No, it’s not okay, and the U.S. is totally fine to pressure the Chinese into not producing knock-off products like those. I’m not an authority on the matter, but it seems like this pressure has been reasonably successful, though well short of solving the problem.
For example, counterfeit CDs and DVDs used to be on every streetcorner. You couldn’t walk 50 yards in Beijing without someone offering you the latest Nirvana album for $1. Yes, there are still counterfeits, I’m given to understand, but I’ve heard that there have been quite a few crackdowns.
I agree that China hacking in to steal the plans for a U.S. weapons system is more understandable than hacking to steal the plans for Callaway’s newest golf club. I just have a hard time seeing that the U.S. is going to benefit from a discussion involving lines being drawn like, “Well, if you try to steal secrets from the CIA, we understand, but how dare you steal from OPM! And we get that you’ll steal secrets from Lockheed and Boeing, but hands off Apple and GM!”
It’s a silly, arbitrary discussion that cannot be productive. “Don’t make knockoff goods from patented technologies that you steal from us by any means” is a much more productive attack on the same problem.
[QUOTE=Ravenman]
I agree that China hacking in to steal the plans for a U.S. weapons system is more understandable than hacking to steal the plans for Callaway’s newest golf club. I just have a hard time seeing that the U.S. is going to benefit from a discussion involving lines being drawn like, “Well, if you try to steal secrets from the CIA, we understand, but how dare you steal from OPM! And we get that you’ll steal secrets from Lockheed and Boeing, but hands off Apple and GM!”
[/QUOTE]
Yet it’s always been at least quasi-acceptable for countries to spy on each other and try and look into each others secrets. Hell, even allies do it between themselves. In theory, they are all nation stations and on at least a relatively even playing field. Corporations, however, are completely out of the league of most modern nation states…it’s not even David verse Goliath, it’s more like mouse verse Godzilla. That’s why Obama made the distinction and told the Chinese what we will tolerate and what we won’t. The other side of that coin, of course, is if the Chinese hack US government facilities we will retaliate…and, again according to Obama, it won’t be the kind of retaliation that makes the news, unlike the heavy ham handed hacks that the Chinese do that pretty much everyone hears about the next day.
The other thing is that Lockheed and Boeing, having military contracts, have to abide by regulations and statutes wrt cyber security…and also get to defray some of that cost (and get some tech help and assistance) from the US government because of just this issue. Apple and GM don’t…nor does Callaway.
For those of you who just don’t see this as an issue (and we are wandering from the OP btw, which is actually about China hacking an Aussi government database), do you feel the same about regular old hackers? Should private hackers be allowed to hack into corporation data bases, steal their technology or processes, reverse engineer it and then sell that to other companies and profit! Why or why not? I mean, obviously in the real world, such a hacker could potentially be caught and prosecuted by evil Americans looking to impose their iron will on an unwilling globe wrt cyber hacking of corporations, but should they be allowed to do so? No one is going to arrest the Chinese government, after all, or the Chinese military or even Chinese corporation profiting from these actions, so shouldn’t regular old hackers get the same break?
You and XT seem to be completely missing the point.
I am, in fact, “at least as alarmed at China’s behavior” as i am at America’s spy programs. In fact, i am pretty much exactly as alarmed. I’m not arguing that China’s spying is inconsequential. I’m not even arguing that it’s something to be ignored. I think it has troubling implications and troubling consequences. Nor did i say, anywhere in my post, that the US would not be justified in responding. It would be completely justified in responding, and if Obama decided to actually take action, i would support him.
But for me, this is largely a strategic and political problem, and i’m not interested in engaging in the sort of double-standard moral hand-wringing that is such a central part of this thread. Splitting hairs about which types of dishonest and covert activities are acceptable and which types of dishonest and covert activities are unacceptable is a self-indulgent and self-serving exercise. The fact that countries like the US and the UK and Germany have a sort of gentleman’s agreement not to engage in this particular type of espionage doesn’t make them more moral than China; it simply demonstrates that these countries believe that they have more to gain from cooperation and agreement on this issue than they do from escalating competition in the spy game.
And you can go on all you like, as XT is doing, about how regular spying, even among allies, has traditionally been seen as “quasi-acceptable.” Big fucking deal. The fact that this nod and a wink has existed doesn’t mean that it’s any worse, in an objective sense, than what China is doing.
I don’t like what China is doing. I think that Australia or the US or whoever would be perfectly justified in responding. I’m just not going to cry about what meanies the Chinese are for not playing by the unspoken rules of international dishonesty.
