Ex-Intel man in whole heap of trouble
BACK IN SEPTEMBER we reported on a former Intel engineer being charged with stealing Intel’s most secret of design files and carrying them off to AMD in a poorly-executed attempt to impress his new masters.
The continuing investigation into the misbehaviour of Biswahoman Pani has now led Federal prosecutors to add four more charges and slap a price tag on the theft, a big round $1 billion.
The charges could net Pani a lifetime in jail or a hefty fine and a new career flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
In the real world, Intel engineers, like most techie workers, take work home with them every day – it’s a fact of 21st century life.
But the prosecution has set out to make an example of Pani, considering the alleged theft took place after the design engineer had dismissed himself.
AMD denied any attempt on the engineer to pass on the secrets or knowledge of the data theft. No word on the current employment status of said engineer has been passed on. µ
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AMD would be fool not to take advantage of the information provided from competitor. I am certain that Intel has had many similar opportunities when workers have defect from AMD to Intel and I bet Intel has moles inside the company as well.
Anyone who thinks there's a such thing as "secret" or "closed source" is deluding themselves. There's no doubt that Intel and AMD have engineers planted in their competitor's departments.

The trick is to develop the technology (which performs the exact same functions) with JUST enough difference to pass a patent lawsuit's discovery phase. Nobody's actually trying to innovate on their own.

The game is who plays the SAME hand of poker better. And that's what we see each time one company or the other is on top.
I doubt that AMD has anything to gain from Intel insider knowledge. This whole industry is a sham anyway, they should have simply skipped all these useless "process generations" and jumped right to 32nm. There was never any reason to produce any generation from 250nm down to 45nm other than to make product that will be instantly obsolete (and thereby make tons of sales). I am certain that history will judge this time harshly.
"In the real world, Intel engineers, like most techie workers, take work home with them every day – it’s a fact of 21st century life.
But the prosecution has set out to make an example of Pani, "

You are trying to equate this to people taking work home?!? Read up on the details - it's not about "making an example"; this guy downloaded top secret/trade secret document... it wasn't so he could work on it at home, it was not accidental. 

Trying to pass this off as something not that far from normal by relating it to engineers taking their work home and a 'fact of 21st century life' is a joke. 

Yeah this poor guy is just being victimized by the man and being made an example of - we should all rally on his behalf! Welcome to the 21st century where anyone who does anything is clearly just a victim of [insert excuse here]. Personal accountability anyone?
"In the real world, Intel engineers, like most techie workers, take work home with them every day – it’s a fact of 21st century life."

Yes, it is true that most do but not those work in processor design using software that costs 50K or more per seat and requires a serious workstation to run on. Most techie workers don't have that stuff sitting around their house so claiming that he was taking things home to work on them there seems very unlikely to me.


I believe that most computer architects/circuit designers both take work home with them and also take some memorable documents with them when they quite (mostly for nostalgic reasons). I regret that I didn't take anything when I left, since I would like to admire the work of my colleagues and myself sometimes.

I feel really sorry for you Pani. Intel is just being unreasonable.
Intels abit sore about him leaving much?

IBMs doing a similar thing right now, their PowerPC father is defecting to Apple and so IBM are doing everything in their power to limit his involtion with the competition.

Intel are doing the same things yet abit more heartlessly, by ruining a extremely talented engineers career.

Yet be it true that he stole then it should only be a serious problem if AMD actually took the data. AMD have shown in the past they waste no time in exposing their employees that are trying to share trade secrets. They have had many of them and all were instantly dismissed and exposed to the authorities.
I don't think Intel's sore about him leaving, I think they are a bit sore about him trying to leave with confidential documents/information!

And equating this to the IBM scenario is ridiculous. The IBM chief had signed a contract with a non-compete clause one year after leaving IBM (meaning he agreed when he took the job to wait a minimum of 1 year after leaving IBM before working with a competitor - this is pretty standard in the tech industry for senior folks)

And Intel is taking no action against AMD - it is purely against the employee for theft of confidential material.

Get your fact straight before trying to spread misinformation. It's as if you are trying to defend AMD, when AMD really has nothing to do with any of this. Had the employee been going to Sun, IBM, TI he would be in the same hot water.
he'll probably claim to have Asperger syndrome. Yeah, that's the ticket.
If he was regularly granted access to this information as part of his job at Intel then simply having copies of the files should not send him to jail, since there is an innocent explanation (forgot to delete/return/destroy it), however, if this information is something he was not granted access to at Intel then he is SOL.