Israeli Agents Steal Korean Tech for Chinese Customer

Thanks to the show Asia Biz Today I learned of an industrial espionage case involving South Korea, Israel, and China. In brief, agents of the South Korean branch of an Israeli company stole technology from two South Korean companies, and passed the loot to Chinese and Taiwanese companies. On June 27th the Yonhap news agency in South Korea reported the following: Key technologies to manufacture advanced flat-panel displays at Samsung Mobile Display...

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Impressions: Three "Internals" Books for Security

As of last month I'm no longer reviewing technical books. However, I wanted to mention a few that I received during the last few months. All three have an "internals" focus with security implications, and all three are written by authors I've reviewed before. The first is The Rootkit Arsenal: Escape and Evasion in the Dark Corners of the System, Second Edition by Bill Blunden. I reviewed the first edition two years ago. I am not in a position...

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Not Just Clowns, But Criminals

It turns out my April post Clowns Base Key Financial Rate on Feelings, Not Data was too generous. I cited an Economist story which outlined how LIBOR rates — and the returns on $360 trillion of financial contracts related to them, five times global GDP — are based on best guesses rather than hard data.I continue to cover this story because the financial industry routinely scoffs at the "risk management" practices of non-financials, as I wrote in...

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How to Kill Teams Through "Stack Ranking"

The newest Vanity Fair offers an article titled Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant. It starts with the following: Analyzing one of American corporate history’s greatest mysteries — the lost decade of Microsoft — two-time George Polk Award winner (and V.F.’s newest contributing editor) Kurt Eichenwald traces the “astonishingly foolish management decisions” at the company that “could...

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Thoughts on Lessons from Our Cyber Past: The First Cyber Cops

In May I was pleased to attend Lessons from Our Cyber Past: The First Cyber Cops hosted by Jay Healey at the Atlantic Council and featuring Steven R. Chabinsky, Shawn Henry, and Christopher M. Painter. The transcript as well as audio for the event are now online. All of the attendees made great points, and I wanted to highlight a few. Mr. Chabinsky: I think that we’re getting to this point where we really have to reflect upon what risk mitigation...

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Thoughts on Air-Sea Battle Briefing at Brookings

Last month I attended an event at the Brookings Institute about the Air-Sea Battle concept, which I mentioned in China's High-Tech Military Threat and Air Sea Battle yesterday. A good companion to the briefing is the article Air-Sea Battle: Promoting Stability in an Era of Uncertainty published in February in the journal The American Interest. In that article, General Norton A. Schwartz, USAF (at right in the picture) & Admiral Jonathan W....

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