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GE Engineer With Ties To China Accused of Stealing Power Plant Technology (thestreet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TheStreet: General Electric stock was little changed on Friday, August 3, as a GE engineer with ties to China who has been accused of stealing proprietary power-turbine technology has been released on bond. Xiaoqing Zheng, 56, has been in custody since Wednesday when the FBI raided his home in Niskayuna, New York, near Albany. A federal judge on Thursday set a $100,000 bond; Zheng offered his family's home as collateral and was released on Friday. He was ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device and limit his travel, according to multiple media reports.
Zheng, who is a U.S. citizen, was hired by GE in 2008 to work as a principal engineer for the company's power division, according to an affidavit by an FBI agent filed in federal court in Albany. Zheng is "suspected of taking/stealing, on multiple occasions via sophisticated means, data files from GE's laboratories that contain GE's trade secret information involving turbine technology," the FBI said in its affidavit. He also took "elaborate means" to conceal the removal of GE data files. "The primary focus of this affidavit is Zheng's action in 2018 in which he encrypted GE data files containing trade secret information, and thereafter sent the trade secret information from his GE work computer to Zheng's personal e-mail address hidden in the binary code of a digital photograph via a process known as steganography," the FBI said. "Additionally, the secondary focus of this affidavit is Zheng's actions in 2014 in which he downloaded more than 19,000 files from GE's computer network onto an external storage device, believed by GE investigators to have been a personal thumb drive."
Zheng's attorney disputed the allegations, saying Zheng "transmitted information on his own patents to himself and to no one else."
Zheng, who is a U.S. citizen, was hired by GE in 2008 to work as a principal engineer for the company's power division, according to an affidavit by an FBI agent filed in federal court in Albany. Zheng is "suspected of taking/stealing, on multiple occasions via sophisticated means, data files from GE's laboratories that contain GE's trade secret information involving turbine technology," the FBI said in its affidavit. He also took "elaborate means" to conceal the removal of GE data files. "The primary focus of this affidavit is Zheng's action in 2018 in which he encrypted GE data files containing trade secret information, and thereafter sent the trade secret information from his GE work computer to Zheng's personal e-mail address hidden in the binary code of a digital photograph via a process known as steganography," the FBI said. "Additionally, the secondary focus of this affidavit is Zheng's actions in 2014 in which he downloaded more than 19,000 files from GE's computer network onto an external storage device, believed by GE investigators to have been a personal thumb drive."
Zheng's attorney disputed the allegations, saying Zheng "transmitted information on his own patents to himself and to no one else."
China is waging an all out war on the West, stealing every bit of IP it possibly can, while militarizing the South China Sea as part of its "One belt, one road" initiative, along with its 2025 and 2050 roadmap. It's about time America started recognizing that and responded appropriately.
Blue skies, Barthy Burgers, girls...
We keep being told that GE is a has-been company that no longer has interesting tech to offer the world. Why would Chinese intelligence be so interested in such a corpse?
Zheng's attorney disputed the allegations, saying Zheng "transmitted information on his own patents to himself and to no one else."
My experience with giant corporations is that I sign away the rights to the things I invent for them as a condition of employment. "My" patents are at home, with documentation that they were all done on my own time, using my own equipment. And even that may be subject to litigation if the patents fall into the same type of things that I develop at work.
The only information he is entitled to relating to his patents are the patents themselves, as published.
https://patents.justia.com/search?q=Xiaoqing+Zheng+General+Electric
Otherwise he is running off with "work", which GE owns. And the patents are assigned to GE as a condition of his employment, so they aren't his either even if he is one of the authors.
China is waging an all out war on the West, stealing every bit of IP it possibly can, while militarizing the South China Sea as part of its "One belt, one road" initiative, along with its 2025 and 2050 roadmap. It's about time America started recognizing that and responded appropriately.
Firstly, it's not an "all out" war, that phrase is trying to use extreme rhetoric to gin up divisiveness. It's the same thing that the Russians (and others) are accused of doing in the US. An "all out" war would include military actions; in fact, a true "all out" war would include nuclear strikes.
Dial back the rhetoric into a more accurate description.
Secondly, the employee disputes the charges, and frames his explanation in a credible way. We have essentially two conflicting stories: the FBI and the employee, and we have no idea who is right.
Jumping to conclusions, in this case espionage, is unwarranted at this time. It's calling for "mob rule" based on perception of guilt or innocence, said perception being made (by the FBI, and the employee) with no standards of accuracy.
