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Russian High-Tech Export Scandal Produces 8 Arrests in Houston
Penurious Penguin writes "Millionaire Alexander Fishenko, owner of US-based Arc Electronics Inc, and seven others have been arrested in Houston Texas, with a total of 11 indicted in a conspiracy to smuggle advanced microelectronics from the U.S. to Russia. The technology allegedly involves components of radar, weapons guidance, and detonators. Amongst the evidence are accounting records indicating notable similarity between the revenue of Arc Electronics and the Russian Federation's defense spending; intercepted phone calls and emails; and a letter to Arc Electronics from a Russian domestic intelligence lab complaining of defective microchips . A Russian foreign ministry spokesman has denied there were any intelligence connections in the affair."
and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious microchips.
Microelectronics that are "components of radar, weapons guidance, and detonators". So, a DSP? A microcontroller? FPGAs?
As if none of that shit is manufactured in asia anyway. Conspirancy to smuggle? More like tax fraud under an heroic excuse.
Next time take a page from the Chinese and just convince the target country to manufacture the components in your country in the first place.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Is it any news that the Russians 'borrow` a lot of their tech from the west. I understand you could get such 'advanced microelectronics` in a games console. Wasn't it the case, some time ago, that a middle-eastern country was going round buying up games consoles for the chips?
AccountKiller
Nothing is actually made in the US any more. The big bucks here are in intellectual property and patent litigation: Samsung vs Apple.
The Chinese are ahead of the curve on this. They know the best way to gain advantage is to use cyber-theft to steal IP. It is very cost effective and produces quick results.
Unlike export controls, there is no national policy on protecting IP online. Every time someone in the government (Democrats mostly) brings it up business interests scream about government interference, needless regulations and creeping bureaucracy.
If something is stolen via cyber-theft, their is no legal consequence. Even in the military sector, none of the big defense contractors ever are fined or loose contracts because they leak classified information like a sieve.
Heck, now with the complete lack of controls on campaign contributions it would be cheap to insure that the current online vulnerabilities remain the norm. All you have to do is give some money to the right elected officials in Congress, and stealing US technology will remain as easy as taking candy from a baby.
The Russians need to get with the program and copy what the Chinese are already doing. They should be spending more money on PACs, and stop wasting effort on smuggling.
Why is Snark Required?
Why the middle man - why not smuggle the stuff directly from China?
Put it this way, would you rather get caught smuggling from the USA or from China? I'm sure neither are pleasant, but I suspect that one is considerably worse than the other.
Yes, Iraq supposedly bought 4000+ Playstation 2s to model nuclear detonations, there was at least one slashdot story about it.
Of course, if you believe what the western press reported about Iraqi weapons programs in that era, I have a very nice bridge and 400 kilos of yellowcake Uranium to sell you...
0 1 - just my two bits
... Russia, that is, has gone rogue. The whole state is corrupt. This however looks like perfectly normal spying and the sort of thing they have always done, and vice-versa.
Don't start complaining until they use radiological weapons on your streets, like they did to us...
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Duh, you don't need to ship them the schematics. Their hackers have already stolen them. Problem solved!
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
At least he wasn't smuggling it to the Muzzies
No, Rosoboronexport handled that part.
Look at the bright side, they might use them against Chechnya, Islam is our common enemy
I think that story (using Nintendo chips as missile guidance?) was totally debunked in the end and it was suggested it may have been dreamed up along with the majority of the illegal weapons, to justify a war that was already desired
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Example: We used to make rare-earth magnets in Valporaiso, Indiana. The factory was sold and moved to China.
Without those components, you can't make the high-performance servos necessary to fit into our existing missile designs where they serve to move the control surfaces to steer.
Conclusion: Thus, if we want to fight a war, we now have to buy parts from China.
We haven't tested our nukes in ages, we'd forgotten how to make critical parts (fogbank, for example), and they all have a half-life. We import everything. We wouldn't last a year in a world war, and those tend to grind on, in spite of faster transport.
Starting in the 1970s, Russian immigrants came to this area in great numbers. They are bordered on the South by a large Hispanic population, on the East by a large East Asian and Indian population, and on the West by rural communities and exburbs.
