back to article Google sues Pixel engineer who allegedly posted trade secrets online

Google filed a lawsuit last week against an Indian semiconductor engineer for allegedly posting trade secrets related to its Google Pixel chip designs online. Legal action was filed in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas alleging the engineer, Harshit Roy, engaged in "misappropriation of trade secrets." …

  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    But, but,

    Doesn't Google believe that there should _be_ no secrets?

    (Well, not secret from it, anyway)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Photos are still on Twitter

    From what I can see, the replies of his Twitter account still show a lot of pictures of schematics, posted on August 21st. Preceded by a message from August 20th that says "@GoogleIndia either reply or i will post all the photos by tomorrow". This is, as they say, a bold strategy and let's see if it pays off for him...

    (These seem like posts to me. Why do they show under replies rather than posts?? Twitter is a mystery to me)

    1. steviebuk Silver badge

      Re: Photos are still on Twitter

      I can no longer read twitter without an account it seems, I killed mine when the orange man one and the big man child owner of twitter smirked.

      1. cyberdemon Silver badge
        Pirate

        Re: Photos are still on Twitter

        >I can no longer read twitter without an account it seems

        I never could read Twatter posts without an account, so I never bothered, until I discovered Nitter. Substitute x.xom for a Nitter instance such as xcancel.com

        i.e. https://xcancel.com/_harshitroy/with_replies

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Photos are still on Twitter

          @cyberdemon

          Many thanks for the link.

          After looking at those photos and reading the comments (that are in English), he must be a batshit nuts if he thinks he will get away with it...

      2. Tilda Rice

        Re: Photos are still on Twitter

        >I killed mine when the orange man one and the big man child owner of twitter smirked.

        Grow up.

  3. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Does not compute

    I don't understand what he hopes to achieve. He's in a country where money is king, fighting against a company with money to burn.

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Re: Does not compute

      I can only assume that he's decided that an American prison would provide a better life than he had previously. I somehow doubt that, but it's definitely the direction he's heading.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Does not compute

      He comes off as mentally ill. Possibly schizophrenic.

    3. Captain Boing
      Holmes

      Re: Does not compute

      yeah, not he brightest of ideas to re-locate to USA where they can get him on continuance changes REAL easy.

      I think there is an element of mental instability at work

  4. Bebu sa Ware
    Windows

    Nothing clever...

    in shitting on a US tech megacorp for a start and then doing again it in the US. Hell they don't even need to resort of a dodgy extradition request as the silly sod is resident and in, of all places, Texas which probably isn't the wisest choice of the 50 available.

    Have to wonder in what discipline his PhD at UT was to be attempted. Advanced Silly Soddery would have to be favourite, or perhaps some other flavour of AI.

    I do not imagine his doctoral thesis could be titled "Incorporating Rational Constraints in Artificial Models of Reasoning."

    1. steviebuk Silver badge

      Re: Nothing clever...

      He saw the orange one committing crimes and getting away with it so probably thought he'd be able to do the same.

      1. steviebuk Silver badge

        Re: Nothing clever...

        We have 7 MAGA people who still think Trump is innocent and that he loves and respects them. Very funny.

  5. Peter D

    A complete loon

    Clearly, he will be going for an insanity defence.

  6. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Excellent marketing

    I really like the idea of using your LinkedIn profile in order to leak a previous employers intellectual property. Because that really shows your next potential employer what a great catch you are - and what an awesome job you're going to do for them.

    1. LBJsPNS Silver badge

      Re: Excellent marketing

      After the trial I don't think he's going to have to worry about finding employment for a while.

  7. excperr

    Any action against google is to be applauded. Keep going man

    1. Jedit Silver badge
      Stop

      "Keep going man"

      "Keep going"? He's already gone. Any chance Harshit Roy had of getting away with any of it disappeared when he said, in essence, "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough". I'm not a Google fanboy and I'm not upset that one of the world's biggest data thieves have been robbed themselves, but there's ways to go about it. Around Mr Roy did fuck, and find out he shall I'm afraid.

      1. excperr

        Re: "Keep going man"

        Think of him as a martyr mabye that will help the hard of thinking here?

        1. O'Reg Inalsin

          Re: "Keep going man"

          Seems they have been fairly gentle with him so far. Most American corporations would long ago have been pushing for law enforcement to bring all kinds of felony charges, even if the secrets were not really valuable (I'm guessing these weren't that valuable). Google is really showing a human side.

    2. excperr

      lol at the gimp downvotes, that terrible phonecian corp needed to be decimated decades ago... have a nice day CONformists :)

    3. ChoHag Silver badge

      When that "action" is stabbing yourself in the eyeballs it's not so helpful.

  8. heyrick Silver badge

    I would love to grab a bag of popcorn and see how this plays out (because any chance to poke Google is worth watching), but I can't help but imagine that any lawyer for the guy is liable to "oh hell no" right out the door when asked to take the case.

    Also, while his grievances with Google might be used as some form of mitigation, courts typically have a fairly narrow scope. They won't be interested in "does he want to kick The Man in the balls". They'll be "did you sign an NDA?" followed by "did you then distribute the things covered by the NDA?" Yes or No answers only...

    So, yeah, either he's a seriously misguided "radical" that's in the process of tossing his future away, or - as was mentioned above - insanity plea material.

    1. O'Reg Inalsin

      There are plenty of lawyers who would be wiling to take the case along with a retainer - but perhaps not so many pro bono. EFF wouldn't want to get involved.

      He sounds "on-the-spectrum" to me. Doubtless any lawyer would want to try that defense.

      1. doublelayer Silver badge

        That defense effectively doesn't exist. A true insanity defense requires demonstration, or at least a convincing argument, that the person committing the crimes was so out of reality that they didn't know what they were doing or understand what the effects would be. Someone having a mental illness making it more likely to do stupid things and then doing a stupid thing, fully understanding what they were doing, that they had signed an agreement against it, and what the effects would be won't count. Those illnesses can have an effect on the punishment, but not always, but they have almost no chance of convincing anyone to acquit on that basis. I'm not sure he has other options worth trying, but nearly any alternative would be better than this.

    2. steviebuk Silver badge

      Or "I have all this dirt on Google. As soon as I go prison, it WILL be released, maybe we could do a deal".

  9. DS999 Silver badge

    How exactly do you provide "proof of deletion"

    For pictures you took with your phone? You can prove you deleted them from your camera roll, but it is impossible to prove you have deleted all copies and whatever level of proof they asked for you could still squirrel away an unlimited number of copies.

  10. Kenny Powers

    https://casetext.com/statute/texas-codes/penal-code/title-7-offenses-against-property/chapter-31-theft/section-3105-theft-of-trade-secrets#

    Harshit is in deep shit because that's a felony in Texas.

  11. JWLong Silver badge

    Harshit Roy,

    Makes me wonder what AI thinks of his name. I had to read it three times I was laughing so hard!

    Other than that, he sounds like a nutbag.

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