Would-Be Akamai Spy Busted By Feds

itwbennett writes "Elliot Doxer, an Akamai Technologies staffer, was charged on Wednesday with wire fraud. The case began in June 2006 when Doxer sent an e-mail to the consulate of a foreign country (referred to as 'country X') in which he 'expressed his desire to help that country with whatever information he could obtain in his position,' according to an article on ITworld. 'The foreign consulate that Doxer contacted turned his e-mail over to law enforcement authorities, and a little over a year later, he was contacted by an FBI agent posing as a representative of 'country X.' Over the next 18 months, Doxer left confidential business information such as customer lists and contracts at a designated spot called a dead drop, acts captured via video surveillance.'"

What kind of moron

[ShadowRangerRIT]

automatically assumes that a foreign country is interested in pedestrian industrial espionage, particularly when there is no technology involved, just business contact and contract info? Oh boy, freepills.com pays Akamai $200/month to host their images, that was totally worth the expense and risk of a diplomatic incident!

Re:An Analog 'Dead Drop'?

[entrex]

Not as fun as playing spy.

Re:What kind of moron

[Assmasher]

I'm sorry but you're extraordinarily naive about big business if you don't think that some countries, like China - oops - I mean Country X, don't use state resources (people/money/intelligence) to assist their economy illegally. The likely reason that 'Country X' turned this moron in is because they have this information in some other fashion and thought that political capital to be gained from burning this guy was worth it.

Re:What kind of moron

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Industrial espionage is great if it provides a benefit commensurate to the cost and risk. Like I said, if there was some secret technology to be gained, or some other private information of significant economic value to be gained, I'd understand it. But I'm not seeing Akamai customer lists (trivial to divine simply by seeing which sites load against Akamai servers) as that valuable. I suppose the contract values might be mildly helpful in negotiating rates with Akamai if Country X was trying to help its own businesses' competitiveness, but the benefit to be gained is tiny.

Re:Entrapment

[ShadowRangerRIT]

Entrapment would be if the FBI offered him money to divulge company secrets out of the blue. He made an offer to Country X; the intent to commit a crime was his alone, not prompted by law enforcement.

Re:What kind of moron

[shadowofwind]

Maybe they also felt that they couldn't trust him not to betray their relationship and get egg on everyone's faces.

Also, depending on what country 'X' is, they might have been genuinely affronted by the brazenness in suggesting that they murder his wife. Even people in deeply immoral lines of work often like to think of themselves as being bound by ethics, and will be offended if you treat them as if they have no ethics.

Re:Think of it in Reverse

[Migraineman]

There's value in making a very public example of folks like this. Consulates don't want to be bothered with Joe Everyman and his get-rich-quick scheme.

Besides, this could easily be a test of loyalty from a friendly nation. You wouldn't want to damage decades of political negotiations over a penny-ante commercial information leak.

It's usuall Israel

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever there is a spy scandal and people want to avoid talking about which country it was, it's usually Israel. Nobody likes to admit that a supposed ally is spying on us, but they spy on us more than anyone since the Soviet Union fell apart.

I suspected as much

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

Prior to reading your post, I suspected that Doxer was trying to deal with Israel. He had nothing of value for them so this provided a perfect opportunity for them to "help" the US by reporting it so they can say, in effect, "See. We don't always spy on you." Some of you out there may not know this, but quite a few recent espionage cases in the USA have involved Americans spying on behalf of Israel. I have to wonder if Doxer actually worked for the US government and had access to things that Israel would be interested in knowing about if they would have been so quick to rat him out to the Feds.

Re:What kind of moron

[DrSkwid]

another link to a Jewish site with the same claim

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/10/07/2741170/jewish-internet-company-employee-arrested-for-selling-secrets [jta.org]

You've really go to be dumb/ignorant to think the US isn't giving the necessary information to Isreal already.

The number of US/Isreali dual nationals in high up US govt. positions is staggering.

Dunno, dude...

[Moraelin]

While I have sympathy for your situation, I see nothing so far except unsuported postulates that his situation is the same.

I don't actually see anywhere the piece of info that his ex-wife actually kidnapped his son or disappeared anywhere. A more common -- and Occam's Razor compliant -- assumption would be that she simply won the custody.

Also note that this wasn't even the payment he originally asked for. He first just asked for $3000, and there was no mention of his son at all. Only when they tried to haggle the price down, he dropped the price to basically "not enough bad things can happen" to his ex-wife. Sorry, it doesn't sound to me like some desperate guy and some kidnapping. If that were his motivation, he'd ask for that from the start. Whereas for this guy it was the second best, if he's not getting his $3000.

Also, note that he didn't actually ask for his son back. He just wanted his ex-wife hurt and some _photos_ of his son. Doesn't sound like there was any kidnapping involved, if anyone asks me. You'd expect him to actually want his son rescued, if there was some kidnapping thereof, not just some photos. But at any rate that was just an addendum to the real payment he was falling back to, namely that something bad happens to his ex.

I.e., it's more likely that, basically, you're cheering for someone who was just a douchebag trying to sell some info from work for money, or if that fails, use the Mossad to carry his personal vengeances. He doesn't seem to actually have more of a moral high ground there than the AOL admin who sold the client database to spammers. He just was even dumber about it.

Re:Country X = Israel

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

If it were China, Russia, Iran or even Japan - they wouldn't pussyfoot around with "Country X". But?

If you needed a better confirmation of the Rick Sanchez allegations, look no further.