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Sent 1: Electronic theft by foreign and industrial spies and disgruntled employees is costing U.S. companies billions and eroding their international competitive advantage.
Sent 2: That was the message delivered by government and private security experts at an all-day conference on corporate electronic espionage.
Sent 3: "Hostile and even friendly nations routinely steal information from U.S. companies and share it with their own companies," said Noel D. Matchett, a former staffer at the federal National Security Agency and now president of Information Security Inc., Silver Spring, Md. It "may well be" that theft of business data is "as serious a strategic threat to national security" as it is a threat to the survival of victimized U.S. firms, said Michelle Van Cleave, the White House's assistant director for National Security Affairs.
Sent 4: The conference was jointly sponsored by the New York Institute of Technology School of Management and the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, a joint industry-government trade group.
Sent 5: Any secret can be pirated, the experts said, if it is transmitted over the air.
Sent 6: Even rank amateurs can do it if they spend a few thousand dollars for a commercially available microwave receiver with amplifier and a VCR recorder.
Sent 7: They need only position themselves near a company's satellite dish and wait.
Sent 8: "You can have a dozen competitors stealing your secrets at the same time," Mr. Matchett said, adding : "It's a pretty good bet they won't get caught."
Sent 9: The only way to catch an electronic thief, he said, is to set him up with erroneous information.