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6 Fitbit Employees Charged With Stealing Trade Secrets From Jawbone (mercurynews.com)
Six current and former Fitbit employees were charged in a federal indictment Thursday filed in San Jose for allegedly being in possession of trade secrets stolen from competitor Jawbone, according to information from the Department of Justice. From a report: The indictment charges the six people -- Katherine Mogal, 52, of San Francisco; Rong Zhang, 45, of El Cerrito; Jing Qi Weiden, 39, of San Jose; Ana Rosario, 33, of Pacifica; Patrick Narron, 41, of Boulder Creek; and Patricio Romano, 37, of Calabasas -- with violating confidentiality agreements they had signed as former employees of Jawbone after they accepted employment with Fitbit, according to an announcement from Acting U.S. Attorney Alex G. Tse and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Ryan L. Spradlin. San Francisco-based companies Fitbit and Jawbone were competitors in making wearable fitness trackers until Jawbone, once valued at $3.2B, went out of business in 2017. Each of the defendants worked for Jawbone for at least one year between May 2011 and April 2015, and had signed a confidentiality agreement with the company, according to the Department of Justice.
it seems like it should be a contract dispute, not a federal crime. Then again it does hurt rich people...
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With those names its good to know that diversity in tech is continuing on a pleasant trend
If I could have a dollar for every time an "insightful" post on Slashdot — since the times of Napster — lectured the audience, that it is not theft, if the victim still has his copy of whatever is allegedly "stolen"...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not sure why this is illegal. it seems like it should be a contract dispute, not a federal crime.
I would expect it is because trade secrets are a form of federally recognized and protected intellectual property, as are copyrights and patents.
If Jawbone went out of business, doesn't that make all their confidentiality agreements null and void? If the agreement was with a company that no longer exists, how can anyone sue them for violating it?
One trial is not enough, apparently.
Also, when did HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) appear?
The acts in the indictment occurred in 2015.
Can one be charged with a crime after the victim is gone?
Every murder case ever says yes.
This is the relevant criminal law, on the federal side:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/us...
The definition of Trade Secret is:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/de...
I don't want my private information or any connection going to/from fitbit's server(s) or any other server.
Is it possible to use a fitbit in an air-gapped room w/o connecting to any network? Or are there alternatives which don't report back to the mother-ship?
Employees can do a couple of things to avoid a criminal (and unethical) act when they go to work for a competitor:
Before leaving, don't artificially access or store secrets that you don't already know. Especially, don't FRAUDULENTLY gain access to secrets that aren't part of your job requirements.
Don't tell your new company secrets from your old company. What is a secret? Basically, it's anything the old company makes an effort to keep confidential.
If you do reveal secrets, some people at the new company might like that, and some more insightful people may recognize that means you'll still THEIR secrets to the next company, so you can't be trusted. Sometimes it might make sense to say something like "I take my job here seriously and would never reveal our secrets to a competitor. It wouldn't be right for me to break confidentiality of my former employer, just like I'd never violate your trust."
For myself, I like to learn new things, expanding my knowledge and experience with each job. For that reason, I'm unlikely to ever go work for a direct competitor. Instead, I'll move from working on the security of Rackspace's network to a new job working on making sure the F-35 doesn't get hacked. I'll expand my knowledge, and since it's not a direct competitor, trade secrets from my old job won't be much of an issue.
imagine having to steal another company's secrets and commit crimes just to make THAT
If this case succeeds, it will cause serious problems, because people quit and go work for competitors all the time And when they do, they know things like business plans, financials, etc. So this will essentially mean it's impossible to go work for a competitor. Not good.
Working for a competitor is not a problem, you still have an advantage. General public knowledge, improved general skills, etc will still make you a better job candidate. There is no cause for hysteria, this has been worked out in the legal system for decades now. Just do not mention information that the company hides from public view. Anything learned from public sources is OK to use, but cite those public sources to cover your ass. You being a better programmer for a lower power embedded environment is fine, being familiar with the chips and components involved, having studied public materials on low power and embedded is fine, just stay away from things like proprietary undisclosed power management algorithms. Again, citing a book or article in a source code comment is a good cover your ass move.
