Professor Gets 4 Years in Prison for Sharing Drone Plans With Students

Hugh Pickens writes "Retired University of Tennessee Professor Dr. John Reece Roth has been sentenced to four years in prison after he allowed a Chinese graduate student to see sensitive information on Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones. In 2004, the company Roth helped found, Atmospheric Glow Technologies, won a US Air Force contract to develop a plasma actuator that could help reduce drag on the wings of drones, such as the ones the military uses. Under the contract, for which Roth was reportedly paid $6,000, he was prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals. Despite warnings from his university's Export Control Officer, in 2006, Roth took a laptop containing sensitive plans with him on a lecture tour in China and also allowed graduate students Xin Dai of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran to work on the project. 'The illegal export of restricted military data represents a serious threat to national security,' says David Kris of the US Department of Justice. 'We know that foreign governments are actively seeking this information for their own military development. Today's sentence should serve as a warning to anyone who knowingly discloses restricted military data in violation of our laws.' During his trial, Roth testified that he was unaware that hiring the graduate students was a violation of his contract. 'This whole thing has not helped me, it has not helped the university,' said Roth. 'And it has probably not helped this country, either.'"

Comments

Some of my professors

[Anonymous Coward]

droned on and on too but I wouldn't send them to prison for it!

Re:Why stop there..

[russotto]

Presumably because the students weren't the ones who signed the reams of paperwork acknowledging they were being given access to sensitive data and shouldn't be sharing it with foreign nationals. Unless procedures have changed a lot, you don't get legitimate access to such information without being told ad nauseum who you should and shouldn't be sharing it with and what the penalties are for breaking those rules.

Guilty.

[Petersko]

He knew he wasn't supposed to do it, he was warned not to do it, he did it anyway. He pled guilty.

If he didn't read his contract that's his problem. I also find it very unlikely.

Why is this on slashdot?

Re:Guilty.

[H0p313ss]

He knew he wasn't supposed to do it, he was warned not to do it, he did it anyway. He pled guilty. If he didn't read his contract that's his problem. I also find it very unlikely. Why is this on slashdot?

Possibly to serve as a warning to others? That might be his whole purpose in life.

Re:Guilty.

[thomasw_lrd]

Because it's another crybaby story the govt. is evil, copyright is evil, and all nerds should be allowed free access to any information that is in the entire world. I'm surprised they didn't try to tie the iphone and google into it.

Re:Guilty.

[samkass]

If he didn't read his contract that's his problem. I also find it very unlikely.

Agreed. ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) is something that all defense workers are trained in. It's also explained very carefully that if there's a violation it's not the government program's fault, it's not the company's fault, but it's the employee that's going to prison. It's a pretty strict standard. Even discussing things in the public domain for the wrong purposes can land you in hot water-- giving a citation (book name, page number) of public domain information can violate ITAR if it's in response to, say, a question about missile technology. In essence what you exported there was your expertise in leading the foreign national to that source of information.

Incidentally, these are the same regulations that kept the old PowerMac G4's from being exported and led to the "tank" commercial at the time.

Re:Guilty.

[dummondwhu]

Those of us who work in defense are trained until we're blue in the face about how to handle sensitive information, what is and is not releasable, and what an "export" is in defense terms (it's more than it sounds). My company trains us extensively on that, and maybe the company he founded didn't bother to pound these things into the heads of the people in the company, but it's just not a good excuse. If we are to be trusted to handle classified information, it's up to us to make sure we understand proper safeguarding of that info. Can I recite all the rules and regs? Hell no, but I guarantee I'm not taking any information anywhere or giving information to anyone without running it through proper channels first. That's not just common sense, but what we're trained to do on an ongoing basis.

Re:Guilty.

[Vellmont]

Those of us who work in defense are trained until we're blue in the face about how to handle sensitive information, what is and is not releasable

He doesn't work in "defense", he's a retired University professor who works for a company doing work with plasma. Comparing him to yourself is disingenuous at best.

Universities (especially physics) works very differently than a company with regard to "classified" information. Here's how it works. You want research money. You apply for a grant from the DOE for said research money where you check "yes this has potential weapons applications" (because hey, what doesn't?). The DOE grants your request. In reality your research only meets the barest minimum for a qualification of "weapons potential". Yah, there's some kind of nonsense restriction on what you can do with it, but remember it never really had defense implications in the first place.

So, if we're talking about environments here, that's quite a different environment than the one you're describing.

Re:Guilty.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

He doesn't work in "defense", he's a retired University professor who works for a company doing work with plasma. Comparing him to yourself is disingenuous at best.

Okay. I work for a university and the government working in a similar field as the professor in question. I'm familiar with the ITAR regulations, and I sign agreements to not disclose this kind of information. I'm strictly science, yet I still have to use aircraft and spacecraft that are dual purposed. I know exactly the rules he had to follow...

Universities (especially physics) works very differently than a company with regard to "classified" information.

Nope. I'm held to the same standards as my civil servant colleagues. I even have to take the same training sessions. We don't call it FIOS, or SECRET but the acronyms we use have same meanings associated with them.

Yah, there's some kind of nonsense restriction on what you can do with it, but remember it never really had defense implications in the first place.

The trouble with your argument is that the UAV in question is a UAV that is similar to the one used in defense, but assigned a civilian task. The information that he provided did compromise security.

So, if we're talking about environments here, that's quite a different environment than the one you're describing.

Different? Yes. Different enough? No. I have projects that allow non-US grad students and I have projects that don't...

Re:Guilty.

[Dravik]

It is not necessarily classified. He got popped for export restrictions. What he was working on fell under the "un-classified but sensitive" category. The technology had possible military applications and thus was banned from export from the United States. He was warned by the export control officer of the university not to take the information out of the US.

Re:Guilty.

[Lars T.]

Maybe, just maybe, this case doesn't show that Roth is a traitor, but that the military is full of idiots who don't take their jobs serious.

Re:Guilty.

[Vellmont]

The trouble with your argument

The trouble with my argument is that it isn't an argument. You've taken it out of context, which was a refutation of the environment imposed on this guy.

