
FedEx apologizes for not delivering Huawei phone, cites operational error - hhs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-huawei-tech-fedex-usa/fedex-apologizes-for-not-delivering-huawei-phone-to-u-s-cites-operational-error-report-idUSKCN1TO047
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kmlx
everyone keeps writing about how "we live in the age of corporates", and how
"the state has no power today". and then US corporations, arguably the largest
and most powerful of all of them out there, simply bend over to the any whims
of the US gov like they're literally grass under a boot.

also, same gov: "we do free trade, but only with our nsa infected stuff"

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iamnothere
Corporates (when united) and the government are roughly in parity regarding
"soft" power. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other does. The government
does a lot of sabre-rattling towards corporates who step out of line, but they
often can't do much more. There is a real risk of dynamiting the economy if
they start being too harsh, and the problem right now is that everyone is a
bad actor in one way or another, so you can't just start aggressive
enforcement across the board.

When it comes to individual corporates or smaller groups of them, it can be
productive to think of the government as its own collection of organizations
with their own relative power levels, budgets, connections, etc. The DoD is
the largest organization in the world, so it's got a lot of weight; when it
steps in, people listen and obey. Dept of State is pretty big as well,
especially considering its connections to other powerful entities. By
contrast, smaller organizations like the EPA tend to get ignored, and the
worst they can usually do the big guys is a slap on the wrist.

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A4ET8a8uTh0
It may be odd to say, but I am glad that it is getting widely reported. ITAR,
OFAC and such ( how to classify em as a group ) black lists have been getting
ridiculous lately. It may worthwhile showing American public how restricted
the free trade really is.

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pcurve
“FedEx can accept and transport all Huawei products except for any shipments
addressed to listed Huawei entities on the U.S. Entity List,”

What does this even accomplish?

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rudiv
There was an incident recently where a tech website was unable to send a
Huawei phone they were reviewing from their UK office to their US office
because FedEx sent it back. I believe this is in reference to that.

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techntoke
Looks like US only wants you to be able to get your NSA-backdoor approved
devices.

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Erlich_Bachman
Well other international companies are not banned, and there is a lot of info
indicating that China actually has spying hardware/software in many of their
products and actively trying to insert them elsewhere, so it's probably more
about that than about USA's spying. (Even though they do a lot of that too of
course.)

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jeroenhd
I've never seen any proof of China actually using their exported devices for
spying purposes. At most you can say their smart phones are leaking personal
information back to China, but Google is no different.

The Chinese do, however, excel at industrial espionage through many means. In
fact, they're so good at it that I've rarely seen reports of industrial
espionage where the allegations actually stick in court.

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deogeo
> I've never seen any proof of China actually using their exported devices for
> spying purposes. At most you can say their smart phones are leaking personal
> information back to China

How are these different?

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jeroenhd
In the same way that I don't see Microsoft and Google as American spying
operations on the rest of the world. There's very little stopping the US
government from forcing Google to give up my information "because of national
security" but the Snowden leaks proved that the US government doesn't work
that direct. Still, I don't see Android phones as international espionage
devices.

Perhaps your opinion may vary, but so far the most conclusive proof of spying
is against the US and UK government, both of which are screaming at everyone
that big evil China is trying to steal all of our secrets. Maybe it some kind
of distraction manoeuvre ("we're spying but only because they're doing it!")
but the anti Huawei hysteria is greatly exaggerated.

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Erlich_Bachman
> screaming at everyone that big evil China is trying to steal all of our
> secrets

It is well established that China, including huawei have been stealing a lot
of intellectual property, many of their products (initially at least) are
simply reverse-engineered copies of western products of other companies.
Huawei specifically have been known to steal Cisco's software and hardware.
This is not something that happens on a single occasion, this is a top-down
controlled practice and culture, in Huawei and in China in general. In light
of this, why wouldn't they be stealing secrets if they have the chance to?

Why would we treat it differently compared to western spying? Numerous
reasons, but just off the top of my head, because the west at least has patent
laws and if Huawei was a US company, Cisco would take them to court and redeem
their losses, and it would work. In China however, it does not work, because
they don't enforce intellectual property laws on a government level. If the
whole government is ok with their companies stealing secrets, why on earth
would we think that many of their companies including Huawei are not still
doing it?

