'Hacker Safe' leader defrauded investors, prosecutors say
A Indiana state judge on Monday ordered a security researcher at McAfee to stand trial stemming from felony charges he and a brother defrauded nine people by selling $1.25m in fraudulent stock and then using some of the money for personal items. Brett M. Oliphant formally joined McAfee in February, at least three months after …
I suppose that his company was a 'White Oliphant' then...
Mine's the one with the LoTR reference.
Hmmm , just the standard US Best Business Practices of the me myself and I type called screw the customer for every cent in the dollar possible , that we see every day , hour and minute on Wall Street , so the question now arises when are they going to charge the entire brokerage houses crew , all and sundry , who are involved in that ponzi scam market too with the same identical charges of theft and deception ?
The old story if you play the market expect to deal with a rather lot of pirates sitting in the seats in front of you !
So, an employee who was at McAfee for 3 months, and who is innocent unless proven guilty, is alleged to have committed a crime before he joined McAfee, which has nothing to do with his current role.
Shoddy journalism, guys. Daily Mail-esque.
Just so you know, he's worked there for a year and a half. And it does have something to do with his current job. Blackhat boy turned con artist fraud guy who then gets a job as "VP of Security" at one of the largest "security" companies is important, convicted yet or not. Do your research before you assume he's innocent, he's been scamming for years. Heck, you're probably him Mr. Coward.
I've always marvelled at how crimes that cost people a lot of money get longer sentences than ones that deprive people of extraneous limbs, or life.
.. crimes that cost people a lot of money get longer sentences than ones that deprive people of extraneous limbs, or life...
Usually the money crimes have affected a lot more people. Its interesting to try dividing up the sentence by the number of victims and see how the sentence comes up... Arguably someone who defrauds a hundred old age pensioners of their retirement savings has caused a lot more human misery than someone who mugs one old age pensioner and breaks their leg...
And dividing the crime up by the number of victims where victims = shareholders and employees of bi companies gets really tiny numbers...
"he and a brother" is that some sort of slang, or was it someones brother, or was it his brother....not that it really matters, just wondering..perhaps he and someones son.
Ok, ill get my coat now
There's the maths thing as well, if I can defraud people of 1 million dollars (bwah hah ha haaaa) then I might not mind being in the clink for a couple of years.
Assuming I can hide it of course... Perhaps leave it with one of the brothers.. Is he a monk?
"Just so you know, he's worked there for a year and a half. And it does have something to do with his current job. Blackhat boy turned con artist fraud guy who then gets a job as "VP of Security" at one of the largest "security" companies is important, convicted yet or not. Do your research before you assume he's innocent, he's been scamming for years. Heck, you're probably him Mr. Coward."
Nope - I'm not him, but I have checked, and he is not VP of Security, so you should check your facts.
He wasn't hired by McAfee, he came in as part of an acquisition. Do you think that HR in any company checks all pending court trials for employees coming in through acquisitions. Read the article. It says he became a McAfee employee in February.
What about due diligence.
McAfee have shareholders and to safeguard their interests the McAfee board had to do an investigation of any company that they are interested in taking over or merging with. McAfee should have spotted the investment fiddles and, if it was still interested in the company, taken it _without_ the [allegedly] fiddling directors.
Paris, 'cos she knows all about fiddling directors
The brother who is referred to is Brett's brother. He is guilty by association and is just as much as a victim as the investors. Brett Oliphant is a con artist through and through and it's sad. I pray that justice is served.
http://bc219.blogspot.com/2008/03/8-days-left-part-2.html
http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_(A_to_Z)/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12468&tid=24730&mid=24730&tof=36&off=1
http://www.0x000000.com/index.php?i=574
Short of hiring a private detective, it would be impossible for the McAfee board to vet every single employee of every acquisition it makes. The best it could realistically do is look for criminal convictions. In this "try-em-and-hang-em" society, maybe people have have overlooked it, but the guy does not have a criminal conviction. At least not yet.
I am aware he came in as part of the acquisition, I just wanted to be clear he has been involved in Scanalert then McAfee as a whole for about a year and a half.
HR departments don't check for pending court trials, however he was arrested in Napa County on Dec. 5th before the acquisition. That would have come up in a good background search. At that time he WAS VP of Security Services and any decent company should have found SOMETHING.
Please don't tell me to check my facts, I am sad to say that I have been so very close to this situation for way too long, at this point the only one who probably knows more facts about this than I do is Brett himself. I wish I was never involved, and I hope to be done with it after the last time I ever have to see him (hopefully) on Nov. 18th in Elkhart, Indiana.
I was talking about McAfee. The title of my post was "McAfee". You said "he worked *there* for a year and half". Wrong. Check your facts.
