BOSTON (AP) — A former employee of a website content delivery company has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing company trade secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Elliot Doxer, 42, will admit to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, whom he believed was an Israeli spy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts said in a statement. A plea hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29.
Doxer’s attorney, Thomas J. Butters, did not return messages left after business hours Thursday.
Doxer, of Brookline, worked in Akamai’s finance department at the time he committed the alleged offenses. Prosecutors said he sent an email to the Israeli consulate in June 2006 and offered to provide any information he had access to in order to help that country in exchange for $3,000.
Doxer said his main goal was “to help our homeland and our war against our enemies,” prosecutors said.
Israeli officials contacted U.S. authorities about the offer. An FBI agent went undercover and posed as an Israeli agent in September 2007, and arranged to use a “dead drop” location to exchange information with Doxer to avoid detection. From then until March 2009, Doxer visited the drop location at least 62 times and provided an extensive list of Akamai’s customers and employees, including their full contact information, and contract details, according to prosecutors.
He also allegedly described Akamai’s physical and computer security systems and said he could travel to Israel and support special operations in his local area if needed.
Akamai previously said that it had cooperated with the FBI. The firm also noted that there is no evidence that Doxer actually gave information to a foreign government.
Authorities arrested Doxer in August and charged him with one count of wire fraud. That charge will be dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
The espionage charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a three-year term of supervised release and a $500,000 fine.
BOSTON
– A former employee of a website content delivery company has agreed to plead guilty to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing company trade secrets to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Elliot Doxer, 42, will admit to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, whom he believed was an Israeli spy, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Massachusetts said in a statement. A plea hearing is scheduled for Aug. 29.
Doxer’s attorney, Thomas J. Butters, did not return messages left after business hours Thursday.
Doxer, of Brookline, worked in Akamai’s finance department at the time he committed the alleged offenses. Prosecutors said he sent an email to the Israeli consulate in June 2006 and offered to provide any information he had access to in order to help that country in exchange for $3,000.
Doxer said his main goal was “to help our homeland and our war against our enemies,” prosecutors said.
Israeli officials contacted U.S. authorities about the offer. An FBI agent went undercover and posed as an Israeli agent in September 2007, and arranged to use a “dead drop” location to exchange information with Doxer to avoid detection. From then until March 2009, Doxer visited the drop location at least 62 times and provided an extensive list of Akamai’s customers and employees, including their full contact information, and contract details, according to prosecutors.
He also allegedly described Akamai’s physical and computer security systems and said he could travel to Israel and support special operations in his local area if needed.
Akamai previously said that it had cooperated with the FBI. The firm also noted that there is no evidence that Doxer actually gave information to a foreign government.
Authorities arrested Doxer in August and charged him with one count of wire fraud. That charge will be dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
The espionage charge carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, a three-year term of supervised release and a $500,000 fine.
London:Â Jude Law is suing The Sunover alleged interception of his voice mails for stories about his private life, dragging another tabloid of Rupert Murdoch’s shaking media empire into the phone hacking scandal that has rocked Britain.
Law’s action pertains to the time when Rebekah Brooks was the editor and is believed to be the first such legal action against Murdoch’s best-selling daily title.
The group’s largest selling tabloid News of the World was closed down last week after the scandal engulfed it amid revelations that the phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler was hacked, among others.
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By Rose Panieri
rpanieri [at] stmedianetwork [dot] com
Updated: July 19, 2011 2:20AM
It appears that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. — in its ongoing effort to mold a media monarchy — has resorted to dubious means of making headline news. Murdoch allegedly encouraged the hacking of phones and bribing of public officials to obtain the “raw meat” insatiable readers find so tasty.
Does it seem that journalism has morphed into a virtual “spy vs. spy” occupation, populated with reporters who majored in journalism and minored in espionage? How safe are you in discussing your gallstones with Aunt Henrietta?
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Secret information contained on the police national computer would be like gold to foreign intelligence agencies, and highly valuable for espionage purposes, says investigative journalist and SIS expert Nicky Hager.
“You’ve got potential names you could steal and use, you’ve got all their backgrounds. You’ve got this fantastic resource on another country,” he said. “If you’re an intelligence agency that would be a very high-value thing to seize.”
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