Hacker News Reader

Comment by worldsurfblue | Hacker News Reader

US, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Europe really needs to form a coalition that would put pressure on Chinese government-sponsored companies blatant hacking attacks/stealing technologies, either by taking steps to reduce Chinese government investments in crucial technologies, punish Chinese firms like Huawei via sanctions, or put massive tariffs on China like US is doing. China is a very bad actor in the world.

Some readings: How Chinese hacking felled telecommunication giant Nortel https://www.afr.com/technology/web/security/how-chinese-hack.... China-based hackers burrow inside satellite, defense, and telecoms firms https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/06/china...

View on HN

The US used to run rampant over other's intellectual property in the 1800's. As far as I know, that didn't involve much industrial espionage. China is exploiting its sovereignty to enable industrial espionage over computer networks without consequences. The strategic solution is to raise the cost of this activity. Maybe one of the best things Microsoft could do, would be to implement a suite of future products providing 1) iron clad application sandboxing 2) all executable content requiring digital signature. Follow this up with aggressive use of honeypots and poison pills.

> The US used to run rampant over other's intellectual property in the 1800's

That's a common myth. One person, samuel slater, memorized the designs of textile factory machinery as an apprentice to a pioneer in the British industry before migrating to the United States at the age of 21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Slater US didn't steal anything using Samuel Slater.

I haven't heard of any other examples of US stealing intellectual properties in 1800. Plus, that's over 200 years ago. Would you like to bring up the something more recent?

For a more localized version, the entire existence of Hollywood happened because the industry wanted to avoid Edison's patent enforcement, and it was hard to enforce lawsuits on the other side of the country.

For me it's not really the IP theft, and more the lack of an equal playing field for foreign companies in China. If foreign companies can't get the same effective rights as local ones do, then those other countries should give the same restrictions to chinese companies in their locales.

This is also something of a myth. There was a trust (that Edison was part of) which monopolized film production, but by the time Hollywood was ramping up their patents had already expired. They were really enforcing their monopoly through price and supply controls. The cartel was ultimately broken by antitrust litigation, not IP piracy.

I haven't heard of any other examples of US stealing intellectual properties in 1800.

In the 1800's, not in 1800.

https://creativelawcenter.com/dickens-american-copyright/

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-02-01/piracy-an...

A somewhat nuanced discussion of the above:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130228/01324622146/yes-u...

Windows S sounds like this initiative. (People don't like who has to provide the signature)

There is no stopping China in the information age. Someone said "information wants to be free". That was 35 years ago. China will catch up to the west whether it is by stealing, acquiring or of their own accord. As long as the west think it is a better idea to focus on real estate, finance and service jobs we won't even keep up. South Korea, Taiwan and Japan almost completely missed the Internet. And frankly so did most of Europe and the US. European manufacturers have been moving their factories, if not to China, to Eastern Europe for years. While Midea, a large Chinese appliance manufacturer, just bought Kuka last year. They are now apparently adapting all their products to be made by robots. It is just completely different trajectories.

> There is no stopping China in the information age.

Says who?

> Someone said "information wants to be free". That was 35 years ago.

China's great firewall will disagree with that statement

> China will catch up to the west whether it is by stealing, acquiring or of their own accord

Not if you safeguard your secrets, plus their own crashing economy will stop the catching up part

> Says who?

I just did.

> China's great firewall will disagree with that statement

Not really. The firewall isn't really stopping anyone. The reason Chinese people are unconvinced about the west isn't because they don't know about it. It isn't North Korea. It is because China is providing their own narrative. They have their own culture, services, infrastructure and increasingly opportunities. Sure, part of that dampening other narratives. But they are ultimately succeeding because they are making progress themselves.

> Not if you safeguard your secrets

How are you going to safeguard your secrets when, not only is it increasingly hard, but the utility of information is often also only as great as the amount of people knowing about it? A significant part of the industry (in the west) is foreigners to begin with.