You said he got a job of "VP of Security at one of the largest "security" companies". Wrong. He's a Director of Product Management. Check your facts.
If you post incorrect facts, then you need to be told to go check them.
So lets see:
Did the alleged fraud happen while he was at McAfee? Eh, no.
Was he convicted of the fraud? No, no yet.
Was the allegation in relation to his job at McAfee. Errrr . No
Did the allegation involve technical / hacking skills which put McAfee clients at risk? Eh, again... No. It was an allegation of old-fashioned theft. No hacking was involved.
Is anything actually alleged to have happened at McAfee? Jeez - guess what, no.
Has this been under the noses of McAfee for ages. No. He's been an employee for 3 months.
The McAfee aspect to the story is tiny. But "HR fails to check all arrest records for acquired employees" isn't such a hot headline.
When he was first hired in at McAfee his title was VP of Security Services, that has only changed within the last couple weeks. He now works at at Corp. Headquarters with the new title.
He also stated to HR that his previous work history was three years prior to his job at Scanalert and four years before the McAfee acquisition. I wonder what he said about those three years of non-work. Oh wait, he was working, working to scam others.
Bottom line is, McAfee has known about his arrest record and allegations since January. It is now May. I wonder why they do not see him as a liability.
You are so defensive about him, it's somewhat odd.
I know the facts about this more than you could ever imagine my friend. Until very recently he was VP of Security Services, you can even see the cached link in the article we're responding to. And I know he wasn't hired by McAfee, all I stated is that he has worked there for a year and a half, not the 3 months that you claimed. Sure he came in as a McAfee employee in February, however he's worked for Scanalert for much longer. Human resources may not search for court records, HOWEVER his previous work history that he stated had a 3 year gap with nothing in it. Those were the years he ran his scam. Shouldn't someone ask what he did those years? Also keep in mind his arrest on December 5th, 2007 was before the acquisition. That can be found on a background check. Please don't go defending this person with your false assumptions. If you're one of his girlfriends or someone else he's led to believe that he's so innocent then I don't blame you because he's conned the rest of us before, so I know how it is.
"When he was first hired in at McAfee his title was VP of Security Services, that has only changed within the last couple weeks. He now works at at Corp. Headquarters with the new title."
That was his title at ScanAlert. You stated it was his title / role at McAfee. It has never been his role nor his title at McAfee.
"He also stated to HR that his previous work history was three years prior to his job at Scanalert and four years before the McAfee acquisition. I wonder what he said about those three years of non-work. Oh wait, he was working, working to scam others."
To whom? He wasn't interviewed by McAfee. He was part of a company that was acquired. When one company buys another, they don't interview all the employees. McAfee bought the technology. The people came with that.
"Bottom line is, McAfee has known about his arrest record and allegations since January."
How? He wasn't an employee until February, and as far as I'm aware there is no public database of arrests.
"It is now May. I wonder why they do not see him as a liability."
I'm sure they do now that irresponsible journalism has tainted a branded they paid $50m for.
"You are so defensive about him, it's somewhat odd."
I havent' defended him once. I've defended McAfee, because it has nothing to do with McAfee. It's shoddy journalism that events of years ago are being drawn in with a McAfee brand in order to tarnish it. Newsflash - there's lots of guys walking around Silicon Valley who have been arrested from time to time. Hell - some of them have even been CEOs of McAfee!
This is the third time my responses have never been posted. Let's try again.
1. McAfee had him listed as VP of Security Services on the Scanalert/McAfee site until about two weeks ago. If that was not his title then they should have changed it.
2. Sure, McAfee HR didn't go over his resume, however it was always clear on his profile/bio that there was a 3 year gap and with the information they had about him, I would think they should have questioned it.
3. Someone anonymously through my blog http://bc219.blogspot.com stating that they were a McAfee investor and had contacted McAfee in January and were told that this was a "different Brett Oliphant." This then prompted the posts on the blog attempting to prove this was the same person.
4. He has been a liability from the start, irresponsible journalism doesn't make him the liability.
5. Sure, this isn't McAfee's fault that he did these things in the past, it is their fault though that they didn't do their homework. Hell, a simple google search of his name brought up the Indiana Secretary of State article in December. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a public database to google "Brett Oliphant."
Yea sorry about McAfee's luck for getting the bad rap for this, sucks to be them. They've not had the greatest rep in the past few years anyways and this doesn't help. And you say that there have been McAfee CEO's who have been arrested, arrested is a broad thing... anything from child support to DUI's to Investment & Securities Fraud. How many people has McAfee hired as a CEO (let alone any other title) that have arrest records for these charges? Child support and DUI's or stuff like that, maybe, Investment Fraud, doubt it.
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