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Second China-Bound Apple Car Worker Charged With Data Theft (bloomberg.com)
schwit1 shares a report from Bloomberg: An Apple hardware engineer was charged by the U.S. with stealing the iPhone maker's driverless car secrets for a China-based company, the second such case since July amid an unprecedented crackdown by the Trump administration on Chinese corporate espionage. Jizhong Chen was seen by a fellow Apple employee taking photographs Jan. 11 with a wide-angle lens inside a secure work space that houses the company's autonomous car project, about six months after he signed a strict confidentiality oath when he was hired, according to a criminal complaint in federal court in San Jose, California. Prosecutors said Chen admitted to taking the photos and backing up some 2,000 files to his personal hard drive, including manuals and schematics for the project, but didn't tell Apple he had applied for a job with a China-based autonomous vehicle company.
Is the use of the FBI as a private police force for Corporate America on civil matters.
Corporate espionage is a federal crime.
Economic Espionage Act of 1996
Chinese engineers working for American companies in their China office have been stealing trade secrets for years. There was a famous case about 10 years ago where a large network equipment manufacturer based in the Silicon Valley had their entire CVS and Subversion repository stolen. How they found out was the American company had put an Easter Egg in the code and when they poked the software running the network switched made by a Chinese company the software printed out "Copyright "
Which was the name of the American company.
This shit has been going on for years and no one seems to want to do anything about it. The top management only see the size of the Chinese market and, really, the management is only there to collect their stock grants and then they are off to the next sucker^h^h^h^h^h company.
Another day closer to redwood heaven
The underlying problem is not solved though, professional Chinese workers are looking to leave the USA and return to China, that is a real problem for the US, it seems they a loosing skilled workers. Obviously this guy was looking to feather his nest on the way out and gain some information to sell.
Make no mistake though this is a corrupt corporate law, it should only be a civil matter because virtually anything under that law could be claimed as a crime with a ten year prison sentence.
(a) Whoever, with intent to convert a trade secret, that is related to or included in a product that is produced for or placed in interstate or foreign commerce, to the economic benefit of anyone other than the owner thereof, and intending or knowing that the offense will, injure any owner of that trade secret, knowingly-- ``(1) steals, or without authorization appropriates, takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud, artifice, or deception obtains such information; ``(2) without authorization copies, duplicates, sketches, draws, photographs, downloads, uploads, alters, destroys, photocopies, replicates, transmits, delivers, sends, mails, communicates, or conveys such information; ``(3) receives, buys, or possesses such information, knowing the same to have been stolen or appropriated, obtained, or converted without authorization; ``(4) attempts to commit any offense described in paragraphs (1) through (3); or ``(5) conspires with one or more other persons to commit any offense described in paragraphs (1) through (3), and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy,
This shit is wildly dangerous, any corporation could make a claim about any employee altering anything without written authorisation. A law written by corporations, for corporations and against the people. Pretty much any US corporation could prosecute any of it's employees at any time under this act for nearly anything related to anything claimed to be a secret that the employee does not have written authorisation to touch. Pretty much every US employee, should demand every instruction be in writing and only carry out those acts as specified in writing.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Sorry, if someone steals dual use tech that has military applications then you best believe it's more than a civil matter.
There is a tie to current Trump China policy which actually makes this somewhat relevant. Part of the tariffs and current trade negotiations which many like to proclaim are a waste (due to Trump Derangement Syndrome) deal specifically with technology theft. This is a clear example of one of the things the current administration is trying to get China to stop doing and crack down on companies that engage in it. So, while this is a story about Apple, it is also a story about current trade negotiations and more wide spread problems.
Make no mistake though this is a corrupt corporate law, it should only be a civil matter because virtually anything under that law could be claimed as a crime with a ten year prison sentence.
If an employee steals a physical item, like a computer, it should obviously be a criminal act, no different than stealing a physical item from a private home. Why should the penalty be less serious for corporate intellectual property that has a higher value and the theft of which more seriously impacts a company?
Yes, there are many US laws that are overly general in their descriptions of crimes. The only reason the US legal system seems to work is that in most cases, the prosecution and adjudication of those alleged crimes is carried out with some measure of common sense, i.e., in a way that most people would agree is reasonable.
Most of what you claim is true, for the wrong reasons. Most Chinese nationals aren’t moving back out of choice and are merely looking to cash in with intellectual property. It was a prerequisite to be able to come here in the first place. They still have family under the thumb of the PRC. Make no mistake, they are not free to do what they want over here. They still answer to the PRC.
