iBankCoin
Home / News (page 41)

News

Is Speed Trader Mark Gorton Killing Wall Street?

D.M. Levine

Mark Gorton is sitting in the Zen garden on the roof of his office in downtown Manhattan, squinting into the sunlight and telling me he’s not evil.

“If you listen to some of the rhetoric in the press recently, you’d think we were killing babies,” Gorton says, in between sips of organic blood-orange soda as he leans forward in a wicker chair. He’s upset that his business is being “tarred” by the bad publicity plaguing the rest of Wall Street. “What we’re doing is a net positive for the world.”

This is an interesting complaint because in many ways Mark Gorton is the new face of Wall Street. Gorton is a high-frequency trader. His company, Tower Research Capital LLC, with its 275-person global staff of engineers and computer science and physics majors, is part of an industry that today is responsible for more than half of all stock trading in the United States, according to the Tabb Group, a financial markets research and strategic advisory firm. Gorton’s is an industry under scrutiny.

Read the rest here.

Comments »

FoxNews Has Kicked Off An Election Year Whistleblower Drive

Government or corporate instances of corruption welcome.

Read here:

From the General Services Administration’s lavish parties and outrageous bonuses to reports that U.S. Secret Service agents partied with prostitutes, the actions of some government employees has raised new questions about how the U.S. government and its agencies are spending hard-earned taxpayers’ money.

If you know of instances of wasteful spending or gross misconduct by major corporations or federal government agencies and their employees, drop FoxNews.com a line. We’ll investigate your confidential tips and, if they check out, we will expose what’s happening to your taxpayer dollars. Send tips to: [email protected]

Comments »

Disgraced Secret Service Agents Were Caught With 21 Women

Read here:

Secret Service agents and members of the U.S. military brought as many as 21 women back to their hotel during their assignment to Colombia last week, a top senator briefed on the prostitution scandal said Tuesday.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the top Republican on the Senate homeland security committee, said she was briefed for a half-hour Monday night by Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan. Collins said she learned that U.S. Marines, as well as the 11 Secret Service agents now on administrative leave, were allegedly involved — which could account for why so many women were brought back to the hotel.

“There are 11 agents involved. Twenty or 21 women foreign nationals were brought to the hotel, but allegedly Marines were involved with the rest,” Collins said in a statement.

It was previously unclear how many women might have been involved in the incident that has brought international embarrassment upon the agencies tied up in the scandal. President Obama had traveled to Colombia for a series of meetings that were supposed to focus on trade and other pressing issues between the U.S. and its Latin American ally, but the scandal overshadowed those issues.

Collins said Sullivan is “rightly appalled by the agents’ actions and is pursuing a vigorous internal investigation.”

The senator also questioned whether the incident indicates “a problem with the culture of the Secret Service” and whether the men could have been compromised by their alleged behavior.

“Who were these women? Could they have been members of groups hostile to the United States? Could they have planted bugs, disabled weapons, or in any others jeopardized security of the president or our country?” she said, referring to questions she raised with Sullivan.

The Secret Service has already revoked the security clearances for the 11 agents accused of misconduct.

Comments »

RIM Said to be Hiring Bankers to Explore Strategic Options

Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM), the troubled maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, is in talks to hire a financial adviser to help it weigh strategic options, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

A decision to work with at least one bank could come in the next few days, said one of the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deliberations are private. RIM would prefer an agreement to license its mobile-phone software, and its next choice is a strategic investment, one person said. RIM doesn’t plan to sell itself, the person said….”

Full article

Comments »

SEC Charges optionsXpress and Five Individuals Involved in Abusive Naked Short Selling Scheme

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
2012-66

Washington, D.C., April 16, 2012The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged an online brokerage and clearing agency specializing in options and futures as well as four officials at the firm and a customer involved in an abusive naked short selling scheme.

The SEC’s Division of Enforcement alleges that Chicago-based optionsXpress failed to satisfy its close-out obligations under Regulation SHO by repeatedly engaging in a series of sham “reset” transactions designed to give the illusion that the firm had purchased securities of like kind and quantity. The firm and customer Jonathan I. Feldman engaged in these sham reset transactions in a number of securities, resulting in continuous failures to deliver. Regulation SHO requires the delivery of equity securities to a registered clearing agency when delivery is due, generally three days after the trade date (T+3). If no delivery is made by that time, the firm must purchase or borrow the securities to close out the failure-to-deliver position by no later than the beginning of regular trading hours on the next day (T+4).

