It's not a rumor that China copies tech, they've been caught stealing corporate and military IP.
https://www.securitynewspaper.com/2021/08/23/how-chinese-apt...
Basically, I don't think enough people are seriously questioning the costs vs benefits of using the internet while dealing with sensitive data. You should assume that basically anything which touches an internet-connected device will eventually be stolen, and plan accordingly.
For some it's a bitter pill to swallow when everyone is the bad guy, but we should just accept governments don't like being bound by international laws when breaking them can give them an advantage.
1) to view these data (nothing nefarious, just to see what they look like)?
2) to use these data for business?
Edit: I have no interest in using such data. I am asking to educate myself about legal ramifications that pertain to such leaks in general.
That data is copyrighted, so Boeing could go after you for that, using anti-movie-piracy laws that are quite draconian in the US: copying itself is bad but hard to prove; making it available is definitely worse.
Trade secret tends to extend more broadly, including soliciting, and corporate espionage carries real penalty including conspiracy, so I would avoid it.
Where I’m less clear is if that data would be protected under anti-terrorism laws: now that I’ve been thinking about it, such documents could help someone plan a terrorist attack by, say, planning a watering hole or supply-chain attack. In that case, the law gets far more open-minded for the prosecution, letting them try anything to prove their case, and the consequences go as far as extra-territorial non-US-jurisdiction legal nightmares. I’d stay away from it, but IANAL.
I'm not seeing much value in loads of Boeing-specific tech data for current generation civil aircraft though. Most of it isn't that secret, there's no viable market for copying Boeing parts without Boeing approvals stamped all over them, maintenance on Boeing aircraft is done at manufacturer-specified intervals regardless of whether it's a Boeing facility or a third party with Boeing approvals, competing aircraft have completely different needs, and if they really wanted to know how Boeing solved a problem that's bugging them they could just poach engineers...
They can get up to some stuff when it comes to classifying things as "new". Check out the financials. BGS is always swimming in money compared to the other divisions - that cash flow almost certainly helped along by pushing returned assemblies back out as "more new than they probably actually are, and should be according to the contract docs".
And there's just a joyous brown fountain of horse puckey when it comes to "equivalence", a whole other pile of dead fish. The stuff that the PLs claim is "electromechanically equivalent" makes my brain hurt. Like, does it have wires sticking out? "Oh, that's an ARINC 600 connector for sure!". It's harder to nail someone for false equivalence, though, since it's a pretty nebulous thing to define. Unlike "yo, this new part is actually old and busted".
I should add that Boeing isn't really alone here. Lot of suppliers do this stuff too, and Boeing, the damn fools, probably get caught covering for suppliers and subsidiaries.
I’m seriously asking because a while ago, I had an interview that was explicitly about finding a business model for that type of data (flights, on-time, maintenance, etc.) for a reseller. I think I did a good job, but the company closed before they made an offer. I reached out to a friend who was working for a big airline to ask for his help on that, he was helpful but cagey: that’s because that was his job. A bit later, he mentioned that those were notoriously hard to buy because there wasn’t really any client — not a legitimate one.
The only potentially interested parties he could mention were people looking at tourist trends (they get overall hotel and restaurant stats: flights aren't the right breakdown) and possibly taxi companies to get on-time stats (that’s actually another project I worked on; small world). But landing data is public, or at least scrapable.
Chinese manufacturers (if you believe the rumors that they like to copy technology) care about R&D. Airbus, maybe, to price them out when competing on bids? But it would seem obvious and not that helpful. I’m not a sales guy.
This is “parts and distribution business” so, essentially, the business branch recently transformed by a lot of machine learning to predict failures. If another maintenance company could train a similar model, they would benefit, but is there such a company? Does anyone do that in both partnership and competition with Boeing?
I’m genuinely curious: Who would want that data?