Slashdot Mirror
Ex-IBM Employee Guilty of Stealing Secrets For China (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
A former developer for IBM pled guilty on Friday to economic espionage and to stealing trade secrets related to a type of software known as a clustered file system, which IBM sells to customers around the world. Xu Jiaqiang stole the secrets during his stint at IBM from 2010 to 2014 "to benefit the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China," according to the U.S. Justice Department. In a press release describing the criminal charges, the Justice Department also stated that Xu tried to sell secret IBM source code to undercover FBI agents posing as tech investors. (The agency does not explain if Xu's scheme to sell to tech investors was to benefit China or to line his own pockets).
Part of the sting involved Xu demonstrating the stolen software, which speeds computer performance by distributing works across multiple servers, on a sample network. The former employee acknowledged that others would know the software had been taken from IBM, but said he could create extra computer scripts to help mask its origins.
At one point 31-year-old Xu even showed undercover FBI agents the part of the source code that identified it as coming from IBM "as well as the date on which it had been copyrighted."
Part of the sting involved Xu demonstrating the stolen software, which speeds computer performance by distributing works across multiple servers, on a sample network. The former employee acknowledged that others would know the software had been taken from IBM, but said he could create extra computer scripts to help mask its origins.
At one point 31-year-old Xu even showed undercover FBI agents the part of the source code that identified it as coming from IBM "as well as the date on which it had been copyrighted."
When it comes to those things, the USA is also way behind the rest of the civilised world. Parts of US cities, e.g. Detroit are basically abandoned, over 10 years after Katrina things are still not rebuilt. US "voter registration" laws in different states are there to block peoples right to vote. What you call corruption, others call "lobbying". Many schools are run down in the USA, and need armed guards to try and make them safe, and you still have school shootings. You have the highest prison population in the world (per 100,000) by a large margin Workers rights are not great in the USA compared to other countries. Your serious crime, murder, rape rates are higher than other 1st world countries. The USA, when compared to the rest of the 1st world does not fare that well at all.