An Unmasking that May Kill the C2i

If you have not heard, the campaign group Plane Stupid recently caught a spy from corporate 'intelligence' group C2i in their midst;

Since late summer 2007, an employee of a corporate espionage agency has been trying to infiltrate Plane Stupid. Toby Kendall, who works for C2i International, a "special risk management" firm, thought he was undercover in our London group, gathering information on what we're up to. Instead we've been feeding the 'revenge movie' obsessed mole false information, which he's been reporting to the aviation industry for months.

Kendall, described as 'more Austin Powers than 007' bragged about his job on various social network sites (as well as a misogynistic streak coming from his bebo profile, 'Scared of: Having an uglier wife than Brooke's' he swaggers. Well ladies... whatcha wating for? He's a catch!)

So if you see this guy;



At any meeting or action - watch out!

Now if you go to his employers website - C2i, they have a news section where they point to recent media articles with them in - as of the date of writing the most recent entry was 12th November 2005. Indeed the site looks barren of activity. So they must have not been in the news? A quick google news search reveals plenty of mention of the company - but all out the outing of their super-spy.

Where this gets interesting is what future does C2i have? In a parallel case, the corporate spy group who went after peer-to-peer users, Media Defender, itself got hacked and thousands of emails and other files spilled out onto the internet, revealing lots of company secrets and operational methods. If you build the reputation of a company in understanding technology and you get popped by a better user of technology, that costs. It cost Media Defender over $825,000 and ended up bankrupting the company. How many clients have bailed on C2i (assuming it had more than one) since this story broke?

However the downside it that corporate infiltration won't stop, it will just get better - so we have to get more creative as a counter.