Foxes in the henhouse: Ex-LucasFilm employee charged with digital theft.

World Tech Tribune.com ^ | Copyright 2002 - October 16, 2002 | Scott McCollum

[Scott McCollum]

Shea O’Brien Foley is not just a fan of George Lucas’ movies; he qualifies as a Star Wars fanatic. You’ll agree that “fanatic” is not too strong a word when you learn that Foley was arrested at his new job at NBC Studios in Los Angeles recently for allegedly stealing almost half a million dollars from his former employer, LucasFilm, LTD.

The stolen items, $450,000 worth of proprietary intellectual property (IP) owned by Foley’s former employer LucasFilm, were mostly digital images, sounds and video files found on Foley’s computers. Foley saw nothing wrong with the theft of his employer’s proprietary IP because he was an “avid fan” and had taken the items from the company before for his personal Star Wars “souvenir collection.”

[Scott McCollum]

“Hey, what’s the big deal if I get some CDs full of video and sounds from the new movie and share them on the Internet a month before the movie comes out? George Lucas has plenty of money anyway, right?”

[IncPen]

I'm scratching my head.

Who in their right mind would risk hard time for Attack of the Clones

[razorback-bert]

How fitting a man name Foley steal special effects.

[steve-b]

Insiders have stolen secrets from companies that don't take proper security precautions ever since Og decided to find out why Urg's stone knife was sharper than his.

[Scott McCollum]

"I'm scratching my head. Who in their right mind would risk hard time for Attack of the Clones?"

Foley used his Apple G4 laptop to store the ill-gotten downloads from the LucasFilm network. Like you, I don't know why someone would care, but maybe this is what the Apple ads mean when they say "think different"?

[steveo]

excellent...

[dheretic]

but maybe this is what the Apple ads mean when they say "think different"?

So then I assume it would be fair to say that if Apple is pushing theft, Microsoft is pushing treason by trying to get the US Navy to replace its embedded UNIX systems in its warships with NT....

Afterall, if Apple is aiding and abetting thieves, Microsoft is aiding and abetting those that would inflict damage on this country and its military infrastructure. I do believe that that fits the spirit of treason.

[Scott McCollum]

Just because you can't personally keep your computer from crashing in Windows because of all the cruddy old second-hand hardware you put in it doesn't mean there's millions of others out there who haven't experienced the "damage" you feel has been inflicted upon your personally by Microsoft.

Grow up, kids. It makes *NIX guys all sound like James Carville bitching that the 2000 election was "stolen" from Al Gore because of some big money conspiracy.

[dheretic]

Just because you can't personally keep your computer from crashing in Windows because of all the cruddy old second-hand hardware you put in it doesn't mean there's millions of others out there who haven't experienced the "damage" you feel has been inflicted upon your personally by Microsoft.

How does that address my comment? I don't run Windows because I don't like it. I was talking about its (lack of) stability on US Navy warship hardware.

Grow up, kids. It makes *NIX guys all sound like James Carville bitching that the 2000 election was "stolen" from Al Gore because of some big money conspiracy.

Windows can't run a warship for a full tour of duty without crashing. Grow up and accept reality. Windows is a desktop OS, not an embedded platform use in weapons systems by a modern military. The only military force that I want to use Windows in its hardware is the PLA.

[antidisestablishment]

Errr...Wouldn't that be sound effects?

[Scott McCollum]

Ah, so you're in the Navy and you've seen this for youself? You're the guy telling EDS that they have to adapt the NMCI project to your *NIX specs because Windows 2000 crashes?

I think we all know the answer is "no" and that you're lying about the perceived lack of stability because of your personal ideological (you said yourself "I don't like it") hatred for Microsoft.

[dheretic]

http://www.info-sec.com/OSsec/OSsec_080498g_j.shtml

[Scott McCollum]

"The Yorktown lost control of its propulsion system because its computers were unable to divide by the number zero"

That's not NT, genius. That's because the systems were using old Pentium and fell prey to that chip's divsion bug. Although the problem was more hardware related and you should be complaining about the evil Intel Corporation crippling the ship, Microsoft-haters love to trot out this example as something that will "kill our fighting men from negligence."

Heck, I'd rather move everything on the Yorktown over to AMD Athlon-based systems. AMD products are just as good but cheaper than Intel's and that makes a taxpayer like me happy.

[dheretic]

That's not NT, genius.

Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division of the Aegis Program Executive Office, said there have been numerous software failures associated with NT aboard the Yorktown.

That's because the systems were using old Pentium and fell prey to that chip's divsion bug.

You mean Pentium Pro which is a different processor than the Pentium. The Pentium Pro was the foundation for the Pentium II. There were problems with the original pentium line but you will have to cite a source for the divide-by-zero problem in PPros.

Microsoft-haters love to trot out this example as something that will "kill our fighting men from negligence."

Well ummm gee. IN A COMBAT SCENARIO YOU DONT HAVE 2.5 FRIGGIN HOURS TO GET NT BACK ONLINE!!!!!! In 20 minutes a single cruise missile could blow that cruiser out of the water and lay the whole carrier battlegroup open for attack. There are 5,000+ crewmen on a single aircraft carrier, are their lives worth a few million tax dollars saved by a switch to NT from UNIX to you? Grow up man, get rid of Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, EIC and unemployment benefits if you need to cut costs.

[razorback-bert]

killjoy

[Scott McCollum]

Intel has acknowledged a bug in the floating point unit (FPU) of the Pentium II and the Pentium Pro processors. It is also known as the Pentium II and Pentium Pro FPU bug or the "flag erratum" (as it is referenced by Intel). This bug occurs with operations that convert floating point numbers into integers (compare also Ariane-5 explosion).

You're a UNIX guy and you hate Microsoft - plain and simple.