Re: fbi botches intel "ecspionage" case

At 12:25 PM 6/29/96 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
>
>"economic espionage" (ecspionage?) is in full swing as being 
>promoted as the new bogeyman to justify spending billions of
>dollars to our intelligence agencies, both military and
>the FBI.
>we already have a very good example where this has
>backfired. I was watching Nightline on Tues night or
>so in which there was info about how the FBI helped
>get an informant into Intel in a *very* sensitive
>position, where he was able to film the pentium chip
>plans. he said he sold them, as I recall,
>to iraq, syria, china, etc.
[snip]
>I was thinking about all the objections I had to the
>FBI ecspionage treatment that were never raised on the
>program:

>1. there was an implicit assumption that merely having
>the plans to the chip would allow other countries to somehow
>slaughter us in economic competition. but INTEL has spent
>billions of dollars on physical infrastructure without which
>the plans are virtually useless. it would take other countries
>years to get the kind of equipment necessary to produce the
>pentium, by which it might actually be yesterday's technology
>that no one cares about any more.

It's worse than this.  I can recall talk of a big problem WITHIN INTEL 
trying to tranfer the process to produce a part between (as I recall) two 
Intel semiconductor fabs,  Fab IV and Fab V, which are buildings only a 
couple hundred feet apart!  And obviously, this was done with the full 
cooperation of everyone within Intel, and did not require the interfacing 
with any other company.  The idea that you can just steal the "plans" for a 
chip and build it yourself is crazy.

>2. we have a tradition of separation of church and state in
>this country, and also separation of the public government
>and private industry. suddenly we have the FBI saying they
>want to infiltrate companies to deal with economic espionage.
>well, these companies have their own policy, and what do
>they gain by having a government agency working inside them?
>in the above case I note, it led to exactly the *opposite*
>of what was intended: the theft of *highly*sensitive* plans
>by an FBI mole.

I was even more disgusted with the FBI:  I kept hearing them claim, "We did 
not authorize him to break the law."   Huh?!?  Maybe they didn't, this time, 
but does this mean, implicitly, that this country has sunk so low that the 
FBI thinks it has the legal authority to "authorize" somebody to break the 
law?????


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com

> I can recall talk of a big problem WITHIN INTEL 
>trying to tranfer the process to produce a part between (as I recall) two 
>Intel semiconductor fabs,  Fab IV and Fab V, which are buildings only a 
>couple hundred feet apart!  And obviously, this was done with the full 
>cooperation of everyone within Intel, and did not require the interfacing 
>with any other company.  The idea that you can just steal the "plans" for a 
>chip and build it yourself is crazy.

I don't quite understand your point. are you saying that a chip is
far more than merely plans? that I totally agree with.  a chip is
built by a massive army of highly intelligent people and highly
specialized equipment. I would wager that a very large part of
pentium technology is in their fabrication equipment. it would take
truckloads of files to describe all the equipment, and even
then you wouldn't necesarily be able to build it: you need the
geniuses who wrote the papers  in the first place to pull it off.

hence, one of my big criticisms of the concept of "intellectual
property": does it really exist?!?! is it in fact an oxymoron?
(don't tell the fbi!!! they'll get that weepy look that little kids
get when you tell them santa claus doesn't exist, hehehehe)

>I was even more disgusted with the FBI:  I kept hearing them claim, "We did 
>not authorize him to break the law."   Huh?!?  Maybe they didn't, this time, 
>but does this mean, implicitly, that this country has sunk so low that the 
>FBI thinks it has the legal authority to "authorize" somebody to break the 
>law?????

actually I smell something really bad here. the reporter for nightline
seemed kind of stupid to me. he kept talking about how Intel had
not gotten any warning that the employee had a criminal record and
had been involved in espionage in the past.

that was LUDICROUS. didn't he understand what was going on here? the
FBI was using this person as an INFORMANT and SPY and therefore probably did
the exact OPPOSITE: tried to use whatever leverage they could to get
him into a sensitive position where he would be USEFUL. and they
succeeded!! I find this a highly plausible scenario that they are probably
still trying to suppress.  I doubt the full truth on the matter is out
yet and a lot of people are doing the CYA thing in both Intel and
the FBI over this thing.

hence, I suspect the FBI was directly responsible for getting him
into a sensitive position where he could do damage. at least, that's
exactly what they'd be encouraging him to do. however he didn't seem
to present any evidence of that. there was some kind of finagling that
the fbi did to get him his job.

what is possible is that the FBI has *other* informants and spies working
in Intel that helped get the guy his job, and they would be "rooted out" 
if the whole story came to light. the FBI cooks up some story that makes
him look like a lone madman that went loose on his own.