from the seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time dept.
A second Apple employee was charged with stealing self-driving car project secrets
The Federal Bureau of Investigation accused an Apple employee, who is a Chinese citizen, of attempting to steal trade secrets related to the company's autonomous car project, according to a charging document that was unsealed on Wednesday. It's the second time the FBI has charged an Apple employee for trying to steal intellectual property related to the project in the last seven months. The news was first reported by NBC's Bay Area affiliate.
The new charge comes at a time of high tension between the United States and China. The two countries are locked in a trade war, and various US government agencies have accused China of engaging in multiple schemes — some dating back decades — to steal intellectual property from leading technology companies.
Jizhong Chen, a Chinese national, was charged with theft of trade secrets based on actions that allegedly date back to when he was hired last summer as a hardware developer. He was one of 5,000 Apple employees who was looped in on the company's self-driving car effort, known as "Project Titan," which has been operating in secret for years. (The company also recently laid off about 200 employees from the project.) Furthermore, he was also one of 1,200 "core" employees who directly work on the project. Chen was on the electrical engineering team, according to the charging document.
Previously: Apple Engineer Accused of Downloading Driverless Car Trade Secrets for Chinese Company
Related Stories
Ex-Apple Employee Stole Secrets for Chinese Firm, U.S. Says
A former Apple Inc. engineer was arrested on charges of stealing driverless car secrets for a Chinese startup after he passed through the security checkpoint at San Jose International Airport to board a flight to China.
Xiaolang Zhang was accused by U.S. prosecutors of downloading files containing proprietary information as he prepared to leave the iPhone maker in April and start work for Guangzhou-based Xiaopeng Motors. according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in federal court in San Jose, California.
A hardware engineer for Apple's autonomous vehicle development team, Zhang was granted access to confidential company databases, according to the complaint. After he took paternity leave he told Apple in April he was moving back to China to work at Xmotors. Apple grew more suspicious after seeing his increased network activity and visits to the office before he resigned, according to the complaint.
Zhang admitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he downloaded Apple driverless technology files to his wife's laptop to have continued access to them, according to the complaint. He was arrested July 7.
Also at MacRumors.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:25PM (3 children)
I see that we're finally reaping the benefits of all this diversity the tech companies are bringing in from overseas. This is only the tip of the iceberg, the U.S. government and Lockheed-Martin will give native-born Americans a huge ration of shit for having smoked a joint within the last year, but they'll be more than happy to hire naturalized Chinks who spend almost their whole lives in China by the boatload and then scratch their heads wondering how China got all of our stealth secrets.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:38PM (2 children)
In most cases, companies are prohibited by law from discriminating based on national origin. WTF, that is exactly backwards.
I'm at a similar large defense contractor. We get to do slightly better at my local office, because of clearances. We can state that citizenship is a job requirement. Oddly, we are prohibited from asking if a person is a citizen!!! See, that would be discriminatory.
A proper law would prohibit people with foreign connections (including family members, home ownership, hostile religious affiliation, etc.) from having access to any non-public information about a traded company or having access to any technological trade secrets. That included being unescorted in a room with an Ethernet port on the corporate LAN.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:58PM (1 child)
You misread me. I was stating that they'll give native-born American patriots shit for smoking a joint, during the background investigation, in the past year. Meanwhile, Mister Ching-Chong Chang who has lived all his life in China, maintains extensive contacts in China, and is a card-carrying member of the communist party leaves out all those facts on his E-QIP, lays low for 5 years or marries himself into citizenship, and then gets cleared and works for Lockheed-Martin. Everytime you hear about somebody being caught trying to steal our silent propulsion drive or airborne stealth secrets, it is always one of those.
Now your third paragraph makes complete sense.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @02:25AM
Yeap. And not because of smoking a joint, but just because they are native-born American (patriots or otherwise).
Would they drop their superiority complexes and lower their wage expectations, they will receive a guaranteed-shit-level of a wage and not even a shit** otherwise.
Patriotism be damned, huge profits must flow - that's the American Way (the dream is something totally different). And one doesn't get huge profits paying high wages.
** YMMV - whatever your supervising manager feels like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:26PM (2 children)
Was he imported as an H1B hire, did he complete a degree here, or did he even grow up here?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:34PM
Duh... they ordered him on AliExpress.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Friday February 01 2019, @02:10AM
Chinese have learned to play the long game?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_agent [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(2013_TV_series) [wikipedia.org]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Funny) by fustakrakich on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:36PM (3 children)
*Look at that S car go!*
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 31 2019, @11:47PM
That'll be 5500 euros for littering and creating a driving hazard.
(Score: 2, Informative) by anubi on Friday February 01 2019, @01:21AM (1 child)
S Car Go...
Escargot?
Last time I looked, those weren't all that fast, and I did not much like the taste of em either.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Touché) by c0lo on Friday February 01 2019, @02:27AM
With the traffic in Paris, they may not need to.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @01:22AM (1 child)
And by the time you do realize it, the only choice that will prove effective will be the nuclear first-strike option on all targets of importance in China,
launched from SSBNs parked close to the Chinese coast so the warning time is minimized.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @01:28AM
With our mission control and commands routed through Chinese technology whose inner operation is unknown to us thanks to United States IP Law.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @05:10AM (3 children)
Chinese outfits lure you with YUGE YUGE sums of money for corporate secret/tech. You don't have to be Chinese, but maybe it helps.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @09:39AM
When your family or relatives live in China they also have other means of persuation.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday February 01 2019, @10:52AM (1 child)
In this case he was Chinese. Just saying, to save people from reading TFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 01 2019, @02:33PM
Ze might not necessarily identify as Chinese; you can't presume these things. Next you'll tell me ze is "male" without any evidence to back that up either.
(Score: 2) by EETech1 on Friday February 01 2019, @03:22PM
There are a lot of very smart, very hard working people coming from some of those countries.
We don't make those in the USA anymore, so it's tempting to take the risk with some of them.
Education here has been decimated to allow the students to pass the tests, but learn little more.
That's why ketchup can be considered a serving of vegetables...
Bare minimum.
We need to focus on education.