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Akamai Employee Tried To Sell Secrets To Israel
CWmike writes "A 43-year-old former Akamai employee has pleaded guilty to espionage charges after offering to hand over confidential information about the Web acceleration company to an agent posing as an Israeli consular official in Boston. Starting in September 2007, Elliot Doxer played an elaborate 18-month-long game of cloak-and-dagger with James Cromer, a man he thought was an Israeli intelligence officer. He handed over pages and pages of confidential data to Cromer, providing a list of Akamai's clients and contracts, information about the company's security practices, and even a list of 1,300 Akamai employees, including mobile numbers, departments and e-mail addresses. Doxer delivered the information to a dead drop box 62 times. His motivation: To help Israel and to get information on his son and estranged wife, who lived outside the U.S., prosecutors said in court filings. Doxer faces 15 years in prison on the charges."
1) Find a an exploitable employee
2) Seduce them with hopes of seeing their child again this century
3) Collect incriminating evidence
4) Profit!
They'd be hard pressed to get a conviction out of me if they set this guy up. If he instigated this then I'll still be disinclined to convict as they could have smacked him down and gotten a felony.
So this wasteful agent spent how much time and how many millions of dollars building up this whoop de do case? Maybe they could have nailed the guy with the simple felony, got a plea, destroyed their career saved us some tax dollars to be used hunting real criminals and not distraught fathers.
For several years I worked in Manhattan for one of those large privately held media Companies, one with both magazines and magazine websites galore, including ones you would know. We used to use Akamai. Sure they could cache our content and then absorb a lot of traffic from our servers, but they were expensive as hell--especially for what they did, in my opinion. I do seem to recall that our big company eventually dumped Akamai and all the money that went with it. Why they still exist I will never know.
Where's the YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAH? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
what makes you think the engineer would do it for free?
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
we have moved just about every last fucking factory to China, along with all of the computers that control them. Then we sent the manufacturing of those computers to China too. All of the corporations made massive amoputns of money off of this. Do you think the Chinese PLA just sat back and didn't study anything? They are pulling the same game they did on the high-speed rail experts they 'contracted' to build the rail system.
And yet its all perfectly legal, because rich people are getting even richer off of it. Chinese workers arent getting rich - instead the government keeps the money and sticks it in Fannie and Freddie bonds and Treasury debt.
oh
but you want to possibly in theory sell a few secrets (like an email list... oh my god, how on earth did such a dangerous hacker acheive such a brilliant coup as an internal email list) to israel, which is a US ally... and youd think the world had come to a fucking end.
the whole country has gone ape shit, back asswards insane. people are just fucking stupid anymore. no fucking sense, not a drop left. sell the entire manufacturing and industrial base to China, a communist government that killed our own 'brave men in uniform' in the Korean War, but theoretically sell a few tiny corporate "secrets" to Israel and you get 15 years in the slammer.
how many secrets do you think are being funneled through our multinational corporations like , i dont know, chrysler? hummer? you know hummer is owned by the Chinese now right? the same hummers that our troops are driving around in Iraq and Afghanistan while they get blown up? Why dont we put the CEO of hummer in fucking prison for corporate espionage... he didn't sell a few email lists, he sold the whole fucking company!
Now don't get me wrong. I love China and it's culture, literature, people, etc. I'm just saying. Look at the fucking hypocrisy of these 'espionage' cases. Look who it benefits. the rich and the corporate elite. Look who it harms - the peons who want to give out information.
Now, I know this particular peon wanted to sell information, for money. But that is not what precedents like this get used for in the future. He is the 8th in history. 8th. The 8th guy is prosecuted for selling info. The 9th guy is prosecuted for thinking about selling info. The 10th guy is prosecuted for giving out info for free. The 11th guy is prosecuted for journalism.
That's the slippery slope of all this maniacal overcontrol of information, this obsession with secrecy... its not about secrecy, and it's not about protecting important information from espionage activity. It's about pure, blatant, bloody power, and who controls it, and who gets shafted. Espionage is a ruse. It's a red herring. The whole law is fucking corrupt to the point of banality.
Bradley Manning is being charged under Computer Espionage. For what? For "leaking" a gunship video. You know how many gunship videos are on youtube right now? You know there's a website that specializes specifically in gunship footage, all gunship footage all the time?
