Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Update: "Xiaopeng Automobile responds to" former Apple engineer Zhang Xiaolang is suspected of stealing secrets ": has nothing to do with the Apple case.

Sina Technology News Beijing time on August 23 morning news, it is reported that on Monday, local time, Zhang Xiaolang (Xiaolang Zhang), a former Apple employee accused of stealing trade secrets from Apple's auto department in front of his job-hopping Xiaopeng car, pleaded guilty to the federal court in San Jose.

The plea agreement reached between Zhang Xiaolang and the US government is confidential, according to court documents. He faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of $250000 after pleading guilty to the felony of stealing trade secrets. Sentencing in this case is scheduled for November.

Zhang Xiaolang is accused of downloading internal files about Apple's car project. The documents have a total of 25 pages and contain an engineering schematic of a car circuit board. Zhang Xiaolang is also accused of stealing reference manuals and PDF documents about Apple prototypes and their requirements.

According to allegations filed by the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI) and the prosecutor's office, he has worked at Apple since 2015 and later worked mainly as a hardware engineer on the automotive team.

The allegations confirm something that Apple still rarely publicly admits years later: the company is indeed developing driverless electric cars.

In the 2018 complaint, an FBI agent said Apple had about 5000 "disclosed" employees who knew about the project, while 2700 "core employees" had access to project information and databases.

According to the indictment, Apple uses internal software to track which projects employees have been "disclosed" and requires them to attend confidentiality training. Zhang Xiaolang works for the computing team of Apple's driverless car project and is responsible for designing and testing circuit boards for sensors.

Circuit design schematics are regarded as the most valuable trade secrets in the electronics industry.

After Zhang Xiaolang took paternity leave and went to China, Apple began to suspect him of stealing trade secrets, according to the 2018 indictment. After returning to the company at that time, he submitted his resignation letter, saying that he hoped to return to China to take care of his mother.

Zhang Xiaolang told Apple that he planned to move to Xiaopeng Automobile and that his access to Apple's intranet had been revoked.

According to the indictment, an Apple investigation found that Zhang Xiaolang downloaded documents and information from the company's database. Apple's surveillance cameras even caught Zhang Xiaolang entering the laboratory to dismantle the hardware. It was later discovered that the hardware he removed were circuit boards and a Linux server.

A lawyer representing Zhang Xiaolang has not commented. An Apple spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.