English

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Federal authorities detained a 12th person in their investigation of a Russian spy ring in the United States, and he has been deported to Russia, U.S. law enforcement officials said Tuesday

The man, Alexey Karetnikov, entered the United States in October and was living in the Seattle area, where he worked at Microsoft, according to federal officials and the company. Karetnikov, a Russian citizen in his early-to-mid-20s, had been held on immigration violations because there was insufficient evidence to charge him with a crime, the government officials said.

“He was just in the early stages; had just set up shop,” said one senior federal law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of the case were closely held. The official added that the FBI was monitoring the Russian almost immediately upon his arrival and that he had “obtained absolutely no information.”

An immigration judge issued an order Monday for Karetnikov’s removal from the United States, said Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security. The Russian admitted he was illegally present in the country and agreed to the deportation in lieu of further court proceedings, said Chandler, who added that Karetnikov “would face criminal and civil penalties if he returned without express U.S. government permission.”

U.S. officials said Karetnikov was sent home Tuesday.

Database searches show that someone with Karetnikov’s name had been living in an apartment in Redmond, Wash., since October. That man’s Facebook page says he worked for Microsoft and a Romanian-based software company called Neobit.

Lou Gellos, a Microsoft spokesman, confirmed that Karetnikov had worked at the company for about nine months as a software tester. He said Karetnikov is the man whom authorities deported on Tuesday but would not comment further.

The latest detention added a new wrinkle to a case that has fascinated Americans since 10 people were arrested June 27 and charged with working as deep undercover Russian spies. The 10 sleeper agents pleaded guilty Thursday to acting as unregistered agents for Russia and were then “swapped” for four Russian prisoners in a deal reminiscent of the Cold War. An 11th man charged in federal court in New York remains at large.

Details about the 12th alleged spy came as information emerged on how the 10 agents involved in the swap are faring in Russia. Russian news media reported that they have applied to a witness-protection program and are seeking to change their names.

Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Russian newspaper, reported that the 10 agents are being debriefed at a Russian intelligence facility on the outskirts of Moscow. They are not allowed to leave the premises, but family members are allowed to visit, the newspaper said.

The reticence that most are showing might not apply to Anna Chapman, who became a tabloid sensation in the United States when sultry photographs of her were posted on the Internet after her arrest. Russian news media reported that Chapman is willing to sell her story to journalists.

Chapman had told her U.S. attorney, Robert M. Baum, that she may want to relocate to Britain, where the Russian acquired dual citizenship in 2002 through her marriage to a British businessman, Baum said Tuesday. But he said the British government has stripped Chapman of her citizenship and revoked her passport, citing the spy case.

In the United States, officials indicated last week that the case had effectively shut down the spy ring. But law enforcement officials said Tuesday that Karetnikov was not part of the same ring and had no direct ties to the other spies, although his name came up in the broader investigation.

It was unclear when Karetnikov was detained, although an official said he was in custody by last week. He was apparently not part of the swap because unlike the other 10 agents, he was not charged with a crime. One official said Karetnikov was “just doing the things he needed to do to establish cover,” including holding down a job.

Asked whether further arrests are possible, one official said U.S. law enforcement authorities are closely monitoring all potential espionage activity but added, “I don’t think there will be a 13th or a 14th arrest here.”

Special correspondent Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi in London, special correspondent Julia Ioffe in Moscow, and staff writer Walter Pincus and research editor Alice Crites in Washington contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR2010071302840.html

Class Reunion of the Software Quality Community
For more than a decade now, hundreds of software developers, programmers, testers and software consultants have been meeting once a year at the CONQUEST – the “COnference on QUality Engineering in Software Technology” – in order to keep up with the most important developments and innovations in their field and discuss them within their community. The conference aims at raising the sector’s consciousness of the need for enhanced quality in software development and, bit by bit, at establishing mandatory standards that offer a greater deal of reliability to the customer.

