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The Lernout and Hauspie stuff sounds like bullshit. This was a company run by fraudsters that dicked over and ripped off the founders of Dragon Systems. They ac
by cromwellian 13y ago
The Lernout and Hauspie stuff sounds like bullshit. This was a company run by fraudsters that dicked over and ripped off the founders of Dragon Systems. They acquired many US speech technology firms in their run up, some that predated L&H, so the idea that the NSA stole US developed and acquired tech in a buyout to advantage American companies sounds bogus.
The Airbus thing rings true, but industrial espionage for L&H tech? Who'd want it? It was hardly a strategic technology unlike Aerospace. At best, the NSA themselves might like to use it for transcribing calls, but given the tons and tons of open academic research on speech, it just sounds like the typical IP bullshit of firms accusing other firms of "stealing" algorithms because someone else independently developed something similar.
Next the French will be claiming the NSA is stealing important tech from DailyMotion.
- Zigurd 13y agoI did not see L&H mentioned, but L&H did end up owning Dragon Systems on the basis of a valuation built on fraud. Dragon Systems did quite a bit of government work, and it's a good bet much of it was for the NSA. The Dragon Jim and Janet Baker built really was a tech "crown jewel." Subsequently ScanSoft (now called Nuance) ended up owning the wreckage of L&H, and Dragon's assets are back in US hands. So that example has some basis in national security issues.
- cromwellian 13y agoTrue, but how can it be nationalistic industrial espionage when the technology itself was an American technology already, not a Belgian developed one?
- Zigurd 13y agoThat's my point: It's not a very vivid example of industrial espionage if the only consequence was that ScanSoft bought L&H assets. There are, however other examples that make it difficult to not be the pot calling the Chinese kettle black.