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Can the US Stop the Illegal Export of Its Technology?
Posted by
samzenpus
on Wed Oct 29, 2008 07:13 PM
from the not-a-chance dept.
from the not-a-chance dept.
coondoggie writes "Maybe people are more desperate or maybe there's just too much opportunity to make a quick buck but whatever the excuse, attempts to illegally export technology from the US has gone through the roof.
The Department of Justice this week said it has placed criminal charges or convictions against more than 255 defendants in the past two fiscal years — 145 in 2008 and 110 in 2007. That 255 number represents more than a six-fold increase from fiscal year 2005, when the DOJ said about 40 individuals or companies were convicted of over 100 criminal violations of export control laws."
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We don't export the technology. (Score:5, Funny)
You can't stop this problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing much has changed. Smaller stuff like special electronics can be easily hidden inside perfectly legal consumer electronic devices and the $8/hr TSA guy working at the airport will never know the difference. Unless you completely seal borders (??how??) and cut off all tourism etc, you're just doing it for show.
Parent
11111111 (Score:5, Funny)
0xFFFF (Score:5, Funny)
Good thing there wasn't another attempt, otherwise the counter would've overflowed.
WORD.
Parent
Embrace and extend...... (Score:2)
Why worry about losing it when through embrace and extend we don't?
At least until someone yells antitrust.
but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't it more than a bit arrogant and unrealistic to think the US is the only country with these technologies?
I mean, I know many Americans like to believe the US invented absolutely everything and are ahead of everyone else technologically, but in fact they really didn't and aren't.
Re:but... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Terminator technology IS a US tech (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, I know many Americans like to believe the US invented absolutely everything and are ahead of everyone else technologically, but in fact they really didn't and aren't.
But this [wikipedia.org] is surely a US invented technology... and IMHO nothing to be proud of, as it already caused famines in Africa and, worst of all, was actually designed to lead to just that consequence.
Maybe a few export bans of some US technology like this one wouldn't be so wrong, after all?
Re:Terminator technology IS a US tech (Score:4, Interesting)
as it already caused famines in Africa
First of all, I don't think it's ever been used commercially - much less "caused a famine".
Second of all, how is it different from selling standard hybrid seeds, where most of the offspring is junk anyway?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But this [wikipedia.org] is surely a US invented technology... and IMHO nothing to be proud of, as it already caused famines in Africa...
According to the link you gave, "The technology was under development by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Delta and Pine Land company in the 1990s and is not yet commercially available. "
If it's never been used, how could it already have caused famines?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ever see Lord of War? If a Terminator was ever set loose in Africa, as soon as someone found out he was made of scrappable metal he would have been stripped bare.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with arrogance or "IP" in the usual slashdot sense of the word. These export compliance laws have everything to do with countries we are attempting to sanction for whatever reasons.
For computers of the grade I work on there are some 7-8 countries we are simply not allowed to sell to (mostly middle eastern), not even if it's through a local US based exporter. Considerable effort is made on our part to try to uncover the ultimate destination of your machine(s). I would recommend, for exam
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would really really love to know how the world would be today if the US (and hopefully all the others) put all their defense/war budgets into humanitarian/environmental projects instead. I wonder if it really would be a utopia or if it would have fallen into chaos without the threat of such vast arms.
We'd be speaking Russian? Or German? Or maybe Chinese? Although maybe if you were blond and fair skinned it would be a utopia. Or maybe without the threat of the capitalists the communist utopia would have been achieved. That said I'm of the opinion that if someone doesn't have a really big stick all the people with medium sticks would spend ALL of their time trying to beat the sh*t out of the people with slightly smaller sticks... At least until the guys with the rocks started teaming up...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Would a lack of big sticks effectively breed out the smaller sticks? Would there be a need for someone to go make a medium stick if there wasn't anyone with a bigger stick to start with?
