenient. I am not aware of a company being sent to jail or sentenced to death. Regular persons can’t always settle things by paying a big (or small) fine.
  - tharne 7y ago
    > Corporations are people mainly when it’s convenient Exactly. Right now it's convenient for the DOJ that Huawei is a person and can be charged with RICO. Frankly I'm glad to see the "corporations are people" farce being used for good for once.
  - kube-system 7y ago
    The corporate death penalty (i.e. judicial dissolution) is a thing in the US, but is very rarely used. https://www.nytimes.com/1889/11/08/archives/against-the-sugar-trust-decision-of-the-supreme-court-general-term.html https://www.nytimes.com/1889/11/08/archives/against-the-suga...
gruez 7y ago
>RICO >Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act A corporation is an organization. Also, if you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corrupt_Organizations_Act#Famous_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racketeer_Influenced_and_Corru..., there's list of instances of companies and even government agencies being charged.

avocado4 7y ago

USA bad, China good Remember opium wars and Snowden

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throwaway17_17 7y ago
Remember Snowden? I guess you’re implying that the US intelligence service spies on its own population. Well, if that makes the US bad, China is objectively bad by the same criteria. Also, the Opium Wars was a British/Chinese issue, not America.
- hduurht 7y ago
  Historically this is inaccurate and more complicated. Numerous colonial powers participated in carving china up and using opium to continue their rule. Britain just happened to be the face of empire in 1900, it's US now and likely China in 50 years. Governments are corrupt institutions. Power should be as distributed as possible.
- jessaustin 7y ago
  Pretty sure parent comment is irony. Also, yes, "that makes the US bad".
- gdy 7y ago
  The US however took part in it on the British side.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

tibbydudeza 7y ago

I have a Huawei phone and home gateway ... oh dear. I wonder how much GM and Boeing depends on the Chinese home market , two can play that game since the soybean tradewar went so great they had to bailout oops sorry "aid" the farmers.

castorp 7y ago

The USA does exactly the same, so they can absolutely not claim the moral high ground here. The CIA even bought a company in Switzerland that produces encryption devices to be able to spy on everyone. And the NSA intercepted Cisco deliveries to do the same thing.

kortilla 7y ago
Please read the article and the definition of racketeering. This has nothing to do with the Chinese government using Huawei equipment to spy.
- tssva 7y ago
  Your point is correct but could have been made without commenting regarding them having read the article. Doing so is against HN comment guidelines.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    It’s fine when it’s obvious none of the comment is actually related to the article.
14 7y ago
China = bad America = good People here will argue that the US has at least some safe guards where the Chinese will do what they want no matter what. But from my perspective as a Canadian, neighbour to the north who used to dream of one day working in the US, the US is a total disgrace at this point in time. They have failed to lead the moral high ground in so many ways over the last 2 decades yet we are supposed to care when they cry fowl of China. Another case of do as I say not as I do. So I agree the US has been doing this for ever and a day so stopped crying fowl.

busymom0 7y ago

Here’s the DOJ statement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-conglomerate-huawei-and-subsidiaries-charged-racketeering https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-telecommunications-co... Also here's Huawei Technologies Chief Security Officer Andy Purdy talking to Maria Bartiromo: https://youtu.be/iPczYamcruo https://youtu.be/iPczYamcruo

throwaway3157 7y ago
Wow, Maria really ruffled his feathers. I looked Andy up, and found that he's also a Board Member of George Mason Univ's Intl Cyber Center. He previously advised the white house on cybersecurity and a deputy director of DHS. https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/15060408 https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/person/15060408
jkelleyrtp 7y ago
That was a terrible interview - are they all like that? She was just shouting at him and every time he tried to elaborate on their testing mechanisms she just called him a communist. He asked for the evidence and she said that she doesn't need evidence... ??? !!! As much as I assume that Huawei and co have backdoors in foreign electronics, I can't get over the racism and hatred for China shared by her and the comment section. Are the comments real? Everyone is claiming that he's a traitor, a "Clinton friend", a liar, a commie, and that he should rot in hell. And the videos already got 80k views and a near perfect like/dislike ratio. Am I crazy for thinking this a bad interview, or does half the United States really feel this way?
- Aperocky 7y ago
  It will get worse before it’s better. Sometimes I wanted to get off this planet so I can get away from humans and all of those irrationality and hatred. But in retrospect I probably just need to get rid of the part of me that are engaging the same.
- totalZero 7y ago
  Bartiromo has become one of the nutjobs.

techslave 7y ago

finally! i’ll give credit to trump on this one.

