Theme- BTW what is so confidential?

Story Biswamohan Pani

The story of Biswamohan Pani is about stealing of trade secrets of the biggest
chipmaker company, Intel Corporation. Pani gave his notice of departure (June 11,
2008) on May 29, 2008 and a day before that he allegedly began downloading
design and manufacturing details of the then next generation Telenium Processor.
Also unbeknownst to Intel, Pani started working at AMD on June 2, while he was still
on Intels payroll and still had access to Intels computer systems. Intel placed a
value of $200 -$400 million on the information. His supposed intent for theft was
established as advancement in his career by using the information to make himself
indispensable to his new employee, AMD, Intels rival. He was charged with 20 year
imprisonment and monetary fine of $12500.

This case can be considered similar to the case of Sergey Aleynikov, former
employee of Goldman Sachs and also Samarth Agarwal, former employer of Societe
Generale. In both the cases the fraud was recognized as stealing important source
codes, which were closely guarded trade secrets of the companies. The similarity
also lies in the fact that both like Biswamohan Pani were making a switch over to
new company of similar entity. They however were not in the payrolls of both the
companies like Biswamohan Pani.

The important lesson from this story is that companies always face the risk of losing
its trade secret when an employee leaves them. Companies should take reasonable
steps to protect its trade secrets by taking away the access to system when the
employee is in important position and has access to important files. Also,
technologies should be used to monitor what employees do on system to prevent IP
theft.