The U.S. is Charging Huawei With Racketeering (techcrunch.com) 70
Ratcheting up its pressure campaign against Huawei and its affiliates, the Department of Justice and the FBI announced today that it has brought 16 charges against Huawei in a sprawling case with major geopolitical implications. From a report: Huawei is being charged with conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statute. The DoJ alleges that Huawei and a number of its affiliates used confidential agreements with American companies to access those companies' intellectual property, only to then misappropriate that property and use it to fund Huawei's business. In addition to conspiracy, Huawei and the defendants are charged with lying to federal investigators and obstructing the investigation into the company's activity. According to the statement published by the Department of Justice, "As part of the scheme, Huawei allegedly launched a policy instituting a bonus program to reward employees who obtained confidential information from competitors. The policy made clear that employees who provided valuable information were to be financially rewarded."
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Re:LOOOOOOOL! (Score:4, Insightful)
A patent is temporary monopoly grated by a patent office in return for publicly sharing details on how to recreate the invention so others can improve on them.
This is how patents are supposed to work, but they don't actually work that way in reality. In reality, they are an extortion device with no redeeming qualities.
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Agreed with your first posting, but what "frivolous shakedown lawsuits for allegedly violating GPL licenses that had no merits" are you speaking of?
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Normally I point out the ignorance of your post. But honestly this post just stands on its own merits displaying you either don't know what Racketeering is, don't know what IP is, or (most likely) don't have a clue about either.
Another ignorant comment brought to you by BAReFO0t
Given your great arguments.... (Score:2)
... and how totally convincing and solid they are, you clearly do know what those words mean. /s
Yeah, you have so little of a clue,
an are surrounded by people just like you,
that you truly believe you're the one that is smart.
While everyone sees you're a certified retard.
Call me when you have have gained tha ability to look around your socially conditioned beliefs, learned the difference between belief and observation, became aware of your known triggers and unknown triggers, thought about the physics of inf
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you clearly do know what those words mean
Based on me claiming you don't know? Yep I can see your ability to apply logic to statements rivals that of your ignorance.
But sure, let's just pretend you copy and pasting a poem makes you somehow clever. While nothing you just posted has anything at all to do with racketeering and very little to do with IP as well.
Jolly good show.
Another ignorant comment brought to you by BAReFO0t
Note how this was not trolling. (Score:2)
But "I'm one of the criminals he criticizes, and would like to censor." is not an option Slashdot offers.
Yeah, this is why "moderation" is merely an euphemism for censorship.
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But since this is slashdot and everyone here loves communism, I will be modded to -5
Except for the ones that love anarchy, or libertarianism, or oligarchy, or whatever. Posters always seem to think their opinion is in the minority because trolls.
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Most people don't know what Communism is ... ... oligarchies is probably the easiest one.
E.g. anarchy, libertarianism or oligarchies can easily be mixed with communism
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Most people don't know what Communism is ...
E.g. anarchy, libertarianism or oligarchies can easily be mixed with communism ... oligarchies is probably the easiest one.
The old school communist Soviet Union was indeed much like oligarchy mixed in. The difference between the elite and the proles was significant.
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"anarchy, libertarianism or oligarchies can easily be mixed with communism"
All 4 of these are near opposites of each other in that some deal with economics and others with political views.
But libertarianism and communism are DIRECT OPPOSITES of each other. Mixing? Nope.
Making your claim is similar to those that claim that NAZIs were socialist or that Hitler like communist.
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No. You'll be modded down because your comment is stupid and uninformative.
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It isn't that people love China or Communism. It is that I don't trust the DOJ under the current administration, I am sure they are doing a lot of legitimate work, however with how our current administration latches on the conspiracy theories, demands loyalty to the president (not the US). I feel that Huawei and China are just being attacked as the dangerous other, vs a country who would be just a political rival.
Why is it so hard to prove that Huawei is using their products to spy on us? Is it really that
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however with how our current administration latches on the conspiracy theories
That could well be true, but they could still be correct in this particular instance. There have been a lot of shitty predictions related to how the climate will change in the future over the years, but I'm not going to outright dismiss global warming because of that.
Why is it so hard to prove that Huawei is using their products to spy on us? Is it really that hard to monitor packets going out of a network device?
The worry isn't that it's actively doing it out of the box, but that there are backdoors which would allow something like this to happen in the future. There was just a story earlier this week about the CIA doing something similar in the past.
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Yes. I NEVER support RICO prosecutions, including this one, but I have to admit that the charges sound reasonably plausible. If only they hadn't invoked that garbage law, I might well be in favor of the prosecution (i.e., putting it to a fair trial).
