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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

#441
post #410

The guy was allegedly stealing all that using Google Drive. I find such moronic behavior really hard to believe. Literally, there’s no illusion of privacy at Google while using company hardware, let alone company services. This has become quite clear after the Levandowsky fiasco - some of the things disclosed there were surprisingly invasive far in excess of what you’d normally expect

He was white washing the documents via Apple Notes and it worked initially. From the indictment I posted here... >In total, DING uploaded more than 500 unique files containing Google Confidential Information, including the trade secrets alleged in Counts One through Four. DING exfiltrated these files by copying data from the Google source files into the Apple Notes application on his Google-issued MacBook laptop. DIN…

>> This method helped DING evade immediate detection

Evidently not. It just shows that the guy is not a foreign intelligence operative - a professional could easily operate there for years undetected with fairly basic opsec. That said, aside from things like hardware designs and perhaps certain model weights, I struggle to think of anything at Google that anyone would want that’s not already on GitHub.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is standard practice in all big companies. Everything is tracked and recorded. If you want to say something to a colleague that you don’t want management to know - use your personal phone and talk at a coffee shop or bar in person.

Asking for a friend :) On VPN at home, using my work laptop, I happen to browse some non-decent content, more than once, maybe routinely. Is that all tracked or do VPNs have routing to use VPN only for company network, and leave NSFW be handled by my ISP? Or even if is going via ISP and not company network, are the companies usually able to track what all sites I visit Not a Google employee BTW, but work for a compan…

Depends on the VPN config if it's everything, or just company resources. Split tunnelling seems uncommon from my experience with corp VPNs...

But if you're on work equipment, they likely have corp spyware looking at all your browsing even if you're not on vpn. Shop for fans or whatever you need to do on personal equipment.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#443

Just hire Chinese engineers who were born/raised here. It would meet the DEI quota and decrease the chance of industrial espionage. No guarantees, but I think this would help.

…so you mean hire Americans.

Also, pretty sure there are no DEI quotas for Asian men.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#444

Here is the indictment since AP News can't be bothered to link to it... https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1341356/dl?inline

There have been a lot of falsely accused "spies" recently like Xiaoxing Xi, Sherry Chen, and Anming Hu. All charges were eventually dropped. I wonder what will happen with this case.

Wen Ho Lee

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#445

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…

If you are an agent of a rival company or govt there may alreay be a "best practices" rulebook for stealing IP, a set of established procedures.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#446

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.

As someone who has worked at companies, it sure as fuck is not. Unless you are a very valuable company or you make money with data/software, ain't nobody got time for that.

Yeah, install EDR for satisfaction and forget.

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#448

Here is the indictment since AP News can't be bothered to link to it... https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1341356/dl?inline

There have been a lot of falsely accused "spies" recently like Xiaoxing Xi, Sherry Chen, and Anming Hu. All charges were eventually dropped. I wonder what will happen with this case.

[flagged]

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The guy copied source code via copy paste... And it seems, also regular Google documents. He was already caught uploading secret stuff, quit Google and bought a ticket to go to China, and was arrested only because he delayed the trip by a few weeks which was enough time for Google to discover more violations and contact the FBI. Google didn't contact the FBI until they learned of older violations. Which…

Reminds me of the time I quit my job at a large corp and my boss advised me to not do any large downloads in the days just before I left because "IT has tools to scan for that and they might think you're trying to take secrets with you." Guess this guy didn't get the memo.

Good boss!

Re: Ex-Google engineer charged with stealing trade secrets

#450

Here is the indictment since AP News can't be bothered to link to it... https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1341356/dl?inline

There have been a lot of falsely accused "spies" recently like Xiaoxing Xi, Sherry Chen, and Anming Hu. All charges were eventually dropped. I wonder what will happen with this case.

Wi Tu Lo. That one was totally bogus.
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