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China Businesses Patents United States

FBI is Investigating More Than 1,000 Cases of Chinese Theft of US Technology (zdnet.com) 155

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Members of the US government held a conference in Washington last week on the topic of Chinese theft of intellectual property from US technology firms and the US academic sector. From a report: Officials said the purpose of the conference -- named the China Initiative Conference -- was to bring the US private sector and the academic and research communities up to speed with the US government's investigations. For the duration of four hours, some of the highest officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) spent their time raising a sign of alarm and putting the private and academic sector on alert about the threats they are currently facing in terms of intellectual property (IP) theft from Chinese entities. "The threat from China is real, it's persistent, it's well-orchestrated, it's well-resourced, and it's not going away anytime soon," John Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security, opened the conference.

"This one to me really stands out as the greatest long-term threat to our nation's information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality," said FBI Director Christopher Wray. The FBI director says cases have been piling up since 2018, ever since the DOJ launched the China Initiative campaign to counter and investigate Beijing's economical espionage. "The FBI has about a thousand investigations involving China's attempted theft of U.S.-based technology in all 56 of our field offices and spanning just about every industry and sector," Wray said.
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FBI is Investigating More Than 1,000 Cases of Chinese Theft of US Technology More

FBI is Investigating More Than 1,000 Cases of Chinese Theft of US Technology

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  • Thank Richard Nixon (Score:3)

    by Arthur, KBE ( 6444066 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @10:10AM (#59710482)
    for getting our economies so entangled we're not threatening each other with nuclear war.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TigerPlish ( 174064 )

      for getting our economies so entangled we're not threatening each other with nuclear war.

      I grew up 70s/80s with that Sword of Damocles over our heads.

      I'd rather still have *that*, than have given up our manufacturing in the 90's - 00s.

      Went looking for a barometer for the house, because I left meteorology 20 years ago but metereology never left me... none to be found made in USA new production. So instead i went with an old Airguide, Chicago IL, made somewhere between 1950 - 1980.

      No one makes anything that I need in the USA except for guns and knives and ammo. Everything else is fucking China,

      • Re:Thank Richard Nixon (Score:4, Informative)

        by jbengt ( 874751 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @12:21PM (#59711118)

        for getting our economies so entangled we're not threatening each other with nuclear war.

        I grew up 70s/80s with that Sword of Damocles over our heads.

        I'd rather still have *that*, than have given up our manufacturing in the 90's - 00s.

        If that sword stayed above your head. There was (is) a non-zero chance that you wouldn't have a preference becuase you'd be incerated by nukes.

        Truth is, for the stuff we all use day in day out, nothing's made here. If it is, it's old and off the second-hand market.

        That is not the truth. Sure, many if not most commodity items are manufactured abroad, but there are a lot of things still made in America, and many more things with parts made around the world and assembled elsewhere, including in America.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Why did you give up your manufacturing? I was a choice, other countries didn't. For example Germany still has huge amount of manufacturing despite the Chinese.

        • Look at 5G adoption in Europe and the way that governments are insisting on buying cheap Chinese stuff instead of locally produced stuff, and you can see that the only difference is that the US got a head start. It isn't that Germany made some sort of choice to protect themselves.

          Look at how many European countries are even willing to take infrastructure loans from the Chinese, with "payday loan" type of terms if they miss payments? Often the same politicians who say awful things about IMF loan terms. The o

      • China was never a realistic nuclear threat to the US.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 )

      This was a sound strategy up until 1989 and the Tianenmen Square massacre. It then became clear who we were dealing with, and we should have cut them off. But, it wasn't to be. The Clintons and the Democrats took millions of dollars in campaign contributions in 1996 from the Chinese in order for them to get into the WTO.

      The bipartisan pro-China camp argued that giving Beijing permanent most-favored-nation status would accelerate its democratization and integration into the liberal world system. Skeptics

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by LynnwoodRooster ( 966895 )
      Uh, the Cold War was with the USSR, not China.

      • Wow, there is still somebody else who remembers the Olden Times! Impressive. Well done. I thought I was the only one.

        • Yeah some of us were around back then. Sounds like you were, too. Now these darn kids think anything pre-2XXX is ancient. They just need to get off the lawn.

          • Maybe if we trick them into repairing the sprinklers, we can leave them on all day.

            At least we saved a few cents on them.

            Chess player Lev Alburt, who defected to the US ~ 1980, talked about growing up with Soviet propaganda; they were always telling them that the Americans were going to parachute in and force democracy on them, so the kids drew maps of their neighborhoods and where the army barracks were, to give to the Americans when they landed. But alas, it was just propaganda, nobody ever came to save t

  • Flashback (Score:5, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @10:14AM (#59710494) Journal

    Could we get a quick replay of all the people attacking Trump for putting China's feet to the fire?

    First president in a generation to have the balls to do so, Republican or Democrat.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Patent Lover ( 779809 )
      First president in a generation to put farmers on welfare as well.

