11 ms·
It gets even worse. The person not only kept the laptop and used an exploit to download confidential Apple documents, they bragged about it to a contact who was
by Aurornis 4mo ago
It gets even worse. The person not only kept the laptop and used an exploit to download confidential Apple documents, they bragged about it to a contact who was still working at Apple who was also feeding him information:
> Liu allegedly kept an Apple-issued laptop after departing the company and exploited a vulnerability to download dozens of confidential Apple documents while he was working at OpenAI. He also maintained a relationship with Yu-Ting "Alyssa" Peng, an Apple employee who continued to give him updates on Apple's projects, vendor decisions, and engineering details. When Liu learned he still had access to Apple's systems, he texted Peng "LOL, I found out I can access the [network storage], so funny."
This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply to you.
Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them and I wipe any access credentials or authenticator codes that might be on any of my devices. I can't imagine being so brazen that you'd keep the company laptop and then start using an exploit to download confidential information for your new employer.
Doing it at a the company that most aggressively enforces secrecy is even crazier.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo agoWe need criminal charges to be filed against Liu, Tan and Peng. (And deep discovery to find anything Altman might have said to or about them.)
- nujabe 4mo agoWait, who is “we”? Why are you so invested in enforcing Apple’s IP rights?
- IcyWindows 4mo agoSome people care about justice in general? Also, normalizing stealing IP is only going to have bad consequences for everyone.
- nullc 4mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- afthonos 4mo agoThat is a true statement. Here is another one: Some people like to talk about “some people” snidely, instead of just coming out and saying “GP is bloodthirsty and gets a little thrill [etc].” Because of course, that’s what they mean, but they can’t back it up. Just to clarify, I’m talking about you.
- nullc 4mo agoWould you like me too? I thought it unnecessary and needlessly rude to single anyone out: There are many examples of HN regulars behaving this way, and in my impression it has considerably increased over the last six years. I'm sure I could find a post or two of my own that is guilty of it-- it's increasingly the culture here, as unfortunate as it is and it's something we should all watch out for to avoid it in ourselves and to discount it in others.
- afthonos 4mo agoI think it’s possible to observe something and be sure that it’s true in aggregate without being able to accuse any one individual of it. I propose that in those cases, bringing it up in response to an individual is not a good move. It doesn’t sound any less accusatory for being ostensibly about the general public.
- mcmcmc 4mo agoWhy don’t you care about the rule of law?
- kccqzy 4mo agoIt’s a criminal charge. Have you seen a legal case for that? It’s always something like The People of California v. Someone. At least in theory, every citizen is an interested party when the prosecutor files a criminal case.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- im3w1l 4mo agoBad people in control of AI is incredibly dangerous.
- parineum 4mo agoGood thing they're just in control of a bunch of LLMs.
- gessha 4mo agoIt’s because of people like those that companies invent a circus full of hoops to jump through to access a random PDF that you need to do your job.
- cosmicgadget 4mo agoIf you're interested in seeing them prosecuted you probably want to wait a couple of years. The current DOJ isn't doing so hot.
- JumpCrisscross 4mo ago> current DOJ isn't doing so hot Hit them with state charges. Altman being a brat makes this politically attractive for any AG with ambitions.
- atomicnumber3 4mo agoNah man that's how you end up in the permanent underclass. If you want to make it you have to throw everyone and everything else under the bus, be a bizarrely mustache-twirling evil misanthrope and general freakazoid-type loser, and most importantly get too big to fail / too rich to sue bc you have the good lawyers who can basically stall suits to death. Here's an application to Wendy's.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- luipugs 4mo agoI swear, some people are too quick to be offended or just can't recognize sarcasm.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- khurs 4mo ago"Whenever I leave a company I make sure..." But its also that companies responsibility to ensure that the employer doesn't take anything. Apple know how to use MDM on Apple laptops, why wasn't the device locked and located.
