He stole SPECIFICATIONS, not designs. Designs on their own are pretty worthless (as you can 3d scan and replicate any physical part). You Can't 3d scan the knowledge used for designing that part.

Engineering is not mechanical design. It is properly identifying the REQUIREMENTS, and developing a SPECIFICATION which can then be used to ENGINEER a DESIGN. By Stealing the Specifications, it gives a new OEM a major leg up in the engineering process as they can skip the time consuming phase of understanding the customer (See process mentioned prior).

People need to separate the end product (widgit) from the underlying knowledge to design said widgit

Not true. for Ford, the fist infotainment component not meeting Auto Specs was Sync. And only 2 chips were not auto grade.

I am an Automotive engineer. I work on infotainment components. This story is 100% wrong. 128Mhz, what BS

May the jew bashing commence...

Give me a break, how is this a science/technology article??

I don't know where you get your data.. I work for Ford, and we assume this to be a sure thing.

Wine is GPL and Legit, right? Why don't they just install WINE as a standard item in their load?