Connecting the Global Community
With this committed agenda the CONQUEST kept attracting about 350 participants every year – usually from more than 20 different countries. Apart from many visitors from Europe and the United States, as in the rule there were also experts from important emerging markets like China, Bangladesh or India present at the conference. India also acted as official partner country of the CONQUEST 2009. Connecting the global community poses an important challenge on the way to creating a common ground for more sustainable future improvements in software quality engineering.

Prominent Support
For the past years, the CONQUEST has been benefiting from the constant support by numerous renowned personalities from academia and industry. Being an established conference, it never failed to win over top-level speakers for the keynotes presented at its symposium. In 2007 for instance, experts such as Bernd Leukert, Senior Vice President at SAP, test architect in Microsoft’s Engineering Excellence Group, BJ Rollison, Motorola Manager Paul Baker as well as Charles Petrie, professor at the famous Stanford University were presenting some fascinating speeches to the CONQUEST audience. Furthermore, luminaries of the field such as Tom DeMarco or Tom Gilb were happy to contribute to CONQUEST conventions in the past.

Committed politicians were happy to support the conference in the past. In 2006 and 2009, it was Dagmar Wöhrl, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, who represented the CONQUEST as a patron. Matthias Platzeck, Prime Minister of the State of Brandenburg, took over the conference patronage in 2007 and 2008.

Find the latest news about the upcoming CONQUEST from 20th until 22nd September 2010 in Dresden here.

The Korean Testing Board is delighted to announce that “ASTA’2010 Seoul” will be taking place this year in the dynamic city Seoul with the theme, “Software Testing in IT Convergence”. ASTA’2010 Seoul invites the professionals of QA & testing to share their knowledge and best practices in the Conference.

Software Testing

Conference Schedule

Pre-conference Tutorial: Tuesday 19 October, 2010
ASTA’2010 Seoul Conference: Wednesday 20 October, 2010

The aim is to bring together leading thinkers and communicators in this exciting and challenging field of IT. The theme of the conference is software testing and how it can be applied to use in real world situation. Submissions are invited on topics relating to:

Testing in IT convergence (Software or systems testing in the industry of automotive, aerospace, defence, ship building, smart grids, medical systems, transportation and safety-critical systems, etc.)
Testing in finance industry
Testing related to Smart Phone applications and systems
Testing in green industry
Security testing
Agile testing (or testing in Agile project)
UX (User Experience/Usability) testing
Cloud computing testing

Testing topics in specific industries above can be test processes, test design, test automation, test management, test strategies and approaches, test outsourcing (or off-shoring), test bed or environment, etc. Especially those papers dealing with pragmatic information with experiences and best practices are encouraged. Each accepted speaker will deliver a 50 minute track session at the conference. Simultaneous interpretation services will be provided during the conference but not for tutorials.

Important dates

Initial submission: Friday 7 May, 2010 (see link for details)
Notification of acceptance: Friday 4 June, 2010
Complete presentation Friday 30 July, 2010
Pre-conference Tutorial: Tuesday 19 October, 2010 (full-day)
Conference: Wednesday 20 October, 2010

Desde el 29 de abril de 2010, la cartera de iSQI electrónica de los exámenes se ampliará para incluir la versión en español de la Foundation Level.
El probador de ISTQB Certificado de Nivel Avanzado - Administrador de pruebas se producirá en los primeros dias de junio.

Todos los centros autorizados para la toma de examen online, disponen en pocos dias de esta nueva plataforma en idioma español.

From 29 April 2010 the portfolio of iSQI’s e-exams will be expanded to include the Spanish version of the Certified Tester Foundation Level. The ISTQB Certified Tester Advanced Level – Test Manager will follow in the beginning of June.

Thanks to our partner Pearson VUE (http://www.vue.com/isqi/) all iSQI clients are able to take their computer-based certification examination in one of the 5000 test centers worldwide (one of them directly at iSQI in Potsdam).