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ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

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Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#231
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operations of a company with size and might of Huawei in China is nothing like the operations of big European or American companies. The Chinese government is very involved. They have offices in the company. Do you think Signal has a government representative on site all the time?

Large American corps spend a lot on lobbying. Its not really different. Also I seem to remember that the CIA's investment company was one of the early investors in Google.

It's entirely different because the direction of control is in the opposite direction. There's nothing comparable at Google to the Communist Party's role in managament decisions at companies like Huawei.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, the reader mode has many open source implementations. But I am sure you can find similar cases in ot6her countries, I was wondering some important case/example like China stealing Windows code and making their own not some small company there pirated some software, that happens in other places too.

UC Browser is developed by Alibaba, one of China’s biggest companies. It’s easy to spot instances of stolen JavaScript because it’s injected into the page. Who knows what else they’ve stolen. This is not an open source implementation we’re talking about. There are rumors that much of Huawei’s network stack was stolen from Cisco and Juniper through government-mandated partnerships.

> There are rumors that much of Huawei’s network stack was stolen from Cisco and Juniper

These rumors may make the U.S. feel good, but the reality is that Huawei has 5G tech that Cisco/Juniper do not. In fact, the U.S. does not even have 5G tech at the level the EU does, so maybe you just simply got out R&D'd?

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#233
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one critical difference between America and China here. American companies have for the most part not been engaging in wholesale state sponsored theft of Chinese IP. Whatever you may think of the wisdom of a trade war, no one can really argue that China hasn't given the US all the ammunition it needed to give political cover to engaged in one.

Until now. The US seems to think Huawei poses a national security threat. Huawei seems to have won on 5G, to the point where UK is considering buying Huawei 5G equipment despite tons of pressure. Therefore, stealing the IP would be a national security priority. I'd bet dollars to donuts the NSA is trying to steal Huawei's 5G IP right now, though it'll be hard since they can't easily tap within China (no fiber links i…

I think it wouldn't be so unreasonable to assume someone in the US government IC has Huawei's IP already.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UC Browser is developed by Alibaba, one of China’s biggest companies. It’s easy to spot instances of stolen JavaScript because it’s injected into the page. Who knows what else they’ve stolen. This is not an open source implementation we’re talking about. There are rumors that much of Huawei’s network stack was stolen from Cisco and Juniper through government-mandated partnerships.

> There are rumors that much of Huawei’s network stack was stolen from Cisco and Juniper These rumors may make the U.S. feel good, but the reality is that Huawei has 5G tech that Cisco/Juniper do not. In fact, the U.S. does not even have 5G tech at the level the EU does, so maybe you just simply got out R&D'd?

I was talking about backbone routing hardware. Wireless technology is a non-sequitur, and I’m not an expert so cannot comment. Ultimately, the parent was asking for example of “large” examples of IP theft, and this should surely count.

I can attempt to respond to some of your 5G comments. My outsider perspective is that many countries have the resources to develop this technology, and my guess is differences in timing are dominated by capital efficiency questions and not talent. Differences in cost probably come down to policy and subsidy regimes — and free appropriation of IP is only one of many kinds of subsidies a government can provide domestic firms.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#236
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese culture is as capable of tolerating diversity as any other - take a look at Taiwan. Same sex marriage legalized last week. The political institutions in mainland China, on the other hand, are motivated by nationalist tendencies to foment hatred to Other. Aaaand they definitely jail people just for religious group membership so they discriminatory as fuck.

Eh, I don't think most people think of Taiwan when they say "Chinese culture", especially in the US. The mainland and Taiwan are far enough diverged that they should be considered two fairly distant clades.

I should clarify, this is fair. When I say "Chinese culture," I mean in the Epic sense - five thousand years of Chinese heritage and cultural tradition, mushed together from all the provinces and colonies. It's not a very well defined thing, so your comment is quite fair. It includes things like the use of the Han writing system, a similar linguistic heritage, certain medical beliefs, a smorgasbord of culinary traditions, a flavor of bureaucracy, etc.

With this in mind, the PRC has slowly been eroding many aspects of this "traditional" Chinese culture, such as the high respect paid towards intellectuals, teachers, and philosophers (through the use of reeducation camps and propaganda). Meanwhile, Taiwan starts to discover new things about the natures of traditional Chinese culture, like its compatibility with quite liberal concepts (same-sex marriage, as an example).

Many Taiwanese people will say their cultural identity aligns with the thousands of years of Chinese history, while rejecting the last 60 years or so of change on the mainland.

Nowadays someone might say "Chinese culture" and be taken to mean things like "tendency towards tyrannical capitalism masked as communism" or "tendency to imprison people for thought-crimes," so I appreciate you bringing this up.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#237

> He said it would greatly affect the firm's ability to develop its own chips, many of which are currently built with ARM’s underlying technology, for which it pays a licence. Maybe China could just change its laws to void ARM's patents. Then Huawei wouldn't need to worry about licensing. Extreme, I know. But China will very likely, at some point, need to counter this somehow. Edit: I wonder if China could afford a t…

A company needs to worry about licensing in every country it intends to sell its products...

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#238
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am wondering if the huge IP theft is mostly propaganda similar to the one US uses before it starts a war or changes some government in other country.

My view is that IP is fundamentally a terrible idea and should be abolished. All it does is help incumbent companies and prevents competition.

I think it's a fine idea, but qualifying for protection and the exclusivity terms are maybe out of touch with reality.

Software patents in particular shouldn't get 20 years. That made sense in general in the 19th century; it's an eternity today for software. Similarly, the extra exclusivity opportunities drugmakers have (mashups, etc) may be too friendly now.

Re: ARM memo tells staff to stop working with Huawei

#239
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is also not very smart to antagonize a world power that you also need for a lot of critical components, including lots of modern fabs. That requires the ability to think and plan long term, which many recent US presidencies have lacked.

The electoral cycle has shifted presidential incentives towards the short-termism that quarterly financial reports have for publicly traded companies. It's about looking good in the short term, by any means necessary.

Electoral cycles have existed for millennia. The difference between back then until ~ 1980 (mind ya I wasn't born then, I'm referring to history books here) with the advent of Thatcherism was that politicians and entrepreneurs/companies alike had a sense of honor. Which means that regents, no matter if kingdoms or democratic governments, wanted to create a positive, long lasting image in history and companies actually respected their workers and paid them fair wages (and even if only so that their workers could afford the products). That resulted ultimately in the formation of the European Union and in what we Germans call "Soziale Marktwirtschaft".

Beginning with Thatcher and exploding after the UdSSR fall came neoliberalism: ruthless privatisations everywhere (telcos, railways, postal services to name the most horrid examples which more often than not turned into shitshows), the total gutting of social security networks (anything from unemployment insurance over healthcare to social/affordable housing), and the lowest of the low being pitted against each other to totally implode wages while the top level enjoyed ever more and more payouts. Many a company employed their own cleaning and building maintenance staff - now it's all outsourced to the cheapest bidder.

No wonder this has also reflected back into politics...

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