That's great. We now have three different kinds of Espionage - - - Plain old Espionage, Corporate Espionage, and Computer Espionage. How many more do we need? How many more can we invent? Well, just count the number of government agencies and power centers in the military industrial complex and then you will find out how many variations of thought-control law will be promulgated under 'national security'.
Its all a lie. Everything we see here is junk. It's all junk.
We have to save Toby.
Ah, that explains everything.
No engineers have been caught because they are behind 7 proxies and only accept payment in bitcoins.
FTFY.
On a second thought... no, it can't be: engineers can't access data of any value, can they now?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
CDNs are a nickel a dozen these days. Akamai has certain advantages - they're absolutely huge and thus have presence in the ass end of noiwhere - but companies that actually need what Akamai offers? Those are very, very, very few and far between.
Everything else? DoS prevention? Restriction of access? You've just described every CDN provider, even the vast majority of the bargain basement, el cheapo mom-and-pops.
Simply put, Akamai is the commercial Unix of CDNs. Good luck with that.
Reality can't spell either, you f'ing bigot.
Woe be on to them, all who rise against poor people, shall perish in a the end. Buju Banton
Since when spies (as in the one who contacted this crook) say truth about whom they really work for? It's in their benefit to be able to shove the responsibility onto someone else when caught. That "israeli" spy would really work for China or Iran... or, in this case, FBI.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The Uniform Trade Secrets Act makes trade secret "theft" a civil matter between the secret holder and the leaker. Apparently something went through in 1996 making it a Federal crime. The economy went fine for hundreds of years without the threat of jail for leakers -- why change? Especially since trade secret law can be and has been abused.
On another subject, there's a gaping gap in the story as we've seen it. How did the FBI know about his email to the Israeli consulate? Why did it take years before they followed up?
On a second thought... no, it can't be: engineers can't access data of any value, can they now?
That's a joke, right?
For you to sleep better: yes, it is... or at least an attempt to make one.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
On a second thought... no, it can't be: engineers can't access data of any value, can they now?
That's a joke, right?
On a second thought... comparing the salaries of MBA graduates with those of engineers, maybe is not so funny anymore?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
The article suggests that Doxer initiated contact, which is a solid strike against him and I think I agree with how the counter intelligence unit handled it because of that.
Now if Doxer had been contacted because he had a known weakness, that would be a different story. That is especially true since his weakness was knowing the condition of his son and to dig up dirt on his estranged wife. In that case, I would be concerned about a case of entrapment and how it would be easier to resolve the situation by providing him with information without blackmailing him. But that is not the case, and he simply should have used family contacts or hired someone to investigate the situation.
And once again, the Hague Treaty on abduction is ignored. Is it because the absconding parent is the mother? Or is it to avoid ruffling the feathers of Israel? Do I fucking care which it is?
Men, please, take the red pill.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Mossad agents are walking all over the USA unchecked and unchallenged, thanks to their Jewish buddies who controls all branches of Government, Federal Reserve, Facebook, Google, Goldman Sachs etc etc.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
That's what worries me. I mean, Israel is second only to the russians and chinese for technology theft, but...good grief. He didn't have anything of interest, so they forked him over to the feds to look like they don't Do That Sort of Thing...
Please help metamoderate.
well, didn't it turn out that they didn't want it?
only one who wanted anything was the guy doing the leak, . and those secrets don't seem much like secrets, unless you're a recruiter.
but 15 years? couldn't he have gotten away with manslaughter for less?15 years for imaginary totally undefined damages? and espionage wtf? it's simple enough to see if some company is using akamai and akamai is itself exporting the technology so wtf does the usa government have to do with it.. except it was the usa government which created the oppurtunity and motive for this guy(by letting him understand that he could get info on his wife). the operation could've done with much less time probably too, but the agent got a nice year and half of simple work from this(and the time to do in prison is a multiple of that, to justify the cost for operation).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You'd be surprised. There's a surprising number of people that will hand that information over to Israeli agents that would never do so to American agents. Additionally, neither the CIA nor the FBI would be willing to assassinate a couple nobodies just to collect that information.
so they forked him over to the feds to look like they don't Do That Sort of Thing...
The lesson: If you have nothing to offer but yourself, maybe you should keep it to yourself.
I mean, Israel is second only to the russians and chinese for technology theft, but...good grief.
Uh, third?
Just because the U.S. is a republic does not mean it is not a democracy. Democracy/republic are not mutually exclusive.
