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tech bubble burst in 2001, Huawei hacking of nortel was 2004-2009. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137

tech bubble burst in 2001, Huawei hacking of nortel was 2004-2009. https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-against-working-with-huawei-1.1137006 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-ag... https://aragonresearch.com/cyber-war-flashback-remembering-the-huawei-hack-of-cisco-and-nortel/ https://aragonresearch.com/cyber-war-flashback-remembering-t...

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
Not Huawei hacking - alleged Chinese hacking. By that time, Nortel had already been hit by the bursting of the tech bubble - which it never really recovered from - and was in the midst of a scandal in which top executives were accused of financial fraud. Nortel's final downfall occurred during the Great Recession, after years of limping along on life support. People blaming Huawei for Nortel's collapse are really banking on people forgetting the history of Nortel.
- generatorguy 6y ago
  admittedly I am as biased as they come being a formel Nortel employee. Chinese government hacking and Huawei hacking are one and the same as the end result is Huawei benefitting from the stolen information. Had Nortel not been hacked they wouldn't have had to deal with their competitors ripping off their products and out manoeuvring them in their business deals. The article I linked to cites an ex senior security advisor at Nortel stating that the hacking dated back to 2000, before the tech bubble burst. Instead of being swept under the rug the demise of Nortel due to hacking should be a case study in why computer security needs to be given a lot more attention even if it is at the expense of convenience.
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Hang on a second there. We really have to go back to the history of Nortel, because the claim that Chinese hacking brought down Nortel really does not hold up. Nortel expanded massively during the dot-com bubble, and went on a nearly $20 billion acquisition spree that caused it to lose money every quarter for years, even while its stock price was driven up by unrealistic expectations. Then the dot-com bubble burst, at which point these expectations were tempered and people began worrying about Nortel's unprofitability. The stock crashed, raising capital became difficult, demand for Nortel's products (and all telecommunications hardware) plummeted, and the company had to lay off 20% of its workers. At this time, Huawei was a tiny player outside of China. Nortel's major competitor was Cisco. In 2003, for the first time in years, Nortel finally posted a quarterly profit, but then came under investigation from the SEC over suspicions that it was fudging its numbers (specifically, the accusation was that executives shifted revenue in time in order to meet targets that earned them bonuses). The SEC charged top Nortel executives with fraud, and the case was eventually settled, but Nortel had to change out its top management. Nortel was also sued by shareholders, to whom it had to pay billions of dollars in a settlement. There were layoffs and downsizing throughout this entire period. To look at that history, and then to claim that hacking that might have helped one of Nortel's several competitors (and not even the largest, by a long shot) is the reason for Nortel's demise just seems completely out of left field to me. To be honest, it sounds like a batter yelling at the ump about being distracted by a fan after he strikes out 0-3.
    - generatorguy 6y ago
      It's more like someone on base on your team stealing the catcher's signals to the pitcher and telling your batter what pitch is coming so they can hit a home run by cheating. Here is a quote from one of the articles I linked: >Nortel was once one of the dominant telecom providers globally, but in early 2004, Huawei was caught stealing trade secrets from Nortel. This was proven by Nortel security expert Brian Shields. However, Nortel management had a hand in their own eventual downfall when it outsourced manufacturing to Huawei in the ’90s. >In the hack, Huawei gained credentials of Nortel executives, including CEO Frank Dunn and Brian McFadden. It then simply stole documents that contained the future product and marketing plans of Nortel. >The hack went even further than usernames and passwords. It has never been proven, but U.S. sources discovered that it was most likely Huawei that used sophisticated malware to record nearly every phone call that Frank Dunn made. After all of this, Huawei grew and Nortel faded, eventually going bankrupt. All of the history of some mismanagement or funny accounting means nothing to me. Nortel had a large portfolio of IP that was stolen by China and ended up in the hands of Huawei and then the details of all of the deals they were trying to make to sell equipment were also stolen and used to out manoeuvre them, driving losses and unprofitability.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago

Not Huawei hacking - alleged Chinese hacking. By that time, Nortel had already been hit by the bursting of the tech bubble - which it never really recovered from - and was in the midst of a scandal in which top executives were accused of financial fraud. Nortel's final downfall occurred during the Great Recession, after years of limping along on life support. People blaming Huawei for Nortel's collapse are really banking on people forgetting the history of Nortel.

generatorguy 6y ago
admittedly I am as biased as they come being a formel Nortel employee. Chinese government hacking and Huawei hacking are one and the same as the end result is Huawei benefitting from the stolen information. Had Nortel not been hacked they wouldn't have had to deal with their competitors ripping off their products and out manoeuvring them in their business deals. The article I linked to cites an ex senior security advisor at Nortel stating that the hacking dated back to 2000, before the tech bubble burst. Instead of being swept under the rug the demise of Nortel due to hacking should be a case study in why computer security needs to be given a lot more attention even if it is at the expense of convenience.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Hang on a second there. We really have to go back to the history of Nortel, because the claim that Chinese hacking brought down Nortel really does not hold up. Nortel expanded massively during the dot-com bubble, and went on a nearly $20 billion acquisition spree that caused it to lose money every quarter for years, even while its stock price was driven up by unrealistic expectations. Then the dot-com bubble burst, at which point these expectations were tempered and people began worrying about Nortel's unprofitability. The stock crashed, raising capital became difficult, demand for Nortel's products (and all telecommunications hardware) plummeted, and the company had to lay off 20% of its workers. At this time, Huawei was a tiny player outside of China. Nortel's major competitor was Cisco. In 2003, for the first time in years, Nortel finally posted a quarterly profit, but then came under investigation from the SEC over suspicions that it was fudging its numbers (specifically, the accusation was that executives shifted revenue in time in order to meet targets that earned them bonuses). The SEC charged top Nortel executives with fraud, and the case was eventually settled, but Nortel had to change out its top management. Nortel was also sued by shareholders, to whom it had to pay billions of dollars in a settlement. There were layoffs and downsizing throughout this entire period. To look at that history, and then to claim that hacking that might have helped one of Nortel's several competitors (and not even the largest, by a long shot) is the reason for Nortel's demise just seems completely out of left field to me. To be honest, it sounds like a batter yelling at the ump about being distracted by a fan after he strikes out 0-3.
  - generatorguy 6y ago
    It's more like someone on base on your team stealing the catcher's signals to the pitcher and telling your batter what pitch is coming so they can hit a home run by cheating. Here is a quote from one of the articles I linked: >Nortel was once one of the dominant telecom providers globally, but in early 2004, Huawei was caught stealing trade secrets from Nortel. This was proven by Nortel security expert Brian Shields. However, Nortel management had a hand in their own eventual downfall when it outsourced manufacturing to Huawei in the ’90s. >In the hack, Huawei gained credentials of Nortel executives, including CEO Frank Dunn and Brian McFadden. It then simply stole documents that contained the future product and marketing plans of Nortel. >The hack went even further than usernames and passwords. It has never been proven, but U.S. sources discovered that it was most likely Huawei that used sophisticated malware to record nearly every phone call that Frank Dunn made. After all of this, Huawei grew and Nortel faded, eventually going bankrupt. All of the history of some mismanagement or funny accounting means nothing to me. Nortel had a large portfolio of IP that was stolen by China and ended up in the hands of Huawei and then the details of all of the deals they were trying to make to sell equipment were also stolen and used to out manoeuvre them, driving losses and unprofitability.