US: Ex-tech worker pleads guilty to attempting to spy for Israel

[azurnoir]

A former employee of a company that helps websites deliver content to users pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of foreign economic espionage for providing trade secrets to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

Elliot Doxer, 43, admitted at a plea hearing in federal court in Boston to providing trade secrets from Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. over an 18-month period to the agent, the US Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said in a statement.

<snip>

Doxer accepted a plea deal that says he sent an email to the Israeli consulate in June 2006, while he worked in Akamai's finance department, offering to provide any information he had access to that would help Israel in exchange for money. Doxer said in plea documents that his main goal was "to help our homeland and our war against our enemies."

Israeli officials contacted US authorities about the offer. An FBI agent posed as an Israeli agent in September 2007 and arranged to use a "dead drop" location to exchange information with Doxer to avoid detection. From then until March 2009, Doxer visited the drop location at least 62 times and provided an extensive list of Akamai's customers and employees, including their full contact information and details of contracts, according to the documents.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4115944,00.html

[shaayecanaan]

1. I'm not sure why this guy ever thought he would be attractive to the Israeli government...

or why he thought the Israelis would need the customer list of a company that provides remote desktop connections, of all things.

Apparently, Mr Doxer thought that in exchange for the information, the Mossad would be able to knock some sense into his bitch of an ex-wife:-

It all started when out of the blue, he decided to send an e-mail to Israel's Boston consulate on June 22, 2006, writing, "I am a jewish american who lives in Boston. I know you are always looking for information and i am offering the little i may have."

He was contacted a few years later, and quickly started delivering information. He asked for $3,000 for the data and information about his son. He also hinted that Mossad could do him a favour by making bad things happen to his estranged wife.

http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/399176/akamai_employee_tried_sell_secrets_israel/

[azurnoir]

2. Interesting the difference in his motivations beteen the articles

Ynet says "helping the homeland" and PC Guide says "to make bad things happen to his ex-wife" I actually find the latter more believable, in any event Doxer is indeed a fool

[shaayecanaan]

3. He's enough of an idiot that you almost feel sorry for him...

and I imagine that the biggest challenge in prosecuting him was trying to establish that the information he held was actually capable of damaging US national interests.

Hopefully his sentence will not be too severe. If a homeless guy wandered into the Israeli embassy offering to sell them Colonel Sanders' secret recipe you wouldn't expect a firing squad, it should be the same with this guy.

And yeah, I think wanting to square things with his ex-wife is a lot more credible than serving the fatherland, if I were his lawyer I would go with the former rather than the latter.

[bemildred]

4. I do feel sorry for him, there is no cure for that sort of dumb.

On the other hand, nobody appears to have twisted his arm.

[Scurrilous]

5. US scientist pleads guilty to attempted espionage

Former US government space scientist pleads guilty to for trying to sell classified information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy. Prosecutors say he agreed to provide information to the Mossad

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4119351,00.html

<snip>

"A former US government space scientist pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of attempted espionage for trying to sell classified information to an undercover FBI agent posing as an Israeli spy.

Stewart David Nozette entered the plea in federal court, where both the Justice Department and Nozette's lawyers agreed to a sentence of 13 years in prison, with credit for two years he has already spent behind bars. US District Judge Paul Friedman said he was prepared to accept the deal, pending Nozette's cooperation with prosecutors, a procedure expected to last into November.

Nozette has been in jail since he was arrested nearly two years ago after an undercover sting operation. He was accused of seeking millions to sell secrets to an FBI agent posing as an Israeli intelligence officer.

Appearing in court in a prison jumpsuit, Nozette said he understood the charge to which he was pleading. He could have been sentenced to death had he been convicted of all four counts of attempted espionage that he faced.

Just before his arrest, Nozette told an undercover FBI agent in the sting operation that the secrets he was passing to Israel had cost the US government anywhere from $200 million to almost a billion dollars to develop."