You don’t have to build a replica of the F-35 in order to make good use of the information. Russia, China, and Pakistan will pay several fortunes to have access to the information for a variety of purposes, including the development of counter-weapon systems.
Since we don’t know what the information is beyond being printed brochures and manuals, we don’t really know how valuable it is. A 787 Dreamliner sales brochure, for example, is hardly detailed enough to actually build a Dreamliner.
I may have missed it, but I don’t think article even said the manuals and brochures were classified. Using the Dreamliner as an example again, I know it doesn’t have a bleed air system from reading a sales brochure. That hardly means I can design the electric starter motors for the Dreamliner’s engines or even agree an all-electric start system is the best approach (I only know as much about the 787 as what I’ve read in articles).
I’m not saying this information (whatever it is) has no value. Everything you know about an enemy could potentially help, but I think the article is trying to make it sound bad. It might be very bad, but we don’t know.
So an F-35 employee ships some F-35 manuals and brochures in household goods? That doesn’t sound so nefarious to me. It would be so much easier for him to scan and destroy paper documents and hide a DVD in the shipment or carry a thumb drive, wouldn’t it? I mean, if he was really trying to hide something, wouldn’t he pick a better method? He even claimed he was shipping books. That sounds like a term I might use for a box of manuals and brochures.