FBI watching Oracle-SAP trial

IDG News Service - An FBI agent has been in the courtroom each day this week watching the Oracle-SAP trial, suggesting U.S. law enforcement continues to take an interest in the case.

SAP said in 2007, when Oracle filed its civil lawsuit against the company, that the Department of Justice had requested documents related to the matter from SAP and its TomorrowNow subsidiary. SAP said at the time that it would "fully cooperate."

In a court filing in August, SAP said there was an "ongoing investigation" by the DOJ and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into "some facts and circumstances that are involved in this matter."

Oracle originally filed 10 complaints against SAP, including copyright infringement, violation of the federal computer fraud and abuse act, breach of contract and unfair competition. It agreed to pursue only the copyright claim at trial after SAP accepted some liability.

It's not unusual for representatives from the DOJ or the FBI to listen in at civil proceedings to learn more about a case or help them determine if they wish to file criminal charges.

"We have an interest in the case," the FBI agent said in court Thursday. He declined to comment further or provide his name. A spokesman with the FBI office in San Francisco would not confirm or deny it is watching the case.

Kyle Waldinger, an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco, was also in court observing the case this week, Bloomberg reported.

SAP spokesman Bill Wohl declined to comment beyond reiterating that his company would cooperate with any requests. A spokeswoman for Oracle declined to comment.

SAP has admitted that its now-closed TomorrowNow subsidiary stole support materials from an Oracle website, and the trial is to determine how much damages SAP should pay.

Charles Phillips, a former Oracle president, testified for Oracle in the case this week, and Oracle Chairman and CEO Larry Ellison is due to take the stand Monday. SAP will begin to present its defense in about 10 days, and the trial is expected to wrap up before the end of the month.

Conficker Eye Chart

Conficker's April 1 update has come and gone. Since then it has updated via P2P software but still hasn't caused any problems (at least nothing noticeable). Still, better safe than sorry. In case you may not know, here is a Conficker "eye chart" you use to see if your computer is infected with the Conficker worm. Click the link and look at the eye chart. If you see all the icons, you're safe. If not, then there is a list of what is possibly wrong with your computer below the picture.

China Again!?! Say It Ain't So

The latest information about the Conficker worm is pretty disturbing. People at BKIS, a Vietnamese security firm that makes the BKAV antivirus software, announced today that they found clues that the virus may have originated from China.

This conclusion was based on the firm analyzing the virus' coding. It found that Conficker's code is closely related to that of another virus (the Nimda virus) that is believed to have been made in China.

I spoke about the Conficker worm in a previous post. This news is interesting because originally they were thinking that it may have originated in Europe or Russia and with the Chinese coming under scrutiny for allegedly masterminding a spynet (see previous post) across the globe, it makes you wonder what the hell is going on? Are the Chinese poised to take over the world or do they just want to know everything? I guess, like they say, knowledge is power.

The bottom line... even if the Chinese (government) were behind this, the U.S. wouldn't do anything about it. Worldwide, China has all the money. They are loaning us the money for all these bailouts that Obama is promoting. We (the U.S.) will just politely ask them, "Could you please stop with all this computer stuff. Oh, by the way, may I please have another $1 trillion dollars." We are in no position to make demands. They know they can do whatever they want.