Everyone seems to think they understand exactly what happened here from one crappy ass article written by some journalist. Presumably nobody here was at the trial, hasn't read anything else about what was disclosed, or any real specifics. This kind of case is far from simple, and making assumptions with almost nothing to go on about what compromised what, what the law states, etc is extremely misleading. I simply argue for ignorance here, not knowledge.

Re:Guilty.

[koreaman]

That's all well and good, but how relevant is it to the Cloud?

Re:Guilty.

[kencurry]

... I'm surprised they didn't try to tie the iphone and google into it.

the laptop was a macbook pro...

Re:Guilty.

[kencurry]

Everyone seems to think they understand exactly what happened ... I simply argue for ignorance here, not knowledge.

the article clearly stated that he was warned not to disclose, and did it anyway. So yeah, I think that I understand exactly what happened here. You may want to "argue for ignorance" but c'mon already.

Re:Guilty.

[hawk]

Oh, you cynic.

Why would anyone smart enough to get a Ph.D. even suspect that, after working on classified information, he shouldn't disclose that information to a student hand-selected to study with him by a totalitarian government with a history of using its military to take over others, repress dissent, and threaten other nations?

hawk

Re:Guilty.

[SanguineV]

PhDs aren't granted for common sense.

Re:Guilty.

[H0p313ss]

That might be his whole purpose in life.

Oh STFU, you religious nut.

Actually... I'm an atheist and I was referring to a slogan on a popular poster. Hope those meds work out for ya...

Re:Guilty.

[Reservoir Penguin]

For a second I though you were describing the US. What countries did Iran use it's military to take over exactly? On the other hand Iran did see US and NATO take over a country it borders in the east and just two years later the same warmongers took over a country it borders in the west. And then they try to incite a figging "Orange" Revolution. I'd be worried and developing nuclear weapons like mad.

Re:Guilty.

[greyhueofdoubt]

In essence what you exported there was your expertise in leading the foreign national to that source of information.

I'd like to add to this, because many people here on /. who don't have experience in these areas often ask, "Why is it illegal for a member of the military/Boeing employee/Raytheon employee/etc to say publicly what can already be found easily on wikipedia or other sources?"

The answer is: Because it verifies facts. An article by AP about the air force's new musical ice-cream truck UAV could only be written based on publicly-available facts or deduction. Once a member of the Air Force confirms to the press or anyone else that yes, we have a new ice-cream UAV and it is delicious, the subject is confirmed. Every member of the DoD, DoD contractors, and DoD researchers is like a walking snopes.com in that everything they say is scrutinized and accepted as the acting ultimate authority on the subject.

Here's a real world example based on my own experiences. There are maps online of a certain base in Iraq that give very detailed, very accurate information. You can find it, but I won't tell you which one it is. OK. But when we do our predeployment briefing to that base, and which uses *that map*, and which is given by Intel and is secret/noforn- ALL cell phones go away, all the doors are closed, and all the window blinds are closed. The fact that we are using that map as a fact... Makes that map a *Fact*. Capital "F".

See?

I realize that's at odds with much of what slashdottery stands for, but when lives are on the line secrecy matters. It may seem silly but it matters enough to people in the loop (like me...) to keep certain things under wraps.

Another real-world example: My base public relations officer called me in Iraq (from the U.S.) to talk to me about my blog (which was about my deployment). He cautioned me, in no uncertain terms, to be "very, very careful what I include in my essays." And this was after I took pains to change names, places, times, patterns, etc so that my account could easily be from any shitty place* in the world if you didn't personally know where I was.

-b

*No offense Iraq, it was just the weather. No really.

Lamest court defense ever

[Mad Marlin]

I had no idea that the US Military would get pissed if I shared details about how to build flying robots with people from Iran and China! I swear it!

Not long enough

[m509272]

Should have been 40 years, idiot. Just bringing the laptop to China is shear stupidity.

Re:Not long enough

[SheeEttin]

shear stupidity

Maybe, but his haircut is irrelevant. This was just irresponsible.

Re:Not long enough

[Wrath0fb0b]

Especially after being told not to...

I don't truck much with "being told" what to do.

I do truck with signing a contract that lays out very explicitly what obligations and restrictions to which you you are voluntarily agreeing. He knew (or absolutely should have known) that when you sign a contract to consult for the DOD, you are accepting these restrictions.

This is about as much YRO (which has meant YR for a long time now anyway) as any other mundane contractual disputes that turn up.

Re:Not long enough

[Ironsides]

Tad excessive? You've never heard of the Rosenbergs, I take it. What country are you from?

Re:Not long enough

[ScrewMaster]

Contractual or not, four years for sharing some plans seems tad excessive.

Oh well. I guess you have to be American to understand the American judicial system.

What? My goodness, that anti-American commentary is become less and less rational on a daily basis.

Look, there's a lot of technology that could be used to kill a lot of people if the wrong hands get access to it. The American taxpayer paid for that R&D, and it should be used in our interests, not to aid an inimical foreign power like China (no, they're not our friends, and probably never will be.) I understand that you're just trying to get in a jab at the hated Americans, but ask yourself how the Russians, or the Iranians, or the Israelis, or the Chinese or ... well, pretty much ANY country that has made a significant investment in military technology would (and have) handled similar cases. Compared to some of those countries, this is a slap on the wrist. I mean, after all the agreements he signed, just taking that laptop to CHINA, of all places, should have earned him a lot more than four years. I suspect the Feds cut him some slack.

I'm sorry that you're ignorant of such matters, but you know, that is a curable condition.

Re:Not long enough

[ScrewMaster]

Even the " prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals" condition is a fluff, since a foreign nation can simply pay a US citizen to get the data.

That US citizen would then be subject to the same legal sanctions the Professor got under the US laws prohibiting export of this information.

That's actually the problem with a lot of our interaction in the "global economy". Take medical transcription, for example ... a lot of that is being outsourced to India. And when it gets stolen by some Indian bastard trying to make a quick buck, there's absolutely nothing our government can do. The thief is not subject to United States law. Consequently, there's no deterrent effect whatsoever when it comes to ripping off confidential data from our government or our citizens, and that's the reason the professor was prohibited from using foreign nationals on his project. Did he intend to act in a treasonous or near-treasonous manner? Perhaps not. But it's damned hard to argue that he didn't know better.

