War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America

by John J. Fialka

Book Overview

In this action-filled journey through tomorrow's headlines, award-winning journalist John Fialka reveals a secret war that jeopardizes the economic security of the United States and the livelihood of millions of Americans. The battlefield is now economic rather than ideological, but espionage in the 1990s springs directly from the ruins of the Cold War spy regimes. Newly configured, the covert operations of America's enemies-and friends-threaten to...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393040143
• ISBN13: 9780393040142
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.3" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A reader

Fialka' work is an excellent primer on yester-year industrial espionage(The book is a little out-dated). In fact, it still goes on, and it is just as it has been described by the title - it goes on silently.There are various incidents that are described in great detail about the Chinese, French, and the other "Allies" who constantly spy on their friends and other industrialised nations, and this book will serve as a jolting shock to anybody who runs a Company in a competitive economy.Great book, lucidly written, and highly recommended!

A good book in a subject area with mostly bad books

Since first popularized by Winn Schwartau, the concept of Information Warfare has tantalized and titillated. It is a fascinating idea that the wars of an information society would be fought on a digital playing field. Certainly the practice of economic espionage is not new. Reduced political tensions worldwide means that cold warriors need something to do for a living, so today, it appears that resources that were formerly applied to defense-related targets are now being redeployed against American corporations.Hitting so close to home, and being such a morbidly fascinating subject, it has tended to attract a lot of crank authors with populist approaches. While Fialka doesn't really pull his punches, his approach is much more even-handed than many writers. This well-researched and competently written book stands well above the junk being currently produced in this subject area.Although this text is now over four years old, it is still relatively current. For example, one who has read this book could not have been surprised at the amount of Federal attention paid to a nuclear physicist of Chinese extraction with strong ties to his native land, which has a long-standing pattern not only of economic espionage, but also of using and abusing non-professional spies. The author also gives convincing evidence to support the consistent rumors that the French have a ongoing tradition of government-sponsored economic warfare against their 'allied' partners. (As someone who has benefited from the character-building experience of a long-term relationship with a Peugeot, I remain convinced that although the French undoubtedly engage in economic espionage, Gallic pride prevents them from actually applying anything that they learn.)This is an excellent text for helping build a mental picture of one particular class of Information Security threat. Those involved in Infosec topics will also find value in the chapters "Virtual Justice," which explains why corporations are so reluctant to report incidents of espionage, and "Surviving" which describes the lack of attention that corporations are willing to pay to security issues. As someone who has been involved in the field for over ten years, I can attest that this attitude is pervasive, and that security failures do occur. But without a greater willingness to report incidents to the authorities, the true statistics will never be known.Given that virtually all large corporations are highly-vulnerable to attack, and given the author's supportable contention that both motivated and resourceful adversaries exist, it seems imprudent to write this book off as mere scare mongering. Since the writing of this book, the problem has only worsened.

Excellent Overview of Allied and Other Economic Espionage

John is a distinguished correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, their lead reporter during the Gulf War, and an award-winning investigative journalist in the fields of national security, politics, and financial scandal. The Chinese, Japanese, French and Russians are featured here, together with useful cross-overs into criminal gangs doing espionage on U.S. corporations, as well as overt data mining and other quasi-legal activities that yield far more economic intelligence than most business leaders understand.

WAR BY OTHER MEANS

I think this book needs to be read by every business owner in America. It contains worrysome information on how overseas people are stealing and rapeing technology and trade secrets of American Businesses and what can be done about it.

This is a must read for CIOs and directors of corporate secu

After showing that economic espionage is an age-old problem, Fialka quickly propels us into 1997, showing economic espionage occurring on a grand scale. The book is replete with examples and categorizes the major styles of this business. These are comprised of 1) those countries like China, Taiwan, and South Korea who target present and former nationals working for U.S. companies and research institutions, 2) classic Cold War recruitment methods which Russia, Israel, and Germany use to varying levels, and 3) the economic intelligence gatherers who prey on accessing company proprietary documents and data, the most successful of which is Japan. I very much agree with Fialka's assertion that the NSA, CIA, and FBI have hitherto shown they are not capable of dealing with this issue and, in my longer review (see http://www.sscs.net/bookstore/book-review-wbom.html), I discuss some of the reasons why. This book is an exceptional piece of work. Very rare indeed is the time when I find myself underlining, highlighting, and writing comments in the leaf.