Akamai Employee Arrested and Accused of Being a Spy(securityweek.com)

50 pointsby privacyguru16 tahun yang lalu29 comments

Akamai Employee Arrested and Accused of Being a Spy

http://www.securityweek.com/akamai-employee-arrested-accused-trying-sell-information-foreign-government

7 comments

You gotta love how the foreign country is specifically unnamed -- another news report says it was referred to as Country X, but "It is alleged that in later communications, Doxer said his chief desire “was to help our homeland and our war against our enemies.”" Doxer is Jewish.

chopsueyar16 tahun yang lalu

Here is a bit more detail:

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/07/2741170/jewish-in...

cullenking16 tahun yang lalu

So we can probably assume he was attempting to help Israel, the country we are fiscally and militarily tied to already. Kinda funny - I wonder if he has some sort of mental illness if he didn't already realize this.

metamemetics16 tahun yang lalu

Israel's first nuclear bombs were believed (by the CIA) to be constructed from highly enriched uranium stolen from the US Navy nuclear fuel plant operated by the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. So it wouldn't be completely unprecedented.

tptacek16 tahun yang lalu

There is allegedly a huge amount of espionage directed at the US from Israel. You wouldn't have to be mentally ill to be involved in it.

borski16 tahun yang lalu

And, it's probably prudent to note, directed at Israel from the US.

[deleted]16 tahun yang lalu

borski16 tahun yang lalu

Firstly, it's a bit ridiculous that such lengths are taken to "anonymize" the country's name. Turns out it's not that hard to speculate, especially given the JTA article posted above.

What I'm really curious about is whether Country X approached the US with this information in an attempt to gain good "karma," or if the US approached Country X with an active investigation and they responded in a manner of "Oh, yeah...meant to tell you about that! Sorry!"

sethg16 tahun yang lalu

...or someone in Country X’s embassy decided that this guy was more likely to be a nut or an agent provocateur than someone in a position to offer really useful intelligence, and therefore there was no downside to turning the fellow in to the FBI.

He should have gone to the Russians. I hear their spying-on-America department is a little understaffed these days.

kujawa16 tahun yang lalu

Wait, so this idiot was trying to sell information to the Israeli government from Akamai?

There is no information that Israel could possibly want that Akamai wouldn't be more than happy to simply hand over, I'm fairly certain. Given how many people who work at that company are Israeli citizens ...

borski16 tahun yang lalu

That's not necessarily true. There are, I'm guessing, plenty of contracts Akamai has with the U.S. government for content delivery (the military comes to mind) that are not public knowledge and probably require some level of security clearance.

Of course, I'm just guessing here, but would you really be surprised if this were true?

kujawa16 tahun yang lalu

I suppose things could have changed since I left, but they weren't really rigged for that sort of thing when I was there, and I was in two groups who would have been very close to that sort of thing.

danielnicollet16 tahun yang lalu

The Jewish / Israeli connection is not made in the article. Why? I don't understand how this idiotic behavior was supposed to help the US anyway as Doxer said in http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/07/2741170/jewish-in...

patrickgzill16 tahun yang lalu

I think that the "homeland" that Doxer was referring to is Israel, not the USA.

My prediction is that unfortunately many other Jews will now be under suspicion of being disloyal if they handle sensitive information.

danielnicollet16 tahun yang lalu

I agree with you. However, there comes a time when you need to choose the "homeland" you pledge allegiance to. If you don't want to make that choice and stand by it, I can understand people would become suspicious in such situations. I m a dual citizen and I of course love the US and France (where I grew up) but if the two fell on different sides of any issue, I would at least stay 100% loyal to the US because I chose to make this my home and americans welcomed me warmly. If I felt differently, I would move back to France. Maybe that guy should have done so with Israel...

webmonkeyuk16 tahun yang lalu

<< If convicted, Doxer faces a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment, a three-year term of supervised release, a $250,000 fine or twice the gain or loss, whichever is highest, and restitution to the victim >>

The guys's clearly done something bad but that seems a bit excessive.

smallblacksun16 tahun yang lalu

Selling secrets to a foreign government is a very serious crime. Also, note that Akamai customers include NASA, Boeing, and the US Air Force, so the secrets he was selling could include sensitive defense information.

http://www.akamai.com/html/customers/customer_list.html

borism16 tahun yang lalu

If said organisations keep sensitive information in Akamai, then... oh well...

VladRussian16 tahun yang lalu

it is the intention that counts. He intended to spy for a foreign government - clearly hostile action toward the US government. For example, if he just posted the info on the open Internet, i think the personal consequences would be much less severe (even though such action could have caused more real damage).

jrockway16 tahun yang lalu

Stealing company secrets: termination.

Stealing company secrets because an FBI agent asks you to: 20 years in prison.

I am beginning to understand the whole "don't talk to the cops" movement.

VladRussian16 tahun yang lalu

The hilarious "Burn after Reading" clearly comes to mind. I mean there are professionals and amateurs in any business, and intelligence obviously isn't an exception.

saetaes16 tahun yang lalu

Exactly! The Register made the same connection:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/07/akamai_secrets_sting...

ihavenomouth16 tahun yang lalu

This should come as no surprise to anyone who works in the industry.

Keep in mind Akamai was founded by an ex-mossad Sayeret Matkal expert who "coincidently" was seated right next to the terrorists who flew Flight 11 into the WTC.

The US people must demand a new 9/11 investigation.

ihavenomouth16 tahun yang lalu

Would anyone downvoting this care to explain their rationale?

Is it because you doubt the validity of my claims (which are all verifiable by a simple wikipedia search http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_M._Lewin)?

Or is it because I made a tie to 9/11 when discussing an article that mentions a country with 9/11 involvment stealing top secret information from the US Homeland Security department?

ghshephard16 tahun yang lalu

Two reasons I downvoted you: First, general consensus and personal common sense (not to mention a fairly large number of applications of Occam's Razor) make listening to suggestions of conspiracy theories about 9/11 tiresome.

Second, to halt the segue from the topic which I found to be interesting, which is Akamai Security and implications of government/foreign agent intrusions into that environment, into some endless ramble about 9/11.

nir16 tahun yang lalu

The rationale is that you call Lewin ex-Mossad with no evidence at all, and you allege had a part in 9/11 when the FAA documents actually suggest he tried to fight the hijackers and was stabbed to death.

borism16 tahun yang lalu

I don't see him suggesting he was on the hijackers' side.

As to Mossad, considering he was Sayeret Matkal officer it's not that far fetched. It's not that big of a difference anyway.

nir16 tahun yang lalu

Actually, I think saying Lewin was "an ex-mossad Sayeret Matkal expert who "coincidently" was seated right next to the terrorists who flew Flight 11 into the WTC" followed by "The US people must demand a new 9/11 investigation" suggests exactly that.

There's a huge difference between being an officer in an elite unit during your army service and being a spy.

borism16 tahun yang lalu

spy? now where did anyone suggest that? I think you're trying to guess too much into what other people think. Maybe you should concentrate more on known facts and analyze whether anything interesting can be obtained trough piecing them together.

nir16 tahun yang lalu

>"spy? now where did anyone suggest that?"

When OP said Lewin was "ex-mossad"? When you suggested being from Sayeret Matkal is "not that big of a difference" from being in the Mossad?