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To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (18454)	3/11/2004 12:42:16 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Respond to of 306849

California looks like they are trying to tariff offshore outsourcers by exploiting a loophole in the tax code. I was waiting for this actually. California gave oracle and other companies huge tax breaks in the 90s on the assumption that they would hire tens of thousands of people here. Instead they are using this offshore model with only a few people here and most in india. It will be interesting to see where this goes. Indian IT firms get US tax blues MUMBAI: The California government's move to tax Infosys in the US has all Indian IT companies worried. California's tax code requires corporations to pay taxes on a worldwide basis. However, the code also has a provision which permits corporations to pay taxes only on the profits earned from operations within the state of California. Infosys had requested that the latter method should be applied in its case. However, this was rejected by the state's Franchisee Tax Board. Infosys official say that there is no impact on its financials and the California government's demand for taxes is not applicable with retrospective affect. Infosys is currently in discussion with its tax attorneys on the decision of the Franchise Tax board and will take appropriate action, a company spokesperson added. The company could appeal against the taxation board's decision, tax experts say Indian IT companies follow what in the industry jargon is referred to as the 'offshore-onsite' model for delivery of services. Under this model, 10-25% of the manpower of a typical software company is based in the US for delivery of services. The bulk of the company's operations for delivering these services are based in India. Most companies pay the tax rate applicable in India. economictimes.indiatimes.com

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (18454)	3/11/2004 1:29:55 PM
From: fatty	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

Some say the 802.11 standard is not good enough and China simply wants a better one. eetimes.com Deconstructing China's WAPI By Loring Wirbel EE Times January 12, 2004 (11:25 a.m. ET) At least three interpretations exist for China's decision to implement a proprietary encryption scheme in its version of 802.11 Wi-Fi. The most paranoid assumes involvement by China's security ministries in the Chinese group that defined the Wired Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure (WAPI) standard last month. If the U.S. National Security Agency fiddled with the Data Encryption Standard to create encryption "backdoors," the argument goes, why expect Chinese intelligence agencies to be any different? The nationalist argument assumes that China defined WAPI for the sake of uniqueness, thereby implying that international standards bodies fall too much under the sway of U.S. companies and government agencies. The pragmatic argument is that China wanted to be different simply because too many existing encryption standards are seen as suboptimal (cryptography expert Bruce Schneier calls existing .11 standards downright crappy). There are elements of truth in all three explanations, and they all say something about China's emerging position on technology fronts. To bolster the paranoid mind-set, it's logical to assume that China's information security directorate had some say-so in encryption strategies. In fact, it would be foolish to assume that any nation's spooks wouldn't get involved in such activity. National pride probably plays a big role, too. If the World Trade Organization, which China joined last year, self-immolates in 2004, China will have to become its own center of gravity if it wants to be a driver of world trade. That means pumping up OEMs like Huawei Technologies and ZTE as global players, and it means being a technical standards setter when necessary. Pragmatism has the most to say about future relations between the United States and China. China threw down the gauntlet with WAPI encryption, implying that fixed-key WEP and the Advanced Encryption Standard were inadequate for good Wi-Fi security. By turning to elliptical crypto systems, China was hinting to organizations like the ISO and IEEE that adopting standards along the lines of what U.S. sources see as optimal is not good enough. It may be that China, India and other Asian nations will one day be the ones setting the rules for international manufacturers, with U.S. influence relegated to the sidelines. Loring Wirbel is Communications editorial director for EE Times and its network publications. eet.com

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (18454)	3/11/2004 4:24:31 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

No, they aren't naively interfering. They are assuming that they know better, that a group of smart guys can figure out which is the best standard better than what the free market would hammer out. Hayek called this "pretense to knowledge". If they object to the US having too much influence on standards they are free to wrestle with us for the lead in technological innovation. They sure aren't going to win that battle with a committee of bright guys.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (18454)	3/11/2004 4:27:58 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 306849

It would be interesting to know what the differences are in the Chinese standard. I wonder if they are worried about US technical spying capabilities, and perhaps trying to subvert it. With my own Wi-Fi laptop, I've been able while travelling around to get on many private networks, no hacking involved, because the networks were wide open. I just used it to access the internet, but it occurred to me that perhaps a powerful enough reciever in a satellite might be able to do the same thing - and much more.