To make a less vague example: If the US spent the money it has on the War in Iraq/Afghanistan on humanitarian efforts in those exact same countries would there still be such a level of insur
255 defendants (Score:5, Funny)
The true number is actually much higher, but with all the technology going overseas, the feds have to do with 8bit registers.
Badabumm - disssssh. Thanks! I'll be here all week. Try the lamb.
And the Answer Is (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
Of course, by legalizing it.
Re:And the Answer Is (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Shocking (Score:4, Insightful)
How many of those exports (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How many of those exports (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:How many of those exports (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Is it for real? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this spike for real, or is it the result of increased enforcement efforts?
...laura
Exporting DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the net import in technical expertise ? (Score:5, Insightful)
What of the net import in technical expertise ?
Often some of the very best students go to US, and end up staying and doing high end re-search.
The US didn't have to pay to feed and bring up this person. If this person is 1 in 100,
the US didn't have to pay and feed and educate 100 people and selectively keep only the best one without having to bother
with the rest.
I would say that the US is getting the good end of the deal
G
Is there an increase? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Department of Justice this week said it has placed criminal charges or convictions against more than 255 defendants in the past two fiscal years â" 145 in 2008 and 110 in 2007. That 255 number represents more than a six-fold increase from fiscal year 2005, when the DOJ said about 40 individuals or companies were convicted of over 100 criminal violations of export control laws
So how many were charged and then aquitted in 2005?
Laptops and cameras, too (Score:4, Informative)
... and then, if you scroll down a little in the referenced article, this line is interesting: "Mexico seems to be the hotspot for illegal exports of firearms, including assault weapons and rifles, as well as large quantities of ammunition, the DOJ stated." So, apparently bullets are part of this "illegal export of [US] technology"
it works both ways (Score:4, Informative)
Most of thist stuff has commercial uses (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the stuff the US is still export-controlling either has commercial uses or non-US sources. If you look at the indictments, the big one was about someone exporting carbon fibre materials to the China Space Agency. Why is the US trying to stop that? There's some noise about how carbon fibre might be somehow used to enrich uranium. [neimagazine.com] China already has its own enrichment plants, nuclear weapons, and nuclear reactors. They don't need a centrifuge enrichment plant, except maybe for cost reduction. The US tries, for some reason, to slow down China's space program by refusing to export certain space-related items. Not that it makes much difference; the Chinese space program seems to be doing just fine.
It's hard to think of anything in computing that you can't get outside the US. Nor is there any military computing application that really requires more compute power that you couldn't put together from stuff you could mail order from Taiwan or China.
Arms control and technology export control are different issues. Arms control is intended to make it harder for people we don't like to get firepower in bulk. It's not about the underlying technology; it's about production. Most of the cases mentioned are pure arms control issues.
Sure (Score:3, Insightful)
Just as soon as they stop all the cocaine from coming in.
anything truly valuable (Score:3, Insightful)
such as aluminum cylinders for refining uranium hexafluoride, or computer chips hardened against cosmic rays for ICBMs, are thing you don't pick up at newegg and reship to iran. simple as that
if it is something the average american joe can buy, it is something the average iranian jamal can buy. nothing to be done about it except accept. nonissue, nonstory
Re:anything truly valuable (Score:4, Insightful)
The problems start if you are a US company, building something for the average Joe and the Pentagon would like to buy one. Like some sort of advanced GPU for high performance gaming that could also be used for processing radar images or SIGINT [wikipedia.org] and cryptanalysis. Suddenly, your chip becomes restricted under the jurisdiction of ITAR [wikipedia.org]. So, if you are smart, you incorporate offshore and have your chips made at foreign founderies. You have your R&D subcontracted to firms in India or Russia. Then you can ship your stuff around the world freely. If the DoD wants some for one of its projects, you direct them to these foreign sources.
If you are feeling real nasty, you can set your government sales office up in Tehran, Havana, or Pyongyang. Or France.
Parent
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is technology in the US not available elsewhere? News to me. In fact most interesting stuff is imported into the US today....