The former chief financial officer at optionsXpress – Thomas E. Stern of Chicago – was named in the SEC’s administrative proceeding along with optionsXpress and Feldman. Three other optionsXpress officials – head of trading and customer service Peter J. Bottini and compliance officers Phillip J. Hoeh and Kevin E. Strine – were named in a separate administrative proceeding and settled the charges against them for their roles in the scheme.

“Feldman and optionsXpress used sham reset transactions to avoid, sometimes for months, compliance with Reg. SHO’s stock delivery requirements,” said Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “In effect, they ‘kited’ shares of stock, thus depriving buyers of the benefit of their bargain – prompt delivery of their shares.”

Daniel M. Hawke, Chief of the Division of Enforcement’s Market Abuse Unit, added, “Reg. SHO compliance continues to be a high enforcement priority. Broker-dealers, their employees, and their customers must ensure that they comply with the close-out requirements of the short sale rules and regulations.”

According to the SEC’s order, the misconduct occurred from at least October 2008 to March 2010. In September 2011, optionsXpress became a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Charles Schwab Corporation.

The SEC’s Enforcement Division alleges that the sham reset transactions impacted the market for the issuers. For example, from Jan. 1, 2010 to Jan. 31, 2010, optionsXpress customers including Feldman accounted for an average of 47.9 percent of the daily trading volume in one of the securities. In 2009 alone, the optionsXpress customer accounts engaging in the activity purchased approximately $5.7 billion worth of securities and sold short approximately $4 billion of options. In 2009, Feldman himself purchased at least $2.9 billion of securities and sold short at least $1.7 billion of options through his account at optionsXpress.

According to the SEC’s order, by engaging in the alleged misconduct, optionsXpress violated Rules 204 and 204T of Regulation SHO; Feldman willfully violated Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 10b-5 and 10b-21 thereunder; optionsXpress and Stern caused and willfully aided and abetted Feldman’s violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act, Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rules 10b-5 and 10b-21 thereunder; and Stern caused and willfully aided and abetted optionsXpress’s violations of Rules 204 and 204T.

In the separate settled administrative proceeding, Bottini, Hoeh, and Strine consented to a cease-and-desist order finding that they caused optionsXpress’s violations of Rules 204 and 204T of Regulation SHO and ordering them to cease-and-desist from committing or causing violations of Rule 204. They neither admitted nor denied the SEC’s findings.

The SEC’s investigation was conducted by Deborah Tarasevich, Jill Henderson, and Paul Kim. Market Surveillance Specialist Brian Shute, Market Abuse Unit Trading Specialist Ainsley Fuhr, and Financial Economist Michael P. Barnes provided assistance with the investigation. The litigation will be led by Frederick Block.

Source

Comments »

India’s Inflation Accelerates Faster Than Expected Curbing Hopes of Rate Cuts

 

India’s inflation slowed less than estimated in March as food and fuel prices rose, limiting room for cuts in interest rates to bolster a weakening economy.

 

The benchmark wholesale-price index advanced 6.89 percent from a year earlier, the commerce ministry said in a statement in New Delhi today, compared with a 6.95 percent climb in February and the median 6.65 percent estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 33 economists.

 

The Reserve Bank of India, which reviews policy tomorrow, has signaled readiness to lower borrowing costs for the first time since 2009 to boost domestic demand as Europe’s debt crisis and a slowdown in China dim the global outlook. It has also flagged the risk of a revival in price pressures because of the rupee’s slide, costlier oil and the fiscal gap.

 

“Inflation worryingly could be sticky, and the recent comments by the RBI suggest it is growing more and more concerned by downside risks,” said Vishnu Varathan, an economist at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. in Singapore. The central bank will move “gradually” and cut no more than 25 basis points at any one meeting and 100 basis points in total in the year through March, he said…”


Read more

Comments »

The Life and Death of Andrew Breitbart

David Carr

ON the last night of February, Arthur Sando was having a drink at the Brentwood Restaurant and Lounge in Los Angeles when a bearded silver-haired man took a seat next to him, ordered a glass of pinot noir and began typing into his BlackBerry.

