Silicon Valley Concern Says It Thwarted Software Theft

Date: Monday, October 14, 2002 8:49 AM

************ H-1B NEWSLETTER *************

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I contacted the author of this story and asked what visa this Chinese
programmer was using. Unfortunately he didn't know. He gave me the phone
number of Dmitri Bevc but he would never answer my calls. Dmitri wouldn't
answer me by email either.

By the description I would say most likely an L-1 and possibly an H-1B.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/20/technology/20SOFT.html

September 20, 2002
Silicon Valley Concern Says It Thwarted Software Theft
By JOHN MARKOFF

AN FRANCISCO, Sept. 19 — A Chinese software programmer was arrested Tuesday
after a Silicon Valley company complained that he had tried to steal
software used in seismic imaging of oil fields, company officials said
today.

The programmer, Shan Yanming, 32, has been in the United States since the
end of April as part of a contract between the state-owned China National
Petroleum Corporation and 3DGeo Development., a Mountain View, Calif.,
software company.

Executives at the company said that the Chinese programmer, who had been
training in the use of the company's software, was caught trying to use a
company computer password to download company software to a portable
computer last Thursday.

At the time, the company confiscated the computer and told the programmer to
leave the premises and return to his apartment. He was arrested by F.B.I.
and local law enforcement officials on Tuesday at the San Francisco
International Airport while waiting to leave the country.

The programmer, who is in custody at the Santa Clara County Jail, has not
yet been charged, according to an F.B.I. agent involved in the arrest.

"He was trying to gain access to our high-end seismic imaging software,
which is proprietary," said Dmitri Bevc, president and co-founder of 3DGeo.

Silicon Valley companies have frequently been the target of both industrial
and government espionage. Executives at the software development company
said that they had discovered another Chinese employee from the same company
trying to steal software five years ago, but had not reported the incident
to the government.

As a result of the earlier incident the company was alert to the possibility
of theft, he said.

"We were watching him," Dr. Bevc said. "We knew that a security risk was
possible. Our engineers were watching him and they saw him start to do
this."

According to the company officials, the programmer had a software tool known
as crack that is used to extract passwords that have been stored and
encrypted. But they said they did not believe that the program had been used
successfully. Instead, they said the programmer might have observed another
employee entering the password and then copied it.

3DGeo executives said they did not have any indication whether the attempted
theft was sanctioned by the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation. They
said the Chinese company had purchased one program from the company, but
that the theft involved a more powerful software program that would
typically sell for $100,000 to $200,000.

F.B.I. officials said the programmer had been assigned a public defender.
Calls to the Chinese consulate in San Francisco were not returned.

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