Re:Not long enough

[mpe]

Tad excessive? You've never heard of the Rosenbergs, I take it. What country are you from?

Pity they didn't use the same approach with Jonathan Pollard.

Re:Not long enough

[shutdown -p now]

Contractual or not, four years for sharing some plans seems tad excessive.

I'm not an American, and I think that four years for a very real leak of sensitive military information is quite mild, and only shows to point out the difference between U.S. (and other Western countries), and, say, China - consider what would happen to a Chinese professor in a similar situation.

Lying or stupid?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's see, he signed a contract saying he was prohibited from sharing sensitive data with foreign nationals, then he shared it with forign nationals. Now he says "he was unaware that hiring the graduate students (to do work in the project) was a violation of his contract"? He's either too stupid to be a professor, or he's lying.

Have fun in prison bub.

Re:Lying or stupid?

[Kell Bengal]

He made a poor choice, for sure, but a lot of academics live and work in a 'publish freely, collaborate frequently' mind-set that helps share knowledge and advance human understanding. The whole culture of scientific openness, testability and peer review is strongly at odds with the secrecy-is-paramount function of military endeavours. The two must work together if militaries are to benefit from the latest scientific knowledge but the goals of academics and military are not the same and I'm not surprised it leads to such mistakes.

I'm a university UAV researcher myself; I know lots of folks who work with the military to get funding to do research they think is important. It comes with the territory, and most of us are pretty cluey about the defense applications of what we do. I have been to plenty of conferences where the guys from Iran and China are presenting trivial results or not bothering to present at all, only to attend every potentially valuable seminar they can. We know they're trying to use our stuff, they know they're trying to use our stuff, but we feel that sharing knowledge and putting it out there is crucial for the science.

For that reason people are careful about the alliances they make with the military. Working on national security stuff generally means you can't publish anything valuable you come up. I know a few collegues well who can't say what they did between years X and Y when they go for a job interview - it can be kryptonite to your career.

I don't think this guy was necessarily stupid or foolish - I think he was careless after being so used to the routine of publish or perish that he forgot who his collaborators were, and that was his mistake.

Re:Lying or stupid?

[Green Salad]

I simply don't buy into any arguments presented thus far, for defending a lighter sentence.

I'm the absent-minded type. From experience, I can assure people that the sheer number of security briefings, security awareness tests and periodioc recertifications and signed contracts makes it so even the dumbest idiot can't claim they weren't aware. And yeah, it's corny or awkward as it is to say "I've agreed not to discuss it" to a loved one or potential employer.

With experience, you learn to deflect the "but surely you trust me, don't you?" with "I trust you and think you deserve to know. However, that is not the issue. I gave a solemn promise and feel an ethical duty to make my word mean something. Please don't continue to put me in awkward situations or I will start to think less of you."

The interview process in my own company involves and ethics/honor test that asks the applicant about classified work and if they start to give details, they're not invited back. Who wants to hire dishonorable people to work next to them? Not me.

As far as employment, you can get validation that you were legitimately employed and others in the reseach/tech/engineering industry are used to dealing with it. All classified programs will have an associated FSO (Facility Security Officer) that can provide you process guidance and that persons name and contact info is made clear in the security training and if anyone legitimately wants help with this, drop me a line and I'll do my best.

From experience, the real issue is lack of maturity and strong personal sense of ethics.

Re:Lying or stupid?

[bzipitidoo]

Thank you for saying all that.

The punishment doesn't strike me as particularly useful either. Seems too severe, especially when considering that he likely didn't mean to hurt the US. Do they want to scare off everyone? At the least it will cost more money to persuade others to work with them. I sure wouldn't go for a pitiful $6000 to face risks like that. Now we have one scientist locked up for 4 years where he probably can't do anything useful at all. And his career is toast. Maybe that part doesn't matter so much since he's retired, but for a young person it could be a life wrecker. It strikes me rather like the threat to shut down the Blackberrys in RIM vs NTP, or telling Vonage they can't sign up new customers, or the way the RIAA has forced a few alleged file sharers to drop out of college. Or the quaint fundamentalist Islamic custom of amputating the right hands of thieves. We shouldn't cause excessive damage when trying to achieve justice. Why not instead hit him with a fine, take away his access, and let him work on something else? Are scientists who are willing to bear the costs of working with the military as plentiful and disposable as all that?

Re:Lying or stupid?

[PhxBlue]

The punishment doesn't strike me as particularly useful either. Seems too severe, especially when considering that he likely didn't mean to hurt the US.

Drunken drivers don't mean to kill people, but they do. If you can't be bothered to think through possible consequences before you do something, then you get to endure those consequences later.

Me, I'd rather not see Department of Defense employees not helping Iran and China with their own UAS programs if it's all the same.

Re:Lying or stupid?

[abigsmurf]

The punishment will serve it's purpose well. You do not share state secrets, even if your intentions are innocent. You do not treat them so lightly as to absent mindedly give them out. This is an incredibly important message for the government to send out. If you send out a message of "oh you silly sausage, I'll let it go this time" you'll have leaks left right and center. It doesn't matter how innocous the person you're revealing it to seems. Spies go out their ways to be innocuous, or will try to get information from people you've told (which is even worse as it makes the spies much harder to identify). Giving out military secrets costs lives. Freedom of information is all well and good until people then use that information too kill (not just in warfare but innocent civilians, political opponents etc.)

Re:Lying or stupid?

[kencurry]

Thank you for saying all that.

The punishment doesn't strike me as particularly useful either. Seems too severe, especially when considering that he likely didn't mean to hurt the US. Do they want to scare off everyone? ...

Huh? that's the whole point of putting him in prison. Society cannot trust him, so we pay to lock him up. hopefully he will learn his lesson in there, but at least he can't do any damage to our country from inside prison. And yes, we do want to scare off everyone else who is thinking about doing what he did.

Re:Lying or stupid?