LET ME GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY:
"Anti-Semitic", "Anti-Semitic", "Anti-Social", "Anti-Semitic", "Paranoid", "Anti-Semitic", "Go back to your Area 54 ideas", "Anti-Semitic", "Do we have a Godwin?"
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"Unless the US starts killing Israeli olympians, I really doubt they'll be taking any action against the US ..."
Your personal doubt is not the sort of data which will convince an intelligent and impartial observer of anything relative to what Israel may or may not do to the US.
The truth is, you don't have any idea what Israel would do, and your set of beliefs about Israel causes you to be childishly naive with respect to what you imagine Israel might do to the US.
Israel doesn't give a damn about the US, and uses the US only as long as it is expedient to do so. There is no
doubt in the minds of US personnel whose business it is to know what Israel might do that Israel is not really
on the side of the US, and that Israel cannot be trusted with anything significant. If you think the US doesn't
mind Israel getting its hands on classified US info, Google "Jonathan Pollard" and see how just much the
US doesn't mind. Pollard's relatives keep trying to get Pollard released from Federal Prison, and the US
government keeps saying "hell no".
As for what Israel "might" do against US citizens, Google "Rachel Corrie" to see what the Israeli
government is capable of doing to US citizens who are unarmed and present no threat.
You also ought to take some time and look into a certain disappearance of fissionable material within the US some years ago, for which the Mossad is almost certainly responsible. There is info out there on this, but I am not going to
spoon-feed you because your stupid ass doesn't deserve that much help from me.
Just because you are ignorant and stupid doesn't mean Israel is a true friend of the US, it only means you are ignorant and stupid.
In this case you're totally correct. They meddle in HIS marriage by allowing the wife to "jump citizenship" to get preferential treatment because of her RACE. the man's wife committed a CRIME and the Jew government is hiding her because she's a Jew and not honoring the LEGALLY BINDING contract she made in the USA with this man.
How it should have happened:
After a few transactions, the FBI realizes this guy is zero threat. They refer the case to the Massachusetts Attorney General "for further joint investigation". Based on the evidence, the AG charges the guy with larceny or embezzlement or whatever, Akamai takes their civil remedies for breach of contract, etc, and the FBI declines to prosecute. The guy loses his job, pays $150K in fines and does 6 months in minimum security + probation. His life gets pretty hard.
How it actually happened:
After a few transactions, the FBI realizes the information sucks. No source code, no proprietary technology, no M&A data, no insider-level financials. It's client lists, contracts and internal employee information. The information is so weak, they can't even charge him with anything under existing Federal statutes. But there's a foreign government involved, so all sense of proportion is lost. They keep asking the guy for more information. And more. 18 months and 62 transactions later, they finally get to a point where:
Now they can charge him under the Economic Espionage Act and prepare to drop him in a very deep, very dark hole. Slam dunk. Promotions all around for stopping a 'grave threat to U.S. economic security'. The guy loses his job, pays $400K in fines and goes to Federal prison for 10 years. His life is over.
Insane.
Lewin is an officer in the Israel Defense Forces, having served in the country's military for more than four years.
Service in the IDF, for men, is usually 3 years. Those in special forces might serve for 4, 5 years. Nothing really special to see here.
"Go forth, and be excellent to each other" --Bill & Ted
Actually, we had this story before, when they caught him. And no, there was no entrapment and whatnot. The guy is simply a flaming asshat, and he WOULD get a conviction out of me and then some.
For a start, they didn't seduce him, he actually contacted the embassy on his own proposing to sell them some "secrets" they didn't ask for and didn't need. Those guys promptly tipped off the FBI.
Second the whole "distraught father" and "patriotism" BS is just that: BS. I WOULD believe either of that if that were his primary motivation. It pretty obviously ain't.
The first thing the guy asked for was money. He tried to sell his employers' customer lists and whatnot, for plain old money. And see again: there was no social engineering, no seducing him, bla, bla, bla, he actually went to what he thought would be a buyer and HE proposed to sell that stuff.
When they told him they're not interested in paying for that, he basically asked that something bad happens to his ex. And I don't know about you, but trying to get a hit on someone isn't exactly a moral high ground any way I want to slice it.
His son only entered his equation as an after-thought, as he just asked for some photos of him. It wasn't his first or second price, and, you know, it's not like he even wanted the son back or anything, just some photos.
