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Feds Bust Chinese Firm's Hybrid Car Data Heist
coondoggie writes "An FBI investigation has led a Michigan couple to be charged with stealing hybrid car information from GM to use in a Chinese auto outfit. A federal indictment charged Yu Qin, aka Yu Chin, 49, and his wife, Shanshan Du, aka Shannon Du, 51, of Troy, Michigan with conspiracy to possess trade secrets without authorization, unauthorized possession of trade secrets, and wire fraud. One of the individuals was also charged with obstruction of justice, said Barbara McQuade, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan in a statement. GM estimates that the value of the stolen documents is over $40 million."
Yu got served.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Now theirs will crash just like ours!
Can't these guys get a break?
Way to go, FBI. We're already trying our best to fight the Chinese government's dragging their heels on environmental reform. Now we want them to do it without stealing any green technologies?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Umm, don't we want China to steal all the GM tech they possibly can, so they won't be competitive either?
sooner or later this "secret" would have ended up at the chinese manufacturing plant.
$40 million? that's ALL it's worth? international small claims court.
Hybrids are a bit of a joke, efficiency wise so I have my doubts about a domestic market for them in China. But Chinese car makers could compete with the Japanese, etc in the export market. But you'd expect that they would get found out. Maybe the immediate objective was to sell a complete system within china and let the buyer take the rap for the stolen tech.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
How stupid could you be stealing from a government agency?
This story is tagged "patents", but it's not about patents. The copied data was a trade secret. Patents are by definition publicly published information. Trade secrets are different. Patents are easily abusable government monopolies that often violate free speech. Actual industrial secrets are essential to remaining competitive, as this case demonstrates. It's cheaper, faster and less risky for a Chinese (or any other) corporation to copy the data that GM (or anyone else) produced over a period of time and at a significant cost, than it is for that competitor to produce its own. The secret was violated by violating agreements and other deception.
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make install -not war
they flew all the way from China to America to steal hybrid plans.
They could have just gone to Japan and stole from Toyota, much closer to home....
I don't think GM itself ever even made $40M profit from their hybrid undertakings (as small a sum as it is in the industry).
"GM estimates that the value of the stolen documents is over $40 million."
Is that using the same method of value calculation that the RIAA / MPAA use?
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Can anyone even name one GM hybrid vehicle.
Asians have a different mindset when it comes to things like this. Anything the other guy makes is okay to copy. Been that way in every industry forever; doesn't matter if it's cars, pharmaceuticals, software, nuclear power plants, or whatever.
Risking jail time for a 'trade secret' (which seems to carry more weight than national secrets that might be protecting lives) seems to somewhat pointless. Why not just wait until GM implements whatever super-secret-mega-tech in a vehicle and then reverse engineer it? Once GM 'publish' it in this form without patent protection it seems to me it is fair game.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Or Bellsouths way of calculating the E911 Document's worth of $80,000 when the same information could be found in a technical catalog available to the public for a couple of bucks.
Hiring an actual American worker .....now THAT'S unusual!!!!
Be sure to send all your money to Wall Street...
It's likely you'll wipe out any savings when you do.
You think the Russians had spies? They're nothing compared to the Chinese.
This is not individual actors out for their own gain, this is a concerted effort over the last 30 years to get China on par with the latest tech, by hook or crook.
While there's nothing wrong with that per-se, the thing that everyone seems to be ignoring is that China is not an open society and all this maneuvering is to get more Geopolitical Power for the Communist Party. A non-representative, totalitarian regime bent on imposing its will across the region and the world. People assume once China is "caught up" they'll follow international rules and "play fair". This is a fairy tale, they are out to dominate.. and will take whatever steps necessary to make sure that happens, economic or military. Their own population is just a tool towards this endgame.
Ever wonder how Pakistan got nukes? China.
Wonder how North Korea got nukes through Pakistan? China made the intro.
That way, their hands were clean but they were able to create a permanent buffer zone on the Korean peninsula and pre-empt any German equivalent of reunification which would put a functioning democracy on their doorstep.
China is playing a dangerous game and people who think prosperity will make them fat and happy are completely mistaken.. the economy is a tool for them both to placate their population and to wield as a weapon on the international stage.
Chinese sleeper cells strike again.
If anyone at GM had any common sense, they'd be encouraging the rest of the world to copy their business, it could save the company.
Have they no honor?