[Artifakt]

It does pose an occasional hardship. I've applied at places that were totally clueless before. When your interviewer asks if you've ever had any management experience and you tell him you were a company commander, and he gets this blank look and you have to explain how you supervised and directed 90 or so people and had legal responsibility for over 1 billion dollars of equipment, and he still doesn't really see how that's management, and he says "But did you ever have to make any life or death decisions?", you don't direct him to an FSO or anybody else over the classified bits, you just leave, because if you put this clown in touch with anybody, he will screw you up somehow. I've bailed on four or five job interviews because the guy asking the questions had no idea that anybody really had a classified background, in businesses where he damned well should have. Never tried to get any of them fired, nor sued the companies involved, but maybe someone should have done that too. And no, I don't think these were people playing dumb to check my ethics, I think they were just dumb and not very ethical themselves, and some of them had probably had as many briefings and signings as professor Roth.

He got what he deserved.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't work on a top-secret project without signing very serious agreements with Uncle Sam. It just doesn't happen. Therefore he knew damned well he wasn't allowed to share this information, but did so anyway. What the fuck did he expect? What the fuck would *you* expect? If you expected to get away with something like that without consequence, you're a fucking moron.

What the...?!

[ZarathustraDK]

and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran to work

Did George Lucas get offspring in Iran or something?

As a guy who works on this sort of stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not entirely surprised by either the sentence, or the seeming lack of security consciousness on the part of the professor and possibly his school. When working on defense-related work it's always best to treat sensitive material with the respect it deserves - in many cases there's no need to go overboard with encryption, physical security, or whatnot, but reasonable measures (e.g., not bringing the Goddamned laptop overseas) should always be taken.

However, from what I heard, the project Dr. Roth was working on wasn't entirely black-ops sort of stuff - he was merely integrating technology previously developed by himself (and others) under funding not remotely related to defense.

Re:Why stop there..

[Dolphinzilla]

while it is certainly unfortunate that they got sensitive data - the violation of the ITAR was the professors alone and I am glad he was found guilty - aside from the obvious security issues giving away technology weakens our economic and business advantages as well - part of doing business in this country is playing by the rules - if you don't want to play by these rules, then work on non ITAR technologies instead

Antithetical to "education".

[pla]

"Openness", both ideologically and in the FOSS sense, forms one of the core requirements of successful academia.

I don't blame or absolve the professor - He had a contract, and I suppose the legal details of this boil down to a matter of contract law (though I most certainly do have a problem with prison time rather than monetary damages for breach of contract). But I do blame both his university and the government itself.

I blame the university for undermining any sense of credibility by selling out to the highest bidder at the expense of discrimination against an arbitrary list of students - Students who paid the same tuition as every other student, yet cannot experience the same intellectual freedoms as their peers all because some magic list-of-the-week says their Fearless Leader (whom in many cases they came to the US because they don't like the policies or education climate back home) pissed in our Cheerios.
And I blame the government for foisting their homework onto a domain that largely considers secrecy either beneath consideration or outright contemptible. Don't want foreign students to have access to military projects? Simple - Give those projects to standard military-industrial contractors familiar with paranoid levels of obfuscation and mistrust such as Lockheed, Grumman, Boeing or the like. And if they do decide to tap academia for parts of their research, I blame them for not taking care to prevent any one group from having "enough" information to do anything useful with.


You don't spank a baby for giggling at butterflies, and you don't hold it accountable if you give it a gun and someone gets hurt. Simple as that.

Re:Antithetical to "education".

[bkpark]

at the expense of discrimination against an arbitrary list of students - Students who paid the same tuition as every other student, yet cannot experience the same intellectual freedoms as their peers all because some magic list-of-the-week says their Fearless Leader (whom in many cases they came to the US because they don't like the policies or education climate back home) pissed in our Cheerios.

'Hate to pull you down from your clouds, but you are way off. First of all, none of these graduate students, at least in physical sciences, actually "pay tuition". Usually in one way (working as teaching assistant or research assistant) or another (grants and fellowships), they will not only attend the school tuition-free, they will also get paid living expenses. I should know, I'm one of these graduate students (although not an international one).

In fact, if it's a public institution, these foreign graduate students actually cost the department extra in the "out-of-state fee", because the department usually ending up paying for these (usually in the amount of $10,000 per year) which foreign graduate students have to pay until they pass their qualifiers (or some such mark which happens on the third or fourth year, if they are on track to graduate fast), whereas domestic students, even if they are not from within the state, would qualify for in-state tuition within a year. This is often used as a justification for having a higher standard for foreign student admission.

Also, if you want to argue about intellectual freedom, don't pull a double standard and argue against the whole idea of classified projects and all those informations that are supposedly too sensitive for taxpayers to know and yet cost them money. I might agree with you there.

Once you have accepted the existence of classified information, well, why should these foreign graduate students have access to these when most of the population with actual vested interest in this country cannot get access to this information, and not without going through some sort of clearance process?

It's easy to talk about "intellectual freedom" and "freedom of information" (BTW, none of these are fundamental rights protected by the Constitution, the way freedom of speech is, especially if you accept classifying information as being constitutional) when you ignore the reality, just like it's easy for liberals to talk about "spreading the wealth" and having a "safety net" that lets the unemployed live in luxury, as long as they ignore the realities of the real world economics.

When you are ready to come back down to earth and discuss in earnest with the limitations of the real world in mind, then perhaps your arguments will make more sense.

P.S. BTW, this isn't about the academia. This is about a defense contractor sharing information he shouldn't. Do you think Lockheed-Martin should freely share information about all the bombers and stealth fighters they build?

Re:Antithetical to "education".

[blueg3]

Students who paid the same tuition as every other student, yet cannot experience the same intellectual freedoms as their peers all because some magic list-of-the-week says their Fearless Leader (whom in many cases they came to the US because they don't like the policies or education climate back home) pissed in our Cheerios.

Actually, ITAR regulations require that no foreign nationals work on the project -- not just ones from countries like China and Iran. Many universities (or individual professors) do actually reject any ITAR projects, since it places significant restrictions on them and their students.

Re:Antithetical to "education".

[physicsphairy]

I blame the university for undermining any sense of credibility by selling out to the highest bidder at the expense of discrimination against an arbitrary list of students - Students who paid the same tuition as every other student, yet cannot experience the same intellectual freedoms as their peers

We are talking about a project funded by DOE grant money, not student tuition, and usually the way these things work is that the university skims a whole lot off of that and effectively the DOE subsidizes the tuition of the foreign nationals by providing these projects.

