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

[recoil80]

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.

If they're accused of stealing secrets chances are they have already transferred everything to whoever paid them, but if they go back to China there is no way they'll be brought back to the US for the trial.
The secrets are gone, but at least if they face trial and found guilty they'll be punished for being spies, it is better than nothing.

 

[niv007]

Why would they want to steal Apple's IP? So they can build a car full of bugs that needs constant updates? 🙃

 

[0iKK]

If you haven't already, now you know who's winning re-election...

 

[Wando64]

China is our enemy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

This kind of industrial espionage has been happening forever. Very often between same country companies.
if your life is enhanced by having “enemies”, then by all means you can imagine one in China, but actually this is just business as usual.

 

[indyandy]

so apple wanted to save 20k a year by hiring someone from china instead of someone born in the usa...?

Maybe the Chinese where just better qualified than the American applicants. China has very good education paid by the state. In the US you only get a good education if you have the money for it.

 

[Wando64]

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".

What Kind of credentials do you have to feel entitled to make statements like this and be taken seriously?

 

[djgamble]

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.

^^^

Well said, mate. My 10c...
- A lot of posters seem to assume they were somehow earning less as some kind of a cost cutting scheme. Truth be known it's very hard to get a job with Apple and their skills woulda been vetted quite strictly. They woulda been very talented and that's why you hire a diverse workforce... so that you can get the best and brightest!
- It would be ridiculous for US-based multinationals to stop recruiting people with any trace of Chinese ethnicity. Completely ridiculous and racist.
- There are broader concerns (which I share) about the conduct of the Chinese government and how its subjects generally don't see the wrong in stealing/sabotaging for the greater good (e.g. a few years back a NASA dude got busted for stealing America's secrets and he saw nothing wrong with stealing from the US government to give to the Chinese government... he felt that he owed them a duty because they'd vowed to protect him wherever he lived...etc).
- Overall there must be a balance. You wanna realise the benefits that diversity brings to the market (e.g. a looot of ethnically Chinese people will hate the communist party with a passion) while avoiding those who are gonna backstab you. It's always a tough balance but mindless racism is not the answer. Cool heads and methodical vetting/security procedures (like we've seen here - they both got busted!) are far more effective.

 

[votdfak]

Apple is using China's cheap workforce. I don't see a problem here. Just a little compensation.

 

[itsamacthing]

America is so naive, they should never have been given bail, lock them the hell up and throw away the keys.

 

[centauratlas]

So Apple is concerned about people leaving the country illegally, but not arriving without proper documentation?

 

[bernoulli]

With people like you, no wonder Trump became president. He deserves to be elected for second term.
[automerge]1575977475[/automerge]

China is our enemy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

With people like you, no wonder Trump became president. He deserves to be elected for second term.

 

[Tech198]

China is our enemy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

it is, but since our phones are assembled there they can't be THAT bad either..

I also don't believe these who men would be back... One they cross boarder China would be protectng them regardless,and it would be more difficult.

 

[NachoGrande]

Keep putting more information in the hands of the chinga, help them building tooling and what do you think will happen. I guess that's the price you pay, when you pay .15 an hour for labor.

 

[bernoulli]

China is our enemy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

Your beloved apple products are assembled in China and yet you still bought them

 

[V_Man]

so apple wanted to save 20k a year by hiring someone from china instead of someone born in the usa...?

Wouldn’t surprise me.

 

[Joecool5150]

I think you'll find this kind of practice by Chinese (not all, I'm merely generalising here) in many markets and fields....I have seen this in the bioprocess industry where they will work for the large multinational Pharma companies to then take their knowledge back to China to produce biosimilars. This is nothing new.

 

[V_Man]

As a Chinese, I am super sad to hear you saying this. However, no every Chinese are like them.

He’s not taking about China’s citizens. He’s talking g about the government. At least that’s what I hope

 

[patent10021]

Apple has deep concern for deep learning Chinese and Chacha has bowel concern for Larry's bowels.

 

[Michael Cavada]

Apple really needs to work on one of these!

 

[GalileoSeven]

This is the price of cheap labor. Don't like it? Either lock your stuff down or start paying a little more

 

[WaxedJacket]

announcing his plans to leave Apple for China-based XMotors

Keep in mind all companies in China are centralized and run by the government. I could see someone confusing this as someone going from Apple to a Chinese company. No, they're stealing ideals from Apple and turning them over to the Chinese government.

 

[cmaier]

This is the price of cheap labor. Don't like it? Either lock your stuff down or start paying a little more

I would suspect that they were very well compensated, and not “cheap labor.”

 

[triton100]

China is our enemy. Anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.

What I’m curious about though is what is their end game? China are clearly corrupt and steal intelligence from all over the world and will be doing so through their installation and control of 5g networks across huge swaths of the world including th U.K. (who are desperate for money and trade deals and willing to sell its people out to China.) but what do the Chinese ultimately want? Is it to control the world in the future ? Or is it to just simply have a financial advantage over other countries or what ?

 

[Joniz]

Look, Apple had to hire the Chinese guys because if they had hired the white guys, those guys would’ve eventually brought automatic weapons to the office and started murdering people.

Clearly, Apple puts employee safety over property theft.

And if you truly believe that every individual in a population is a reflection of their government, than what does that say about every American?

 

[cinq2]

All US tech companies are at risk: Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, and obviously, the US government and military.

How US government and military are at risk? Do they hire foreign-born workers?