Recently, ByteDance filed a lawsuit with the People's Court of Haidian District, Beijing, claiming that former intern Tian Moumou maliciously tampered with code to attack the company's internal model training, claiming 8.02 million yuan and demanding a public apology. The incident originated from June to July 2024. Tian Moumou was dissatisfied with resource allocation and maliciously attacked the company's model training tasks, resulting in resource loss. This move not only seriously violated company discipline, but also caused actual economic losses. The editor of Downcodes will take you to understand the ins and outs of the incident and ByteDance’s response measures.
According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, the Beijing Haidian District People's Court has officially accepted ByteDance's lawsuit against former intern Tian. The company accused Tian of tampering with code to attack the company's internal model training, and requested the court to order Tian to compensate Infringement losses of 8 million yuan and reasonable expenses of 20,000 yuan were required, and the company was also required to make a public apology.
It is understood that in October 2024, some media reported that ByteDance’s large model training task was attacked by interns, and online information mentioned that “more than 8,000 cards were involved and tens of millions of dollars were lost.” ByteDance later issued a clarification announcement through its official account, confirming that an intern had seriously violated discipline and had been dismissed in August 2024. The announcement also pointed out that what was affected was the model training task of a research project of the company's commercialization technology team, which did not affect the company's formal projects and online business, and the rumors that "involving more than 8,000 cards and tens of millions of dollars in losses" were seriously exaggerated. .
ByteDance further disclosed the details of the incident in the "Corporate Discipline and Professional Ethics Committee Notice" released on November 5. The report shows that from June to July 2024, former intern employee Tian Moumou was dissatisfied with the team's resource allocation and maliciously attacked the model training tasks of the team's research project by writing and tampering with codes, resulting in resource loss. The company has terminated the internship agreement with him and notified the situation to the Sunshine Integrity Alliance, the Enterprise Anti-Fraud Alliance and his school.
ByteDance chose to initiate the lawsuit at this time because Tian was a Ph.D. student, and the company first handed it over to the school after he was dismissed. However, during the handling of the incident, Tian Moumou repeatedly denied the behavior involved, saying that it was not himself who attacked the model training task, but other interns. Since Tian Moumou did not realize the mistake and his behavior had violated the company's security red line, ByteDance decided to file a lawsuit in court to show the company's serious attitude towards such incidents and prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Through this incident, we can see how seriously companies attach importance to protecting their intellectual property rights and data security. ByteDance's tough response also serves as a warning to other companies and individuals that they should abide by professional ethics at work and never break the law. We hope that this incident can provide a reference for corporate safety management and remind all employees to establish correct professional ethics.