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Evidence Aside, FBI Says Russians Out To Steal Ideas From US Tech Firms
v3rgEz (125380) writes "It sounds like a scare from 1970s Cold War propaganda or a subplot from the popular TV series "The Americans," but the FBI says the threat is real: Russian investment firms may be looking to steal high-tech intelligence from Boston-area companies to give to their country's military. Many of the firms under scrutiny are in the Boston area, including those partnered with a number of area biotech companies and with ties to MIT." And while the FBI says this could be happening, as the article points out, this pronouncement seems to be based on plausibility rather than specific incidents of such theft. One relevant excerpt: "The FBI warning comes as the Obama administration has increased pressure on Russia for its annexation of the former Ukrainian territory of Crimea by levying sanctions on some business leaders close to President Vladimir Putin. In March, the US Commerce Department banned new licenses for the export to Russia of defense-related products and “dual-use” technologies that could have military applications."
what they'll do is take the design, and implement a very cheap poorly implemented knock off. No real threat in my opinion...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
What do i care who steals my idea, the FBI or the russians? It is stolen either way
All governments use (or would if they were sufficiently large enough) their intelligence agencies to steal business intelligence from corporations located in other countries in order to help their own economy. The Russians didn't just start to do this now because of the Ukrainian crisis and US sanctions.
Ivan is drunk all the time!
Either we're looking to justify 2014's budget, reduce inquiry into the CIA, or keep americans in agreement with the narrative that america should do something, anything, about russian foreign policy that in no way concerns us ever.
Good people go to bed earlier.
WTF is "based on plausibility"? Many things are plausible, like the OP is an anime android using AI to submit this article?
Obama ain't fooling anyone. One of the purposes of his global spy aparatus exposed by Snowden is industrial espionage.
The truthers have infiltrated the FBI! Well "based on plausibility", J. Edgar Hoover was buried in his favorite dress.
My only question is, Will any of this affect space station operations? Will the taxis raise their fares?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Instead of stealing from everyone else, let the US do that work and then simply lift it from them.
Never would've thought that Russia would be teaching us a lesson in efficiency...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Fudmuckers.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Well since the NSA has basically weakened a lot of the security protocols, it is very easy to steal company secrets.
When you own NSA is in the spotlight, use a time honored tactic and point the finger the other way.
We would NEVER stoop so low.
U.S. tech firms have ideas? Last I saw it was just a lot of - "how can I completely manipulate, patent troll, and keep an iron grip on this market"?
Really, if you think Facebook or Google is somehow a wonderful idea, you don't understand markets. It's also a major reason the US top tech firms are failures, really, and why they have to maintain those markets so no one notices. It's a self destructive cycle.
By indescrimately weakening Internet security.
Oh...psssht....that's **all**
wtf FBI? /sarcasm
"no real threat"....you're a moron
Thank you Dave Raggett
WTF the summary is biased..."evidence aside" says the headline...then the summary continues, drawing paralells between this and the Cold War
criminals do this **routinely**
to think otherwise is foolish and naive
Thank you Dave Raggett
Industrial secrets for sex with hot Russian spies. Where do I sign up?
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
This is of course more than plausible. But the lack of evidence is more likely a function of our ridiculous "backdoors in everything" policy than lack of activity. One of the incredibly stupid things about having backdoors is that they actually HELP miscreants, not hinder.
Example: Anyone who has rented in an apartment building probably knows that the landlord has a master key "in case of emergencies". What they don't know is that any tenant can determine that master key combination by disassembling the lock using their own tenant key. In effect, having a master key might be convenient for the landlord living in blissful ignorance, but in terms of security it grants undetectable access to the worst element of any apartment building, not keeps them out.
Most people have no problem with three letter agencies doing their legal duties. But back doors, just like master keys, actually ASSIST the very people they think they're working against. It's the result of a fundamentally misguided and misinformed leadership with no idea of the consequences.
Anything that the Russians can get their hands on by simply working with regular US companies, is not going to give them sudden military advantages. Any military-relevant research happening in the US is happening in secret.
The kind of companies that the Russians are getting involved in are the type that will publicly announce any major breakthroughs or inventions on the web, because they are interested in domestic and foreign investment.
This is just another FUD statement to try reinforce hate directed at the Russians in order to generate acceptance when the next budget rolls around and we ask why Three Letter Agencies are still being given so much money for spying on citizens of the US.
Investing in companies is hardly what I would call stealing.
