Man accused of illegal use of US software in Iran

[Associated Press, 14 May] The trial has begun of an engineer accused of illegally taking software from the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona and using it in Iran. Prosecutors claim that Mohammad Reza Alavi, a 50-year-old naturalised US citizen, broke the US trade embargo with Iran in 2006 by taking training software from the plant, where he worked as a software engineer, and later downloading codes in Iran that allowed him to open it. The training software was used to simulate the control room at the plant and contained detailed plant information, such as the schematics of its design. Plant operators said the unauthorised use of the software did not pose a security risk because it contained no information on plant security. Authorities said that plant operators had blocked Alavi's access to the software after he resigned, but had failed to notify the vendor of the software. The engineer was still able to access a website run by the vendor, which provided access codes to use the software. Alavi's attorney said that the engineer, who worked at Palo Verde between 1989 and August 2006, was merely showing his relatives in Iran what he did for a living out of a sense of pride. The trial is expected to last three to four weeks.