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Anonymous sources say that the White House is readying sanctions against a handful of Chinese state-owned enterprises and other businesses that officials believe "benefited from the cybertheft of U.S. corporate secrets."
The White House hasn't decided definitively to impose the sanctions, but the process is far along and involves advanced planning from multiple federal agencies, the people said.
They said officials expect to target about five companies, though that number could change. If sanctions are ultimately imposed, it could impact the ability of those firms to access U.S. financial markets and trade with American companies, and could even hamper the ability of their executives to travel to the United States.
From The Washington Post :
The U.S. government has not yet decided whether to issue these sanctions, but a final call is expected soon — perhaps even within the next two weeks, according to several administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
[...] Any action would also come at a particularly sensitive moment between the world's two biggest economies. President Xi Jinping of China is due to arrive next month in Washington for his first state visit — complete with a 21-gun salute on the South Lawn of the White House and an elaborate State Dinner. There is already tension over a host of other issues, including maritime skirmishes in the South China Sea and China's efforts to devalue its currency in the face of its recent stock market plunge. At the same time, the two countries have deep trade ties and the administration has sometimes been wary of seeming too tough on China.
But the possibility of sanctions so close to Xi's visit indicates how frustrated U.S. officials have become over the persistent cyber plundering. The sanctions would mark the first use of an order signed by President Obama in April establishing the authority to freeze financial and property assets of, and bar commercial transactions with, individuals and entities overseas who engage in destructive attacks or commercial espionage in cyberspace.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday September 01 2015, @11:44AM
Frustrated? Frustrated?!? If so, they're so full of crap. Whenever officials throw around loaded terms such as "theft", "stealing", and "plundering" when they really mean copying, they make us all look bad. The base assumption that copying is somehow unfair or bad, is plain wrong. It is cooperation and sharing, of knowledge, that made mankind what we are today. We educate our children. We freely give our children valuable knowledge that took centuries to discover. But many among us seem determined to shove a particular simplification, the ownership society, down everyone's throats no matter how wrong it is, no matter how often others point out that information and material things are fundamentally different things, and cannot be owned in identical ways.
Such talk flies against our own history. As if we didn't do the same thing in the 19th century to the British, including mostly ignoring them when they made the identical complaints. We did not merely copy, we improved on the originals. Railroading is an example. Britain was first, but the US was right on their heels, copying the ideas thought best, and making improvements. Ultimately, railroading in the US surpassed the British.
If this is all about hoking up things to bargain over, they'd do better to drop this one.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Tuesday September 01 2015, @01:44PM
Aren't they? The information about a CD for example is freely available. But the songs themselves, aren't they things?
I guess you could put information into a song [wikipedia.org] though.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by That_Dude on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:36PM
The whole concept of the "theft" or "copying" of ideas is base savagery - all facets. The bigger picture illustrates isolationism glaringly. It indicates that blatant and hidden agendas will collide - the degree of being upset about it indicates the extremity of the level of greed. Raw greed inevitably establishes destruction in its wake. Sharing and teaching facilitate cooperation, good intentions and prosperity - on the blackboard at least. The wise thing to do would be to first be honest with yourself with what it is you want to accomplish and what you need and then to be honest with others about it as well. Conflict will remain, but it will be in deciding who will benefit and who will sacrifice each according to their kind in the face of what to do. Care should be taken that harm is minimized across the board - not just for you and yours. Copying without knowledge or consent is a byproduct of combinations of three things: The utter lack of creativity, the lack of resources and/or convenience and sociopathic aspirations. Concealment's intention is to hoard or protect. The root of the problem is that most people have not a clue as to who they are or what they are capable of outside of the context of their little niche society - aka reality consensus. Then there are two barriers: 1) The need to have a stable psychological plane - which feeds the tendency to perpetuate the reality consensus, (aka - peer pressure), and 2) Fear of the unknown and the frustration of stagnation. The truth is that the zero sum solution is an illusion. So, I challenge anyone who reads this to make an effort every day to share something, search to be honest with yourself and to expand your awareness of reality - even if it isn't within your concept of reality or out of your comfort zone. If you take, have the dignity and honor to give back. Develop the courage to ask for or accept help and develop the character to offer the same.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @02:52PM
And on the matter of the US copying all my online information, I've already decided to do everything in my power to sanction the US. This means I don't buy US products and look for alternatives.
To be fair; that decision was first made when the US started to violate human rights on a daily basis.
(Score: 2) by jelizondo on Tuesday September 01 2015, @05:58PM
You have to remember that the economy is based on scarce resources, it they are not naturally scarce, then it is our duty to make them artificially scarce, otherwise we'll end up in some socialist utopia!
Is your favorite song a scarce resource? It was when the bard had to sing it personally to you, nowadays it is scarce because we, as a society, accepted laws that make it scarce, .i.e., you must pay for the privilege of hearing it.
Will musicians and composers disappear if the songs were free? Nope, we have had them since civilization began or perhaps ealier... The music industry, that is another matter.