Mr. Sando quickly realized he was sitting next to Andrew Breitbart, the conservative blogger and author, and the two began to chat. As with almost any encounter with Mr. Breitbart, the next 90 minutes between the former strangers was punctuated by laughs, some outrageous political assertions and repeated interruptions as Mr. Breitbart checked his smartphone.

“We talked politics, television, college and living in Los Angeles,” Mr. Sando said, adding that Mr. Breitbart had a single glass of wine during the conversation and seemed to be in both good spirits and good health. “He said that conversations like ours were why he liked to go to bars and talk with people who had different political beliefs.”

Mr. Sando paid his tab and left. Not long after, Mr. Breitbart, 43, settled his own bill and apparently headed to the nearby home he shared with his wife, Susie Bean Breitbart, and their four young children. Minutes after exiting the bar, he collapsed in front of a Starbucks like a “sack of potatoes,” one witness said. Paramedics were unable to revive him. Later, his father-in-law, the actor Orson Bean, said that Mr. Breitbart had a history of heart ailments. (A final coroner’s report, with the official cause of death, is expected this month.)

The following morning, Mr. Sando, a marketing executive from Los Angeles whose encounter with Mr. Breitbart was first reported in The Hollywood Reporter, grabbed his iPhone. The first thing he saw was a headline saying Mr. Breitbart had died.

“I thought it was a prank,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “I thought he might have been in the habit of sending fake headlines to people he had encountered with different political opinions.”

It was a common response, particularly among people who knew him well. After a lifetime of pranks, capers and so many people wishing him dead, it would have been just like Mr. Breitbart to stage his own demise.

“I kept thinking, he is going to pull something off here,” said Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas, at a memorial held at the Newseum in Washington three weeks later. “He’s going to find out who hates his guts and who loved him, and I kept wanting to hear back, ‘O.K., the gag’s up.’ ”

On the Web, there was a huge outpouring of both invective and grief. Dark, unsubstantiated theories that he was murdered mushroomed immediately, while 24 of his friends used the hashtag #DJBreitbart on Twitter to offer a playlist of his beloved ’80s music. His own Twitter account (which included more than 80 tweets sent on the day before his death) now sits as a frozen memorial.

In the days following the death of Mr. Breitbart, many of his admirers adopted a meme of “I am Breitbart,” and vowed to continue his work. But even though his Web site, run by his business partner and lifelong friend Larry Solov, is fully staffed and unveiled a redesign after his death, there could be no real replacement.

For good or ill (and most would say ill), no one did it like Mr. Breitbart.

Read the rest here.

Comments »

Why Do We Really Get Tattoos?

Having a tattoo has lost its original meaning. Having a tattoo now has no meaning. Having a tattoo means that you have a tattoo.

While there is no longer any compelling reason to get a tattoo, there are several reasons not to:

Read the rest here.

Comments »

FLASH: Google Publishes Weird Letter to Announce 2 for 1 Stock Split

Introduction

Throughout our evolution, from privately held start-up to large, publicly listed company, we have managed Google for the long term—enjoying tremendous success as a result, especially since our IPO in 2004. Sergey and I hoped, though we did not expect, that Google would have such significant impact, and this progress has made us even more impatient to do important things that matter in the world. Our enduring love for Google comes from a strong desire to create technology products that enrich millions of people’s lives in deep and meaningful ways. To fulfill these dreams, we need to ensure that Google remains a successful, growing business that can generate significant returns for everyone involved.

Corporate Structure

When we went public, we created a dual-class voting structure. Our goal was to maintain the freedom to focus on the long term by ensuring that the management team, in particular Eric, Sergey and I, retained control over Google’s destiny. As we explained in our first founders’ letter:

“We are creating a corporate structure that is designed for stability over long time horizons. By investing in Google, you are placing an unusual long term bet on the team, especially Sergey and me, and on our innovative approach…

We want Google to become an important and significant institution. That takes time, stability and independence…

In the transition to public ownership, we have set up a corporate structure that will make it harder for outside parties to take over or influence Google. This structure will also make it easier for our management team to follow the long term, innovative approach emphasized earlier…

The main effect of this structure is likely to leave our team, especially Sergey and me, with increasingly significant control over the company’s decisions and fate, as Google shares change hands…

New investors will fully share in Google’s long term economic future but will have little ability to influence its strategic decisions through their voting rights…

Our colleagues will be able to trust that they themselves and their labors of hard work, love and creativity will be well cared for by a company focused on stability and the long term…

As an investor, you are placing a potentially risky long term bet on the team, especially Sergey and me. …. Sergey and I are committed to Google for the long term.”