We have "innocent until proven guilty" for a reason, it's one of the basic rights, and we need to get back to those.
People keep talking about "fake news" and "divisive tribalism", and we only get that when people have an emotional reaction to something they take as un-skeptically true and rhetorically pushed to the limits of outrage.
Let the evidence be introduced and examined in the legal process, where a much higher standard of accuracy and relevance is enforced, and let a court decide.
We don't need to get all outraged and mob-like about this incident, at least not yet.
Gotta give him props for going beyond the typical password protected zip file exfiltration technique
Be Excellent To Each Other
....when do we get to start executing spies?
I'm serious. China's been blatant in their ongoing efforts to steal both US gov't and private IP.
And the world is having a hissy because a US president is telling them to knock their shenanigans off?
Maybe it's about time.
-Styopa
This is how it is done amongst real spies. The days of leaving simple encrypted files around is LONG over. Now, you have to hide that you have something of value. AQ, Talibahn, and obviously many state spies make heavy use of steganography. In general, it is hard to detect if done right and going against a weak opponent.
BUT, the fact that he DID use steganography to transmit some 12,000+ files, implies that he got help from Chinese MSS. Since he was born and raised in China, and was obviously getting Chinese gov help, chances are that he was sent here as a sleeper.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
and 12,000+ files? That was not about his patents, and that is if he has any.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
We don't know what those files are.
They could be vacation pictures for all we know. Also, that happened in 2014. Don't tell me GE waited FOUR YEARS to hand that info to the FBI.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
This was NOT sent in the clear. The files WERE encrypted and then steganography was used to try and hide sending it.
One of the WORST things that you can do, is encrypt and then send the file. That is a red flag.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
FBI caught him. He was communicating with known Chinese spies. GE did not catch him.
And yes, they know what the files are. They pulled the data out of the pictures and then decrypted it. They were data files from GE. Ones that he was not entitled to.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Actually, China isn't the only country that does this. US companies do industrial espionage too. The US government uses national security assets to conduct economic espionage against foreign targets, for example against Petrobras and Siemens.
Of course this kind of thing hurts the US more and helps it less than any other country, but that doesn't mean we don't do it when the opportunity arises. Nobody consults the Categorical Imperative or thinks about long term consequences when deciding to do this sort of thing. They simply ask, "Is this advantageous to me right now?" and if the answer is "yes", they do it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/...
The driver had been employed by Feinstein for 20 years. He also acted as a gofer in the senator’s office in San Francisco and as a liaison to the Asian-American community. In this role, he attended multiple Chinese Consulate functions on the senator’s behalf.
I store about 30K personal pictures on my work machine, the employer is OK with it. Yes the machine is within the internal network.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Source?
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Can you read?
The 2018 steganography action is different from the 2014 19K files download action. It's in TFS, no need to even leave Slashdot.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Why can't people fucking read TFS is beyond me.
DIFFERENT ACTIONS!
The download happened in 2014 and the encryption happened in 2018.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
That is you. But the FBI already pulled it apart , checked the files, and theses are GE files, not his stuff.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Big US Co's have protection of proprietary info programs. The suspect did something fishy and Co's have to show they took reasonable precautions to protect their Proprietary information or it might not be considered theft. Motorola lost an IP theft case because they were deemed not to have designated info as restricted and did not adequately restrict access. An extreme example of leaving money on your driveway, passerby picks up, hardly a case of lost or misladen but so it goes. The suspect signs confidentiality agreements and was presumably aware that encrypting and sending info against Company policy. The dude is a bad position regardless due to his suspicious actions. Spy allegations very serious, otherwise he likely loses his job and guessing goes back to his other company Or retires from that line of work.
After a four-year investigation, the FBI arrested Zheng after searching his home and finding, among other things, a handbook detailing âoeresourcesâ Beijing would grant to individuals providing certain technologies. FBI has been monitoring him for 4 years watching him hit all sorts of sensitive areas. If GE knew it 4 years ago, they never would have allowed him access to sensitive data, even if they were working with GE.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Luckily I am not American. My country, although 3rd world and with a plethora of issues, at least doesn't oppress its citizens with idiotic things.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
So Chinese aren't racist because I'm pretty sure there kids are at least half Asian too. They must also be immune.
You remain 'none-intelligent'. It's clear from the rest of your troll post who the troll is Windy.