Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Qualcomm CEO's laptop vanishes, containing corporate secrets After addressing a national business journalists' meeting in Irvine, California, Qualcomm chief executive Irvin Jacobs found that someone had stolen his laptop computer, which he left on the floor of a hotel conference room. The thief acquired not only an IBM Thinkpad but also the Qualcomm secrets it contains, because Jacobs had just finished telling the audience that the slide-show presentation he was giving with his laptop contained proprietary information that could be valuable to foreign governments. People in the area "included registrants, exhibitors and guests at our conference, hotel staff and perhaps others.'' Qualcomm, a leader in the wireless industry, and is the world's leading developer of a technology known as CDMA, which makes high-speed Internet access available on wireless devices. (Reuters/*San Jose Mercury News*, 18 Sep 2000 http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/ap/docs/412258l.htm; NewsScan Daily, 18 September 2000) ["NewsScan" via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 05] 0:00 # G!