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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

#271

Post by alephnerd »

greatpatton wrote: post #265
alephnerd wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Airbu…

The American government will spy, but will not explicitly spy to provide IP directly to a private company like Boeing or Lockheed, as this enters felony level corruption territory due to the Procurement Integrity Act, Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act, and the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

The main difference is DGSE would explicitly attempt to steal American IP and then provide it to Thales or Dassault.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#273

Post by shagie »

shagie wrote: post #103
xienze wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably for such a high profile position a simple um, Google of the person, checking LinkedIn, or a standard background check would reveal this.

> Within weeks of the theft starting, prosecutors say, Ding was offered the position of chief technology officer at an early-stage technology company in China that touted its use of AI technology and that offered him a monthly salary of about $14,800, plus an annual bonus and company stock. The indictment says Ding traveled to China and participated in investor meetings at the company and sought to raise capital for…

> Prosecutors say Ding did not disclose either affiliation to Google, which described him Wednesday as a junior employee.

... and not just of high profile or senior developers, but all of the junior developers too.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#274

Post by ClumsyPilot »

tristor wrote: post #269
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> employ and inform your enemies

This is literally presumption of guilt based on where someone was born. It's the literal definition of prejudice. Very illiberal.

Mind you, I am not claiming that you have to be liberal. I just want honesty and consistency.

If we all oppose China because they threaten liberty, then we must protect liberty.

But if you oppose China just because it's a pissing contest between superpowers, that's fine but then maybe it's not my problem.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#275

Post by brikym »

keepamovin wrote: post #194

[flagged]

It’s all fun and games being that collective until you realise the other side hate you because you’re different from them. You’ve given away everything and they now dominate you. Cute ideas but game theory still holds. Why does every tree in the forest waste its energy and time competing to grow tall rather than just immediately spreading seed? Game theory.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#276

Post by seanmcdirmid »

alephnerd wrote: post #264
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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

I thought it was just the green card quotas, since once you get a GC naturalizing only takes a few years. The quotas are dumb, but are not specifically anti-china.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#277

Post by alephnerd »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #276
alephnerd wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 I thought it was just the green card quotas, since once you get a GC naturalizing only takes a few years. The quotas are dumb, but are not specifically anti-china.

Not GC quotas - the backlog is 2 years now for Chinese nationals

It's EO 10043 [0] that's the blocker.

If you are a Chinese national who is in some way affiliated with tbe Chinese Civil-Military fusion, you cannot get a visa to the US.

This EO is horribly written, as it essentially treats all Chinese universities or programs that get some kind of military funding (even a relatively minor grant) as part of the Civil-Military Fusion, as just about every Chinese STEM program is connected with a State Key Laboratory or the CAS.

It's a Trump era EO that's still enforced.

[0] - https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/06/04/2020-12...

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#278

Post by ziddoap »

xienze wrote: post #178
ziddoap wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the other half of contributors aren't Chinese?

But what value are they providing to the Chinese? The original assertion was that American AI is only where it is because of the contributions of Chinese nationals. I.e. they’re leading the way. Why even contribute to our efforts and potentially improve our standing?

"Leading the way" doesn't mean that other contributors have no value whatsoever.

Leaders can still learn from new/other perspectives, and non-leaders can still have good ideas.

It is obviously valuable to have quick/inside access to new and promising perspectives. And sometimes those ideas are going to come from the other 50% of contributors.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#279

Post by freedomben »

neom wrote: post #184
freedomben wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no expert either, but from living through the painful days of ITAR and encryption, it only matters that some technology/information can be used for military purpose for it to be restricted. For years we couldn't distribute the code for AES above 128 due to ITAR, even though it was widely and easily available all over the internet.

If you'd care to opine, would you then there agree with delfinom that ITAR in AI could be a solution to this? From what you just described, it made me wonder if it would impose undo burden on, and so hamper, the emergence of the next generation of NN/ML tools ("AI").

There's considerable nuance involved in the question, which I haven't done due diligence on, but with that as a disclaimer...

Thinking out loud, it does seem like it could help, although it does place a significant (at times) burden on people affected, and in the case that I worked with it made no practical difference whatsoever at preventing the use of the technology by US adversaries. So yes I think it might could help, but my inclination is away from it as I think it would ultimately be ineffective yet quite burdensome on US companies. Possibly to the point of backfiring, leading to a country like China that is (so far at least) much more "open" in regards to AI/ML.

Do you have any thoughts?

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#280

Post by ben_w »

howerj wrote: post #251
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should be figuring out how to create a global, collective, human advantage for everyone and the planet We haven’t solved the problem of governance. The End of History seemed close in the 1990s. But we’re back to being torn between the efficiency (and short-term stability) of authoritarian models against the flexibility (and long-term stability) of democratic ones. Until we find the model that just works, this co…

Authoritarian models are not efficient in anyway, they can project the image of being efficient but that does not mean they are. They are worse in every way apart from complete disorder and chaos.

Corporations are, in most cases, much more authoritarian than democratic. With a few exceptions, workers don't get a vote in the running of a corporation. To the extent that they do, it's usually in the form of unions or the very rare category of worker cooperatives.

Even for countries, they absolutely can be efficient, it's just the efficiency is directed at stuff The Leader wants rather than stuff The People want.

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