[ISN] Boeing lays out case against ex-worker accused of media leaks

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/356600_eastman27.html

By ANDREA JAMES
P-I REPORTER
March 26, 2008

Investigators for The Boeing Co. told a jury on Wednesday how they 
pieced together a relationship between a Seattle Times reporter and an 
ex-Boeing employee, a relationship that could land the former employee 
in prison.

Gerald Eastman is accused of 16 counts of computer trespass. If 
convicted, he could serve up to nearly five years in prison.

Anthony Maus, a senior manager for Boeing's investigations division, 
testified in King County Superior Court that his team examined leaks to 
Times aerospace reporter Dominic Gates, who wrote articles that relied 
on internal Boeing documents.

Maus said he has analyzed thousands of documents confiscated from 
Eastman's home computer. He showed jurors more than 100 PowerPoint 
slides that detailed which of those documents he believes Gates used for 
his articles.

The Times has said that it would not confirm whether Eastman was a 
source.

Each of the 16 charges against Eastman refers to documents that were the 
basis of up to 13 Times articles, according to testimony.

For example, Maus said that a Times article on Jan. 27, 2005, headlined 
"Bigger 747 gets a close look," is based on a PowerPoint presentation 
that belonged to then-Boeing Chief Executive Harry Stonecipher.

In another instance, The Times reported that 747 production would 
increase from one plane per month to 1.5 planes per month in mid-2005. 
That statement, according to Maus, correlates to a production schedule 
chart in another confidential Boeing document.

Maus also displayed Times newspaper graphics for the jury. One, which 
the jury analyzed, detailed a map of the globe to point out where 
different parts of the 787 Dreamliner were to be made.

A similar graphic appeared in internal Boeing documents found on 
Eastman's home computer.

Since Eastman's arrest in May 2006, no more articles have appeared in 
The Times that were attributed to top-level internal Boeing documents, 
Maus testified.

Eastman found the documents by looking through Boeing's internal share 
drives, some of which were not password-protected, according to 
testimony by Maus and Del Valerio, a Boeing computer forensics expert 
who investigates media leaks.

Boeing's internal network is one of the largest private networks in the 
world, with more than 200,000 users and 400,000 devices, Valerio said.

Users and groups within Boeing can create their own "file shares," which 
are like electronic filing cabinets and folders. Some file shares are 
restricted to certain users -- but some are open to everyone.

Public defender Ramona Brandes pointed out, through questioning Maus, 
that Boeing's computer systems allowed Eastman access.

"In fact, anybody who had access to the Boeing computer network could 
have accessed that file," Brandes asked, referring to a document that 
Maus said was leaked to The Times.

Maus responded, "Well, they would have had to know what they were 
looking for. There are 50,000 shares."

Brandes also asked if Maus ever saw Eastman tamper with programs or 
impersonate other users. Maus said, "No."

Over about two years, Eastman cataloged which parts of the network were 
restricted, and which were not. He also kept track of what types of 
documents could be found in the unrestricted file shares, according to 
testimony.

Many of the documents on Eastman's home computer were marked 
confidential.

Eastman's mother and sister attended part of Wednesday's proceedings.

Marc Boman, a partner at the Seattle law firm Perkins Coie, has been 
observing the trial. Boman handles internal investigations, according to 
his firm's Web site. Boeing is a Perkins Coie client.

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