Probably just a list of what "Made in China" parts to use from what supplier and how to put them together. :)
Asians eh? Warning, you prejudice might be showing. I'm an "Asian" but I am not offended by your comment. This is because, until very recently in human history, copying what others created is the norm. Be it in language, music, food, vehicles or weapons. You after all got the Chinese to thank for gunpowder, among other things. I don't recall Europeans paying the Chinese any royalties on that.
> Perhaps we should let them have a design for a car who's doors weld themselves closed and then the engine catches fire.
Why, so they could sell them back to us after they'd gone through three or four levels of resellers, the way they did with all those bad capacitors?
BYD in China already are building hybrid cars and selling them in the market. For several years now.
Why they are REAL hybrid cars? See here.
F3DM: http://www.byd.com/showroom.php?car=f3dm
F6: http://www.byd.com/showroom.php?car=f6
BYD is going to setup a joint venture with Mercedes in Shenzhen to produce hybrid cars.
http://www.carsuk.net/mercedes-and-byd-get-cosy-new-electric-car-ev-brand-for-china/
About 300 or so F3DM taxi cars are already in service in Shenzhen, this is part of an experiment project -- local government is building infrastructures like charging stations.
http://www.nbd.com.cn/newshtml/20100306/20100306045944351.html
(right, I know you don't read Chinese. Ask someone to translate for you).
As part of the competition, Renau and Nissan is partnering up to do similar hybrid car experiment in Wuhan.
Why GM is so advanced in hybrid technology totally confused me. Can anyone educate me how GM's technology is going to win in this competition?
What's the technology that worth 40m USD that comes from GM?
So, they are being charged with a total of 40 years jail time and $750K in fines for information worth 40 million?
The 40 years is definitely nasty, but looking at the 750K, I've gotta think.. that's like 3 dollars worth of mp3's if they had them online. Seems like GM would get a better deal by getting them charged with copyright infringement per page stolen.
/* TODO: Spawn child process, interest child in technology, have child write a new sig */
I cant really imagine why anyone wanting to work on hybrid cars would look at GM. You dont copy crap, you go for the market leader.
HTTP/1.1 400
I wonder if the FBI will be arresting their own people and NSA employees for wiretapping and electronically intercepting proprietary information (including patented information) and company secrets of Japanese and European companies, then passing those trade secrets on to US companies? What do you think?
Right?
After all, you're only copying the data, not stealing it from GM, so it's not theft.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Replaced the differential? It's likely your clunker gas will regain top position in TCO again.
I didn't even know GM was worth $40 million these days. Huh.
So, the information wants to be free!
How is this worse than what Mitnick did?
I know several people who are die-hard "Toyota people". They have all had problems with their Toyotas, including but not limited to:
Yet, these people still insist that they drive the best vehicles in the world.
Honestly, even if they were perfectly reliable, Toyotas are some of the blandest, most boring cars on the market. I wouldn't have one just for that reason.
Fault GM, Ford and Chrysler all you want, but at least they have designers who can draw cars that look interesting. Toyota cars are about as exciting as a dishwasher.
My 2001 GMC with 106,000 miles still looks, runs and drives like new. Other than regular maintenance all I've had to do is replace the windshield washer hose, which cost about $4. Based on that, everyone should buy a 2001 GMC. I don't care who owns the company.
Putting moderation advice in your
Add to the mix that many hybrids have an incredible track-record for average maintenance costs. Mine (according to Consumer Reports) averages nearly $1000 less per year in expected repair and maintenance costs.
Initially I was skeptical of the maintenance number, as it could easily be manipulated. However, my experience so far has supported the numbers. Even without a service plan, my first maintenance visit cost me $20; because, the only required item was a rotation of the tires. I expected to pay more, because you would think that the oil would need changing too. And that's at-the-dealership prices, without any "extended" service plan or discount.
This is what law enforcement should be doing. Not really happy about the entire domestic monitoring of all us innocent folks' emails. Indeed, as far as i can tell, some gov't agencies have had the decency level of a peeping tom since 9/11. But this bust appears to be a legitimate use of intelligence resources. It legitimately protects our economy. Our economy is what supports our military and engineering superiority. IP related to product manufacturing needs to be protected (as opposed to, say, RIAA/MPAA grandstanding about entertainment IP in a manner which only sours international relations). If we switched the resources we currently waste on domestic monitoring, the War on Drugs, and RIAA/MPAA/BSA related lawsuits into producing -- education and R&D -- and protecting manufacturing IP, we'd have a national surplus and 1950's percentages of disposable income within about 10 yrs. It's the economy, stupid.
I don't drive GM because I don't buy consumer products from my government. I would prefer to buy them from private, non-government owned stores.
I wonder if the government will still own the majority of GM in 20 years?