Nvidia sued after senior employee accidentally showed off confidential files taken from previous employer during a video meeting

douglasg14b@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 360 points – Nvidia sued after senior employee accidentally showed off confidential files taken from previous employer during a video meeting
fortune.com

Seems an engineer stole source code, docs, presentations...etc related to car technology.

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There's a lot of blind accusations there, Valeo claims NVidia used their research but don't specify what research or even what product NVidia have used it in.

Edit: Another article explains it much better. NVidia and Valeo competed on an AI project, NVidia won the software part, then in a video call between the two to develop the project Moniruzzaman was caught with Valeo code.

Not that blind.

“When he minimized the PowerPoint presentation he had been sharing, however, he revealed one of Valeo’s verbatim source code files open on his computer. So brazen was Mr. Moniruzzaman’s theft, the file path on his screen still read ‘ValeoDocs.’”

Ooofh that's pretty damning. 😂

Thanks for copying that in, dang pay wall.

It's damning for the guy, who has already been convicted, but not necessarily for NVidia. Valeo have provided no evidence of NVidia using their code, nor even mention of any specific NVidia product it might have been used in.

You are right, and it could be the article. Pulling details from another place the same story, but from The Verge, and discussed elsewhere. https://lemmy.nz/post/3702572

Valeo and Nvidia competed on a contract. Valeo only won the hardware part, Nvidia only won the software part. The lawsuit is about Nvidia benefiting on the software part Valeo did to attempt to win the whole contract.

Direct link to the article: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/23/23973673/valeo-nvidia-autonomous-driving-software-ip-theft-lawsuit

TL;DR NVidia and Valeo competed for an AI contract, Valeo won the hardware side but NVidia won the software (surely that's backwards lol). The two companies had to work together on the project, it was during such a project call that Moniruzzaman was caught with old Valeo code.

So yeah, that's much more damning, and the Fortune article did a poor job with the story by not explaining that.

Ah, there's the rub. Thanks I was having a hard time figuring this one out.

That's exactly the take-away I got from the whole thing. One idiot copy-pasted stuff and used it in front of the people he copied it from.

Valeo will have a hard time proving its use, without a third party doing some searching in a lot of source code. One person with access to all of both sides' code in order to compare them? that seems like a big ask for a fishing expedition.

Well it looks like they probably did use it though. The one guy had the code on his NVidia work laptop, and NVidia won an AI software contract over Valeo. It was in a collaborative call with Valeo (who won the hardware portion of the contract) that the code was revealed. NVidia may well be ordered to hand over their code for examination, to prove that Valeo's code isn't present in there. If Valeo get the injunction, NVidia will have to cease using that code and rewrite it entirely.

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You're completely missing my point. I'm not saying he didn't take the files - he's already been convicted of that. I'm saying Valeo have not demonstrated in any way that NVidia used the material he stole in one of their products. They claim that in the lawsuit, but provide no basis for that claim.

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