So, yeah, we have an asshat who actually goes looking to sell on his own, for money, and failing that, hey, maybe he can get them to whack his ex. Proving more than amply exactly what his morals are. Sorry, he's just scum, plain and simple, and more than deserves everything coming to him.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Seriously, this is scary and fucked up.
Ruin him financially, sure, but to put him in prison for 15 years for handing over some information on the company he worked for is ridiculous. If I had to choose, I'd rather see him walk away scot-free (and be reunited with his family) than to serve any time in prison for this.
Right, right. Because OBVIOUSLY Israel couldn't figure out something like setting up a bunch of servers and redirecting to a different server. It's not like they're designing half of what goes into those servers.
Try something more like customer data.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The guy sent an e-mail offering info to the Israeli consulate. How did the FBI intercept that?
Hmm, makes you wonder.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
On a second thought... no, it can't be: engineers can't access data of any value, can they now?
That's a joke, right?
On a second thought... comparing the salaries of MBA graduates with those of engineers, maybe is not so funny anymore?
no, no, no, no, no! you're doing it all wrong!
Engineers, being by definition, members of the reality based community, are more honest, and take the trust and responsibility placed on them more seriously.
Whilst business graduates are all a bunch of sleazy fast-buck artists.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I always thought Akamai was an Israeli company. I guess it's an "American company" co-founded by an Israeli.
According to the Jerusalem Post, Doxer e-mailed the Israeli consulate in Boston to offer assistance, saying that he is a Jewish American who wants "to help our homeland and our war against our enemies," therefore, it is likely that Doxer thought he was helping Israel.
The poor schmuck probably just thought he was carrying out company policy and making a quick buck on the side.
LOL. Maybe if there was one or two transactions, you might argue entrapment. Sixty-two transactions suggest he was not an innocent victim.
Not to mention, according to the Jerusalem Post, Court filings show Doxer e-mailed the Israeli consulate in Boston to offer assistance, saying that he is a Jewish American who wants "to help our homeland and our war against our enemies," therefore, it is likely that Doxer thought he was helping Israel.
The idea didn't originate with the Feds, it originated with Doxer.
i will admit i wrote it in the middle of the night on sleep deprivation. i did go a little alex jones / glenn beck there for a minute. i am sorry.
but calling stuff like this 'espionage' is the true bias, and the truly misleading, hyperbolic bullshit. they put a guy in prison for fifteen fucking year for chrissake -- i get blasted as a nutcase, but these guys are perfectly rational authorities? look, this is fucking insane. we cannot keep doing this. its like saying 1+1 = 5, and everybody worried about the 'tone' of the guy screaming its 2. i realize thats not how things work - you have to be calm and deal with fatcs and all that shit. well sometimes you adopt a little bit of the craziness of the thing you are fighting against, on accident, because you just spend so much time reading about it.
on the manning case, im guessing that you will realize the media has been fucking us over as usual. read the specific charges against him. 95% of it is bullshit that would never make it through a civilian courtroom -the government prosecutors would, for the most part, never bring such a bullshit insane bunch of charges. "computer espionage" for giving out the Collateral Murder video? yeah. never would fly in a courtroom. jury would throw that out in 15 seconds. and yet, people in sonorous tones tell us over and over the 'manning leak case' is the worst thing since fucking benedict arnold, and lives were at stake. No fucking lives were at stake over the collateral murder video - and saying that shit is going to get manning put away behind bars for a long time, but not just manning, his associates who were helping the wikileaks website --- know why? They are under a Grand Jury with Conspiracy to Commit Espionage. If he is convicted, then they can be convicted too.
forgive my tone, but these people, trying to create this 'espionage culture', putting people in prison for gathering basic fatcs about the institutions and bureaucracies that we all pay for, and live under... they are the ones who are fucking insane. read the torture memos. Bush administration officials were fucking insane. read about the CDO industry. these are the fucking insane people. bankers, snorting coke off of prostitutes while they destroy the world economy.
they make my little rant look like a reasoned, calm, rational person.
i was hoping to start a 'tea party' of people who believe in free speech, i guess i am a bit too 'street nut' for that.
its true.
thanks for the advice.
i encourage you to read it again, there is no racism, ignorance (except for the Hummer thing - totally blew it), or paranoia in there.
hate? well, you got me on that one.