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Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

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Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP is saying that the US doesn't have the moral high ground and anyone spouting off about how badly China is acting is just being asinine since we do the exact same thing to everyone (and if we weren't then our intelligence agencies need to get off their asses and do it).

There is a fine line in spycraft. Stealing secrets from companies for commercial gain is just pathetic. Can't innovate, just hack it and steal it.

When was it that the NSA was caught stealing lists of clients from Embraer and giving them to Boeing? I can't remember if it was 2015 or 2016...

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#62

I love reading about the Chinese efforts in developing a modern turbofan engine. For whatever reason, they just can't build a good medium- or high- bypass turbofan in-house. They're latest WS-20 is basically a clone of the CFM-56 and previously they spent decades developing the WS-6 and WS-10 that never met expectations. This is a big deal because the Comac 919 is ready to go but without a powerplant, they're having…

China also couldn't make a ballpoint pen until last year [1].

I imagine making a modern jet engine is somewhat more challenging than making a ballpoint pen (both endeavours involve making high precision metal parts).

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/01/18...

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a fine line in spycraft. Stealing secrets from companies for commercial gain is just pathetic. Can't innovate, just hack it and steal it.

When was it that the NSA was caught stealing lists of clients from Embraer and giving them to Boeing? I can't remember if it was 2015 or 2016...

I hadn't heard of this before, but now I'm curious - do you have any more details on this?

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#65
If the "spies" really did "steal" (i.e. copy) an engine design then it seems like a good thing for the world in general. They have helped spread useful knowledge.

Sure, it's bad for the would-be rent-seekers whose plans have been threatened. Why should anyone else care about them?

Thanks China, and keep up the good work!

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#66

I used to work at Nortel Networks along with 130,000 other people. Nortel went bankrupt and now everyone who used to work there is fighting for their pensions. Apparently a major contributor to their downfall was all of the IP being stolen and sensitive information about deals going down otherwise exfiltrated by Huawei[1] People need to get serious about protecting the privacy of their communications and data. Nobody…

> Apparently a major contributor to their downfall was all of the IP being stolen

If a company is heavily dependent upon existing IP then having it all stolen will be a major contributor to their downfall. But so is that dependence. Hard to make suggestions without appearing to victim blame, but companies need to be able to survive even without secrets.

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#67

I love reading about the Chinese efforts in developing a modern turbofan engine. For whatever reason, they just can't build a good medium- or high- bypass turbofan in-house. They're latest WS-20 is basically a clone of the CFM-56 and previously they spent decades developing the WS-6 and WS-10 that never met expectations. This is a big deal because the Comac 919 is ready to go but without a powerplant, they're having…

Having the designs itself can only carry you so far. You also need the fine precision tools, materials engineering, software, etc in order to build sophisticated machinery.

China is advancing quickly but they can't make up 200 years of industrial headstart by the west in 20 years.

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#68

I used to work at Nortel Networks along with 130,000 other people. Nortel went bankrupt and now everyone who used to work there is fighting for their pensions. Apparently a major contributor to their downfall was all of the IP being stolen and sensitive information about deals going down otherwise exfiltrated by Huawei[1] People need to get serious about protecting the privacy of their communications and data. Nobody…

> Apparently a major contributor to their downfall was all of the IP being stolen If a company is heavily dependent upon existing IP then having it all stolen will be a major contributor to their downfall. But so is that dependence. Hard to make suggestions without appearing to victim blame, but companies need to be able to survive even without secrets.

I didn't want to pin the downfall of Nortel completely on the IP being stolen and being outmanoeuvred in deals.

During the dot-com bust they also lost a bunch of money selling carriers equipment on credit and that is when the tough times and inability of the executives to right the ship began.

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#69
post #49

I have a serious question: why don't governments impose sanctions on other governments that hack them when there is sufficient proof?

Here's a few ways of thinking about it:

1. Escalation, the instinctive response of angry humans, is generally a bad idea in international relations (or any relations). I once read a veteran practitioner express it this way: 'The job of international relations is to prevent a B-level problem from becoming an A-level one'. The U.S. and China, for example, have a very large number of interactions on an enormous number of issues; if someone retaliated every time they were unhappy - and then of course the other side would re-retaliate - that would be all that was happening, lots of treasure would be wasted, war would be risked, and positive things wouldn't get done. That doesn't mean that you do nothing, but you need to respond in a way that doesn't escalate the situation - it's not always easy to thread that needle, but that's what the professionals are there for. Another reason retaliation is bad is that it puts the other side in control of your actions - they can provoke you into doing what suits them, when it suits them. You want to act at the time and place and using the means that best suits you, not dance to their tune.

2. The U.S. does take action against them, but not in public. This helps prevent escalation - the Chinese government isn't publicly challenged and forced to respond.

3. Espionage is, in one sense, like a state of war. The U.S. is already doing all they can to shut down Chinese espionage and to spy on China, and vice versa. China isn't breaking any rules in the context of espionage (AFAIK), and if the U.S. could do more, they'd already be doing it.

Re: Feds: Chinese spies orchestrated hack that stole aviation secrets

#70

I used to work at Nortel Networks along with 130,000 other people. Nortel went bankrupt and now everyone who used to work there is fighting for their pensions. Apparently a major contributor to their downfall was all of the IP being stolen and sensitive information about deals going down otherwise exfiltrated by Huawei[1] People need to get serious about protecting the privacy of their communications and data. Nobody…

> Apparently a major contributor to their downfall was all of the IP being stolen If a company is heavily dependent upon existing IP then having it all stolen will be a major contributor to their downfall. But so is that dependence. Hard to make suggestions without appearing to victim blame, but companies need to be able to survive even without secrets.

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