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A 35-year-old engineer was reported missing by AI and brought to the FBI

Just recently, OpenAI revealed itself in a bizarre office theft case. Behind the TV of its executive conference room, a person was sneaked into a encrypted recording device. While assisting the company in figuring out the inside, it was actually OpenAI's

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  It's the first time in the history of the world.


It's a live-action movie that takes place at OpenAI's San Francisco headquarters!
OpenAI has just been exposed to a bizarre office hacking case.
In the meeting room of his executive, behind the TV,He was also arrested on suspicion of stealing a digital recording device.
It was OpenAI itself that helped the company get rid of the demons.AIThe model.
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The most dramatic scene in the case came to light when the U.S. Department of Justice issued a federal criminal complaint the same day.
It turns out that in this offensive, AI is used not only by the investigation team, but also by people who are equipped with headphones.
The complaint disclosed that a chatbot account associated with the employees involved before the recording equipment was plugged into the conference room, and that it was used to access the chatbot account.It's right up there.AIPlease teach me how to install, hide and access recording equipment remotely.
Even the only hardware identification of the device discovered is in the questionnaire.
图片U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs official program intelligence release
On the one hand, AI consulted on how to conceal the recording, on the other hand, OpenAI called from the parent model to help track down the source of the equipment, after which FBI detectives carried out the arrest.
The security offensive between Silicon Valley AI giants has turned into an "AI breach" in their own conference rooms.

The CEO's meeting room hides the headphones35-year-old engineer steps ahead
That's the way it is.
Shortly before September 30, OpenAI's technical anti-hearing team searched an executive conference room in a San Francisco office and discovered the device that the lawsuit called "recording device number one".
The device is plugged into the USB interface on the back of the TV in the conference room.I'm stuck outside with a bunch of toilet paper.According to the company, it was installed about two days before (and after) September 28.
图片Photo of the device and location of installation released by the U.S. Department of Justice. The red circle on the left shows the toilet paper behind the TV, and on the right is the number 1 recording device with an antenna.
The disguise looks simple, but the layout is not that simple.
High-resolution photographs of evidence released by the Department of Justice show a wireless antenna with the inscription "seeed studio 2.4G A-02" on the exposed circuit board.
OpenAI has revealed thatThe device has advanced encryption, audio listening capabilities, and a set of data transmission mechanisms designed to circumvent surveillance.
The executive conference room where the device is located is usually dedicated to discussing the company's core secrecy.
According to the complaint, the house was frequently discussed.Highly classified technology, commercial and strategic information。
The topics covered include proprietary research, product planning, technological progress, strategic decision-making, capability priorities, government transition and business partnerships.
图片OpenAI's MB0 office building in San Francisco
Abdulrahman Alfozan, 35, has been working as an engineer in the OpenAI product team since July 2025.
According to public records, he works for OpenAI.AIHead of Engineering at Agent PlatformHe was previously a senior systems engineer at Meta and holds a Master's degree in Data Science from UC Berkeley.
图片GitHub's publicly accessible homepage, where the top-level project is the official OpenAI Agent framework
In accordance with the company's authority management,He was neither authorized to enter the executive conference room nor eligible to attend any meeting in the house.
However, he has already set foot in the company well in advance before he moves on the equipment.
According to images taken by the Office of Monitoring, he appeared several times near the executive conference room before the device was discovered.
He also used an internal productivity tool to repeatedly query the addresses of the office building, the capacity of the conference room and the timing of the calendar.Specifically listening to the positions of "leadership and executives" and meeting arrangements of external partners.

Ask AI how to install a headsetI sold all the hardware information on the device.
The next step after touching the location of the executive meeting is to prepare the recording equipment.
A series of chatbot questionnaires released by the Justice Department in the complaint directly exposed the process of preparing the case.
From September 24 to September 30, the time the device was installed in the conference room until it was discovered, a chatbot account associated with Alfonso's spouse filed a series of in-depth questions about the recording equipment.
It is a coincidence that on September 24th,A 93-minute podcast interview just went online on YouTube, highlighting him as "the only Saudi employee of OpenAI".
The year he worked at OpenAI, he said, "it feels like I've been somewhere else for five years".
图片The cover and live footage of the podcast interview went online on September 24, the same day that the associated accounts began consulting with AI recording devices.
In the same timeframe, the person who shared multiple identifiers and attributes with his own account asked questions about almost every link to the hidden recording.
This connected account asks for the production, customization, installation, recording, testing, concealment and remote access of the recording equipment.
Specific questions include:How to "build a continuous audio recorder", how to "customize Wi-Fi connections", how to "improve audio and real-time listening", and how to "encrypt SD cards".
On September 27 and 28, after the recording equipment No. 1 was installed in the conference room, questions were asked about the specific hardware.
In the questionnaire submitted by this account, a custom header for the recording device No. 1 in the executive conference room appeared, as well as the onlyMACThe address.
MAC addresses are the only hardware information used to identify network interfaces, and vary from device to device.
While attempts have been made to hide the recorder behind a TV using toilet paper and encryption, the specific identification and technical issues surrounding the device remain in the chatbot's conversational records.