But I don't think the argument holds water anyway. I mean, I pay my taxes the same as anyone else, but would you honestly say this merits my having equal access to nuclear missile silos and chemical weapons laboratories as any other citizen? Should any shareholder of Intel be able to come prancing about in the chip fabrication facility? Should the banker I mortgaged my house to be able to drop in for breakfast whenever he wants? It appears fairly intuitive to me that making an investment in something does not automatically mean you should be able to run in and grab whatever you feel is an equitable share of the benefits.

because some magic list-of-the-week says their Fearless Leader (whom in many cases they came to the US because they don't like the policies or education climate back home) pissed in our Cheerios.

Yes, and why do you think Fearless Leader was willing to let them go in the first place, hmm? Maybe he's just a real swell guy... but any realistic effort at national security requires considering other possibilities.

And I blame the government for foisting their homework onto a domain that largely considers secrecy either beneath consideration or outright contemptible. Don't want foreign students to have access to military projects? Simple - Give those projects to standard military-industrial contractors familiar with paranoid levels of obfuscation and mistrust such as Lockheed, Grumman, Boeing or the like.

That is a nice generalization about academics, but maybe the ones who voluntarily work on military projects which require secrecy don't exactly fall into your blanket description. We aren't talking about the draft here. And I think you grossly underestimate the entrenchment of academics in military research. Why don't you lookup who worked on the Manhattan project and see how many of them were "standard military-industrial contractors." Los Alamos labs (and other labs) are run by universities on the military's behalf.

I blame them for not taking care to prevent any one group from having "enough" information to do anything useful with.

Why would you give them information they couldn't do anything useful with? What would be the point of giving them information at all?

I doubt there is much I can say to dissuade you that it is not the military's fault, since hey they're the bad guys right? But there are a vast number of practical justifications for their present interactions with academics, and I assure you that no one is forcefully compelled to accept these grant-funded projections (by contrast, you generally must fight to get them). You don't have to like it, but acting like this is a case of an innocent guy getting caught up in the system is myopic at best.

Re:Antithetical to "education".

[ScrewMaster]

Many universities (or individual professors) do actually reject any ITAR projects, since it places significant restrictions on them and their students.

Correct. And they're within their rights to do just that. This guy apparently did not.

Plasma actuator

[Bromskloss]

Forget the prison sentence, I want to learn about the "plasma actuator that could help reduce drag on the wings of drones". (This is a tech site, remember?) So, how do these work?

Been there, done that ...

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so I'm in Canada, and everyone knows that Canadians are slackers when it comes to security (sarcasm for the humor challenged).

The prof had to be ignoring the rules deliberately. The paperwork I had to sign required the details of every student working on the project. They didn't have to be security cleared but they sure did have to be Canadian or American. There was no chance to skip over that clause in the contract; a security guy read it to me out loud and made damn sure I understood what it meant.

American Engineering Research == Foreign Students

[Anonymous Coward]

A big problem/bug/feature of American academic engineering research groups is that the graduate students and post-docs are predominantly foreign, typically from China and India. American citizens with advanced engineering degrees are a dying breed - Americans don't (in general) aspire to get PhDs in engineering.

So if you are soliciting proposals to American universities for defense-related research, be warned that whomever is doing the research (even if they themselves are citizens and cleared) are likely doing that research in a room full of foreign nationals.

Re:Why stop there..

[caladine]

My experience with US security clearance was exactly as you describe. I literally had 8 hours of reading/signing documents and had to sign at least 3 that told me explicitly who I could and could not talk to about what I was doing. Each was read to me after I read it myself, and they went line by line to make sure I understood it. Roth is completely full of crap if he claims he didn't know. The process left me with the distinct impression that if I even had a hint that I shouldn't be talking about it or wasn't sure, I should keep my big mouth shut. The funny part is, I'm not sure I actually saw anything classified during my stint. Not that I'm going to be talking about any of it, because I'm just not sure, but still. Doubly funny was debriefing, that also took 8 hours where they went over everything again that I had gone through when I received clearance in the first place.

I Wasn't Bothered By The Guy's Sentence...

[thepainguy]

...until I Googled "plamsa actuator" and found a relevant article ranked number one...

http://www.engr.uky.edu/~jdjacob/fml/research/plasma/index.html

...and a bunch of other good articles listed after it.

Does the DOD think they not have the Internet in China and Iran?

Just by reading this article, you can get a good sense of the concept, which has to do with creating high-speed, non-mechanical aircraft control surfaces via boundary layer manipulation. Is this really that big of a secret?

I'll post more on this after I investigate the thump on the roof and see who's at the front door.

Re:I Wasn't Bothered By The Guy's Sentence...

[thepainguy]

Yes, I'm replying to myself...

It's kind of funny (or pathetic) but many advanced technologies (like stealth and hypersonics) start out this way. Some guy in some academic lad has a weird idea that actually works. The DOD then takes the concept black and tries to wipe out all traces of the idea's prior existence. They weren't very good at that back in the 70s and 80s and there's no way they are going to be able to do that today, given the power of the Web.

Re:I Wasn't Bothered By The Guy's Sentence...

[TheRaven64]

The reason for classifying it is that, without the DoD's extra work, it's difficult to know which ideas really work. There are lots of ideas coming out of academia that look great on paper but won't actually work due to engineering limitations or overlooked variables. If you know which are worth investigating further (because someone else has already done the feasibility analysis) then your R&D costs are much lower. Considering the fact that modern war basically boils down to economics, it's a legitimate concern.

Re:I Wasn't Bothered By The Guy's Sentence...

[Artifakt]

Look, we'll tell you what the thump on the roof was AFTER you prove you're not a Chines or Iranian grad student, and not until then - Got it?.

$6K - WTF?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What the hell kind of contract with the DoD is only $6K?
The cost of a security clearance for one person is at least $40K.
Maybe it was one stage of a multi-stage contract, but with the way the news and prosecutors like to exaggerate everything you think they would have quoted the cost of the entire thing.

Re:$6K - WTF?

[bkpark]

What the hell kind of contract with the DoD is only $6K?

