From The Washington Post:
The Boeing Co. has agreed to pay $15 million to settle federal allegations that it broke the law by selling commercial airplanes equipped with a small chip that has military applications.It is among the largest fines a company has ever faced for violations of the Arms Control Export Act, which regulates the sale of defense products to overseas interests. The Chicago-based company also agreed to oversight requirements because settlements over previous violations did not result in full compliance.
Our tech is leaking out of us like a sieve. It doesn’t matter how, be it building bleeding-edge fabs in countries that are poor enforcers of IP protection, or incorporating defense-level technology on the open market, giving away the only thing of real value you have (advanced IP) is pretty dumb. To add insult to injury, they had been warned in the past about doing this very thing.
According to the State Department charges, Boeing shipped 94 commercial jets overseas between 2000 and 2003 that carried the QRS-11 gyrochip embedded in the flight boxes. At the time, the chip, used in the guidance system of the Maverick missile, was on a list of products that required a license for foreign sales.
This is an advanced MEMS device, a three-dimensional position sensor on a tiny wafer of silicon. In this matter, I actually find myself agreeing with the Government. (It’s a wierd feeling.)
