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Chinese Scientist Admits To Stealing Chip Research
Posted by
Zonk
on Sun May 14, 2006 09:25 AM
from the do-you-want-to-make-money-sure-we-all-do dept.
from the do-you-want-to-make-money-sure-we-all-do dept.
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.'"
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Hmm... (Score:4, Interesting)
Meh, maybe I'm just too paranoid. Anyone know more about this? Is that a possibility?
Your just being paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah it's possible but it's the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot. Lets ruin this guy's carreer while at the same time ruin any credibility of a product that works that was created legitimately?? They Chinese government would have to be idiots to do something like this. They have enough problems with intellectual property issues.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that applies to just about every government. When was the last time you heard any government admit it was wrong. The only time this tends to happen is many years after the fact and even then you they won't really admit THEY were wrong. They always have some excuse or other person who the true blame lies with.
Libya... (Score:3, Interesting)
It does happen. It takes a lot of humility to do it, which is why we're unlikely to see the US admit wrongdoing soon. On anything like, say, the Cuba embargo.
Admission (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem of course is the potential legal/financial liability that goes with that, which is what this new law would eliminate. I read that there's a lot of interest in such a law in many parts of the US as well. Could we be entering a time when governments start to be a bit more honest about their screw ups?
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No way (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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Re:It is much more insideous (Score:3, Insightful)
China knows this, and wants to divest the responsibility from the state. How so best to do this than to blame an in
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Zero chance.
This is CHINA we are talking about here. They don't need to fake anything. If they want him gone, he's gone... nobody will ask questions. No reason is necessary.
Besides, this isn't exactly a surprise. From the first minute this story hit the presses, people were speculating that this is exactly what happened. China isn't exactly known for discouraging this kind of thing, either.
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Parent
Another quote.... (Score:5, Funny)
"Indeed, his behavior is despicable", said Mr. Duck.
Shocked! Shocked! (Score:4, Insightful)
-"I am shocked, shocked to find gambling in this establishment!"
-"Your winning's sir."
Industrial Espionage and China (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Hm ... Chinese scientist steals research ... (Score:3)
And just to be clear, I'm not referring to American citizens who happen to be of Chinese extraction, or individuals who emigrate to the U.S. with the intention of becoming American citizens. I mean personnel that come here on a visa, work for a few years or go to school here, and then take what they have learned back home. That doesn't bother me in and of itself, but often this includes taking things such as research, engineering drawings and prototypes that don't belong to them. Other nations do this as well, of course (including us) but few on as grand a scale.
Re:*faked* his research (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:IP Theft (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually the United States government's involvement in economic development activities is one of the primary factors of the late 20th century computer revolution.
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Re:IP Theft (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Why so much effort? It's way easier (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why so much effort? It's way easier (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Token Sacrifice (Score:3, Interesting)
You're saying because some people abuse property rights nobody should have them?
You're saying that becuase some system calls something a property right, that it is. Please give me your address so I can have bubba pick you up pounce you in and deliver you to me as a slave property.
Please give me your home address. I think your right ot own property is "fairly stupid" and I should be free to take your stuff. Give me that freedom you hateful bastard!!!
Please feel free. You can take a *copy* of any pr
Re:IP "borrowing". (Score:4, Interesting)
The People's Republic of China respects intellectual property more than many nations, though admittedly it is not as paranoid about it as the USA. The PRC is a member of WIPO, and has strict IP laws. Nor is there any discrimination against foreign IP: Chinese courts regularly rule in favour of US companies whose copyrights and patents are being infringed on by Chinese companies.
You may be thinking of Taiwan.
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Re:IP "borrowing". (Score:3, Interesting)
And in 50 years, they'll be at the top of the world in research, industry, and science because they didn't.
At least we'll have our lawyers.
Re:IP "borrowing". (Score:5, Informative)
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 [nasa.gov]
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Re:Funny thing about communist countries (Score:4, Informative)
The Soviet Union was very advanced in several fields of science (especially theoretical physics and mathematics). They were the first to launch a sattelite orbiting Earth (Sputnik 1 [wikipedia.org]), first to put a living being in orbit (the dog Laika [wikipedia.org]), first to put a man in space, first dual-manned flight, first space walk, first to land on the moon (with a probe), built the first space station (Salyut 1 [wikipedia.org]).
Just to name a few things.
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Re:Funny thing about communist countries (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention, their space program was jump-started by a lot of German rocket technology that they crated up and took East with them. (The U.S.'s was as well, we got a lot of personnel, although the Russians got some of of the best hardware and facilities.)
Of the examples you cited, Laika was an arguable failure (the dog died after only a few hours, long before it was supposed to and without getting much useful data back), Salyut 1 is notable, although I feel it necessary to point out that the crew never made home alive -- not strictly a problem with Salyut itself, but you have to wonder if the pace they were working at didn't contribute to lack of QC elsewhere.
Sputnik 1 is definitely a landmark and worth of recognition, and in general the Soviet space program had a lot going for it, but it also had a rather alarming rate of failures. So in considering their progress, one has to consider the cost it was earned at. (I'd say the exact same thing about some other areas of technological development, for instance, their submarines.)
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