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Apple Concerned Ex-Employees Accused of Theft of Trade Secrets Will Flee to China
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Wow. Your comment literally makes my head hurt.
Lol, you realize these weren’t Foxconn factory workers, yeah?? You get that this engineer was working at Apple in Cupertino, CA (that’s in the United States!), yeah??
Wtf do you think... he got shipped over here in a box to work for $3/hr?
You think all the workers that don’t look Aryan enough for you get huge wage decreases because they’re not considered “domestic talent”??
I struggle to decide whether your comment is more ignorant or racist. Definitely both though.
Did you forget about the possibility that these employees were hired on the H1B visa? And yes they do cost less than domestic employees.
The Chinese government is the problem, not the people. Look at Hong Kong.
1 china is not an enemy of the USA.
china is an economic competitor of the USA.
there is a world of important difference between these two.
russia is an enemy of the USA.
2 it is un-American to discriminate based on national origin or ethnicity. period. full stop. don't go there.
3 expecting apple to not hire chinese-USA dual nationals (holding passports to both countries) is not possible legally. and not wise from a program's development perspective. hire more of them!
(note: china national law does not allow dual citizenship but many chinese ignore this and have passports from both countries)
4 however, in the near future, not solely based on these two incidents, i would expect apple to move towards a hiring perspective that limits or curtails hiring of chinese nationals (who don't simultaneously also have USA citizenship as well) from working at apple's USA based facilities.
5 apple does a HUGE amount of a vast portfolio of development work within the boundaries of china. its not just a sales market.
6 and very to the point related to these two incidents dealing with autonomous software: don't forget (or, as within china it is phrased: " A Warm Reminder"): apple invested over USD 1 Billion (yes, with a B) into Didi Chuxing which is the Chinese Uber which is working on world-class advanced tech into autonomous driving systems and how to roll it out in actual real world applications.
the results of that partnership and investment funnel into apple's spaceship campus.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/12/...n-chinese-transportation-service-didi-chuxing
china is an economic competitor of the USA.
there is a world of important difference between these two.
russia is an enemy of the USA.
2 it is un-American to discriminate based on national origin or ethnicity. period. full stop. don't go there.
3 expecting apple to not hire chinese-USA dual nationals (holding passports to both countries) is not possible legally. and not wise from a program's development perspective. hire more of them!
(note: china national law does not allow dual citizenship but many chinese ignore this and have passports from both countries)
4 however, in the near future, not solely based on these two incidents, i would expect apple to move towards a hiring perspective that limits or curtails hiring of chinese nationals (who don't simultaneously also have USA citizenship as well) from working at apple's USA based facilities.
5 apple does a HUGE amount of a vast portfolio of development work within the boundaries of china. its not just a sales market.
6 and very to the point related to these two incidents dealing with autonomous software: don't forget (or, as within china it is phrased: " A Warm Reminder"): apple invested over USD 1 Billion (yes, with a B) into Didi Chuxing which is the Chinese Uber which is working on world-class advanced tech into autonomous driving systems and how to roll it out in actual real world applications.
the results of that partnership and investment funnel into apple's spaceship campus.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/5/12/...n-chinese-transportation-service-didi-chuxing
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Wow this news is not placed in the political section. That's new.
Strong vetting procedure and background check is fundamental. But don't forget a part of the reason we are hiring Chinese people is because WE PRODUCE WAY TOO FEW DOMESTIC STEM GRADUATES.
If you want to rid the Chinese of opportunities, simple. Go study in their field, beat them in educational attainment, and apply for jobs at the same places they do – employers will literally fight for you. We hire them because they cannot find comparable American counterparts.
Strong vetting procedure and background check is fundamental. But don't forget a part of the reason we are hiring Chinese people is because WE PRODUCE WAY TOO FEW DOMESTIC STEM GRADUATES.
If you want to rid the Chinese of opportunities, simple. Go study in their field, beat them in educational attainment, and apply for jobs at the same places they do – employers will literally fight for you. We hire them because they cannot find comparable American counterparts.
Doesn’t matter what race, ethnicity, gender, etc that they are. Theft is theft and needs to be prosecuted. Apple should do better investigation into foreign talent going forward to prevent this from happening again.
