Intel Engineer Flip-Flops to AMD, Company Secrets Stolen?
An ex-Intel employee is currently being investigated by the FBI for allegedly attempting to provide confidential company secrets to market competitor, AMD.
Biswahoman Pani, a former engineer at Intel’s Hudson facility, is learning a rather simple lesson the hard way – it is not the best idea to start secretly working for AMD while still an Intel employee. Worse yet, it probably is a really bad idea to have over a hundred pages of sensitive Intel documents, top secret design plans and CAD drawings belonging to Intel laying around your home when starting that new job at AMD. Pani has been recently charged with allegedly stealing company trade secrets after an FBI investigation into the matter back in July 2008,
According to The Boston Globe, the story began when Biswahoman Pani told his Intel supervisors he missed his wife, Vandana Padhi, who was also an Intel employee, but who had been stationed at a facility out in California. Near the end of May, Intel approved the request to transfer his wife to the Hudson facility, however the response from Pani was probably not what Intel expected.
Only hours after, Pani handed in his resignation to Intel claiming he now wanted a job with a hedge fund and then left on vacation leave, waiting for his employment at Intel to end on June 11. When it was later discovered by another Intel employee that Pani had begun working for AMD, the FBI were called in to investigate. Apparently Pani began working for AMD on June 2, only days after his resignation from Intel.
An investigation of Pani’s house on July 1 unturned secret documents belonging to Intel of future design plans for upcoming Intel processors, although Pani claimed they were kept for reasons of curiosity and to help aid his wife with her job at the new facility. Pani is no longer working for AMD and despite having his passport seized, he is not under custody.
The FBI states there is no evidence that AMD was involved in Pani’s alleged actions and there is no evidence that AMD gained possession of any sensitive Intel documents. AMD and Intel are both fully cooperating with the investigation.
Its the FBI and two major companies at work here, I think there is more behind this, and lot more lies then truth.
With those 3 Giants (intel, amd, fbi) there is NO possible way 1 single guy would beable to defend himself.
After seeing the amount of corruption in Americas system, and how democracy doesn't mean a thing if you're rich, I have a hard time believing any of this.
What were the secret blue-prints? Larrabee designs for a multi-core array of processors that utilize GDDR5, and DX10.1?
Companies using terms like this is just them trying to be spy .vs spy and act as though their little white papers are official in the sense the term normally carries as applied to actual classified government data. Intel might as well have designated this data, with big red stamp and all, "Super Ultra Ninja Compartmented with type 2 LoLCat Encrypted" data. The government standard has a 70 year expiration date to protect the method by which the intel was gathered, see if people wait 70 years to protect intel's new "video card" specs...
I have known plenty of people in my line of work that have gotten a new job with a competitor, and their houses were not searched for "secret documents".
I call shinanigans on this one.
First he's all about missing his wife, when transferred he decides to quit anyway and lies about where he's going.
Doesn't make him guilty though.
Sounds to me, since Intel was willing to work with the guy and transfer his family in the first place, he might have been fairly important.
Also the article says:
The FBI was called in after an Intel employee learned about 8Pani's job with AMD and ordered a check of the computer system to see if Pani had accessed confidential documents.
"Intellectual property is a critical asset for Intel," said company spokeswoman Claudine Mangano. "We basically asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate activities, and we are cooperating with that investigation."
So, he apparently did something on their system, accessed something he shouldn't have, which got them the warrant to search in the first place.
But he's still innocent so far.
For all the people who seem to think that this guy is just some poor misunderstood sap, assuming the paper is actually accurate for a change and that the story behind "missing his wife" then "working for a hedge fund" is true, only to find out he's working for your direct competitor for over a week. Do you really think he did that just so he'd have a cool story to tell or something to hide? I'm also willing to bet, in fact be shocked if it wasn't true, that he signed multiple NDAs and non-compete clauses in his contract.
He's still innocent until proven otherwise and it's not up to a forum to convict him, however to say that checking him out is unwarranted is just being naive.
Use the objective side of your head.
I highly doubt it, AMD and Intel's architectures have been very different for well over a decade. x86 sure, but AMD's core design is vastly different, so I'm willing to bet since the documents had to do with CPUs they would've been useless to AMD anyway.
Desktop? Motherboard manufacturers work off of reference designs and barely change them, so there isn't anything that Asus doesn't know that MSI does. Custom board houses are a lot different and far more secretive. Not that that either scenario changes the illegality of having documents you shouldn't and breaking contracts (NDAs and Non-Competes), and you might be able to skate on that, but you're missing the point, bringing home documents that the company lets you bring home because you still work for them is one thing. Having them while secretly working for the competitor and lying about it is another.
Combine that with being able to apparently (For the FBI's sake I hope) prove that you accessed these sensitive materials when you are working for another company... well... yeah sorry call me a conservative but that's sketchy. This isn't a McDonald's employee taking home their soft-drink syrup to seltzer ratio numbers "out of curiosity" while secretly working for Burger King, this is industrial espionage and falls into the FBI's jurisdiction.
I will say this much for Pani. 100 pages of sensitive documents? 100 whole pages? That's like, what one? maybe half a datasheet? Ever look at Intel or datasheets? They're encyclopedias.
The MAN is after me just because I lied about my whereabouts and why I have a still smoking gun just feet away from the bullet-riddled corpse of the person I lied about knowing.
AMD was out-performing Intel until the Core 2 series was launched. Intel continues to out-perform AMD.
Here's a good start.
http://scientiasblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/reviews-and-fairness-or-how-to-make.html