Former Intel Engineer Sentenced for Stealing Trade Secrets for Microsoft (tomshardware.com)
- Reference: 0178711508
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/08/17/1123235/former-intel-engineer-sentenced-for-stealing-trade-secrets-for-microsoft
- Source link: https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ex-intel-engineer-sentenced-for-sharing-secrets-with-microsoft-gets-two-years-of-probation-and-usd34k-fine-for-stealing-thousands-of-files-that-may-have-landed-them-a-new-job-with-the-company
[2]Portland's KGW reports :
> While still employed at Intel, Varun Gupta downloaded about 4,000 files, which included trade secrets and proprietary materials, from his work computer to personal portable hard drives, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon. While working for Microsoft, between February and July 2020, Gupta accessed and used information during ongoing negotiations with Intel regarding chip purchases, according to a sentencing memo. Some of the information containing trade secrets included a PowerPoint presentation that referenced Intel's pricing strategy with another major customer, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon in a sentencing memo.
>
> Intel raised concerns in 2020, and Microsoft and Intel launched a joint investigation, the sentencing memo says. Intel filed a civil lawsuit in February 2021 that resulted in Gupta being ordered to pay $40,000.
Tom's Hardware [3]summarizes the trial :
> [4] Oregon Live reports that the prosecutor, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Narus, sought an eight-month prison term for Gupta. Narus spoke about Gupta's purposeful and repeated access to secret documents. Eight months of federal imprisonment was sought as Gupta repetitively abused his cache of secret documents, according to the prosecutor.
>
> For the defense, attorney David Angeli described Gupta's actions as a "serious error in judgment." Mitigating circumstances, such as Gupta's permanent loss of high-level employment opportunities in the industry, and that he had already paid $40,000 to settle a civil suit brought by Intel, were highlighted.
>
> U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio concluded the court hearing by delivering a balance between the above adversarial positions. Baggio decided that Gupta should face a two-year probationary sentence [and pay a $34,472 fine — before heading back to France]... The ex-tech exec and his family have started afresh in La Belle France, with eyes on a completely new career in the wine industry. According to the report, Gupta is now studying for a qualification in vineyard management, while aiming to work as a technical director in the business.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-or/pr/former-engineer-pleads-guilty-possessing-trade-secrets-oregon-semiconductor-manufacturer
[2] https://www.kgw.com/article/news/crime/former-intel-engineer-sentenced-probation-possessing-trade-secrets/283-5e416bab-7a5b-4dc7-b4b9-d21cf25fbc32
[3] https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ex-intel-engineer-sentenced-for-sharing-secrets-with-microsoft-gets-two-years-of-probation-and-usd34k-fine-for-stealing-thousands-of-files-that-may-have-landed-them-a-new-job-with-the-company
[4] https://www.oregonlive.com/business/2025/08/former-intel-engineer-sentenced-for-stealing-trade-secrets-for-microsoft.html
But Microsoft (Score:2)
Would not exist if it wasnt for theft of someone elses intellectual property.
I see no reason to expect the global socio-economic collapse to retard.
Re: (Score:2)
Would not exist if it wasnt for theft of someone elses intellectual property.
If they took someone's trade secrets to create their existence -- they did it before the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 was passed into law that created the crime of "trade secret misappropriation". Because Microsoft Windows already existed before 1996.
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like he is Indian, from Jammu & Kashmir. The "back to France" bit is apparently because he had already moved to France and returned to the US for his trial.
If pricing strategy is a trade secret (Score:2)
Why do economists still pretend prices are determined by supply and demand?
Re: If pricing strategy is a trade secret (Score:2)
ChatGPT said: ... the reply you got is dressed up in jargon, but it can definitely be challenged.
Hereâ(TM)s how you could push back clearly in Slashdot style (plain ASCII, no Unicode):
Re: If pricing strategy is a trade secret (+1)
The thermodynamics analogy sounds clever but it skips the point.
Yes, prices are influenced (slightly) by supply and demand in aggregate, but that doesnâ(TM)t mean any individual price is simply "set by the market." In practice, firms actively manage and manipulate prices
Re: If pricing strategy is a trade secret (Score:2)
Why not give up on the traditional economics model that says that prices are a signal of physical supply and demand?
Why not admit that Fischer Black in "Noise" makes important observations with implications for inflation policy (i.e. just adapt because control won't work?)?
"we might define an efficient market as one in which price is within a factor of 2 of value, i.e., the price is more than half of value and less than twice value.11 The factor of 2 is arbitrary, of course. Intuitively, though, it seems re
Re: (Score:2)
Pricing strategy is part of that supply and demand economy. A company would have to get very lucky to succeed without doing prior research on the market and developing their own pricing strategy. It takes into account cost of good sold (cost to manufacture/distribute), competition, targeted consumers, size of the market, etc.
Just making a physical product and selling without any sort of strategy.. good luck on that. Maybe you can get away with it more easily when dealing with software but not physical
Re: If pricing strategy is a trade secret (Score:2)
How much would you like to bet that margin is the biggest factor determining Intel's prices? Why else keep it a trade secret?
Thus what kind of policy changes would we see if we all admitted prices are really about supply and demand for money itself, not signals of physical supply and demand of whatever the price us for?
A danger going forward (Score:2)
if ls Presidenta succeeds in getting a piece of Intel for the Fed. Gov., what is to stop his alleged administration from feeding any secrets they get from the rest of the industry to Intel? They needn't be technical secrets, financials of competitors will do enough to tip the scales toward Intel. And who would stop them? The Justice Dept. who has already sold their soul to la Presidenta and his goons?
This is yet another part of the deep state la Presidenta and his goons are setting up.
The what? (Score:2)
What's a "product marketing engineer"?
Re: The what? (Score:2)
Perhaps they engineer prices, actively violating the Law of One Price, which if it doesn't hold, invalidates all of economic rational price theory?
ChatGPT expands: "The Law of One Price says identical goods should sell for the same price in efficient markets. In reality, firms segment markets, use confidential pricing, and negotiate different deals. That means the law does not hold, and if it does not hold, then the foundations of rational price theory are shaky."
Re: The what? (Score:2)
What if you read "Noise" by Fischer Black and pondered the implications of putting margins of error of plus 100%, minus 50% on observable prices? Would trying to control prices by setting interest rates still make sense?
"it is not clear what is gained by controlling the price level. If business cycles are caused by real factors rather than by things that are affected by the rate of inflation, then many of the reasons for controlling inflation vanish." -- "Noise"
Crook goes free. (Score:2)
Crime pays.
I do not get the stupidity of these people (Score:2)
In a modern IT infrastructure, you get logs as to who downloaded what, and you will have alerting on that because one thing to catch is some user machine getting hacked and the attackers accessing a lot of files.
Re: (Score:2)
Although, with a $35K fine and a couple years of probation - i.e. no jail time - isn't really too bad if it helped him get a position at microsoft that was probably making $200K+ per year. It's certainly not a draconian sentence,
Re: (Score:2)
That's a $35K fine and 2 years probation on top of whatever civil damages Intel can muster.
This sort of conviction goes on your record, and as an employer it won't be smart to hire someone who has a criminal history of deliberately stealing trade secrets to use for the benefit of a future employer.