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Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

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Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#31

Post by winocm »

juunpp wrote: post #7
pritambaral wrote: post #6

TFA makes it sound as if the entirety of the blame can be placed on one employee. Sure, his actions do seem to support that view, but then again, Nvidia did hire him precisely for his previous experience at this rival company, on the very same project that the two companies were partnered on, which is the same project that Nvidia hired him for. There is no argument to be made that Nvidia wasn't aware he'd be coming w…

> Nvidia did hire him precisely for his previous experience at this rival company, on the very same project that the two companies were partnered on, which is the same project that Nvidia hired him for. Yes, this happens all the time. > There is no argument to be made that Nvidia wasn't aware he'd be coming with secrets. This is not a logical conclusion from the above. Hiring for the exp is fine. Hiring for the trade…

A thought that came to me recently in the shower: Isn't all knowledge effectively based on previous knowledge, and by extension, experience?

i.e: A programmer knows how to do X, leaves a company to do Y, where Y is in the same field of work as X. Doesn't X still affect the programmer on a subconscious level and henceforth, their thoughts indirectly?

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#32

Post by jbverschoor »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #23

> German police found its documentation and hardware pinned on Moniruzzaman's walls when his home was raided WTF actually prints out documentation? Let alone pins it to their walls? I mean....seriously does anybody actually do this?

I'd love to have a 100 inch hidpi eink wall.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#33

Post by szundi »

aaomidi wrote: post #15
takinola wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have direct knowledge of this company or the parties involved but I would be highly doubtful that Nvidia would want to have an employee steal the secrets of a competitor/partner. In my experience, companies of this size would aggressively not want tainted IP inside their companies. He would need to be bringing across something as valuable as AGI, cure for cancer, etc for it to be even worth considering. There…

> Why commit a crime when you can simply throw money (of which you have a lot) at the problem? Indeed. But the stupidity of committing a crime does not actually stop companies from doing so. Mainly because the penalties for it are never harsh enough.

Stupidity in this case probably means low level employees cheating for benefits and career

Nvidia can get out of this fairly low cost then

Who knows

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#34

Post by IshKebab »

mcpackieh wrote: post #20
UberFly wrote: post #2

One of the employees had his previous employers' code. There will have to be proof that Nvidia even knew about it for this to go anywhere beyond the employee.

What does it mean for "Nvidia to know" something? Does it never count as a "corporation knowing" unless the executives are aware of it? Obviously this cannot be the standard by which companies are held accountable.

It's pretty clear what he means. He means that the managers and executives are ok with stealing code.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#35

Post by filchermcurr »

rightbyte wrote: post #29
gremlinsinc wrote: post #23

> German police found its documentation and hardware pinned on Moniruzzaman's walls when his home was raided WTF actually prints out documentation? Let alone pins it to their walls? I mean....seriously does anybody actually do this?

I do. I can't read any length of text on a screen. I pin stuff to the wall too, of quick sheet character. Like Emacs hotkeys, C operator precedence, pinouts, general specs etc.

Same. I recently bought a Kindle Scribe (would have preferred Kobo, but enh) to see if that would make it easier than constant printing and shuffling papers. It's alright. Better than a monitor, slightly less good than paper.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#36

Post by FirmwareBurner »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #23

> German police found its documentation and hardware pinned on Moniruzzaman's walls when his home was raided WTF actually prints out documentation? Let alone pins it to their walls? I mean....seriously does anybody actually do this?

>WTF actually prints out documentation?

Probably easier to exfiltrate confidential documents when printed, rather than digitally through the company internet which is logged and points straight to you.

If I print something confidential and take it home there's only the printer logs as proof that I printed it, but no proof that I also took it home (unless there's surveillance footage).

>Let alone pins it to their walls?

The man is proud of his work, wants to see it daily for motivation.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#37

Post by jfim »

winocm wrote: post #31
juunpp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nvidia did hire him precisely for his previous experience at this rival company, on the very same project that the two companies were partnered on, which is the same project that Nvidia hired him for. Yes, this happens all the time. > There is no argument to be made that Nvidia wasn't aware he'd be coming with secrets. This is not a logical conclusion from the above. Hiring for the exp is fine. Hiring for the trade…

A thought that came to me recently in the shower: Isn't all knowledge effectively based on previous knowledge, and by extension, experience? i.e: A programmer knows how to do X, leaves a company to do Y, where Y is in the same field of work as X. Doesn't X still affect the programmer on a subconscious level and henceforth, their thoughts indirectly?

You can bring your expertise in X without the source code that does X. The former is legal, the latter is not.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#38

Post by FirmwareBurner »

Symmetry wrote: post #21

One of the generally accepted reasons why its hard to get graphics companies to open source their drives has always been that everybody is violating everybody else's patents. And while everybody knows this making it too obvious is a legal disadvantage. But I hadn't expected it was also true of copyright.

> everybody is violating everybody else's patents

Violating patents is one thing, as you're only violating the concept/idea, but the implementation is still up to you meaning it will still be clean room design, whereas this guy also blatantly copied the source code and design files which is a slam dunk lawsuit, hence why no company ever wants to have competitors' IP on their systems.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#39

Post by mcpackieh »

IshKebab wrote: post #34
mcpackieh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean for "Nvidia to know" something? Does it never count as a "corporation knowing" unless the executives are aware of it? Obviously this cannot be the standard by which companies are held accountable.

It's pretty clear what he means. He means that the managers and executives are ok with stealing code.

How many managers need to be in-the-loop with the theft before we can fairly say "the corporation knows"? As far as I'm concerned, even if no managers are aware of it, they should have been aware of it (it's their job to know what their reports are doing) so the corporation should be liable for the theft. Otherwise it's trivial for everybody to play dumb and turn a blind eye to what's going on.

Re: Nvidia sued for stealing trade secrets: blunder showed rival company's code

#40

Post by FirmwareBurner »

winocm wrote: post #31
juunpp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nvidia did hire him precisely for his previous experience at this rival company, on the very same project that the two companies were partnered on, which is the same project that Nvidia hired him for. Yes, this happens all the time. > There is no argument to be made that Nvidia wasn't aware he'd be coming with secrets. This is not a logical conclusion from the above. Hiring for the exp is fine. Hiring for the trade…

A thought that came to me recently in the shower: Isn't all knowledge effectively based on previous knowledge, and by extension, experience? i.e: A programmer knows how to do X, leaves a company to do Y, where Y is in the same field of work as X. Doesn't X still affect the programmer on a subconscious level and henceforth, their thoughts indirectly?

Bringing knowledge is one thing, which is legal, but stealing source code and design files from your employer to copy it to the systems of their competitor where you now work is a completely different thing which is illegal.

Companies want your knowledge, not you bringing proprietary IP from their competitor to work, as they know that's a very expensive lawsuit waiting to happen.

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