- kelnos 4mo agoAbsolutely, but just as it's not ok to enter someone's home just because they forgot to lock the door, it's not ok to exploit access at your old employer because their offboarding process missed something. I do the same as GP does; I don't want there to be any chance that my former employer has forgotten to revoke access to something, so I make sure to clear out anything that might remain on any device that I don't return to them. Who knows, maybe another former employee will decide to steal from them around the same time I leave, and me having access credentials on a personal device, even if I haven't used it, might arouse suspicion.
- khurs 4mo agoBut it's Apple, which is a huge target. Never mind these individuals, you will have China, Russia and other seeking to infiltrate it. In any top r&d area, one wonders if they perhaps should be searching staff on way out and making then sign out and return CAD drawings etc.
- junofan 4mo agoYou get trustworthy people by trusting people. Generally when I was there there was a presumption of trust. Given how blatantly the defendants are alleged to have acted, that’s still the case.
- ClumsyPilot 4mo ago> You get trustworthy people by trusting people Huh? Do FBI/CIA/etc run that way?
- 4mo ago
- joe_mamba 4mo ago>Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them Because you're probably come from a high trust culture where you've been taught reciprocal trust, responsibility and accountability, but there's people coming from low trust environments where exploiting loopholes and scamming everyone outside their inner circle is the norm, and it's the way they learned to get ahead in life, from school all the way to work and business. They're brazen because they've never been caught or suffered consequences for their actions. This isn't something you can screen for in a classic job interview.
- AussieWog93 4mo agoOk, the implication that I'm reading between the lines is that this sort of behaviour is somehow more tolerated by people with names like Liu and Tan, but is this actually the case? I know there's some evidence of Chinese people working at big tech and feeding data back to the CCP but is this a "low trust culture" issue in general or an extrapolation of that one pattern?
- aobdev 4mo agoI think you’ve made an extreme leap in your interpretation of the comment you’re replying to…
- mock-possum 4mo agoNo, ‘high/low-trust culture’ has lately been co-opted as a racist dog whistle.
- aobdev 4mo agoHuh, TIL. Thanks for pointing it out.
- lotsofpulp 4mo agoI feel like it used to be an effective dog whistle, but has ceased to be since Trump and company came around.
- steve_adams_86 4mo ago> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them Right. I noticed a coworker who recently left the organization was still running some of our software on his personal computer (evident in the access logs) and notified him that I could see, he should be more careful, etc. We agree to these contracts because compliance matters, not just because we need the job.
- xyzsparetimexyz 4mo ago> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them Meh, I'm not returning my nice 4k wfh monitor unless they ask for it specifically
- throw0101a 4mo ago> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them […] At $WORK we have the option of getting a work smartphone or having the company pay for (at portion of) our monthly mobile bill. I chose a work device because I do not want any cross-contamination. (Others chose payment because they did not want the 'hassle' of carrying a second device (and to save some cash).)
- ChrisMarshallNY 4mo agoIn my early career, I used my work computer (off hours) to do personal work. I never made any money, but it was still wrong. At some point, I couldn’t live with myself, and purchased my own computer (better than what work gave me, anyway). I never used my personal cell for work. The closest thing was coordinating meetups, when traveling.
- JohnMakin 4mo agoIt’s not just wrong, you’re potentially allowing anything you do on that work computer to 1) be owned by the company and 2) be discoverable in court. it’s amazing how many it orgs are so lax with this. personal/work devices should and always be entirely separate. BYOD is a really bad crutch and a potential compliance nightmare timebomb for all parties.
- WatchDog 4mo agoIf you are worried about the ethics of using a company laptop to do personal work, you might be taking it a bit far, what damage does this do to the company? If you are worried about the company claiming rights over your personal work, then it is prudent.
- sqquima 4mo agoI think that the new version of this is using your work's LLM account (potentially more powerful) to do personal work
- 4mo ago
- reactordev 4mo agoWhen espionage was your goal all along...
- testaburger 4mo agoassuming these employees are not just trying to shift the blame to OpenAI to cover their asses.. that's the beauty of American civil courts and the discovery process. An accusation was made. We'll find out through a transparent court process which side is telling the truth (or more likely to be telling the truth in the case of balance of probabilities).
