DOJ Charges Former Apple Engineer With Theft of Autonomous Car Tech for China (cnbc.com) 30
A former Apple software engineer was charged with stealing Apple's autonomous technology for a Chinese self-driving car company, the Department of Justice announced Tuesday. From a report: Weibao Wang worked as a software engineer at Apple from 2016 to 2018, a DOJ indictment said. Wang worked on Apple's Annotation Team and was granted "broad access" to databases which the Justice Department said could only be accessed by 2,700 of Apple's 135,000 employees. Wang is the third former Apple employee to be accused of stealing autonomous trade secrets for China.
Wang has been charged with six separate counts involving the theft or attempted theft of Apple's "entire autonomy source code," tracking systems, behavior planning for autonomous systems, and descriptions of the hardware that was behind the systems. A year into his employment, four months before he quit his job at Apple, Wang accepted a job at the U.S.-based subsidiary of an unnamed Chinese company that was developing autonomous driving technology and he began to siphon "large amounts" of sensitive commercial technology and source code, the indictment alleges.
Wang has been charged with six separate counts involving the theft or attempted theft of Apple's "entire autonomy source code," tracking systems, behavior planning for autonomous systems, and descriptions of the hardware that was behind the systems. A year into his employment, four months before he quit his job at Apple, Wang accepted a job at the U.S.-based subsidiary of an unnamed Chinese company that was developing autonomous driving technology and he began to siphon "large amounts" of sensitive commercial technology and source code, the indictment alleges.
Poisoning The Well (Score:2)
So they are going to bust the guy that was poisoning the well? That is cold blooded. I assume they weren't happy with just selling them useless Apple tech. I kind of thought China was already pretty good at gobbling up personal data on its employees/citizens.
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Apple has no self-driving car or any other car.
Apparently they do.
Re: Poisoning The Well (Score:3)
Supposedly Uber does as well, but that doesn't mean it works.
Re: Poisoning The Well (Score:4, Interesting)
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There will never be a trial. (Score:5, Insightful)
He fled his home the same day it was to be searched. He's already back in China, and in China he will remain. It's not like they're going to extradite a guy that was stealing technology (allegedly) for them, and we don't do trials in absentia in the US.
He's a stooge that now better never think about leaving China ever again, or he'll probably magically end up in the hands of a country that would be more than happy to send his ass to account for his misdeeds against Uncle Sam.
Re:There will never be a trial. (Score:4, Insightful)
He fled his home the same day it was to be searched. He's already back in China, and in China he will remain. It's not like they're going to extradite a guy that was stealing technology (allegedly) for them, and we don't do trials in absentia in the US.
He's a stooge that now better never think about leaving China ever again, or he'll probably magically end up in the hands of a country that would be more than happy to send his ass to account for his misdeeds against Uncle Sam.
China not only won't extradite him, China will give him a mansion, a yacht, and a medal for glorious service to the motherland. It's not that China independently smiles approvingly of such behavior, but rather that China encourages and provides government resources to facilitate such behavior that obviously benefits China.
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China will give him a mansion, a yacht, and a medal for glorious service to the motherland.
That's a weird assertion. Do you have any evidence that's something the Chinese government does?
Re: There will never be a trial. (Score:3)
It's well known that China pays expats to spy (sometimes unwittingly) on foreign companies to gain access to trade secrets. NYT has an article on a recent case: "The Daring Ruse That Exposed Chinaâ(TM)s Campaign to Steal American Secrets"
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0... [nytimes.com]
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It's also likely he's got nothing. I mean, Apple disbanded their Apple Car team years ago. Apple likely looked at what they were getting into and before committing too much, gave up. A car is likely well over Apple's head given the amount of safety critical software that goes into one.
So at best they may have had a few ideas, but otherwise nothing really earth shattering or revolutionary. Quite likely Apple was bogged down with all the myriad of details on putting a car together that the innovation that nee
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...account for his misdeeds against Uncle Sam.
Since when is Apple owned by Uncle Sam?
Re: There will never be a trial. (Score:2)
Apple is based in the USA and the success of American companies benefit Uncle Sam. It does not need to be 'owned' by Uncle Sam to be part of Uncle Sam interests.
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Keystone Kops? (Score:3)
FTFA:
"Wang was able to flee the country even after law enforcement executed the search, despite promising that he wouldn’t.
Wang boarded a flight to Guangzhou, China, from San Francisco International Airport. In a press conference, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismail Ramsey said Wang is in China and would face 10 years in prison for each count if extradited and convicted."
Onya, Chief Wiggum. Well done.
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FTFA:
"Wang was able to flee the country even after law enforcement executed the search, despite promising that he wouldn’t.
Wang boarded a flight to Guangzhou, China, from San Francisco International Airport. In a press conference, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Ismail Ramsey said Wang is in China and would face 10 years in prison for each count if extradited and convicted."
Onya, Chief Wiggum. Well done.
Yep, pretty inept of the police and the courts to not recognize an obvious flight risk.
What's also hard to understand is why the name of the Chinese auto company hasn't been released or at least leaked. The guy is just a pawn in the multinational game. The real punishment needs to be against the Chinese company, and the best punishment is to reveal their name and poison their future sales in the US. If the US were serious about such widespread industrial espionage, it would work with the EU to outlaw sal
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Yep, pretty inept of the police and the courts to not recognize an obvious flight risk.
It's possible they didn't actually want to go to trial with it.
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Cynical, but not implausible. Much better to let him slip away than deal with a public trial, exposing Apple's indifference in hiring, finding out how few degrees of separation exist between this guy and Hunter bucks, etc.
Re:Keystone Kops? (Score:4, Interesting)
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He could just as easily have been selling it to Uber or any number of other companies. Anthony Levandowski already pled guilty to stealing Google's self driving tech for Uber.
It's unlikely that it was WeRide that got the info. By the time Apple was well into it's car's R&D, they already had superior technology. Stealing Apple's tech would have been extremely dumb, given that they were already ahead and would have faced severe consequences like being sued into the ground by a rival with essentially infin
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IF so...fuck'em....we don't need them in the US period.
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Barn doors and horses (Score:2)
Typical government response: mete out punishment after the damage is done and can't be undone.
A pound of cure has 16 times the budget (Score:2)
as an ounce of prevention.
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An ounce of prevention would have been to profile this guy and figure he was a risk to be a spy for China and Chinese companies.
Epic Fail (Score:2)
Whoever ran this case shouldn't be in law enforcement.
A Chinese Stealing for China ... (Score:2)
Why am I not surprised? Thanks for that pointer to WeRide, Beerismydad. Those coordinates go in my list of targets for whenever I get my hands on an ICBM (or at least a cruise missile) launch site.