Espionage In Academia: How To Stop Spies And Thieves From Swiping Top Research

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.worldcrunch.com/tech-science/espionage-in-academia-how-to-stop-spies-and-thieves-from-swiping-top-research/copyright-university-spying-cnrs-technology/c4s9644/

By David Larousserie
LE MONDE/Worldcrunch
26 September 2012

PARIS - Pirates, spies, moles, thieves: those who want to steal the 
scientific treasures of French research laboratories had better be 
careful.

With a new measure to protect the "nation’s scientific and technical 
potential," in the next few months every organization, university and 
engineering school will be receiving instructions on how to protect 
themselves. Indeed, spying on national or foreign competitors is not 
limited to industrial espionage: fundamental and applied research are 
also targeted.

"This is not imaginary. You would have to be naively optimistic not to 
know that there research is a target of international 
information-gathering strategies," says Jean Marimbert, secretary 
general and security chief of the French education and research 
ministry.

No doubt there are few espionage scandals as bad as that of “Farewell,” 
the code name of a French double agent who worked for the KGB and its 
French counterpart of the time, the DST, during the 1970s and 1980s; nor 
as serious as the case of Rolf Dobbertin, a French researcher accused of 
spying for East Germany in 1979. He was finally acquitted in 1991.

But the threat exists. Certainly, preventing the proliferation of 
nuclear, chemical or bacteriological weapons is still a priority, but 
with globalization and economic competition, attention is also turning 
toward laboratories researching for patents, start-ups, and other 
innovative products. There have been leaks, although the people we 
interviewed did not want to discuss them. "A research scientist is not 
going to brag that someone stole his computer or his idea. A laboratory 
will not be proud of having been burglarized," we were told. But several 
enlightening stories are already making the rounds.

[...]

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