Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Company's China Employee Allegedly Stole Code To Help Local Government (csoonline.com)

Posted by msmash on from the something-is-wrong dept.

Reader itwbennett writes: Xu Jiaqiang, a Chinese national, worked as a developer for an unnamed U.S. company's branch in China (a Reuters report says it's IBM) from November 2010 to May 2014, when he resigned voluntarily. A year later he was allegedly caught trying to sell stolen proprietary source code to U.S. undercover agents, who claimed they were starting a large-data storage company. The software is described in the original complaint as a key component of one of the world's largest scientific supercomputers and of commercial applications that require rapid access to large volumes of data. In December 2015, Xu was arrested by the FBI, alleged to have stolen for his own benefit and that of the National Health and Family Planning Commission in China, although no specific charges relating to actual transfer of the code to the National Health and Family Planning Commission are mentioned in the superseding indictment.

8 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. This is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Unsurprising

  2. afraid to use the words. by will_die · · Score: 2

    From the article he stole the information for the Chinese government and was in New York when he tried to sell it again. So how is him being in New York make China a "local government"
    Call it like it is the guy stole computer code and information for the Chinese government and one of its agencies.

    1. Re:afraid to use the words. by parkinglot777 · · Score: 2

      How about he was in China at the time he was employed? He stole it for "local government" because he was not in the U.S. yet. Until May 2015, he was trying to sell the code to U.S. undercover in the U.S. Then he came to NY in December 2015 and was arrested. Everything is on TFA...

  3. Common in china by NotInHere · · Score: 3, Insightful

    this is common if you cooperate with china. They let you show how to do it and then they erect a second factory owned by the brother or the nephew or something. Ten years later you will be bought by that company.

    And China wants to get the "free market" label. ROFL at this ridiculousness. OOXML is ten times more an open standard than china is a free market.

    1. Re:Common in china by Sax+Russell+5449D29A · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Everyone operating in China is aware of this (hopefully). I've heard some funny stories how some companies are going as far as to leave intentionally broken blueprints laying around in their internal systems honeypot style.

      --
      -SR
  4. He got caught by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 2

    because he got greedy. Had he simply handed the code over to his Chinese government handler and move on, he would've been free to do this again else where. What an idiot.

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
  5. Common in capitalist society by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 2

    For some reason, the capacitor electrolyte fiasco some decade ago comes to mind...

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
  6. Re:So let's stop dealing with China. by losfromla · · Score: 2

    When we decide that jobs are important and that increasing profits for multinationals just won't work once the only jobs left are those at McDonalds and Walmart.

    --
    Only I can judge you.