EETimes: Engineers arrested for selling Intel test CPUs on eBay

[SlowSpyder]

We had a desktop support technician stealing new computers from inventory and selling them on Ebay a while back. This tech forgot that HP puts our asset tags on when they box the machines, our tags have our Helpdesk number on them. Well, the tech apparently wanted to sell the stolen laptops as new, unopened machines and forgot about the Helpdesk number on the asset tags.

Our helpdesk was rather surprised to get a call from a random person with a tech question about their new laptop they bought from Ebay... It is amazing how dumb people can be, Ebay is way too public for that sort of thing. :hmm:

 

[Ben90]

If you read the article it looks like it was a lot more than $82k.

...taking 178 sample CPUs – worth an estimated $82,500...

The suspects admitted to selling more than 500 Intel engineering sample CPUs since 2009.

 

[Grooveriding]

We had a desktop support technician stealing new computers from inventory and selling them on Ebay a while back. This tech forgot that HP puts our asset tags on when they box the machines, our tags have our Helpdesk number on them. Well, the tech apparently wanted to sell the stolen laptops as new, unopened machines and forgot about the Helpdesk number on the asset tags.

Our helpdesk was rather surprised to get a call from a random person with a tech question about their new laptop they bought from Ebay... It is amazing how dumb people can be, Ebay is way too public for that sort of thing. :hmm:

It's never a surprise to hear the dumbest of people are the ones doing the stealing from work. Well, except the wall street crooks, they got away with it.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

I know of only a couple instances of it happening but when we find these people selling ES chips we do take it very serious.

http://www.intel.com/support/processors/sb/CS-030747.htm

 

[StrangerGuy]

The article never mentions how the police knew about this but I think its probably they put actual pics of the chips and openly selling then as ESes openly on Ebay, instead of simply selling them as used retail chips.

I'm under the impression for every one dumb criminal caught there are always 10x smarter ones doing the same stuff and keeping it under the radar.

 

[soccerballtux]

I know in china the only way to get the police involved in catching IP theft (fake rolex, clothing, whatever) is if you pay them to go do raids for you. Some employees I used to work with were on business in Shenzhen and had to ask the street vendor they were talking to about 5 times before they could get him to bring out the Northface gear. Needless to say he first checked up and down the street a couple times to make sure he wasn't going to get in trouble before he went into the attic and started throwing down the Northface apparell.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Earlier this year a man in Germany posted an ES processor (socket 2011) on EBay for Germany. This was sent to Intel security and in the middle of the night in Germany that processor was removed from EBay.

In the past we have had people call looking for technical support for an ES processor, Bios updates to support their ES processors, or just someone posting about an ES processor that they received in a system. We do try to follow up with those and where possible deal with the issues as they arise.

 

[grkM3]

These guys are arrested for stealing and selling stolen goods.and intel dosnt want its un released chips out there on ebay.

if they were selling maybe 3 chips they would of not cared but I have seen these chips being sold for years over at xtremesystems with people having EE chips way before launch and intel finally cought the people that were talking hundreds of chips and selling them to the public.

we are not talking about 5 chips,these guys had 82k worth and that alone is grand theft.

 

[formulav8]

How often does Intel contact the engineer saying: we want the cpu back from you now. You've had it for 3 years but its still mine. We don't want you to get the $5 for selling it either

Its mainly because the guys were outright stealing. Not ES in itself.

 

[Idontcare]

These guys are arrested for stealing and selling stolen goods.and intel dosnt want its un released chips out there on ebay.

if they were selling maybe 3 chips they would of not cared but I have seen these chips being sold for years over at xtremesystems with people having EE chips way before launch and intel finally cought the people that were talking hundreds of chips and selling them to the public.

we are not talking about 5 chips,these guys had 82k worth and that alone is grand theft.

How often does Intel contact the engineer saying: we want the cpu back from you now. You've had it for 3 years but its still mine. We don't want you to get the $5 for selling it either

Its mainly because the guys were outright stealing. Not ES in itself.

Theft is still theft though, isn't it?

My employer might not have the resources to track down every pack of ball point pens that are taken out of the stock room, but that doesn't mean taking a box of ball point pens home for personal use is somehow not theft.

At any rate, as IntelEnthusiast posted, you definitely take your chances if selling ES.

 

[Magic Carpet]

What kind of paperwork engineers are required to sign when they get ahold of working material such as those samples?

