And what was China's response when politely asked to return said tech?
Cupertino man jailed for exporting tech to China
The founder of a Cupertino tech firm has become the latest to fall foul of tough US laws restricting the sale of military technology to China, after he was banged up for over a year. Fu-Tain Lu was sentenced to 15 months in the slammer after pleading guilty to selling sensitive microwave amplifiers to the People’s Republic …
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Thursday 1st November 2012 08:46 GMT JaitcH
Should have shipped it to the UK ...
then hand carried it over to China on a China Southern Airlines, China Airlines or Air China flight - straight to the PRC from Heathrow.
Of course, using a foreign name like that was kind of dumb, should have chosen some more patriotic like All American Communications.
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Thursday 1st November 2012 10:00 GMT Tim Worstal
It's not how sensitive the technology is
It''s whether you bothered to get the licence or not.
Commerce Dpt licenses are the lowest level of such licences. State Dept handles the more important ones (and a sub-group there the really important ones like enriched uranium etc).
Pretty, much, phone up the nice lady, fill out the form and send it in for a Commerce licence.
No licence, you're guilty. Goods go to people not on your licence? You're guilty.
About the only defence really available is that the goods are readily available retail. Then you shouldn't need a licence at all although they can play games with that one.
I speak as someone who has gone through the process for all three types of licences (Commerce, State and OhMyGodYouWantToSendWhat?Where?.....from memory, rad hardened chips for space rockets, nuclear grade zirconium and uranium yellowcake).
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Thursday 1st November 2012 18:47 GMT Robert Helpmann??
Re: It's not how sensitive the technology is
My first reaction to this was that he was ignorant of the law. As it turns out, he is just paying the stupid tax. Regardless of our respective opinions concerning the law or laws he broke, it looks like they were pointed out to him and he went ahead with his plan to break them - a premeditated fail.
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Thursday 1st November 2012 13:14 GMT No, I will not fix your computer
The irony....
15 Months for selling a bit of frankly commonplace tech to China, while the US government sells F-16s to Pakistan (sorry, who was sheltering Bin Laden?), about $5bn sales to Taiwan (even more than that to Afghanistan), I'm not saying any of this is *wrong* (by US government standards) just ironic.