Can someone explain why China is hell bent on stealing IP from nations and companies?
The only thing their dictator cares about is China's economic success. International relations don't matter because... well, what are you going to do about it? Stop making stuff in China? Good luck.
> Because it's easier and cheaper than developing it yourself.
Why should the humanity invest resources twice to figure out how to make the same product or the same service on another place on Earth? That would be a bad allocation of our time, as a global specie. In the era of internet, sharing knowledge is instant, why not make use of it?
Being enslaved by a despotic government with the world's lowest quality of life and no hope of improving your situation sounds worse for humanity than spending a little more time inventing something twice.
The American government has been captured by the American CEO class, who don't suffer from IP theft since they get paid before the IP theft bears fruit, so the government doesn't care.
What kind of sanctions do you recommend against countries practicing industrial espionage against their allies? What about their enemies? Are you ready to apply them to all transgressors, or just ones that you consider enemies?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON#Examples_of_industrial... - the cherry on top was that the victimized company here was later banned from doing business in the US.
In fact, that seems borderline incompetent espionage on the NSA's part. We submitted a patent that was basically identical to theirs, shortly before they did. Really? Hmm, I wonder how anyone could have figured out that something strange was going on?
The referenced article is also interesting: https://www.irishtimes.com/business/electronic-spies-torture...
Apparently Germany's intelligence services are forbidden to participate in industrial espionage, which includes defense against espionage. Therefore they were aware of the espionage but unable to inform the target company. They could only sit and watch.
US historians will not treat the people running the US from 1975-2005 well.
The IP theft issue is likely much bigger than we know publicly because ever decision a company makes focuses on the outcome to the bottom line. Admitting that the fundamental IP your billion-dollar company was built on has been stolen can't possibly do anything but harm to your reputation in the market.
IIRC, IP theft issues are one of the grievances cited for the current US trade war with China.
Because other countries have done it, because it works, because it's good to have the capability to be industrially independent from hostile states, because they need to defend their people against foreign aggression (Or whatever excuse nationalists trot out to justify outsized defense departments), and because this is an opportunity for friends of the state to make good money.
The US does this exact same kind of spying, but it also does it to its so-called 'allies'. [1] Does reading this cause the same amount of outrage and incredulity, as the original article?
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2015/04/30/news/airbus-germany-nsa-spy...
"The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it does collect information about economic and financial matters, and terrorist financing.
"What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of - or give intelligence we collect to - U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line," it said in a statement."
Secondly have you noticed there have been no additional news articles about this since 2015 when the story first broke? Don't you think if there was an actual violation that occurred that Airbus would still be looking out for its shareholders and there would be more legal cases and formal complaints?
If you look at PPD-28 you'll see that it strictly forbids economic espionage. I can think of lots of reasons why US Spy Agencies might be interested in looking at the network activity - "spying" - on companies such as Airbus, but one of those reasons isn't for economic advantages because it is banned by law. Executive order 12333 is also largely the legal basis for SIGINT and PPD-28 is a public policy directive that adds further legal and regulation nuance to how that executive order is done in practice. However 12333 clearly authorizing things on the basis that it is of importance to national security only. It is clear enough from reading it the authorization is not for economic advantages. So even without PPD-28 which confirms that is true and explicitly states it, even without it there has never been a legal basis in 12333 to do such a thing.
This is a quote from lawfareblog in an article linked below from 2014, also they did have some criticisms of PPD-28 when it was announced, however it states: "Third, it forbids economic espionage for non-national security purposes like advantaging US industry." In one of the most positive aspects of the author's analysis of PPD-28 they also stated how remarkable it is that the US even has a policy directive on SIGINT, because no other country states what they do with regards to SIGINT.
You can read more about PPD-28, what it says along with what I think is fair, informed and well researched analysis here:
From 2014:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/presidents-speech-and-ppd-28-gui...
From 2019:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/revisiting-legacy-restrictions-i...
> Secondly have you noticed there have been no additional news articles about this since 2015 when the story first broke? Don't you think if there was an actual violation that occurred that Airbus would still be looking out for its shareholders and there would be more legal cases and formal complaints?
I expect that this was hush-hushed over diplomatic backroom dealings.
And there have been other legal cases and formal complaints. [1] [2] [3] As it turns out, complaining that the US spies on you, and steals your secrets accomplishes... Pretty much nothing.
> If you look at PPD-28 you'll see that it strictly forbids economic espionage. I can think of lots of reasons why US Spy Agencies might by looking at the network activity - "spying" - on companies such as Airbus, but one of those reasons isn't for economic advantages because it is banned by law.
As we've all discovered a few years ago, thanks to Snowden, the NSA is only somewhat constrained by the law when it operates domestically, and is not at all constrained by it when it operates internationally.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enercon
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#Germany