> plus their own crashing economy will stop the catching up part

People have been saying that for years. Maybe it will happen. But there is also nothing saying half of the western technology industry won't go down with a recession and subsequent housing market crash in San Francisco, Stockholm, London etc.

"But there is also nothing saying half of the western technology industry won't go down with a recession and subsequent housing market crash in San Francisco, Stockholm, London etc."

What do you mean by recession? Depression? The west can survive a huge recession. Can Xi and his regime? I have doubts. Let me make a prediction. Xi will go down as one of the biggest failures in China. Mark my words!

If someone stands up to him, maybe, but as long as there's a bit of extra margin to be made and improved quarterly numbers to grab that higher bonus, Western executives will sell out to China every day of the week, and Xi knows it. He also know he can manipulate American public opinion by using their hatred for Trump against them.

Its easy to come up with a pro-western theory, I'll start believing in the impotent China narrative when I see some sign of it in observable reality.

>>Not if you safeguard your secrets, plus their own crashing economy will stop the catching up part

Long term you can't. China will offer $10 million, $100 million or even a Billion to the person that knows /has access to everything. Add blackmail to really entice him /her. China really needs this tech, as per the article they're spending more on importing chips than oil. Add potential actions, ala ZTE, and it becomes a matter of their NAT SEC. Nothing is spared...

It's not about stopping China. It is, or at least should be, about establishing norms with which we can all work together globally.

as soon as China surpasses or closes the gap with the West using all means necessary , they will ask to talk...to establish norms

I think stopping China would be a very noble goal. I don't want them to set a precedent that a dictatorship leads to long lasting success. Unfortunately, China is a big market. And as long as there's money to be made no one really cares.

I think China has proven that for developing world to really develop, they should employ the same tactic. The real monopoly of developed world is in technology, and there is no way any poor country can catch up. Poor countries will always just be some 'market' unless they do something to save themselves. And when robot technology really takes off, poor country will have 'zero' chance of getting out of their situation again, they are going to be in deep trouble.

There are tons of other country that had the chance to "steal" technology, it's only China that really puts hard work and effort to manufacture it to a product, and drop into market.

Nobody actually cares about any of this. And no country is going to form any sort of coalition with the US right now.

It’s just shifting power centers and really all comes down to corporate profits.

> Nobody actually cares about any of this... It’s just shifting power centers and really all comes down to corporate profits.

Europe has made this mistake before. Appeasing a totalitarian, expansionist dictator works well, abruptly to the point at which it doesn't.

To be clear, this is an attack on the sovereignty of a fully democratic nation with a population the size of Australia's.

Some things are more precious than "corporate profits".

I wonder if we could apply this kind of reasoning to the shift of economic and cultural power in the US from the Northeast to the West and South? While not engaging in military expansion and classic totalitarianism, much of the intelligentsia of the West seems to be down with cultural, media, and corporate authoritarian tactics.

We should start banning importation of products containing stolen technologies. And companies that use stolen technologies and their CEOs should be banned from Western markets.

Then Apple products are banned in China tomorrow and Apple loses half its value.

Let’s see how that goes. ;)

Well, Apple also employs millions of Chinese works indirectly through their suppliers. I think the last thing the Chinese gov't wants is a large number of unemployed young males.

Well Apple is fucked, US enters depression. China economy collapses utterly. Xi does not live too long before he either enacts Stalin/Mao level purges or gets shot himself.

To a compromise? How do you think it will go if we do nothing?

The multinational conglomerates who own all manufacturing and research become Chinese in name only instead of American in name only (or is it Irish this week?)

That's how the current patent/trade system works. If it turns out there are products made without proper IP licensing, the USITC can ban importation of infringing goods.

If podcasts are more your speed, I'd recommend Bloomberg's Odd Lots with Dan Wang, which talks about China's 2025 plan.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-21/this-is-c...

That's a big part of what the TPP was.

[flagged]

Reply on news.ycombinator.com