CorporateEspionage
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Judge rules for Fitbit in patent dispute with Jawbone
Fitbit just won a legal ruling invalidating the patents Jawbone was using to block it from importing its foreign-made fitness bands to the US. The ruling reduces the chance for Fitbit to face an import ban from the US International Trade Commission, but Jawbone will move forward with a separate suit against Fitbit for stealing trade secrets.
EU toughens penalties for internet-based crimes
Virtual crime can lead to very real damage, and the European Parliament knows this well enough to have just issued a draft directive toughening up the EU's penalties for internet-based violations. Get caught running a botnet and you'll face a minimum of three years in prison; dare to attack critical infrastructure and you may spend five years behind bars. Don't think of hiring someone for corporate espionage, either -- the directive makes whole companies liable for online offenses committed in their name. EU nations will have two years to adopt the directive as law, although an existing, unofficial agreement suggests that at least some countries won't wait that long to enforce the new rules.
US Court: Code isn't property, therefore it can't be stolen
New York's Second Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that computer code cannot be stolen after acquitting former Goldman Sachs programmer Sergey Aleynikov. He'd been charged with property theft and economic espionage which carried an eight year prison sentence, but left court a free man after serving just a year of his term. The case hinged upon the definition of both property and economic espionage, and the court found that code, being an intangible, couldn't be property that's capable of being stolen within the definition of the statute -- affirming a state of affairs that's been in place since the British case of Oxford v Moss from 1979. Just as a warning: the Judges advised Congress to amend the relevant legislation in order to prevent thefts of this nature in the future, so we'd hold back on any big data-heists you've got planned.
Huawei hardware won't be part of National Broadband Network, says Australia
Huawei just can't catch a break -- first the US blocks it from being a part of its first responder wireless network, and now, Australia is following suit. According to the Australian Financial Review, the Shenzhen-based outfit has been barred from tendering contracts for the country's A$43 billion National Broadband Network on the advice of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. Alexander Downer, of Huawei's Australian board directors, called the situation "ridiculous," postulating that "the whole concept of Huawei being involved in cyber-warfare is based on the company being Chinese." This isn't the first time Huawei has had to combat suspicions of espionage, last year the outfit assured the US government that a "thorough investigation will prove that Huawei is a normal commercial institution and nothing more." Cheer up, Huawei, the smartphone market still loves you.
Huawei blocked from first responder network contract, US cites 'national security concerns'
The inability to win US government approval isn't exactly an unfamiliar issue for Huawei, which by now must be conditioned not to expect a nod from major US telecom companies. But now, The Daily Beast reports that the U.S. Commerce Department has made it very clear that the Chinese company won't have a role in building the country's new dedicated first responder wireless network. A spokesman wasn't shy about the reason, either, explaining that Huawei "will not be taking part in the building of America's interoperable wireless emergency network for first responders due to U.S. government national security concerns." And what about those national security concerns? Well, Huawei president Ren Zhengfei's former role as a People's Liberation Army technologist may have something to do with it, considering it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect that he still has some fairly close ties to Chinese government officials. We haven't heard a peep from the feds regarding Huawei's invitation for US officials to investigate the company earlier this year, but it's safe to assume that the investigation either didn't go very well, or more likely that it hasn't happened at all. We imagine that whole corporate espionage debacle probably didn't help the company, either.
