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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday August 06 2020, @03:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the doing-time dept.

Ex-Googler Levandowski gets 18 months in prison for trade-secret theft:

Ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski yesterday was sentenced to 18 months in prison following his March guilty plea for stealing a confidential document related to Google's self-driving technology.

Levandowski's lawyers last week asked a judge in US District Court for the Northern District of California to let him off without any prison time, arguing that a year of home confinement, a fine, restitution, and community service would be sufficient punishment. The federal government asked for a 27-month prison sentence.

While handing down the 18-month sentence, US District Judge William Alsup said that a sentence without imprisonment would give "a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets," according to a Reuters report. Levandowski was originally charged with 33 counts of stealing trade secrets by downloading thousands of documents to his personal laptop in December 2015 shortly before he left Google to work on his startup, Otto, which was acquired by Uber for a reported $680 million in August 2016. In a plea deal, Levandowksi admitted to stealing one document called "Chauffeur TL weekly updates," which tracked the progress of Google's "Project Chauffeur" that later became Waymo. Prosecutors dropped the other charges.

Levandowski won't have to serve the sentence right away, as Alsup ruled that he can go to prison after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, according to Reuters and other news outlets.

Levandowski also must pay $756K to Waymo


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:02PM (13 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:02PM (#1032291)

    $680 million for 18 months in prison, where do I sign up?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:21PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:21PM (#1032307)

    He pleaded guilty of stealing 1 document. That document called "Chauffeur TL weekly updates" is basically useless for an engineer, and I don't think he got paid for that 1 document.

    The whole thing smells like Google got angry for not paying enough to an engineer and went after him for risking their dominion. This document is all that stuck.

    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:34PM (1 child)

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:34PM (#1032320) Journal
      They could have gone after him for everything he stole, but conviction on one charge is enough to go after the recipients. It contaminated everything that the recipients received.
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      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:39PM

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:39PM (#1032325) Journal
        Also, you leave a job, you leave with clean hands. The repercussions of doing otherwise don't just affect you, but your new coworkers and your new employer. Don't steal it - recreate it smaller and better.
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  • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:30PM (9 children)

    by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @04:30PM (#1032319) Journal
    There's nothing to stop Alphabet from suing his bank account back into the pine cones and beads age. All that evidence from the criminal trial … the chance to bankrupt him with legal fees in civil trials …

    It's like stealing GPL code. Most of the stuff you need for creating software is LGPL or ClassPath permissive licenced - only someone who lacks creativity (a moron or just lazy) needs to steal GPL code. So why not use the permissively licensed stuff and you can do whatever you want with it. Including only having to redistribute the LGPL or ClassPath libraries you used, keeping your special sauce code closed.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:07PM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:07PM (#1032334)

      First of all it's not stealing. It's infringement.

      Secondly the alleged damages are mostly exaggerated.

      • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:14PM (7 children)

        by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @05:14PM (#1032340) Journal
        He STOLE the documents. As in made copies and walked them out the door and over to Uber. Uber using them would be infringement.
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        • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:13PM (6 children)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:13PM (#1032377)

          Not familiar, but did he really make copies of documents and physically walk out the door with them?

          More likely, given today's work patterns, he copied the documents out of Google's servers via VPN into his home computer - where they legally resided until he terminated employment, then when he started working with Uber he shared them back via network to his new coworkers.

          His "theft" would then have amounted to not having scrubbed his home drives after termination and of course sharing sensitive bits therein later.

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          • (Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:18PM (5 children)

            by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:18PM (#1032380) Journal
            He made copies at work onto a USB drive. He walked that USB drive to Uber. He was too stupid to realize that work computers leave evidence behind, as do server logs. When you walk out with data that isn't yours, it's theft. Uber, if they used it, is receiving stolen goods .
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            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:23PM (3 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:23PM (#1032382)

              a *copy* is not *theft*.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:38PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:38PM (#1032399)

                It's rather dishonest to conflate the two.

              • (Score: 3, Informative) by barbara hudson on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:44PM (1 child)

                by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:44PM (#1032405) Journal
                We're not talking copyright violation. Stop conflating that with actual theft of trade secrets, which is criminal.

                Next you'll be arguing that the Canadian Navy guy who was found guilty of passing secrets to foreign powers should have only been found guilty of copyright infringement and not theft of government secrets.

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                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:15PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 06 2020, @10:15PM (#1032533)

                  Without knowing what case you are blathering about, I'd bet that he was actually found guilty of espionage.

            • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:58PM

              by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday August 06 2020, @06:58PM (#1032418)

              So, it sounds like these were documents he didn't require access to as part of his normal work duties.

              Doesn't matter, really, once you've triggered the corporate lawyers and they think you are a target worth destroying, they're coming for you no matter what.

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