Totally get it. You think that because the US spy’s on other countries and individuals for national security reasons (and those other countries in turn spy on each other, the US and also individuals) that this means it’s the same thing as China (who also spies on the US, other countries and individuals) spying on private companies for corporate espionage reasons to gain an economic advantage for those companies, profits and jobs. It’s all the same really…in your mind. So, anyone whining about China doing these things is just someone who is gaming the system (while not engaging in this sort of activity, though many countries COULD) and being internationally dishonest.
Well…not really much more to say about this when we have such diametrically opposed views and there seems no common ground to even argue the point.
I would replace “national security” with “national self-interest,” because “national security” is one of those convenient terms that, in American hands, means whatever we want it to mean, and has been used to justify all sorts of atrocious and often completely immoral behavior.
But apart from that, you’ve pretty much nailed it.
Yeah… That’s about how long I’ve been preaching from the pulpit.
What, for plastic spork blueprints or steal back our own data from Huawei…? :smack:
The West are hacking what of import, exactly? China’s brazen annexation plans for the Spratleys, Daioyu and Taiwan? Recipes for cat / dog gumbo and endangered animal genitalia, druid elixir ‘Viagras’? :dubious:
This is a win-win for China - deny everything while cyber trawling the entire Internet - and if the West dare retaliate in kind, they share their porn collection!
Mmmm… Sweet and Sour Meow / Doggy Dumplings… [insert Homer Simpson drooling gif].
Update:
Turns out the hack is on-going (has been for months) and cannot be “plugged” without a complete system overhaul; costing tax-payers hundreds of million$… 哈哈!
Of course I don’t know what exactly, that’s a rediculous question. I also don’t know what exactly the CIA is doing when it tries to recruit sources inside the Chinese government.
But the idea that the West isn’t engaged in espionage - including cyber espionage - against China is a very, very, very naive assertion on your part.
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Well, with Australia purportedly being at the forefront of quantum computing research, if China ‘hack’ their way to this innovation epoch before other more ‘moderate’ nations do, they will have carte blanche hacking privileges throughout the planet for anyone not in possession of similar computing capability. For the first time in the post-industrial era, ‘the good guys’ will lag behind technologically – a brave new world.
One would surely have to agree, that if this portent eventuates - by even the most idealistic, holding-hands-around-the-global-bonfire-singing-Kumbaya estimates - it will be a game-changer. /!\
If China happens to perfect a quantum computer before the West does by hacking computers, I’m reasonably confident that the West will be also hacking China’s computers so that we are not left behind on the secret sauce of quantum computing.
I think your assumption that China steals secrets from us, and we’re unable to steal secrets from them, is not a valid one.
The difference, of course, is that the US military wouldn’t steal a quantum computer from a private Chinese company, reverse engineer it, then teach Apple and HP how to make and sell them cheaper so as to deliberately undercut the competition.
But yeah, I figure that we probably do steal (state secrets) from the Chinese…we just aren’t advertising it, and we aren’t clumsy or flashy enough to generally get caught with our hands in the cookie jar.
That is true - to my knowledge, the US doesn’t spy in order to hand commercial secrets to certain companies.
However, many government institutions are responsible for large numbers of inventions. The Naval Research Lab has more than 5,000 patents since its inception. They also license huge amounts of technology to industry. I’m just spitballing here, but if we happened to steal the secret sauce for a quantum computer, that information just needs to find its way to the Naval Research Lab (or some similar institution) which can contract with a tech company to build it, or patent the secret sauce and license it, or engage in any number of other technology transfer methods.
Who knows if it has ever happened, but you’ve got to admit - it seems plausible.
And that might cost Intel jobs and revenue, especially if the Chinese start producing tons of them at cut rates. But oh well, it’s just like the US spying, no big deal…
Sure, I’ve read them, but many people seem to be all ho hum, China is using it’s nation state cyber security apparatus to not only spy on other countries companies but reverse engineer their processes AND give that to Chinese companies to make products to compete with the company who originally made the stuff.
Your posit that MAYBE US cyber security spy agencies might have stolen military secrets including some processes that they turned over to US companies to, perhaps (pure speculation, unlike the large evidence that China does this stuff) reverse engineer and create some niche products or military related products and, who knows, maybe even civilian products is interesting, but even you admit there isn’t a lot of evidence there. If it does happen it happens pretty freaking rarely wrt mainstream products, goods and services…which is not the case with China, regardless, as this seems to happen pretty frequently (one of the reasons China has such a large and thriving pirating products system, while the US really doesn’t).