There must be a typo somewhere. My travel grant to India this year is not too far off from that amount.

Or, if there was no mistake, that's probably the consulting fee personally paid to the professor himself (usually grants pay for grad students, postdocs, and equipments, not the professor's salary, although probably his travel expenses and such).

P.S. According to the AP article linked from TFA, "Roth, 71, testified at trial that he didn't believe he broke the law because the research had yet to produce anything tangible. He said he received only about $6,000 from the contract."

So $6k is the amount disbursed so far; there's no mention of how much was the grant itself.

Re:Why stop there..

[legirons]

that's just for grunts. Once you get really senior, you can show classified documents to press photographers in public

I remember the first time I signed...

[sirwired]

The first time I obtained security clearance, we were all told that not only were we barred for life from talking about any classified data without permission, but that they would keep the physical piece of paper that we signed stating we understood all this for at least 75 years.

They want to preclude the possibility that you will EVER think about claiming you didn't know the restrictions.

SirWired

Re:I remember the first time I signed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay for Wikileaks.

Re:I remember the first time I signed...

[Hal_Porter]

Yeah, because nothing shows you're a free thinker better than giving access to military technology to regimes that will use it to repress free thinking.

Re:Why stop there..

[Beardo the Bearded]

I work on NATO military things.

They're pretty clear what you can talk about and with whom. Moreover to your point, if someone takes a strong interest in your work, you shall document and report it as a potential security breach.

Roth is getting a pretty light slap with four years.

Re:Why stop there..

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually TFA doesn't say the material was actually Classified and there's a good chance it wasn't. Data doesn't need to be classified to fall under export restrictions under ITAR/EAR regulations.

Also, just taking he data out of the country is a violation, irrespective of sharing it with anyone.

Life or Death...

[lordsid]

At the very least he should have received a life sentence. In reality he should have received the death penalty. This is straight up treason of the highest order. The guy was warned not to work on it with the students in question, not to mention he was warned not to take the laptop to china with the sensitive information on it. Some may feel like this is an over reaction but in reality its an under reaction.

Re:Why stop there..

[mysidia]

Can't send them back if they're already in China. From the summary:

in 2006, Roth took a laptop containing sensitive plans with him on a lecture tour in China and also allowed graduate students Xin Dai of China and Sirous Nourgostar of Iran...

So the students may get some chinese gov't folks knocking on their door, to interview them and ask them lots of questions about the project, but unless their in the US, the US folks won't be doing anything with them....

The article suggests the prof didn't believe the info was sensitive. Maybe it wasn't. That's pretty hard to honestly tell without seeing the info, or know whether it was info he had been provided, or whether it was info discovered by his research (possibly research prior to the military project). But clearly someone thought the info was worth keeping secret.

Still isn't breach of contract a separate issue from export of military technology ?

During his trial, Roth testified that he was unaware that hiring the graduate students was a violation of his contract, otherwise he would not have participated since his plasma research also has non-military applications. "This whole thing has not helped me, it has not helped the university," he told Nature in 2006. "And it has probably not helped this country, either."

John Santarius, a plasma physicist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, who has known Roth for two decades says that he always found Roth to be patriotic and careful. âoeIt is so out of character for him to do something like this on purpose,â he says, âoeMy inclination is to believe he made an honest mistake.â

OK, One Correction.

[Petersko]

"he didn't plead guilty, that was a different party"

That's true, I'll grant you that. My fault for skim-reading.

"In his trial...he said he didn't think it was illegal (see below). (from the article and the summary, which apparently you either didn't read or comprehend)"

I read that. Sorry, I don't buy it. He's claiming ignorance, but there's no way that's true. It specifically states in the article that he took that laptop to China "despite warnings from his University's Export Control Officer". Even if he somehow missed the boat in the "what not to share" session that was undoubtely provided for him, he knew then. He's guilty.

This entire conversation is rediculous

[Red Midnight]

Why are we even talking about this? The prof was either a complete idiot (and should put his Ph.D. back in the cereal box he got it from) or intentionally broke the law as some act of defiance. What is unclear? He knows he's working on a "secret" project used by the military. He probably got told 6 ways through Sunday he can't talk about it. And he goes to jail because he did what he was told to not do. To say he should not get jail time, or that he's from an academic world, defies logic and COMMON SENSE. Gee, this is a secret military project, I think I'll not only take the data/laptop to China, but I'll share it with Chinese and Iranian students. Gimme a break. It makes no sense. It's much more likely, IMHO, that he was giving a one-finger salute to the US. Even if he weren't, he's a moron, and ignorance of the law is not a valid defence.

Re:This entire conversation is rediculous

[ScrewMaster]

I am not saying the guy acted intelligently here, but the government is using him to make a point.

And given the recent reports of security problems at a number of major military research facilities (and given the Chinese' investment in espionage and near-takeover of many of our Universities research departments), if you're right, all I can say is:

GOOD!

Actually, more interesting than that...

[Dr. Zowie]

Since he seems to have been convicted under the EAR, which is a set of regulations having to do with rendering technical aid to foreigners, and not the ITAR, which is a set of regulations about exporting actual objects (such as munitions or rocket-control thingies), there is very close parsing required of the law to figure out what is Right or not.

After all, the material he distributed wasn't classified, and in principle the 1st Amendment to the U.S. constitution allows you to say whatever you want to whomever you want (provided that you aren't directly inciting a crime, or lying, or distributing classified information). It's especially interesting because most violations of the EAR never get to trial -- they are generally settled by defense contractors who are eager to make good so that the flow of federal dollars doesn't dry up -- so this is likely to be a strong legal precedent. In this case, as in so many, my guess is that he had the standard language in his federal contract -- essentially "I agree to abide by ITAR and EAR" -- so that the regulations can be enforced via contract law even if the ITAR and EAR are eventually found to be unconstitutional if applied to general citizens.

