Trying to save some time and money cost ITT Night Vision $100 million in March, when it admitted to giving away classified information to companies in China, Japan, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

But the underlying idea -- that ITT gave our enemies access to technologies they could not have otherwise had -- is not as clear as it seems.

The penalty ITT Night Vision received (which included $50 million in fines and the requirement that it invest another $50 million in new technologies) was designed as punishment for allowing the specifications and materials for its top-of-the-line night-vision equipment to fall into foreign hands, something expressly against the law.

U.S. soldiers are supposed to be able to see farther and better at night than anyone else. Giving foreign powers access to night-vision equipment, the argument went, may have reduced or eliminated that advantage.

"They have all our technology now," NBC News quotes one law enforcement official as saying, referring to the Chinese.

The reality, though, is not quite so simple.

While there is little doubt that ITT broke the law, there is some question about how much new information foreign powers could glean and how much of an advantage they could gain.

That's because of two things. First, anyone can go to a sporting goods or military equipment store -- in person or online -- and plunk down $3,000 to $4,000 to walk out with night vision equipment that's all but identical to what's available to, and used by, the U.S. military.

Second, some commercially available night- vision equipment may actually give its users better night vision than what the U.S. military's does.

To understand why, it helps to understand the crucial technology within night-vision equipment.

Generation gaps

The majority of night vision equipment available uses light-intensification technology. In other words, it takes whatever tiny amount of light there is and effectively makes it brighter. (There are also infrared products that read the heat coming off objects.)

The heart of the system is the image intensifier, known simply as "the tube." It converts light (photons) into electricity (electrons), which are themselves converted into an image. Because the tube only senses the amount of light, not the color, the images it produces are green, chosen because that's what the human eye is most sensitive to.

The tube is the key to the quality. More sophisticated tubes are better at converting photons to electrons and are thus able to produce better images.

There are a lot of ways of rating those tubes, ranging from the very basic (e.g., "one-quarter moon operation") to the very technical (e.g., "51 lp/mm resolution with a signal-to-noise ratio of 25").

In general, though, you'll see them sold by "generation," from Generation 0 equipment made during the 1960s, though Generation 3 and 4 -- usually abbreviated "Gen 3" and "Gen 4" -- which were developed in the 1990s.

The U.S. military uses night vision equipment with Gen 3 tubes -- not Gen 4. And for good reason, according to ITT Night Vision spokeswoman Courtney Reynolds. When approving military equipment, it's not just about how good it is, but also how tough it is.

In the case of Gen 4 tubes, although they were developed more recently, there was a downside of the new technology: "The tube life was so drastically reduced that the Army rescinded the classification -- so essentially Gen 4 does not exist," Reynolds said.

But it does. Various outdoors and military outfitters sell Gen 4 equipment, made by companies such as American Technologies Network Corp. Its Night Shadow 4 is a binocular that uses Gen 4 technology and sells for about $4,800. It arguably has better range and less noise than the Gen 3 equipment that the military uses, even if it doesn't last as long.

So, while our troops may have the best equipment out there, that doesn't mean they can necessarily see farther and better than anyone else. There's a trade-off between power and military suitability.

Neither Gen 3 nor Gen 4 equipment can be exported without a license from the State Department, and even Gen 2 goggles are regulated by the Department of Commerce. Of course, it's an open question whether an agent of another nation would be willing to abide by those laws.

Test results

Even without Generation 4 in the picture, how much damage was caused by ITT's release of information is complicated by the way the light-intensification tubes are made.

While Gen 3 night-vision equipment can be purchased on the open market, it's a different kind of Gen 3 than the military uses. In fact, while the goggles destined for the U.S. military require a stronger housing to meet military specs, the important part -- the tube -- is the same for military and civilian equipment. They come off the same assembly line.

The difference between what makes it into a military goggle and what ends up at a sporting goods store is the quality of the manufacturing. Because making the image-intensifier tube is so exacting, some are better than others, just like some cookies in a batch might have more chips.

With night-vision goggles, what determines whether a specific unit is fit for consumer, international or U.S. military use is what's called the Figure of Merit calculation.

It's effectively a rating system for light-intensifier tubes. Each unit coming off the assembly line is tested. If its FOM is above a certain number, it can only be used by the U.S. military. Below that number, and it could end up in ITT's Night Enforcer line for law enforcement or in its Night Quest consumer line, both of which are licensable for export.

All three come off the same assembly line at the same time. Where they end up is simply a result of how well they do on their tests.

(The same is true of computer processors. Two PCs, one running at 3.2 GHz and one running at 2.8 GHz, might actually be identical. One's processor may simply have passed a tougher test at the factory.)

So while joining the Army might offer a chance to use the roughest, toughest, high-end night-vision goggles, the technology that makes them work isn't a state secret. A trip to the local sporting goods store is that's needed.