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Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

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Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#42
post #38
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: Can we presume he knew he was doing something wrong?

A Chinese national helping his country not fall behind in what's perceived as an existential race? Wrong?

A Chinese national is trying to make big bucks with stealing technology maybe...

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#44

[flagged]

Yah, so there is a problem here in that many of these "homeland nationalistic" folks who send stuff back to "their governments" are in many instances, citizens of the country they are betraying.

Since these two[1][2] incidents, I wondered deeply for a while, what is going to happen here as it seems the CCP is getting more and more brazen. I don't believe it would be legal for "enhanced background checks" on someone in the hiring process because they are Chinese American, and it opens an awful door regardless. I don't really know the solution, but I've thought a lot about the problem. (And yes, of course there is that 5 eyes/other "Western" powers are almost certainly doing similar stuff)

[1] https://japantoday.com/category/world/2-us-navy-sailors-arre...

[2] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-...

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#45

So he was already CEO/CTO of 2 China companies while still working in google. And these information are publicly available right after he registering them. Seems a management disaster of google.

Not agreeing or disagreeing, but what’s the remedy? To regularly scour sources for information on tens of thousands of employees and parse actionable meaning from the data?

Maybe someone can make a horrible start-up that does this as a service.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#46
post #4

[flagged]

Serious question: Can we presume he knew he was doing something wrong?

Yes? And also it doesn't matter? Ignorance of the law doesn't mean you get a free pass. And by day 1 at any company you've already had to sign stuff saying you won't steal trade secrets (in addition to loads of other things).

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#47

So he was already CEO/CTO of 2 China companies while still working in google. And these information are publicly available right after he registering them. Seems a management disaster of google.

You expect Google to scan the database of companies in every country continuously to see if employees are executives of them? How would this handle different people who have the same name?

Disclosure: I work at Google.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should all uploads and content transmissions be locked for employees with foreign ties to an adversarial country? Profiling works. Profiling is abhorrent to most people in 1st world countries, but it works exceedingly well. If the hire is from an adversarial country, they should not only be locked but on a watch list. Our 3 letter organizations should be proactive toward information security. We're in the Informati…

[flagged]

"Muslim-ban" is not accurate because it did not ban on the basis of being Muslim or not. It was a ban on travel to the US for 90 days from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. There are many predominately Muslim countries it didn't include and it was specifically about travel from those countries.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#49

[flagged]

> The US vastly benefit from Chinese immigration and most Chinese aren’t spies. However, it’s interesting to notice the damage one person can have, arming our most potent adversary with advanced technology. How would you quantify all this? I mean I think we're all on the same page about not wanting to reduce people to their race. That's a good sentiment. But do you have data on any of these claims? When you observe t…

> I mean I think we're all on the same page about not wanting to reduce people to their race.

No we aren't. China, at any rate, isn't squeamish about using nationality and race of a person as one of the inputs into profiling them.

Until China is onboard with prohibiting race profiling, everyone else who doesn't do the same is at a distinct disadvantage.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#50
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean morally or legally? It's hard to imagine a Google engineer not knowing that sharing trade secrets is something their employer would seriously frown upon, no?

Is your allegiance to your employer above your allegiance to your country?

I'm not sure why you're asking me that. I made it clear from my comment that there's a distinction between legal and moral "wrong," and I described the unlikelihood that he didn't know it was the former. That's all.
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