I am European working for a US comany in Canada (Score:5, Insightful)
Recently I was forced to sit through an online training with regards to US export controls. The regulations are insane. I came away wondering why any high tech company would want to incorporate in the US with these kind of laws on the book. For instance you could be in violation if you show foreign visitors around your company and they get a fleeting look at a white-board that discusses a strong encryption algorithm. Same thing if you discuss such a "sensitive" technology on the phone with a foreigner. Absolutely and totally nuts.
Re:I am European working for a US comany in Canada (Score:5, Interesting)
as someone on the other side (us citizen working on ITAR restricted technologies / programs that _require_ collaborating with foreign nationals), i can vouch for just how massive a pain-in-the-ass ITAR is:
i can't talk to foreign national colleagues about anything other than the weather.
i can't deal with foreign vendors.
i can't buy parts from foreign companies unless we have import licenses on file.
i can't get support without first having to filter all questions through a company export officer.
i can't ship equipment for repair if it has to leave the us (novatel, i'm looking at *you*)
i can't share interface definitions or software process documents without an export license.
really, the restrictions verge on the absurd, especially when you consider that the papers describing most of the interesting technologies that i work on are published in international journals and freely available, often themselves as a result of gov't funded research.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe that's just a bad example, but I don't see that as "nuts" at all. If you were writing the requlations, how would you put it? "Foreign visitors can look at sensitive claissified data, but only for n seconds, and only if . . . ?" Isn't it much easier, and more sensible, to say "foreign visitors can not look at such data?"
Bizarre Math (Score:4, Insightful)
The Department of Justice this week said it has placed criminal charges or convictions against more than 255 defendants in the past two fiscal years -- 145 in 2008 and 110 in 2007. That 255 number represents more than a six-fold increase from fiscal year 2005, when the DOJ said about 40 individuals or companies were convicted of over 100 criminal violations of export control laws.
Apparently they went to the "baffle them with bullshit" school of math - if the above is an accurate depiction.
In 2005, 40 individuals were convicted.
In 2007 and 2008 combined, 255 were indicted.
In 2005, enforcement effort was ???
In 2005, indictment count was ???
In 2007 and 2008 combined, conviction count was ???
In 2007 and 2008, enforcement effort was ???
From the above, we can conclude: very little. The only thing we can say for sure about those numbers is that "six-fold increase" is bullshit. If every single one of those 255 individuals indicted is convicted on at least one count (extremely unlikely), the annual rate is only 127.5, which is only 3x. Even that would only speak of conviction rates, not attempt rates. Enforcement has almost certainly increased given the general increase in federal participation in intellectual property and trade secret law.
I'm not saying it has not grown, nor whether it should be a greater or lesser focus at the federal level. But the above statement, if accurately portrayed, is disingenuous at best, and deceitful at worst.
The first step in having a serious discourse about federal policy is to present the issue honestly.
Our biggest export blunder at the time was... (Score:3, Interesting)
Allowing Hitachi America to get away with exporting a multiaxis milling machine complete with the software to drive it. Up till then, the screws on russian subs were so noisy, and each sub had their own unique noise signature that our hydrophone listening devices scattered about the ocean could identify what sub was backing out of the docks on the russian north coast by the time it had moved 100 yards. This was in the height of the cold war. Our subs OTOH could move at classified speeds underwater so quietly that if their sonars didn't catch the ping, they never knew we were within miles, let alone the few yards away that we actually were. In one instance, we caught one of theirs off the Carolina coast, and he found he was 'made' so he went to the bottom to wait us out. But we had air recyclers they didn't. When he tried to blow the tanks and surface for air, he found our sub sitting on him. I don't think he heard it when the hulls made contact & we kept silent. Held him down for another bit of time just to make the point, then beat him to the surface. That sub captain probably went home to a firing squad because he allowed that to happen.
Within a year or two of that machines exportation by Hitachi America, the russian subs suddenly started getting as quiet as ours. So our hydrophones became worthless as we couldn't hear them anymore. But by then, the cold war was winding down. And that was just one of the reasons we won that war.