We might not manufacture the base components here, but we sure as hell build the final assemblies here. I work for Lockheed Martin, and in my facility, we build the SPY-1 radar arrays that are installed on the US, Japanese, Norwegian, South Korean, and Australian Navy's destroyers, cruisers, and frigates. We might import transistors, chips, whatever, but they're just components. A radar array is much more than just the sum of its parts, and the design knowledge, plus the final manufacture, lives and dies with American workers.
As for lasting a year in a world war, you're severely mistaken.
Col. Ripper was the one who was upset about the Commies impurifying our manly juices microchips with fluoride.
(Side note: HF is actually used in some chip manufacturing.)
Best Slashdot Co
It doesn't necessarily have to be about obtaining technology for the purpose of "catching up". Even if the US doesn't have technology that is beyond what Russia or China has, it's still useful to those countries to obtain that technology. By studying it, they can find strengths and weaknesses, alter their doctrine to take into account its capabilities, and more intelligently develop countermeasure hardware. It's in the interest of every country to keep these things secret, and it's in the interest of every country to seek these secrets of others.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
It's interesting that this article didn't make the front page of latimes.com, washingtonpost.com, or nytimes.com. In 1987, when Toshiba sold milling machines to Russia for submarine propeller manufacture, it was a huge controversy. I believe we are living in a safer world.
A/D converters, processors, SRAM, Microcontrollers. Basic chinese mass market kit.
The faulty chips seems to be these ones (from the part number):
http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/81901/AD/ADG819BRT.html
It's a CMOS single pole, double throw switch. Yes, seriously, takes me back to my childhood! 74LS00's an all.
Read the indictment:
http://federalcrimesblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/letter-to-the-court-moving-for-a-permanent-order-of-detention.pdf
Better still read the ACTUAL quotes from the people accused, removing the FBI inuendo:
Fishenko writes: “in a more presentable format”
FBI writes:
"For example, on September 24, 2009, Fishenko engaged in
an email exchange with an employee of a Russian procurement firm.
Fishenko requested that the employee get an end user document
from a Russian factory “in a more presentable format” The next
day, the employee responded and attached a new end user
statement, explaining, “This letter is pure forgery. I made it
using a copy machine.”"
Fishenko writes: “our person,‘zakinuty kazachok."
I write: zakinuty kazachok translates as "abandoned cossak", I don't know if it means spy, Google translate doesn't say.
FBI writes:
"Fishenko has referenced his ties to Russia’s
intelligence services. For example, in an October 24, 2011
conversation with another Russian electronics broker, Fishenko
and the broker discussed an individual who worked at the broker’s
firm who, they believed, had been an intelligence officer with
the FBI. Fishenko stated that the man was “our [type of] person,
‘zakinuty kazachok.’” “Zakinuty kazachok” (literally “thrown
Cossack”) is a Russian colloquialism for “spy” or “secret agent.”
Posobilov writes: "ake sure that those are fishing boats, and not fishing/anti-submarine ones... Then we’ll be able to start working."
I write: Russian military have Glosnass GPS, they don't use civilian US GPS that doesn't support GLOSNASS, because civilian US GPS can be degraded at will. So we know for sure this wasn't for military use.
FBI writes:
"Posobilov has also made explicit statements that
demonstrate his intent to evade export laws and defraud
suppliers. For example, on April 4, 2011, Posobilov exchanged
emails with a U.S. vendor regarding an order for certain parts.
Posobilov indicated that the parts were for “fishing boat radar
equipment” and provided the name and address of a Russian end
user. The vendor informed Posobilov that the requested parts
required an export license for Russia and indicated that,
therefore, the vendor would need a more complete end use
statement. Posobilov then forwarded this exchange to the Russian
procurement firm, instructing them to coach the end user to
complete the end use declaration in such a manner as to
facilitate obtaining the controlled component. Posobilov wrote,
“[m]ake sure that those are fishing boats, and not
fishing/anti-submarine ones... Then we’ll be able to start
working.”
