The Quiet Threat: Fighting Industrial Espionage in America

by Ronald L. Mendell

Book Overview

Industrial espionage is a craft that has evolved over the centuries that remains persistent in its threat. History has shown us that the techniques used today are adaptations of those developed in the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0398073902
• ISBN13: 9780398073909
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: Charles C. Thomas Publisher
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A "Can't Do Without" for Security Professionals

I came across this book as I did my advanced degree in competitive intelligence at American Military University. With globalization, outsourcing, consolidation, convergence and the constantly advancing information age in which we find ourselves today, it has become more challenging for businesses and organizations to reconcile the necessity to be inclusive and open with the need for security. Chances for unwitting and seemingly unavoidable loss of competitive secrets have multiplied, even as information thieves have become more stealthy; always seeming to be a step ahead of contemporary security measures. Mendell shows how twenty-first century business dynamics have made it such that partners and associates are easily turning to aggressors before some companies realize it. This is not fear-mongering. The threats are real , as this book shows. The threat to the integrity of the competitive information of US firms is quite serious. Yet, such information seem to be at the mercy of highly sophisticated and motivated national and international information hoodlums. But no more can these thugs operate with ease. In The Quite Threat, Mr. Mendell has crafted a handbook for every company or organization in the United States that has any competitive secret at all to protect. Indeed, as the book states, "friendly competitors don't exist - whether domestic of foreign." Yet, this book goes beyond enabling security professionals to sharpen their skills as spy catchers, but to make them super experts in counterintelligence and as collectors of intelligence themselves. In other words this book emphasizes proactive intelligence strategies more than reactive techniques. Indeed, it creates agents on the offensive. My fear is that in spite of this book, many firms will still underestimate the threat that they face until something happens, when the damage is already done. I decry the fact that despite the sordid espionage cases that abound, as this book shows, many executives still think that it can't happen to them until it's too late. There are many other books that address corporate espionage but, I seriously recommend this book because it is very comprehensive and yet precise - with only about 184 information-packed pages (Nwankama Nwankama).