Software Company Sentenced for Trading With the Enemy

Software Company Sentenced for Trading With the Enemy
Grant Gross, IDG News Service
Sep 17, 2009 11:20 pm

A Colorado software vendor has been sentenced to a fine of US$14,500 for
the charge of trading with the enemy for selling oil- and
gas-exploration software to a company drilling in Cuba, the U.S.
Department of Justice and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement
announced.

In addition, Jay Leonard, president of Platte River Associates, will
serve 12 months of supervised probation for unauthorized access of a
protected computer in an unrelated case, the DOJ said.

The company pled guilty to the trading-with-the-enemy charge and Leonard
pled guilty to the hacking charge last October. The company was
sentenced for the trading-with-the-enemy charge Sept. 9.

The company's lawyer was not immediately available for comment on the
two cases.

Federal agents warned Platte River Associates (PRA) in 1998 that dealing
directly or indirectly with embargoed countries, including Cuba, is
illegal, the DOJ said.

Then in August 2000, Spanish oil company Repsol purchased PRA software.
In October 2000, a Repsol employee traveled to PRA's Boulder, Colorado,
office for software training. The Repsol employee told the PRA geologist
that the data being used for training was for a Cuban project, the DOJ said.

Leonard also learned that the data being used involved Cuban waters, but
PRA did not stop the training, the DOJ said. As the Repsol employee was
leaving the U.S., Customs seized his laptop computer, and an analysis of
the laptop revealed materials related to a potential Cuban project, the
DOJ said.

The DOJ accused PRA of providing specialized technical computer software
and computer training, which was then used to create a model for the
potential exploration and development of oil and gas within the
territorial waters of Cuba, without first having obtained a license from
the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

"Trading with the enemy is a serious crime, and in this case, a Colorado
company has been rightfully held accountable for committing that crime,"
U.S. Attorney David Gaouette, of the District of Colorado, said in a
statement.

In the hacking case, the DOJ accused Leonard of illegally accessing the
Web site of Zetaware, an oil- and gas-exploration software company and a
competitor of PRA. During the intrusion, in October 2005, Zetaware's
password-protected files were downloaded via a wireless computer network
at the Houston airport, the DOJ said.

Analysis by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation found that Leonard
used PRA assets and resources to access Zetaware's password-protected
Web site without authorization, in an attempt to obtain confidential
information, the DOJ said.

Last November, Leonard led a PRA staff meeting about a plan to exploit
the downloaded Zetaware files, the DOJ said.

Software Company Sentenced for Trading With the Enemy - PC World (17
September 2009)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/172190/software_company_sentenced_for_trading_with_the_enemy.html