The US has a trump card of its own. It's still the breadbasket of the world, and while military war machines depend on manufacturing, so too do soldiers depend on food. Additionally, in a world war it also has two huge oceans and the vast Canadian wilderness protecting it from attack (barring people with nukes going insane, of course). Unless someone can convince Canadians or Mexicans to flip their allegiances, it has the option of going pure offense or pure isolationist. Very few countries can do this.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
How hard can missile guidance be? The software is tricky, but it doesn't demand a great deal of computing power. You could probably run it on a few PICs, with a skilled coder.
There's nothing unusual in a Russian or Ukrainian guy with a family name of "Fishenko" - it's not a "Western Germanic/English family name" by any measure. Besides, he was born in Kazakhstan.
... I would like to know if what they stole is actually of use? Or is it some kind of commercial grade stuff that you can buy in Radio Shack anyway, and they just pretended to run some super secret covert ops to ship it over to get funding? (given the level of corruption, this wouldn't be unusual or unprecedented)
I mean, c'mon, I pay taxes which are used to fund this stuff, and then they squander them on the likes of Anna Chapman.
"... A Russian foreign ministry spokesman has denied there were any intelligence connections in the affair." To be busted obviously no inteligence was involved.
Allegiance? Yeah, I think you need to go to Mexico and ask around about how Mexicans think of America. I have a feeling you'd be shocked at their attitudes. Allegiance! Haha.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Civilian manufacturing maybe. But that's up to business owners to make those decisions, not politicians. Blame business owners. They could build it locally for more (or the same cost with less profit) and support local economies. I'm not trying to offend anyone and of course i'm simplifying it.. but that is how it looks to me.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Unless someone can convince Canadians or Mexicans to flip their allegiances
Because Mexico would never turn on us.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Russia has the capability to make its own microprocessors. I very much doubt that any of this gear was intended for official military uses, and it seems very unlikely that the Russian military would ever allow it.
I understand that the components of recent Russian radar systems like the NIIP Tikhomorov EASA system (including GaAs Tx/Rx modules), are all domestically manufactured, as is the multi-core VLIW CPU at the heart of its computer system.
There are a few instances of usage of commercial grade FPGAs in Russian military equipment, like Almaz-Antei missile systems, but nothing exotic that can't be bought from any electronics catalogue.
This sounds more like pre-election propaganda from the ruling US regime.
Oh I'm not ignorant of that little fact. Back in the turn of the century when the US was an emerging power, that may have worked (however unlikely, since Mexico lost its stature as an equal regional power 100 years before that time). And even then, Mexico would have risked everything by doing so. I don't envision Mexico ever becoming hostile to the US before matching it in war-making ability.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Mexican citizens may be dissatisfied with US drug and immigration policies, but I hardly think invasion is on their minds. The greatest hostility they'll show to Americans is probably to regard them with the same condescension they regard Guatemalans. In any case, allegiances are made by the government, and those decisions are rarely made on a sentiment. Barring Mexico descending into ungovernable chaos, the government is going to act conservatively. Now, you might think the drug cartels would want to undermine the US, but their very existence is dependent on a wealthy and hedonistic US populace, and if anything I would expect them to become a new group of 'Contras' in a WW3 scenario rather than back any militant anti-US movement.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
But the US can still nuke anyone from the orbit, so the money was not well-spent in the first place.
People keep saying this, but it never happens; the US keep sending conventional troops places to get shot up instead.
I say put up or shut up.
I think that story (using Nintendo chips as missile guidance?) was totally debunked in the end and it was suggested it may have been dreamed up along with the majority of the illegal weapons, to justify a war that was already desired
Particularly when it is well known that you can defeat missiles using that kind of control system with something as simples as a track ball and three buttons. Here's a picture of the operator console for such a system: http://cdn.chud.com/a/a2/a23bbcb6_11011101.jpeg
Bhopal, India? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster
1988 Iraq, Project Babylon. Objective: to build a supergun and eventually shoot stuff into orbit starting with 'Big Babylon'.
Basically, it was a wacky idea. So the idea of using 4k PS2s (another wacky idea) shouldn't be scoffed at too. We are talking about Saddam Hussein. He wasn't a level headed kind of guy. He was a dangerous guy with delusions of grandeur. Good riddance.
Life is not for the lazy.
So which is worse? A lifetime of prison rape in the US or a Chinese bullet to the back of the neck?
I guess it depends if you're going to end up on the top or the bottom bunk.