Video · Fireship ·

The FBI just arrested an OpenAI engineer for spying...

Fireship reports that the FBI arrested Abdul Raman Alphazan, a 35-year-old Saudi national and OpenAI engineering lead on the Agents platform, for allegedly bugging the company's executive conference room. According to the criminal complaint, Alphazan used an internal agent to research meeting rooms and capacities, then between September 24 and 30 used his wife's ChatGPT account to learn how to build a Wi-Fi-enabled audio recording device with an encrypted SD card from a $23 Seed Studio microcontroller. He concealed it in toilet paper and plugged it into a USB port behind the TV in the conference room on September 28. OpenAI's technical surveillance countermeasures team found it after about 48 hours; OpenAI says it used its own models to analyze the device, and investigators matched a MAC address to the wife's ChatGPT history and used security footage showing him near the room. He was fired and arrested on October 9 and charged with one count of federal wiretapping. The complaint does not allege espionage or name a principal, but his bio lists him as an investor at a Riyadh VC firm next to a prince whose father is a senior Saudi intelligence official.

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