Foreign companies can come in and poach talent and taxpayer funded research from Universities and the startups that come out of them. There's nothing illegal or even remotely unethical there. This is what we wanted! Russian capitalists investing in US companies, US students and US schools. Even if their goal is to move the company to Russia, that's part of how capitalism and globalization work. If we want to encourage researchers to stay in the US, we should do more to encourage direct domestic investment in startups rather than secondary investments like hedge funds.
If we want to completely protect our basic R&D, we have to classify it. That would be sure to drive researchers out of the country.
They did it!
Sure, you thought they had precious little to do when they started calling kids running DDOS scripts criminals. You knew it was bad the second and third times they created their own terrorist and handed him weapons from their own stockpile to arrest him with....
Now.... they are releasing politically motivated propaganda. Moving on up.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Everyone was stealing from each other the entire time, now the guys up top have to do their dick waving to match Russian's dick waving with Ukraine. We just felt left out of the dick waving contest so here we go again.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Many years ago, I recall that the US government refused entry to certain Russian mathematicians coming to attend a major conference in the USA. The reason given was that the commies were obviously trying to steal good ol' American know-how. The funny part was that the Russians in question were actually the world experts at the time (in that particular field), so the only people who lost out were the American mathematicians who had hoped to learn from them.
It's one thing to have a policy of pretending that all worthwhile innovation originates in the USA. It's quite another thing to start believing that's true. (See, for example, Joy's Law: ""No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else”).
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Tom Lehrer
Have gnu, will travel.
And the method is sadly pretty silly.
Putin want's to go back to the cold war... fine. We offered his country a clean slate... Obama even went so far as to offer that reset button thing. And what do we get? This... Well, whatever.
Back to the cold war it is then.
And that means going back to squeezing Russia's economy into ruin.
The ways to do that are obvious... Russia depends heavily on sales of oil and gas. Ruin them. Give their customer's cheap plentiful alternatives.
And calm down hippies... but fracking is happening... get over it... its going to be a big thing in eastern europe at the very least and they'll ideally be able to supply themselves and sell to the western europeans that still think they can't get off oil... despite utterly failing after spending hundreds of billions trying.
I said calm down hippies... When we get the tech to actually get off oil... such as getting a battery worth a damn... then fine. Till then... its here to stay.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Snowden supplies some of the answers.
The GCHQ and NSA's surveillance of Italy specifically included looking for commercial advantages. It looks very much as though the same applies to Germany so it seems obvious what this is a general pattern. My first thought when I saw this article was that the FBI is trying to claim "everybody does it" - hell, they may even be right.
What annoyed the Germans so much was that it was their supposed friends acting this way.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Justification for NATO expansionism, without an Evil Russia, NATO has no purpose.
How is this stealing? An investment firm BUYS ideas and SELLS them.
How does it make any different that they are russian?
If this where JP Morgan buys an idea (or a whole company) and sold it to Lookhead Martin would that be ok?
Maybe US don't want to compete in the global market on equal terms...
I'm pretty sure major firms have deals with Russia and that is used in wars.
Luckly Im neither american or russian.
... is that the American public would still swallow this hook, line and sinker.
Russians, Chinese it doesn't matter. We have lots of nations in competition in many hi-tech and low-tech fields always looking for an edge. Sometimes it's not state-sponsored either. Back in the 80s, Hitachi was found stealing computer technology trade secrets from IBM in the 80s and settled out of court. While technology today allows for the theft of more secrets and to reverse engineer just about everything out there more quickly, it's more imperative that companies take this kind of threat more seriously. Patents, which force the inventor to disclose how an invention works, are one thing but when whole industries are stolen it not only represents a national defense but a national economic issue as well.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
If the NSA hadn't worked so hard to ensure that there were plenty of backdoors in our security protocols and hardware, it would be much harder for foreign intelligence agencies to exploit those backdoors.
Poor Americans... Under constant attack by everyone. Red alert! The terror is coming! The terror is coming! Grab your weapons, man the defenses! (all on sale now!)
In reality, the truth is the rest of of the world doesn't give a damn about you (providing you stop trying to bankrupt yourselves and subsequently collapse the world economy).
I see the US propaganda machine is working full tilt to slander Russia now that there is conflict in Ukraine. Does this mean that a slew of movies will be released where the antagonist is Russian?
Looking forward to the reboot of Rocky and Bullwinkle to brainwash a new generation.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells are a very viable storage medium for energy.
The tech already exists and large energy companies already have fully realized infrastructures planned.
They just don't plan on switching to them until they have sucked every ounce of carbon from the ground and put it into the atmosphere.
