Former Google Engineer Found Guilty of Stealing AI Secrets For Chinese Firms (cbsnews.com) 34
Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from CBS News: A former Google engineer has been found guilty on multiple federal charges for stealing the tech giant's trade secrets on artificial intelligence to benefit Chinese companies he secretly worked for, federal prosecutors said. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, a jury on Thursday convicted Linwei Ding on seven counts of economic espionage and seven counts of theft of trade secrets, following an 11-day trial. The 38-year-old, also known as Leon Ding, was hired by Google in 2019 and was a resident of Newark.
According to evidence presented at trial, Ding stole more than 2,000 pages of confidential information containing Google AI trade secrets between May 2022 and April 2023. He uploaded the information to his personal Google Cloud account. Around the same time, Ding secretly affiliated himself with two Chinese-based technology companies. Around June 2022, prosecutors said Ding was in discussions to be the chief technology officer for an early-stage tech company. Several months later, he was in the process of founding his own AI and machine learning company in China, acting as the company's CEO. Prosecutors said Ding told investors that he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google's technology.
In late 2023, prosecutors said Ding downloaded the trade secrets to his own personal computer before resigning from Google. According to the superseding indictment, Google uncovered the uploads after finding out that Ding presented himself as CEO of one of the companies during an Beijing investor conference. Around the same time, Ding told his manager he was leaving the company and booked a one-way flight to Beijing. "Silicon Valley is at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, pioneering transformative work that drives economic growth and strengthens our national security. The jury delivered a clear message today that the theft of this valuable technology will not go unpunished," U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said in a statement.
According to evidence presented at trial, Ding stole more than 2,000 pages of confidential information containing Google AI trade secrets between May 2022 and April 2023. He uploaded the information to his personal Google Cloud account. Around the same time, Ding secretly affiliated himself with two Chinese-based technology companies. Around June 2022, prosecutors said Ding was in discussions to be the chief technology officer for an early-stage tech company. Several months later, he was in the process of founding his own AI and machine learning company in China, acting as the company's CEO. Prosecutors said Ding told investors that he could build an AI supercomputer by copying and modifying Google's technology.
In late 2023, prosecutors said Ding downloaded the trade secrets to his own personal computer before resigning from Google. According to the superseding indictment, Google uncovered the uploads after finding out that Ding presented himself as CEO of one of the companies during an Beijing investor conference. Around the same time, Ding told his manager he was leaving the company and booked a one-way flight to Beijing. "Silicon Valley is at the forefront of artificial intelligence innovation, pioneering transformative work that drives economic growth and strengthens our national security. The jury delivered a clear message today that the theft of this valuable technology will not go unpunished," U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian said in a statement.
He made the wrong move (Score:5, Funny)
He should've taken the perfectly legal route to acquire this by feeding all their confidential information into a private LLM rather than uploading it to his personal cloud account.
Re: He made the wrong move (Score:1)
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It is depressing how this is actually the single-most informative post anyone could possibly write on the subject.
Not all that smart (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone with brains would have done all the downloads on the last day and headed straight to the airport never to set foot in the US again. Either he's got a very dim view of Googles security apparatus or he's just an arrogant SoB and thought he was too smart to get caught.
I'm almost impressed. (Score:2)
Until now, I had never realised that, with something as sophisticated as the human brain, it was possible to achieve an IQ that was not only on the imaginary number line but also a negative value.
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Fix your Dunning Krugar:
politicalcompass.org
You're old enough to have a longer attention span, but being an old dog, you probably won't learn new tricks... except obviously you can be conditioned long term by propaganda to parrot Woke BS. Good propaganda always has a little truth mixed in so a cursory glance (perhaps all you can do?) makes it look sound... but since emotions cloud reasoning; if triggered soon enough, your brain has already shutdown. So maybe you are more capable than you present... just re
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By far, most perverts are white men. In the USA; which should be obvious but Americans do not grasp basic math. The largest demographic is white so even if a % of another group is worse the absolute numbers will be white. Why it's Men should be obvious; if not, it's amazing you are literate; count yourself lucky, genius of the idiots.
