Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets • Hacker News Board

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#261

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 4:56 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #254

tristor wrote: post #228

[flagged]

> If you hire Chinese nationals in your tech company, you can be assured they are committing espionage Liberal principles dropped at the first sign of trouble?

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-chin...

> Talent plans can sometimes foster legitimate sharing and collaboration as part of an appropriate business arrangement or research exchange, but this is not the norm.

> Instead, talent plans usually involve undisclosed and illegal transfers of information, technology, or intellectual property that are one-way and detrimental to U.S. institutions.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#262

Post by alephnerd » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 4:57 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #260

alephnerd wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, you historically could ignore it, but it's changed since the anti-corruption purge began in 2016. Imo there's no reason to poke that bear anymore - a lot of bad practices that were common 10 years ago are not tolerated anymore (though sadly, a lot of good practices have also started getting cracked down, like domestic criticism) Edit: you're talking about Gui Minhai. Ok yea that's fair.

I would place money on China in 2024 being worse at rule of law, not better, than in 2016. They granted defacto citizenship to that snowboarder, for example, even though there is no way she qualified under the text of its own law (China doesn't allow for dual citizenship...unless convenient). That was 2022. It has been downhill since Xi took charge, but yet, he was able to use accusations of corruption to purge his c…

I agree with ya!

A lot of the crackdown was performative, but silver lining is that at least some bastards got punished as they deserve (albeit by equally reprehensible bastards).

Sort of a broken clock is right twice kinda situation.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#263

Post by zihotki » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 4:57 PM UTC

snotrockets wrote: post #234

atonse wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the spirit of your statement that no crime has occurred. But this isn't a case where someone just expressed a vague interest in a related topic of national security, but their specific intent to steal secrets and give them to an adversary. And then go ahead and interview at certain companies with that intent. This would be like someone specifically (not vaguely) stating their intent to commit a violent c…

Trade secrets aren’t national security.

They are indeed separate concepts but they may be both true. ASML can be a good example

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#264

Post by alephnerd » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:00 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #258

alephnerd wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chose not to, same with Indians Not anymore. It's because of visa and naturalization backlogs. When I was a kid growing up in the 90s and 2000s, it was common for Chinese nationals to naturalize and become citizens. When the Chinese backlog reached a decade long 10-20 years ago, a lot of top tier Chinese talent decided to return to China because employment visa hell sucks and the Chinese private sector formalized a…

Note that Chinese emigration rate increased again due to COVID, and more Chinese are staying since then. It will be interesting to see if that sticks or not. A lot of Chinese just hedge their bets with lives and investments in both countries (including anchor babies).

> A lot of Chinese just hedge their bets with lives and investments in both countries

Yep. Ik. I lived in Richmond for a bit back in the day when it transitioned from HKers to Mainlanders.

> Chinese emigration rate increased again due to COVID, and more Chinese are staying since then. It will be interesting to see if that sticks or not.

Yep. I personally think it's a fumble on our (America's) part.

A lot of top tier Chinese talent will gladly want to become American citizens or naturalize, but a bunch of populist anti-China measures have prevented Chinese STEM talent from naturalizing, so we aren't getting the cream of the crop anymore

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#265

Post by greatpatton » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:03 PM UTC

alephnerd wrote: post #204

maayank wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's similar to the Israeli program in the 90s (who's name I'm blanking out on EDIT: Yozma) because just like China in the 2000s-early 2010s, there wasn't a notable private sector VC industry yet. Quite an allegation... any reference to them sponsoring/encouraging stealing IP or am I misreading and you simply meant it's a government sponsored startup accelerator program?

It's not really that damaging. Israel never recognized American software or pharmaceutical patents, and most countries do some form of Industrial Espionage (France is fairly notable in the space as well [4]). The wildest cases tended to be back in the 1990s, when Israel was trying to build a domestic armament industry, notably by stealing American IP and selling it to the Chinese [0][1][2][3] (most modern Chinese wea…

Funny that you mention France when the USA is #1 in the world for corporate spying. Having been involved in western Europe for deal where US competitor were given "advantage", USA spying was always number one concern over all other countries (and this is how counter spying agencies brief companies) as it had more direct economic damage and is more difficult to identify than Chinese spying.

Few examples just for Airbus every few years you get report of US spying: * https://www.dw.com/en/airbus-fires-16-over-suspected-german-... * https://edition.cnn.com/video/news/2015/05/01/airbus-spying....

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#266

Post by blackhawkC17 » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:06 PM UTC

barbazoo wrote: post #250

therobot24 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's because he could afford it

Assuming you’re talking about money, how does one pay for a pardon?

He didn’t pay. But Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey (two big Republican donors) recommended him to the Trump team for a pardon, and Trump obliged.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#267

Post by maxglute » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:07 PM UTC

MaxPengwing wrote: post #203

consf wrote: post #96

[flagged]

Japan did the same thing before and after the world wars. This is not really that new or strange. India has been doing the same thing. Russia as well. it's standard practice to send people to more advanced countries to train and then have them come back and start companies based on what they have learned. this is why Patents only really work in local regions or within a Nation. the biggest difference is that China ha…

Blatant is another way of saying successful. Not many countries have system in place to incentivize reverse brain drain, and even in PRC that was hard fought. It's difficult to compete with US tech wages propped up by cheap money. Big reason why PRC can get talent to come back, and with IP is because they pay accordingly and, most importantly, have system in place where that knowledge can be exploited. Another big reason is, and let's be real, East Asians have bamboo ceiling (relative to whites, south asians) in western tech/science. At some point, for some Chinese in western tech, a comfortable salary isn't enough when PRC offers appropriate senority/status and opportunity to build/lead and can compensate/execute accordingly. People aren't happy with good 6 figure salary when they think they deserve 7-8 figure.

People here forget PRC "seaturtles" going back to grow domestic PRC industries is as much a PRC enticement success as US/western retainment failure.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#268

Post by callalex » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:09 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #246

abetusk wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're getting at a basic fallacy. This is not a zero sum game. This is a positive sum game. The worlds population has been steadily growing for the past 10,000 years. The quality of life has mostly increased. We're figuring out more efficient ways to extract energy from the resources around us, including the sun. We don't live in a post-scarcity world but we also don't live in a zero-sum world either.

> I think you're getting at a basic fallacy. This is not a zero sum game. This is a positive sum game. You don't get to sweep many zero-aspects of life that are zero-sum, by calling it a fallacy, under the rug. Many scenarios in life are game-theoretical with tradeoffs, where deviation from the greater sum results in higher rewards for individual actors. Until you solve it, you don't get to say "ItS noT ZeRo Sum!!11"

An example or two would really help your case here. Right now your comment just comes across as “I’m rubber and you’re glue”.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#269

Post by tristor » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:11 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #254

tristor wrote: post #228

[flagged]

> If you hire Chinese nationals in your tech company, you can be assured they are committing espionage Liberal principles dropped at the first sign of trouble?

What Liberal principle requires you to employ and inform your enemies who are actively engaging in espionage? I didn't say anything about Chinese /ethnicity/, only nationality. There are millions of ethnically Chinese people around the world who are not Chinese nationals and are not bound by the same legal framework.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#270

Post by azinman2 » Thu, Mar 07, 2024, 5:14 PM UTC

ok123456 wrote: post #236

azinman2 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You somehow missed all the jobs and communities destroyed in your analysis.

I don’t disagree, but I think the thought was they would/should transition up the ladder, and that American labor was too expensive to be globally competitive. The later point may just be too true to go back in time. The world evolves; you can’t stay static in time.