Tesla has sued an employee it accuses of illegally transferring company data to outsiders:
According to the civil complaint that was filed in federal court in Nevada, Tesla accused Martin Tripp, who began working in Sparks as a "process technician" in October 2017, of exporting company data:
Tesla has only begun to understand the full scope of Tripp's illegal activity, but he has thus far admitted to writing software that hacked Tesla's manufacturing operating system ("MOS") and to transferring several gigabytes of Tesla data to outside entities. This includes dozens of confidential photographs and a video of Tesla's manufacturing systems.
Beyond the misconduct to which Tripp admitted, he also wrote computer code to periodically export Tesla's data off its network and into the hands of third parties. His hacking software was operating on three separate computer systems of other individuals at Tesla so that the data would be exported even after he left the company and so that those individuals would be falsely implicated as guilty parties.
In a supposed email exchange with CEO Elon Musk after the lawsuit was filed on Wednesday, the employee and Musk traded barbs. The employee claims to be a whistleblower bringing attention to battery, safety, and waste issues.
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Tesla whistleblower's lawyer: My client may have been effectively swatted
A lawyer representing Martin Tripp has released a 10-page police report that he says raises new questions concerning a purported June 20 shooting threat to the Tesla Gigafactory near Reno, Nevada, where the technician worked until he was fired on June 15. The document was first reported by Bloomberg. A month ago, Tesla sued Tripp for alleged trade secrets violations, and he has recently countersued, claiming that he has been defamed.
The report shows that a call expressing vague concern over what Tripp apparently might do was somehow translated to law enforcement as a direct violent attack against the Nevada facility.
"How did it go from the call center to a very serious terrorist threat?" Stuart Meissner, one of Tripp's attorneys, told Ars late Wednesday evening. "I think that's a question that Tesla is going to have to answer in this litigation," Will Fischbach, another one of Tripp's lawyers, told Ars. Meissner, who obtained the report from the Storey County Sheriff's Office under a state public records request, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that Tripp may have even been set up.
I present the "GigaGate" Police Reports Re the Tesla Giga Factory Terrorist Threat Incident & what may turn out to B the "SWATing" of our client.
We have asked to reopen the investigation as to the source of the reported "threat." Judge for yourself https://t.co/SYKpcQfjcl
Previously: Musk Alleges Tesla Model 3 Production Has Been Sabotaged, According To CNBC
Tesla Sues Former Employee it Accuses of Sabotage
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 22 2018, @04:52PM (5 children)
If the dude wants to be a whistleblower, he better come up with something worth blowing a whistle. Excessive waste? Whoop-ti-do. Companies produce waste. With time and experience, waste may be reduced, but there will always be waste. Faulty batteries in production cars? Needs proof. Dummy put himself between a rock and a hard spot, unless he has something important. And, he's also made himself very nearly unemployable. Habeus corpus, Mr. Tripp. No bodies? Yours will do nicely.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Friday June 22 2018, @04:54PM (2 children)
Thats assuming he is now unemployed and not just working for his actual employer.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday June 22 2018, @05:10PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 22 2018, @05:30PM
Even if he some how escapes major punishment, the fact that he confessed in writing ( Page 2, point 14 of linked complaint-) works against him working in this field again. That doesn't make him unemployable. California needs fruit pickers, and lawn boys.
Will anyone trust him with a company keyboard again? No rational person would, but there are places who don't always check references. Its easy to get a new identity in the US. I expect Tesla will have to scan every system and every router for back doors he may have implanted.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @06:35PM
But but but incels! He was fighting against incel and he-man woman hater Elon Musk! He sits on couches! How much more evidence do you need of misogyny and rape and incel... ness?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @10:01PM
It's always whistleblowing.
This is my car analogy come to life. I used to explain the explain the Snowden issue with the example of a person "whistleblowing" at a car company! It was Ford though, not Tesla. Maybe it should have been Volkswagen.
So, suppose your employer seems to be cheating on diesel emissions or electric car credits or whatever. You raise the issue at work. Most people disagree that the actions are illegal, and the rest don't want to rock the boat. You decide to get revenge, claiming to be a whistleblower. You dump everything on the internet. You go far beyond the issue at hand. You dump out the financials, the CAD files for future cars, the plans for negotiating with the union, the employee data related to disability accommodations, salaries, VPN logins, web site private certificates, emails of employees sleeping with each other, social security numbers, and much more. You don't even know what it all is. Torrent away! It's totally OK because your personal opinion (which, though correct, hasn't been proven in court) is that something crossed the line. You're a whistleblower. That make you a hero. Nobody can question how much of a hero you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @05:07PM (3 children)
all of their information to encourage the electric car industry.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Friday June 22 2018, @05:17PM (1 child)
They gave away many of their patents, but not their manufacturing processes
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @06:01PM
Going from what my friends in the car industry tell me (based in Japan), that is basically the whole industry. Designing a new car is almost insignificant compared with building a factory to manufacture a million of them a year is the hard part. Patents are easy to circumvent, so it would seem that if he was truly interested in seeing the electric market take off, sharing the manufacturing process is what he would be doing.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 22 2018, @06:36PM
Tesla battery patents further proof of Elon Musk’s duplicitous views on patents [ipwatchdog.com]
Not all of it. Some of it, maybe.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday June 22 2018, @05:20PM (7 children)
Seems like there's a lot of conflating of sabotage and espionage going on - stealing data is in no way sabotage, it doesn't directly interfere with operations in any way, it just gives competitors an extra edge. So was there *actual* sabotage performed, or is it all hyperbole?
As for his counterclaim to be a whistleblower - where's the whistle? Had he just not gotten around to blowing it yet? I would think an initial assessment could be made from the sort of data he extracted - is it focused on the problems he claims he wanted to expose, or on the sort of juicy technical and business details that would be valuable to a competitor?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 22 2018, @05:40PM (6 children)
Maybe you could click the second link in the story and read the complaint? (I know, who does that, right?)
Several of his acts meet the legal definition of sabotage. [uslegal.com]
Theft of data, plans, trade secrets not only gives a competitor an edge, it also removes an edge held by the victim, which has real and monetary consequences.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @07:07PM (2 children)
Depends on if he gave (or planned to give) the copied data to a competitor or a journalist.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday June 22 2018, @07:32PM (1 child)
Why does it depend on that?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @08:36PM
Because giving information to a journalist could be whistle blowing. Giving information to competitors could not.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday June 22 2018, @08:10PM (1 child)
So the law has redefined sabotage to include espionage. Sad, but legal definitions of terms frequently depart from their common meanings.
And no - stealing plans does NOT remove the companies edge - *destroying* those plans, so they had to be recreated from scratch (or at least memory), would do that. Making copies does not directly affect the victim in any way, it only means they now have to compete with others that have the same edge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 23 2018, @06:33AM
If a company A is planning to bid for something expensive, and a competing bidder B gets a copy of A's strategy due to internal spying, that spy did sabotage A's bid.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday June 23 2018, @12:05AM
I've also read allegation that he planted malware in company computers. That sounds like sabotage to me. (Various other things also, but sabotage is the one I personally take seriously.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 22 2018, @07:04PM
I would expect the government to come on this "employee" like white on rice and deck him out with criminal charges.