The most scary situation involving EAR/ITRAR is that I know of no legal precedent at all for the EAR in the case of a gifted, privately funded enthusiast just screwing around -- but it applies to many things that even hobbyists do now. If you take an interest in (say) cheap image stabilization systems or inertial guidance of vehicles, and share your work with some of your friends down at the rocket club (who happen to be exchange students from the Pacific Rim), the regulations say that you are liable for millions of dollars in fines and many years of jail time -- even though those technologies are well within the range of gifted college students today (and affordable for an enthusiast to tinker with). I have no idea what the outcome of such a case would be -- only that the legal bills would be immense and the hypothetical hobbyist's life would be put on hold for years, if the Feds decided to take an interest.

Story missed the point..

[Mad Quacker]

Since I actually bothered to read more than just the first link - Looks like he had already done research on plasma actuation, after which he decided to work on a government project using this technology, which seems to have cancerously made everything on the topic classified, and he honestly didn't feel this the right thing to happen. The contracts were probably worded such that this was the case (what is right versus how to hide as much information as possible, even if previously not used for military applications), so he was tried on this basis.

I'm surprised to see slashdoters' knee jerk reactions to this story. There's obviously a lot of technical details here that are missed.

Re:Story missed the point..

[BitZtream]

The kneejerk reaction you are seeing is because intelligent people know instantly that 'secret goverment project' regardless of who knew what before hand, means, as a general rule, you're going to have to keep your fucking mouth shut.

The reaction you are seeing is because appearently EVERYONE else in the world knows not to do this shit, except this guy, who claims he didn't know, which again, every who has worked with the government on these sorts of things knows is bullshit because they drill it into your head so many times it makes you sick.

The reaction is because EVERYONE IN THE WORLD realizes how sticky these situations are and how careful you have to be to cover your own ass, and when they see someone go to another country that has no problem stilling data from the US and makes no attempt to hide it, WITH DATA HE WAS TOLD NOT TO TALK ABOUT, and then he goes out of his way to show it to people, its not like he lost his laptop ....

Sorry, rambling on ... we react this way because the whole thing is so obviously an area where you'd be careful as fuck even if you were Forrest Gump, that we just don't accept an excuse and it does, in fact, appear to be blatant treason to anyone with 3 or more brain cells.

Re:An marican hero

[BZ]

That worked really well in 1914!

Re:"should serve as a warning"? More like a

[TheRaven64]

More likely, it will serve as a warning to any academics thinking of taking a DoD contract. $6K and risk a prison sentence? Not really worth it.

Re:Why stop there..

[JackieBrown]

Did that work or are you just trying to look big?

The rules have changed.

[skoda]

The rules have changed. It is now illegal to "export" ITAR data, that is "sensitive" defense technology to foreign persons. However, this data is not classified. You can tell it to any and every US Person: your friends, family, neighbors, convenience store clerk. SO long as they are a US Person and also know not to tell it to Foreign National, they can know it.

However, telling it to a Canadian can get you sent to prison.

The rules have changed. And it's damaging to critical industries and research institutions.

Re:The rules have changed.

[skoda]

It has been enforced with vigor not seen for about 30 years; the aerospace community hadn't really heard about nor cared about ITAR until about six years ago. And they didn't care about it until ITT was walloped with a $100M fine in 2007.

Re:Why stop there..

[skoda]

If this is ITAR and not classified data, then there may not be the signing of voluminous forms. ITAR just is. If your company is on top of it, then the staff will get powerpoint briefings about it. But there aren't signatures and forms and etc.

And everyone is liable regardless of whether they've heard of ITAR, had the powerpoint briefings or don't even work in defense industries. If you, say, bought a bulletproof vest from eBay and then traveled to Mexico you'd be guilty of an ITAR violation. (real example)

This is how ITAR hurts us.

[skoda]

And this is how ITAR is damaging to our national security. As the DOE and DOD are major funding agencies at universities and national labs, we are now creating a research system that prevents foreign nationals from participating. And since they are a large percentage of our grad students, that's a major problem. It subsequently makes the US a less enticing place for the skilled students we'd like to immigrate here.

Re:This is how ITAR hurts us.

[elnyka]

And this is how ITAR is damaging to our national security. As the DOE and DOD are major funding agencies at universities and national labs, we are now creating a research system that prevents foreign nationals from participating. And since they are a large percentage of our grad students, that's a major problem. It subsequently makes the US a less enticing place for the skilled students we'd like to immigrate here.

This is stupid. You might have an argument if the majority of science research in the US were subject to these regulations. Newsflash: they are not.

Only a very small amount of research in academia is subject to these type of regulations. Ergo, these regulations do not prevent foreign students from conducting research in the many, many, but really, many more areas of studies that are not tied to classified material.

If we were to follow your line of logic, we could then argue that hiring restrictions in DOE projects hurt IT/science in the US since they prevent non-US citizens from getting hired. Obviously, that has not been the case.

Re:Why stop there..

[Anonymous Coward]

I literally had 8 hours of reading/signing documents and had to sign at least 3 that told me explicitly who I could and could not talk to about what I was doing. Each was read to me after I read it myself, and they went line by line to make sure I understood it.

You know, this country would be in a hell of a lot better shape today if this were required of all bankers, insurance companies,housing contractors and a lot of others. This crap about getting a loan and being expected to sign your name thirty times in twenty minutes is shit. It's just bunch of handwaving like, "This is just a formality in case a small meteorite hits you and pierces your heart" or "It's just a requirement of the federal government and we can't close until you sign it". Then they point out about ten numbers on the summary page and you hope everything is fine.

I had a friend who once had a bunch of tools stolen out of his truck. When he took his claim to his auto insurance, he was told, "Oh, you're a carpenter. Since these were the tools of your trade, they're not covered. They would have been had you been an accountant."

My friend went out and got another insurance guy. He started off by telling the guy, "I want every thing I own covered. Never mind the price -- cover everything. Just know that you are never, EVER to tell me something isn't covered. If you do, I will come after you personally and beat the living holy shit out of you and I'm big enough to do it thoroughly and well."

Re:Why stop there..

[DustyShadow]

My experience with US security clearance was exactly as you describe. I literally had 8 hours of reading/signing documents and had to sign at least 3 that told me explicitly who I could and could not talk to about what I was doing. Each was read to me after I read it myself, and they went line by line to make sure I understood it. Roth is completely full of crap if he claims he didn't know. The process left me with the distinct impression that if I even had a hint that I shouldn't be talking about it or wasn't sure, I should keep my big mouth shut. The funny part is, I'm not sure I actually saw anything classified during my stint. Not that I'm going to be talking about any of it, because I'm just not sure, but still. Doubly funny was debriefing, that also took 8 hours where they went over everything again that I had gone through when I received clearance in the first place.

