INVITATION TO CYBERSECURITY 278 telecommunications infrastructure to secretly listen to phone calls. The term has been extended to mean the ability to secretly listen to any electronic communication. As we learned in Chapter 2, Internet data traverses over several hops in the core of the network as it flows between endpoints. Each hop, including at Internet service providers, provides a surveillance opportunity for the government and others. The Wiretap Act makes this illegal without a warrant, similar to how listening in on phone calls from within the telephone network was made illegal decades earlier. But even with a warrant, “tapping” electronic communications is not as valuable as it used to be because of the ubiquity of end-to-end encryption today. Encryption makes the data being “listened to” unintelligible. Section 10.4 discusses how encryption creates a perceived tension between individual privacy and security. The ECPA and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) (see Chapter 3) must be held in tension to protect national security while at the same time respecting individual rights. The Pen Register Act is similar to the Wiretap Act. A pen register is a device that records the metadata of electronic communications. Therefore, the Pen Register Act protects the metadata of Internet communications from warrantless searches, including IP addresses, protocols, and timestamps. Metadata can be used to determine the identity of people and the websites they visited and can add substantial value to investigations. 10.3.1.3 Economic Espionage Act The Economic Espionage Act prohibits the theft of a company’s trade secrets, either by a foreign government or for economic benefit, through digital means. It was passed in 1996 when companies were starting to integrate the Internet into their daily business operations. A new federal law was needed to deter the theft of data (i.e., electronic trade secrets). Trade secrets are confidential corporate data that the company has taken measures to protect and that has economic value. A famous example of a trade secret is the secret formula for Coca-Cola. The Coca-Cola Company takes major precautions to protect the formula, including keeping it locked in a vault and limiting access to only a few employees. The Economic Espionage Act contains two sections. Section 1831 prohibits stealing trade secrets and providing them to a foreign government (i.e., foreign espionage). Punishments for individuals include up to fifteen years in prison and a fine of up to five million dollars, and for organizations fines up to ten million dollars or three times the value of the trade secrets, whichever is greater. In the United States v. Chung, a former Boeing engineer was convicted of providing trade secrets to China regarding the designs of airplanes and rockets, and he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Section 1832 prohibits corporate espionage or the theft of trade secrets to benefit one company at the expense of another. Punishments for individuals include fines and up to ten years in prison, and for organizations include fines up to five million dollars or three times the value of the trade secrets, whichever is greater.
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