Cameramaker Red claims espionage

variety.com
In a saga worthy of a Hollywood thriller, allegations of email hacking and industrial espionage have surfaced in the camera industry in a lawsuit filed by digital camera maker Red against rival Arri.

In the suit filed Dec. 21 in federal court in Orange County, Calif., Red accuses Arri of stealing technical details and development plans for Red cameras, giving Arri an unfair advantage.

Much of Red's complaint rests on facts revealed in an August plea deal between federal prosecutors and former Arri executive Michael Bravin, who is also a defendant in the suit. Bravin pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of email hacking, admitting as part of the deal that he accessed the email account of Band Pro chief executive Amnon Band.

Bravin, who according to his LinkedIn profile worked for Band Pro for more than 16 years, resigned as Band Pro's chief technology officer to become Arri's VP of market development for digital camera products in January 2010.

From around December 2009 through June 2010, Bravin had access to Amnon Band's email account, as Bravin has admitted. Under his plea deal, he was to serve two months in jail and pay $20,000 in restitution to Band Pro as well as legal costs. Bravin now lists himself on LinkedIn as principal at the Digital Picture Co.

In its complaint, Red asserts that during the time Bravin was hacking Band's email account, Band Pro and Red were discussing a possible joint venture. Red says Band's emails contained detailed descriptions of the technology used in Red's cameras and Red's plans for introducing new models and features.

Red alleges that Bravin passed that information to Arri, giving Arri an unfair competitive advantage, especially with respect to the launch and marketing of the Arri Alexa camera. The Alexa was released in 2010 and is seen as a direct competitor to Red's Epic.

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Former Akamai employee pleads guilty in espionage case

masshightech.com



A Brookline man who worked in the finance department at Akamai Technologies Inc. has pleaded guilty to foreign economic espionage as part of an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.



According to U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz, Elliot Doxer, 43, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper to one count of economic espionage for providing trade secrets to an undercover federal agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer. According to Ortiz, this was only the eighth prosecution in the U.S. under the charge of foreign economic espionage.



As part of the plea agreement, a charge of wire fraud was dismissed. Doxer, facing a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, will be sentenced on Nov. 30.



Doxer stipulated to a statement of fact that in 2006 he emailed the Israeli consulate in Boston saying that as an employee in Akamai’s finance department he was willing to provide information that might help Israel, and later saying that he wanted to help “our homeland in our war against our enemies.



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Engineers convicted in Goodyear corporate espionage case

tyrepress.com



A US federal judge has sentenced two former Wyko engineers to four years probation and 150 hours of community service after they were convicted of convicted of stealing trade secrets from Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. in a corporate espionage case that first surfaced in 2009.



According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, federal prosecutors had wanted US district court judge Thomas W. Phillips to give Clark Alan Roberts and Sean Edward Howley at least 10 months in prison, but their lack of previous convictions and “ample” family and community support reportedly won out.



A jury found Roberts and Howley each guilty in December on 10-counts alleging they conspired to steal and use trade secrets. Roberts and Howley, who were employees of Wyko Tire Technology Inc. at the time, had been accused of visiting Goodyear’s Topeka, Kansas plant in 2007 so Howley could use his camera phone to take pictures OTR tyre production procedures.



During the trial Tom Frey, a consultant for Goodyear and a former Goodyear manager, had estimated it cost $520,000 to develop the design drawings for the equipment the defendants were convicted of photographing and that Goodyear made $17 million in 2007 from the sale of tyres that machine produces. However Judge Phillips rejected Frey as a witness and noted that he was not employed by Goodyear and had not produced documentation to verify these figures.



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FBI warns businesses to protect their trade secrets and information

standard.net

KAYSVILLE -- Companies and individuals need to protect their trade secrets and financial information the way Kentucky Fried Chicken protects its secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices, FBI officials warn.

FBI Special Agent Karl Schmae and FBI Financial Analyst Shane Esplin, from the Salt Lake City office, shared tips with the Davis Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday to help business owners protect themselves from becoming victims of a white-collar crime.

About 30 people attended the presentation titled "Economic Espionage: Trade Secrets Under Attack." The presentation was made at the NorthFront Business Resource Center in Kaysville.

The FBI has a broad mission that includes "economic espionage" and the impact it has on businesses, Schmae said.

Some of that espionage includes the stealing of trade secrets and claims ranging anywhere from the design of America's space shuttle being stolen by Russians, to New England Patriots Football Coach Bill Belichick spying on other NFL teams, Schmae said.

But in the world of economics, it is every company for itself, and it is the responsibility of each company to protect its trade secrets, research or marketing information -- all that separates them from their competitors, Schmae said.