- reactordev 4mo agoyeah the more information that has been leaked about what has transpired, the worse this whole situation gets. Apple has a ton of evidence in this case.
- grvdrm 4mo ago>This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply you. Spot on perfect. I see this too often and not just in tech.
- appplication 4mo agoAn acquaintance of mine was accidentally wired about $100k when it was supposed to be $5k. Before it could be reversed, they moved accounts and immediately bought a one way flight out of country. They then changed all socials and handles. They are now ignoring all court documents and are on track to get a default judgement against them. Their rationale? “It’s mine, they owed me this”. They are 100% convinced that they are in the right, not just that they can keep it but that they actually intended to send them this to begin with. I get it $100k isn’t nothing but they’re also throwing their life away for less than what they used to make a year in salary. People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power.
- SXX 4mo ago> People do weird things when given sudden access to money or power. Given your story its not sounds like this is power grab. More like they actually on spectrum and have some mental issues on top this. Or had mental breakdown because something happened before that money arrived. Situations when people do something weird, bad or just plain evil for money and power are usually logical. E.g people think they got access to more money they percieve they can earn in next decade, or ever, something that settles them for life. Earning more than $100,000 and throwing everything away for $95,000 only make sense if you are terminally ill. Or if it was never your real identify in first place and its well planned scam.
- decimalenough 4mo agoIf you're earning $100k in Silicon Valley, your expenses will swallow up almost all of that. A sudden $100k windfall, on the other hand, tax free and suitably invested,will let you live for years quite comfortably in many poor countries.
- inigyou 4mo agoRich people do this all day and it's why they're rich. There's nothing shocking about seeing a non-rich person try the same thing in hopes of becoming rich.
- mvkel 4mo ago> "People just submitted it. I don't know why. They 'trust me'. Dumb f*ks" - Mark Zuckerberg Sometimes there are no consequences
- cush 4mo ago> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back It’s a total liability to hold onto anything. Even if you don’t do anything with it, it could get stolen or misplaced, and you’re liable. Not worth the headache.
- ookblah 4mo agolol openai will be fine, but this guy and everyone in his blast radius is fucked. play stupid games win stupid prizes.
- taurath 4mo ago> This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply to you. Its also how some folks act like when they've done something they morally can't deal with - their subconscious starts throwing all sorts of obvious signs up until they get caught. I presume this was done for a giant pile of cash, stock, and probably a promise that nobody really cares if you show up or not, enjoy your retirement.
- xiphias2 4mo agoSo far it seems that he's winning as OpenAI is being sued, not Liu
- __natty__ 4mo agoOpenAI chosen not the sharpest tool in the shed
- throwaway94949 4mo ago> This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply to you. Found out I already had a bank account with €2000 balance in my name. Temptation was high to take over the account and withdraw the cash. Fortunately didn't touch a dime. Long story short, my identity got stolen, account was used to collect eBay scam money and cash out from ATMs. I was a suspect and investigated for money laundering and membership to organised crime. I had to sue the Prosecutor's Office to have them investigate the scammers and confirm my innocence. They initially refused because it was too hard... Italy.
- FireBeyond 4mo agoItaly, and beyond... the lobbying that has been done to make identity theft and associated fraud primarily a crime against the institution/business and not you, and the associated implications that you somehow "lost" your identity or failed to protect it (versus the reality, one of those businesses that required that information failed to safeguard it properly) is one of the biggest scams of modern day consumerism. When I was in the process of buying my home, with perfectly horrible timing something showed up on my credit report, a delinquency and charge off from Verizon of $1,800 or so. I've never used Verizon. I've been with AT&T for nearly 20 years. But after calling Verizon to dispute this as identity theft, this is what I learned - that "I" opened a Verizon account at a Walmart in El Paso, and ran up a huge bill calling numbers all around the world. I live near Seattle. I've been to Texas twice in my life. I was even overseas during part of this alleged activity. I supplied (I shouldn't have to supply all of it, but I did - I needed this resolved because ... mortgage application) police report, travel documents and receipts, hotel overseas, utility bills, AT&T bills. Verizon's first reply: based on our internal review, we remain satisfied that you are the one responsible for the debt, based on the documentation that was used to open the account. Me: In that case, I would love to see and be reminded of the documentation I used to open the account, to see if it jogs my memory of some amnesia, apparently. Verizon: due to customer privacy policy we are unable to show this to you. Me: "So this documentation is simultaneously enough to prove it really was me, but not enough for you to be satisfied that it may not actually be me and you might be violating some fraudster's identity privacy?" Basically. I got it resolved, but it took far too much work. And all the while, rather than "some company fucked up, and some other company's employee or process didn't catch it", I have to spend hours, and money, demonstrating to some other company that I didn't commit fraud against them, or they can make it impossible for me to buy a house without just paying them the charges someone else incurred.
