Live data from Hacker News

Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

wsj.com

71–80 of 116 posts

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#71
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it strongly reminds me the media of USSR. They switched narratives in a perfect unison with politics like that. Sometimes they even did it ahead of politics preparing ground for changes in politics. I wonder what the mechanics of it might be in a democratic society. It was easy to do in USSR: top-down structure allowed state to rule media by orders. But democracy is more nuanced than that I believe. At least I'…

It's in all states. It just becomes more noticable in times of stress ( economic, military, societal ). Go read about the mccarthy era, the red scare before that or the yellow peril before that. Or go read about how how china and the chinese were viewed pre-1970 to how the media changed perceptions during the 1970s with deng's visit, etc as they prepared to open trade relations. Read about how chinatowns historically…

[deleted]

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#72

What's the big deal here? Couldn't other countries just steal technology back? e.g. couldn't a 5-eyes country consortium just rip off Huawei's 5G technology and run with it in their own markets?

Stealing stuff is OK because other people could also steal stuff?

I don’t think that’s a valid point.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#73
post #51
post #4

I am amazed on how weak the accusations are. A ringtone? Some guy who thinks he can patent the idea of a camera attached to a smartphone? A hitpiece like this could have been written about just about any big tech company. And it is leaving out the story of how Huawei committed its true crime: That within some fields (5G notably) it is today a lot more advanced and cheaper than its competitors.

They note that Huawei's patent contained Quintel's name in the documents. How are those accusations weak? Seems like impressively strong evidence. Between T-mobile's tappy (resulted in indictment), Quintel's antennas, CNEX Labs, Tekelec Inc, motorola, cisco source, and Akhan Semiconductor's Diamond Glass[1](unmentioned in this piece) seems like there is quite a bit of evidence that Huawei has a company wide directive…

I talked to a senior Huawei exec and he said that tappy is not a good example of IP theft. The tester literally attempted to walk out with the machine. You can't get any more sloppy then that.

Instead he said that the worker was really pressured by his bosses into delivering results.

That's not to say that there are broader problems with IP theft at Huawei though.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#74
post #4

I am amazed on how weak the accusations are. A ringtone? Some guy who thinks he can patent the idea of a camera attached to a smartphone? A hitpiece like this could have been written about just about any big tech company. And it is leaving out the story of how Huawei committed its true crime: That within some fields (5G notably) it is today a lot more advanced and cheaper than its competitors.

The most amusing part is that Huawei developed 5G tech on its own - nokia has shit and e/// is not better. Even in regards of 4G massive MIMO tech - Huawei is years ahead of other, they couldn't steal this tech from anyone - because one one had it.

That may partly be because a lot of r&d departments that used to be there are now long gone because Huawei put them out of business. Not just by stealing but because it was nearly impossible to compete with a company who were backed again and again by the Chinese government despite failing many times.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#75
post #4

I am amazed on how weak the accusations are. A ringtone? Some guy who thinks he can patent the idea of a camera attached to a smartphone? A hitpiece like this could have been written about just about any big tech company. And it is leaving out the story of how Huawei committed its true crime: That within some fields (5G notably) it is today a lot more advanced and cheaper than its competitors.

Curious, did you actually read the article? The first paragraph alone notes much more significant issues. Later the article highlights things like Huawei stealing Cisco code, including all their bugs. I'm all for being critical and trying to stay objective as much as possible, but bluntly ignoring some of these issues won't help either.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#76
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the comments for the article? This has the width of the Overton Window laid bare for you. The consent has already been manufactured! Nobody dare cross the line and say how cool they are with Huawei products. We have short memories, not so recently the Koreans were the ones doing all the IP theft, but nowadays Samsung is legit. Or you can go further back to when everything except and IBM PC (or Apple) was…

I just have a meta question. Was there a recent article or something that brought the term 'Overton window' into common use? I did a little digging and it seems like it's been a term for a few decades, but I don't recall ever seeing it before this year. Now I see it used all the time.

More likely hypothesis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader–Meinhof_effec

I learned about this years ago, so I've not noticed a recent uptick in usage, but when I learned about it I did.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I used to work we relied on our Chinese partners to do the hard bits you describe, e.g. mold making, and kept things like packaging design in the UK. Going further back when I used to work in the bicycle trade it was even worse, I thought that my mate doing the bicycle design would at least be able to use a CAD/CAM package, but he was working off printouts sent through from China. We didn't have the design skil…

> It was more of an approval process, but we were claiming credit for the design a great point. this is a really, really important comment on this whole topic. i can't help but wonder if this phenomenon is widespread. US companies don't fear a situation where Chinese design and engineering are equal or superior. this debate about IP theft is a smoke screen. what US companies truly fear is Chinese companies that can m…

The bicycle example is a good one in that regard. Clearly bicycles can be easily made for the mass market but getting distribution is an entirely different matter. For that you need a distributor who has distribution to lots of retailers and can provide the warranty and marketing for the product.

With the aforementioned example, the USP of the bicycle designed for the British market comes down to four holes. Bicycles designed for California do not need mudguards, in the UK we have rain and therefore mudguards matter. So get the four holes needed to accommodate mudguards and you can fairly claim that the bicycle is designed for the UK.