Hiding places. (Score:4, Insightful)
He uploaded the information to his personal Google Cloud account.
When an employee working for Google committing an active act of espionage is THAT fucking stupid, it really puts the artificial in intelligence.
This is like a bank teller robbing their own bank and then asking for a safe deposit box. A 12-year old can feel the embarrassment here.
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He uploaded the information to his personal Google Cloud account.
When an employee working for Google committing an active act of espionage is THAT fucking stupid, it really puts the artificial in intelligence.
This is like a bank teller robbing their own bank and then asking for a safe deposit box. A 12-year old can feel the embarrassment here.
This is what happens when a society devolves into being loyal to nothing but a pay cheque.
You'll always find people willing to be disloyal or treasonous for a payday... but in making the almighty dollar the supreme power, you're just making them cheaper and more readily available to anyone who wants them. This also means they aren't the smartest cookie in the jar either.
This is how the tree of ultracapitalism bears fruit. At least traditional fascism had a solid concentration on the nationalism part (
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My guess of why Ding uploaded to the Google Cloud: this was the only way to get the information out. That is, it couldn't be physically transported out of Google's office(s) otherwise.
Another guess: the file was encrypted before it was uploaded to the cloud. This -- and the size of the file -- may have been the tipoff that something nefarious was happening.
One more guess: A LOT of Chinese citizens are getting caught trying to steal US intellectual property. I wonder why they don't stop. So, the guess: those
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If he could display it on his screen, he could exfiltrate it.
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No, the tipoff was when he presented himself as the CEO of this other company at a conference and then booked a one-way flight to Beijing.
The investigation happened after that.
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They don't hire for brains, as brains can challenge the "leadership". They instead hire for agendas. Besides, there is nothing of value worth stealing from goolag except for the money they have in their accounts.
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It could have been worse (Score:3)
He could have stolen real secrets, not "AI" secrets.
Oopsies (Score:1)
It comes down to culture and duty (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, they have trouble understanding why Westerners don't put their country first.
My work took me to the local PLAF (Peoples Liberation Air Firce) base a lot and I had a lot of meetings with one of the generals there (Don't be too impressed, they made a singer a General). He wanted to understand why the US would let Chinese people into research facilities in the first place. He made the point that, "They are Chinese, you have to know they are spies."
I tried to explain America's laws about racial discrimination. He didn't buy it at all. He felt that there had to be some underhanded strategy about it that he just didn't understand. It is a different way of thinking.
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He felt that there had to be some underhanded strategy about it that he just didn't understand. It is a different way of thinking.
You should have asked him if everyone there would lie/cheat for the party then why would anyone have any trust in what he said. They lie, I lie, we all lie, just isn't how you build a healthy society, but it keeps a corrupt one running longer and maybe smoothly, Given lying is patriotic just salute him saying "whatever you say comrade General." Brief flashback to the Catholic church days, ewww.
Lying for my country shows disrespect for all its upstanding members, we as individuals should be better than th
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>Lying for my country shows disrespect for all its upstanding members
That is a real cultural value for most of us Slashdotters. I live in Seattle which and there are large Asian communities here. Over my 30 years living here I have come to understand that not all cultures share that value. For some Chinese, selling their employer's secrets back to China is not only accepted, but expected behavior.
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Generals are not impressive people by most measures; a singer has some genetic gift and skills - they are not brainwashed (force trained) like a dog or need a great deal of LUCK to get a career as a general. Of all people, a general is most likely to be blindly nationalistic and ethnocentric ; not about race which isn't even any more real than Santa.
Leaking info to China is nothing. Trump did 1000s of times worse; the # place in the world for Chinese computer experts/researchers was the USA... was. They ju
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So he did evil ? (Score:2)
Robbers robbing robbers (Score:2)
To misquote Terry Pratchett, with AI "secrets", that's really thieves all the way down...
Silicon Valley is at the forefront of AI (Score:2)
Translation: Silicon Valley is the Schrader valve overinflating the AI tire.
Ding stole pages of confidential information (Score:2)