Former Apple employee is arrested as stolen confidential information from automatic driving car development project

A former employee who was engaged in Apple's own automated driving car development project " Titan " was arrested and indicted on charges of stealing Titan's top secret information. Former employees who stole confidential information were trying to find employment at Xiaopeng Motors, an automobile manufacturer supported by Alibaba.

Former Apple employee charged with stealing trade secrets from self-driving car project - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/10/17556034/fbi-apple-trade-secrets-xpeng-self-driving

Ex-Apple worker charged with stealing self-driving car trade secrets | Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-theft/ex-apple-worker-charged-with-stealing-self-driving-car-trade-secrets-idUSKBN1K02RR

Arrested and indicted by Xiaoloang Zhang, who had worked at Apple from December 2015 to May 2018. There is a possibility that a crime of up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 250 thousand dollars (about 28 million yen) may be imposed.

Apple's spokesperson said about this incident: "Apple is very serious about protecting intellectual property.Working with the authorities on this issue, we will see how individuals and stakeholders should be held responsible We are working to make it sure, "the statement is issued.

According to the federal complaint filed in the northern part of California during the arrest of Zhang, Zhang, who belonged to Apple's automated driving car project calculation team, seems to be engaged in circuit board design and testing. Zhang said he told his boss that he wanted to quit his company to spend time with his sick mother living in China when returning from a child-care leave for a month in late April 2018. And he also said that he will be working at Xiaopeng Motors in China after leaving Apple.

Xiaopeng Motors is a company established by He Xiaopeng, a mobile Internet entrepreneur in 2014.

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Regarding the case when Zhang informed Apple's boss's intention to resign, the complaint states that "he was repeating a very ambiguous expression." Later, when members of Apple 's new product security division participated in a meeting for Zhang' s departure, they were asked to return two mobile phones and laptops that were paid. After the meeting, Apple has analyzed the terminal that Zhang was given to the defendant and investigated past network activities.

Then, it is discovered that a large amount of search and information download was done the day before Zhang defendant resigned. What Zhang was downloading was the top secret data of Titan, capturing the appearance of coming out of the laboratory developing the automatic driving car on April 28, 2018 from the image of the surveillance camera installed in the company It seems he was being held. The data stolen by Zhang was the circuit board data being developed by Titan, etc. In addition to the terminal that Zhang responded to the stolen data was backed up to the laptop used by his wife besides the terminal used at work, Apple analyzed the notebook computer with the approval of Zhang By the way, it seems that it became clear that top secret data of as much as 40 GB is kept.

Apple informed the FBI of these findings and FBI was proceeding with Zhang's investigation of his home. However, on July 7, 2018 Zhang reveals that he purchased a round-trip ticket from San Jose, California to Beijing. When Zhang passed through a checkpoint in San Jose International Airport, FBI said he was arrested.