China Makes Do with Stolen Designs

If we ever wondered about the extent of China's theft of modern technology, we needn't look further than an article today in Business Insider where pictures show the current version of China's drone looks a lot like a couple of US versions of the same thing.  We should remember the first drone the Chinese used in this same air show, several years ago.  It looked exactly like the Predator.

The defense industry is very callous about protecting its designs, some of which include the ability to build that design on commercial machines driven by those stolen instructions.  China is not just stealing designs;  they are stealing the ability to build that same aircraft in exactly the same way the US does.  I used to think the industry was careless in how it protected that material in their IT systems, but I doubt that any company would be that careless out of ignorance.  They do not protect their own designs because that is how the industries are surviving on new upgrades and future designs which are then compromised to the Chinese. There seems to be no penalty for that kind of negligence.

Long ago a defector to this country taught me how this works.  The Russians were flying their missiles and aircraft in the open while US satellites came over, even though they knew they were there.  They continued to do it on purpose, knowing the US could see them.  We would then start new models based on what we saw the Russians doing.  We did the same thing, keeping the industries going.  How corrupt is that?

Note:  There was a short piece out today that says the Defense Department wants to put new clauses in contacts that will require better security, but my sources say that is being fought hard by Defense contractors.  DoD decided to use NIST requirements for systems processing government information and that is not what contractors want.  They haven't said what they do want.  This is going to be a fight that DoD will have a hard time winning.  Contractors will say the costs are prohibitive, but the government will say they are tired of paying for contractors' lack of security in new equipment.  It is compromised before it gets to the field.