PenguinCoder 7y ago
You'd be wrong.

KingMachiavelli 7y ago

While this doesn't directly have to do with the CCP having backdoors in Huawei products, it does seem a bit too coincidental that the DOJ is just happening to go after them since corporate espionage is a common theme when dealing with China. Hopefully this reflects a changing of the tides when it comes to enforcing IP laws in China rather than just an excuse to target a single company. I don't even like IP laws but if we are going to hold the rest of the industrialized world to the letter of the law then at some point China will have to be brought into the fold.

Dahoon 7y ago
>I don't even like IP laws but if we are going to hold the rest of the industrialized world to the letter of the law But we have proof that the NSA steals and shares secrets with US companies so throwing rocks in a glass house maybe?
- Craighead 7y ago
  The scale is not comparable.
DiogenesKynikos 7y ago
I think the perception that people commonly have of IP protection in China is out-of-date by several years. From what I've read, the level of IP enforcement has increased dramatically since about 2014, to the point where there are more IP cases heard in Chinese courts now than in any other country. Likewise, more patents are now filed in China each year than in any other country. It's also not as if local companies always win disputes - foreign companies apparently have a very good track record in Chinese courts. There's a description of the changes in recent years here: 1. https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/05/07/rapid-changes-chinese-legal-system-attractive-venue-ip-litigation/ https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2018/05/07/rapid-changes-chinese-... 2. https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-progress-on-intellectual-property-rights-yes-really/ https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/chinas-progress-on-intellect... Back when China was in the earlier stages of industrialization, it really didn't care much about IP. But things aren't the same any more: China spends about as much on R&D as the US, and it has its own IP to protect. IP law was not on their radar before, but it very much appears to be now. But you can imagine how difficult it is to set such a system up. They've had to create an entirely new legal system, train judges, etc. China has changed so rapidly that it's difficult for these sorts of systems to keep up.

nostromo 7y ago

> The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential agreements with American companies over the past two decades to access the trade secrets of those companies, only to then misappropriate that intellectual property and use it to fund Huawei’s business. These American companies thought they could build their products for a fraction of the price in China and increase margins. They didn't stop to consider that by teaching China how to build their products they were creating a new low-cost competitor. And they've since lost their manufacturing ability. Oops. It's hard to feel too sorry for these companies. It's not exactly a secret that this is how China operates and has operated for a very long time.

nimbius 7y ago
in a lot of cases the low-cost competitors are not only lower cost but have more features and/or better performance. They side-step a lot of the planned obsolescence and intentional feature scarcity US companies have become so dependent on to avoid meaningful R&D. Its hard not to see a lot of them as sort of a Robin Hood. On topic though, Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it.
- tharne 7y ago
  > Most of the pot-banging from Washington is at the behest of AT&T and other US carrier/handset/chip companies who are rightly livid that Huawei made it to market with 5G before they had a chance to monopolize it. Nope. Pretty sure most of the issue has to do with the spying, backdoors, and overall lack of ethics. This is the from same country that brought us a potential global pandemic because they spent weeks lying and covering up a rapidly spreading illness simply because they didn't want to lose face.
  - clSTophEjUdRanu 7y ago
    b-b-but America bad! /s
  - 7y ago

ReptileMan 7y ago

Any lawyer that can pitch in? I don't think that this fits the spirit of the RICO laws.

protocolture 7y ago
Since when do lawyers care about the spirit of a law, instead of what the law makes possible.
- thewileyone 7y ago
  Which is their billing rates.

thrownaway954 7y ago

so what does this mean? do they haul all the executives and workers into court? what happens if they are found guilty? do the executives go to jail, is the company forced to shutdown, or do they just have to pay a fine and all is good. hell, do they even have to pay the fine? so many questions :(

