On March 6, The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted a 38-year-old California resident and Chinese national for allegedly stealing proprietary information from Google.
Linwei Ding (aka Leon Ding) is accused of having pilfered over 500 files regarding information on Google’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) trade secrets. The former Google engineer is said to have lifted these files intending to pass them on to Chinese companies. This enabled China-based companies to become more competitive in the AI technological race. According to U.S. Attorney Ismail Ramsey, Ding was secretly working alongside two companies based in the PRC during his time at Google. The propriety information heist occurred from May 21, 2022, to May 2, 2023, tied to a Google Cloud account. Some of the proprietary information includes Google’s supercomputing data center infrastructure, AI models and applications, and the Cluster Management System (CMS) software for managing data centers. Ding even received promotions inside Chinese companies and was offered the position of chief technology officer in June 2022. He also served as the CEO of a separate company, founded by himself, as of May 30, 2023. According to the DOJ, his company perpetuated the production of software development to train large AI models and accelerate machine learning. Ding made concerted efforts to conceal his trade secret dealings. He executed the theft by first copying the data into Apple Notes on his company MacBook. Next, he converted the notes documents to PDF files and then uploaded them separately to the Google Cloud account. Ding resigned from Google on December 26, 2023. So far, they have charged him with four counts of theft of trade secrets. He stands to face a minimum penalty of 10 years in prison. He also will have to pay a fine of up to 250,000 for each count if found guilty.
Read more:
https://thehackernews.com/2024/03/ex-google-engineer-arrested-for.html
