
How US software ended up powering Chinese assault helicopters - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/how-us-software-ended-up-in-chinese-assault-helicopters/
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yaakov34
I think all this does is illustrate how ridiculous US export controls are, and
how hypocritical the West's stance vis-a-vis China is.

First, the idiocy of the export controls: maybe they made some sense when the
US was a sole source for certain technologies, but right now, the US is not
even the leading technological power in many fields in which it insists on
export controls, let alone the sole supplier. If Turbomeca is standing in line
to supply China with engines with FADEC, which can be put on civilian or
military helicopters as China wishes, then what do these export controls do,
other than impose paperwork and misery on anyone who is dealing with any US
supplier? Not to mention that China will shortly be producing these engines by
itself.

Second, the hypocrisy: look, either the West can decide that the Chinese
regime is evil, and refuse to do business with it, or it can do a trillion
dollars a year worth of import/export with China, and stop trying to hide
behind the microscopic fig leaf of not allowing military exports. With the
world rushing to sell any piece of technology to China in order to
counterbalance the Chinese exports, and with China being more than
sophisticated enough to adapt technology for military use, this is fooling no
one.

~~~
drewcrawford
> then what do these export controls do, other than impose paperwork and
> misery on anyone who is dealing with any US supplier?

They make the French supplier the only supplier, granting them a monopoly and
making it impossible for china to source the parts at current market rates. Do
you know how difficult it is to get ordinary, commonly-available stuff shipped
to your door in a friendly country like Saudi Arabia? Think about that hassle,
but on a governmental level.

It's not a national security goal. It's a diplomacy goal. Now it's fine to ask
whether or not private US companies should be roped into doing the state
department's dirty work, of course, but that's a different conversation.

------
ars
Why is there an implied assumption that Russia and China have no ability to
develop this stuff on their own?

And an even bigger question is why do Russia and China think it too. I've
never heard of the US trying to steal technology at a national level - it
wouldn't even occur to them.

So why do Russia and China do it? They have tons of engineers, there is no way
that can't invent this stuff too.

~~~
Volpe
> I've never heard of the US trying to steal technology at a national level -
> it wouldn't even occur to them.

What exactly is the CIA then? I'm pretty sure it occurs to them. Just because
a) they aren't caught or b) it isn't reported. Doesn't mean it's not
happening.

Even if you suspected your tech was more advanced, you would still steal your
opponents in order to gauge where they were at.

~~~
ars
I assume the CIA looks for intelligence, i.e. plans, advancements,
capabilities, stuff like that. Not engineering plans to actually make a
product.

> Even if you suspected your tech was more advanced, you would still steal
> your opponents in order to gauge where they were at.

Kinda missed my point there didn't you? I'm talking about stealing tech in
order to use it. Stealing tech to find out about it is not the same thing.

~~~
Volpe
I don't think I missed your point. I suspect the CIA do a multitude of things,
encompassing what we've both said.

I was simply illustrating that just because you haven't heard about it.
Doesn't mean it didn't happen.

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chj
4 or 5 years ago, fedex was fined because it shipped a flight simulation game
to a Chinese student in Bejing University of Aeronautics.

US always complained about CN export/import imbalance, OTOH it simply doesn't
want to export any high tech products.

------
wtracy
The part that struck me as most ridiculous about this was that the technology
export was legal as long as it was "dual use". If China had just done a better
job of covering up their true intentions, then UTC wouldn't have broken any
laws in the first place.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an aerospace engineer. I imagine that
some of the required "customizations" would have been difficult to request
without revealing the true purpose of the aircraft. Still, the Chinese are
pretty good at reverse-engineering, and something that does 90% of what you
need has got to be a good starting point.

------
Zenst
WOW and too think alot of people were worried about playstation PS/3's going
to china as they were super powerful processing chips at one stage and at the
same time well, just read the article.

The whole aspect that you can sell something for non milatary use and it has a
milatary use is crazy if you have a ban. A ban should be blanket or non.
Allowing obvious abusable loopholes is just a silly position to be in.

What next - they purchase a load of nukes on the pretence there to be used as
christmas tree ornaments. Crazy.

------
Volpe
China (as usual) painted as an evil villain to the righteous U.S.

A great startup idea, would be a media outlet that didn't push such a massive
point of view on everything...

Likely, a lot of media outlets probably started that way...

~~~
seanmcdirmid
You mean the high-quality unbiased news we can get from CCTV?

China has a fairly opaque government that is not very sensitive to public
opinion (and especially international opinion); that they are often painted as
the bad guy has nothing to do with bias.

~~~
Volpe
> You mean the high-quality unbiased news we can get from CCTV?

No, I didn't mean that. I never mentioned such a thing... :\

> China has a fairly opaque government that is not very sensitive to public
> opinion (and especially international opinion); that they are often painted
> as the bad guy has nothing to do with bias.

I'm curious where you got this view from, from the varied news sources I've
read, the Chinese govt is VERY sensitive to public opinion... hence why it
runs 24 hour propaganda platforms like CCTV.

But regardless, is it 'bad' to be a non-democratic government? Why?

What is the 'bad guy' view based on, if not bias? (Of course in the context of
how the U.S itself operates, given that was the basis of my comment).

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Just for the record, I'm not downvoting you (only have 200 karma points, can't
downvote) and disagree that you need to be downvoted.

The CCP is not sensitive to real public opinion since they censor/hide/or
simply ignore facts. They are very much vested in shaping opinion, of course,
but they care nothing about honest opinions. Consider that they don't even
want to perform scientific polls (or have them performed by third parties),
since they don't care about the results and would find them embarrassing
regardless.

