ronald-arrested.jpgIf the claims that Oracle makes against SAP in its 44-page lawsuit turn out to be the gospel truth, SAP’s TomorrowNow subsidiary engaged in a massive effort to steal intellectual property from Oracle’s Customer Connection web site. While that would be deplorable, it would be equally laughable. Why? Because if TomorrowNow’s employees did rob Oracle blind, they left dozens of clues that they did the deed. That has me wondering whether TomorrowNow wants to get its 15 minutes of fame on the Stupid Criminals web site.

Crooks or Clowns?

Allow me to offer some allegations from Oracle’s lawsuit that would demonstrate, if they are true, how stupid TomorrowNow’s employees were. According to Oracle…

  • Most of the download requests came from an IP address that is located in Bryan, Texas (TomorrowNow’s hometown) and is part of SAP’s network. Very bright!
          
  • Some of the illegal downloads came from URL’s that had TomorrowNow’s name in them, such as http://hqitpc01.tomorrownow.com.
         
  • In many of the sessions on Customer Connection, the perpetrators downloaded hundreds of files at a time. Using one customer ID from an Oracle customer that was switching to TomorrowNow, someone downloaded an average of 1,800 items a day for four days straight. Now that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion…would it?
            
  • In many cases, the downloaders provided obviously fake information. That included phone numbers such as “777-777-7777” and email addresses like test@testyomama.com.
       
  • To top it off, the perpetrators logged into Customer Connection using multiple userids and passwords that they had gathered from multiple companies. However, they logged in from the same IP address. Hmmm…now when would Oracle software users such as Abbott Labs, Bear Stearns, Merck, and Smithfield Foods all log in to Customer Connection from the same IP address?

In short, if Oracle is right about its claims, plenty of people will have a hard time deciding whether they should denounce or laugh at TomorrowNow. I’ll tell you one thing…if someone from the company writes the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Hacking Web Sites, I’ll believe it…and I won’t buy it.

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