Slashdot Mirror
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
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?