From the AEGIS e-Journal, Volume 6 Number 8, August 2003
The Quiet Threat Ronald L. Mendell Charles C Thomas Publisher ISBN: 0-398-07389-9 208 pages $49.95 http://www.ccthomas.com/ 1-800-258-8980 The protection of information is one of the three areas in which The LUBRINCO Group specializes, and the one that most confuses potential clients who should be interested in our services. While losses from economic espionage and competitive intelligence are a serious problem, and one that by some estimates costs American companies about three hundred billion dollars a year, companies often don’t believe it can happen to them. This is particularly true if they are in some benign field far from the world of defense contracts, don’t understand the issues involved, don’t think about protecting information outside of their direct control, and, most of all, ÆGIS, August 2003 11 consider security a necessary cost to be minimized. For these companies, the first sign of being the victim of economic espionage is when some competitor offers their product before they do, or underbids them on a job. The Quiet Threat gives a good overview of the whole area of information protection, showing how everybody has to be involved in the protection of their own livelihoods. This includes security guards, managers, executives, and regular employees. If everyone is not conscious of the risks, and does not play some small part in the protection of information, it is fairly sure that a company faces a very good chance of being a victim. There are a lot of reasons for this, and this book covers them well, including the fact that an economic spy is willing to spend a great deal of effort and cunning to get information, and unless companies are willing to put cunning to use on their own behalf, they are unlikely to be able to protect themselves. We were sorry there was nothing dealing with the OPSEC process, but at this point in time LUBRINCO is one of the few non-government organizations working with OPSEC. That aside, this book is, on the whole, an excellent introduction to dealing in a practical manner with this fascinating area of corporate risk. If the thought of giving away the store disturbs you, this will be an excellent book for you to read before calling us in. The NEC 515 quad-band GSM terminal http://www.nechdm.com/ http://www.attws.com/ For those who travel, the world of mobile phones is primarily GSM outside of the U.S., and increasingly GSM within the U.S. Back in the good old days we needed one GSM handset: 900 MHz for Europe and a few other places. Then, when Sprint launched GSM in the U.S., we needed two handsets: 900 MHz for travel and 1900 MHz for the U.S. Eventually those of us who travel got the Bosch WorldPhone, which was a 900/1900 dual-band handset. This was good for a while, but eventually they started running out of 900 MHz spectrum, and launched 1800 MHz. Since there were no tri-band handsets, many of us used a 1900 MHz handset here in the U.S., and dual- band 900/1800 MHz handsets in Europe. Eventually, tri-band handsets started to be introduced. However, not too long thereafter, 850 MHz GSM was implemented, with GSM 850 now being used in Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Dominica, ÆGIS, August 2003 12 Ecuador, Grenada, Montserrat, Panama, Paraguay, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia St Vincent & The Grenadines, and the United States. This essentially outdated all new tri-band handsets before they came out. Unfortunately, there were no quad-band handsets. This is changing, apparently because the manufacturers have little economic choice in the matter. In the past handsets were expensive, often costing up to $500, and aimed largely at business users. They are now commodity items, generally costing $200 or less, and are aimed largely at a younger mass market. One of the outcomes of this is that where a manufacturer formerly had two handsets in a market, they may now have twenty. In practical terms this means that it is much more economical to make one radio that works on all bands, and can be used in a wide variety of terminals. Thus, we believe we will be seeing more and more quad-band handsets being made, and that they may eventually become the rule, rather than the exception. Lest there be any misunderstanding of what follows, we believe that our readers are primarily interested in making phone calls, and secondarily in sending text messages. This means an appropriate radio, appropriate frequencies, and appropriate battery life are the primary things they look for in a handset. There appears to be little or no primary interest by our readers in games, FM radios, speakerphones, MP3 players, cameras, video recorders, Internet access, or fancy co-ordination of the phone with complex office schedules. In addition, we believe that as camera phones become more popular, there will be an increase in the number of business that prohibit camera phones on their premises. It is within this context that we need to look at the NEC 515, the first of the quad-band handsets. The NEC 515, which will be carried in the U.S. by AT&T Wireless, is a small flip-phone, and seems to be following in the steps of successful Japanese handsets. The handset has a very readable high- definition color display, GPRS for Internet access, and polyphonic ring tones, which are much louder than monophonic ring tones. As is the current trend in handsets, the NEC 515 has a relatively small capacity battery – about 4.5 hours talk time and 205 hours of standby, according to the literature, and less than that in real life. The phone is designed, however, so that the battery is a separate attachable unit, and there is no reason why a battery with much greater capacity couldn’t be added. In addition, we sadly note that there is no longer any handset being made that does not require you to carry an extra battery or two. There is no car kit ÆGIS, August 2003 13 available, but a vehicle power adapter and hands-free headset are available at http://www.nechdm.com/. It has a SAR of 1.2 (we like it to be 0.5 or less). Is this handset for you? If you bounce around the world a whole lot and believe a quad-band handset to be a more convenient choice than carrying both a 900/1800 handset and an 850/1900 handset, this is the only game in town at the moment, and well worth trying. 