FRANCE is the country that conducts the most industrial espionage on other European countries, even ahead of China and Russia, said leaked US diplomatic cables quoted today by Norway’s Aftenposten.
“French espionage is so widespread that the damages (it causes) the German economy are larger as a whole than those caused by China or Russia,” an undated note from the US embassy in Berlin said, according to a Norwegian translation by Aftenposten.
The Norwegian daily of reference said last month it had obtained all the 250,000 US diplomatic cables WikiLeaks had accessed and would publish stories based on them independently of the whistleblowing website’s own releases.
Its article based on leaked cables included an October 2009 comment from Berry Smutny, the head of German satellite company OHB Technology, quoted in the diplomatic note.
“France is the Empire of Evil in terms of technology theft, and Germany knows it,” a Norwegian translation of Smutny’s comment in the cable read.
OHB Technology became known to the general public in January 2010 when it obtained a contract for the construction of several satellites for the Galileo satellite navigation system, a much-delayed European challenger to the American-developed Global Positioning System (GPS).
The small German firm won the bid for the contract over Astrium, a subsidiary of pan-European giant EADS.
A leaked US cable posted yesterday by Aftenposten described Franco-German competition in terms of spy satellite development.
The cable said Germany was developing, with the help of the US, its own High Resolution Optical Satellite System (HiROS), despite the objections of France, which is leading pan-European efforts in the field with its Helios satellites.
HP CEO Leo Apotheker accused of corporate espionage by head of Oracle
Apparently, Larry Ellison recently accused HP’s new CEO, Leo Apotheker, of overseeing an industrial espionage scheme centering on the repeated theft of massive amounts of Oracle’s software. It is alleged that a major portion of this theft occurred while Mr. Apotheker was CEO of SAP.
My Ray Lane, HP’s Chairman stated, ” If HP keeps Leo Apotheker far from HP headquarters we cannot subpoena him to testify at a trial. I don’t think Ray Lane wants to risk Leo Apotheker testifying under oath as to why he allowed the theft of Oracle property to continue for 8 months after he was made sole CEO of SAP”.
In 2010, Larry Ellison was listed as the sixth richest person in the world, with a personal wealth of $27 billion. We think he may have just cause to protect his intellectual property.
The matter is beng presented in court today. We’ll keep you posted on any developments.
Levels of corporate espionage have significantly increased across all industry sectors in recent years, with the financial crisis exacerbating the problem. Technological advances and an increasingly transient workforce have contributed to the steady rise in espionage levels during the past decade. More recently, the increased competition between companies, heightened workplace pressures, large-scale redundancies and cost-cutting measures caused by the financial crisis have contributed to a dramatic proliferation in the scale and frequency of acts of espionage.
ASIS International recently held their 2010 international conference and exhibition in Dallas, Texas USA. I was lucky enough to have attended this exhibition and was absolutely amazed at just how many vendors were displaying state-of-the-art closed circuit television (CCTV) systems. Every step you took, was under surveillance. It is for this reason that I am shocked and amused to think that someone would be foolish enough to steal anything from such an exhibition, not to mention one of the world’s largest security exhibitions! Well, believe it or not, it happened!
Apparently, on the second morning of the ASIS 2010 Conference, several exhibitors reported that various items had been stolen from their exhibition stands. That’s right – a security exhibition is robbed! One of the victims was smart enough to approach a nearby exhibitor, who had several overt surveillance cameras pointing in the direction of the theft.