A4ET8a8uTh0 7y ago
Well, I am not an expert on that particular subject, but Huawei's CFO was arrested in Canada by the end of 2018. It seems US upped the ante a little and really decided to bring her in to face charges. Now that would bring some fireworks. I am not convinced China would not respond in kind.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- emptybits 7y ago
  > I am not convinced China would not respond in kind. Indeed. In diplomatic retaliation, China responded to the Huawei CFO's arrest in Canada by quickly arresting two Canadians on charges without evidence or explanation. Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. These Canadians have been in Chinese detention for over a year without access to a lawyer or the ability to speak to family or loved ones. Canadian pawns in a USA-China game. https://globalnews.ca/news/6410460/michael-kovrig-china-canada-detention/ https://globalnews.ca/news/6410460/michael-kovrig-china-cana...
_bxg1 7y ago
I assume it's mostly symbolic, like when Chinese military personnel were charged with cyber crimes. It's mostly outside of our jurisdiction, it just elevates the international rhetoric beyond "we don't trust you guys" to "we have hard evidence that you're committing crimes". Could have an impact on Europe's usage of Huawei infrastructure, for example.

euix 7y ago

I think the train on Huawei has already left the station. The most likely scenario is a U.S. maybe a few states highly dependent on U.S. security assurances vis-a-vis China toeing the line and everybody else using some combination of Huawei and Nokia/Ericsson in various combinations within their infrastructure based on how close they align with the U.S. or China. This whole thing looks just like AIIB a couple years ago where the U.S. made a huge stink about not joining the club and in the end everybody but Japan and Taiwan signed up.

anonobviosly 7y ago

My previous employer and my current one (both Fortune-50 tech companies) each had quiet policies that prospective job candidates who had Huawei on their resume needed extra clearing before they could even interview. Reading through the indictment makes the policies seem less paranoid or perhaps even not paranoid enough.

allovernow 7y ago
[deleted]
- filoleg 7y ago
  While I hear your reasoning, and parts of it make total sense, it is explicitly illegal to discriminate against someone due to their citizenship (yes, citizenship as well, not just national origin or anything like that) during the recruitment process (exceptions apply, i.e., if they are in the US illegally or if the position requires some sort of security clearance). Imo the only way it would work is if there was a separate law passed that addresses hiring workers who have Chinese citizenship specifically (with no US citizenship at the same time, obviously, as dual nationals are a thing), but that would never happen unless the situation escalated dramatically way beyond what it is now.

crmrc114 7y ago

<quote>and using proxies such as professors working at research institutions to obtain and provide the technology to the defendants</quote> You know this talk about using American Professors as proxies for exfiltrating information reminds me of this: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

>Charges also Reveal Huawei’s Business in North Korea and Assistance to the Government of Iran in Performing Domestic Surveillance // Surely evidence would reveal that, but this DOJ press release doesn't appear to be concerned with that. >As revealed by the government’s independent investigation and review of court filings, // Mwah-ha-ha-ha! They know how to tell 'em. >the new charges in this case relate to the alleged decades-long efforts by Huawei, and several of its subsidiaries, both in the U.S. and in the People’s Republic of China, to misappropriate intellectual property // Aren't new charges a new case? Aren't these extending speculations rather leading for a case that is in process, shouldn't they make the allegations and present any evidence - if they wish - rather than make extended claims bracketed by "allegedly". I can't believe that this has been written as anything other than a chance to make unsubstantiated claims ... have the courts hear the charges and then expound at length about the conviction. I thought these sorts of things from one of the main parties involved (the USA government) were strongly decried by courts as they tend to colour juries and judicial bodies; aren't the DOJ perverting the course of justice here with such a diatribe? >"Huawei’s efforts to steal trade secrets and other sophisticated U.S. technology were successful. Through the methods of deception described above, the defendants obtained nonpublic intellectual property relating to internet router source code, cellular antenna technology and robotics. As a consequence of its campaign to steal this technology and intellectual property, Huawei was able to drastically cut its research and development costs and associated delays, giving the company a significant and unfair competitive advantage." That may all be true, but if you're currently prosecuting a case and have to determine if it's true it would be nice, as a DOJ, to not making statements that -- despite legal ass covering -- is clearly intended to presuppose the guilt of the defendant. When USA decided to go after Huawei to bolster their own telecoms companies, I wondered if they realised they'd end up stooping so low?