In my opinion, any corporation that engages in any government contract should be prevented from hiring any foreign national under any circumstance at this restriction should also extend to their subcontractors as well. If your Company has a government contract didn’t even the people washing dishes in the cafeteria need to be a US citizen without exception.
For those without government contracts, I agree that the government should not cherry pick which companies get protected. I have the same complaint about the ads that they show before movie. Why is it that if I film a movie in the theater I face jail time, but if somebody blatantly steals my code and start selling it on eBay their worst penalty is a civil lawsuit? Could it possibly be that Hollywood always hosts very high dollar, per plate, fundraising events for Democrat politicians?
This is mostly untrue. Chinese nationals have no trouble getting passports or leaving the country. Of course I'm sure the government targets a few individuals, just like the western ones do, but there is no mass amateur spy programm as some people seem to think.
Every student coming over here has been indoctrinated to put china first. The idea that china is the center of the universe is fully ingrained in the culture. The characters that mean China literally translate to middle kingdom or central kingdom. Its represented as a square with a line going right through the middle of it. If you think America-First is an offensive concept and that the word Nationalism is a dirty word like Fascism, then you should really really really hate China. What they have redefines the term Nationalism to such an extreme that no word really fits. The Chinese that do come here to live permanently do not speak ill of China if there is even a single other Chinese person around them. I once had a Taiji instructor who would never say anything negative about China unless he was certain no other Chinese person could hear and word did not get back. He was allowed to work here as a teacher, but his wife and kids were required to stay in China as 'insurance'. Then suddenly, and unexpectedly he announced he was moving to 'Florida'. We could tell he wasn't really moving to Florida. We suspect possibly Canada or Alaska. We don't know if he managed to somehow secure safety for his family or what. The PRC meddles, all the time. They meddle in shit you would wonder who the fuck would even care.
Unhappy with just 5 recognized major 'styles' of Taiji ( Chen, Yang, Wu, Wu-Hao, and Sun), during the 2014 International Taiji Symposium (held in the USA btw) the PRC pushed and inserted another 'Grand Master' of Her-style onto the community. The other 5 families were fearful of the government 'diplomat' sent to oversee the Symposium and his government shills sent with him. The first 3 days these same people we see and talk to nearly daily were so stiff and tight lipped you could have fed them coal and they'da shit diamonds. This new Her-style?.... looks EXACTLY like Chen, the guy's dad studied Chen. They literally live in Chenjiago (Chen Village). To everyone else in the world who gives 2 shits about Taiji, its Chen-style. There is nothing political to be gained. We're taking about a martial art that, while one of the largest practiced martial arts in the world, so few can actually practice it martially its not relevant. But the PRC dislikes ANYTHING they cannot control. 'Eddie' Wu Kwong Yu was named Grand Master and the lineage holder by his uncle Wu Tai Sin, lived in Canada and not in China, so the PRC 'decided' that Ma Hai-Long was to be the Grand Master of the Wu Style despite the family association's appointment. Ma Hai-Long wasn't a Wu, he was merely married to a Wu (the families have been friends for generations so there is a lot of intermarrying). Don't get me wrong, I like Ma Hai-Long, he is a great guy. He would be the first to tell you (away from chinese ears) that he is not the true lineage holder. Now that Eddie has moved back to China and has somehow made nice with the PRC, he is starting to show up more and be recognized as the lineage holder. Are there any nuclear secrets to be learned from this meddling? No, they are a meddlesome people and simply cannot help themselves.
Hell they fucking decided they were going to pick the next Dalai Lama. Are you a Buddhist? Do you care who the next Dali Lama is? The PRC is decisively atheist, so they really should not give 2 shits about Tibet or its spiritual leader, nor should they even think that by picking someone they can control, the Tibetan Buddhists will recognize their hand-picked shill as the Dali Lama. Its born from pure arrogance and a level of meddling they simply cannot help themselves from doing.
So do I believe ANY Chinese national who is in a position to commit corporate espionage in order for China to maintain or gain superiority in fiel
In general, what you take with you in your head is fine. It doesn't matter what it is, it's not considered theft if you memorized your client list or other secret data and take it all in your head.
If however you take files or documents with you as a physical document, or on an electronic storage device, that is considered theft. And it should be obvious that the difference is simply evidence - if you take it in your head, there's no evidence. If you take it with you, there's plenty of evidence.
Here, the guy was caught with around 2500 documents on his laptop copied from Apple's internal servers. That's considered theft.