 

[aigomorla]

I've seen ES on eBay for as long as I can remember myself. Intel prolly got a new head of security or smth.

actually no..

they have been busting... and they have been sniffing for while now.

just not many of u guys know.

It was only a matter of time..

but yes i have told people many times... an ES is never yours. Its always the property of intel, and intel at anytime can always ask for them back.

But this reminds me of what my sponsor once told me.

A intel rep came to him and said hey how did u like the ES's i sent ya.. and he went What ES?!?! Then the intel rep said i sent you like 100 last week.
My sponsor said no, i got no ES's from you guys... and then intel security gave him a call a week later to confirm that he recieved no ES's.

Turned out the factory never mailed them... and reported to intel that they did.. now we know where they all went.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

 

[aigomorla]

What kind of paperwork engineers are required to sign when they get ahold of working material such as those samples?

A LOT...

Most of it is NDA... a non disclosure agreement.

And no a NDA isnt 1 page either...

These guys are arrested for stealing and selling stolen goods.and intel dosnt want its un released chips out there on ebay.

if they were selling maybe 3 chips they would of not cared but I have seen these chips being sold for years over at xtremesystems with people having EE chips way before launch and intel finally cought the people that were talking hundreds of chips and selling them to the public.

we are not talking about 5 chips,these guys had 82k worth and that alone is grand theft.

Where did u hear this? Intel cares about all the cpu's which are leaked.
You guys just never hear about it.

If the CPU's were not publicized, then i dont think they would care.
But the fact is, that the cpu's are benched very early and then resold on the open market.
Completely ignoring NDA...
This is a big nononononononononono...

And ive seen them go after people for 1 cpu... even 5 cpu's...
ive seen them bust people hard, once again things u guys never hear about.

Ive even had to resend some of my loaned cpu's back to my sponsor because intel recalled them to see who was actually selling them.

IF people would follow the rules on the cpu, then yes i dont think intel would care.
But people dont... if you end up buying a 700 dollar processor, and then once ur done with it resell it on ebay for 500 earily, and the new guy has problems with a non retail pre-production ES, this causes problems.

Remember what i said? there are different level's of ES's.
I only know of 3 but im sure there is more.

Inhouse...
Preproduction.
Retail Sample...

all which dont hold intel support unless your the guy who intel gave the cpu to directly.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

The samples must add up quickly with all the new skews Intel pukes into the market on every refresh. The only thing these guys did wrong was get caught.

deleted D:

 

[aigomorla]

Its not illegal till you get caught

the only crime i can think of thats not illegal if u commited it and get caught is suicide...

They cant convict u if ur dead... :sneaky:

 

[Yukmouth]

Its not illegal till you get caught

What boggles my mind is that they actually went to jail, where they'll surely be learning how to sell stuff that's far more profitable and infinitely more destructive to the community. How about you be a responsible company, digitally mark the chips you send out, buy some of the ebay items yourself for tracking purposes and stop sending chips to companies who don't care about your policy? I don't see how creating convicts out of them is helpful to anyone.

 

[Idontcare]

What boggles my mind is that they actually went to jail, where they'll surely be learning how to sell stuff that's far more profitable and infinitely more destructive to the community. How about you be a responsible company, digitally mark the chips you send out, buy some of the ebay items yourself for tracking purposes and stop sending chips to companies who don't care about your policy? I don't see how creating convicts out of them is helpful to anyone.

Yes, lets make it Intel's fault that people who want to be criminals will pursue a life of crime, be that by selling stolen property or by selling drugs and guns.

Let's not blame the drug makers, or their buyers. Nor the gun makers, or their buyers.

And don't blame the people charged with running prisons or jails, or the citizens that want to underfund them, such that they become education facilities for illicit activities.

And definitely don't lay blame at the feet of the criminal, they are the victims here after all.

Yes, its Intel's fault that society is f'ed up. Thanks be to god that we were able to convince Intel to finally end its relentless pursuit of slavery and racial segregation, society won that one.

Now if only we could stop them from supporting the Taliban (everyone knows the Taliban prefer Intel Inside laptops). Why Intel? Why must you so recklessly support the terrorists? Won't you digitally lock your CPU's and for once in your greedy existence think of the children!? Will no one think of the children?

 

[MaxPayne63]

Split the take four ways and these guys all ruined their lives for about a year's salary.

Not a very good risk-reward, in my opinion. Or maybe they read too many internet forums and convinced themselves that there wasn't any risk, since taking something that is not yours and selling it for personal gain is, apparently, not theft. Somehow.

