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Apple Concerned Ex-Employees Accused of Theft of Trade Secrets Will Flee to China

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Apple today asked a federal court to continue monitoring two Chinese-born former employees accused of stealing trade secrets, citing "deep concerns" that the two could attempt to flee the country before their trials.

According to Reuters, prosecutors argued that Xiaolang Zhang and Jizhong Chen should have their locations monitored because they are flight risks.

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Zhang was charged with theft of trade secrets back in July 2018 after he attempted to steal data on the car project that Apple has in the works. Prior to when he was caught, Zhang worked on Apple's compute team, designing and testing circuit boards to analyze sensor data in autonomous vehicles.

Zhang had "broad access to secure and confidential internal databases," and after announcing his plans to leave Apple for China-based XMotors, an investigation was launched due to suspicious behavior. Just ahead of leaving, Zhang accessed sensitive content that included prototypes, power requirements, low voltage requirements, battery systems, and more. Zhang was ultimately arrested at the airport in July 2018 attempting to leave for China.

In a separate incident, Apple caught Jizhong Chen, another Apple employee, taking photographs "in a sensitive workspace." After launching an investigation, Apple security officials found that Chen's personal computer contained "thousands" of Apple Car-related files, including manuals, schematics, photographs, and diagrams.

Chen had recently applied for a position with a China-based autonomous vehicle company and was arrested for theft of trade secrets one day before he was set to fly to China. Recently, it was also discovered that Chen had classified files from the Patriot missile program that belonged to Raytheon, his ex-employer.

Both men have been monitored electronically after being released on bail ahead of their trials, and they are now seeking to have that monitoring end. The lawyer for the men has said that they have not shown signs of violating pre-trial conditions thus far and did not actually share Apple's intellectual property with a third party.

The lawyer has also argued that each man was going to China to visit relatives, not to escape prosecution, and that both have strong ties to the United States. Chen and Zhang are both facing multi-year prison terms and hefty fines if convicted.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Concerned Ex-Employees Accused of Theft of Trade Secrets Will Flee to China
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2019/12/09/apple-employees-trade-secret-theft-flight-risk/
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Stop hiring Chinese nationals. Seriously, I'm amazed that Tim Cook and team are willfully ignorant to the shameless, brazen stealing of Western intellectual property by the Chinese. It's the cultural norm for them.

The Chinese Communist Party is only too happy to exploit this weakness in America's culture of acceptance and non-judgement. Stop being suckers!
 
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This is a pretty new thread and I’m already seeing a lot of worrying, xenophobic stuff. These people should be monitored and they shouldn’t be allowed to evade the trial, but I think that a lot of the anti-Chinese sentiment I am seeing here is borderline bigotry. The Chinese government does subjugate their people and their methods are highly disagreeable and wrong, but I don’t think that the people in this comment thread should twist these regrettable realities of living under Chinese governance into an argument impeding Chinese people from working at Apple.
 
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Internet Enzyme said:
This is a pretty new thread and I’m already seeing a lot of worrying, xenophobic stuff. These people should be monitored and they shouldn’t be allowed to evade the trial, but I think that a lot of the anti-Chinese sentiment I am seeing here is borderline bigotry. The Chinese government does subjugate their people and their methods are wrong, but I don’t think that the people in this comment thread should take these regrettable realities of living under Chinese governance as an argument against the Chinese people who wish to work for Apple.
Click to expand...

Wow you're pretty native. What bigotry? Who's being racist here? If you don't know how much Chinese companies have stolen in terms of intellectual property, designs, etc, you've been living under a very large rock.

You are also missing the point here, nobody is pointing out that ALL Chinese people are spies or technology thieves, but there's a chance that people on work visas or otherwise non American citizens or reisdents could be.

And it's a very, very serious threat.
 
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HiVolt said:
Wow you're pretty native. What bigotry? Who's being racist here? If you don't know how much Chinese companies have stolen in terms of intellectual property, designs, etc, you've been living under a very large rock.

You are also missing the point here, nobody is pointing out that ALL Chinese people are spies or technology thieves, but there's a chance that people on work visas or otherwise non American citizens or reisdents could be.

And it's a very, very serious threat.
Click to expand...

A statement like “China is our enemy” is a pretty jingoistic, unsettling piece of rhetoric: it’s a dangerous, dubious argument which people have used throughout history to justify many disastrous policies and conflicts.
 
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I believe in reciprocity. I think the USA and all other countries should apply to Chinese nationals, at least, the same laws there are in China for foreigners. For instance, in China, even if a foreigner national marries a Chinese national he/she doesn't inherit any rights, not even to work. A foreigners in China has almost no rights doesn't matter how long he/she is married with a Chinese national. I'm saying that and I'm not a USA national. All the western world recently is so worried about "rights", but nobody worry that in most of Asian countries (Japan included) there are absolutely no laws at all against any kind of discrimination, even, and especially, racial discrimination.
 
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If Zhang and Chen flee to China, what difference will it make to Apple? Whatever trade secrets they've memorized could be passed along in a phone call, and presumably already have. Assuming that the files and photographs were already recovered when they were arrested, those trade secrets wouldn't go with them to China.
 
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HiVolt said:
Wow you're pretty native. What bigotry? Who's being racist here? If you don't know how much Chinese companies have stolen in terms of intellectual property, designs, etc, you've been living under a very large rock.

You are also missing the point here, nobody is pointing out that ALL Chinese people are spies or technology thieves, but there's a chance that people on work visas or otherwise non American citizens or reisdents could be.

And it's a very, very serious threat.
Click to expand...
Ironically this was posted the same day that Gerald Williams was sued by Apple for using ARM work to start a new company. He obviously isn’t Chinese and actually may have taken more tech with him.

Any business with so much technology is at risk. Seems that Apple has a few issues.
 
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haunebu said:
Stop hiring Chinese nationals. Seriously, I'm amazed that Tim Cook and team are willfully ignorant to the shameless, brazen stealing of Western intellectual property by the Chinese. It's the cultural norm for them.

The Chinese Communist Party is only too happy to exploit this weakness in America's culture of acceptance and non-judgement. Stop being suckers!
Click to expand...

China had also innovated a lot. How dare you are saying that!
 
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Doctor Q said:
If Zhang and Chen flee to China, what difference will it make to Apple? Whatever trade secrets they've memorized could be passed along in a phone call, and presumably already have. Assuming that the files and photographs were already recovered when they were arrested, those trade secrets wouldn't go with them to China.
Click to expand...

If there's no negative consequences for corporate espionage what does that say to others who may be thinking about doing this? Go ahead because Apple doesn't care?
 
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