I wanted to quote all that because these were the clear, well-publicized expectations we established for investors in 2004. While this decision was controversial at the time, we believe with hindsight it was absolutely the right thing to do. Eight years later, these statements are still remarkably accurate, and everyone involved has realized tremendous benefits as a result. Given Google’s success, it’s unsurprising that this type of dual-class governance structure is now somewhat standard among newer technology companies.

In our experience, success is more likely if you concentrate on the long term. Technology products often require significant investment over many years to fulfill their potential. For example, it took over three years just to ship our first Android handset, and then another three years on top of that before the operating system truly reached critical mass. These kinds of investments are not for the faint-hearted.

We have protected Google from outside pressures and the temptation to sacrifice future opportunities to meet short-term demands. Long-term product investments, like Chrome and YouTube, which now enjoy phenomenal usage, were made with a significant degree of independence.

We have a structure that prevents outside parties from taking over or unduly influencing our management decisions. However, day-to-day dilution from routine equity-based employee compensation and other possible dilution, such as stock-based acquisitions, will likely undermine this dual-class structure and our aspirations for Google over the very long term. We have put our hearts into Google and hope to do so for many more years to come. So we want to ensure that our corporate structure can sustain these efforts and our desire to improve the world.

Effectively a Stock Split: And a New Class of Stock

Today we announced plans to create a new class of non-voting capital stock, which will be listed on NASDAQ. These shares will be distributed via a stock dividend to all existing stockholders: the owner of each existing share will receive one new share of the non-voting stock, giving investors twice the number of shares they had before. It’s effectively a two-for-one stock split—something many of our investors have long asked us for. These non-voting shares will be available for corporate uses, like equity-based employee compensation, that might otherwise dilute our governance structure.

We recognize that some people, particularly those who opposed this structure at the start, won’t support this change—and we understand that other companies have been very successful with more traditional governance models. But after careful consideration with our board of directors, we have decided that maintaining this founder-led approach is in the best interests of Google, our shareholders and our users. Having the flexibility to use stock without diluting our structure will help ensure we are set up for success for decades to come.

In November 2009, Sergey and I published plans to sell a modest percentage of our overall stock, ending in 2015. We are currently halfway through those plans and we don’t expect any changes to that, certainly not as the result of this new potential class. We both remain very much committed to Google for the long term.

It’s important to bear in mind that this proposal will only have an effect on governance over the very long term. In fact, there’s no particular urgency to make these changes now—we don’t have an unusually big acquisition planned, in case you were wondering. It’s just that since we know what we want to do, there’s no reason to delay the decision. Also note that there will be no immediate change in votes, because everyone will still have the same number. In addition, Eric, Sergey and I have all agreed to “stapling” arrangements so that, above set thresholds, if our economic interest in Google were to decline, our votes would as well. We also have provisions to ensure all shareholders are treated fairly from an economic perspective.

For more details on all of this, please see the postscript below from our Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond, and the preliminary proxy statement we will file with the SEC next week.

Conclusion

We have always managed Google for the long term, investing heavily in the big bets we hope will make a significant difference in the world. Some of these bets have been tremendous, funding our activities and generating significant gains for our shareholders. Others have been less successful. But the ability to take these kinds of risks has been crucial to Google’s overall success and we aim to maintain this pioneering culture going forward.

The proposal we announced today is consistent with the governance philosophy we articulated when we took the company public, as well as the trend for newer technology companies to adopt strong dual-class structures. We believe that it will provide great competitive strength—insulating Google from short-term pressures, whatever the source, for a long time to come, while also giving us more flexibility around equity grants.

Investors and others have always taken a big bet on us, the founders, and that bet will likely last longer as a result of these changes. We are honored that so many of you have put your trust in us and we recognize the tremendous responsibility that rests on our shoulders. We think this is a good thing because users rely on Google to produce and operate amazing technology products and to safely and responsibly store their data. This is our passion.