Re: Communist China (Score:2)
RICO basically broke the back of the mafia. It does what it was intended to do. Currently the only safe space for organized crime is in labor union administration.
Re:Communist China (Score:4, Interesting)
The alleged president pretty much admitted as such. He said that if China did what he asked, he'd remove the pressure on Huawei. He generates "crises" so he can then claim to have "saved" the U.S. from said "crises". Typical tinpot dictator.
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"The alleged president pretty much admitted as such. He said that if China did what he asked, he'd remove the pressure on Huawei."
Nice company you have there, it would be a shame if something happened to it.
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Why is it so hard to prove that Huawei is using their products to spy on us?
The US gave proof to India before trump and trump recently gave the same evidence to Germany. Germany is now looking it over and will likely block Huawei.
As to DOJ under this admin, they are one of the most dangerous that we have had since hoover. Barrf is a constant liar like trump, and for ppl to believe in his garbage is just plain scary. However, with that said, it is not Barrf that has the proof on Huawei, but the intelligence world. And unlike what trump claims, they are up and up on that.
In add
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How does "IP" make any sense in a Communist ideology? We should expect them to act like Communists and stop being surprised when they steal technology.
What are we going to do, hire native employees and grad students who we can't treat like indentured servants?
Either defend or don't. America has chosen "don't".
PS Most of the drugs Americans depend on are now made in China. India gets 80% of its raw pharmaceutical stocks from China. A century of regulatory state got you here - a racketeering lawsuit won't
Re: Communist China (Score:1)
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They sound more fascist than anything..
"Fascism (/fæzm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy[3]"
(pre-empting the inbound pedantry: In what way are they NOT far right; personal liberties? social control? )
Re: Communist China (Score:2)
In practice, it's always been pretty difficult to distinguish fascism from communism. There's what they claim to be, and then there's what they always end up being. Two very different things.
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But since this is slashdot and everyone here loves communism, I will be modded to -5
You can only get modded to -1 you fucking imbecile. Your inability to notice minor details like this is why you think a site full of swastikas and disgusting right-wing nerds is communist, and also why you're stuck in a shitty computer janitor job while your wife fucks someone who can satisfy her.
Wait now (Score:5, Funny)
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China Bad, so FBI good.
Trump Good, so FBI bad.
Oh how the brain melts...
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Almost.
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It invokes the RICO law, so it's the bad FBI. One doesn't need to look any further than the law they chose to prosecute under. (That doesn't make Huawei good, of course.)
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Whatever. RICO was instrumental in taking down the Mafia to where they are now just the typical street gangs. Giuliani did a good job back then, back when he had all his marbles. Now he's just another of the alleged president's goons.
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Is this the good FBI or is this the bad FBI?
Yes. Yes it is.
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Is this the good FBI or is this the bad FBI?
Yes. Yes it is.
Well played!
Convict them of a felony, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: What-about-ism (Score:1)
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No, if he deviates from the list of approved talking points he won't get any social credit, and he'll risk being stuck in a quarantine zone.
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So I suppose this is all with the goal of convicting Huawei with a felony, so that it can't get any business.
Being a convicted felon hasn't hurt Microsoft any.
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The Wall Street CEO's were guilty of massive fraud.
Re:Convict them of a felony, eh? (Score:4, Informative)
Not IP theft. They negotiated with corrupt corporate executives to give them the data. So more industrial espionage, sort of, as it was all done voluntarily, sort of but the guilty party is less Huawei and more those corporate executives from US companies, greedy little devils. They are just twisting it to attack Huawei again to try to block it in the EU. Huawei will offer a plant in Germany and the Germans will tell the US to bugger off.
From the EU point of view a Huawei plant in the EU means they can audit it and monitor it for privacy violations and have production free from US backdoors.
Same behaviors sanctioned by American government (Score:4, Informative)
The US itself has done similar IP grabbing in the past, even sanctioned by its various levels of government and continue to do so [cnn.com].
Colonial authorities did not distinguish between patents awarded on the account of originality and those on the account of introduction (from existing patent/tech in Europe
Trade Secretes: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power [eh.net], p.p. 43.
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Re:Same behaviors sanctioned by American governmen (Score:5, Informative)
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The difference in China is the relationship between the government and businesses, because they are communist. .... e.g. see France, industrial espionage is the main job of their intelligence agencies.
That is in capitalist countries just the same
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Yeah, I heard the Greeks went about conquering the Med and MidEast about 2500 yrs ago. We just cannot trust the Greeks.
The Sopranos (Score:1)
What is RICO? (Score:4)
The short of it is, RICO is widely misunderstood and misapplied. Remember how House would always say "it's not lupus?" The sense I get reading Ken's articles about the topic, RICO is his lupus.
