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Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

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Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#871

Post by danudey »

masfuerte wrote: post #761
mikeyouse wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not so.. He’s being sued personally as well. the lawsuit is Apple vs. “ CHANG LIU, TANG YEW TAN, OPENAI FOUNDATION f/k/a OPENAI, INC., OPENAI GROUP PBC, and IO PRODUCTS, LLC f/k/a IO PRODUCTS, INC.”

It's a crime too. If the Feds take an interest he could get ten years. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1832

Yeah, as long as the feds don't decide that 'OpenAI is too important to our AI ambitions vs. China, et al so we can't afford to punish them in any way that matters', which is probably what's happening here.

OpenAI/Altman are trying to cozy up to Trump so that they can bypass laws and regulations in their quest for infinite growth at no cost (see also: all the NASDAQ 'rules' which didn't apply to SpaceX, the AI company). In return to stroking his ego, etc., Trump gets to seem like he's M'ing AGA by boosting up this new, world-changing technology and helping to keep the US ahead of everyone else. OpenAI, in the administration's eyes, is now 'too big to fail' (because of the blow to Trump's ego) so OpenAI gets to continue to break laws (first copyright violations, now IP theft) with nothing but a slap on the wrist.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#872

Post by danudey »

SteveGerencser wrote: post #364
appplication wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An acquaintance of mine was accidentally wired about $100k when it was supposed to be $5k. Before it could be reversed, they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country. They then changed all socials and handles. They are now ignoring all court documents and are on track to get a default judgement against them. Their rationale? “It’s mine, they owed me this”. They are 100% convinced that the…

I had a client send me an ACH that was legitimately a fat finger extra zero. For me, it was a "lot" of truck payments. For them, it was a rounding error that they were unaware of until I reached out and let them know about their mistake. I couldn't wait to make it right with them because it bothered me so much because suddenly I had a pile of money that was theirs and not mine.

Not to mention that, despite having done nothing wrong, you can still be blamed and suffer the consequences. Imagine that company did notice, and the person who sent the payment went into a panic. They call their bank, that bank calls your bank, they put a hold on your entire account, and now your payroll, bills, leases, etc. all start bouncing and you can't accept payments from other clients to cover anything in the short term.

Now you've done nothing wrong, maybe even haven't noticed yet, and suddenly they kill your business overnight.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#873

Post by danudey »

embedding-shape wrote: post #535
palmotea wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An acquaintance of mine was accidentally wired about $100k when it was supposed to be $5k. Before it could be reversed, they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country. They then changed all socials and handles. They are now ignoring all court documents and are on track to get a default judgement against them. $95k does not seems like enough money to totally upend your life like that for.

> $95k does not seems like enough money to totally upend your life like that for. That's because most of us here are so used to the amount of money we earn. But for people who literally struggling with month-to-month payments, 100K feels like a life-changing amount of money. If they were just saving month by month, they might have never reached that amount in their entire life. Our perspectives here on HN are very on…

But the poster said that that was basically his yearly salary. He fled the country and has to spend the rest of his life worrying about extradition (and/or having people find out he's a felon) for a year's pay.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#874

Post by keoneflick »

wrsh07 wrote: post #821
sealeck wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this comment is quite disingenous -- it's like if there's a rule that says "nobody can walk on the grass" that you object to because you'd like to have a picnic with some friends; your claim is that if someone gets out a bulldozer and drives it across the lawn to make a parking lot followed by an army of lawyers that anyone who wanted to picnic is objecting purely because it's a convenient way to criticise th…

These examples don't really add up to me. You can continue to enjoy the books and articles etc They are just also used to create a new thing In the picnic example, the picnickers can't use the lawn anymore. As an aside: as somebody who lives in a dense area, I also would stay off the lawn. There's a utilitarian element where you have to rotate which lawns are used, and avoid using them when wet etc so as to maximize…

> You can continue to enjoy the books and articles etc

No you can't, because those people have stopped creating because the creation economy was destroyed by AI. We just keep getting recycled slop based on what existed in 2025.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#875

Post by danudey »

mr_toad wrote: post #680
swiftcoder wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, the very same comment mentions that the person was earning 6 figures. Less-than-a-year's-salary is definitely a weird thing to throw a comfortable 6 figure income out the window for - it's not like 95k is "never work a day in your life" money.

People can earn six figures and still be living paycheque to paycheque, and up to their ears in debt.

Now he's up to his ears in debt and a felon in his original country, plus he's not likely to get another six-figure job from any country willing to do a background check. I hope that extra $95k was sufficient to set him up for life.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#876

Post by Henchman21 »

breppp wrote: post #859
yoz-y wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think by now we have enough evidence to support that point of view. Not everybody up top is a crook, but not having morals or abandoning them along the way certainly makes it easier to ascend.

This is simply the new "Poor people are evil" which was popular for some time. When these kind of generalizations sound like they are flattening any resemblance of reality, it is because they are

There was no evidence for “poor people are evil”. But there’s ample evidence for “rich people are evil”. What makes a person think they deserve more than another? What makes a person ignore laws and norms to make a buck? At the expense of others?

Evil. Yes it’s fashionable. Doesn’t make it untrue.

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#877

Post by danudey »

chii wrote: post #648
pdpi wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only reason you didn't behave that way to begin with is that you lack the money and power to evade the consequences, then yes. You really are that person.

while i somewhat agree with that reasoning, it can go too far - most people would murder and kill if there weren't any consequences to doing so. But is it right to say who they really are as being murderers?

> most people would murder and kill if there weren't any consequences to doing so

This is what Christians tell themselves and others to explain why believing in their religion is so important, but it's not even remotely true. Humans evolved community and society long before we evolved organized religion.

I constantly see Christians pitching this like some kind of gotcha: "If you don't believe in God, then how do you know what's right or wrong?" The simple answer is that I have empty and I care about how other people feel; I try to do things that make things better and avoid things that make things worse, both for me and for others.

If the only reason that you don't rape and murder is because you're worried about consequences then that makes you a horrible person whether you act on it or not.

Conversely, it seems as though Christians see these 'teachings' as a get out of moral quandary free card; if the Bible implies it's okay, or you can justify an interpretation where that's the case, then it's completely fine to do whatever you like. Harass or attack trans people, bomb Iran, make miscarriages illegal but refuse to feed the poor or help with daycare - all because one reading of the bible supports the things you want to do (even though it doesn't) but doesn't require what you don't want to do (even though it does, actually).

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#879

Post by danudey »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #476
ElProlactin wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power. It's more that money and power enable you to be who you really are, and amplify your worst traits if you're lacking self-awareness. There are many people who are rich/wealthy and/or powerful and they're decent individuals living relatively ordinary lives. You don't read about most of them because they're "normal".

> It's more that money and power enable you to be who you really are If you’re only a certain way when you have money and power, is it really “who you really are”?

[dead]

Re: Apple sues OpenAI, accuses ex-employees of stealing trade secrets

#880

Post by awakeasleep »

nvarsj wrote: post #639

The irony to me is Apple did the exact same thing to Motorola back in the day, which I saw firsthand as a Mot eng. Poached employees and IP. I doubt the iPhone would have happened otherwise. Jobs was absolutely ruthless and would do anything for his goals.

what do you mean by "exact same thing"

This isn't about "poaching" employees (in our society people can work where they choose, they are not property of a feudal lord) and using their knowledge.

This is about ex-employees accessing Apple's internal fileshares. It's about instructing employees who were about to leave to take everything they could with them, and giving them training on how to evade Apple's offboarding security process.

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