The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday said it has charged former Apple engineer Weibao Wang with attempting to steal the firm’s technology related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars, and then fleeing to China. Wang is the third former Apple employee to be accused of stealing autonomous trade secrets for China.
The allegations against Wang come after another Apple employee, Xiaolang Zhang, pleaded guilty in San Jose federal court to a similar theft involving trade secrets in Apple’s car division.
Sarah N. Lynch, David Shepardson, and Karen Freifeld for Reuters:
“We stand vigilant in enforcing U.S. laws to stop the flow of sensitive technologies to our foreign adversaries,” Matt Olsen, the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, told a press conference. “We are committed to doing all we can to prevent these advanced tools from falling into the hands of foreign adversaries.”
The former Apple engineer, identified as 35-year-old Weibao Wang, formerly resided in Mountain View, California, and was hired by Apple in 2016, according to an April indictment unsealed on Tuesday.
In 2017, he accepted a U.S.-based job with a Chinese company working to develop self-driving cars before resigning from Apple, but waited about four months before informing Apple of his new job, according to the indictment.
After his last day at Apple, the company discovered that he had accessed large amounts of proprietary data in the days before his departure, the Justice Department said. Federal agents searched his home in June 2018 and found “large quantities” of data from Apple, it added. Shortly after the search, he boarded a plane to China, the department said.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in 2019, this “seems like an avoidable problem.”
Back in 2018, Reuters reported that the charges filed in U.S. federal court alleged that Zhang disclosed intentions to work for a Chinese electric car startup and booked a last-minute flight to China after downloading the plan for a circuit board for a self-driving car.
In 2019, another Chinese national was charged with stealing Apple’s autonomous vehicle trade secrets. Jizhong Chen was charged with stealing proprietary information from the company’s self-driving car project while applying to work for a Chinese rival.
A search of a hard drive owned by Chen found thousands of sensitive Apple documents along with 100 photos taken inside the company’s self-driving facility, according to an FBI affidavit.
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Sooo…we’re not letting China infiltrate our system anymore? I’m confused!
You’re always confused
What do you mean? I think our relationship with China is very good. We did a big trade deal. And started on another trade deal with China — a very big one. And we’ve been working very closely. They’ve been talking to our people, we’ve been talking to their people, having to do with the virus.The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi! Well, what I mean by that is it almost shouldn’t have been done. And you know, I really don’t even know what I mean, because that was a long time ago, and who knows what was in my head. I think that it wasn’t done correctly. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been done at all. It was sort of, you know, it was just done. By the way, I had a very good meeting with Tim Cook, and one of the things, he made a good case, it’s tough for Apple to compete with a very good company that’s not. Tremendous!
now do a take on Biden, Trump may be bad but Biden has so much more content to make fun of
Let me tell you something, folks. Nobody, and I mean nobody, makes no sense like I do. I’m the king of making no sense, believe me. People try to understand me, but they can’t. They just can’t, folks. They say, “Donald, what are you talking about?” And I say, “I don’t know, but it’s tremendous, believe me.”
I’ve tried. I’ve really tried to make fun of Joe Biden, but here’s the thing, he speaks too well. I mean, it’s unbelievable, it’s tremendous, believe me. Joe Biden, sleepy Joe, he speaks, I speak, we all speak, but let me tell you, it’s like a banana split in a tornado. His words, they come out like spaghetti unicorns tap-dancing on a cloud, and it’s a problem, a real problem, folks. I’m more like a polka-dotted jigsaw puzzle missing half its pieces, scattered in a kaleidoscope. But you know what? That’s what makes me unique, folks. I’m like a rubber duck wearing a top hat, quacking nonsensical melodies in a labyrinth. Meanwhile, Joe, he’s all about logic and reason, like a professor of socks teaching calculus to caterpillars. It’s simply mind-boggling, folks. I try to make fun, throwing cotton candy insults into a black hole, but he just keeps spinning his web of coherence, like a philosophical spider knitting existential sweaters. But hey, I’ll keep swinging, I’ll keep juggling flaming bananas and singing lullabies to the moon, because in this circus of a world, we need a little chaos. So here’s to the bewildering, the senseless, and the whimsical.
So, how many whacks with a wet Chinese noodle did Xiaolang Zhang get?
Once upon a time, in the mystical land of Covfefe, Xiaolang Zhang found himself entangled in a noodle-laden adventure. With great curiosity, he ventured into a hidden noodle sanctuary where he encountered a mischievous Chinese chef wielding a wet noodle. As the tale goes, Xiaolang faced a barrage of whacks, not one, not two, but “bigly” thirty-seven whacks! Each strike with that slippery noodle seemed to be the embodiment of the famous Art of the Noodle Whackery. It was a spectacle, a tremendous display of noodle mastery like you’ve never seen before! Of course, the noodle whacks were nothing more than a playful encounter, filled with laughter and amusement. And thus, Xiaolang emerged unscathed, carrying the memory of his wet noodle encounter as a cherished moment in his adventurous journey.
How about disabling Usb storage on sensitive computers? Eh? also no External Internat access? Wake up?