Have you never seen the FBI Warning at the beginning of every DVD or VHS? The FBI is part of DOJ.
There are both civil and criminal copyright statues, very much like you can sue someone for taking your money in order to try to get some of it back, and the government can prosecute theft criminally. Just this week in the news a major star was suing their manager for allegedly stealing the celebrity's money. That civil suit, to recover the money, doesn't bar criminal prosecution if in fact a crime was committed.
Most copyright cases can be adequately handled by a civil case, and the FBI doesn't spend their resources on it if a civil suit will do instead. The FBI can and does criminally prosecute when the criminal activity justifies prosecution based on:
The scale and seriousness of the offense(s)
Criminal history of the offender(s)
Culpability of each offender
Availability of civil remedies
Likely outcome of the case
Whether the offender has simply ignored prior civil judgements
Other factors specific to each case
Page 7 of this document has an article for FBI agents on this topic:
https://www.justice.gov/usao/f...
Cruelly, the bribe flow into the Clinton charity went to 0 right when she has time for it. It's almost looks like she was selling influence, but we all know that's unpossible.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
This is not murder. WTF
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
The company is dead. It was murdered.
n/t
Why is this even an issue much less a civil or criminal one? Neither device successfully does what it claims to, so what actual damages are being done?
I just don't understand why we protect them with criminal liability. I guess the argument could be made they're property and it's theft. But you're not depriving someone of something physical. We do prosecute copyright though, but just because we do doesn't mean we should. Any more than we should prosecute smoking Pot.
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This happens to be roughly the same distinction as the one between murder and attempted murder.
An industrious 12-year-old with a nickel-a-week allowance can easily "steal" $500,000 in a year, as the aggrieved prefer to frame it. And then they try to collect on the counterfactual $500,000, just to keep it real.
Actual outcomes:
(A) Minor engages in data hoarding hobby — minor deflection of revenue opportunity curve.
(B) White collar professional "boosts" his copy of AutoCAD or Final Cut Pro — non-trivial deflection of revenue opportunity curve.
(C) Bootlegger uploads a protection-neutered AutoCAD or FCP to a darknet warez server — potentially a substantial deflection of revenue opportunity curve.
Here's the thing. You can have any deterrent you want, so long as the colour is black. This is why the theft is theft is theft crowd is so quick to postulate 12-year-olds with $500,000 endowment accounts using magic bean, counterfactual arithmetic.
Case (C) degenerates in case (B), where the actual willingness-to-pay resides. However, it also decreases the opportunity cost for (B) to engage in skinflint behaviour, and since middlemen are a pox on humanity anyway—ask Bezos—this group gets the biggest boot up their ass, at the end of the day, once identified and apprehended (if ever).
Looking past the black-only theft is theft is theft deterrence field, all the losses in simple copyright IP theft are counterfactual in nature. Loss of life is not counterfactual. Loss of your car is not counterfactual.
Anyone determined to pack counterfactual theft and non-counterfactual theft into the same word is doomed never to think clearly ever again. Anyone determined to segregate these two cases 100% is also doomed never to think clearly ever again.
Now, if some 12-year-old Ferris Bueller trashes your tricked-out 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder, what you have is a factual $10 million hole (after applying a 33% hyperbole deflation field).
Ferrari identical to model driven in hit film 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' expected to sell for $15.1 million
And once again we're right back at some giant number you can't feasibly collect, so what's the different, anyway? Answer, for the straight thinkers: one sad Ferrari corpse, made of actual metal and paint.
You don't get a $15 million car without an extremely rigid supply and demand curve.
For our 12-year-old data hoarder (with the putative $500,000 hoard), if you increase his direct marginal cost by $10 hard cash, he could well have a different hobby by tomorrow afternoon. How's that for a featherweight demand curve, floating along a passing breeze?
