American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI
businessweek.com
businessweek.com
Excuse me, but isn't this obvious?
"Foreign countries “can never become competitive by stealing,” [University of Maryland President Wallace Loh] said. ..."
Maybe I'm too naive, but I would think virtually any foreign company can become very competitive by stealing.
"... In another, an Asian graduate student arranged for researchers back home to visit an American university lab and take unauthorized photos of equipment so they could reconstruct it, the report said."
...which lead to Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman making very delicious mini-cupcakes from their recontructed Easy-Bake Oven (TM). Seriously? Where is Bruce Schneier to talk about "Security Theater"?
"A foreign scientist’s military background or purpose isn’t always apparent. ..."
I had to stop reading the article at this point...
It worked for China, India, and Korea.
EDIT: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/piracy-and-fraud-pr...
Your article overstates the case: even early on the US innovated in many areas (though textiles was not one of those areas): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_and_industrial_hi...
If you trace backwards, part of the reason why England had the economic foundation for that was a major importation of artisans from the Netherlands after William of Orange became king of England.
And the Netherlands gained the foundations for its wealth from skills that the Sephardic Jews took to the Netherlands as they fled the growing religious intolerance in Spain as the Inquisition got under its way.
And so for hundreds of years each top world power has seen the major foundations of its prosperity be based on knowledge and skills gained from the previous one. Is it any surprise that the cycle would repeat again now that the USA is the top world power? It may feel like history inevitably leads to now, but there is no reason to believe that the economic dominance of the USA will last longer than previous world empires.
--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_scholars_in_the_Renaissa...
EDIT: OK different link now... sure there is a Wikipedia article titled "Technological and industrial history of the United States". But that doesn't change the fact that, yes, the country's early technological growth was based heavily on the same sort of "piracy" that people love to hate modern Asia for.
Obviously a ton of great stuff has been created in the U.S. since then. All I'm saying is that if we're going to list countries for whom intellectual property theft has proven profitable, the U.S. belongs on that list just as sure as anyone else.
In any case, stealing technology has been a much more fundamental part of the recent prosperity of China and India. Their societies are almost wholly dependent on Western technology. In comparison, the U.S. was always a prosperous country, even during colonial times.
Yes, the USA has a long history of innovation (for instance Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, and the Franklin Stove.
But if you read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution you'll find that major technological progress began in England, and the USA was mostly an innovative footnote until surprisingly late. The USA did much more important than exporting of major technology for decades.
My point isn't that the US sprung fully formed like some technological Athena. My point is that the US had a culture of innovating even when it copied the basic technology. This was by necessity, because perfect copying was not possible at the time. In comparisom, the Chinese and Indians have been so utterly dependent on wholesale copying that there is little innovation out of those societies. What need is there for a Chinese OS when you can just copy Windows, or Indian drug formulas when you can just use American formulas.
Secondly, you are massively underestimating Asian innovation. Almost all global manufacturing of key technologies, such as RAM, has almost entirely moved to Asia. Moore's Law has not slowed for those technology. There is lots of innovation going on in those fields, and it is all Asian at this point. Mostly covered by trade secrets rather than US patents, but it is still real and your computer wouldn't run without it.
Did you hear that Samsung recently got criticized for deciding to budget more on marketing than R&D? They did. When was the last time that you saw a US company criticized for valuing marketing above R&D? What does that say about the innovation culture in South Korea vs the USA? (Yes, innovation in China and India are behind South Korea - but 20 years ago nobody thought of South Korea as more than a bunch of copycats. How will they remember their history in 200 years?)
Thirdly you're not acknowledging the fact that the USA historically had a deserved reputation for not respecting intellectual property. For example Charles Dickens had more than a few choice words about how freely his works were pirated verbatim in the USA. Key technologies were taken lock, stock and barrel without compensation - exactly what Americans today complain about Asian countries doing.
In short there are good parallels between how the USA behaved and was seen 200 years ago, and what's going on today in Asia.
The pen drive I was given was unusually large and had the name of a Chinese university on it. When I plugged it into my MacBook, I was asked to choose a layout for the new keyboard. It turns out that there are pen drives that actually contain two USB devices, a mass storage drive and a keyboard, and the keyboard part can be programmed to type rogue commands at night (I guess Windows doesn't alert you that loudly when a keyboard is connected, so it's more likely to go unnoticed).
I tried to get someone to help investigate this possible rogue device, but nobody cared. I wonder if it was an espionage tool.