      • Re:Flashback (Score:4, Insightful)

        by geek ( 5680 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @10:39AM (#59710612)

        First president in a generation to put farmers on welfare as well.

        No that was in 1985 under Reagan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        They have been there ever since.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Flashback (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @10:21AM (#59710536)

      You do realize that this is very likely just a trumped up narrative to make Trump look good?

      Incidentally, all he did was mildly annoy China before he gave in. Yes, it is not being sold as that, but that is pretty much what happened if you look at the actual facts and not the inane, disconnected tweets he sends.

      • You do realize that this is very likely just a trumped up narrative to make Trump look good?

        Incidentally, all he did was mildly annoy China before he gave in. Yes, it is not being sold as that, but that is pretty much what happened if you look at the actual facts and not the inane, disconnected tweets he sends.

        Do you realize that none of this matter to his supporters? Trump is a cult leader. Until you realize this, you can't really understand him or the hold he has on people. For the record, so is Bernie Sanders, but he's not president. But he's still a cult leader.

        Here's a real conversation I had some time ago with my best friend, who is a big fan of Trump.
        Me: Trump lies all the time.
        Friend: When has he EVER lied? (Note: Friend was totally serious here)
        So I recited a list of lies and he got r

        • When your TDS is flaring, they have creams and suppositories for that in the butthurt isle of your local drugstore. You can thank me later, pro-tip stock up before November, have a nice day.

        • You should really post that brutal burn on
          https://www.reddit.com/r/thatH... [reddit.com]

          Because that was awesome, man. You fucking SCHOOLED that tool.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Do you realize that none of this matter to his supporters? Trump is a cult leader. Until you realize this, you can't really understand him or the hold he has on people.

          I realize this. And it is utterly pathetic, like a large part of the US has regressed collectively to the dark ages where facts could not be checked and faith (misplaced as it usually was) was all most people had.

    • Re:Flashback (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Monday February 10, 2020 @10:40AM (#59710620)

      Could we get a quick replay of all the people attacking Trump for putting China's feet to the fire?

      This is perhaps the only thing he has done I agree with. However, you can't simply annoy China and profit. He was supposed to be following this up with big infrastructure spending at home to rebuild at least part of what has been lost. Instead he gave a tax break and everyone pocketed the money gleefully.

      • Pelosi hasn't had time to start an infrastructure bill. She has impeachments to run (remember, spending/budget bills have to start in the House).

    • Trump's reason to go after the Chinese was the trade deficit, a metric that doesn't even mean anything bad. You can bet that if there had been a trade surplus of even $1, there wouldn't be this righteous crusade. He just can't stand his number being smaller than their number. His fucking hats are still made in China, for chrissakes.

      Also, he said that trade wars are fast and easy to win, and that Americans wouldn't pay for it. Well, wrong on all counts. American farmers are now the recipients of an absolutel

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Layzej ( 1976930 )
        There was a time when Slashdot denizens would freak out [slashdot.org] if "IP" and "Theft" were used in the same sentence. Remember #imaginaryproperty?

        • Yeah, I mean, you're not wrong about that. But it's always sort of been the case that as long as we have to deal with the system being in place, we need to have the rules followed. Either abolish it all together or play nice, I guess?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Layzej ( 1976930 )
            The rules are enforced by the government upon its own people. Each country defines its own rules and legal framework. Possibly we should be encouraging countries that have looser restrictions and regulations. Most countries have a hard time keeping up with ever expanding US copyright terms. TPP was an attempt at getting other countries to adopt draconian US policies. Thankfully that was abandoned.
    • Did it work though? Poorly thought out tarrifs on raw materials caused the manufacturing for the company my father works for to shut down several of their remaining US factories, and ramp up production in Mexico. They just kept a few for 'Made in the USA' contracts, the standard off the shelf stuff wasn't worth the accounting premium. Anecdata aside, I've not seen that the tarrifs have had any concrete effects on investment in local manufacturing, although they've caused a run on stockpiling raw material

    • The TPP was designed to do just that, but Trump came into office railing against it because his whole outlook on his Presidency is undoing then outdoing Obama.

      But, this is America where if you don't stand on a balcony and thump your chest and grab your nuts, you're not "strong."

  • Be careful what you wish for.

  • Yes, and FBI has no ability to stop China from stealing (or more commonly pressuring companies into sharing tech with government-controlled firms) technological secrets. More so, without US-based manufacturing, there is nothing that individual companies can do to resist it.

  • hmm (Score:2)

    by sxpert ( 139117 )

    how much of that is US companies subcontracting manufacturing to chinese companies ?

  • The west stole from China for centuries. Now they steal from us. The world turns.

  • I doubt that (Score:5, Funny)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Monday February 10, 2020 @12:07PM (#59711022)

    Not stolen, the tech is still there, I just checked.

  • Doesn't _anyone_ else realize how long (and how much) this has been going on?

  • Plans, ideas, code, documents.... all easily stolen. What was pretty stupid was Western companies setting up manufacturing in a foreign country and not expecting their production techniques to be copied!

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