The rest of the bicycle product is a matter of specification, the parts are Japanese designed Shimano for the middle market (where there is sales volume and sufficient margin on units sold) and the general idea is to skimp on them and put Chinese/Taiwan made parts where the customer does not notice, e.g. the headset and bottom bracket bearings.

What has changed recently is that distributors no longer need retailers. So the brand website is nowadays with buy now buttons instead of 'find a shop' buttons. So long as the brand does not undercut retail all is good, but when shipping to the customer's door is free the local retailer is still at a competitive disadvantage. Bicycles are one of the few products hanging on, you can't sell electronics through a retail distribution model these days in the UK if you are a specialist brand, the High Street has died and you are not going to have stockists for something like a hobby level drone. With a bicycle you still need someone local to assemble it for the customer.

Where is gets interesting is when you have brands that go bust and get bought by Chinese companies. For instance, the company that made black cabs for the UK market went bust and now that is owned by Geely. They are doing great things to make the black cab electric, however, you can bet that the motor is not going to be wound in Coventry, even if the final production line assembly is done in Coventry. Same with Volvo. None of the electric Volvo cars are going to be made in Sweden by real Swedish people, they might change a few hub caps and do things that dealers used to do to cars, e.g. adding a rear spoiler and speed stripes for the 'sports' model, but the brand will be fine without it being a 'Chinese Volvo'.

In the deluxe car brands market there are things like Bentley, costing $$$,$$$ with the tank sized thing made in Eastern Europe, not Crewe. Or Jaguar Land Rover, you know that their electric cars are going to come from a contract manufacturer and not the West Midlands. But the buyers will be fine with that and wear the posh car badge as if there is nothing going on.

So long as the product has innovated and is new then everyone is happy. With British Leyland (Rover) it did not work out that way, we ended up with fake Rover cars made in China from scratchy plastics with lame engines and no crash protection that nobody in the UK wanted to touch.

The enemy in all of this is not crafty Chinese people stealing our IP it is the property speculator and the government that puts the land owning people at the top of the food chain. There have been four decades of policies that put the property speculators first so the only way to make money in the UK is through rent seeking. This works out if you can get a Ponzi scheme going but eventually it becomes impossible to have people doing things like teaching, working in shops or anything else that the rich actually need. The servants get priced out of their one-bedroom flats and cannot afford to buy.

But, we can pretend otherwise and wage war on China, selling munitions to Saudi Arabia to balance out the government books.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#78
post #4

I am amazed on how weak the accusations are. A ringtone? Some guy who thinks he can patent the idea of a camera attached to a smartphone? A hitpiece like this could have been written about just about any big tech company. And it is leaving out the story of how Huawei committed its true crime: That within some fields (5G notably) it is today a lot more advanced and cheaper than its competitors.

The most amusing part is that Huawei developed 5G tech on its own - nokia has shit and e/// is not better. Even in regards of 4G massive MIMO tech - Huawei is years ahead of other, they couldn't steal this tech from anyone - because one one had it.

> Huawei is years ahead of other, they couldn't steal this tech from anyone - because one one had it.

Sources? I just spent 10+ minutes reading into this and only 2 out of the 10 i looked at suggested that and they were dubious at best. This one [0] had a decent overlook of the various companies but it didn't say anything at who was leading which isn't too surprising since I also cannot find any sources showing any company whatsoever actually deploying 5g en mass. Mostly just companies deploying lone cell towers to run tests and claim they have 5g.

[0]: https://www.greyb.com/companies-working-on-5g-technology/

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#79
post #73
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They note that Huawei's patent contained Quintel's name in the documents. How are those accusations weak? Seems like impressively strong evidence. Between T-mobile's tappy (resulted in indictment), Quintel's antennas, CNEX Labs, Tekelec Inc, motorola, cisco source, and Akhan Semiconductor's Diamond Glass[1](unmentioned in this piece) seems like there is quite a bit of evidence that Huawei has a company wide directive…

I talked to a senior Huawei exec and he said that tappy is not a good example of IP theft. The tester literally attempted to walk out with the machine. You can't get any more sloppy then that. Instead he said that the worker was really pressured by his bosses into delivering results. That's not to say that there are broader problems with IP theft at Huawei though.

Trying to confirm your point: because the company was careless in letting an employee walk out, this was a lesser theft?

I haven’t heard a case where a burglar gets a reduced sentence because the house was left unlocked.

The fact that this comes from a Huawei senior exec speaks a lot about their company culture.

Re: Huawei’s Yearslong Rise Is Littered with Accusations of Theft and Dubious Ethics

#80
post #51
post #4

I am amazed on how weak the accusations are. A ringtone? Some guy who thinks he can patent the idea of a camera attached to a smartphone? A hitpiece like this could have been written about just about any big tech company. And it is leaving out the story of how Huawei committed its true crime: That within some fields (5G notably) it is today a lot more advanced and cheaper than its competitors.

They note that Huawei's patent contained Quintel's name in the documents. How are those accusations weak? Seems like impressively strong evidence. Between T-mobile's tappy (resulted in indictment), Quintel's antennas, CNEX Labs, Tekelec Inc, motorola, cisco source, and Akhan Semiconductor's Diamond Glass[1](unmentioned in this piece) seems like there is quite a bit of evidence that Huawei has a company wide directive…

Don't forget nortel who used to employ 140,000 people including myself. Now the goverment occupies their offices.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-nortel-exec-warns-ag...

Post reply on HN