Free Republic

TAIPEI, Taiwan—U.S. memory chipmaker Micron scored a major legal victory after a local court found two of its former employees guilty of passing trade secrets to a Chinese company.Two engineers at Taiwanese contract chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) leaked technology from their former employer and used the trade secrets in a cooperation project with Chinese state-owned semiconductor manufacturer Fujian Jinhua Integrated Circuit, the court ruled. Their supervisor was also convicted for his involvement in the scheme.The district court in central Taiwan’s Taichung City on June 12 sentenced the three UMC staff to prison for 4 1/2 to 6 1/2...

The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.  Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.  Lieber will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with...

IN 1999, as a writer for The American Prospect, I went into a slaughterhouse undercover, with the help of some rebellious employees. The floor was slick with the residue of blood and suet, and the air smelled like iron. A part of my brain spent the whole time trying to remember which of Dante’s circles this scene most resembled. Today, under legislation being pushed by business interests, that bit of journalistic adventure could earn me a criminal conviction and land me on a registry of “animal and ecological terrorists.” So-called ag-gag laws, proposed or enacted in about a dozen states,...

Even today there are some still blank stares when I suggest to an audience of C-level executives or security professionals that they should all read the front pages of the Financial Times, the Yomiuri Shimbun, etc., as well as the technology news, if they want to know what cyber risks and threats to prepare for. Oh, the battle might be waged in bits and bytes, and bloodied patch bulletins that arrive six months too late; but the war will be won by those who could read between lines of the lead stories in politics and business, and it will most...

To: ALL MEDIAFor immediate releaseOctober 8, 2008 For more information contact:Ted Novin 203-426-1320 Obama Campaign Unlawfully Misuses Proprietary Firearms Industry Media List NEWTOWN, Conn. – The Obama campaign in Indiana, on September 27, unlawfully obtained and made unauthorized use of a proprietary media list belonging to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) – the trade association for the firearms industry.  Sen. Obama used this list to e-mail a press release concerning National Hunting and Fishing Day.Earlier today, NSSF sent a “cease and desist” letter to the Obama campaign demanding that they immediately stop any further unauthorized misuse of its...

iPods can be tools of espionage Graeme Kemlo APRIL 26, 2005 STOLEN laptops and lost PDAs embarrass governments and businesses. Paris Hilton's smartphone outed her contacts. But the new corporate security risk might be a seemingly innocent iPod. With gigabyte data capacities, they are the potential weak links in small-to-medium enterprises (SME) and corporate networks that are otherwise secured at significant effort and expense. Oscar Moren, Australian managing director of Pointsec Mobile Technologies, which specialises in encryption for all the main PC and mobile platforms and storage media, says Australian companies are only starting to understand how dangerous removable media...

Provizio's Conservative Estimates Put Information Leaks Costs to U.S. Companies at $133 Billion in 2004 MERIDIAN, Idaho, April 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Provizio announced today the release of its new public report, saying U.S. companies are facing greater threats due to loss of proprietary company information through deceptive competitor research, also known as exploitive social engineering, as well as through corporate espionage. Entitled, "Counter-Intelligence for Today's Fortune-1000 Company," this free report concludes that the cost to U.S. companies from lost proprietary information surpassed $133 billion dollars, up from $59 billion in losses in 2002 -- a substantial increase from $45 billion...

SAN JOSE -- The world's largest contract chip maker claims a China-based rival stole its trade secrets by hiring away employees and urging them to bring "presents" of proprietary information when coming to work at their new jobs, according to court documents. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which handles chip-making for firms that don't have their own factories, claims Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. engaged in an "ongoing scheme of industrial espionage and unfair competition." The lawsuit, originally filed in San Francisco federal court in December, alleges SMIC improperly obtained trade secrets and infringed U.S. patents. On Monday, it disclosed new evidence...

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - The world's largest contract chip maker claims a China-based rival stole its trade secrets by hiring away employees and urging them to bring "presents" of proprietary information when coming to work at their new jobs, according to court documents. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., which handles chip-making for firms that don't have their own factories, claims Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. engaged in an "ongoing scheme of industrial espionage and unfair competition." The lawsuit, originally filed in San Francisco federal court in December, alleges SMIC improperly obtained trade secrets and infringed U.S. patents. On Monday, it disclosed...

When Congress passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, corporate security watchers hoped for a crackdown on foreign intelligence agents conspiring to steal corporate America's crown jewels. Seven years later, they're still waiting. To date, US prosecutors have only twice in more than 40 alleged trade-secret cases gone after foreign government involvement. Such charges, a primary goal of the law, carry steeper penalties. Whether the US Government has been overly cautious with a diplomatically sensitive issue or prudent with a powerful law enforcement tool is a topic that experts in the corporate security arena still debate. But next summer, the...