I don't know anything about the law past what I'm able to find online about it, so you shouldn't take anything I say on it seriously, but at a glance, it looks to me like they might run into trouble proving Huawei engaged in "racketeering activity [cornell.edu]." That's the complete and comprehensive list of federal crimes that constitute "racketeering activity" and skimming through it, it mostly looks like (obviously) mob stuff and not anything Huawei was engaged in. Again, though, law is an incredibly complicated field and I don't know jack about it past what I can find online. I wouldn't trust a lawyer to give me an educated opinion on technology and you shouldn't expect most of the technophiles here to give educated opinions on law unless they actually practice it.
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Now he mostly just wallows with white nationalists.
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No, what Ken always said was that unless they're already being charged with criminal racketeering, it isn't RICO. "It's never RICO" when an individual is suing somebody.
That does not imply that it is never RICO when the government is doing it.
To quote him:
RICO is a really complicated racketeering law that has elaborate requirements that are difficult to meet. It's overused by idiot plaintiff lawyers, and it's ludicrously overused by a hundred million jackasses on the internet with an opinion and a mood disorder. ... ...
And even though it was passed to deal with large-scale organized crime, now it's vastly overused — not so much by the government, but definitely by plaintiff attorneys.
Racketeering activity is the commission of a whole bunch of very specific federal crimes. But it's not just any crime. It's only the ones on the list.
That's what that link is all about; idiots accusing other idiots of RICO, in the absence of being able to prove that they're guilty of some crime on this list. Only the government can convict them, and the standard of proof is much higher in criminal law,
At least there is evidence (Score:5, Interesting)
For years it has been constant drowning of fear mongering Huawei could be doing this they could be doing that. I always tended to dismiss this crap.
Yet when there is specific compelling evidence of things like a reward programs for stealing shit then I don't mind attacks on Huawei. This is funny as shit.. quoting the indictment:
"HUAWEI launched a formal policy instituting a bonus program to reward employees who obtained confidential information from competitors. Under the policy, HUAWEI established a formal rewards schedule to pay employees of HUAWEI affiliates for stealing information from competitors based upon the value of the information obtained.
Employees were directed to post confidential information obtained from other companies on an internal HUAWEI website, or, in the case of especially sensitive information, to send an encrypted email to a special huawei.com email mailbox.
A âoecompetition management groupâ was tasked with reviewing the submissions and awarding monthly bonuses to the employees who provided the most valuable stolen information. Biannual awards also were made available to the top âoeHuawei Regional Divisionsâ that provided the most valuable information. A memorandum describing this program was sent to employees in the United States."
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Yet when there is specific compelling evidence of things like a reward programs for stealing shit then I don't mind attacks on Huawei.
If we applied that same standard to our own companies, we wouldn't have any companies.
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If we applied that same standard to our own companies, we wouldn't have any companies.
If you can't pay the fine don't do the crime.
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"Send an encrypted email" makes it sound like BS. How many employees are capable of using GPG and wouldn't it look suspicious sending encrypted mail to an @huawei.cn address anyway?
You use a dropbox for that kind of thing.
I get visions of the Axe Gang of Four (Score:2)
Does anyone else get visions of the Axe Gang descending on IT leaders and saying "you must buy Huawei"?
News at 11 (Score:1)
Huawei does what everyone knew going into it that Huawei would do
it was an obvious up-front cost of doing business with that company and whining about it now is crazy
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Huawei does what everyone knew going into it that Huawei would do
it was an obvious up-front cost of doing business with that company and whining about it now is crazy
This is endemic. Where I live in the UK it is CUSTOMARY to steal IPR in an interview. UK is not alone either - I have had an interview scheduled by a multinational based in Belgium just to get "insider scoop" on the company I worked for.
I welcome suing Huawei for that. If it is successful I got a whole list for the DOJ to work on and I am not the only one who would be glad to provide them with some tips to apply RICO in the fashion they apply it to Huawei to a long li
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One axiom of the alleged president has always been true: he destroys everything he touches. His recent victims: Christianity, the Justice Dept., the State Dept., the Agriculture Dept. Think what another 4 years will do to the U.S.
Selective enforcement (Score:2)
It's sad... (Score:1)
Fortunately there's only Huawei. (Score:2)
Imagine if there were other Chinese companies who were helping construct most of our digital infrastructure. They'd be all up in our base and there'd be nothing we could do about it! Fortunately, if we contain Huawei, and do it super loudly to prove how responsive and on top of it we are, well, then the problem is solved.
THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED.