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Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research
An anonymous reader writes "A prominent Chinese scientist, one of the founders of the chip manufacturing industry in the country, has admitted to stealing his research." From the article: "Chen Jin, a dean of Shanghai's prestigious Jiaotong University and the leader of a government-funded high-tech research project, was dismissed from his university posts this week and stripped of other government titles and perks. The government also said that Chen had been permanently banned from taking part in any government-funded science projects. In a statement Friday, Jiaotong University--one of the nation's elite schools--said, 'Chen Jin has breached the trust of being a scientist and educator. His behavior is despicable.'"
Actually, he faked the research and stole the technology. If you're going to correct someone, do it right.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
From what I have known, this guy applied government research funding, but developed nothing because he knows nothing about chip design at all, and failed to find any expert would like to work for him, then he bought several chips from Transmeta and Freescale, removed any brand information on those chips, and printed their information on those chips, then showed those chips to the public as their products.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
In an interview this morning, Daffy Duck agreed with Jiaotong University.
"Indeed, his behavior is despicable", said Mr. Duck.
We see the same thing in the United States when government gets involved in economic development activities.
Actually the United States government's involvement in economic development activities is one of the primary factors of the late 20th century computer revolution.
Anyone following the press sees almost daily reports of Chinese industrial espionage circles working around the world. It is not just chips, but formulas, software, manufacturing techniques, and many trade secrets.
China is not the only country that does this. There have been serious incidents with Russia, Japan, France, etc.
However, in the case of countries with which the US does not have a defense treaty, wholesale theft of technology and related trade secrets risks strengthening the military establishment of those countries. This makes it a national security issue for the US.
Unfortunately, even if exposed, the chances in the US of getting caught, prosecuted, and having to pay for industrial espionage are so low that for all practical purposes US technology is free of charge. You probably have a better chance of winning the local lottery than getting punished.
The problem occurs when foreign espionage organizations target private [non-military related] companies that do not have adequate security measures.
In terms of this particular case, the reaction of the Chinese government is out of character to its past actions, which have somewhat ignored wholesale violation of intellectual property rights, and have encouraged massive collection of economic and technical information from the West.
There is no way other than the use of industrial espionage to explain the short amount of time China took in developing its space program and supercomputer capabilities.
In this chip case, the reaction seems motivated by one of two factors: 1/ it is an emotional reaction from someone higher up who felt duped by the scam of the "researcher", 2/ it is a politicized attempt at public relations -- one of those highly publicized "crack downs" that periodically emerge from China before everything gets back to normal.
It's really a non-event. There are probably dozens of other laboratories working right now on other pilfered technologies. In the long run, however, China is graduating enough engineers to surpass the West within about 25 years. In which case, all of this will seem rather transitional in nature.
Well, it worked for Japan, that's for sure.
The first step is to catch up. That's usually done by having foreign companies manufacture in your country. The second is joint ventures, where foreign companies offer the money, you create a company in your country and manufacture in license. That's also already achived.
Next would be to have your students and your "brain power" catch up, this is either done by sending your students abroad or by hiring high class teachers. China will most likely opt for the latter.
This worked for Japan, and the only reason that Japan didn't simply take over the world economy is that Japan lacks two essential factors: Manpower and resources. They are quite limited in space, and thus workforce, and there are almost no resources on their islands.
It's very different with China. And once they completed step three... good night Europe.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Based on my own experience working with a visiting scientist, this seems to be a problem in Korea as well. I did alot of work with this scientist that yielded some interesting results at the beginning. This scientist went on to do other research while I wanted to continue probing our initial experiments. Eventually, I stopped working with this scientist because of their methodology (tossing out data that didn't agree with the hypothesis, abusing statistics to make conclusions, misrepresenting the methodology period) and desire to make a huge breakthrough in the field.
This is one datapoint though, so I am generalizing alot. What makes me suspect that there is a problem in Korea is that I came to find out that, somehow, this scientist had published these results in well-known Korean scientific journals. This disturbed me and my colleagues because we didn't want our names anywhere on those papers as they represented the worst in research. Not to mention the fact that they were just an abuse of the trust people have in scientists. We've since severed relations with this scientist, but we shudder at what was going on. It simply was not good science and should never have been published. We suspected bribes or connections.
I've not had similar experiences working with Taiwanese or Japanese researchers though. While I've always been aware of problems in China (and these news reports simply reaffirm it), the research papers produced by Taiwanese and Japanese researchers have generally been quite good. I'll also point out that my old advisor did research with a Korean researcher who was apparently very good, though I never worked with him directly and I've worked with some talented Chinese scientists, so this shouldn't be used as a pretext to devalue the contributions of all Chinese or Korean scientists. It should be seen as a need to start examining what's wrong in those countries with respect to science.
And yes, I am posting anonymously out of professional concerns.
And, what about the US? V-2 rockets. German adaptation of the Dutch schnorkel? US seizure of German submarines because Germany lost the war. There's a LOT of shit (technology) THIS country acquired merely through the advantage of having "won" the war. Moreover, the US is NOT innocent of industrial espionage.
It is rather funny that you fail to mention the work of American Robert H. Goddard, from whom the designers of the V-2 obtained important ideas. As a NASA web site states:
Goddard's work largely anticipated in technical detail the later German V-2 missiles, including gyroscopic control, steering by means of vanes in the jet stream of the rocket motor, gimbalsteering, power-driven fuel pumps and other devices. His rocket flight in 1929 carried the first scientific payload, a barometer, and a camera. Goddard developed and demonstrated the basic idea of the "bazooka" two days before the Armistice in 1918 at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. His launching platform was a music rack. Dr. Clarence N. Hickman, a young Ph.D. from Clark University, worked with Goddard in 1918 provided continuity to the research that produced the World War II bazooka. In World War II, Goddard again offered his services and was assigned by the U.S. Navy to the development of practical jet assisted takeoff (JATO) and liquid propellant rocket motors capable of variable thrust. In both areas, he was successful. He died on August 10,1945, four days after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.
Goddard was the first scientist who not only realized the potentialities of missiles and space flight but also contributed directly in bringing them to practical realization. This rare talent in both creative science and practical engineering places Goddard well above the opposite numbers among the European rocket pioneers. The dedicated labors of this modest man went largely unrecognized in the United States until the dawn of what is now called the "space age." High honors and wide acclaim, belated but richly deserved, now come to the name of Robert H. Goddard.
NASA