[HN Gopher] Seagate hit with $300M penalty for selling sanctione...
___________________________________________________________________
Seagate hit with $300M penalty for selling sanctioned storage to
Huawei
Author : pinewurst
Score : 298 points
Date : 2023-04-20 12:24 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| liminal wrote:
| If they sold $1.1B in drives, then shouldn't the fine be larger
| than $1.1B?
| advisedwang wrote:
| It's a settlement. Maybe the DoC thought the fine should be
| $600M but they only had a 50% chance of succeeding at trial;
| getting a guaranteed $300M win is then rational.
| rtpg wrote:
| If you're going off the idea that the fine is based on the
| value of the gain, then you need to go off of the profit made
| (bit trickier with staff working multiple projects but hard
| disks aren't 100% profit)
| intvocoder wrote:
| If the fine does not exceed the value of the gain, is there
| any incentive to comply with the law?
| tough wrote:
| Welcome to our globally connected modern world and it's
| silly rules
| madsbuch wrote:
| The amount might very well exceed the value of the gain. My
| presumption is that the harddisk industry is a margin
| business. I would be surprised if they have profits of more
| than 5-10% of the 1.1b.
| rtpg wrote:
| My point is that revenue is not gain? Like if I'm a retail
| store reselling at 10% profit $100 of revenue only
| represents $10 of gain.
| Entinel wrote:
| > it has reached a settlement agreement with the Department that
| will see it pay $300 million over five years, in quarterly chunks
| of $15 million.
|
| > ...Seagate persisted and between August 2020 and September 2021
| sold 7.4 million hard drives to China, in 429 transactions worth
| a combined $1.1 billion.
|
| Useless fine. This is a rounding error to Seagate.
| gruez wrote:
| 0.3B fine on 1.1B of sales might not seem much, but that
| probably wipes out all their profits from those transactions.
| swarnie wrote:
| 300m fine on 1100m of sales.
|
| If their margins are under 30ish percentage it would wipe out
| any profit made on the illegal activity. Personally i think its
| a rather fitting fine and this model should be used more
| often.....
| pc86 wrote:
| Treble damages always seemed fair to me. Have an independent
| third party determine the profit made from illegal activity
| (to avoid, or at least hinder, shady accounting practices).
| Triple it, and that's the fine. Obviously wipes out all the
| profit, has a punitive aspect to it including a buffer if
| they successfully hide some profits, and you can spread the
| fine out _if_ you want to avoid bankrupting the company.
| noobermin wrote:
| They had 1.65B net income in last year, and they have to pay
| 0.06B every year for five years, so it's around 4% of their net
| income. It's not business ending or severe but it isn't exactly
| cheap.
|
| Also as the article notes, future years may not be as rosy and it
| will not be fun having a fixed cost hanging over their head.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but 4% of annual income for
| a nonviolent, political-games type of violation seems quite
| high to me. Especially considering this was only one sale, and
| only one product, not their entire income that was involved in
| the violation.
| kstrauser wrote:
| The whole point of the fine is punishment. Seagate will have
| a stronger financial motive to comply with the law. If it's
| cheaper to risk getting caught and paying a small fine,
| there's much less incentive not to break the law.
| HybridCurve wrote:
| More precisely the percentage was 3.6, which is not great, but
| not terrible. I've been told it's the equivalent of a few pay
| raises.
| convery wrote:
| Indeed, and it's a fine line between "the cost of doing
| business" and ruining a large company over the decisions by a
| few people. Would probably have been better to go after the
| people at the top than fining the company..
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| American justice is about extracting money from a corporate
| entity not personal accountability.
| CircleSpokes wrote:
| Except people get arrested for sanction busting somewhat
| frequently..
| ROTMetro wrote:
| No, the concept of having corporations is 100% about this
| since their creation. If you look into the history of
| corporations it's kind of the point. Not more 'you and
| your family will be completely ruined and destroyed' but
| instead 'you can lose your business' sparked a
| revolutionary change in business the enabled the modern
| world and allowed people to undertake huge products that
| no sane person would take a risk on if they assumed
| responsibility for.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| All of that is financial.
|
| Criminal violations are not supposed to be protected by
| the corporate veil.
| filoleg wrote:
| > Criminal violations are not supposed to be protected by
| the corporate veil.
|
| And they aren't, at least in the US. Just look at Martin
| Shkreli actually serving 5 years in prison for securities
| fraud and personally repaying ~$70mil.
|
| P.S. none of this is related to the Daraprim controversy
| btw. Thought to mention because I have been seeing that
| misconception quite a bit online.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| And if management committed crimes they are punished. I
| even spent multiple years in the feds with some of those
| guys.
| [deleted]
| tough wrote:
| As long as money flows freely, the show must go on
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Indeed, this one will sting for Seagate. That's like a $10B
| fine for Apple.
| manojlds wrote:
| I don't know what point you are trying to make with that $10b
| fine for Apple comparison. We know the number and the % of
| their income. That's enough without meaningless comparisons.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| > That's enough without meaningless comparisons.
|
| The comparison is far from meaningless. If penalties have
| no sting, they have no deterrent value. Did you object the
| particular mega-company comp? If so, pleas feel free to
| insert your own.
| Maursault wrote:
| $10B is a lot of money, no doubt, but it only represents
| about a fifth of what Apple currently has _in cash._ How
| much cash does Seagate have? Probably none. So it would
| be more like a $60B fine for Apple.
| malfist wrote:
| > How much cash does Seagate have? Probably none
|
| You know all public companies disclose this quarterly
| right? You could just look it up instead of giving an
| incorrect answer. They have $766m on hand. This is less
| than half of what seagate has on hand.
| josu wrote:
| It's possible that the fine was already factored in the sale
| price. According to that other comment, Huawei had really no
| other choice that to buy them from an American company.
| einpoklum wrote:
| US sanctions are funny: The prime aggressors and occupiers of
| this planet punishing those who are not sufficiently subservient
| to them. I don't know how the guy delivering the notice to
| Seagate of this fine could keep a straight face.
| nivenkos wrote:
| Gotta love that good old American "Free Trade"... as long as it
| benefits them.
| Alupis wrote:
| It's only free trade so long as all parties play by the same
| rulebook.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Free trade == good when it undercuts local industries and
| forces dependency on foreign industry.
|
| Free trade == bad whenever we're getting beat at our own game.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| Every country limits trade, in general, but especially to
| countries that are aggressively working against their interest
| and trying to become a peer competitor when it comes to
| technology.
| paganel wrote:
| How does China "aggressively work" against the US? And what's
| wrong with becoming a "peer competitor" when it comes to
| technology? Wasn't that the essence of a free market?
| tough wrote:
| Just replace technology with militar capcity, and at the
| end of the day, the projection of global power.
|
| It's not really about tech, but about what such tech
| enables. Look at AI / LLMs, think how adversaries having
| those and you not having them might affect any future
| disinformation wars, etc
| user3939382 wrote:
| In my inexpert opinion these sanctions create pressure for China
| to enter or expand into the sanctioned markets and thereby create
| more competition with American companies. It seems very short
| sighted.
| inconceivable wrote:
| it makes complete sense if you view the world through the lens
| of: 1. china is incapable of innovation and invention and 2.
| they only know how to steal stuff and 3. their manufacturing
| industry only makes cheap plastic crap.
| VulgarExigency wrote:
| All 3 things which are demonstrably false, but the american
| empire seems determined to continue to shoot itself in the
| foot
| dylan604 wrote:
| All 3 things which are demonstrably false, NOW.
|
| They absolutely started by stealing things and then
| figuring out how to make them on their own. But that's no
| different than how the US built its rocket industry, or how
| Apple built their OS, or any number of other non-Chinese
| entities doing the same thing.
|
| Let's not forget the "how it started, where it is now" meme
| of the whole thing
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > But that's no different than how the US built its
| rocket industry
|
| Wasn't this from military conquest?
|
| > , or how Apple built their OS
|
| And wasn't Xerox compensated with Apple stock?
|
| But sure, reverse engineering happened a lot (Phoenix
| bios, IIRC).
