CDR: RE: Qualcomm CEO loses laptop
Templeton, Stuart
stempleton at ea.com
Tue Sep 19 11:09:49 PDT 2000
wtf was the "Qualcomm Chief" doing walking around with secrets of that
severity, much less on a laptop, on a podium in a HOTEL CONFERENCE ROOM
??????????
486 laptops dissappear quicker than that at the university here.
lol
-----Original Message-----
X-Loop: openpgp.net
From: owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM
[mailto:owner-cypherpunks at Algebra.COM]On Behalf Of A. Melon
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 1:44 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Qualcomm CEO loses laptop
"contained proprietary
information that could be valuable to foreign governments."
Kinda interesting statement about a
telecoms machine. Foreign
govts?
PC with Corporate Secrets
Disappears
Qualcomm Chiefs Laptop Taken from Podium
Sept. 18, 2000
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) -- The personal portable
computer of Qualcomm Inc.s chief executive
officer, which apparently contained valuable
company secrets, disappeared from a hotel
conference room moments after he addressed a
national business journalists meeting.
Irwin Jacobs left the computer unattended on a
podium or an adjoining table in the Hyatt
Regency-Irvine ballroom on Saturday for 15-20
minutes when he stepped down to talk to a small
group after addressing about 90 members of the
Society of American Business Editors and
Writers.
Proprietary information
Jacobs told people at the conference that the IBM laptop, which
he
had used for a slide show-type presentation focusing on Qualcomms
wireless telecommunications technology, contained proprietary
information that could be valuable to foreign governments.
Qualcomm is a leader in wireless technology -- a boom market of
the
burgeoning telecommunications revolution -- with $3.9 billion in
revenues last year. It designs and produces chips for wireless
communications devices and holds hundreds of patents whose
royalties provide it with the bulk of its earnings.
SABEWs president Byron Calame, deputy managing editor of The
Wall Street Journal, expressed sorrow at the event and noted that
people with access to the area "included registrants, exhibitors
and
guests at our conference, hotel staff and perhaps others."
Very disturbing
"Its very disturbing to him," company spokeswoman Christine
Trimble said of the 66-year-old Jacobs, Qualcomms chairman and
founder. Jacobs, whose company is based in nearby San Diego, had
driven to the conference with his wife and without any security.
Trimble would not discuss details of the apparent theft except to
confirm that the laptop was used by Jacobs for "business
purposes."
Company officials would not say whether Jacobs had contacted the
FBI.
"The FBI was never called that were aware of," said Irvine police
desk officer Sgt. Tim Smith. "We took it as a straight laptop
theft,
which is pretty typical for a hotel."
However, several attendees at the SABEW conference said they
noticed three unattended laptops shortly after the theft as they
passed through an adjoining exhibitors room.
"It doesnt seem (Jacobs laptop) would be the obvious choice if
the
individual was looking for an easy target," noted Shawn Abbott,
chief
technical officer of computer security company Rainbow
Technologies.
Just 30 feet away
Jacobs and about a half-dozen journalists were no further than 30
feet from his laptop when it disappeared. More than 100 reporters
and editors from across the nation attended SABEWs 4th annual
technology conference, a two-day event that ended Sunday.
Trimble said the laptop, valued at about $4,000, was password
protected and the data was backed up on a computer at Qualcomms
San Diego headquarters. However, password-protected computers
running Windows operating systems, as Jacobs was, can be easily
be broken into.
The level of security on Jacobs laptop could not be determined.
Qualcomm is the worlds leading developer of a technology known as
CDMA, which seems to have won the global battle to become the
standard technology for making high-speed Internet access
available
on wireless devices.
Wireless technologies
Those so-called third-generation wireless technologies are
expected
to connect the Internet to handhelds and other devices in the
next
few years -- initially in the Far East and Europe. Those markets
are
considered to have a potential value in the tens of billions of
dollars,
as everything from cars to airplanes are equipped with broadband
wireless connections.
If security on Jacobs laptop was limited only to password
protection
_ rather than a more advanced encryption scheme -- "its extremely
unlikely that it will take any more than removing the hard drive
and
hooking it up to another computer to read all the files," Abbott
said.
http://www.apbnews.com/newscenter/breakingnews/2000/09/18/qualcomm0918_01.ht
ml
More information about the cypherpunks-legacy
mailing list