Former Lockheed Skunkworks Engineer Auctioning a Prototype "Spy Rock"

ilikenwf writes "For a cool $10,000,000.00, the prototype of a surveillance rock full of spy gadgets could be yours! More importantly, server backups from the gentleman's time at Lockheed are included, being the real valuable in this auction, as it contains schematics and such. The seller seems to think that the current xBee radio products are actually based on his work with Lockheed. The proceeds will go towards legal action the seller is apparently taking against his former employer." This may be the most unusual eBay product description I've ever encountered, and one of the most interesting, too.

Comments

He isn't selling the rock :(

[janoc]

It is a pity that the poster has never actually read the description of the auction, otherwise they would have found that:

"The pictures depicted from this auction show some of the early prototypes from the project; however, it should be noted that none of that hardware will be included in this auction as I had a non-intentionally set fire :) that transpired at my house in the storage area where my prototypes were, that destroyed most if not all of the prototype hardware from the initial project development with Lockheed. Those pictures were taken during the development process at one of Lockheed's SCIFs located in Northern Virgina, as is evidenced by the yellow caution tape you see on the floor there in the first few pictures. The last picture was one of the sample images generated from a RockCam installed across the street from one of the engineer's house."

and

" 1) Microhard Spectra 910 900MHz serial line radio with power supply (this was a prototype 900MHz radio that I believe went on to become the current generation of ZigBee-based XBee radios; 2) A collection of PC104-based enclosures and motherboards, with various interfacing such as serial ports, USB ports, etc; 3) A Mobile Wireless Technologies RM1000g AVS vehicle transponder with WWAN and GPS tracking support; 4) Novate wireless prototyping board; 5) GNU X-Tools cross compilation software; and 6) A CD filled with backup materials during several years of the company (the most valuable part of this auction obviously)"

So still some nice hw and docs, but certainly no "spy rocks" included. RTFA, guys!

Re:IP Rights

[Darinbob]

Sounds like he was fired from the contract company that he was 10% owner of, and told that Lockheed did not buy the product (and thus no delivery of the final product). And now it appear that either Lockheed did buy the product after all or else it was sold at a later date to a third party (somehow xBee eventually got it). So he wants his 10%. The suit is against this contractor company.

That sale isn't targeted at you and me

[Aviation Pete]

I guess he wants the people who screwed him to buy in order to keep the contents of the CD secret. Then he probably wants to settle out of court.

Will be interesting to see if there is really someone who buys before the auction ends. In effect, he/she will fund the legal campaign of his/her opponent ...