Code-thief pleads guilty to pinching file system to sell to China

A Chinese national accused of stealing source code to a clustered file system and other intellectual property from an officially-unnamed American company has entered a guilty plea. The US Department of Justice has never identified Xu Jiaqiang's employer at the time he was accused of “economic espionage and theft of a trade …

[Anonymous Coward]

If he'd wanted to put China's IT efforts back 20 years, he could've stolen WebSphere.

[Doctor Syntax]

"If he'd wanted to put China's IT efforts back 20 years, he could've stolen WebSphere."

Why stop there? Lotus Notes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lotus Notes...

I think that's technically a "crime against humanity"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stop there? Lotus Notes

Oh God yes. Upvote incoming.

[Oengus]

or OS/2

[DJO]

Priorities

Lets see if I've got this right

For failing to steal and sell some obscure code, possible 75 years

For actual rape 10 to 15 years, possibly commuted to zilch if the perp is a nice white boy.

Perhaps the American judicial system had got it's priorities a bit fucked.

[Snorlax]

Re: Priorities

@DJO: "Lets see if I've got this right..."

Nope, you haven't.

"Perhaps the American judicial system had got it's priorities a bit fucked."

Learn about the separation of powers.

The legislature makes the laws. If you think convicted rapists deserve longer sentences, you need to complain to your elected representative(s).

The prosecutor brings such charges against the accused as he feels he can prove beyond reasonable doubt.

The judiciary applies the laws, and can only sentence for up to a maximum period set out in law. e.g. a maximum of 15 years imprisonment (or a maximum fine of $5,000,000) for economic espionage under 18 USC 1831.

The gentleman in this particular case has pleaded guilty to all six charges against him, so he's fucked - straight to sentencing, no messing around.

I hope that's un-fucked your understanding of how the law operates...

[Andromeda451]

Re: Priorities

Steal a movie...

[Bronek Kozicki]

He should have stolen

... IBM Rational ClearCase. And remove all the original source history and backups on the way out.

[druck]

If you can't innovate...

...exfiltrate.

[returnofthemus]

Reasonable conclusion

Taking in to consideration that almost all of the other comparable file systems on the market are either open source or still in their infancy and unproven.

Couldn't think or any compelling reason that anyone would want to steal Oracle ZFS source code?

If they did I'm sure Larry would be looking to gain some commercial PR capital out of it.

[Buzzword]

National Health and Family Planning Commission

What an Orwellian name!

[Bandikoto]

Perhaps the unnamed company could speak to the formerly-great routing giant to find out what happens when their cheap workers steal their source code.

[Snorlax]

@Bandikoto: You mean like when the founders of Cisco stole Stanford University's router software when they worked there back in the 80s?

Sauce:

http://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/cisco.html

[TVU]

"Code-thief pleads guilty to pinching file system to sell to China"

He should've tried to pirate the Reiser file system instead! (look into the history if you don't already know it)