Qualcomm's 'spy' in Russia

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January 12, 1998, Issue: 988
Section: Design

Qualcomm's 'spy' in Russia

Loring Wirbel

I waited several weeks before commenting on the arrest of Qualcomm engineer Richard Bliss in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, convinced some Russian FSB intelligence agents were jumping the gun. All indications at year's end were that such an interpretation was correct.

Now, many Americans believe it's inherently impossible for citizens of their country to be engaged in deniable spying, but history buffs realize how absurd this assumption is. Bliss' Qualcomm association raised particular red flags: First, Qualcomm's expertise-spread-spectrum modulation, burst communications, rake-receiver design-is of greatest interest to the National Security Agency. Second, optimal antenna placement for digital PCS networks is best handled with at least minimal use of radio direction-finding equipment. If Bliss had been arrested with fishy goniometric equipment, he might have been innocent, but the FSB might have pulled together circumstantial evidence to detain him.

But wait. Bliss was arrested not with DF equipment but with Global Positional System navigational equipment. Unless the Qualcomm engineer was rash enough to bring in military-grade equipment with selective availability features, the FSB's case against Bliss evaporated with that disclosure.

UN radio agencies have made clear that commercial-grade GPS and Glonass signals can be acquired anywhere on earth.

Still, though Bliss was arrested with GPS rather than radio DF equipment, the Qualcomm affair is a good excuse to re-examine national assumptions on legitimate commercial uses of goniometric equipment. With scores of PCS systems going in worldwide, we need an open international dialogue about legitimate governmental and commercial uses of what might be considered signal-intelligence equipment. To have that dialogue, companies and individuals must be honest about allegiances.

For corporations, alliances with the government should begin and end with open defense-contractor relationships at acknowledged military bases and embassies. Few companies work covertly with the intelligence community any more, because few swear allegiances to a single nation. Any still considering it should study the history of cover corporations harking back to GE in Hungary in the 1940s and Pan Am in Latin America in the 1950s. Covert missions are not patriotic; they are dishonest and disruptive.

An individual who chooses to nominally work for a corporation while employed in reality by the government is similarly not patriotic, but a troublemaker. Luckily, all indications are that neither Bliss nor Qualcomm fell into this description. But the case should give us pause, reminding us that global markets require putting all our cards on a global table.