- breppp 4mo ago> >This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply you. To me this sounds more like an extreme response to imposter syndrome, as in take the documents and the actual knowledge with you so you won't be exposed
- HumblyTossed 4mo ago> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them and I wipe any access credentials or authenticator codes that might be on any of my devices. I can't imagine being so brazen that you'd keep the company laptop and then start using an exploit to download confidential information for your new employer. I work from home and I have a lot of equipment here (because of what I do - think sensor fusion). Everything is labeled with a bright sticky tape that signifies it belongs to my employer. If I'm not using something at the moment, it's safely stowed in a box that is labeled. My SO knows where everything is, so in the event something happens, they know who it belongs to and who to call. In addition, I keep an inventory sheet of everything. I broke it all down easily so that my SO doesn't have to worry. By doing this, it makes it easy on me as well to know what I have, how long I've had it, when it needs to be returned by, etc. None of that belongs to me, but they trust me with it and I respect that and I take excellent care of all of it. The mindset that these ex-employees have is just mind blowing. I couldn't fathom doing that.
- Henchman21 4mo agoDecent people don’t rise to the top in this world. Their — and your — ethics won’t allow it. Which means by definition that the people at the top of the economic pyramid are the very worst of us.
- indigodaddy 4mo agoYike, this notion is deeply troubling to think about
- AnthonyMouse 4mo ago> This is how you behave when you think you're so much smarter than everyone around you that consequences don't apply to you. I think this is a cultural difference between security people and large populations of ordinary people. Security people tend to know both that breaking into something is generally possible if you put enough effort into it and that corporations are full of little napoleons who will try to curse your entire family for five generations if you embarrass them in public. And then "never affront the lawnmower" becomes a cultural norm out of self-preservation. Whereas for ordinary people, even in tech, seeing a security lapse is often met with some combination of cynicism and schadenfreude and "LOL" seems like a pretty normal response. Also notice that you're reading the company's version of events, which is naturally casting this exchange as a conspiracy against the company rather than the former employee reporting the security lapse to their contact who still works there who should have passed it up the chain -- but might not if they're afraid of sticking their hand in the lawnmower. Meanwhile I have trouble feeling outrage at this sort of thing because I don't think legal protection of trade secrets is a good policy. Competitors have a moral obligation to uncover things like this to increase competition in the market and if the company wants legal protection for its technology then it should file a patent (which will subsequently expire to the benefit of the public) rather than expecting public assistance for its attempt to sustain a monopoly rent forever.
- angrydev 4mo ago> omg, did you see Brian’s hat?
- godelski 4mo ago> Whenever I leave a company Whenever I start at a company I create a "firewall"[0] between everything. No personal stuff on company machines, no work stuff on personal machines. I don't want them spying on my personal life. I'm not sure why others are okay with their employers spying on them and having access to their devices. [0] I'm worried if I don't put in quotes people will think I just create a VLAN. I do that but I also mean it in the non technical sense. e.g. if a company wants to use smartphone apps I tell them to give me a company phone, they don't get to use mine for free.
- raxxorraxor 4mo agoYou will be flagged as untrustworthy in any IT/dev role and rightly so. If any employer gets associated with them and they handle customer data, trust in any of your privacy promises will be gone. As a dev you are often confronted with confidential data, so you should deal with it in a different way.