AMD is not involved in data theft

The FBI has released further details of the former Intel employee’s rather amateur data theft case.

Like about that we reported yesterday, Biswahoman Pani, a former Intel employee, has been charged with stealing several confidential documents from his former employer. The FBI has also released additional details, probably as a result of high interest and to clarify AMD's involvement. Pani resigned from Intel on May 2008, 29, claiming that he wanted to make a living from a hedge fund business, and took his accumulated leave for the duration of his notice. Although his last working day was June 11 at the company, he started working for Intel’s biggest rival, AMD, on June 2, so he was employed by both companies for about nine days. Even a sudden change of Pani would have been enough to find himself in a very awkward position, as his contract quite certainly contained a restriction prohibiting him from locating with a competitor of the company.

According to the investigative material released by the FBI, Pani received a rating of "below expectations" for his work last year during the annual performance evaluation. The engineer admitted that he was upset by the assessment, as was the fact that he had to live away from his wife. (He worked at the company's office in Hudson, Massachusetts, while his wife worked at an Intel office in California.) Pani asked for his wife's transfer, but still submitted his resignation hours after learning that Intel had accepted the transfer request. His boss spoke with Pani the next day, May 30, who said at the time that he would spend the first two days of his notice period off to start his new career, while the rest of the time he would help his wife move. Thus, he remained employed by the company until June 11.

The engineer kept secret that he had been negotiating with AMD for a job since February 2008 and had been hired by the company since June 2. When Intel left on June 11, they realized Pani’s dual employee status. At that time, their company laptop was immediately scanned and based on the log files found on the machine, they realized that Pani had used Intel's Anacapa database many times between June 8th and 10th and had also downloaded thirteen confidential documents from there. (Prior to that, Pani had only used the database three times in five years.)

The FBI conducted a house search at Pan on July 1, where eight Intel documents and nineteen CAD designs were found. All materials were classified as Confidential, Secret, or Top Confidential. When Panit was questioned, the engineer admitted that he had brought the data from the company, but said it was out of curiosity or to help his wife learn about his new position in the Hudson office. However, his wife’s work has nothing to do with the materials Pani stole.

The investigation did not reveal any evidence that AMD had anything to do with the theft or was aware of it at all. According to the FBI, the engineer would have used the downloaded data for his own benefit by making the ideas and concepts that fell from them his own at AMD, but never tried to offer or even sell them to AMD.

Most likely, it would have been AMD itself to file a complaint against Pani if ​​it tries to sell the stolen materials to the company or if it finds out that Pani has stolen intelligence.