Hitachi? Got a slap on the wrist, where the actual act should have been treason charges & a trip to ACE Hardware for some new rope.
That seemed to take the heart out of any reason to keep Phil Zimmerman jailed, so he was released after a while, I suspect with instructions to add a back door to PGP, which is the reason I personally have never used a newer than 2.6.2 release. And haven't used that in years as I no longer care what my government thinks of me since its so plain they think I'm just another of the sheeple. All they have to do is wait for me to fall over (74 and diabetic now) and they won't be out a dime.
It all boils down to its not being who you know, its who you blow. Very abundantly proven by the facts. Sigh...
--
Cheers, Gene
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Excuse? (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm.... I dunno.
If I was currently selling illegal drugs in the US and wanted to continue to rake in giant piles of money I'd be making political donations to whoever was pushing the "tough on drugs" laws with a little note along the lines of "keep up the good work mate".
Why? Well if it was legalised I'd be ruined!
Who was hurt most by the ending of prohibition? The mob of course, they wanted it to never end.
Legal distributors selling safer cheaper drugs would push them out of the market entirely.
The best thing that can happen for them is for a competitor to be busted, they can just expand into their former market overnight. Sure they might be busted themselves but the organisations which survive and grow will be the ones which are best at avoiding getting caught.
I've heard that during prohibition foreign alcohol producers quietly lobbied to keep prohibition since consumption didn't go down, the American producers were pushed out of business and import taxes went the way of the morning mist.
Few people seem to be able to graps this, drug laws just create a situation where there's a group of people distributing drugs with a large financial incentive to expand their market.
Want to get rid of the drug dealers? It only takes a few easy and cheap steps.
Step 1: Provide free high quality drugs to people already addicted with no criminal penalties or consequences to people who come forward and ask for them.
Step 2: You're basicly done, you've knocked the bottom out of the drug buisness, you are now the distributor and you have no reason to try to get more people addicted. Drug dealers can no longer make any profit out of getting kids addicted since they just go to you when it starts costing money.
Much much much much cheaper than the massive failure that the war on drugs is.
Parent
Re:Excuse? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:Excuse? (Score:5, Interesting)
Huh? Whoever said the goal was to get people to stop using drugs? The goal is to end the violence, save the huge taxpayer cost, and stop the other dangers (such as cutting coke with rat poison), not to get people to stop.
Parent
Re:Excuse? (Score:5, Funny)
...and yet, information hates to be anthromorphized. It's funny that way.
Parent
Stop giving the traitors presidential pardons (Score:5, Insightful)
Which was the last US government that didn't illegally export arms?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Thing is the know how isn't the big deal. Any decent group of physics PHDs and professors could build a bomb with the right materials. The only thing really stopping every tom dick and harry from building one is the uranium enrichment. That takes serious money and time to get working.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
but giving other countries our technology is a stupid move,
Technology like the Playstation with a label underneath saying that it was illegal to export it from the US, which I bought in Hong Kong back in the 90's and brought to the terrorist nation Sweden?
Re:Excuse? (Score:5, Informative)
That appeared to be talking about the physical costs to getting information out.
I see the Information wants to be free as an observation that information spreads easily, and that once something is out, you can't lock it up again, just like you can't put a genie back into a bottle.
A good example of this is the Streisand Effect [wikipedia.org], in which some entity tries to force the removal of some piece of information from the internet, but since the attempt makes people perceive the information as valuable, large numbers make sure that they get a copy themselves. Poster cases for this effect is the attempt by certain movie companies to remove a HD-DVD encryption key from the internet [wikipedia.org]. The attempt seriously backfired, making the encryption key one of the most well-known large numbers on the internet.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I agree completely, and I understand the difference. I probably fell for a troll and should never have posted either way, but every time I hear "information wants to be free" used to justify something like industrial espionage or theft of state secrets I tend to just black out. I wake up two minutes later, hopefully under the desk and not in front of a completed post.