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| China is sort of doing the same thing with its
| contemplation of export controls of rare earths and the
| like.
|
| The British empire tried to enforce no home-grown
| industries in certain industries among its colonies by law
| and by dumping or taxes. Didn't work out so well for either
| the UK or the colonies. This sort of forced competition
| through export controls may be for the best all around in
| the long-term.
| threeseed wrote:
| Everyone likes to view these situations as USA versus
| China.
|
| But it's much more USA, EU, UK, Australia, Japan, Canada
| etc.
|
| There is a widespread, consensus view that China's rise
| must be managed whilst they continue to be a brutal and
| aggressive dictatorship.
| perihelions wrote:
| It's like dumping [0], except in reverse. Artificially increase
| the prices of our exports to our adversary = protect our
| adversary's fledgling industry from competition from us.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy)
| tough wrote:
| So Pumping?
| adamsb6 wrote:
| I'd say it's more like reverse protectionism. A protectionist
| demands that his country consume products made domestically.
|
| The sanctionist demands that other countries consume their
| own products, or those made from a coalition of countries not
| bound by the sanctions.
|
| Economists used to be mostly in agreement that protectionism
| is always a net bad, but in the last couple of decades have
| realized that carefully crafted protectionism can be used to
| allow domestic industries to develop to the point where they
| are able to compete internationally.
| lazyeye wrote:
| There are different flavors of protectionism too.
|
| One kind is to pretend to be an open trading nation whilst
| in reality there are all kinds of "compliance
| requirements", backroom deals, vague red tape, impenetrable
| beaucracy such that it is effectively impossible for
| foreign entities to be successful.
|
| Then after a few years the foreign-owned business is sold
| off to a local company and the conclusion is that
| foreigners "just dont know how to do business in that
| country".
|
| If done right, you get all the benefits of protectionism
| with none of the retaliation in return.
|
| I wonder if the economists talk much about this kind of
| protectionism.
| onepointsixC wrote:
| China already has been doing that. No need to help them do
| that.
| analyst74 wrote:
| China is not a single entity. Huawei is not going to choose
| low quality high price local startup over suppliers with good
| reputation if they have that choice.
|
| Sanction means those uncompetitive local startups don't have
| to compete with established players, giving them chance to
| catch up.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > China is not a single entity.
|
| However it acts like one much more so than many other
| countries, and especially under Xi jinping.
|
| See also https://archive.is/ZoShw (NY Times Who Owns
| Huawei? The Company Tried to Explain. It Got Complicated.
| 2019)
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| As that article describes, Huawei is effectively
| employee-owned, though the legal arrangement is not
| straightforward (because of China's laws on stock
| ownership at the time Huawei was founded).
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| The article says that it's claimed that Huawei is... but
| that it's misleading (virtual shares) and that whenever
| ask the question dodgy answers are given.
| hangonhn wrote:
| > China is not a single entity.
|
| I wish more people knew or understood this. The central
| government, as much as it wants, doesn't have great control
| on the local level. It's even enshrined in a Chinese idiom:
| Tian Gao Huang Di Yuan or "Heaven is high and the emperor
| is far away". Furthermore, China's model is actually quite
| decentralized. There's a lot of freedom at the provincial
| and local level -- it pretty much has to but the CCP has
| been able to leverage it to experiment with different ideas
| at different provinces.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Just wanted to add a tangent on how beautifully
| expressive and complex the Chinese language and script
| is.
| hackernewds wrote:
| Yes. It slows them down.
| shuckles wrote:
| So what happens to the corporate counsel who advised on the
| contract in such cases?
| monetus wrote:
| "The company will almost certainly go after its outside
| counsel."
|
| Can anyone chime in on this? What liabilities does the counsel
| likely have?
| tiahura wrote:
| Potentially, they could be responsible for the 300M.
|
| Segate would have to prove that outside counsel failed to use
| that degree of skill, care, diligence, and knowledge
| possessed and used by a reasonable, careful, and prudent
| attorney acting in the same or similar circumstances.
|
| So, just because the attorney got the wrong answer, doesn't
| mean they are automatically liable.
|
| Additionally, depending on the jurisdiction, comparative
| fault may be an issue. Ie, outside counsel can argue, even if
| we were negligent, so were you, and it's X% your fault.
| shuckles wrote:
| I would be really curious to read examples of such
| disputes. Even legal filings from both sides, evidence,
| outcomes, etc. Please share if you know of any!
| boredumb wrote:
| There is no reason to go into the comments of every post that
| shows a price of the fee a company paid in order to express why
| you think a company that is fined should be crippled because of
| it, the point is to deter people not to lay nuclear landmines for
| companies to be destroyed over. 99% of these comments are just
| maliciously lashing out about 'corporations' and no consideration
| that chomping into 5% of net profits has an effect greater than
| some bonus packages of the management teams (less cigars to
| chomp!)
| jgeada wrote:
| Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as
| much.
|
| If you can ruin a person's entire life over a "mistake", you
| can definitely do the same to a company, or even better, to the
| decision makers at that company. Doing anything else just
| encourages continued bad behavior. No speculation, we have
| decades of observational data showing that companies and
| executives will do pretty much anything for a buck, legal or
| not.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| It comes down to self-interest and the balance of power, not
| morals or human rights or any form of idealism that acts as a
| soft control of the masses.
|
| Corporations are a faceless entity with tremendous power,
| both to harm and to benefit.
|
| The average individual lacking comparative capital or
| influence has no weapon with which to fight and no gift which
| which to bribe.
|
| Government, the monopolist of violence, wields its power
| accordingly. Why would it extinguish a benefactor when it can
| simply crack the whip to keep them in line and remind them of
| whose hand is on the whip in the first place? Whereas, the
| larger set of powerless individuals are handled brutally, not
| because it's best but simply because it's expedient and
| without consequence to the power-holder.
|
| A secondary benefit, intentionally achieved by the most
| insidious of governments, is that the extinguishment of minor
| troublemakers removes the seeds from which a population might
| grow to realize their own latent power via cooperative
| "trouble-making".
| jgeada wrote:
| Government, in a democracy, is supposed to represent the
| choices of the people. They serve us. If they're not
| serving you, you are voting wrong.
|
| If you vote for corrupt imbeciles because their sound bites
| align with some of your narrow interests, don't expect them
| stop being corrupt imbeciles when they are in power.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Great. Then I want them encouraging corporations. I don't
| want my power company limited to the risks that their CEO
| can absorb (so projects under what? 20% of the CEOs
| disposable wealth that the CEO will willing to risk on
| the total of all projects?). I want a power company that
| can risk creating large solar farms and absorb the
| lawsuits that the CEO on their own would not be willing
| to take on if they were bearer of so much responsibility
| just couldn't risk it. You are pushing for a world of all
| large projects being limited to those done by
| billionaires just like the world of peasants that existed
| prior to the creation of the concept of corporations. You
| are pushing a much worse and limited world for the little
| people where they can't pool their resources and do
| ANYTHING larger than any one individual can assume the
| ENTIRE risk of.
| [deleted]
| jgeada wrote:
| NOTE: you missed the qualifying word "illegal" in my
| proposal. You can continue to take all legal risks just
| the same as before, but all shielding disappears if/when
| you commit to doing illegal activities. Hold CEOs and
| boards directly accountable for _illegal_ activity.
|
| edit: went through the thread and realized I didn't make
| it explicit that the proposal is to go directly at
| executives and board only in cases of illegal activity.
| It was implied but not explicitly clear. Making this edit
| to clarify my intent.
| mikem170 wrote:
| I like the logic of that. Corporations were originally
| given limited liability in return for doing a public
| good.
|
| If they are doing something illegal - the opposite of a
| public good - then they broke the deal, so those who
| broke the law don't get limited liability.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| We already have this. I was in prison federal prison with
| some of these guys. What you want is maybe less
| prosecutorial discretion but mandatory sentences/etc have
| been ruled unconstitutional in federal law so it would be
| a tricky prospect when it comes to removing
| individualized assessments. It's easy to grab a pitchfork
| after reading an article but their might be realities we
| don't see that prosecutors (who do this for a living and
| really really like having scalps to hang) did.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| On a previous thread someone posted a interesting idea.
| Every time a company conducts criminal actions, the feds
| assume X percentage of undilutable ownership. This
| punishes the company and stakeholders (or stockholders)
| as it dilutes their equity and if too much illegality
| occurs the company changes hands (and probably gets spun
| out as a new public company with the proceeds going back
| to the public and the original investors/etc still get an
| acceptable punishment).
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Government, in a democracy, is supposed to represent
| the choices of the people. They serve us_
|
| And most of us prefer a large and strategic employer not
| be obliterated over fixable sanctions violations.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| > ...supposed to...
|
| You're right. But "supposed to" is just an ideal.
|
| > ...They serve us.
|
| Do they really? The evidence suggests otherwise. So we
| must ask, why do they not serve us?
|
| Leading us to...
|
| > If they're not serving you, you are voting wrong
|
| Well sure, in a democracy, if the representatives don't
| work towards the population's interests, then the
| population must be "voting wrong".[1] But that is just
| begging the question...
|
| "Why are they voting wrong?"
|
| And sure..."They are fooled."
|
| But, How?
|
| "They are fools."
|
| But, Why?
|
| [1] Ignoring the problem of asymmetric information. A
| population simply does not a have access to all the
| information needed to ensure they'll be served properly.
| The representatives know far more about their own
| intentions than any set of voters ever could.
