U.S. authorities on Monday charged a former Apple Inc employee with theft of trade secrets, alleging that the person downloaded a secret blueprint related to a self-driving car to a personal laptop and later trying to flee the country, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court.
The complaint said that the former employee, Xiaolang Zhang, disclosed intentions to work for a Chinese self-driving car startup and booked a last-minute flight to China after downloading the plan for a circuit board for the self-driving car. Authorities arrested Zhang on July 7 at the San Jose airport after he passed through a security checkpoint.
“Apple takes confidentiality and the protection of our intellectual property very seriously,” Apple said in a statement. “We’re working with authorities on this matter and will do everything possible to make sure this individual and any other individuals involved are held accountable for their actions.”
I love that Apple is doing this. The company needs to be able to find the people leaking and stealing information, and prosecute them.
I want to hear more about what this guy thought he’d be able to get away with.
he thought he would get away with a shite load of apple data. apparently he didn’t. at least not as much as he thought he would. he likely had some stuff with him when he went to china the first time. but it sounds like the real goods were what he gathered after he came back.
and now he’s likely just crapped on his name in US tech jobs, perhaps cost himself getting any kind of US work visa, and maybe even just ruined his name in China.
One hopes.
This should absolutely be Apple’s response to this type of obvious theft. But it leaves me with two big questions: 1) As far as I can tell, the article does not explain whether the stolen information was actually shared with outside parties before this person was caught. 2) There has to be a question as to whether other employees have done similar things.
There is also an obvious semi-political point, which is that China has baldly and actively attempted to steal, extort, and persuade the sharing of technological and scientific information on a one-way basis between them and the US. (And undoubtedly other countries.) We should absolutely be using every resource we have, as strategically as possible, to protect our intellectual property. Our economies are at this point highly co-dependent and China is an extremely sophisticated adversary. (And/or partner).
Unfortunately, our current leadership has brought a hammer to a chess match.