An Apple employee steals robot car plans and is arrested by the FBI

Xiaolang Zhang had arrived at the airport in San Jose, the last-minute flight to China had been booked – then the FBI hit. Police arrested the former Apple employee for stealing business secrets and incurring up to ten years in jail and up to $ 250,000 in punishment .

At the end of April, the computer scientist of Apple was holding the top-secret robot car

-Project worked, he had just returned from a parental leave. Then Zhang announced that he wanted to take care of his sick mother and start with the Chinese start-up Xiaopeng Motors. The latter makes sit down the security service of Apple and take note. Because founded by He Xiaopeng and equipped by Alibaba and Foxconn with a lot of money investor company wants to build the same thing as Apple: a smart electric car.

Apple guessed secret treason and had the will to change staff. And indeed: It turned out that Zhang had uploaded a lot of secret data, technical knowledge that he should have transferred partly to his wife's notebook. Zhang would have admitted the theft of data. Xiaopeng Motors pointed out Wednesday that there was no evidence that Apple's information was obtained. The ex-employee of Apple has been released since.

Information about the Apple car project was revealed

Although no information on the competition should be published, the story is annoying for Apple. Because, during the investigations of

FBI information on the automobile program was also revealed, which the company had previously kept secret.

It is now known that about 5,000 employees in the group are aware of the project – and have about 2,700 accesses to two confidential databases. The technology group, which has already registered several dozens of self-driving test cars in California, is also developing its own chips for robotic car systems.

Apple's problem with leaks

The case once again shows the vulnerability of Apple. 19659011] Industrial espionage . It's only in April that Apple released an internal memo urging its employees to disclose sensitive information. The circular states that last year, 29 moles were spotted, of which twelve were arrested. "These people not only lose their jobs, they can also have great difficulty finding jobs elsewhere," blatantly threatens society. Previously, confidential information about Apple software and the unpublished iPhone X had reached the public

. To avoid such leaks, Apple even built some time ago a kind of internal intelligence, chasing Leaker into his own ranks. The team is led by a former NSA intelligence officer. Yet in a company as big as Apple, it's probably impossible to let the interns go out. Even the internal memo, in which threat Apple Leakern, had fled even in full length to Bloomberg.