Slashdot Mirror
Would-Be Akamai Spy Busted By Feds
itwbennett writes "Elliot Doxer, an Akamai Technologies staffer, was charged on Wednesday with wire fraud. The case began in June 2006 when Doxer sent an e-mail to the consulate of a foreign country (referred to as 'country X') in which he 'expressed his desire to help that country with whatever information he could obtain in his position,' according to an article on ITworld. 'The foreign consulate that Doxer contacted turned his e-mail over to law enforcement authorities, and a little over a year later, he was contacted by an FBI agent posing as a representative of 'country X.' Over the next 18 months, Doxer left confidential business information such as customer lists and contracts at a designated spot called a dead drop, acts captured via video surveillance.'"
It made him feel more like a secret agent, so they humored him.
It doesn't look like espionage was his goal. From the article:
He also seemed preoccupied with ill will toward his ex-wife, writing at one point that "not enough bad things can happen to her if you know what I mean." And he offered to drop his request for monetary compensation in return for information or pictures of his son.
It sounds like it was more about retribution. His ex-wife apparently disappeared in "Country X" with their son.
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/07/2741170/jewish-internet-company-employee-arrested-for-selling-secrets Jewish Internet company employee arrested for selling secrets October 7, 2010 (JTA) -- A Jewish employee of a Boston-area Internet company was arrested on suspicion of selling confidential information to a foreign company. Elliot Doxer, 42, who works in the finance department of Akamai Technologies Inc., was charged Wednesday with wire fraud for providing confidential business information to an undercover FBI agent that he believed was a foreign government agent. The information included contract details, employee information and customer lists. The country was identified in the indictment as Country X. "I am a Jewish American who lives in Boston," Doxer reportedly wrote in an e-mail to a foreign country's consulate in Boston. "I know you are always looking for information and I am offering the little I may have." Doxer, who had access to invoices and customer contact information, also said in a later message that his goal was "to help our homeland and our war against our enemies." He informed the agent that his company served the U.S. Department of Defense, Airbus and several Arab companies. Doxer reportedly asked for $3,000 in compensation for his actions. According to the complaint, Doxer provided the agent with a list of Akamai's customers, several contracts and a list of employees and their contact information. Doxer and the agent first made contact in September 2007.
Entrapment would be if the FBI offered him money to divulge company secrets out of the blue. He made an offer to Country X; the intent to commit a crime was his alone, not prompted by law enforcement.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
More specifically, Akamai is a content distribution company that serves as a local mirror for it's customers and their customer's clients. You'll see them everywhere from streaming video at Yahoo! to deploying Windows Updates with Microsoft. You would be surprised with how much content is delivered to your computer from their servers.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
As someone who has a family member who lost their child to international kidnapping I have to say I feel for the guy. There's really nothing worse than having your child ripped from you and being physically separated with little hope of ever seeing them again.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Country X in this case is Israel. Doxer identified himself as jewish when he tried to set this up in the first place. (source)
I'm sure I'm getting part of this wrong, because it's been about ten years since I sat through a presentation by an Akamai dude in the waning dot-com days, but their main offering was a sort of content caching/mirroring system with servers all over the place to back it up.
So for example, you're Fox and you sign up to have your streaming TV episodes "Akamaized". The day after a new episode of American Idol is posted to the web, probably a lot of people are downloading/streaming it. Akamai's setup would automatically mirror it out to a bunch of local servers all over the place, so in theory, no matter where you the watcher are, you're streaming from a server a low number of hops/latency from you, and you're not slashdotting Fox's own servers.
This guy's second mistake (after thinking he was capable of any espionage at all) was to approach a foreign consulate. This isn't the 1940s anymore people. Consulates are not the hotbeds of espionage that they used to be. If he wanted to be an agent for a foreign intelligence organization, he should have tried to contact them directly in a manner not easily intercepted by SIGINT such as an old fashioned letter (or even better, contact them through a sympathetic radical political organization). Don't think that a nation's State Department or Ministry of Foreign Affairs is going to have time or interest in your petty cloak and dagger.
(The previous is no more than commentary and opinion and should not be construed as encouragement or advice to commit treason/fraud/etc.)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
There's value in making a very public example of folks like this. Consulates don't want to be bothered with Joe Everyman and his get-rich-quick scheme.
Besides, this could easily be a test of loyalty from a friendly nation. You wouldn't want to damage decades of political negotiations over a penny-ante commercial information leak.
"If a LEO approaches me and offers to murder my estranged ex-wife for $20,000 that's entrapment."
No, that's a bargain!
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This is/was an attempt at industrial espionage, NOT TREASON. Big difference, this one the worst he will face is the potential of a few years in prison. And in fact he's only being charged with Wire Fraud.
Treason can (very unlikely) face the death penalty.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.