I'm a big model of my own, and I don't know what to do.He went back to the scene to see if he had been shot.
After discovering the recording device behind the TV, OpenAI invited home-based AI models to participate in internal investigations.
The company said in an official statement that it used its own model to analyze its understanding of the device and its source, locked up an employee who had placed the device a few days earlier, and then handed the matter over to the FBI.
OpenAI further disclosed to the media,Investigators used their own models to analyze the storage mirrors extracted from the device and screened for changes in the underlying data.
The company also has evidence that suggestsAl-Fuzhan attempted to place more recording equipment in other sensitive spaces and secretly recorded internal meetings.
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As for which internal models participated in the certification analysis, OpenAI has not yet released a specific model.
However, on X, many netizens, including well-known AI blogger Andrew Curran, speculate thatThe "Godfather" is likely to be the flagship model of OpenAI, Astra.
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But during the day, the thugs wrote the code and used large models to help users search for information, which they used in their own company's security investigations.
On the one hand, the large model tracks the source of the device, and on the other hand, OpenAI also monitors the conference room.
The executive conference room was not equipped with a camera when the recording equipment was installed.After the discovery of the recording equipment, OpenAI installed a camera in the house.
Five days later, on 5 October, Alfozhan entered the executive conference room, apparently looking behind a television set that had a recording device number 1.
图片Public surveillance footage released on 5 October. According to the Ministry of Justice, the footage recorded the actions of Alfonso Zan behind the TV; the case is still pending trial.
He explored the movements behind the TV and was photographed entirely by a newly installed camera.
The same day earlier, Alfonso left an unattended package in another room of the OpenAI office building.
After the company's security officers discovered and opened the package, the man was arrested and charged with murder.Inside were his wallet, identity card, and another "recording device number two" similar to the device number one.
The first is inserted into the back of the TV in the executive conference room, and the second is placed in a suitcase with ID cards, together with chat records and surveillance images, forming the core evidence chain in the prosecutor's case.

The FBI's got people.In order to stay online, hackers must also be able to listen offline.
In order to avoid interfering with the investigation, the government has issued a statement saying:OpenAI coordinated with the FBI to understand the timing of his hiring and gradually restricted his system and space permissions after September 30.
The company subsequently lifted his office block and internet access, arranged his vacation and recovered the equipment distributed by the company.
On 9 October, FBI agents officially arrested Alfonso and OpenAI fired him the same day.
On October 13, he appeared in federal court for the first time and was charged with using or attempting to use electronic devices to intercept oral communication once the charges were established.The maximum sentence is five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.
图片Web survey map used by the FBI
OpenAI released a key message on the same day.There is currently no indication that the employee had improperly accessed or outsourced the company's model weight, source code or customer data.
As for exactly what was recorded in the conference room, whether the audio was transmitted, where the second device in the package was ready, the FBI investigation is ongoing, and the court is scheduled to hold a bail hearing on October 19.
The findings have given the outside world a breath of fresh air about the core code, but have also exposed another major vulnerability beyond cybersecurity in leading-edge AI labs.
Over the past two years, AI giants have devoted considerable efforts to preventing hackers from stealing model weight and source code.
However, when the competition for super-intelligence enters a phase of whitening, many high-value strategic directions, product rhythms and collaborative trends are often written into code libraries.It has already been discussed repeatedly in online conference rooms.
The higher the online network defenses, the more vulnerable the underline offices and conference rooms are to break through from within.
While preparing the tools for the case and assisting in the pursuit of the Negev, the two men were arrested and charged with murder.AIIt's all over the place.
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