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> So here we are, everyone fantasizing about espionage. Espionage isn't a fantasy, it's very much real. People go to jail for it all the time. The only quest
by robomartin 4y ago
> So here we are, everyone fantasizing about espionage.
Espionage isn't a fantasy, it's very much real. People go to jail for it all the time. The only question is to what degree might a company be affected or targeted. Taking steps to add a reasonable layer of security to attempt to protect costly IP isn't being paranoid at all. Not to mention that in some environments there are legal requirements, a prime example being aerospace.
We have had the experience of having an employee provide confidential technical information to a multi-billion dollar international competitor. The same competitor that, for as long as a year, bribed top resellers not to feature our products at industry trade shows. Business can be absolutely brutal and, yes, it can be war.
- bradjohnson 4y agoYour particular example wouldn't be deterred from the tactics that Elon says that he used, though. If it's not leaked to the public it wouldn't be seen by those that encoded an identifier into it.
- nickff 4y agoBut it would be discoverable and traceable in the case of legal proceedings.
- bradjohnson 4y agoIf they kept the original correspondence then it would anyway. Plus this wouldn't be legally binding in a court room when Elon runs in and is like "I think the spaces match the one that I sent to this employee." That is not enough evidence to say that the employee did it when it is trivial for the ploy to be subverted by another employee just inserting a space in a random place.
- aksss 4y agodefense in layers. no single mechanism wins the trophy.
- bradjohnson 4y agoShaming tactics are orthogonal to defense, especially when the only way this succeeds is when nobody thinks the CEO is paranoid enough to try it. If anyone is leaking private memos from an Elon company now, it is trivial to disrupt this by reformatting the document and rephrasing sentences.