Spies and Spooks in the Business World
Douglas Frantz's article Spy vs. Spy in Portolio.com paints a fascinating look at the role of ex-intelligence agents in the private sector. Citing examples from WalMart and Oracle, Frantz shows how spy methods have found a home in the business world.
"The private sector has virtually all the same techniques as the government," Devine [a 32-year veteran of the CIA] told me.
Here is one exmaple from the article:
For instance, in March 2007, Oracle, the software company, filed suit in San Francisco federal court against German rival SAP, accusing it of systematically and illegally downloading thousands of pieces of proprietary software. According to a source involved in the case, Oracle's documentation featured an analysis by forensic computer experts who used to do top-secret work for the federal government. SAP's chief executive, Henning Kagermann, acknowledged in July that "inappropriate downloads" had occurred, although he maintained that Oracle was not seriously harmed. The suit is pending.
Frantz offers even more details in a Talk of the Nation interview with NPR, which is available online. The gist, of the story, especially demonstrated in the NPR interview, is that privacy really does not exist for individuals in the corporate world. The higher up your are in the corporate food chain, the more this is true. See, for example, what happened to a couple of WalMart execs involved in an affair described in the fist parts of Fantz's article.
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