espionage
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Former LG employee leaks $1b in top secret plasma info to Chinese manufacturer
We've seen some pretty shady dealings from disgruntled ex-employees in the past, but this one may have skyrocketed into the upper echelon of tales of corporate deceit. As the story goes, a 49-year old man known only as Jeong felt the need to copy over some 1,182 top secret plasma display technology-related files onto his personal drive before waltzing out of LG's doors for the final time in July of 2005. A few months later, Chinese manufacturer Changhong-Orion PDP-Chaihong welcomed him with open arms and paid him a fat salary of roughly $300,000 a year (not to mention a few perks: free apartment, vehicle etc.), while casually accepting both the aforementioned files and continued insider leaks at LG -- information supposedly valued at over a billion dollars. But despite Jeong's arrest upon his last return home to Korea, Changhong is still apparently on schedule to produce plasma panels based on LG's technology come this December. Can you say: hot water over international trade-secret law? [Via The Raw Feed, image courtesy of RPG Classics]
GPS-equipped spy squirrels 'arrested' by Iranians
Talk about getting into some hot water. Reportedly, some 14 implike squirrels were recently "arrested by Iranian authorities for espionage," as the critters were apparently found to have various amounts of "spy gear from foreign agencies" on (er, in) their bodies. Some reports even mention that the animals were sporting embedded GPS sensors, but due to the high level of secrecy surrounding the capture, things are still a bit foggy. Nevertheless, Iran has apparently claimed that the "rodents were being used by Western powers in an attempt to undermine the Islamic Republic," and while it doesn't seem that anyone is really aware of the squirrels' fates, it looks like sending in the animals to do a human's dirty work isn't as effective as it once was.[Via DailyWireless, image courtesy of UMT]
SAP admits to corporate espionage against Oracle
Uh oh, we've got ourselves a true-blue corporate competitive intelligence espionage fiasco exploding on the international stage. Germany's SAP has admitted to "inappropriate downloads" from arch-rival, Oracle in the US. Oracle is suing SAP with claims that it is guilty of "corporate theft on a grand scale" after hacking into Oracle's computer network and stealing a "wide range of copyrighted software and other material" from their Peoplesoft business unit. Taking the presidential classic, "I didn't inhale" defense, SAP admits to stealing the data but claims it never left the systems of their wholly owned subsidiary, TomorrowNow (where SAP has "made changes" to management). Well, at least now we can more clearly see why the French are so concerned with their sensitive data being hosted outside of their immediate control.
Posdata employee tried to sell WiBro secrets to US
While it may look easy (and astonishingly lucrative) to pull a case of high-stakes espionage, one South Korean and three US-based individuals are learning the hard way that crime doesn't pay. The Seoul Central Prosecutors Office is accusing an unnamed employee of Posdata Co., a developer of WiBro, "of sending email with proprietary information to three former employees who live in the US." Additionally, it was suggested that the trade secrets (which cost about $95 million to fully develop) were being offered up "for around $190 million" to an unnamed US company. All in all, four culprits were arrested in the ordeal, and while "some data" was transferred, the boys in blue caught on and stopped the gig before any major secrets were divulged. Should've tried the bag drop method, eh?
Samsung division CEO bans company use of 8GB SGH-B570
We've heard stories about companies banning the use of certain kinds of products, such as cameraphones or digital audio players, since they could potentially be used to snap pics of or download classified info. But in what must be a first-of-its-kind case, Samsung has actually banned employees from using one of the company's own products out of industrial espionage fears. Ki-Tae Lee, CEO of Samsung Electronics Telecommunications Network, has apparently warned employees not to pick up the company's SGH-B570 cellphones, because the music-playing phone's 8GB capacity "is more than enough to steal all confidential data about our company." No word yet as to whether Lee is also banning Samsung's various thumbdrives, USB hard drives and audio players, which can also be used to slurp company data. Also, we have to admit to being just a little disappointed that all of the company's confidential data can fit on a single 8GB cellphone. What does that say about Samsung's R&D capabilities?Read (sub. req'd.)
Samsung division CEO bans SGH-B570 8GB musicphones
We've heard stories about companies banning the use of certain kinds of products, such as cameraphones or digital audio players, since they could potentially be used to snap pics of or download classified info. But in what must be a first-of-its-kind case, Samsung has actually banned employees from using one of the company's own products out of industrial espionage fears. Ki-Tae Lee, CEO of Samsung Electronics Telecommunications Network, has apparently warned employees not to pick up the company's SGH-B570 cellphones, because the music-playing phone's 8GB capacity "is more than enough to steal all confidential data about our company." No word yet as to whether Lee is also banning Samsung's various thumbdrives, USB hard drives and audio players, which can also be used to slurp company data. Also, we have to admit to being just a little disappointed that all of the company's confidential data can fit on a single 8GB cellphone. What does that say about Samsung's R&D capabilities?Read (sub. req'd.)
