
American Universities Infected by Foreign Spies Detected by FBI - jnazario
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-08/american-universities-infected-by-foreign-spies-detected-by-fbi
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127001brewer
_"As schools become more global in their locations ... their culture of
openness and international collaboration makes them increasingly vulnerable to
theft of research conducted for the government and industry."_

Excuse me, but isn't this obvious?

 _"Foreign countries “can never become competitive by stealing,” [University
of Maryland President Wallace Loh] said. ..."_

Maybe I'm too naive, but I would think virtually any foreign company can
become very competitive by stealing.

 _"... In another, an Asian graduate student arranged for researchers back
home to visit an American university lab and take unauthorized photos of
equipment so they could reconstruct it, the report said."_

...which lead to Kim Jong Un and Dennis Rodman making very delicious mini-
cupcakes from their recontructed Easy-Bake Oven (TM). Seriously? Where is
Bruce Schneier to talk about "Security Theater"?

 _"A foreign scientist’s military background or purpose isn’t always apparent.
..."_

I had to stop reading the article at this point...

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rayiner
> Maybe I'm too naive, but I would think virtually any foreign company can
> become very competitive by stealing.

It worked for China, India, and Korea.

~~~
Niten
And the United States.

EDIT: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/piracy-and-fraud-
pr...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/piracy-and-fraud-propelled-
the-u-s-industrial-revolution.html)

~~~
rayiner
What're you referring to? The US is the most technologically productive
country in the history of the world.

Your article overstates the case: even early on the US innovated in many areas
(though textiles was not one of those areas):
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_and_industrial_hi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_and_industrial_history_of_the_United_States)

~~~
btilly
I don't think that it overstates the case. The key technologies behind the
industrial revolution (from the steam engine onwards) were invented in
England, then imported to the USA, which improved them further.

If you trace backwards, part of the reason why England had the economic
foundation for that was a major importation of artisans from the Netherlands
after William of Orange became king of England.

And the Netherlands gained the foundations for its wealth from skills that the
Sephardic Jews took to the Netherlands as they fled the growing religious
intolerance in Spain as the Inquisition got under its way.

And so for hundreds of years each top world power has seen the major
foundations of its prosperity be based on knowledge and skills gained from the
previous one. Is it any surprise that the cycle would repeat again now that
the USA is the top world power? It may feel like history inevitably leads to
now, but there is no reason to believe that the economic dominance of the USA
will last longer than previous world empires.

~~~
wololo
"The migration of Byzantine scholars and other émigrés from southern Italy and
Byzantium during the decline of the Byzantine Empire (1203–1453) and mainly
after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the 16th century, is considered
by some scholars as key to the revival of Greek and Roman studies and
subsequently in the development of the Renaissance humanism and science."

\--[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_scholars_in_the_Renaissa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_scholars_in_the_Renaissance)

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zachdonovan
I had the uncanny feeling I'd read this before... And then I realized I had!
This article is from April 8th, 2012.

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jostmey
Great. Now some bonehead in D.C. will probably propose installing body
scanners on academic campuses.

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Camillo
The front desk at my university's library was lending pen drives to people who
needed to get scans off the copy machines (which were not connected to the
network, for some reason). Abandoned pen drives were put into a drawer and
recycled in this way.

The pen drive I was given was unusually large and had the name of a Chinese
university on it. When I plugged it into my MacBook, I was asked to choose a
layout for the new keyboard. It turns out that there are pen drives that
actually contain two USB devices, a mass storage drive and a keyboard, and the
keyboard part can be programmed to type rogue commands at night (I guess
Windows doesn't alert you that loudly when a keyboard is connected, so it's
more likely to go unnoticed).

I tried to get someone to help investigate this possible rogue device, but
nobody cared. I wonder if it was an espionage tool.

~~~
luke-stanley
If this is true, take one or two of them. This would be great fun to
investigate further. Consider taking photos of the inside if you can
disassemble it without breaking it. Find a few computer science student, get
them in a room and ask them to evaluate the device. If this fails, find a
highly ranked, trusted user on hacker news, and send it to them if they are
willing.

~~~
Camillo
I don't know if I should believe you, but anyway, this happened several months
ago. I tried getting a computer security professor involved, but nothing came
of it. I told the library to quarantine the drive when I handed it back, but
who knows what they did.

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salimmadjd
Racist BS! The article starts by a paragraph impying Iranian students are
spies,etc. However, the number of Iranian students coming to US has been
minimized thanks to ongoing Israeli lobby to very few per year. Then it moves
to Chinese students and on and on...this crap has no place oh HN

~~~
chickopozo
/facepalm Whilst the article is written like a movie plot you on the other
hand are looking for things that are not there mate.