 

[Joepublic2]

Hmm interesting I got a pentium 3 engineering sample in a lot I bought from an OEM the other day; guess I won't try to sell it now.

 

[LoneNinja]

What boggles my mind is that they actually went to jail, where they'll surely be learning how to sell stuff that's far more profitable and infinitely more destructive to the community. How about you be a responsible company, digitally mark the chips you send out, buy some of the ebay items yourself for tracking purposes and stop sending chips to companies who don't care about your policy? I don't see how creating convicts out of them is helpful to anyone.

So criminals shouldn't go to jail? Should criminals receive no punishment? Or how about we just execute them all since they'll just do worse things than already convicted for?

Believe it or not some people convicted of theft and even drug dealing quit after they do time behind bars.

 

[Yukmouth]

Yes, lets make it Intel's fault that people who want to be criminals will pursue a life of crime, be that by selling stolen property or by selling drugs and guns.

Let's not blame the drug makers, or their buyers. Nor the gun makers, or their buyers.

And don't blame the people charged with running prisons or jails, or the citizens that want to underfund them, such that they become education facilities for illicit activities.

And definitely don't lay blame at the feet of the criminal, they are the victims here after all.

Yes, its Intel's fault that society is f'ed up. Thanks be to god that we were able to convince Intel to finally end its relentless pursuit of slavery and racial segregation, society won that one.

Now if only we could stop them from supporting the Taliban (everyone knows the Taliban prefer Intel Inside laptops). Why Intel? Why must you so recklessly support the terrorists? Won't you digitally lock your CPU's and for once in your greedy existence think of the children!? Will no one think of the children?

Get over yourself. It's like you putting a gun in my hand and expecting me not to blow your brains out, 50/50 chance no? If a entity openly presents someone an avenue of petty crime yes it's their responsibility to do everything they can to ensure that doesn't happen. Instead they're wasting tax dollars and judicial time on cases they could keep a better lid on. Hopefully the judge addresses the currently unabated ES cpu policies being that Intel can't trust their partners to do the right thing and would rather cry to the authorities than handle their business in ways that don't get themselves screwed over (repeatedly).

Making an example out of 1% of people involved in selling these CPU's isn't going to stop anyone but that 1%. As long as crime pays its something every business handing out valuables at no charge should be held accountable for.

 

[Gillbot]

Get over yourself. It's like you putting a gun in my hand and expecting me not to blow your brains out, 50/50 chance no? If a entity openly presents someone an avenue of petty crime yes it's their responsibility to do everything they can to ensure that doesn't happen. Instead they're wasting tax dollars and judicial time on cases they could keep a better lid on. Hopefully the judge addresses the currently unabated ES cpu policies being that Intel can't trust their partners to do the right thing and would rather cry to the authorities than handle their business in ways that don't get themselves screwed over (repeatedly).

Making an example out of 1% of people involved in selling these CPU's isn't going to stop anyone but that 1%. As long as crime pays its something every business handing out valuables at no charge should be held accountable for.

No, it's a moral decline of society. You used to be able to leave your house and car unlocked and reasonably expect people wouldn't bother you or your items because they were honest. Now, it's the opposite, you have to assume they are dishonest.

 

[OS]

It's not just stealing from the company, it's illegitmately profiting from stolen company property.
Among the other reasons already mentioned, IP theft, NDA violations, unsupported product in circulation and damaging their market.


I do not know how pay is for engineers in asian countries, but 80K, or even 500K all together, is still not worth destroying your career and possible civil/criminal charges.

 

[Idontcare]

Get over yourself. It's like you putting a gun in my hand and expecting me not to blow your brains out, 50/50 chance no? If a entity openly presents someone an avenue of petty crime yes it's their responsibility to do everything they can to ensure that doesn't happen. Instead they're wasting tax dollars and judicial time on cases they could keep a better lid on. Hopefully the judge addresses the currently unabated ES cpu policies being that Intel can't trust their partners to do the right thing and would rather cry to the authorities than handle their business in ways that don't get themselves screwed over (repeatedly).

Making an example out of 1% of people involved in selling these CPU's isn't going to stop anyone but that 1%. As long as crime pays its something every business handing out valuables at no charge should be held accountable for.

I once loaned a friend my car for about a month.

With your logic, had he decided to sell my car instead of returning it to me then it would have been my own fault for having not secured it in some manner that would have made it neigh impossible for my friend to steal it from me.