7. Free-Subscription/Unsubscription/Copyright Information •• ÆGIS e-journal is supported and maintained by voluntary efforts. This publication is owned, published, and copyright © 2003 by The LUBRINCO Group Ltd, Inc. and Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc. It is edited jointly by Richard Isaacs ([email protected]) and L. Burke Files ([email protected]). The LUBRINCO Group provides services in three high-threat areas, too specialized to be dealt-with in-house, that can adversely affect domestic and international bottom lines. • Protection of trade secrets and intellectual assets. o Anti-economic espionage. o OPSEC: The identification and protection of information that would give your competitors and adversaries an advantage. • International financial investigations and due diligence consulting. o Location and recovery of missing and hidden assets. o Establishing business relationships and strategic partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe, the offshore financial centers, Beijing and Shanghai, Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. o Anti-money laundering and financial fraud requirements under the International Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act of 2003 and the EU Revised Money Laundering Directive of 2003. • Protection of management, staff, and families. o In the high-threat environments of Latin America, Africa, the Mid- East, and Southeast Asia. o When traveling and living overseas. o When transporting items of substantial value. LUBRINCO identifies and quantifies threats and vulnerabilities, and their associated risk, then manages the vulnerabilities so you can transfer or live ÆGIS, August 2003 14 with the residual risk. We prevent disastrous financial loss to your company, and physical harm to you, your family, and your staff. For information on The LUBRINCO Group and its services, or for the archive of all past issues of ÆGIS e-journal in PDF format, please go to http://www.lubrinco.com/. To sign up for a complimentary subscription to ÆGIS e-journal or the ÆGIS e- journal PDF notification list, go to http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=7768 or send an email to [email protected]. To subscribe to our AvantGo channel, go to http://avantgo.com/channels/_add_channel.pl?cha_id=1773 To be removed from the subscription list, follow the instructions on the mailing you received, or send an e-mail to [email protected]. If you know of anyone else who should be receiving ÆGIS e-journal, please send their e-mail address to [email protected]. If there is a topic that you would like to know more about, send it to [email protected] and the editors will consider it as the topic for an article in an upcoming issue. If you would like to submit an article for publication in ÆGIS e-journal, send it as an attachment to an e-mail to [email protected]. Submission of an article certifies that (a) all information in the article is in the public record, or (b) that you are authorized to release any personal or corporate proprietary information contained in the article, and (c) that none of the article has previously been copyrighted. The submission of materials for publication in ÆGIS e-journal constitutes a license to The LUBRINCO Group Ltd, Inc., and/or Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc, their assigns, associates, or affiliates, to abridge and/or edit said submission, and to copyright and publish/republish any submitted materials in whatever written and/or electronic form they may choose. If you would like to go beyond normal fair-use in reproducing articles from this issue of ÆGIS e-journal, you may do so freely as long as appropriate source, copyright, accreditation, and link to the LUBRINCO website is included. This should be in the form
Article Title, from the August 2003 ÆGIS e-journal (© 2003 LUBRINCO & FEE), to be found at http://www.lubrinco.com/. ÆGIS, August 2003 15 ÆGIS e-journal is a forum for the exchange of information, ideas, operating styles, theories, and related topics for corporate managers who make decisions about threats typically outside the expertise available in-house, yet which have the potential to affect their company’s domestic and international bottom lines. Nothing appearing in ÆGIS e-journal should be construed as legal advice. The information provided is “general information,” not “specific advice.” The solution to any problem is highly dependent upon the precise facts involved. Thus, before making any reliance upon anything said here, you should consult with an appropriately skilled professional. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher, and may be presented to encourage a dialogue among subscribers. The publisher and any re-publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred as a result of the application of any information published in ÆGIS e-journal. Please be safe, and be smart.