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TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

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Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#151
post #23

Industrial espionage has to be totally insane to defend against these days.

Just knowing how the thing is built doesn't seem to be enough. Comac still sources its jet engines from Pratt and Whitney for instance, despite many years of trying no local manufacturer has been able to build them to the same spec.

Building even basic things is difficult. Friend of mine tried like dozen companies from around the world to manufacture very basic milled aluminium part. None of them could make it. Only one company could make 1 or 2 right out of 100.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not that I think you can just plug in a thumb drive and download as you please Why not? It's just data, and a thumb drive stores data. As long as it fits.

I meant that plugging in a thumb drive and downloading the company jewels is sure to be noticed. I was hoping for something a tad more clandestine. USB storage devices on my corporate laptop are auto mounted as read only and need policy exceptions to be able to write.

This was not just from a thumb drive as that is very tightly controlled at TSMC (they did catch someone right away before it got leaked). The employees were caught printing info and removing it from the company (caught due to magnetic ink setting off the metal detectors) as well as using phones to take pictures of their laptop info while connecting from offsite. Taking pictures of remote laptops is a more covert way, but both employees were caught through suspicious pattern analysis and review of access logs of people right before they quit the company.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#153
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

am i crazy for not caring if a company in a foreign country obtains trade secrets and manufactures the same thing? like we're all humans and we all want access to whatever it is they're building, it seems like more people building the thing is a good thing. if that impacts Samsung's profits, why do I care? its not like corporations give a shit about me

Yes, because if you tolerate that you disincentivize actually developing the IP in question in favour of stealing everyone else's, which leads to nothing being developed.

is it impossible for society to advance without IP laws? is capitalism a requirement for advancement?

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#154
post #131

I'm confused about the iPhone 18 part; I assume that it would just be one of their usual processes, possibly with a few tweaks.

The iPhone 18 part is for clicks...it really has nothing to do with the iPhone 18 and everything to do with TSMC's N2 process.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#155
post #79
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

am i crazy for not caring if a company in a foreign country obtains trade secrets and manufactures the same thing? like we're all humans and we all want access to whatever it is they're building, it seems like more people building the thing is a good thing. if that impacts Samsung's profits, why do I care? its not like corporations give a shit about me

Some countries have all the talent and manufacturing and sourcing advantages. Once they take the lead, you might never be able to keep up. Your engineers lose their jobs, your businesses go bankrupt, you exit that entire field entirely for your entire population. Slowly your ability to do work begins to evaporate. It's happened before and it'll continue to happen.

isnt that what tariffs are for?

there's something that rubs me wrong about the argument of "we need IP laws because otherwise someone else might do the same thing as us, but better, and we won't be able to compete"

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#156
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This abuse of Excel might be in the running for a new form of esports.

It's always worth remembering there's exactly one reason Excel is abused -- IT isn't giving "non-developers" access to tools they need to automate their work.

Also how the simplest, fastest and most secure way to send someone from another corporation a file for collaboration is an encrypted zip and phone in the password.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#157
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always worth remembering there's exactly one reason Excel is abused -- IT isn't giving "non-developers" access to tools they need to automate their work.

Bingo. Working in an automotive OEM the entire company works on excel specifically excel vb scripts. No one knows why and no one has figured out how we got here. But it’s slow and steady abuse excel.

How do you do fellow Germans

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#159
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment has big "I could build a better SpaceX I just don't want to" vibes.

If only my dad had an emerald mine then I'd be the billionaire rocket scientist CEO

https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/11/17/elon-musk-emerald-min...

TLDR: It's nonsense.

Re: TSMC says employees tried to steal trade secrets on iPhone 18 chip process

#160

Gee, I wonder which nation-state actor was orchestrating this...

I always wondered - why people use a nation-state notion? Why not just a state or a country? USA is not a nation-state, or UK, or India, or Russia, etc. Does your question imply that none of these countries are capable of orchestrating this and only nation-states can do it?

Hard to know what OP meant, but I took it as an oblique reference to China.
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