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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

#371

Post by krisoft »

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.

Yeah, yeah. I’m not saying it is easy business. What I am saying is that “bouncing around many companies in a quick succession and then leaving for their home country” is exactly the pattern one would exhibit with that plan. If one would want to show that their plan didn’t work out then one would be talking about other things. For example that they only got junior jobs with no access to the code/secrets, or that they were only hired in fields outside of their interest, etc etc.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#372

Post by al_borland »

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…

Short of downloading literally everything and sending it back to a team, it's possible he didn't know enough after 6 months (while also trying to maintain his actual job) to get anything of value.

I've been at my company for almost 20 years. I have a lot of access, but if I was told, "go find some trade secrets." LOL, not a chance. The haystack is far too big and I don't even know what I'm looking for. Someone who has been at the company 6 months barely knows where the bathrooms are.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#374

Post by rightbyte »

al_borland wrote: post #372
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…

Short of downloading literally everything and sending it back to a team, it's possible he didn't know enough after 6 months (while also trying to maintain his actual job) to get anything of value. I've been at my company for almost 20 years. I have a lot of access, but if I was told, "go find some trade secrets." LOL, not a chance. The haystack is far too big and I don't even know what I'm looking for. Someone who ha…

My prior employer was really worried about source code leaks.

I was more like, giving the direct competitor the code would more be like industrial sabotage for their sake. What could they possibly do with it. They would waste fte years dechiffering it instead of doing something useful.

But nah, rather keep your own engineers in the dark about secret plans and road maps.

I worked out quite well though, since the engineers did their thing withoit knowing what the higher ups wanted.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#375

Post by leetcrew »

deelowe wrote: post #342
alephnerd wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

why would they? if we're talking about sophisticated espionage, that's more of a job for infosec. if we're talking about AFK time, being secretive defeats the purpose.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#376

Post by simpletone »

jajko wrote: post #66
feverzsj wrote: post #27

So he was already CEO/CTO of 2 China companies while still working in google. And these information are publicly available right after he registering them. Seems a management disaster of google.

> What is Article 7 of the Chinese Intelligence law? > Article seven says in part that “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. And that's just a nice wording to make it official, russians don't have anything similar yet they keep bribing small and big people a…

[flagged]

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#377

Post by krisoft »

al_borland wrote: post #372
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…

Short of downloading literally everything and sending it back to a team, it's possible he didn't know enough after 6 months (while also trying to maintain his actual job) to get anything of value. I've been at my company for almost 20 years. I have a lot of access, but if I was told, "go find some trade secrets." LOL, not a chance. The haystack is far too big and I don't even know what I'm looking for. Someone who ha…

> I've been at my company for almost 20 years. I have a lot of access, but if I was told, "go find some trade secrets." LOL, not a chance.

Because it is not your intention to do so. Think about how one can live a whole life locking and unlocking locks without ever accidentally lock-picking one. Yet they can be picked, and often quite easily if that is your goal.

If you are serious about it you don’t just bumble around randomly until a trade secret hits you on the head. You can ask yourself: what can that company do nobody else can? You can even ask this question before joining a company and thus selecting the right target and the right position to get access to it.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#378

Post by pfannkuchen »

dylan604 wrote: post #340
pfannkuchen wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are intentionally finding information that is outside the scope of their own role and then exporting the information itself as opposed to actually learning it then that would be clearly stealing trade secrets. Of course there are some lesser actions that would be in a gray area.

> intentionally finding information that is outside the scope of their own role some call that a positive initiative. cross training between departments or some such corp speak is used so people can "fill in" or just have a better understanding of the other departments so you can possibly work better with each other or come up with novel solutions for someone else. companies that silo everyone off and prevent open di…

> intentionally finding information that is outside the scope of their own role AND THEN exporting the information itself

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#379

Post by powersnail »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #207
kjkjadksj wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FBI gets more credible reports than it has the labor to investigate. Not to mention in this example no crime even yet occurred.

> in this example no crime even yet occurred Interviewing for a job with the prior stated intent of pilfering their IP is fraudulent.

Is it?

I mean obviously if the said person did pilfer, or attempted to pilfer, it would be illegal.

But is there any law against interviewing for a job, while having a prior statement of intending to pilfer? Or in a more general sense, interviewing for a position while previously saying that they intend to breach the contract?

I'd imagine that there could only be ground for a lawsuit if 1) a contract has been signed, and 2) the stated activity has at least been attempted.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#380

Post by mr_toad »

jeffbee wrote: post #91

The opsec of the people who eventually get indicted is always terrible. If you wanted to exfiltrate source code or docs, why the heck would you use the victim's own cloud storage product? You would just point a camera at your display and scroll through the desired materials, or use HDMI capture, or something along those lines.

Pen and paper can work too.
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