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| Proper education, a corner stone of democracy (sometimes
| forgotten? In particular in that context). Not the full
| story, but for sure a critical part of it.
| chimpanzee wrote:
| You might be interested in:
|
| Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt: https://ia800103.us.ar
| chive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_discip...
|
| The Crisis of Democracy: https://ia800305.us.archive.org/
| 29/items/TheCrisisOfDemocrac...
|
| Both address the issue of education in the context of
| democracy and the current economic order.
|
| The first being a proper critique and the second being
| from the perspective of the elites and power-holders,
| particularly the Trilateral Commission, helmed by
| Rockefeller. And its concerns and conclusions can be
| interpreted as being antagonistic to the goals and
| interests of the populace. It's the origin of the phrase
| "an excess of democracy". An "excess" according to who?
| one should reasonably ask...
|
| Edit:
|
| I says to myself, why not submit these to HN and maybe
| get a little discussion going?
|
| And so I did...
|
| Disciplined Minds:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643885
|
| Crisis of Democracy:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643916
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" Corporations are a faceless entity with tremendous
| power, both to harm and to benefit."_
|
| So they should be held to an even higher standard.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| >Corporations are a faceless entity
|
| This has to change.
| tivert wrote:
| >> There is no reason to go into the comments of every post
| that shows a price of the fee a company paid in order to
| express why you think a company that is fined should be
| crippled because of it, the point is to deter people not to
| lay nuclear landmines for companies to be destroyed over.
|
| > Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah,
| figured as much.
|
| Kinda sorta. There's not an exact equivalence. We don't
| punish every crime with the death penalty. Also, there are a
| lot more people than there are hard disk manufactures.
| "Nuking" a hard disk manufacture over a violation to deter
| others has a lot more downsides for the national community
| (let's make WD a monopoly as a deterrent?) than "nuking" a
| person for a violation.
| jgeada wrote:
| The idea would be not to punish the corporation itself (a
| nebulous concept in any case), but to punish the decision
| makers that made the decision to pursue illegal profits.
| Fire the executives and the board, as they're the ultimate
| decision makers, and have the entire set replaced by a team
| with clearer judgement of the line between right and wrong.
|
| This would accomplish the desired intent without perturbing
| the number of players in the market place.
| cjblomqvist wrote:
| If it's costly to the corporations, don't you think the
| owners would do such a thing? It's not an either or
| situation, but hitting them at the proper level of
| abstraction/let the internal "market" forces play it out.
| jgeada wrote:
| You can't make it costly enough to the corporation
| without incurring undue collateral damage to a whole lot
| of people that had nothing to do with it. The point of is
| to focus the cost onto the actual decision makers
| responsible for the poor decision making; corporation
| would continue to survive, without collateral damage to
| employees and marketplace.
| creddit wrote:
| > Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah,
| figured as much.
|
| I like that you smugly answered your question for them. Tilt
| at the windmills and strawmen all you want I guess.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| [flagged]
| some_random wrote:
| Yeah I think many here would be fine applying the same logic
| to people.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| How about not doing either?
| DrThunder wrote:
| Joke's on Huawei... the drives will all fail early. Seagate is
| just fighting for freedom by collapsing Huawei with their
| terrible drives.
| nacs wrote:
| As an unfortunate owner of 2x 3TB Seagate Barracudas that died
| within months of purchase, your statement is the truth.
| unmole wrote:
| Meh. These probably ended up in enterprise storage appliances
| like OceanStor. From what I remember the software stack did a
| pretty reasonable job of dealing with disk failures.
| [deleted]
| unmole wrote:
| I used to work for Huawei's storage division. When the sanctions
| hit, the company could no longer buy hard disks from American and
| Japanese companies. And there weren't any Chinese manufacturers
| either. Flash storage however was easy to procure. So, the
| product roadmap was thrown away and we pivoted to All-Flash
| storage.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Is there any reason why HDD were sanctioned but not CPUs? Like
| why grant AMD and Intel exceptions? Did Huawei have some sort
| of super strategic use for them?
| webmobdev wrote:
| AMD and Intel processors have backdoors that allow them to
| exploited. Selling compromised electronics to gain
| intelligence is something the US has been doing for a very
| long time. (And banning processors also has a flip side -
| China will spend even more money on CPU R&D and that can
| result in a complete software ecosystem shift that can hurt
| US software firms badly and also impact US spying through
| Windows etc.).
| tjohns wrote:
| Do we know this for sure?
|
| Yes, they both have management engines (as does every
| modern CPU), which is a potential risk... and AMT/DASH/IPMI
| is a bigger risk. However, I wasn't aware a backdoor was
| ever found?
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > AMD and Intel processors have backdoors that allow them
| to exploited
|
| This has not been proven. And IME doesn't count.
|
| Don't repeat unverified claims. Do apply critical thinking.
| coldtea wrote:
| Waiting for final verification is the opposite of
| critical thinking. It's dealing solely with already
| established facts. That doesn't take any critical
| thinking. In fact, it doesn't require any independent
| thinking at all.
|
| I'm not saying they have or haven't such backdoors.
|
| Just that whether they do or do not, you'd better
| estimate yourself, based on motives, opportunity, history
| of related cases, technological knowledge, and so on, not
| wait to get official or third party verification on a
| silver platter.
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| [flagged]
| faeriechangling wrote:
| By most economists accounts, Americas sanctions hurt
| America's economy more than it helped it. The sanctions may
| have helped certain industries and areas of America by
| kneecapping Chinese high-tech, but it takes more than that
| for Republicans to start a round of sanctions and the
| Democrats to continue them.
|
| There is a very blatant military interest in keeping China
| behind in terms of technology. People have had a very clear
| picture of what technology can do for a military in a
| conventional war since the Gulf War where the Iraqi
| Republican Guard, the 4th largest military in the world,
| was obliterated from a distance by high-tech computerised
| weaponry and military systems and totally demoralised.
|
| There can be multiple motives. If both high-tech and the
| military want something, that makes it that much more of a
| political winner.
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| It's never been about helping America's overall economy;
| only about helping the biggest corporations which have
| immense control over beaurocrats and politicians.
| caycep wrote:
| This is why I'm of a mind that decoupling/sanctions are
| really not the way to go. I'd say open source/open
| academic development benefitted both US/China more than
| decoupling benefits either. Yes, I know there was a lot
| of drum banging re "stealing tech" and "authoritarian
| values coming into the US" but I get the feeling that
| there was way more flow of western liberal and pro-
| democratic values into China than the other way around...
| hackernewds wrote:
| These are pretty tall claims but I'm not finding sources to
| back them up
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| [flagged]
| filoleg wrote:
| Ironically enough, that's the exact same line of
| reasoning that can be used to explain why we don't see
| media reporting on lizard people running the shadow
| government. Lizard people run corporations and, by
| extension, corporate media.
|
| Just because you might say that my theory above is
| superficially less plausible than yours, it doesn't
| change the fact that both of them have the same amount of
| supporting evidence.
| DuckFeathers wrote:
| True. But spiritually speaking, "lizard people" (which
| refers to the reptilian instincts of the human brains) do
| seem to run the governments.
|
| The people who get to power via wrongful means have too
| much to lose if they lose that power (maybe their freedom
| or even their life) and hence the survival instinct
| (which is what is shared with the reptilian brain) is
| what primarily acts through people in power.
|
| They show behaviors such as the following which is
| indicative of acting through the reptilian brain:
|
| - fight response (eagerness of going to wars)
|
| - territoriality (nation states fighting to expand and
| protect their borders)
|
| - sexual instinct (elites connection with Epstein)
|
| So, yeah, there may not be physical reptiles living in
| the Atlantic ocean ruling us, but there sure are
| spiritual reptiles living in the subconscious ruling us.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Seagate is officially Irish and does have factories there,
| maybe they hoped this was sufficient? In any case why not go
| for a Taiwanese manufacturer?
| unmole wrote:
| Seagate, Western Digital/Hitachi and Toshiba are the only
| realistic options.
| imglorp wrote:
| I wonder how much of the mainland static about Taiwan is
| really about seizing TSMC in particular. It represents too
| many global IP and fab eggs.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Is the Taiwanese government not going to evacuate TSMC's
| personnel outside of the country and launch some artillery
| on the facilities?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _wonder how much of the mainland static about Taiwan is
| really about seizing TSMC_
|
| Virtually none. (It's not something that can easily be
| seized.)
| kjellsbells wrote:
| I don't know if an adversary would prefer to grab the
| people of TSMC or the facility, but as a defender that
| has been thinking about this for a long time, I would
| imagine that TSMC have contingency plans to get the smart
| people out and dynamite the facility, no? Somewhat like
| the story of US soldiers mopping up rocket scientists
| working for Germany in 1945 and getting them stateside.
| caycep wrote:
| granted, there is this "us vs them" mentality, but prior
| to the whole Xi/nationalist thing, weren't a lot of chip
| engineers going back and forth, employment-wise, between
| TSMC, SMIC, and other mainland companies?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _prior to the whole Xi /nationalist thing, weren't a
| lot of chip engineers going back and forth, employment-
| wise, between TSMC, SMIC, and other mainland companies_
|
| Yes. A free-trade agreement was being negotiated [1]. And
| the fraction of Taiwanese who identify has both Taiwanese
| and Chinese has quartered since Xi came to power [2].
