Live data from Hacker News

Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

npr.org

61–70 of 233 posts

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#61
post #12
post #5

Wall Street Journal has recently published an article [1] detailing some of the most high profile technology thefts and espionage related to Huawei. According to the article, here's a list of thefts and espionage attributed to Huawei, employees of Huawei, or people related to Huawei. 1. Stealing tech at tradeshows: On a summer evening in 2004, as the Supercomm tech conference in Chicago wound down, a middle-aged Chin…

Someone at one of Cisco’s competitors once told me that Huawei copied their routers down to the English silk screened assembly instructions on the PCBs. Friend of mine also does contracting work for them. They never pay their bills on time apparently.

I know a guy who used to work for TI who talked about the Chinese knocking off chips, right down to purposely-introduced defects added specifically to detect such counterfeiting. Problem was, knowing that it happened didn't do much good. Ended up moving production of some stuff to the Philippines because there was literally no recourse.

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#62
post #56

It's built into their culture. There was one time when the lecturer left the classroom during a break in the lecture, the china exchange students swarmed over his laptop, which he did not lock down, inserted USB drives, copied files had lookouts posted at the door etc. It was so shockingly spontaneous. They did not know I was not a student but another lecturer auditing his class. Later I told him that his laptop was…

Shocking this kind of stereotyping is not only allowed but upvoted to first place on HN.

Here's Bunnie Huang's explanation of cavalier disregard for copyright/trademark and IP law:

https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284

I'm sure he's biased, right?

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#63
post #20

Do these companies ever actually innovate and build social/intellectual capital beyond reverse engineering skills or are they gaming to pollute the waters so much that they risk sacrificing the golden goose to whom they steal ideas? This all sort of reminds me of the quip communism or socialism only works until those in charge spend all the money of those who are productive. If IP and the R&D expenses never become pr…

Well, in the USA, American industry got its start by stealing British technology.

At this point, China copying foreign technology is just the path of least resistance.

Eventually, China will be doing the innovating.

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#64
Unrelated but in their Bangalore office, they had sleeping bunks and showers in office premises and managers were routinely setting impossible deadlines and employees encouraged to work all day and night and sleep/shower in office if needed.

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#65
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious pattern here where knowledge of secrets is considered stealing or not stealing depending on the subject. I wonder if it's just different people reading or if the community itself views it differently. After all, "it's not stealing if you have your copy" does mean parent is right.

Agree/disagree is not the only factor involved in voting - another one that I suspect is in play here is “interesting/uninteresting in the context of the present discussion”.

A fair point. Surely in the question of intellectual property, it is just as relevant here as it is there.

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#66
post #56

It's built into their culture. There was one time when the lecturer left the classroom during a break in the lecture, the china exchange students swarmed over his laptop, which he did not lock down, inserted USB drives, copied files had lookouts posted at the door etc. It was so shockingly spontaneous. They did not know I was not a student but another lecturer auditing his class. Later I told him that his laptop was…

Shocking this kind of stereotyping is not only allowed but upvoted to first place on HN.

It's a spillover from the right wing reddits. Always starts with "it's in their culture" never mind that almost all of the Chinese expats are just hard working normal humans. Their government might be effed up but it's a bit of a long jump to blame their culture

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#67
post #57

I'm curious of the political implications of this situation. You have one side (the anti Huawei side) that is aided by a very unpopular US president and US government institutions that are highly mistrusted. You also have the narrative that companies like Google and nations like Canada have been coerced into supporting this "assault" on Chinese interests. It also doesn't help that there is a "trade war" in effect whe…

There's bipartisan support in the US Congress for confronting Huawei and China. It's one of the few things Democrats and Republicans agree on.

Also it's very unlikely Canada and other countries are being forced on Huawei or Chinese trade. EU and other western countries have the same concerns on both issues. It isn't like China and Huawei's behavior has been confined to US borders.

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#68
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of this is not stealing, but instead copying and spying.

Try telling that to Cisco

How is that a valid defence? Try telling the MPAA/RIAA that your use of The Pirate Bay isn't stealing.

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#69

It's well known in the telecom/internet infrastructure business that Huawei: a) bugged the hell out of Nortel's ottawa area offices, both physically, by rootkit, and by getting their own people hired to physically smuggle out documents and design data b) Copied the entire DWDM / optical transport product line c) Released a nearly identical product a few years later, and sold it at a ridiculously low price, effectivel…

> Released a nearly identical product a few years later, and sold it at a ridiculously low price,

If it violates the patents, then why did the company not sue Huawei and get a compensation? If it doesn't violate the patents then what's the problem?

Re: Huawei Accused of Technology Theft

#70
Cisco was a rip off of The Stanford Blue Box. AFAIK the deans of the biz school and CS school founded Cisco with tech created by Stanford and were almost sued. Stanford decided that it wasn’t worth the potential bad press to be sueing faculty.
Post reply on HN