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US Steel Says China Is Using Cyber Stealth To Steal Its Secrets (npr.org)
An anonymous reader writes: U.S. Steel Corp. filed a trade complaint with the International Trade Commission: "The Chinese industry has formed a cartel that sets purchase and sale prices, and controls production and export volumes to target export markets. The Chinese industry has used its government to steal U.S. Steel's closely guarded trade secrets and uses those trade secrets to produce advanced steel products it could not make on its own." The steelmaker based in Pittsburgh argues its Chinese rivals must be investigated and that they will "use every tool available to fight for fair trade." The ITC has 30 days to review the complaint and determine whether or not it's worth investigating. In the meantime, China's Commerce Ministry said the complaints "have no factual basis," urging the ITC to reject U.S. Steel's case. The investigation will likely take a while if the ITC decides to proceed with an investigation, as they'll be dealing with three separate issues: price fixing, false labeling to avoid duties, and theft of trade secrets.
Sure China likes to commit industrial espionage. Everyone know that. However, when are corporations (individuals) going to stop hiding behind laws--in the hopes that they will save them--and start taking responsibility for their own security? When in the history of the world has a law stopped a sufficiently motivated criminal?
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And Slashdot will defend China because most of the users here inexplicably hate the US.
That's bullshit. American /.ers hate either American big business (aka wallstreet) or they hate the American government (aka mainstreet). Some /.ers hate both. This is no different than the rest of America. In China they are basically the same thing, so you're just wrong.
Really? Really?! You could have fooled me with all those US steel engineers flying out with specs and plans and installing new hardware and software and generally doing just about everything to move the entire fucking industrial supply chain out to China to cut down on labour costs. Is there a single thing that US steel manufacturers didn't teach their Chinese sub-contractors to do over the last 20 years? Out of curiosity. Indulge me here.
Why do companies put their most secret and important intellectual property (IP) on servers connected to the Internet? What they should do is put phony, but looking somewhat reasonable, IP on their "secure" servers. The IP thieves should have some significant difficulty getting at it to make them feel like it's the real stuff. When they spend millions or billions building a factory to duplicate the stuff and then find out it was bogus, so much the better. Maybe the thieves will stop stealing and spend their money and time on innovation.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Believe it or not, the south african stuff was higher quality but the worker treatment was probably worse than the chinese even. That is not to say that it was particularly good, it was just relatively somewhat better. If I want good stuff from a modern mill, I get Thyssen-Krupp. That said, the best structural steel I ever used, bar none, was prewar Bethlehem old stock. That stuff was simply amazing. And yes indeed, its a race to the bottom for the workers (me) while the bosses are racing to the top....
C|N>K
So, China is steeling trade secrets. The kinds of secrets Patents were invented to protect. Since the steel companies didn't try to protect their inventions in the ways set up that greatly benefit corporations, they deserve to lose them to the Public Domain (where trade secrets lost end up). The people of the US are better off, now that we can legally use the same tech. It's corporate greed. They didn't want to have it exclusively for only 14+ years, so kept it secret until they lost it. They gambled and lost, and had the intention to keep it hidden forever.
Further proof that IP laws don't work.
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