Chinese man arrested in U.S. for stealing Ford docs

Chinese man arrested in U.S. for stealing Ford docs

www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - A Chinese man who formerly worked at Ford Motor Co (F.N) has been arrested and charged with stealing trade secrets, including sensitive design documents, from the automaker, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

Authorities on Wednesday arrested Xiang Dong Yu, a product engineer at Ford from 1997 to early 2007, on charges he attempted to steal Ford trade secrets, stole some documents and used them to try to get work with Chinese automotive companies, the department said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I wonder just how much of this is presently going on? This just may be the tip of the iceberg. It no longer seems too important to try and steal national secrets. Instead just chip away at their industry to bring them down.

Apparently the guy was at it for a while.

In late 2006, Yu succeeded in a his attempt to find a new job with Foxconn, PCE Industry Inc and copied over 4,000 documents to an external hard drive before traveling to China to his new company's manufacturing hub, according to the indictment.

www.reuters.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 15-10-2009 by SLAYER69]

reply to post by SLAYER69


Surprising. Ford sucks. But better than Chinese' motor vehicle products, so I guess it makes sense.

reply to post by pluckynoonez


Well it's a good thing the US Government wasn't in charge of Ford or Obama would have apologized for not making it easier to steal.


[edit on 15-10-2009 by SLAYER69]

My guess would be that industrial espionage and spying is right up there with military espionage and spying.

All those foreign students that were attending school here in the US? All those foreign students now working for major US corporations?

Sliding our trade secrets and technological advances right out the back doors.

Let's face it. Business is pure war. And they don't take prisoners.

reply to post by dooper


Source

“Theft of trade secrets is a threat to national security,” said Andrew G. Arena, FBI special agent in charge, said in the statement. “Michigan, as well as the rest of the United States, is significantly impacted by the auto industry.”

reply to post by dooper


Indeed it is. The "electronic age" has made it a good deal easier, too. Nearly all information worth stealing is reduced to bits and bytes now, and it's a trivial matter to just copy those bits and bytes onto a really small, readily available removable medium these days.

Encryption is only as strong as the keys encrypting it, and in all honesty most folks are lazy in that area, and still pick easy to guess keys. To add to that, most industries, while claiming to have top-notch security, really don't know what it's about. Furthermore, they are composed of those same weak individuals who make really easy keys, and fail to change them regularly enough.

Keyloggers are a dime a dozen now, and unless something more elaborate than mere passwords are used, the encryption is just an annoyance, not really an obstacle.

Key files, stored on removable media so that they aren't available to spies are the way to go these days. Of course that removable media poses it's own problems, in the event that the key to an encrypted file IS compromised. The same thing the spies use to carry their keys on can be used to carry the compromised data out of the facility with.

Ain't nuthin' perfect, but it COULD be made a lot harder, and more interesting to crack.

reply to post by pluckynoonez


Ford Rocks there the only one who diddnt go to Uncle Sam looking for a handout...

reply to post by dooper


I wonder if countries like China have an advantage over the US when it comes to this kind of thing. As you mentioned the US is a more open society with many foreign students and workers from all over the world. China is more of a closed society because they were communist and have historically been more of a closed society. I think I would find it easier to find an America who would sell out his country than a Chinese person. That said, there was an Australian caught spying for BHP in China not long ago so it's not impossible to steal trade secrets from these less open societies.

[edit on 15-10-2009 by 4ortunate1]

reply to post by poedxsoldiervet


I guess Fords are doing well in China. They have opened a third plant there. So I suppose competing Chinese automakers would want to gain an advantage or at least an insight into what the competition is developing..


Ford Will Open A Third Chinese Auto Plant

Sep. 22, 2009
While the auto market in the US remains in the dumps, China's auto market is on fire. Today's example: Ford will build its third plant in China.

The new plant in China will have a capacity of 150,000 cars, adding to Ford's Chinese capabilities of 447,000. Ford is a laggard in China compared to GM who is a leader.

reply to post by nenothtu


Defense Department Official Convicted in Espionage Case

A Defense Department official was convicted Friday of providing classified information to a Chinese government agent and lying to the FBI about it.

A federal jury in Alexandria convicted James W. Fondren Jr. on three counts, prosecutors said. He was acquitted on four other espionage-related counts. Fondren was the second Pentagon official charged in an espionage ring that provided highly sensitive military information to China.

I wonder if he got where Ford catches on fire plans? That seems to be the normal for them every since the Pinto, I think they even have that part of the plan patented.....?????

Tru

Where there's a will, there's a way and this type of corporate sabotage isn't going to end... too much money in it. Gonna agree with dooper, business is "war" and top dog wins. Nobody gets there by being the nice guy...

ed: delete irrelevant info.



[edit on 15-10-2009 by LadySkadi]

reply to post by dooper


I have little sympathy for the automakers. They're a bunch of lying, cheating and stealing miscreants anyway. They haven't gotten beaten down nearly hard enough.

And then, trade secrets....please! What a load.

What they list could also be gotten by taking a car apart. Files are just more convenient. Heck trade secrets could include getting a non-public document to something that also has a public one for an almost identical part. I guess it depends on what the NDAs say.

"Engine and transmission mounting subsystem". Yeah, whatever.

[edit on 10/15/2009 by EnlightenUp]

My guess is that this incident flew under the obama administration radar while they were making plans for a top chicom military official to visit the Pentagon and other key military sites in the U.S. AND allow the russians to inspect all of our nuclear weapons facilities WITHOUT arranging for any kind of reciprocal visits and inspections.

reply to post by EnlightenUp

Actually, it's not a matter of determining the mechanical fittings, so much as sourcing, metals blends, chips, marketing, long-range planning, new products, impending technologies, and so on.

I mean, the Chinese would buy a few Russian fighters, and in no time would duplicate them. Apparently, Ford's cars are more complicated than Russian fighters.

reply to post by dooper


It could be in part about the actual production tooling and processes involved. Historically, alot of that problem solving fell upon the suppliers as well. The auto companies are pretty much open to thieving ideas and formulas at their convenience. That's how the old world game is played, as you pointed out.

reply to post by dooper




Yep, the chinese copy the Fords down to the last nut and bolt and they still can't get them to run.

Maybe because only registered owners of real Fords get all the recall notices ...

reply to post by centurion1211


I just wonder if there is some kind of cultural glory in the idea of stealing the ideas from "the enemy" over just sitting down, putting your head to work and solving the problems. I will venture a guess that they put a lot of time and effort into schemes of subversion and spying that could be used to directly find an innovative solution on their own.

I could be wrong but that's what it seems like.

reply to post by SLAYER69

I wonder just how much of this is presently going on?

Plenty!

When I was in Russia in '85 everything on wheels looked like a clone of US and European models especially their aircraft. Made you wonder if they ever designed anything themselves.

Trade shows are just legitimized espionage sessions for everything American. It's been that way forever.

Only thing that somewhat limits the practice are Trade Secret Laws and they can be skirted if done right. Just make a few changes in the design and voila.