Former Employee Stole Ford Secrets Worth $50 Million

chicksdaddy writes "A ten year veteran of US automaker Ford pleaded guilty in federal court on November 17 to charges that he stole company secrets, including design documents, valued at between $50 million and $100 million, and shared them with his new employer: the Chinese division of a US rival of Ford's. Xiang Dong ('Mike') Yu admitted to copying some 4,000 Ford Documents to an external hard drive, including design specifications for key components of Ford automobiles, after surreptitiously taking a job with a China-based competitor in 2006. Yu, who took a job for Beijing Automotive Company in 2008, was arrested during a stopover at Chicago in October, 2009. The FBI seized his Beijing Automotive-issued laptop, and an analysis found 41 stolen Ford specification documents on the hard drive. He faces five to six years in prison and a $150,000 fine (PDF)."

Re:Wake up, people.

[causality]

Good. And before we judge if that seems too harsh a punishment, I would ask if anyone knows what the Chinese government would do to an American engineer who did the same thing to a Chinese company.

Playing Devil's advocate here: so we can commit injustice and that's okay, because another country's injustices justify it?

I'm not claiming that this punishment is too harsh or too lenient for that matter. I'm not familiar enough with this incident nor do I know why this is a criminal matter and not a civil tort. So I won't make that judgment. Instead, I'm asking you this because I just don't understand your reasoning.

Re:Wake up, people.

[mbone]

I bet that hypothetical American Engineer would avoid stop-overs in Beijing.

Re:Why

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Seems to me it's an internal problem within Ford that they trusted untrustworthy people.

I suppose you have a magic solution that tells who is trustworthy and who is not? Are you selling any such snake oil? There are several different ways to reduce the problem, but until there is some kind of deep brain scan that can learn the thoughts and motivations of a person, I don't think there is even a shot at eliminating the risk of hiring untrustworthy people. And even then, an employer that uses that is probably not an employer that many people would want to work for.

Re:Wake up, people.

[afidel]

It could also be that the design docs were from the manufacturing process rather than the product itself. The process engineering behind a plant could easily be worth significantly more than even $100M because the plants today cost upwards of $1B to design, build, and furnish and the lifetime efficiency gains for a well engineered plant can also reach into the billions.

Re:Wake up, people.

[causality]

How did you arrive at that question from the gp's comment?

The point made was rhetorical: it may seem like a harsh punishment, but the punishment if the situation were reverse would obviously be harsher. You really don't understand the reasoning when comparing China and America?

Oh, I get it. I just think it's invalid. I'll try to clarify.

And before we judge if that seems too harsh a punishment, I would ask if anyone knows what the Chinese government would do to an American engineer who did the same thing to a Chinese company.

If I believe that a punishment is too harsh, it's because the punishment doesn't fit the crime. How someone else would punish the same crime is a separate discussion. If the USA fined people ten million dollars for jaywalking, I would say that's too harsh even if I knew that China executed people for jaywalking. One is simply too harsh to a high degree, and the other is too harsh to an exceedingly high degree.

The only relativity I recognize as important is that which exists between the punishment and the crime. That means I am in no danger of thinking that one abuse is legitimate merely because worse abuses are known to occur. I don't view concepts like justice and injustice (among others) as trade goods that have a value or a "going rate" which is set by the market conditions. I consider that a requirement of free thought.

Re:Wake up, people.

[cjanota]

One thing to consider is that what you believe to be fair punishment for a crime likely has some basis on what culture you were brought up in and how "tough" on crime that culture is.

Re:Does this mean all the Chinese cars are going t

[happyhamster]

>>Europe (is it flamebait to say they are better because they are away from US unions?)

Probably yes, because:

1) Workers in good old Europe have stronger unions than the withering joke the U.S. has.

2) European workers enjoy a terrific safety net which looks like the great wall of china compared to the spider web the U.S. wage slaves have. Never underestimate explosion of creativity in a geek who feels safe for economic future of his family.

Sentence

[Andy Smith]

"five to six years in prison and a $150,000 fine"

Can you imagine how awfully unbalanced it would seem if people got lesser sentences for causing death by dangerous driving?

Re:Wake up, people.

[ElectricTurtle]

Yeah, it was so bold of him to point out how America imprisons people for drug offences. Clearly that makes them so much worse than China where drug smugglers can be fucking summarily executed after a jury-less show trial. These things are so equivalent and parallel I don't know why I couldn't see it before.