I used to have a top secret clearance and my experience was nothing close to yours. I simply had to take an oath and sign a one page document. My debriefing was even shorter. In fact, now that I think about it, my oath was taken when my secret clearance was granted. I did nothing further when my T/S went through.

My point is simply that this guy may have had an experience similar to mine and from the summary, (unless I skimmed too fast) it doesn't sound like he even had a clearance. This is an ITAR issue. Which by the way, seemed to be taken way more seriously at my company because people actually get thrown in prison for violating it when those violations are simply negligent. Negligent classified information violations were normally punished with a nasty gram email and a "don't do that again!" letter.

Re:Why stop there..

[B00KER]

I used to have a top secret clearance and my experience was nothing close to yours. I simply had to take a flash light in font of me and... mmm, don't remenber the rest.

Re:An marican hero

[ScrewMaster]

The professor did the world a favor. Sharing defense technology means conflicting powers are on equal strength and are less likely to go to war.

My god, I think he really believes that. What makes people less likely to go to war is having wealth and prosperity ... something to lose, in other words. Giving away advanced military technology just makes it that much easier for a nation that has imperialistic tendencies to try and make something of it. You really need to have a better grasp of history than what you're displaying here.

The unfortunate truth is that being merely at technological parity, militarily-speaking, is not sufficient to dissuade some people from going to war anyways. You have to have demonstrably superior capabilities to have any chance at a deterrent effect. And that isn't counting the pathological types who simply don't care if you kill them or not so long as they can take you with them. Regardless, you want your enemies to know, beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt, that if they try anything they're going to take an awful pasting. And that means making damn sure they can't equal your ability to wage war without making at least the same investment. Granted, that also means that you shouldn't give them too much reason to want to make that investment, but in either case you don't make it easy for them.

So far as I'm concerned this "well, heck, they're going to get it anyways" attitude is damn near treasonous. I hope that our military R&D types don't share your relative ignorance, because we need to deny our enemies access to our most significant advances. Put it this way: it cost us a lot of money and time: we should see to it that it costs them the same. If it takes China or any other hostile power 'x" number of years to equal our current capabilities, well, that's 'x' years of relative peace we're going to have, because they won't be tempted to try anything. Put them on equal footing, and there's no telling what might happen.

Nuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Big defense contractors have done this stuff and nothing happens to them, maybe a little fine. Presidents "authorizing" missile guidance tech transfers to china..zip, no impeachment or charges (example:clinton/loral) Supposedly allied nations (Israel) caught shopping mil gear we gave them, some missile, to china..nothing happens to them. Chinese and other foreign students all over every research establishment/university in the US..every single possible "crown jewel" tech and sensitive "IP" that exists...nothing, totally legal. A subsidiary of cheney's/halliburton, doing business in iran well past the so called embargo..nothing happens to them.

The professors big crime? He isn't a connected fatcat, that's all.

Now You Know: There Is No "Right" To Export

[cmholm]

For starters, the good professor is an idiot. He has worked on DoD contracts, and either knew or should have known that from the moment he started developing on the DoD's dime, any technology he dealt in not already a standard part of a BSEE/CS/Chem/Physics degree program in the US was going to be suspect under ITAR.

In addition, the import and export of any commercial item is subject to review under the Export Administration Regulations of the DoC. And, as Dr. Roth is being reminded the hard way, "export" can occur the moment a foreign national or domestic agent of a foreign nation groks your IP.

You may not agree with the law as it stands, but the Federal Government is on very strong Constitutional ground with respect to whatever border controls it chooses to enact. So, your options are: 1) follow the laws, 2) not follow the laws, and/or 3) bug your representatives to change the law. You can select (2), and many do, but it's kind of like not paying your income taxes for a few years: it sucks big time when you get caught.

Guilty of remarkable stupidity.

[AliasMarlowe]

PhDs aren't granted for common sense.

But there should be a way to take them back if the holder demonstrates remarkable stupidity.

Re:Why stop there..

[Sheen]

I had top secret aswell ( worked/served at NATO base), i just signed, didnt swear, didnt do anything, i discovered that allot of the sensitive data was available on google tho ( googled specs and bases when i was bored, from time to time). I am not american tho, but i had top secret in the US military system ( among most other NATO military systems). I remember the difference between nice to know and need to know got explained a few times tho, but that was the germans.

What's ITAR?

[jonaskoelker]

I presume that ITAR means "International Traffic in Arms Regulations", as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations

But to me as a non-american, it sounds more like Apple's archive format, iTar. You can then iGzip it and create secret_plans.itar.igz

Re:Why stop there..

[Archtech]

My friend went out and got another insurance guy. He started off by telling the guy, "I want every thing I own covered. Never mind the price -- cover everything. Just know that you are never, EVER to tell me something isn't covered. If you do, I will come after you personally and beat the living holy shit out of you and I'm big enough to do it thoroughly and well."

So what was his premium? $10 million a month??

Insurance doesn't work the way your friend (or any of us other mug punters) would like it to. Like banking and government, it aims to make a reliable, consistent net profit regardless of what happens. Its attitude to risk is to transfer the biggest risks from the individual mug punter to the aggregate mass of mug punters, while it stays high and dry on a risk-free island in midstream.

And of course assaulting an insurance company employee because you were foolish enough to sign an agreement that didn't suit your needs would just get you locked up for a year and a day (or maybe even longer).

Welcome to the Land of the Free to Make Unlimited Profits.

Re:Why stop there..

[Hal_Porter]

I don't understand this point of view. He signed a bunch of documents that no doubt explained the dire consequences of leaking information in order to work on the project. Then he flew to China - which is very obviously not a free country to anyone who has spent more than a few days there or even read a few webpages - with that information on a laptop. And he explained the technology to Chinese and Iranian students. If he didn't agree with the concept of confidential information he shouldn't have signed up.

He's lucky he only got 4 years - they could easily have charged him with espionage or treason.