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."

Comments

Big Whoop

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Big Whoop

[jythie]

I do not believe anyone is saying it should not stop, but outrage over any specific country that 'might' be doing it is rather silly. It is a bit like a front page story about a some celebrity everyone loves to hate going 50mph in a 45 zone. Yeah they shouldn't be speeding, but pretending that them doing it is something special is not terribly realistic.

looks like someones relevant again.

[nimbius]

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.

Re:looks like someones relevant again.

[Immerman]

Well, we are bound by multilateral treaty with Ukraine to defend their territorial borders from Russia. But hey, that's just some piece of paper from years ago, not like we should have to take it seriously today.

Re:looks like someones relevant again.

[swb]

Russia is only as powerful as their economy, and the best way to counter them is to hobble them economically. It also is politically destabilizing internally.

Putin has a firm political grip, but the bargain is based on oligarchs making money and staying out of politics. If his foreign policy ambitions hurt enough economically it may begin to cost him political power. Even during the Soviet era leaders were eased out.

Re:Fox News has taken over slashdot

[ShanghaiBill]

WTF is "based on plausibility"? Many things are plausible

Yes, many things are plausible, but not all of those things will lead to an increase in the FBI's budget.

FBI Shark Jump Victory Lap

[TheCarp]

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.

Re:Big deal

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

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.

What To Do?

[Bob9113]

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.

Re:I've worked with many Russians...

[TheRaven64]

Japanese products were initially low quality too. There have been a few interesting books on the subject of the change. In particular, several Japanese companies focussed very heavily on quality control processes for about a decade, which allowed them to dramatically improve their quality. Over the same time, the Japanese people who had been responsible for copying the designs became sufficiently familiar with them that they were able to initially improve them and then produce better ones.

The main factor stopping Russia or China going through the same transition is institutionalised corruption. It's hard to implement good quality control if you can't trust the people doing the inspections not to take bribes...