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/taiwan-china/taiwan-
| china-ai...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Taiw
| anese_i...
| nradov wrote:
| Regardless of where final assembly takes place, if the
| devices include any US components then they are likely
| subject to sanctions.
| buran77 wrote:
| A lot of big companies (like BigTech) usually get away with
| blatant violations of law or regulations for years, the process
| of doing something to stop them drags on forever, if it even
| starts... Except if China is involved. Then 18 months later the
| whole thing is wrapped and justice is actually served.
| sho_hn wrote:
| It's not just China.
|
| I'm in Germany, and you may have heard on the news that we have
| a lot of refugees/immigrants from places like Syria who we are
| trying to integrate into our society. A lot of them are very
| qualified. Some of them have since gotten advanced grad degrees
| from German universities.
|
| And then we may not be able to hire them or have to severely
| restrict them at work, e.g. when we use Qualcomm chips which
| are under US export restrictions.
|
| I don't have a very deep point to make, except to say that the
| human costs and the stings that come with the state of the
| world can go far indeed.
| Throwaway234089 wrote:
| > A lot of them are very qualified.
|
| That statement is quite in conflict with reality.
|
| > Some of them have since gotten advanced grad degrees from
| German universities.
|
| Hardly any notable amount. It's not the great tragedy you
| seem to think it is.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Rephrasing your statement, (current) Syrian nationals chose
| to go into a field (out of how many?) that they knew was
| greatly restricted without a change to their (current)
| nationality, and are then restricted. Nothing to due with
| punishing refugees/immigrants.
| sho_hn wrote:
| There are also Syrian nationals who worked in the field in
| Syria already, and this is what they know. Besides, if it
| was "consult the list of lucrative jobs Syrians can't work
| first", I don't think it would be any less frustrating for
| them. Do you like your job/field?
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The issue is that their qualifications are not recognized
| in Germany, so they are not allowed to pursue their
| profession.
|
| These people did not just willy nilly decide to move to
| Germany. They had to leave their home country because of a
| civil war. At least they're safe, but they're being held
| back by illogical bureaucratic hurdles.
| ycombinete wrote:
| Indeed, totalitarian states are well known for their ability to
| cut through red tape.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Wait, why is it illegal to sell hard drives to China?
| DrThunder wrote:
| It's not... it's illegal to sell them to Huawei because they're
| an arm of the CCP. They banned them from putting up telecom
| equipment in the US due to it just being a giant spy network
| for the Chinese government.
| mafribe wrote:
| Evidence-free claim.
|
| Huawei even let the UK secret service inspect Huawei
| networking gear, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. They only found badly
| written software, which is hardly unusual. A much more likely
| explanation for the US sanction on Huawei is simply anti-
| competitive measures. Huawei had simply outcompeted the
| western telecom gear providers, and they complained to their
| governments to ban the superior competition.
|
| See also TikTok vs Instagram ...
|
| [1] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/huawei-gchq-security-
| evaluat...
|
| [2] https://www.cybersecurityintelligence.com/blog/british-
| spies...
|
| [3] https://news.sky.com/story/gchq-discovered-nationally-
| signif...
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Your claim "they complained to their governments to ban the
| superior competition" is evidence free.
|
| Hilarious that you claim that Huawei is superior tech and
| yet they have horrible code in the same comment.
|
| Btw, US did find backdoors.
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/us-finds-huawei-has-
| backdoo...
|
| 1. So China banning Google, FB, Instagaram and others is
| China banning superior tech? Got it.
|
| 2. China even bans US movies routinely. E.g, Top Gun
| Maverick was banned due to a tiny Taiwan patch but funnily
| when the Chinese copycat couldn't live up to it, they did a
| self ban on it. https://gamerant.com/top-gun-maverick-
| ripoff-china-canceled-...
| mafribe wrote:
| Huawei's lead in 5G is well-documented, e.g. [1]. I left
| the 5G consultancy space in about 2021, but at the time
| Huawei was the only company that managed to put a CPU and
| a 5G modem on a single chip. As far as I am aware
| Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung and MediaTek can also do this in
| 2023, but came later. I'm already not sure if Intel can
| do this as of April 2023.
|
| > _Huawei is superior tech and yet they have horrible
| code_
|
| What's hilarious about this? Most large scale software
| has terrible parts. I worked a lot with Cisco gear after
| graduating from university. Our team found _lots_ of
| security vulnerabilities. Still Cisco routers were very
| good, in comparison with what was on the market. Huawei
| 's breakthrough was largely in signal processing.
|
| > _US did find backdoors._
|
| The article states that those Huawei 'backdoors' are,
| from your article: _" backdoors intended for law
| enforcement"_. Those are a legal requirement. You cannot
| get telecom equipment certified in the US and EU if they
| don't have those backdoors.
|
| Your points (1, 2) have nothing to do with what I have
| written, why do you side-track the conversation?
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/story/huawei-5g-polar-codes-
| data-break...
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > Huawei's lead in 5G is well-documented
|
| Well documented in Wired, lol! I would settle for just
| one peer-reviewed article in a reputed journal. Even
| written by Huawei authors.
|
| > backdoors intended for law enforcement
|
| When did Chinese law become global law?
|
| > Your points (1, 2) have nothing to do with what I have
| written, why do you side-track the conversation?
|
| Talking of sidetracking, didn't you mention Instagram vs
| TikTok? Lol.
|
| Anyways, just like your Instagram vs TikTok comment, my
| comments are relevant. They are about companies banning
| other companies with superior tech. Claims of
| sidetracking are usually surfaced when there is no viable
| defense.
|
| Not to mention, Huawei was caught with its pants down
| stealing code from Cisco.
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/02/13/chinese-company-
| huawe...
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10485560675556000
|
| https://blogs.cisco.com/news/huawei-and-ciscos-source-
| code-c...
| tivert wrote:
| > Huawei even let the UK secret service inspect Huawei
| networking gear, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. They only found badly
| written software, which is hardly unusual.
|
| Which, by the way, is the perfect cover for a backdoor,
| because it's deniable.
|
| Furthermore, even if you're looking for a back door,
| there's no guarantee you were actually looking in the right
| place (for an example, see
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device))
|
| > A much more likely explanation for the US sanction on
| Huawei is simply anti-competitive measures.
|
| No, it's 100% geopolitical maneuvering. IIRC, US companies
| don't even sell competing equipment in many of the relevant
| areas. You don't need "evidence" of a backdoor in order to
| distrust something.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| ' _If you want to kill your dog, accuse him of having
| rabies._ ' (French proverb)
| tivert wrote:
| _" Don't let the fox guard the henhouse."_ (English
| proverb)
|
| Since we're trading proverbs.
| kneebonian wrote:
| "They pretend to pay us we pretend to work" (Soviet
| proverb)
| tivert wrote:
| That's is a proverb, just not a very apropos one.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Tell me how this doesn't apply to China banning US
| companies.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Uh... Like documented Intel management engine but hey,
| everyone is fine with america spying on the world to make it
| safe for Americans.
|
| Like the time USA was caught spying on Angela Merkel and
| nothing happened ?
|
| I'm not saying huawei isn't spying for China. Maybe they are,
| maybe they aren't but to say they are the only ones doing
| mass surveillance on behalf of foreign governments is naive
| at best.
|
| Isn't the reason for EU and India and China and russia
| forcing american companies to have local data because the
| real threat of american government having access to that
| data?
|
| How is american governments access to other nations data fine
| but not the other way around?
| badcppdev wrote:
| So the US Government is banning US companies from selling
| to Huawei for US national security reasons. Those reasons
| can relate to potential threats rather than proven actions.
| There is no court of law and presumption of innocence until
| proven guilty in this process.
|
| The Chinese government could absolutely ban Chinese
| companies from selling to companies closely affiliated with
| the US Government if they wanted to and I imagine there are
| some Chinese companies/products that are subject to export
| restrictions.
|
| Various governments around the world are enforcing
| different import/export/data rules to protect their
| citizens.
|
| These things are all 'fine' or at least understandable and
| well within the expected behaviour of sovereign nations.
| jwestbury wrote:
| How is any of this relevant to a discussion of Huawei?
| "Yeah, but someone else is doing it, too" isn't a useful
| point to make.
| noarchy wrote:
| Anytime there is discussion of China here, you can set
| your watch to the whataboutist replies rather reliably.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Do you have any documented backdoors found on any huawei
| product?
| boringg wrote:
| Uhhhhh apples to oranges. The level of functionality on
| behalf of the government is completely different (being
| that Huawei is an arm of the PRC) making your comparison
| off base. Documented intel management engine...
