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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

#341

Post by tivert »

blackoil wrote: post #293
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-chin... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Intelligence_Law_of_t...

> All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of. That's as vague as it can be. Does any country not have similar laws?

>> All organizations and citizens shall support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts in accordance with law, and shall protect national intelligence work secrets they are aware of.

> That's as vague as it can be.

Remember: China doesn't really have "rule of law."

I understand vague laws are pretty par for the course in Chinese law. It makes it easier for the "law" to be bent by officials to achieve their goals.

> Does any country not have similar laws?

I doubt the US does. The CIA can't press you into becoming an agent.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#342

Post by deelowe »

alephnerd wrote: post #195
ttul wrote: post #193

If any of you get this far down, one thing that caught my eye is that Google said they had analyzed this guy’s network traffic after locking his laptop, confirming various things. If you work at a large company like Google, every packet on their employee access network is recorded and indexed for forensic purposes. This is not something Google would talk about publicly, but it’s standard practice in any company that…

It's SOP in all companies, not just those facing sophisticated threat actors - there's a reason EDRs like Crowdstrike and SentinelOne are massive players now.

I've never been exposed to that side of things but always wondered do certain levels datamine this information? For example, do they get reports on user activity during the day... A pareto of employee activity perhaps by userid? I mean, why wouldn't they?

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#343

Post by dylan604 »

barbazoo wrote: post #281
blackhawkC17 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok, however, I still don't see "it's because he could afford it".

If you can't afford it, you're not hanging out with the likes of Thiel or Lucky. Just having money grants you access to certain circles even if you're not having to spend the money for that access, or it allows you to buy tickets to events with those people.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#344

Post by krisoft »

billy99k wrote: post #128

This doesn't surprise me. I knew someone that intentionally graduated with a specific major, so they could get a job in that industry and send trade secrets/IP back to China. The purpose was to create a competing company. It didn't work out for them that well. They couldn't last more than 6 months at any one company and I think eventually gave up and went back home.

> It didn't work out for them that well. They couldn't last more than 6 months at any one company

I don’t understand what you are saying here. How many months does one need to stay to hover up the trade secrets / IP? In software engineering you get access to the repos on day one, but even in other industries I guess what you don’t have access to after 6 months you won’t have access to realistically ever.

> eventually gave up and went back home

But according to what you said that was their plan all along. So in what sense did it not “work out for them”?

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#345

Post by lmm »

riku_iki wrote: post #322
billy99k wrote: post #128

This doesn't surprise me. I knew someone that intentionally graduated with a specific major, so they could get a job in that industry and send trade secrets/IP back to China. The purpose was to create a competing company. It didn't work out for them that well. They couldn't last more than 6 months at any one company and I think eventually gave up and went back home.

> get a job in that industry and send trade secrets so, is there a clear line between: steal trade secret, and applied learned experience in new company the way everyone does?

No. Ultimately courts have to make judgements.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#346

Post by ejb999 »

tivert wrote: post #338
xeonmc wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secrets are which secrets had been stolen.

> The secrets are which secrets had been stolen. The Chinese probably have secrets worth stealing about solar panel production. They've pretty much driven everyone else out of business.

It’s hard for others to compete with slave labor. Gives the Chinese quite a leg up on pricing power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/24/business/economy/china-fo... https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/27/customs-d...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57124636

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#347

Post by edandersen »

siva7 wrote: post #199
eganist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. It's Google. Not a mom and pop shop, not a startup, not even a large bank. It's a massive conglomerate who's entire business model revolves around data. So yes. And same-name conflicts can be handl…

I'm not aware of any corp doing this and why should they? There are as many valid reasons registering a company without affecting your employment.

Big 4 do this routinely to check for conflict of interest as a result of audit regs.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#348

Post by outworlder »

krisoft wrote: post #344
billy99k wrote: post #128

This doesn't surprise me. I knew someone that intentionally graduated with a specific major, so they could get a job in that industry and send trade secrets/IP back to China. The purpose was to create a competing company. It didn't work out for them that well. They couldn't last more than 6 months at any one company and I think eventually gave up and went back home.

> It didn't work out for them that well. They couldn't last more than 6 months at any one company I don’t understand what you are saying here. How many months does one need to stay to hover up the trade secrets / IP? In software engineering you get access to the repos on day one, but even in other industries I guess what you don’t have access to after 6 months you won’t have access to realistically ever. > eventually…

> In software engineering you get access to the repos on day one

Some repositories needed to do your work, sure. Not necessarily all, and the more interesting work may not be available to just anyone who joins.

If it's a company like Google, you may not even end up at the group you interviewed for.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#349

Post by tristor »

archagon wrote: post #337
akira2501 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prejudice Yes. What other form of insurance could I use here? > I have a dual citizenship, [...] I am not my governments’ property. No one is the property of their government but you have openly decided to split your allegiances. Anyways, you can only have this dual citizenship because both of these governments have decided to allow it, and that could change tomorrow.

I retain my second citizenship in hope of a brighter future, not out of any sense of duty to my country.

While I applaud your optimism, your hope for a brighter future is not a scalable solution for securing trade secrets at tech companies.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#350

Post by roland35 »

outworlder wrote: post #348
krisoft wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It didn't work out for them that well. They couldn't last more than 6 months at any one company I don’t understand what you are saying here. How many months does one need to stay to hover up the trade secrets / IP? In software engineering you get access to the repos on day one, but even in other industries I guess what you don’t have access to after 6 months you won’t have access to realistically ever. > eventually…

> In software engineering you get access to the repos on day one Some repositories needed to do your work, sure. Not necessarily all, and the more interesting work may not be available to just anyone who joins. If it's a company like Google, you may not even end up at the group you interviewed for.

I would be very careful doing that at Google. Even if just about anything is accessible, I imagine most access is logged. If you are downloading everything not related to your job it could raise some alarms!
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