Ex-Google Engineer Uploads AI Secrets to Personal Cloud, Forgets Privacy Exists
KEY POINTS
- ā¢Linwei Ding was convicted in San Francisco for stealing thousands of pages of Googleās AI secrets between 2022 and 2023.
- ā¢Prosecutors revealed Ding uploaded these confidential trade secrets to his personal Google Cloud while negotiating a Chinese startup CTO role.
- ā¢The FBI and U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian emphasized protecting American technology from foreign espionage threats.
Meet Linwei Ding, aka Leon Ding, 38, the former Google engineer who redefined trust by downloading over 2,000 pages of Google's AI sauce between May 2022-April 2023 and uploading them to his own Google Cloud. Spoiler: It's not the kind of cloud perk your HR talks about. Ding was indicted in March 2024 for economic espionageātranslation: stealing AI secrets for China, while reportedly interviewing to become a CTO at a Chinese AI startup right as he was copying classified files. The San Francisco jury said no thanks to his double life, convicting him on 14 counts, while U.S. Attorney Craig Missakian declared that theft of Silicon Valley tech is like trying to sneak out with the FabergĆ© Eggs. FBIās tweet? Basically: chill, Silicon Valley, weāre on it.
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When your plan to āinnovateā AI looks like trying to turn in homework you stole from the class president, FBIās watching.
Stealing AI secrets by uploading to your own Google Cloud? This guyās idea of operational security is a Snapchat filter.
Nothing says ānational security riskā like a CTO-in-training who uses cloud storage like a squirrel hides nutsāeverywhere.
Source: Axios | Published: 2/3/2026 | Author: Rebecca Falconer
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