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| Last I know, there is no tangible evidence linking
| documented backdoors in huawei network equipment. If my
| memory serves me right, huawei was ahead of others in 5G
| and american and other companies saw that as a threat and
| suddenly huawei equipment had unknown backdoors and
| suspicions.
|
| I would be happy to be proved wrong but how does being
| funded or managed or owned by PRC influence anything
| unless there are actual backdoors?
|
| Just because huawei is funded by PRC does that make them
| guilty?
| edgyquant wrote:
| When national security is at stake you can't trust your
| literal greatest rival to build your infrastructure. I
| really don't think people making arguments like this are
| being honest, they just can't be.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35639276
|
| This Hn poster wrote this. So CIA is selling backdoored
| equipment which is fine for you?
| xxpor wrote:
| Yeah actually, I'd rather have my government doing the
| backdooring than a foreign one. My interests are
| generally more aligned with the US government's than
| China's.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| cool.
|
| another question.
|
| What about someone in EU or africa or india. who should
| in your opinion spy on them? usa or china?
| tough wrote:
| Ideally both to be safe...
|
| Maybe just add a third neutral participant to have three
| spying forces for no breaks.
| boringg wrote:
| Everything on that thread you linked has no credible
| sources.
| rchaud wrote:
| > How is american governments access to other nations data
| fine but not the other way around?
|
| Nothing's stopping nation-states from forking Linux-based
| systems and open source tools to circumvent Microsoft,
| Apple, Netgear, etc. There isn't enough political buy-in to
| wean countries off of Windows, Mac, Android, Intel, AMD
| etc.
|
| German schools for a while used OpenOffice as Office 365
| had too many privacy issues. But these are small-scale
| changes that are temporary, and don't go beyond the
| muncipality level [0].
|
| https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2019/07/germa...
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| OK... wait, why is it illegal to sell hard drives to the
| government of China?
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| The US is trying to avoid repeating the mistake it made
| with the USSR of allowing a hostile nation to buy its way
| to a modern industrial/technology base.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Wait did that happen with the USSR!?! Could you provide
| more info?
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| China is not inherently hostile to the US. They are
| strengthening and have more resources to assert
| themselves like any country would and should, which is
| actually what the US are hostile to because they don't
| want competition.
|
| On the other hand, if the USSR's aim was world revolution
| then yes they were inherently hostile to the US.
| CyanBird wrote:
| > China is not inherently hostile to the US
|
| The US does not, and will not allow a "near peer" nation
| to exist, ever. It will use all the tools at its disposal
| to avoid that situation from ever happening, that's one
| of its own very core tenets for national security
|
| Japan, China, Brazil, etc it does not matter if it's
| actually aggressive against the US or not
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Exactly. _That_ is the real issue.
|
| This of course also means that China not being a
| democracy is just convenient to make them the 'bad guys',
| but is not really the issue and I expect things would be
| exactly the same if China was a democracy.
| tivert wrote:
| > This of course also means that China not being a
| democracy is just convenient to make them the 'bad guys',
| but is not really the issue and I expect things would be
| exactly the same if China was a democracy.
|
| That's, frankly, nonsense.
|
| Things most certainly would _not_ "be exactly the same if
| China was a democracy" and had political values
| compatible with the US.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| The anti-Japanese hysteria of the 1980s suggests
| otherwise.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| One the one hand the issues between the US and China are
| not about "political values", they are about geopolitical
| interests, you could make a list and check one by one.
| That wouldn't change if China was a democracy. On the
| other hand, the US are best 'friend', and have been best
| 'friend' with some of the least democratic countries on
| the planet.
|
| QED.
|
| Edit: In fact the US do not want China to become a
| democracy as that would actually hurt their strategy and
| interests against China. For instance, that would make a
| reunification with Taiwan more likely, which the US do
| not want at all.
| tivert wrote:
| > One the one hand the issues between the US and China
| are not about "political values", they are about
| geopolitical interests, you could make a list and check
| one by one. That wouldn't change if China was a
| democracy. On the other hand the US is best 'friend', and
| has been best 'friend' with some of the least democratic
| countries on the planet.
|
| It's not about one or the other, it's about _both_ (i.e.
| China _both_ having the power to be geopolitical rival
| _and_ having incompatible political values). If one or
| the other would be true, the situation would be quite
| different.
|
| Also, the US hasn't been "best 'friend[s]' with some of
| the least democratic countries on the planet." It
| certainly has been willing to court them and look the
| other way in the context of a larger geopolitical effort,
| but once the political necessity stops, the
| "friendliness" gets cold.
|
| > Edit: In fact the US do not want China to become a
| democracy as that would actually hurt their strategy and
| interests against China. For instance, that would make a
| reunification with Taiwan more likely, which the US do
| not want at all.
|
| _Oh come on._ That 's utter nonsense.
|
| The US strategy towards China was economic liberalization
| would bring political liberalization. Xi has demonstrated
| that the Americans were fools to think that, so their
| strategy is changing.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| Why should it matter that China and the U.S. have
| incompatible political values? And what does that even
| mean? It's not like the two systems need to interface in
| ways where that matters. If you're trying to negotiate a
| treaty it doesn't really matter how the other country's
| delegation got their jobs.
| tivert wrote:
| > Why should it matter that China and the U.S. have
| incompatible political values? And what does that even
| mean?
|
| Because people have moral values they care _a lot_ about,
| and those are frequently reflected in their political
| systems. I don 't know so much about China in that
| regard, but in the West those moral values certainly tend
| to be conceived in universalist terms.
|
| > It's not like the two systems need to interface in ways
| where that matters. If you're trying to negotiate a
| treaty it doesn't really matter how the other country's
| delegation got their jobs.
|
| Your kind of conceiving of the "interface" as some
| abstract thing up in the clouds. Sure, it probably
| doesn't really matter so much "how the other country's
| delegation got their jobs," but it certainly does matter
| what policies their government implements or positions
| its pursuing. In the case of the US and China, those
| definitely conflict in irreconcilable ways (e.g. over the
| status of Taiwan, civil liberties, etc.).
| adamsb6 wrote:
| This sounds like the motive for religious war. Are we not
| tolerant enough to let other peoples have their own
| political systems?
|
| It took a couple hundred years for Europeans to stop
| killing each other in the wake of the Reformation. Maybe
| we still haven't gotten over the instinct that somewhere,
| someone is _doing it wrong_ and we have to _do something
| about it._
| tivert wrote:
| > This sounds like the motive for religious war. Are we
| not tolerant enough to let other peoples have their own
| political systems?
|
| You seem to be conflating morality with religion. There's
| overlap, but they're not the same.
|
| > Maybe we still haven't gotten over the instinct that
| somewhere, someone is doing it wrong and we have to do
| something about it.
|
| OK, see about that: are _you_ tolerant enough to let your
| neighbor non-consensually beat his wife for being
| disobedient? Rape his kids? If you feel those things are
| wrong, do you think that 's an instinct you should "get
| over"?
| quantum_state wrote:
| The history of the relationship with Japan in the late
| 80s would show us ally or not is not relevant. Japan was
| constantly demonized before it's economy collapsed after
| the plaza accord...
| Veen wrote:
| > They are strengthening and have more resources to
| assert themselves, which is actually what the US are
| hostile to.
|
| Seems entirely rational to me.
| himinlomax wrote:
| It's inherently and explicitly hostile to democracy. As
| such, it is hostile to the democratic world, which
| includes the US.
| myrmidon wrote:
| That view seems extremely inconsistent to me, and not
| defensible at all.
|
| On one hand, you have an authoritarian one-party
| government (only one less party than the US :P), where
| you put trade sanctions on basically consumer goods,
| while you actually supply weapon systems to an _ABSOLUTE
| MONARCHY_ in Saudi Arabia?!
|
| It seems rather clear to me that "defense of democratic
| values" is absolutely not the primary motivation, but
| basically jealousy, and China IS a potential geopolitical
| (future?) rival, while the corrupt, murderous
| kleptocracts in Arabia are a convenient fuel provider and
| vassal.
|
| I'm not saying US foreign policy is WRONG-- just don't
| lie to yourself and others about its motivations...
| himinlomax wrote:
| Textbook example of whataboutism.
|
| The fact that the US is not dunking on Saudi Arabia does
| not change the fact that the CCP is a murderous,
| genocidal, antidemocratic force that needs to be
| contained.
| mardifoufs wrote:
| Precedent isn't whataboutism. You cannot claim that the
| intentions of the US are to oppose dictatorships or
| whatever while also supporting saudi arabia. I mean, you
| can, but no amount of "whataboutism" accusations will
| make the claim credible. It's fine to just say that the
| US is doing it to counter a geopolitical rival, it
| requires a lot less mental gymnastics.
| myrmidon wrote:
| > Textbook example of whataboutism.
|
| No.
|
| Whataboutism would if we were arguing about "China bad"
| and I pointed out "Saudis worse".
|
| But we're not. My point is that "protecting democratic
| values" is quite obviously NOT the prime motivation for
| US foreign policy-- this can be seen VERY clearly where
| US interests conflict with "protection of democratic
| values".
|
| The Saudis are just a very obvious recent example, but
| there are countless others-- like the coup against the
| democratically elected Iranian government in 1953, or the
| whole Snowden affair (spying on fully democratic allies,
| but also showing that even _internal_ democratic concerns
| --constitutional rights + governmental agency
| accountability-- are secondary to national interests).
|
| The whole Snowden thing would have been an excellent
| opportunity to build credibility in this regard, to
| reassure citizens and allies alike, by simply admitting:
| "We did questionable, undemocratic things, but we're
| gonna fix it!", start by throwing James Clapper into
| prison for a few years, dissolve the Guantanamo bay
| concentration camp, and reinforce your citizens
| constitutional rights to not get spied on by your own
| government. But alas...
|
| /rant
| himinlomax wrote:
| You said, literally. "Whatabout Saudi Arabia." That's
| called whataboutism.
|
| Also SA is not worse than China. Saudi Arabia may have
| some modern day slavery going on, but China is depriving
| over a billion of basic freedoms and currently commiting
| genocide. They support North Korea, thr most oppressive
| regime on earth. They promote in their propaganda the
| worst mass murderer in History by far, Mao Zedong.
|
| But as always, there's people like you to say "but
| whatabout so-and-so."
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| It's fine to criticize the Chinese government for not
| being democratic or for restricting freedom of speech,
| but it's not genocidal, and over the last several
| decades, it's been far less murderous and aggressive than
| the US government. China hasn't even fought a war in over
| 40 years. No amount of invocations of "whataboutism" will
| erase the fact that the US killed hundreds of thousands
| of people in an illegal war in Iraq, while China has
| basically kept to itself for decades.
| himinlomax wrote:
| It's committing genocide on the Uyghur people. Of course
| we don't have a lot of evidenc, you'll say. Same thing
| useful people likely you said in the 1930s about the
| Holodomor. And there wasn't much evidence back then
| either for the same reason: communist dictatorship doing
| a hard lock down on journalism, and people like you to
| turn a blind eye to the horror.
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| It's the first "genocide" in history in which nobody was
| killed.
|
| The people claiming it's a "genocide" don't even claim
| that anyone is being killed. If you actually press them,
| they try to redefine the word "genocide" to mean
| something completely different.
|
| Words have meaning, and a word as important as "genocide"
| should not be thrown around in bad faith as a polemical
| tool.
| tivert wrote:
| > The fact that the US is not dunking on Saudi Arabia
| does not change the fact that the CCP is a murderous,
| genocidal, antidemocratic force that needs to be
| contained.
|
| IIRC, the US did in fact "dunk" on Saudi Arabia after the
| Khashoggi murder, which kind of screwed them when they
| wanted cooperation to lower oil prices that wasn't given.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| One of the first things Zelensky did after Russia invaded
| was to outlaw all other political parties.
|
| The U.S. government is fully supportive of this one party
| state.
|
| It's all realpolitik. Our leaders would never let a
| country's system of government override its usefulness to
| us. The Cold War is awash with examples of us supporting
| terrible dictators who aligned with us against the USSR.
| throwaway_dn39d wrote:
| > One of the first things Zelensky did after Russia
| invaded was to outlaw all other political parties.
|
| That assertion appears to be an exaggeration from what I
| can tell. Can you back up your statement that _all other
| parties_ were banned, as opposed to some?
|
| > Ukraine suspends 11 political parties with links to
| Russia
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/20/ukraine-
| suspen...
|
| > Late last year, Zelenskyy announced Poroshenko was
| being investigated for treason, and this past March, 11
| political parties were suspended and any of their elected
| members dismissed from office for being pro-Russian. Most
| were fringe, but one party had nearly 10% of seats in
| Ukraine's Parliament.
| https://www.npr.org/2022/07/08/1110577439/zelenskyy-has-
| cons...
|
| Certainly banning some is starting down a path, but there
| is a big difference between All and Some. Particularly in
| the context of a country being invaded.
|
| The consolidation and control of television outlets in
| Ukraine by Zelensky is also worth noting, of course.
| adamsb6 wrote:
| You're right, it's not all. I must have mis-remembered.
|
| Though I'll note that a lot of the states we consider to
| be "One Party" actually do allow controlled opposition
| parties, they just never let them gain actual power. With
| Ukraine banning its second largest party, Zelensky's
| party goes from about 40% to about 60%, and wouldn't need
| to form a coalition government.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| That does not match my understanding of the history.
|
| A) Didn't the US prevent technology transfer to the USSR
| as much or more so?
|
| B) The analyses I have seen have said that the _reason_
| the USSR fell is _because_ it could not match the USA
| industrial /technology base, and specifically that in
| trying to keep up with US defense spending, they ended up
| spending 12-15% of GDP on defense (compared ~5-6% in US
| at the time), and that this was a big problem for them,
| that they were spending more than they could afford on
| defense.
|
| C) At the time the USSR fell, which the US considered
| positive and a victory... it still didn't have a "modern
| industrial/technology base", did it? At that point, we
| started helping Russia (not the USSR) develop that, and
| encouraged privatization of the economy... that was done
| in a way to create an oligarchy... that led Russia to
| where it is.
|
| i don't understand what you're talking about, a history
| where the US "made the mistake of allowing the USSR to
| buy its way to a modern industrial/technology base". By
| doing... what? That resulted in... what? What actions or
| inactions of the US or USSR are you talking about?
| pphysch wrote:
| The USSR bought Sputnik (satellite) from USA? Ridiculous
| revisionism.
| dboreham wrote:
| > mistake it made with the USSR of allowing...
|
| I fondly recall all the iPhones made in USSR that we used
| to buy.
| tivert wrote:
| > The US is trying to avoid repeating the mistake it made
| with the USSR of allowing a hostile nation to buy its way
| to a modern industrial/technology base.
|
| As far as I'm aware, the US _didn 't_ make that mistake
| with the USSR. IIRC, it was always under pretty strict
| export controls.
|
| IMHO, if the US allowed to any country to "buy its way to
| a modern industrial/technology base" that country was
| China.
| Longlius wrote:
| There's a somewhat famous (possibly apocryphal?) story
| about the USSR's campaign to get its hand on American
| minicomputers to reverse engineer. The CIA would
| intercept shipments they suspected were being sold to the
| Soviets and fill the boxes with rocks before sending them
| along to be picked up by KGB agents in South America.
|
| Ultimately the Soviets did end up procuring a few western
| machines and reverse-engineering them. This is a look at
| one such machine - essentially a desktop PDP-11 used by
| the Soviet nuclear power industry:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1EWsWxObjA
| dboreham wrote:
| There were pdp-11s everywhere in the 1970s, and the
| designs were published (I have the schematics in my desk
| drawer here on microfiche). They were built from off the
| shelf TTL chips that again could be bought everywhere
| (things like UARTs often did use an LSI chip, bit harder
| to get hold of but still readily available) So it's
| inconceivable that a state level actor couldn't easily
| produce clones, even without ever having seen one! All
| the stories about "campaign to get its hand on American
| minicomputers" etc is theater.
| tivert wrote:
| There were pdp-11s everywhere in the 1970s, and the
| designs were published (I have the schematics in my desk
| drawer here on microfiche). They were built from off the
| shelf TTL chips...
|
| > All the stories about "campaign to get its hand on
| American minicomputers" etc is theater.
|
| The stories might be true, but not so much about
| acquiring the designs as quality implementations.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_in_the
| _So...:
|
| > Soviet industry was unable to mass-produce computers to
| acceptable quality standards[6] and locally manufactured
| copies of Western hardware were unreliable.[7] As
| personal computers spread to industries and offices in
| the West, the Soviet Union's technological lag
| increased.[8]
|
| > ...
|
| > Since computers were considered strategic goods by the
| United States, their sale by Western countries was
| generally not allowed without special permission.[39] As
| a result of the CoCom embargo, companies from Western
| Bloc countries could not export computers to the Soviet
| Union (or service them) without a special license.[84]
| himinlomax wrote:
| Because they're a tyrannical and genocidal organisation?
| markozjovanovic wrote:
| Ok, but what about China?
| NLPaep wrote:
| Do you like being able to comment whatever you want about
| the government?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Hell, do you like posting pictures of a fictional bear
| without being treated as a criminal?
| xtian wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| rchaud wrote:
| If that was the criteria, American exports would be in
| the toilet.
|
| It's because China is a competitor. All the other bad
| actors are too rinky-dink to worry about.
| himinlomax wrote:
| [flagged]
| rchaud wrote:
| Yes, the Politburo has updated its editorial guidelines
| so its agents on HN can now explicitly refer to China as
| a "bad actor".
