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In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

nytimes.com

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Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#221

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

tharne wrote: post #183
commandlinefan wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To call this “equivalent “ yet.

Quoted post unavailable.

There are two aspects to this:

1. There is a massive amount of propaganda around the situation in Xinjiang. While the Chinese government is extremely harsh in going after separatism and what it views as religious extremism, there is also a huge amount of lying, exaggeration and misrepresentation from Western governments and media on the issue. The Trump administration tried to spin Xinjiang as some sort of modern-day Holocaust, and as often happens when it comes to demonizing official enemies of the US, much of the media has gone along.

2. The US has waged war after war in the Middle East. The US' unprovoked (and illegal) invasion of Iraq caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. In terms of sheer damage done and suffering caused, there's no comparison between the US' wars and China's actions in Xinjiang.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#222

Post by lordnacho »

lettergram wrote: post #115
beepbooptheory wrote: post #77

To at least attempt to think about this critically, and to try to ignore the amount of frankly shocking things people are saying here, can I ask, maybe from people in the field, is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world? We live in a global world where scientists in various institutions are constantly trading papers, findings. Why are we so worried that the U.S. migh…

What’s the primary export of the United States? > Are you all really here in 2022, being like "we can't risk a Chinese national from even seeing our American semiconductor research, they will steal it and use it against us?" Are actual scientists concerned? Or just the state, and apparently most of the fellow commenters? It’s intellectual property. The majority of the worlds cutting edge research are designed, develo…

The IP of how to do things (patents) is made up and detrimental to society. Other IP such as brand names is reasonable, we don't want people saying they're selling us Coca-Cola if it isn't from that particular manufacturer.

If there are ways to make stuff, everyone should be allowed to try, because it's in setting up the complex web of inputs and bringing the product to market that people benefit.

The advantage of free markets isn't that it allows the US to make IP, it's that it lets various people have a go at supplying something that people want.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#223

Post by jacquesm »

cm2012 wrote: post #159
beepbooptheory wrote: post #77

To at least attempt to think about this critically, and to try to ignore the amount of frankly shocking things people are saying here, can I ask, maybe from people in the field, is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world? We live in a global world where scientists in various institutions are constantly trading papers, findings. Why are we so worried that the U.S. migh…

You can't be serious about opsec and not take seriously the risk of an internal bad actor with access to your systems.

The majority of the cases I'm familiar with had an internal bad actor.

If you don't take that into account when formulating your security policy and threat model then you have not done your homework.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#224

Post by jacquesm »

hazelmatic wrote: post #177
beepbooptheory wrote: post #77

To at least attempt to think about this critically, and to try to ignore the amount of frankly shocking things people are saying here, can I ask, maybe from people in the field, is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world? We live in a global world where scientists in various institutions are constantly trading papers, findings. Why are we so worried that the U.S. migh…

I'd like to point out that the majority of replies to this comment are about industrial espionage, and not academic research.

Academic research tends to run some time ahead of industrial applications.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#225

Post by Cullinet »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #77

To at least attempt to think about this critically, and to try to ignore the amount of frankly shocking things people are saying here, can I ask, maybe from people in the field, is this level of industrial/scientific espionage even a critical factor in our current world? We live in a global world where scientists in various institutions are constantly trading papers, findings. Why are we so worried that the U.S. migh…

The only critical approach is to begin with the beginning and the trigger event, refusal to provide the passwords requested to his devices. In the UK it's a crime to refuse law enforcement request for your passwords. If the similar is true in the USA, or there's critical details involved - which frankly only CCTV footage could possibly reveal - about this incident, then there's your cause and effect from whence forward everything looks like semantic disassembly to me on the academics part and a desperate need to show substantive accusations on the governments part.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#227

Post by echelon »

kragen wrote: post #198
RHSeeger wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It looks like saving a billion dollars in redundant work, which is a net societal gain. Now consumers have two companies to choose chips from instead of one functional monopoly due to a trade secret moat... Win for consumers. ;) But looking at it from the company point of view. - Company A spends 5 billion $ researching a new fab, from which better chips can be made. - Company A expects to sell those chips as + + -…

For Company A it's a loss, for Company B it's a gain, and for the world it's a gain, because now there are more of those better chips than there would have been. The problem is that if Company A expects this to happen, they may not spend the US$5 billion in the first place, which is an even bigger loss for the world.

Nortel comes to mind. Think about all the highly paid engineers that lost their jobs. An entire domestic sector wiped out.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#228

Post by kragen »

varjag wrote: post #208
kragen wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing the Cultural Revolution with the Great Leap Forward. If you read a little bit about the Cultural Revolution the connection will be obvious.

Deaths Hundreds of thousands to millions of civilian, Red Guards and military deaths Still not obvious.

You posted that response literally three minutes after my comment. That's barely enough time to read the introduction section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution. I suggest you spend more than three minutes learning about a thing before complaining that things are not obvious to you about it. Three hours would be reasonable. You could spend the first hour or two just reading that article, or start with https://www.gwern.net/reviews/Cultural-Revolution, which is only about ten or twenty minutes of reading and better written, but of course much less objective. Either of those two starting points will give you plenty of links to explore.

Since it's one of the most important events in human history, one with extremely important parallels to current events in the US and extremely important influences on everyone in China, and you evidently don't know anything about it at all (except that it happened in China, I guess), it will definitely be worthwhile.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#229

Post by bigcat123 »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #221
tharne wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

There are two aspects to this: 1. There is a massive amount of propaganda around the situation in Xinjiang. While the Chinese government is extremely harsh in going after separatism and what it views as religious extremism, there is also a huge amount of lying, exaggeration and misrepresentation from Western governments and media on the issue. The Trump administration tried to spin Xinjiang as some sort of modern-day…

Thanks for the information. It's rare to see balanced comparison of CCP s harsh behaviors and relatively obvious biased reporting. A very valuable perspective.

I am often amused that many people who doesn't hesitate to call main stream media unreliable in most affairs, suddenly trust them with strong passion when they are starting to be much more biased towards China and Chinese people.

Hopefully this situation can be changed eventually.

Earth is not large enough for blind hate. We have to learn live with each other. Or move into Space.

Re: In the end, you're treated like a spy, says MIT scientist

#230

Post by kragen »

echelon wrote: post #227
kragen wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Company A it's a loss, for Company B it's a gain, and for the world it's a gain, because now there are more of those better chips than there would have been. The problem is that if Company A expects this to happen, they may not spend the US$5 billion in the first place, which is an even bigger loss for the world.

Nortel comes to mind. Think about all the highly paid engineers that lost their jobs. An entire domestic sector wiped out.

Nortel was sunk by mismanagement before the espionage episode, not by the espionage itself. Quite possibly a lot of Nortel's technology would have been lost in the confusion of bankruptcy if the spies hadn't saved it.
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