Lump or split, lump or split?
God, isn't it just such a tough call.
Love how Fitbit claims ignorance, when the employment of this people were probably based on the fact that they had access to the documents.
If only one person had the documents in his own personal laptop, they could just claim ignorance. But the fact that 6 former employees of Jawbone had the PROPRIETARY documents stored in the company's assets (computers) means that management knew about it and that their employment was more than likely because they could provide them with STOLEN documents .... documents that included designs and trade secrets that Fitbit more than likely used to develop new products.
> We do prosecute copyright though, but just because we do doesn't mean we should.
I find it interesting you said "prosecute", rather than saying it shouldn't be a crime. I would say that we should prosecute large-scale criminal activity, especially criminal enterprises - crime for money. If you think it should be perfectly illegal to run a company ripping off other people's work, say that. It doesn't make sense to say "it's a crime, well not really, it's never prosecuted".
> Any more than we should prosecute smoking Pot.
The more accurate analogy would be a pot farm, or large smuggling operation. They don't prosecute small-scale copyright infringement where nobody is even selling anything. As mentioned in my post, considerations for prosecution include:
Size and scale of the operation
Financial aspects (are they doing millions of dollars in unlawful sales)
Criminal history of the offender
Culpability of each offender
Nope, as I said, we're talking about trade secrets.
I provided the link to the definition.
Did your old company teach you how to read?
Just for fun, I'm going to make a guess - you went to public school in California or Washington state, didn't you?
Once again the government is breaking the law. As usual. As happens every day. Getting real tired of that.
Under the highest law of the land, Congress can pass NO law infringing freedom of speech or the press. No law means no law. It does not mean one law, two laws, three laws, or an arbitrary number of laws.
Hence, Congress can not make it a crime to exercise one's freedom of speech, which naturally includes speaking about trade secrets - or publishing them, including copying files. It can not authorize federal prosecution. It can not authorize the federal courts to hear cases on this issue - and it is a violation of the Constitutional "good behaviour" requirement for ANY federal court to take an action to the contrary.
It's a simple and easy to understand limitation on government, in the highest law of the land. There is no excuse for ignorance on the part of government officials here.
The Nuremberg Precedent is applicable under the 9th Amendment: government officials are supposed to refuse to enforce illegal laws, regardless of what their superiors say. This is an individual responsibility. No court can authorize the government to violate the Bill of Rights - not even the Supreme Court.
It is the contradiction in the law for the government to be prohibited from passing ANY law infringing freedom of speech or the press, and then to pass and enforce laws that do exactly that. Contradictions in the law ALWAYS come down to unethical practice of law, and thus violate the universal and inalienable right - in any society based on the rule of law - to ethical practice of law. The prosecutors here are violating their oaths to uphold the law, engaging in unethical practice of law, and engaging in a criminal offence under US federal law by the infringement of fundamental rights "under the colour of law".
If the federal government needs the legal authority to infringe freedom of speech in some cases - it's not clear that they do need that authority - they can amend the Constitution as needed (subject to any limitations on the Amendment process that might arise under the 9th or 10th Amendments, rights retained by the people certainly include rights limiting the Amendment process). There's simply no reason to pass or enforce illegal laws - and no competent government with integrity would do that. A government that engages in criminal conduct has NO legal authority. When it fines people, that's armed robbery. When it arrests them or puts them in jail, that's kidnapping. If somebody dies along the way, that's murder.
It's not clear that having trade secret laws is in the interests of society. Arguments could be made either way. Certainly it's sufficiently unclear that it should be made a matter of popular vote, and not legislative action. In any event, under the law as written, the federal government can not do this - only the state governments can (the First Amendment places an explicit limit on Congress - only the state governments can pass trade secret laws).
Jawbone is out of business and amazon is still selling the jawbone units. Jawbone.com site is no longer online.
Sad really. The jawbone app & interface was way better than fitbit's.