One would assume to the corporation donating the money. I wouldn't naturally assume it was to his Mom or "China." I think a fair number of corporations assume that if they're paying you to do research, that they're entitled to the research and any results you obtain from it.

If I were sending data "back home" I wouldn't be sending it to "England." I'll be honest, I wouldn't have the first clue who to contact, unless MI6 had contacted me and asked me for the information, which I doubt they would - I'd be honestly astonished if I'd ever done anything in my life interesting enough for them to even notice who I am, and I wouldn't have the first clue who to send it to unless they came to me. I doubt [email protected] is a valid place to send file dumps. The only "back home" that would be relevant to me would be my employer.

The reason I asked the question is because sometimes there is a tendency to think of "China" as a monolithic entity and say "China" is spying on companies or putting bugs in the cellular equipment and so on. I've even caught myself doing that. But it's a lazy way of thinking because China is full of individuals pursuing their own goals.

It is for the same reason that I asked whether the person copied the files to his own system or his employer's. No doubt this person has their own interest in computers and technology, and it's entirely reasonable to think that they would want the MIT CSAIL files for themselves, outside of any orders from their employer to copy the information.

Assuming they want the files for themselves is also a fair assessment. Being able to come back to data at a later point and trawl through it again to gain different or more nuanced understanding is useful. This is something I could imagine doing. I would definitely ask before I did it though. Just assuming you could is taking liberties somewhat.