apsec112 7y ago
All indictments are written like this. Of course the prosecution thinks the defendant is guilty, that's why they're bringing the charges. In an adversarial legal system, it's their job to make the case for guilt.
webpaymentsguy 7y ago

jorblumesea 7y ago

Isn't this what TPP was supposed to solve? It's ironic that the Trump admin killed Obama's China containment strategy, only to try to implement it in a half assed way without any allied alignment. Also doesn't help Trump is a highly polarizing figure. Pretty much describes the Trump admin in a nutshell. Whatever Obama did, get rid of it, regardless of its value, then implement a worse solution instead.

mdorazio 7y ago
I'm not sure how TPP was supposed to be a China containment strategy. I've heard this said a few times, but the explanations for how it was supposed to work always seemed like hand-wavey versions of "well, it would make US partnerships with non-China countries stronger and that would somehow contain China".
- jorblumesea 7y ago
  It would have pretty much locked China out of the domestic markets of many Southeast Asian countries and closely coupled their economies to the US, making it harder to do business with China. It's basically what China does today with their neighbors. Economic integration -> domestic power.
  - mdorazio 7y ago
    Again, I'm not sure how TPP was actually supposed to accomplish what you're saying. As far as I know, TPP didn't restrict participants from trading with China, and it's not clear to me what would have economically discouraged them from doing so. Maybe I'm wrong - I genuinely want to know.
    - jorblumesea 7y ago
      The text of the TPP basically ensured a "special trade relationship" between signers that outside, non-singers, would not be able to compete with. I would re-read the text of the TPP and see for yourself. It was basically a group trade agreement that guaranteed favorable exchanges. It's not that technically, they wouldn't be able to trade with China, but practically speaking, there was little chance.

sunstone 7y ago

Pretty clearly Huawei is now the cow that the US and China will be fighting over. Meng is now likely to be caught up in this as well regardless of how the current charges go. The US standing right up to China and punching it the nose. It's an inflection point for the world economy.

rickety-gherkin 7y ago

US political and militarized forces protecting corporate interest for the sake of...what again? Upholding ridiculous IP law? Is it naive to think that IP law should be disintegrated? How would the world, and more specifically the digital landscape, look if there was no concept of IP.

totalZero 7y ago
There'd be little incentive to invest in long-term R&D projects. Where's the profit in research on a new drug if you'll have to immediately compete with other pharma companies in selling it?

throwawei 7y ago

Using a throwaway to share our $0.02 relating to this. AMA I guess. We're a US-based startup that does about $100-200k in business annually with Futurewei (Huawei's R&D subsidiary). I've never dealt with Huawei proper. I can say they're genuinely investing in R&D, and trying to build a product unlike anything being offered right now. We're working with tech that's floating around the academic conferences, but no one else commercially will touch. This in contrast to our experiences with established US companies which, a) don't want to deal with early-stage research, b) wouldn't work with us as a new, small company, and c) gave bad IP terms (ironically). Not excusing other activities, but for us it's been above-board and beneficial. If they want to pump their profits into the US ecosystem, I see that as beneficial.

gramakri 7y ago
I don't have a question but your throwaway username is fantastic.
- stevens32 7y ago
  Wish I could add more value to this comment.. but I also upvoted for the name.
duckmysick 7y ago
How did the two of you get connected with each other?
- throwawei 7y ago
  Originally had a friend that knew one of the people there. I was going solo-preneur at the time, so it essentially started as a consulting gig.
clickme_zsh 7y ago
Good username!
plandis 7y ago
What company and why should anyone believe this?