Sergey and I share a profound belief in the potential for technology to improve people’s lives and we are enormously excited about what lies ahead. I couldn’t write a better conclusion to this founder’s letter than what we wrote in 2004… so here goes: “We have a strong commitment to our users worldwide, their communities, the web sites in our network, our advertisers, our investors, and of course our employees. Sergey and I, and the team will do our best to make Google a long term success and the world a better place.”

Larry Page
GOOGApr 12 04:10PM
647.04
Change

+11.08

% Change

+1.74%

Larry Page
CEO and Co-founder

Sergey BrinSergey Brin
Co-founder

April 2012

 

Comments »

Regulators Prepare to Get Tough on Commodity Swaps

“(Reuters) – Emboldened energy market regulators are mounting an aggressive new campaign to stamp out a once-common trading practice that crosses physical and paper markets, unnerving traders who fear a backlash over years-old deals.

Away from the contentious debate over Dodd-Frank derivative market reforms that followed the 2008 financial crisis, this new battle takes place in the gray area separating cash markets for commodities like crude oil and power from the swaps or futures contracts that are tied to those prices.

While many companies legitimately trade in both markets, often to hedge their positions, regulators say others are manipulating one market in order to profit in the other.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), armed in 2005 with expanded powers to tackle manipulation, is leading the charge with advanced enquiries into several big energy firms and banks, its orders show. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which gained a broader mandate to pursue price fixing in derivative markets in 2010, joined the fray last year.

A broadside last month reverberated across the industry: FERC accepted a record $245 million settlement with Constellation Energy over allegations the utility’s traders had scheduled physical flows of electricity at a loss in order to reap a greater profit on derivative positions.

Initially viewed by some analysts as a concession from Constellation to win approval of its merger with Exelon Corp, more signs are starting to emerge of a broader effort to address a type of trading activity that in the past had threatened to slip between financial regulators with differing mandates and a history of battling over regulatory turf.

The FERC declined to discuss its enforcement approach on Wednesday, but FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff told Reuters in March that the commission has beefed up market enforcement. The Constellation settlement signals “there is no profit to be made in manipulating the market; it will be a huge net loss for you,” he said.

Last week FERC quietly gave notice of “alleged violation” by four former Barclays Capital power traders for deals in California between 2006 and 2008 that were similar to what Constellation did in New York — making uneconomic trades in physical electricity markets to profit from financial swaps on the Intercontinental Exchange….”

Read more

Comments »

Allan Hall Was a Hero

Seconds later, the children started screaming for help. Their parents rushed into the water and were each able to pull a child to safety, but a third child, a little girl, was still in harms way in the rough water. Alan Hall jumped into the tide without hesitating, Julie Hall said.

Full article

Comments »

BREAKING: ZIMMERMAN IS GONE

Lawyers don’t know where the fuck he is, claiming they’ve “lost contact with Zimmerman” and no longer represents him.

Comments »

73%–Just the Beginning for Obama

SOURCE

Buffett Rule tax just the start for Obama

By James Pethokoukis

April 10, 2012, 11:13 am

It won’t stop with the Buffett Rule, at least if President Barack Obama has his way. Making sure “no millionaire pays less than 30 percent of their income in taxes” — as the White House describes its proposal — would be just the beginning of radical remaking of the U.S. tax code.

Just how radical? Well, Team Obama drops a pretty big hint in the briefing document it produced about the Buffett Rule. In section V of the document — titled “The Economic Argument for the Buffett Rule — the report starts off immediately by favorably citing this piece of evidence:

In a recent paper, Nobel-Prize winning economic Peter Diamond and renowned tax economist Emmanuel Saez note the relatively greater ability of high income taxpayers to avoid taxes, and argue that “the natural policy response should be to close tax avoidance opportunities” (Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2001).

Oh, but that Diamond-Saez study the White House likes so much — “The Case for a Progressive Tax:From Basic Research to Policy Recommendations” — says so much more.  In fact, what the study is best known for is its stunning conclusion — much talked about in liberal policymaking circles — that the “optimal tax rate” is “73 percent, substantially higher than the current 42.5 percent top U.S. marginal tax rate (combining all taxes).”