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| I don't understand what the point of sanctions are. Is Huawei
| going to stop existing? No. Is the US government ever going
| to trust Huawei? No. Might as well allow US businesses to
| make some money selling Huawei spinning rust platters.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Technically Huawei is banned over "threat to national
| security" [0]
|
| What one thinks it actually means will be a litmus test of
| how they view the world.
|
| [0] https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-bans-authorizations-
| devices...
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Huawei is no more an arm of the CCP than any other Chinese
| company, and neither are they operating a "giant spy network"
| through their equipments. Please refrain from spreading the
| basic propaganda you're being fed.
|
| Huawei does not answer to the West and has become too big in
| a strategic industry so the US took steps to attempt to kill
| it. It is simple geopolitical power struggle.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| To be fair I trust AT&T about the same (not very much) the
| difference is that for me (a US citizen) one is local and
| the other is foreign.
|
| Wouldn't put it past most large telcos to do a little
| targeted spying.
| popcalc wrote:
| Most cell providers sell your location info to a third
| party broker to pad earnings. Then it gets resold in
| smaller and smaller amounts down the chain.
|
| If your crazy ex wants to know where you were last night,
| they can jump in a telegram group run by someone at a PI
| firm reselling their access on the side and it'll cost
| less than your dinner did.
| isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote:
| Wouldn't a local threat be more dangerous than a foreign
| one?
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Exactly why I trust China with my sensitive data. They
| won't cough it up to any random US government agency that
| just asks for it!
| curiousgal wrote:
| And other logical questions no one seems to be asking.
| But oh well China bad USA good.
| froh wrote:
| yes.
|
| Huawei's real mistake is that they disrupt the silicon tech
| leadership of intel and other traditional vendors in that
| space, with a number of --- in hindsight ---- excellent
| strategic moves, for example * they now
| hold a "controlling" majority of G5 mobile patents *
| they are a strong and serious player in automotive
| * ASIL D real time kernel for automotive functional safety
| * integrated platform from microcontroller all the way to
| Android-alike in the UI * this is unlike BOSCH,
| Continental, Renesas, Delphi/APITIV, etc, who were blocked
| by the traditional car vendors to create such a platform
| * "Huawei aims at becoming a BOSCH" https://tcrn.ch/3v7O4z1
| * serious cloud player * serious player end to end in
| the mobile market (from backend via physical broadcast
| network to mobile phones and OS on top)
|
| the list could go on and on
|
| oh, and their ownership structure is spread ownership by
| employees. the majority shareholder is the founder with a
| whopping 1.9% of shares.
|
| afaict they pay like FAANG/MAAMA/... and offer very
| comparable possibilities for personal development.
|
| they are doing pretty much everything right while the
| traditional wealth has no control over them.
|
| and _that_ is something "the West" fights nails and toes.
| nyolfen wrote:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-16/chinese-
| s...
| DiogenesKynikos wrote:
| After the bogus "Big Hack" story, Bloomberg's credibility
| in this subject area is in the gutter.
|
| The article you link to is vague about what, exactly,
| Huawei supposedly did. If the US or Australian government
| had solid evidence of something like that the article
| claims, I have no doubt that they would be shouting it
| from the rooftops.
| nyolfen wrote:
| > If the US or Australian government had solid evidence
| of something like that the article claims, I have no
| doubt that they would be shouting it from the rooftops.
|
| this is literally what they are doing
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| So there will be chinese hard drives soon on the market.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| $20 per HDD does not seem like a deterrent. That's probably less
| than 10% of the sale price.
|
| I wonder if I could smuggle illegal items and pay less than 10%
| of the sale price when I get caught?
| RecycledEle wrote:
| I realize I made a math error.
|
| 300 / 7 != 20
| sdfghswe wrote:
| [flagged]
| vfclists wrote:
| $1.1 billion in sales, $300 million in inflation riddled dollars
| paid over 5 years, I would say it is a good deal depending on the
| profit margin.
|
| What are the profit margins on their drives anyway?
| elmerfud wrote:
| Something doesn't seem right here. Fox News settles for $750ish
| million for some blah blah blah that wasn't really believed by
| anyone not already predisposed to believing it. Seagate has
| massive trade violations which they knew or should have known and
| walk away with this.
|
| These are the scales of justice. Seagate seems like it got off
| very easy. My guess is that one or more people are getting
| corporate office reservations confirmed at Seagate once they
| retire from their government jobs.
| Entinel wrote:
| Fox also got off easy though. What Fox wanted to avoid was
| having their broadcasters on the stand under oath having to
| tell the truth and that is what they got.
| elmerfud wrote:
| I agree fox settled because they knew the odds of a jury
| laying the smack down was very high but Fox News settled for
| about 6% of its yearly revenue. Seagate got fined about 2.5%
| of their yearly revenue of which they get to pay of with
| future inflated money.
|
| Trade sanctions are generally an extension of national
| security policy whereas defamation isn't and it's difficult
| to argue that Dominion was actually impacted financially over
| this. The items Seagate sold in violation represented well
| over 10% of their yearly revenue.
|
| So... Fox News negotiated a good deal, Seagate was just
| handed an amazingly good deal. I guess because it's easier
| for former government people to secure Fox News positions
| than to get cushy no shown jobs at Seagate.
| Entinel wrote:
| Fox negotiated with Dominion lawyers not the US govt.
| Former government employees sliding into positions at Fox
| is irrelevant to the amount they paid. Dominion is a for-
| profit company so obviously they wanted to wring the most
| amount of money they could out of Fox.
| elmerfud wrote:
| If you don't believe that the government could have put
| pressure on Dominion to drop or reduce the scope of their
| suit then you might be surprised how the government
| actually works and who dominion primarily works with.
| jen20 wrote:
| Why would it be in the interests of the current
| administration to apply such pressure and bail Fox News
| out of their predicament?
| elmerfud wrote:
| That's exactly the point I'm making. Justice should be
| blind but future no show jobs at Seagate vs Fox News, we
| can see it's not.
| jen20 wrote:
| I don't see how comparing civil and criminal enforcement
| here is remotely apples to apples, and it's not clear
| your arguments follow one another.
|
| If you believe that the penalty for Seagate is too low,
| lobby the government for stricter penalties (most
| politicians should be receptive, I'd have thought).
|
| If you believe the settlement for Fox is too high, ask
| their lawyers why they went for it.
| elmerfud wrote:
| I'm really not sure where people are getting this entire
| idea that one is civil and the other is criminal. I'm
| guessing they're just making it up or making an
| assumption that is completely wrong. The fine that is
| being levied against Seagate is not a criminal fine it is
| a civil fine. Criminal proceedings would have been
| launched and adjudicated in court likely resulting in a
| jail time for people. This is very uncommon and instead
| the civil penalties for the infraction are what is
| pursued which is exactly what was done in this case.
|
| Except for one being a defamation case and the other
| being an export violation case these are apples to apples
| comparisons. These are both civil violations and these
| are both negotiated deals between the parties.
|
| Fox News managed to settle for about half of what the
| case was asking for which is likely very decent to deal
| for them as I think they would have lost big time and you
| never know what a jury will award in a case like this.
| They got a pretty safe deal although quite costly.
|
| Seagate on the other hand was given the deal of a
| lifetime for their violation. If you look up the maximum
| penalties allowed to be sought it is twice the amount of
| the transaction which is the basis for the violation.
| Reading the article the violation is 1.1 billion dollars.
| So the maximum penalty should have been 2.2 billion. They
| were let off with a measly 300 million.
|
| This is not about a lobbying the government for stiffer
| penalties, because those penalties are on the books
| already, this is about the government giving Seagate a
| sweetheart deal because people in the department of
| commerce are setting up future positions to work in
| companies like this. I would suggest you take a long hard
| look and you see where a bureaucrats that work for these
| government organizations go to once they leave these
| organizations.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Why would a government run by Democrats be predisposed to
| make life easy on Fox?