mzs 7y ago

>The superseding indictment also includes new allegations about Huawei and its subsidiaries’ involvement in business and technology projects in countries subject to U.S., E.U. and/or U.N. sanctions, such as Iran and North Korea – as well as the company’s efforts to conceal the full scope of that involvement. The defendants’ activities, which included arranging for shipment of Huawei goods and services to end users in sanctioned countries, were typically conducted through local affiliates in the sanctioned countries. Reflecting the inherent sensitivity of conducting business in jurisdictions subject to sanctions, internal Huawei documents allegedly referred to such jurisdictions with code names. For example, the code “A2” referred to Iran, and “A9” referred to North Korea. edit from this superseding indictment itself: >For example, an official HUAWEI manual labeled “Top Secret” instructed certain individuals working for HUAWEI to conceal their employment with HUAWEI during encounters with foreign law enforcement officials. >Beginning in or about 2000, the defendants HUAWEI and FUTUREWEI misappropriated operating system source code for internet routers, command line interface (a structure of textual commands used to communicate with routers) and operating system manuals from a U.S. technology company headquartered in the Northern District of California (“Company 1”), an entity the identity of which is known to the Grand Jury, and incorporated the misappropriated source code into HUAWEI internet routers that FUTUREWEI sold in the United States from approximately April 2002 until December 2002. Toward this end, HUAWEI and FUTUREWEI hired or attempted to hire Company 1 employees and directed these employees to misappropriate Company 1 source code on behalf of the defendants. >In or about July 2004, at a trade show in Chicago, Illinois, a HUAWEI employee (“Individual-3”), an individual whose identity is known to the Grand Jury, was discovered in the middle of the night after the show had closed for the day in the booth of a technology company (“Company 3”), an entity the identity of which is known to the Grand Jury, removing the cover from a networking device and taking photographs of the circuitry inside. Individual-3 wore a badge listing his employer as “Weihua,” HUAWEI spelled with its syllables reversed. In official correspondence with Company 3 shortly after this incident, HUAWEI claimed that Individual-3 attended the trade show in his personal capacity and that his attempted misappropriation occurred “without Huawei’s authorization.” According to a purported official statement published in Reuters, HUAWEI claimed, “This is a junior engineer who had never traveled to the United States before. His actions do not reflect the culture or values of Huawei.” Notably, a resume that Individual-3 submitted to the U.S. government in approximately 2012 stated that he had been a “senior R&D Engineer” at HUAWEI from 1997 until July 2004, the time of the incident. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320499 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22320499

sandoooo 7y ago

>In one case, a technology company looking for a partnership with Huawei sent over a presentation deck with confidential information about its business in order to generate commercial interest with Huawei. From the indictment: > Immediately upon receipt of the slide deck, each page of which was marked ‘Proprietary and Confidential’ by Company 6, HUAWEI distributed the slide deck to HUAWEI engineers, including engineers in the subsidiary that was working on technology that directly competed with Company 6’s products and services. These engineers discussed developments by Company 6 that would have application to HUAWEI’s own prototypes then under design. Well, yeah, what the hell else are you supposed to do when some supplier sends you a highly technical slide deck, except discuss it with your engineers working on the same thing? I seriously can't fathom why anybody involved here would have any expectation to the contrary.

jhallenworld 7y ago

Huawei clearly is on parity with western technology. The evidence is here: https://www.eetasia.com/news/article/Integrated-5G-Chips-Unveiled-by-Samsung-Huawei-Qualcomm https://www.eetasia.com/news/article/Integrated-5G-Chips-Unv... And in particular, with its 5G modem: http://www.hisilicon.com/en/Products/ProductList/Balong http://www.hisilicon.com/en/Products/ProductList/Balong Some news about this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/huawei-and-samsung-s-new-5g-chips-designed-to-threaten-qualcomm https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-09/huawei-an... And also for the base stations: https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/huawei-s-5g-ran-portfolio-beats-ericsson-nokia-and-others-report-says https://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/huawei-s-5g-ran-port...

gok 7y ago
The evidence is a Huawei product announcement?
- jhallenworld 7y ago
  This was a convenient find on the web.. better is that their equipment (for base stations anyway) has been through equipment evaluations.
KaoruAoiShiho 7y ago
It's clearly ahead in some respect and behind in others. Particularly ahead in 5G where it's the clear world leader, behind in video recording though. The P30's EIS is seriously garbage compared to iPhone.
- jhallenworld 7y ago
  Well here is one comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yvtfl3gp0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Yvtfl3gp0M iPhone 11 and Pixel 4 do seem better, but I would be careful declaring it "garbage". I just think they have reached parity- where each vendor could leapfrog the others for any particular feature for successive generations.

deadEndDave 7y ago

This type of behavior is rampant in the Agricultural industry: (2013): https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-seeds-china/three-chinese-men-charged-with-stealing-u-s-seed-technology-idUSBRE9BB1AA20131212 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-crime-seeds-china/thr... After a two-year investigation, a man working for a Chinese conglomerate was arrested on charges of stealing inbred corn seed from production fields in Iowa and Illinois and trying to smuggle it into China, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa Nicholas Klinefeldt said. The man, Mo Hailong, director of the international business of the Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co, a part of DBN Group, was in the United States legally. (2019): https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/chinese-monsanto-staffer-charged-stealing-secrets-191122090315300.html https://www.aljazeera.com/ajimpact/chinese-monsanto-staffer-... A Chinese national who worked for US agricultural technology firm Monsanto has been charged in St Louis, Missouri, with stealing trade secrets for China, the US Justice Department said. Haitao Xiang, 42, an employee of Monsanto and its Climate Corp subsidiary from 2008 to 2017, was stopped by federal officials at a US airport before he could board a flight to China carrying proprietary farming software, the department said in a statement on Thursday. These are just two stories that made it into the news cycles. I have a lot more anecdotal evidence from farmer's I know who have seen the same thing in their fields in North Dakota. It's interesting that its usually the tech secrets they steal that make into the headlines, but the agricultural research Pioneer and Monsanto are doing is just as valuable to the Chinese and they're willing to send people anywhere to walk into these farmer's fields and start digging up experimental seeds? That's a major problem.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

> "Huawei is alleged to have stolen source code for Company 1’s routers, which it then used in its own products." I've never really understood how IP theft works. I've been a software engineer for a long time and I know that Reading and making sense of an existing million line code base is a hella of a lot harder than just writing new code from scratch. Why on earth would anyone want to steal source code from a competitor?

lostmsu 7y ago
Million lines of code from scratch is not easy in any way. Especially if you are talking about battle-tested code, which had already faced and accounted for many corner cases.
- carlmr 7y ago
  Maybe the best way is to write it yourself and when you face an issue you try to see how they solved it? It's fairly doable to understand a small part of the code until you see what they needed to do. I wouldn't call it reading all the millions of lines,I agree with OP that that would most likely take longer.
sneak 7y ago
I encourage you to read this. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-...
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  That's a great article i read a long time ago. :) But, That's different. We're not talking about rewriting an existing codebase that already exists and has a ton of legacy behavior that needs to be maintained. They're supposedly writing new code with new functionality, and instead of writing it themselves, the implication is that they'd rather use someone else's smelly old legacy code, rather than write it themselves. I would love to have seen the look on those engineers faces when some spy dropped off the packet of code they were supposed to integrate. I just don't see that happening. Reading existing code bases is hard enough. But then to go and try to integrate another company's codebase into your own, especially if it's millions of lines of code, I'd say thanks but no thanks.

resters 7y ago

Ironically, this is an attempt by the Trump administration to steal IP from China. US firms are behind in 5G because they have sat on the sidelines while Huawei engineered the chipsets. It's tremendously ironic that these charges will likely allow US firms to steal money and/or IP from Huawei through what is for all intents and purposes the Trump administration's fiat. Worse yet, as has been the pattern with the Trump administration so far, many aspects of the economy that were relatively stable and allowed planning and investment have been destroyed, like when a child throws a tantrum and upsets a board game sending the pieces onto the floor. Many international agreements, standards, and trade and diplomatic relationships have been set back decades by the administration. Note that the major claims have all been false so far: - The daughter (a journalist) of the Huawei CEO was harrassed and detained without cause, in what was essentially a kidnapping for ransom/extortion. How did the American people not feel outrage when Trump did this? - There have been repeated accusations of backdoors into 5G hardware, but yet no example of a device that has been hacked by the US or any private sector researchers. - US officials have (quite inappropriately) tried to foment xenophobia and hatred of Chinese immigrants in the US. This combined with Trump's xenophobic comments show the US's hand quite clearly. China is now a rival and no dirty tactics are off limits. As an American, I am so deeply embarrassed by all of this.

plandis 7y ago
> Ironically, this is an attempt by the Trump administration to steal IP from China. US firms are behind in 5G because they have sat on the sidelines while Huawei engineered the chipsets. Proof for the claim that US is trying to steal IP from Huawei?
peeters 7y ago
> The daughter (a journalist) of the Huawei CEO was harrassed and detained without cause, in what was essentially a kidnapping for ransom/extortion. How did the American people not feel outrage when Trump did this? This is news to me and I can't find anything with a search. Are you referring to Meng Wanzhou? If so, your facts are muddy at best. Meng was arrested in Canada on request of the US, and is currently in the Canadian legal system (under house arrest) facing extradition. She's also directly named in the new charges. Far from being a journalist, she's the CFO of Huawei. And while she was neither harrassed (she's been very complimentary of her detainors) nor detained without cause (the US government was clear about what charges they alleged), China on the other hand arrested two Canadians in retribution fully without cause on bogus espionage charges, in an attempt to assert leverage over Canadian officials to circumvent due process. Trump's comments over China and Huawei have been inflammatory and frustrating to Canadians, but let's not straight up make stuff up, if this is what you were referring to.

plandis 7y ago

What the fuck is up with these comments? Are you all really okay with blatant lawbreaking with no consequences?

protocolture 7y ago
laws =/= morals

thorowawaytoga 7y ago

In a small town in Israel, called Hod Hasharon there was a company named "Toga Networks". This company was paying as twice as you currenly earn, if you work at Cisco or Juniper. Just like that, as twice as, just ocme work with us. One year went by, and it turned out that Toga Network is no other than Huawei. So I do not know about stealing source code, but I know they looked after its IP which is in people's mind.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Aperocky 7y ago
> IP which is in peoples mind I think a general term for acquiring that IP is called employment.
- thorowawaytoga 7y ago
  when you target crowd from 2 specific companies and offer 2x market value salaries it is more aggressive than just "employment".
  - IMTDb 7y ago
    Yep, it's called job poaching.
emmelaich 7y ago
What year was that? Huawei bought Toga in 2016. https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/07/huawei-reportedly-acquires-israeli-it-networking-company-toga-networks-for-150-million/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/12/07/huawei-reportedly-acquire...
- thorowawaytoga 7y ago
  Toga started 2008. Was owned 100% by Huawei - in a chain of holdings. The came out of the closet in 2016 once established.

kimsant 7y ago

All low level geopolitics from Trumpist USA. The message is, you Chinese can do some tech but don't grow too big! Facebook, Microsoft, Intel, Amd, Google, AWS, Cisco. Those big must remain American. Mobile World Congress suden cancelation because Huawei represents half of it... Same same

MeltySmelty 7y ago
Trump rents space in your head at a _deep_ discount.

pastime 7y ago

Something seems off. If China steals all the US IP, why are US technology companies still so valuable? For example, Apple is a very valuable US technology company that also has extensive dealings in China.

LO22m 7y ago
Two things come to mind: 1) Consumers want an iPhone, not an iPhone equivalent from China, 2) Apple might have enough influence and connections to evade blatant theft.
sumedh 7y ago
> why are US technology companies still so valuable? Marketing plays a big role.
totalZero 7y ago
I see it this way, apologies if it seems off topic or judgmental but.... The third world is a place where many people have an idea of astuteness that differs from intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to design, build, create, manage, or otherwise achieve something in a novel way. Astuteness is the ability to take an advantage when one presents itself. Think Diego Maradona, or Aladdin. US technology companies have a great deal of creative intelligence, institutional knowledge, trust from customers, access to talent, and freedom to execute on corporate strategy. But even the company you mention, Apple, is arguably being outdone by Samsung (moved production out of China) and Huawei (Chinese).

