Tesla Sues Former Employees For Allegedly Stealing Data, Autopilot Source Code (reuters.com)

Tesla is suing a former engineer at the company, claiming he copied the source code for its Autopilot technology before joining a Chinese self-driving car startup in January. Reuters reports: The engineer, Guangzhi Cao, copied more than 300,000 files related to Autopilot source code as he prepared to join China's Xiaopeng Motors Technology Company Ltd, the Silicon Valley carmaker said in the lawsuit filed in a California court. Separately, Tesla lawyers on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against four former employees and U.S. self-driving car startup Zoox Inc, alleging the employees stole proprietary information and trade secrets for developing warehousing, logistics and inventory control operations. The Verge reported on the lawsuit filed against Cao: Tesla says that last year, Cao started uploading "complete copies of Tesla's Autopilot-related source code" to his iCloud account. The company claims he ultimately moved more than 300,000 files and directories related to Autopilot. After accepting a job with XPeng at the end of last year, Tesla says Cao deleted 120,000 files off his work computer and disconnected his personal iCloud account, and then "repeatedly logged into Tesla's secure networks" to clear his browser history before his last day with the company. Tesla also claims Cao recruited another Autopilot employee to XPeng in February. Tesla claims that it gives XPeng "unfettered access" to Autopilot: "Absent immediate relief, Tesla believes Cao and his new employer, [XPeng], will continue to have unfettered access to Tesla's marquee technology, the product of more than five years' work and over hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, which they have no legal right to possess," the company's lawyers write.

Comments

Only demonstrates their own systemic problems.

[BlueCoder]

He could have simply been taking his work home with him... could have. That he could do such a thing shows their poor security and ability to protect their own supposed trade secrets. He did it for over a year and not just before he left the company. He could have understood it was "officially" forbidden but in practice it was not enforced which is proven by how he did it for over a year before he left the company. Theoretically he could have simply been covering up frowned upon ways he cut corners that he used in order to perform in his job better. Not sure I believe it but it is easily plausible. Based on this he shouldn't be sued now.

As far as the company that hired him... I wouldn't want to touch him if I intended to ever sell my cars in the western society; since it should be trivial to compel the company into an independent code review. Either for direct copyright infringement or code or against patents.

P.S. On a tangent... I think all software sold in all markets for all commercial products should have it's source code be forced to be confidentially registered. Makes it easier to catch cheaters. So companies can't go out of business or claim a fire ate their homework. Would also make it easier to do automated code comparisons.

Re: Only demonstrates their own systemic problems.

[quenda]

Because in the US he could sue them for discrimination AND WIN.

I see. Google tells me that "national origin" is a protected class in US federal employment discrimination law. Also citizenship status.
This seems foolish.
Is there really no exception for bona fide security concerns outside military contractors?

You can be quite sure the Chinese would not allow westerners anywhere near their corporate secrets.

Re:Only demonstrates their own systemic problems.

[rtb61]

There is a reason to employ the individual, get that data, there is a reason to fire the individual, well they copied proprietary secrets from the previous company, after we have that data, why should we continue to trust them, they are very likely to do the same to us.

Re: Only demonstrates their own systemic problems.

[AmiMoJo]

Blocking people from jobs because of where they were born or their heritage is taking us right back to the 1930s.

As it happens Chinese companies do allow westerners near their secrets. Plenty of jobs for foreign engineers over there. They are also getting into open source, e.g. Creality has open sourced both the software and hardware for its very popular range of 3D printers.

Re: Only demonstrates their own systemic problems.

[jittles]

Because in the US he could sue them for discrimination AND WIN.

I see. Google tells me that "national origin" is a protected class in US federal employment discrimination law. Also citizenship status. This seems foolish. Is there really no exception for bona fide security concerns outside military contractors?

You can be quite sure the Chinese would not allow westerners anywhere near their corporate secrets.

You have no idea how absurd it is. I used to do work for the DoD that required US Citizenship. Was I allowed to ask people in an interview if they were US citizens? Nope. It was illegal. Never mind that the type of work we did required citizenship by law. We would have to find clever ways to determine if they were citizens. This is why most of those DoD jobs require active clearances to already be in the possession of the applicant.

To be clear, I don't really care where someone is from and it would not usually factor into my decision on whether or not to hire them. In that particular case, I had no choice but to hire US citizens, though. Anyone else I hired wouldn't have been allowed in our building. AT least, that particular building we were working out of.

Wonderful!

[fozzy1015]

Now Chinese cars can drive you into barriers and the back of fire trucks. At least this one found the hole: https://www.zerohedge.com/news...

Re:Chinese engineers stealing trade secrets???

[junglee_iitk]

Man H1B really messed up the "intellect". Indians steal code from The West?

Don't know if you lost a job to an Indian, but you are exactly the type of person who should.