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Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

bloomberg.com

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Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#21

Post by alynn »

Have any other sources corroborated this story? Bloomberg News lost a ton of credibility with me after their “The Big Hack” cover story [1], claiming Apple and Amazon had been hacked by chips secretly added to their servers in the factory. The picture of the chip on the cover was purely a work of imagination. To my knowledge, no supporting evidence was ever produced, nor were any of the widespread criticisms of the story ever addressed [2], [3].

To push another “China secretly hacked the west” story while also invoking Betteridge's Law leaves me highly skeptical.

[1]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_Businessweek#%22The_... [3]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/17/bloomberg...

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#22

Post by Pxtl »

Ghjklov wrote: post #13
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol, that's me and AMZN. Bought at (split adjusted) $1.50 in 1997, rode it up to $86 in 1999, held all the way down to $6. Finally sold at about $20, still thinking I was brilliant. I have to laugh about it cuz I can't bear the alternative.

It's alright, no matter how bad that feels, it will never be as bad as all of us who missed the BTC boat when it was a little baby a few years ago. People spending it frivolously and treating it like it was worthless toy money since it was pretty easy to get. Then look at it now...

I had a quarter Bitcoin and spent it all on a Humble Bundle.

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#23

Post by zyang »

Hongwei wrote: post #5

My parents lost a small fortune in 2001 riding the tech crash down (Nortel was a good chunk of that). I've been trying to explain to them (1st gen Chinese immigrants) for the past three years that Nortel was killed partly by focused Chinese spying and IP-theft by Huawei. CSIS has know about this for years. They (my parents) just wouldn't believe it until I showed them this article. Their former university classmates…

I interned at Nortel in early 2000's right before it all went down. I can tell you the engineering culture was rotten within. No-one was doing anything useful for years. Many orgs were built around milking the ancient layer 2 passport switch. The layer 3 router meant to compete with Cisco was 3 years late and only sold a few dozen units. There was accounting fraud going on at the highest level - delivery trucks circles around to pad the books.

I'm sure the hack happened. I just don't think it would had made any material impact - there was simply not much to steal ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#24

Post by smabie »

sandworm101 wrote: post #12
blinding-streak wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to argue your point about products, but from a financial standpoint, RIMM/Blackberry's peak market cap was about $81 billion in 2008. Nortel's peak was $283 billion in 2000. Nortel was huge. Of course, the market was in a huge bubble at the time.

Market cap is a measurement of how other people, stockholders, think of your company. It means little on the ground. A stock can double, or half, overnight. That doesn't mean the company is suddenly double or half its former size.

Sure, but what's a better metric of the size of a company? Employees?

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#25

Post by kens »

lapnitnelav wrote: post #16
sandworm101 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I read it. I also lived with Nortel gear during this timeframe. They were not great at much of anything. They were more often the only game in town, and they knew it. Canadian schools and government agencies bought their gear because it was canadian not because it was any good. Those touchscreen tablet controller things? Does anyone remember how bad touchscreens were in those days? Give me a blackberry with a mec…

That fancy attire really doesn't look that great : http://www.geocities.ws/cityofottawainfo/celeb_m.htm Proof that you can't buy taste. For everything else, obviously there's Mastercard.

That link takes me to a spammy gaming site.

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#26

Post by hylaride »

sandworm101 wrote: post #9
hylaride wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the article? Nortel built a lot of cellular networks and owned a huge chunk if IP for it (that was surprisingly valuable during the bankruptcy auctions). They also had quite the large long-haul fiber optic install base (which they bet the farm on, that quickly became commodified, which is really what bankrupted them). They also had one of the first commercially available DSL modems. Sure, they built…

Oh, I read it. I also lived with Nortel gear during this timeframe. They were not great at much of anything. They were more often the only game in town, and they knew it. Canadian schools and government agencies bought their gear because it was canadian not because it was any good. Those touchscreen tablet controller things? Does anyone remember how bad touchscreens were in those days? Give me a blackberry with a mec…

Most of that gear was likely bay networks kit, which was actually acquired by Nortel. I don’t disagree that it was crap, but it was cheaper than Cisco.

I grew up in the Ottawa area in the 1990s and my parents were in the tech scene there; the Copelands were rich and eccentric (and odd), but that’s no different than Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, or Steve Jobs.

My point isn’t that Nortel didn’t put out shit products, every large successful company has. It’s that Nortel was more than a crappy router company.

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#27

Post by hylaride »

sandworm101 wrote: post #18
lapnitnelav wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That fancy attire really doesn't look that great : http://www.geocities.ws/cityofottawainfo/celeb_m.htm Proof that you can't buy taste. For everything else, obviously there's Mastercard.

And the cost shows how they wasted money. Leather bodysuits are not 1,000,000$ in any currency. And that couldn't possibly have been solid gold. It would be too soft. They paid 1,000,000$ for an off-the-rack fetish outfit and some a gold-plated hand-hammered steel sheet. A live-in designer? Nobody since 18th century royalty has needed a live-in fashion designer.

To be fair, it was almost certainly the diamonds that brought the price to $1m. But in the words of David Lee Roth “who am I to get in the way of a good rumor”.

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#28

Post by vkou »

Hongwei wrote: post #5

My parents lost a small fortune in 2001 riding the tech crash down (Nortel was a good chunk of that). I've been trying to explain to them (1st gen Chinese immigrants) for the past three years that Nortel was killed partly by focused Chinese spying and IP-theft by Huawei. CSIS has know about this for years. They (my parents) just wouldn't believe it until I showed them this article. Their former university classmates…

I find it hard to believe that the company was so incredibly fragile that it, uniquely among its competitors was killed by Huawei stealing some of its IP.

Far more likely, there's no shortage of other reasons that led to its downfall, but it's easier for the people responsible to blame spies.

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#29

Post by CamperBob2 »

Hongwei wrote: post #5

My parents lost a small fortune in 2001 riding the tech crash down (Nortel was a good chunk of that). I've been trying to explain to them (1st gen Chinese immigrants) for the past three years that Nortel was killed partly by focused Chinese spying and IP-theft by Huawei. CSIS has know about this for years. They (my parents) just wouldn't believe it until I showed them this article. Their former university classmates…

Be sure to explain to your parents that this particular news outlet (Bloomberg) has a history of playing fast and loose with reality, particularly in regard to supposed Chinese industrial espionage activities. [1]

Also you might point out that the company pays bonuses to its "journalists" for successfully affecting financial markets. [2]

1: https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

2: https://www.businessinsider.com/bloomberg-reporters-compensa...

Re: Did a Chinese Hack Kill Nortel?

#30

Post by hylaride »

smabie wrote: post #24
sandworm101 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market cap is a measurement of how other people, stockholders, think of your company. It means little on the ground. A stock can double, or half, overnight. That doesn't mean the company is suddenly double or half its former size.

Sure, but what's a better metric of the size of a company? Employees?

Gross revenue and/or profit.
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