jariel 7y ago

"A ‘competition management group’ was tasked with reviewing the submissions and awarding monthly bonuses to the employees who provided the most valuable stolen information." Just wow. How could any nation, let alone any company, allow any employee of Huawei anywhere near their operations? Literally, they are incented to steal whatever they can from you, out in the open, systematically, with nary much effort to cover it up it seems.

jbduler 7y ago

This another example of what is called the Master-Slave dialectic from Hegel, an 18th century philosopher. Something that I studied in a philosophy class and had a profound influence on my understanding of work. Please take 10' to understand it and it applies to the relationship between engineers and salespeople, to the relationship now between China and the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_dialectic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master%E2%80%93slave_dialectic

qtplatypus 7y ago
Can you explain how this relates to this story?

djrogers 7y ago

About a dozen years ago I was working for a small-ish hardware company ($350-400M revenue), which was acquired by a bigger company. BiggerCo had a Joint Venture with Huawei (let’s called it JVco). About 6 months Post acquisition one of our employees found that Huawei was selling a 100% complete rip-off of one of our products. JVco had access to some of our development resources, but Huawei was never supposed to see any of that per the agreements. The box looked, acted, and functioned the same - all they did was localize the language, barely rebrand it, and repackage our weekly updates for their customers the day after we released them. Legal from BiggerCo got involved, and it was all papered over as a ‘misunderstanding’ by the Joint Venture company. Haven’t trusted a thing with their name on it or any company that does business with them since...

totalZero 7y ago
Kind of makes you wonder why Boeing would build a finishing plant in Zhoushan and Apple would put so much of its iPhone production in Zhengzhou and Shenzhen.
- Fragoel2 7y ago
  Because its cheap, if you only look at the immediate profit without considering the long term implications
  - cianmm 7y ago
    Apple have been there for quite some time, they’re probably happy enough with the trade off.
    - ur-whale 7y ago
      Apple is so far gone in the closed ecosystem game, they're pretty much impossible to copy.
  - addicted 7y ago
    The long term implications have been that American companies are richer than ever before.

thatiscool 7y ago

It is all about backdoor. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/us-german-intel-owned-swiss-crypto-used-by-dozens-of-countries/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/us-german-intel-...

killjoywashere 7y ago

Here's my question: which American companies are so insanely dumb that they actually thought sharing any version of any of this made any sense? are these the organizational consequences of rich people not actually managing the companies that the engineers are working for? Maybe the engineers are like "Just to hell with my country, my company, my neighbors my family and futire myself, I'll do whatever it takes to get my raise. The left-wing folks at Berkeley are right, everyone's here for the common good, we just don't really understand the Chinese. We should share more, and gain their trust."

mrunkel 7y ago
Is it truly so hard to understand that what is the best action for oneself isn't necessarily the best action for the community (however one defines community)? American companies want to sell their products in China. Quite often that requires them to base some part of production in China. As for the last, yes, there is a large cultural gap between the US and the Chinese and frankly that gap exists mostly on the US side. I'd argue that without understanding the language, you'll never really understand another culture. Sure, you can base your understanding on a few people that do understand the language, but your understanding will always be skewed by their prejudices. In my lifetime, I've dealt with business people from a variety of cultures. Some are honest, some aren't. Some are cheap, some believe you have to spend money to make money. Some are successful, some aren't. None of that aligns with any particular culture. We assign attributes to remote cultures based on reports of the extremes (because the day to day doesn't get reported). When the same behavior gets reported in our own cultures, we simply say well, it's those guys that were bad, not the entire culture.

secfirstmd 7y ago

I wonder when the US will start charging Israeli companies for IP theft?....

jonathaneunice 7y ago

Copying successful technology is a goes-around, comes-around cycle. In 1780-1850, the USA was the premier pirate, stealing the world's premier technology and know-how, from Britain. By 2050, the Chinese will be fighting the very same battle with someone else (Nigeria and Angola maybe?), and bitterly bemoaning IP theft in the same terms.

cityzen 7y ago

Irony that a country led by Donald Trump is charging companies with racketeering. Shows what a joke we have become.