| edgyquant wrote:
| The judicial branch is not ran by democrats
| scarface74 wrote:
| Exactly how does a judge in a civil case force a company
| to settle a 2.6 billion dollar lawsuit for a 3rd?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| A judge can in fact do that, by giving (to both sides)
| about what evidence is going to be admissible, and what
| lines of questioning are going to be considered in-
| bounds. Both sides do their pre-trial maneuvering, and
| then they can make an estimation of how the trial is
| likely to go. Then both sides have a pretty good idea
| what the landscape really is (and they know that the
| other side knows it to). Negotiation often happens at
| that point.
|
| The judge didn't _force_ the settlement - just let people
| on both sides figure out what the range of likely
| outcomes was. Then both sides chose to give up their
| best-case outcome in order to avoid their worst-case
| outcome.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Perhaps true, and completely irrelevant.
|
| The question under discussion was, could the government
| put pressure on Dominion to drop the suit. Well, who
| would put that pressure on? Not the judicial branch.
| tiahura wrote:
| Dominion primarily works with the people that actually
| operate elections - local county governments.
| tough wrote:
| Are you trying to imply that just because -small local-
| government isn't big federal govt, both aren't
| government?
|
| APAC.
|
| All politicians are corrupt.
| tiahura wrote:
| They may be 10,000% corrupt, but thinking that your local
| county election commissioner can make Dominion do
| anything with regards to the Fox News lawsuit is kind of
| silly.
| 3np wrote:
| Fox News not mentioned in OP. Context?
| tyingq wrote:
| Civil defamation suit vs government fine, so it's hard to
| compare directly. A fine would be based on some fixed wording
| in law, where a civil suit is open to define damages in many
| ways. And the leverage in the Fox lawsuit was pretty heavy,
| avoiding lots of testimony that wouldn't play well.
| noobermin wrote:
| It does seem like government fines should in fact be higher
| then.
| delfinom wrote:
| Government fines are generally hardcoded in law in some
| way. Complain to your congress person that they need to be
| increased.
| tough wrote:
| Only millionaires get to complain -effectively- to their
| congress people.
|
| You might try to complain, but not so effectively you
| might find.
|
| That America makes lobbying legal is a travesty of
| democracy in full display, talk about the naked emperor.
| hobs wrote:
| Building a case to destroy a democratically elected government
| vs selling something that is against sanctions.
|
| The idea that 750m is enough to pay your blood debts for
| actively inciting an insurrection while knowing everything you
| say is false is actually the odd one out, not a corporation
| selling things it knowingly shouldn't.
| elmerfud wrote:
| You're believing your echo chamber hype. The only people who
| believed it was people who already wanted to believe it.
|
| Because we heard 4 years of Russian collusion lies repeated
| almost daily. No matter how many times they were proven to be
| lies and the people who were predisposed to believing those
| lies believe them even more and the people who were not were
| not swayed by the lie. The issue with Dominion Fox News is
| exactly the same. The lies spread by Fox News were only
| believed by the people who already wanted to believe it.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| This isn't true. I was in prison at the time and trusted
| that Fox wasn't totally lying and believed the election was
| stolen. There were almost huge riots between political
| persuasions and the BOP locked down all facilities (which
| were already under COVID lockdown, so double double
| lockdown). If it is all you are exposed to it very
| dangerously shapes what you believe independent of the
| narrative you want to hear. You assume they can't just
| blatantly lie.
| rchaud wrote:
| > The lies spread by Fox News were only believed by the
| people who already wanted to believe it.
|
| If that's the case, why are they forking out $700m, the
| largest non-class action settlement in history?
| elmerfud wrote:
| Because defamation is still a crime and is still
| actionable regardless of if anyone is actually influenced
| by it. All you need to show to prove defamation is that
| the people or entity saying it knew it was false
| information and it was their intent to deceive people
| with it. It does not require any success.
|
| I suggest you look up the history around Hustler magazine
| and Jerry Falwell. This is an example where no reasonable
| person would believe the things hustler said about Jerry
| Falwell therefore there was no libel or defamation
| against him. Because the point isn't if someone is
| actually influenced it's if a reasonable person could be
| influenced.
|
| In the case of Fox News it is my opinion that nobody was
| actually influenced but as a news reporting agency
| spreading known false information a reasonable person
| could be influenced by it. My opinion that no one
| actually was influenced by it is because the polarization
| of our media is at such an extreme that only people tune
| in to the media they want that supports their
| confirmation bias.
| scarface74 wrote:
| They weren't lies:
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/548794-there-was-
| tru...
|
| And no one calls "The Hill" "liberal media"
| elmerfud wrote:
| An opinion piece does not good journalism make. That
| would be like a someone citing Sean Hannity show as a
| source.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Are the supporting facts wrong?
| elmerfud wrote:
| If you're correctly using the word facts, then they
| cannot be wrong. Such is the nature of a fact. If you're
| saying that the opinions pieces conclusion is stating a
| fact that there was a Russian collusion with the Trump
| campaign based upon the various investigative reports
| then I would submit that you have not read the supporting
| information.
|
| Indeed of Russia has interfered in a great many elections
| in an attempt to influence their outcome. This was true
| and 2016 as it's been true for as long as Russia has been
| a thing and before that the USSR. This is only news to
| someone who is willfully ignorant of international
| politics and I also ask you what do you think the CIA
| does on a day-to-day basis?
|
| The reports have continually found that there was no
| collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Reading
| from the reports you can see they considered a troubling
| amount of connection between the two but that is the
| benefit of 5+ years of investigation a hindsight. The
| reports do not anywhere point out collusion which is an
| active working together of both parties. It only points
| out that there was external influence.
|
| People who don't like Trump attempted to invent collusion
| where it didn't exist. This is no different than people
| who did not like Hillary Clinton who wanted to invent
| reasons to lock her up over an email server. Both sides
| showed an extreme ignorance where the facts are involved.
| Hence why Hillary was not charged with that crime and
| Trump was never charged with collusion.
| scarface74 wrote:
| > Reading from the reports you can see they considered a
| troubling amount of connection between the two but that
| is the benefit of 5+ years of investigation a hindsight
|
| How is this not "collusion"? I didn't follow the whole
| thing closely at all. This isn't meant to be a political
| argument. I don't trust either party.
| elmerfud wrote:
| Collusion; Specifically, in law, a secret understanding
| between two or more persons to act or proceed as if
| adversely or at. variance with, or in apparent defiance
| of, one another's rights, in order to prejudice a third
| person or to obtain a remedy which could not as well be
| obtained by open concurrence.
|
| None of the reports found there to be actual collusion
| which means that both parties in this case would be
| Russia and the Trump campaign as a whole, or at least
| those directing the Trump campaign including Trump
| himself, would have had to be working together with them
| to change the election. This is what the reports could
| not find. They could find that Russia did exert influence
| into the election and against the Trump campaign and
| certain individuals but that does not collusion make.
|
| Even if you take the point that there was two bad actors
| in the Trump campaign actively colluding with Russia That
| does not mean the Trump campaign as a whole was in
| collusion with Russia. Again the report supports this
| position that there was no collusion from the campaign.
| There was influence and manipulation but I ask you what
| does the CIA do on a day-to-day basis if not the same
| thing.
|
| I would submit if you spent 5 years investigating any
| presidential campaign of the last 50 years you would find
| similar evidence of manipulation from the USSR or Russia
| because it is how the game is played. Just as the United
| States actively influences elections around the world to
| ensure outcomes are in line with what we want to see.
| delfinom wrote:
| Because you don't understand how anything works.
|
| Fox vs Dominion was not a criminal case, nor was the government
| involved. It was two private parties and one party (Dominion)
| was claiming $2 billion in damage to their business from
| defamation. The government doesn't do anything here other than
| a judge preceding over the case.
|
| Dominion can even bring up business records, sales forecast and
| more to back up their damages claims. Ultimately Fox settled
| because they feared things from discovery going public and
| Dominion having a strong case against them. There was not even
| a judge involved in the settlement. It's the two private
| parties agreeing to end the lawsuit in exchange for terms, in
| this case payment.
|
| Meanwhile with the Seagate case, this is in criminal territory,
| the government would be prosecuting the company directly but
| also has laws that defines the existence of fines and the size
| of the fines.
| elmerfud wrote:
| I understand perfectly. Defamation doesn't have to have
| damages to get an award, you only need to show that it
| occurred. Based on dominion's financials the don't appear to
| be impacted financially nor in the eyes of the public either.
|
| What you're failing to understand is that things like this
| are very muchn out of balance. I'm not saying fox should be
| less, I'm saying those knowingly in violation of national
| security export restrictions should be punished more.
|
| There's a big difference between "you said lies about me" and
| "I sold equipment to our enemies". That you missed that point
| is sad.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| It's difficult to convincingly argue which of the two
| occurrences is more damaging. It is easy, however, to
| reduce one of those occurrences you view as less damaging
| into "You said lies about me", to promote your narrative.
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