Trade secrets have to be identified, Schmae said, and "reasonable measures" taken to protect them, including educating staff that any information they glean by working for the company cannot be shared.

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PayPal and eBay accuse Google of corporate espionage

timesofoman.com
SAN FRANCISCO: Google faced a lawsuit after it unveiled a free mobile application that turns a smartphone into an electronic wallet and is designed to replace plastic credit cards.

PayPal and eBay filed a lawsuit in a California state court on Thursday charging that the Internet giant tapped into trade secrets for its newly released Google Wallet. Google did not immediately respond to the allegations.

PayPal spent three years trying to work out a deal in which it would handle payments for Android smartphones, only to see Google scuttle the talks and hire its lead negotiator Osama Bedier, according to court documents.

Bedier worked at the eBay-owned online financial services unit as a vice-president of platform, mobile, and new ventures until being hired in January by Google.

He played a central role at Google’s official unveiling in New York with financial partners Citibank, MasterCard and First Data and telecom ally Sprint, saying Google Wallet is being field tested and will be available this summer.

Google Wallet will initially work with Google’s Nexus S 4G smartphone from Sprint, the third-largest US wireless provider, and will eventually be expanded to other phones equipped with near field communication (NFC) technology.

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Sons of Blackwater Open Corporate Spying Shop

wired

Veterans from the most infamous private security firm on Earth and one of the military’s most controversial datamining operations are teaming up to provide the Fortune 500 with their own private spies.

Take one part Blackwater, and another part Able Danger, the military data-mining op that claimed to have identified members of al-Qaida living in the United States before 9/11. Put ‘em together, and you’ve got a new company called Jellyfish.

Jellyfish is about corporate-information dominance. It swears it’s leaving all the spy-world baggage behind. No guns, no governments digging through private records of its citizens.

“Our organization is not going to be controversial,” pledges Keith Mahoney, the Jellyfish CEO, a former Navy officer and senior executive with Blackwater’s intelligence arm, Total Intelligence Solutions. Try not to make a joke about corporate mercenaries.

His partners know from controversy. Along with Mahoney, there’s Michael Yorio, the executive vice president for business development and another Blackwater vet; Yorio recently prepped the renamed Xe Services for its life after founder Erik Prince sold it.

Jellyfish’s chief technology officer is J.D. Smith, who was part of Able Danger until lawyers for the U.S. Special Operations Command shut the program down in 2000. Also from Able Danger is Tony Shaffer, Jellyfish’s “military operations adviser” and the ex-Defense Intelligence Agency operative who became the public face of the program in dramatic 2005 congressional testimony.

But Jellyfish isn’t about merging mercenaries with data sifters. And it’s not about going after short money like government contracts. (Although, the firm is based in D.C., where the intel community is and the titans of corporate America aren’t.)

During a Thursday press conference in Washington that served as a coming-out party for the company, Jellyfish’s executives described an all-purpose “private-sector intelligence” firm.

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10 Most Notorious Acts of Corporate Espionage

businesspundit.com
There’s no end to the skullduggery that businesses will get involved in with the aim of making a quick buck, or trying to keep up with their competitors. Of course, their fellow companies aren’t beyond their schemes, either. There’s a war going on out there, folks, and spying is part of the game – criminal or not. Corporate espionage was a normal way of doing business back in days gone by, before copyright and patent protection brought the long arm of the law into play, but some companies still engage in the practice of acquiring trade secrets and business information by any means necessary. Here are 10 infamous cases of industrial espionage.

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Competitive Intelligence: How to Spot a Liar

inc.com

"Deception detection" experts—often former CIA agents—are used by banks and hedge funds to assess the honesty of CEOs. In his recent book, Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy, Eamon Javers shares some tricks of the trade:

1. Fidgeting
Aside from true sociopaths, people aren't natural liars, and saying one thing while thinking something else can actually cause physical discomfort. That's what causes people to squirm.

2. Weasel Words
Expected to, probably, basically, should be... These kinds of qualifiers crop up when someone is trying to obscure doubts or worries.

3. Detour Phrases
Think, As I said before. Liars try to circumvent a direct answer by referencing past answers to different questions.

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'Corporate espionage' center of court case

bizjournals.com

A State Supreme Court Justice has barred a national appliance parts distributor from soliciting business and clients from a competitor, who happens to have deep Buffalo roots.

State Supreme Court Justice John Michalek, in a recently unsealed decision, has ruled that 1st Source Servall, which opened a Buffalo sales office shortly after St. Louis-based Marcone Supply Co. acquired AP Wagner Co. in January 2010. AP Wagner began in Buffalo in 1928 when it was founded as Buffalo Washing Machine Repair Co. Marcone and 1st Source Servall are the largest appliance parts distributors in the country.