73%! The top U.S. tax rate hasn’t been that high since 1969. It was 70 percent when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 and cut taxes across the board, helping launch a 25-year economic boom after the stagflation-ridden 1970s. (And other research by Saez suggest the top tax rate should be 83%, back where it was in the 1940s.)

But it is interesting to note, especially in light of the White House’s embrace of the Diamond-Saez research, that Obama himself doesn’t think too much of those Reagan tax cuts. As Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope: “The high marginal tax rates that existed when Reagan took office may not have curbed incentives to work or invest … but they did lead to a wasteful industry of setting up tax shelters.”

So the only downside of 70% tax rate to Obama was excessive tax planning, not a huge disincentive to working, saving and investing?

Indeed, Obama made it clear in his Osawatomie, Kansas speech last December that America’s three-decade economic experiment in enhanced economic freedom—lower tax rates, less regulation, freer trade—has been a failure. Indeed, Obama said in that speech that although the “theory fits well on a bumper sticker … it has never worked.” Reagan and Clinton blew it. (Tax cutting JFK, too, apparently.) Time for a different formula. Time to raise taxes and create more rules for business with a goal of “shared prosperity and shared responsibility.”

But Operation: Reverse Reagan is already under way. In additional to cutting marginal tax rates, Reagan indexed tax brackets to inflation, stopping the automatic, inflation-induced tax hikes that were so notorious in the ’70s. But as AEIeconomist  Jim Capretta points out, the Obamacare tax hikes associated with Medicare — 0.9% on wages and 3.8% on non-wage income — are not indexed for inflation. While they will start out only hitting  high-income taxpayers ( individual with incomes exceeding $200,000 and couples with incomes above $250,000),  ever year they will affect more and more Americans, rich and middle-income alike. Bracket creep is back.

And don’t forget about the tax hike plans of liberal House members. Their recent “Budget for All” proposal would a0 allow the top-end Bush tax cuts to expire, b) create five new tax brackets — 45%, 46%, 47%, 48%, and 49% — for “millionaires and billionaires, c) slap a European-style wealth tax of 0.5% on fortunes of $10 million or more, d)  raise income taxes on the broad middle by allowing the “28% and 25% brackets to sunset once the economy is on solid footing, in 2017 and 2019, respectively.” That means higher taxes on families making over $70,000 a year.

The Buffett Rule? It would be just the beginning for Obama.

Comments »

FBI: U.S. Colleges Infected by Foreign Spies

“Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon contacted the Central Intelligence Agency in late 2009 with an urgent question.

The school’s campus in Dubai needed a bailout and an unlikely savior had stepped forward: a Dubai-based company that offered to provide money and students.

Simon was tempted. She also worried that the company, which had investors from Iran and wanted to recruit students from there, might be a front for the Iranian government, she said. If so, an agreement could violate federal trade sanctions and invite enemy spies.

The CIA couldn’t confirm that the company wasn’t an arm of Iran’s government. Simon rejected the offer and shut down undergraduate programs in Dubai, at a loss of $3.7 million.

Hearkening back to Cold War anxieties, growing signs of spying on U.S. universities are alarming national security officials. As schools become more global in their locations and student populations, their culture of openness and international collaboration makes them increasingly vulnerable to theft of research conducted for the government and industry.

“We have intelligence and cases indicating that U.S. universities are indeed a target of foreign intelligence services,” Frank Figliuzzi, Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director for counterintelligence, said in a February interview in the bureau’s Washington headquarters.

‘Academic Solicitation’

While overshadowed by espionage against corporations, efforts by foreign countries to penetrate universities have increased in the past five years, Figliuzzi said. The FBI and academia, which have often been at loggerheads, are working together to combat the threat, he said.

Attempts by countries in East Asia, including China, to obtain classified or proprietary information by “academic solicitation,” such as requests to review academic papers or study with professors, jumped eightfold in 2010 from a year earlier, according to a 2011 U.S. Defense Department report. Such approaches from the Middle East doubled, it said.

“Placing academics at U.S. research institutions under the guise of legitimate research offers access to developing U.S. technologies and cutting-edge research” in such areas as information systems, lasers, aeronautics and underwater robots, the report said….”

Read more 

Comments »