Worth remembering that the theft of trade secrets is not only a Chinese phenomena:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...-against-uber-gets-hit-with-criminal-charges/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/tech...-against-uber-gets-hit-with-criminal-charges/
They only want to leave to visit family members??? 🤣🤣🤣
Who said China is our enemy except one MR opinion, which counts for the same weight as other MR opinions? And if this opinion is not correct what does it make Apple?
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. It's standard operating practice in China to try to get people employed in American businesses who have access to information they want, and to encourage them to leak it out over time "for the greater good of China".
The link below tells a great story of how this worked when China stole DuPont's process for making super white pigment:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-stealing-dupont-white/
I'm not saying nobody in America from China should ever get a job with a tech company. But I'm saying it would be VERY foolish to give such a person access to proprietary corporate information/secrets.
The link below tells a great story of how this worked when China stole DuPont's process for making super white pigment:
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-stealing-dupont-white/
I'm not saying nobody in America from China should ever get a job with a tech company. But I'm saying it would be VERY foolish to give such a person access to proprietary corporate information/secrets.
Here’s a solution: hire Taiwanese, Singaporean and (native) Hongkongers.
Similar or better levels of talent than their mainland Chinese counterparts, well familiar with asian manufacturing and markets, and already respect and value democratic and merit based ideology and corporate culture.
Now you can’t find a billion of em to hire, but on the flipside you won’t have to worry about catching a billion internal thieves either.
Similar or better levels of talent than their mainland Chinese counterparts, well familiar with asian manufacturing and markets, and already respect and value democratic and merit based ideology and corporate culture.
Now you can’t find a billion of em to hire, but on the flipside you won’t have to worry about catching a billion internal thieves either.
- Bringing people to trial can lead to additional evidence and discovery. This information may help Apple further understand what is happening and how to look for it in the future.
- Threat of prosecution can lead to plea deals and cooperation. Cooperation can uncover other partners or co-conspirators, some who may even still be employed by Apple.
- Vigorously going after existing thieves is a deterrence to future thieves. Also known as "setting an example". To any potential thieves on the fence, this might "keep them honest". To any potential thieves determined to do this, they may prefer to seek employment elsewhere.
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That's just the business case for it. The more insidious case is infiltration of secure systems, possibly to be exploited later. If you don't think the Chinese government has a ton of workers sent to the US to do just this, you haven't been paying attention. All US tech companies are at risk: Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and obviously, the US government and military. Also don't forget US tech companies are increasingly developing technology that is bought and used by the military: Amazon facial recognition, Google robots, drone tech, etc. I wouldn't doubt if even systems that run our power grids and nuclear reactors are developed by commercial companies. It's a very serious risk to national security.
That said, the solution probably isn't "ban all Chinese workers." It's a tricky problem but one that keeps getting worse, with higher stakes.
Last I checked to file for an H1B visa petition the employer has to prove that they cannot find an American to fill the job, and the pay is greater than or equal to an American worker who does the same job at the company.
swingerofbirch
macrumors 68040
With this being the company that has brought us Siri and Apple Maps, those automobile secrets have got to be worth 10s if not 100s of dollars!
And there are certain cultural norms that western cultures deem normal/expected, but don't exist in other cultures like the Chinese. You cannot just change people's behaviors/habits that have been ingrained in their culture with a simple company policy.
Unfortunately, many management from western countries didn't put this factor as most tech companies focuses on hard skills on recruitement. Now they're paying the price.
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True.
But that can also be easily worked around. I mean these companies have smart lawyers.
Is that even legal? And if it is, wouldn't be that discrimination aswell to monitor only chinese workers? I mean there aren't greys in this situation, you either discriminate them one way (not hiring chinese workers) or another (monitoring chinese workers) or you just do nothing and cross your fingers hoping nothing bad happens. And I don't say from any ideology (not even american), just from pure pragmatism. It's a lose-lose situation
If I were Chinese I would be super sad that in my own country there are no laws against racial discrimination and nobody cares about it. I've seen no protest in the street against human rights against this particular offences in China. What's funny is that Chinese nationals instead become eloquent as soon they put their nose outside their own country, especially if they feel racial discrimintion problems. For instance they write a lot of messages on internet. I would be very sad about that if I were Chinese, I'm very sad about this problem regardeless the country I'm citizen.