Why would they switch now? When your only interest is the bottom line, there is no need to miss revenue now just for the sake of a planet that exists in the future. Besides, these large energy companies can probably sell cars more expensively when they have to be sealed up like space crafts so you don't choke on the city air.
That's a double bang for their buck; why would they even consider green energy yet?
and they just can't do a proper police state like the Russians could. They have the working design, templates for torture and everything, non persons, election systems that are for show and don't make a difference, they imprison even more people than the Soviets did, they've got their own security curtain now to keep out possible 'terrorists' and anyone who has ever talked to one, but they still haven't got their population fleeing abroad yet. No real threat, yet, ....
Russian investment firms may be looking to steal high-tech intelligence from Boston-area companies to give to their country's military.
Oh, my. That does sound serious. Whatever can we do? Oh, I know, perhaps we should work to harden information security so that companies can maintain the integrity of their research. Futhermore, though I'm sure this goes without saying, we should fire -- and ban from any future participation in any aspect of government, government contracts, lobbying, or information security -- any person who has been involved in the intentional weakening of information security standards.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
distraction bullshit .. nothing to see here .. moving on ...
yes.
Putin is wearing the Patriots' owner's Super Bowl ring as we speak: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/...
Thank you Dave Raggett
It's easy to do, especially since many U.S. Firms are running Kasperski Anti-Virus (based in Russia). What better way to deliver malware than in a anti-virus program, that is based in Russia. It's a perfect oportunity for Russia to launch a cyber attack against U.S. companies.
Except the NSA and other US intel agencies aren't looking out for the commercial advantage of US companies in general, but only a few very specific companies AND their investors in all 3 branches of government (who do you think the "customers" referred to in those presentation slides are, anyway?). So they're not just screwing the Germans, but most of the US as well. If a full audit were ever done I bet it would show that a lot of wealth has been generated from that intel on behalf of members of both parties. It's time to cancel the gravy train once and for all. If a project can't be shown to have ever prevented the loss of American lives it should be cancelled. If that means the NSA or any other agency no longer has anything to do, well so be it. I'm sure someone can find something to do with the vacant office space. Maybe Bill Shatner would be willing to buy that damned juvenile captain's chair in the Enteprise bridge... er, NSA operations center.
Ok, got it.
Does the US seriously expect to be taken seriously after they've been busted for helping with industrial espionage and then the whole NSA / Snowden ordeal? I'd say everyone has the US to fear, no one else.
It's reasonable to point out the importance of the EU but the US is a major actor and is I think a larger worry for Russia. It was a core part of the agreement when the USSR was disbanded that NATO would not expand in its former client states. Which NATO promptly disregarded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...
Nato is now working very hard to enroll the rest of the countries,hence the (bullshit)scare stories about russian expansionism. Russia isn't trying to expand , they're trying to save what's left.
Also the US was -against EU wishes- an active instigator in making the revolution what it was and in getting it accepted afterwards. Not an obvious thing when a democratically elected president is ousted.
I hear the Russians implanted someone as high as the owner of the company. And now you can use it for free anywhere in Russia. Theft. Plain and simple.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It's a political attack on a selected conservative group. Most former Russians in the US are conservative. This administration has already shown that they have no scruples in attacking their political enemies by using the instruments of state. This is just another example. You can accuse me of paranoia all you want, but Obama's entire election was done through Bayesian inference micro-targeting of special groups. Since Russian Jews are (almost overwhelmingly) Republican and well-educated, they represent a very target-rich environment for any leftist trying to smear the right.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
made by the U.S should always be taken with a handful of salt. Remember, this is the country who for the last 70 years has wielded its military against farmers, civilians, wedding parades, resistance fighters, and so on. Why would you trust their accusations against another world power to be true?
It's annoying how members of American government, media, and industry organizations frequently take turns unilaterally accusing country X or Y for trying to steal secrets or information for US companies. Of course they're trying! So are we! The U.S. probably tops the list of countries whose citizens or organizations are trying to steal U.S. tech secrets. Exhibit A: Apple vs. Google. I suppose someone will argue that at least we don't have to worry about American companies or governments using those secrets against our own citizens. But. that. would. be. hilarious. And wrong.
Who needs to "steal" these days? Ignoring the completely superfluous (and ineffectual) industrial/technological export restrictions, "free-market capitalism" is giving everything away. Take China for example. International corporations looking to do business with the Chinese are often required by the communist government to "share" industrial secrets with Chinese companies and/or government. And many corporations are complying because of the profit margins involved. Insidiously, the Chinese, Russians etc. are utilizing that same capitalistic free-market ideology to further their own nationalistic goals at the expense of the American people.
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire