Russian High-Tech Export Scandal Produces 8 Arrests in Houston 83
Penurious Penguin writes "Millionaire Alexander Fishenko, owner of US-based Arc Electronics Inc, and seven others have been arrested in Houston Texas, with a total of 11 indicted in a conspiracy to smuggle advanced microelectronics from the U.S. to Russia. The technology allegedly involves components of radar, weapons guidance, and detonators. Amongst the evidence are accounting records indicating notable similarity between the revenue of Arc Electronics and the Russian Federation's defense spending; intercepted phone calls and emails; and a letter to Arc Electronics from a Russian domestic intelligence lab complaining of defective microchips . A Russian foreign ministry spokesman has denied there were any intelligence connections in the affair."
Look at the bright side (Score:2)
At least he wasn't smuggling it to the Muzzies
No, Rosoboronexport handled that part.
Look at the bright side, they might use them against Chechnya, Islam is our common enemy
I can no longer sit back (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I can no longer sit back (Score:4, Funny)
But the US can still nuke anyone from the orbit, so the money was not well-spent in the first place.
We should rather care about the quality of our drinking water. With current safety standards, any Russian spy could put chemicals in it that cause homsexuality, and I guess we all know what consequences that would have.
Yada yada yada (Score:2)
But the US can still nuke anyone from the orbit, so the money was not well-spent in the first place.
People keep saying this, but it never happens; the US keep sending conventional troops places to get shot up instead.
I say put up or shut up.
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and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious microchips.
Somebody makes microchips out of our precious body fluids? Yuk!
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Somebody makes microchips out of our precious body fluids?
Yep, kinda [scripps.edu]
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and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious microchips.
Somebody makes microchips out of our precious body fluids? Yuk!
The silicon mines are dying. Pentiums are people!
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You've heard of organic quantum computing haven't you?
I'm sure you have.. now I'm betting you are wondering if I'm serious. Well, just keep eating plenty of carrots so you will have good eyesight.
Wrong character (Score:2)
Col. Ripper was the one who was upset about the Commies impurifying our manly juices microchips with fluoride.
(Side note: HF is actually used in some chip manufacturing.)
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Strictly speaking, the perpetrators in this case were motivated by capitalism, not communism.
(yes you were making a joke. but really, its been 21 years since the USSR went kaputnik)
Microelectronics? (Score:4, Interesting)
Microelectronics that are "components of radar, weapons guidance, and detonators". So, a DSP? A microcontroller? FPGAs?
As if none of that shit is manufactured in asia anyway. Conspirancy to smuggle? More like tax fraud under an heroic excuse.
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His web site says that he specializes in procurement of hard to find and obsolete components. Intel 4004 perhaps?
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Texas Instruments has fabrication facilities in the US (in Texas, no less). They're a major provider of military computer hardware. Their calculators might be made in Asia, but you can bet the chips that the military gets aren't made in Asia.
A/D converters, processors, SRAM, Microcontrollers (Score:2, Informative)
A/D converters, processors, SRAM, Microcontrollers. Basic chinese mass market kit.
The faulty chips seems to be these ones (from the part number):
http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/81901/AD/ADG819BRT.html
It's a CMOS single pole, double throw switch. Yes, seriously, takes me back to my childhood! 74LS00's an all.
Read the indictment:
http://federalcrimesblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/letter-to-the-court-moving-for-a-permanent-order-of-detention.pdf
Better still read the ACTUAL quotes from the people
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Why the middle man - why not smuggle the stuff directly from China?
Put it this way, would you rather get caught smuggling from the USA or from China? I'm sure neither are pleasant, but I suspect that one is considerably worse than the other.
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So which is worse? A lifetime of prison rape in the US or a Chinese bullet to the back of the neck?
I guess it depends if you're going to end up on the top or the bottom bunk.
Thank you, moose and squirrel (Score:3)
Next time take a page from the Chinese and just convince the target country to manufacture the components in your country in the first place.
That's Not How Export Control Works (Score:1)
Next time take a page from the Chinese and just convince the target country to manufacture the components in your country in the first place.
Hmmm, sounds like you should brush up on your export control laws [doc.gov]. From the most basic concepts:
WHAT IS AN EXPORT?
Any item that is sent from the United States to a foreign destination is an export. “Items” include commodities, software or technology, such as clothing, building materials, circuit boards, automotive parts, blue prints, design plans, retail software packages and technical information.
How an item is transported outside of the United States does not matter in determining export license requirements. For example, an item can be sent by regular mail or hand-carried on an airplane. A set of schematics can be sent via facsimile to a foreign destination, software can be uploaded to or downloaded from an Internet site, or technology can be transmitted via e-mail or during a telephone conversation. Regardless of the method used for the transfer, the transaction is considered an export. An item is also considered an export even if it is leaving the United States temporarily, if it is leaving the United States but is not for sale (e.g., a gift), or if it is going to a wholly-owned U.S. subsidiary in a foreign country. Even a foreign-origin item exported from the United States, transmitted or transshipped through the United States, or being returned from the United States to its foreign country of origin is considered an export. Finally, release of technology or source code subject to the EAR to a foreign national in the United States is “deemed” to be an export to the home country of the foreign national under the EAR.
Emphasis mine. So how are you telling the Chinese what to make if you're not shipping them the schematics? If you know a company that is manufacturing such sensitive controlled electronics overseas I believe you are legally obligated to report it to your local Office of Export Enforcement branch [doc.gov].
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Duh, you don't need to ship them the schematics. Their hackers have already stolen them. Problem solved!
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The problem is that you need to have sufficient manufacturing capability in your country to pull that off first...
Disbelief (Score:1, Flamebait)
I for one, refuse to believe that we actually have any technology left which is advanced beyond that available in countries where they actually make things.
We let the republicrats job-jack all of our manufacturing overseas, and now we no longer have a manufacturing base left, which means nobody getting annoyed at problems in production, which means no innovation.
This story is pure propaganda as far as I can tell. We don't even make the best culture any more, as Gangnam style has proven. We just do knockoff
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Example: We used to make rare-earth magnets in Valporaiso, Indiana. The factory was sold and moved to China.
Without those components, you can't make the high-performance servos necessary to fit into our existing missile designs where they serve to move the control surfaces to steer.
Conclusion: Thus, if we want to fight a war, we now have to buy parts from China.
We haven't tested our nukes in ages, we'd forgotten how to make critical parts (fogbank, for example), and they all have a half-life. We import ever
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We might not manufacture the base components here, but we sure as hell build the final assemblies here. I work for Lockheed Martin, and in my facility, we build the SPY-1 radar arrays that are installed on the US, Japanese, Norwegian, South Korean, and Australian Navy's destroyers, cruisers, and frigates. We might import transistors, chips, whatever, but they're just components. A radar array is much more than just the sum of its parts, and the design knowledge, plus the final manufacture, lives and dies
Re:Disbelief (Score:4, Interesting)
The US has a trump card of its own. It's still the breadbasket of the world, and while military war machines depend on manufacturing, so too do soldiers depend on food. Additionally, in a world war it also has two huge oceans and the vast Canadian wilderness protecting it from attack (barring people with nukes going insane, of course). Unless someone can convince Canadians or Mexicans to flip their allegiances, it has the option of going pure offense or pure isolationist. Very few countries can do this.
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Mexican citizens may be dissatisfied with US drug and immigration policies, but I hardly think invasion is on their minds. The greatest hostility they'll show to Americans is probably to regard them with the same condescension they regard Guatemalans. In any case, allegiances are made by the government, and those decisions are rarely made on a sentiment. Barring Mexico descending into ungovernable chaos, the government is going to act conservatively. Now, you might think the drug cartels would want to under
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Unless someone can convince Canadians or Mexicans to flip their allegiances
Because Mexico would never turn on us. [wikipedia.org]
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Oh I'm not ignorant of that little fact. Back in the turn of the century when the US was an emerging power, that may have worked (however unlikely, since Mexico lost its stature as an equal regional power 100 years before that time). And even then, Mexico would have risked everything by doing so. I don't envision Mexico ever becoming hostile to the US before matching it in war-making ability.
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It doesn't necessarily have to be about obtaining technology for the purpose of "catching up". Even if the US doesn't have technology that is beyond what Russia or China has, it's still useful to those countries to obtain that technology. By studying it, they can find strengths and weaknesses, alter their doctrine to take into account its capabilities, and more intelligently develop countermeasure hardware. It's in the interest of every country to keep these things secret, and it's in the interest of every
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Civilian manufacturing maybe. But that's up to business owners to make those decisions, not politicians. Blame business owners. They could build it locally for more (or the same cost with less profit) and support local economies. I'm not trying to offend anyone and of course i'm simplifying it.. but that is how it looks to me.
re: conspiracy to smuggle advanced microelectronic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: conspiracy to smuggle advanced microelectronic (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, Iraq supposedly bought 4000+ Playstation 2s to model nuclear detonations, there was at least one slashdot story [slashdot.org] about it.
Of course, if you believe what the western press reported about Iraqi weapons programs in that era, I have a very nice bridge and 400 kilos of yellowcake Uranium to sell you...
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Particularly... (Score:2)
I think that story (using Nintendo chips as missile guidance?) was totally debunked in the end and it was suggested it may have been dreamed up along with the majority of the illegal weapons, to justify a war that was already desired
Particularly when it is well known that you can defeat missiles using that kind of control system with something as simples as a track ball and three buttons. Here's a picture of the operator console for such a system: http://cdn.chud.com/a/a2/a23bbcb6_11011101.jpeg [chud.com]
Silly Russians (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing is actually made in the US any more. The big bucks here are in intellectual property and patent litigation: Samsung vs Apple.
The Chinese are ahead of the curve on this. They know the best way to gain advantage is to use cyber-theft to steal IP. It is very cost effective and produces quick results.
Unlike export controls, there is no national policy on protecting IP online. Every time someone in the government (Democrats mostly) brings it up business interests scream about government interference, needless regulations and creeping bureaucracy.
If something is stolen via cyber-theft, their is no legal consequence. Even in the military sector, none of the big defense contractors ever are fined or loose contracts because they leak classified information like a sieve.
Heck, now with the complete lack of controls on campaign contributions it would be cheap to insure that the current online vulnerabilities remain the norm. All you have to do is give some money to the right elected officials in Congress, and stealing US technology will remain as easy as taking candy from a baby.
The Russians need to get with the program and copy what the Chinese are already doing. They should be spending more money on PACs, and stop wasting effort on smuggling.
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Don't they realize that all "US" electronics are made in China? Why are the going through all the trouble to illegally export gear from the US when they can get it directly from the manufacturers in Asia?
Better prices.
Re:Silly Russians (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing is actually made in the US any more.
Except Construction equipment [caterpillar.com], tractors [casece.com], cars, trains, roads, houses, commercial buildings, food, copper piping and tubing [cerroflow.com], drugs and other chemicals (ever hear of Monsanto?), concrete... No, we make nothing here.
Gees, guys, wtf?
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Nuclear weapons, nuclear powered submarines, nuclear powered aircraft carriers, nuclear powered spacecraft, F16's, F18's, F22's, C17's, B2's, B52s, B1B's, A10's, Tanks, EWACS, Up Armored trucks, Air to ground missiles, Ground to Air missiles. Missile to Missile missiles.
Do you all get the drift here?
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F-22s and F-18 Super Hornet have some interesting technology which they are attemp
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You must be new here - this is Slashdot, we don't deal in facts.
That the US manufacturing segment is something like the 11th or 12th largest economy in the world all by itself is utterly irrelevant.
Monsanto... aren't they that company from... (Score:2)
Bhopal, India? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster [wikipedia.org]
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Actually, Dow Chemical owns UCC since 2001 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Chemical_Company#Bhopal_disaster [wikipedia.org] but thank you for the correction, I misremembered the acquisition of UCC, whose subsidiary UCIL ran the Bhopal plant.
Monsanto, however, is a global company with 21,000 employees in 404 facilities in 66 countries, not a US one; here is a list of worldwide facilities from their web site: http://www.monsanto.com/whoweare/pages/our-locations.aspx [monsanto.com]
Likewise, Caterpillar does it's manufacturing close to its
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Spend some time on:
http://fuckyeahmadeinusa.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com]
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When i praise the Chinese for their efficient on line spying I am being ironic, saying the opposite of what I really feel.
When I talk about a lack of Federal policy on protecting US assets from cyber attacks, I am being accurate. There is no enforceable federal policy about protecting infrastructure or intellectual property on line. There are a lot of
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Don't they realize that all "US" electronics are made in China?
[snip]
The Russians need to get with the program and copy what the Chinese are already doing. They should be spending more money on PACs, and stop wasting effort on smuggling.
Yes, that is what I'm thinking whenever there is "high tech export" which is becoming a bankrupt statement. What the Russians and Americans should learn from Chinese is how to build things. OK so I'm getting factious.
Anyway, Happy Sputnik Day everyone.
Gone rogue (Score:2)
Don't start complaining until they use radiological weapons on your streets, like they did to us...
Southwest Houston is a Russian community (Score:3)
Starting in the 1970s, Russian immigrants came to this area in great numbers. They are bordered on the South by a large Hispanic population, on the East by a large East Asian and Indian population, and on the West by rural communities and exburbs.
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Grilled beet tacos with plum wine.
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There's nothing unusual in a Russian or Ukrainian guy with a family name of "Fishenko" - it's not a "Western Germanic/English family name" by any measure. Besides, he was born in Kazakhstan.
Ho Hum Article (Score:2)
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I believe we are living in a safer world.
Or just a dumber one.
So, as a Russian... (Score:3)
... I would like to know if what they stole is actually of use? Or is it some kind of commercial grade stuff that you can buy in Radio Shack anyway, and they just pretended to run some super secret covert ops to ship it over to get funding? (given the level of corruption, this wouldn't be unusual or unprecedented)
I mean, c'mon, I pay taxes which are used to fund this stuff, and then they squander them on the likes of Anna Chapman.
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The real waste here is in Russian procurement bureaucracy, which has in this case also revealed US export violations. What, 15 units of MAX1480EAEPI at $25 apiece? You need to publish a government tender openly online for that shit [sozvezdie.su] and hold a competition, for every foreign intelligence service to peruse at their leisure? I can order this qty myself online in 5 min from stock at Digi-Key [digikey.ca] (or a number of other suppliers worldwide) and ask my university for reimbursement, no questions asked.
no inteligence involved (Score:1)
Pre-election propaganda (Score:1)
Russia has the capability to make its own microprocessors. I very much doubt that any of this gear was intended for official military uses, and it seems very unlikely that the Russian military would ever allow it.
I understand that the components of recent Russian radar systems like the NIIP Tikhomorov EASA system (including GaAs Tx/Rx modules), are all domestically manufactured, as is the multi-core VLIW CPU at the heart of its computer system.
There are a few instances of usage of commercial grade FPGAs in