That China is the bad guy has nothing to do with them being non-demecratic,
and everything to do with just being overtly dishonest about world truth. If
the CCP tomorrow started being honest about everything, good and bad, we would
see them in a much more sympathetic light even as we contined to disagree with
them and bad things continued to happen (we want clarity, not perfection). But
the CCP contines to see face as being much more important to their continued
existence than truth, and so I doubt this will end very soon.

~~~
Volpe
But there are not many nations that operate in a "honest about everything"
way. I mean wikileaks highlighted a whole lot of stuff about the U.S. that was
very far from 'honest about everything'.

Are we holding China to a higher bar than the U.S? Or do we have blinders on
when viewing the U.S's actions?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Its one thing to get your hand caught in the cookie jar, and another thing to
claim the sky is hot pink when its really blue (or that the air is clean in
Beijing when its obviously not). Certain parts of the US government lie, yes,
but they get caught (and a handslap), don't do it all the time, and don't come
off as insane.

~~~
Volpe
I don't know, I'd much prefer the lies to be obvious "Beijing isn't polluted"
than "No, that Apache isn't gunning down civilians". (Hmm, I realise, that is
possibly inciting a whole other discussion).

That aside, I still reckon, that article was biased for no reason, other than
to continue the 'us against them' mentality that gets no where.

And a non-biased fact/data based media outlet would be a great addition to the
the world/national (which ever level) media.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
But the article wasn't biased, it was talking about a company who broke the
law of the country they were operating in, it wasn't talking about so much the
"evil" Chinese government as much as it was talking about the "evil" American
company breaking American laws that just happen to export restrictions to
China. It could have been export restrictions to France and they would still
be breaking the law.

Chinese get sensitive about any article that mentions China, whether they make
value judgements about the Chinese or not. I've seen even the most fact-based
empirically-evidenced articles posted from the most reputable unbiased
international news agencies get shot down by wu mao dang commentors as being
unfair.

~~~
Volpe
There are whole paragraphs from that article that basically says Chinese lie,
cheat, and steal to get technology. But without any evidence, E.G:

"The prototype J-20 Chinese stealth fighter unveiled last year, for example,
appears to be based on technology recovered from a US F-117 stealth
fighter..."

Appears? It also appears to be a self-developed piece of technology? Why the
negative bias? (For no reason).

It's worrying that people can't even spot the bias when it's sitting right in
front of them.

wu mao are essentially a product of the CCP's propaganda machine. So of course
they shoot down any and everything that isn't pro CCP.

> most reputable unbiased international news agencies

I'm curious which agencies these are? From my own reading, I've found every
agency is biased, and the only way to get a useful picture is to understand
where their bias lies and read multiple sources.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
So you are worried about that one sentence? Does it even cast China in a bad
light? It seems smart of them to learn from whatever wreckage they recovered
in Serbia. Yes, I don't see much bias there, definitely not the opinion
shaping kind of bias that would affect reader thinking. Maybe there are some
insecurities that Chinese readers would be sensitive to that would completely
escape westerner notice.

I should have said "most" unbiased, of course bias is impossible to completely
avoid. An article with facts as numbers, which is just reporting observations
and not making value judgement, is as unbiased as you can get!

------
gaius
Thank God they didn't include software for downloading movies, or someone
would be in Guantanamo Bay right now.

------
robomartin
Humanity has the ability to destroy all life on this planet many times over.
As intelligent as we all think we are it is a sad note to realize that we are
still in the caveman mental state of wanting the bigger stick. Will we ever
turn the corner? Haven't we seen and caused enough death already?

The problem isn't export controls. The problem is that we need to finally
break away from the animals we think we evolved away from.

~~~
ars
> Humanity has the ability to destroy all life on this planet many times over.

Yah, that isn't even remotely true. It's often said, but completely false.

And without competition there is no life. And competition often results in
war.

Notice how companies that trounce all competition then go on to completely
stagnate. It happens to humans too. Once you have nothing you need to fight
for you don't bother doing anything.

Look what happens to every major artist once they no longer work - they have
lots of money, and no need to work, so they destroy their life. Look at what
happens to rich kids who got their money via inheritance, with no need to work
for it. Or the prototypical story of a retiree that dies within a year.

It's is essential to human survival to always have to fight.

I know what you are thinking: Fight for good things, and stop war. But that
isn't possible, you can't split human nature that way.

(Plants are the same way: Prune a plant and you will trigger massive growth.)

~~~
robomartin
>> Humanity has the ability to destroy all life on this planet many times
over.

> Yah, that isn't even remotely true. It's often said, but completely false.

Really? You don't think that the nuclear arsenal in place around the world has
the capacity to cause massive life loss on this planet? It's only a matter of
time until the "bad guys" (whoever you choose to crown as such) escalate
things up to bio/chem weaponry. Bio weapons are actually scarier than nukes.

Don't say it won't happen. We have a proven capacity to cause untold death and
destruction. The world wars and various genocides are proof enough.

~~~
ars
Compare:

"destroy all life on this planet many times over"

vs.

"cause massive life loss on this planet"

Not exactly the same thing, yet you said both. Which is it?

> It's only a matter of time

i.e. doesn't exist right now. So you agree with me.

> Bio weapons are actually scarier than nukes.

I agree.

> We have a proven capacity to cause untold death and destruction. The world
> wars and various genocides are proof enough.

In the entire history of the world the death rate from wars has NEVER been
lower than it is right now.

Lookup total war to see how bad it was. Compare the death rates (as a ratio of
soldiers involved. Include civilians if you wish) in Iraq vs. Vietnam or WW2.