Read more: 'Corporate espionage' center of court case | Business First

Corporate intrigue, Corporate espionage...

bizjournals.com

In highly specialized, research-intensive industries, trade secrets can be a company’s key to beating the competition.

For a Boulder manufacturer of hearing implant devices for the deaf, trade secrets became the center of an international legal battle involving allegations of corporate espionage and the raiding of a French company’s research-and-development team.

The civil lawsuit, tried in U.S. District Court in Denver in February, was filed by Neurelec of France against Boulder-based Otologics LLC. Neurelec claimed its former CEO left in anger, taking most of the research-and-development team with him, and later hacked into the company’s computers to find sensitive information ...

Read more: Corporate intrigue | Denver Business Journal

Hilton Paid Starwood $75 Million in Espionage Settlement

online.wsj.com

Hilton Worldwide Inc. paid $75 million last year to Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide as part of a settlement agreement in a corporate-espionage lawsuit, according to a person familiar with the matter.

In its earnings statement Thursday, Starwood said it received the money in a corporate settlement in December but didn't identify Hilton. Still, the legal settlement with Hilton was the only one Starwood reached that month.

Both parties reported last year that they had settled the lawsuit but didn't disclose the financial terms of the agreement.

The settlement put to an end a dispute that had rattled the normally staid hotel world. In 2009, Starwood filed a suit that accused Hilton officials of stealing confidential Starwood documents to develop a new boutique-style chain that would appeal to modern tastes.

Terms of the settlement continue a court order that Hilton cease development of its Denizen lifestyle chain and can't start developing a similar brand for two years.

Hilton also must allow a court-appointed monitor to review its marketing and branding materials to assure the company doesn't benefit from the information obtained from Starwood documents.

In December, Hilton Chief Executive Chris Nassetta said in a statement the company is "committed to fair, ethical and robust competition in the marketplace."

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Hybrid Espionage! GM Takes Couple to Court Over Tech Secrets

earth2tech.com
Hybrid technology is really getting its day in court. A former General Motors worker and her husband have been accused of stealing (and trying to sell to a Chinese competitor) $40 million in trade secrets related to the automaker’s hybrid vehicles. On Thursday, a federal court in Detroit unsealed an indictment of the couple on seven charges including conspiracy and fraud.

This comes on the heels of two other longstanding legal battles over hybrid technology finally coming to a close, with Ford and Toyota each reaching settlement agreements this month in patent disputes with a company called Paice LLC. All of these cases come at a time when automakers are jockeying to carve out a piece of the nascent green car segment, not least of all in China’s fast-growing auto market.

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Former Michelin executive guilty of trying to sell company secrets

etyres.co.uk

A former Michelin tyres executive has been found guilty of trying to sell company secrets to the firm’s main rival Bridgestone.

Marwan Arbache faces a maximum 10-year jail sentence and a heavy fine after sending an email offering to sell confidential information for around £100,000 back in July 2007.

Michelin was tipped off by Bridgestone and the Japanese competitor ultimately helped its French rival nail the suspect.

Arbache, 34, who worked for Michelin for seven years, was charged with supplying information to a foreign company that could have “undermined the country’s fundamental interests”, violating trademark secrets and breach of trust.

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Data Thefts Cost Firms $2 Million Each a Year, Symantec Says

businessweek.com

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The theft of trade secrets and customer information cost companies an average of $2 million each last year, according to research conducted by security software maker Symantec Corp.

In a survey of 2,100 information-technology executives worldwide, 75 percent of respondents reported cyber attacks last year. Most intrusions were aimed at stealing a company’s intellectual property, such as product designs, according to the study released today.

“We can expect to see companies going out of business because their intellectual property is stolen,” Maureen Kelly, a senior director of product marketing, said in an interview. “For some, this is a matter of life or death.”

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Corporate espionage case moves forward

pasadenastarnews.com

HACIENDA HEIGHTS - A federal judge has upheld most of a local company's counter-lawsuit against Seiko Epson that claims the printing giant used a spy to gain trade secrets while illegally cracking down on the local firm's right to sell recycled products.

The ruling was a victory for two-year-old Hacienda Heights-based Green Project, a 13-employee company that recycles and sells used ink and toner cartridges.

In July, the firm alleged in U.S. District Court in Oregon that Seiko Epson sent an investigator named Herbert W. Seitz, who trespassed into its Hacienda Heights headquarters and used a false identity to obtain price lists and other information from Green Project's sales department.

Green Project's lawsuit was a response to Seiko Epson's original suit in April, claiming that Green Project and several similar firms infringed on their copyrights.

For Judge Anna H. Brown, the issue centered around whether Green Project had taken reasonable measures to protect what the firms says were vital "trade secrets."

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