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Intel worker indicted for spilling Itanium secrets

Hacking the old-fashioned way

A former employee of Intel was charged in California with stealing trade secrets relating to the firm's future IA-64 Itanium chip, Dow Jones reports Malaysian Say Lye Ow faces an incredible 30 years in prison and US $1.5 million in fines for taking documents and computer files relating to the design and testing of the Itanium 64-bit processor, which is being developed jointly with Hewlett-Packard. He'd probably get off more lightly for stealing State Secrets. Ow, the wire says, took trade info from Intel with him to a new employer, not disclosed but which apparently is Sun Microsystems, as the documents and hard drives were seized at the Sunnyvale facility of the firm. The thefts were alleged to have happened in May and July of 1998, but, according to an Intel representative quoted in the Dow Jones' story, had little impact on the firm's current plans for the 64-bit microprocessor. Sun and Intel found themselves in an unseemly spat at last month's Developer Forum in Palm Springs, as first revealed here. But this matter, presumably, is completely unrelated to that. ®

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