Most Facebook users use a browser written in C++ -- they don't know that either, yet free software browsers and rendering engines remain in common usage.

Out of interest, what do you disagree with?

Two years in jail. Given that RIPA requests for encryption keys are usually related to terrorism, espionage or paedophilia investigations, that's a href="a lot "cheaper" than going down for the suspected crime.

It's also possible that the malware was actually dropped from a *nix or Windows system that wasn't itself infected, but where the user wanted to drag Dell through the muck. Doesn't need to be any of these Advanced Persistent Threats you keep reading about, just a terminated employee on his last day. I doubt that embedded hardware is connected to the internet while it's being assembled, so it seems unlikely that they got a chance infection - someone had to subvert their production process. That's most likely to be an insider.

But where did you find out what its mission is, if "Its mission is largely opaque"? Oh, that's right, it's written on the wikipedia entry and the department of defense factsheet :).

I think that shows how bad Michael Dell is at running businesses. He correctly identified that Apple couldn't go on the way it had been run, but didn't suggest running the company a different way as a potential solution. If Dell is in trouble now, they will stay in trouble unless the market changes to require a company just like Dell.