It's actually a mild form of identity theft.

Per TFA, the username was grabbed within a day of being released. It's someone's real name, not a well-known fictional character or such, so it's most likely that the new owner was trying to capitalize on the old owner's fame. Twitter's policies prohibit exactly this kind of thing, so TFA details the process the author followed to get it shut down.

It's not particularly notable to those of us who are deep in the world of security, and probably not surprising to most savvy users, but it's informative nonetheless.

Police can even pose as a passer-by, encouraging someone to steal the car, or as a chop-shop owner offering no-questions-asked cash for cars.

In these cases, the legal system is punishing people for their antisocial behavior, just as with crimes that don't involve stings. Even if the crime actually occurred in a controlled situation, the perpetrator still fulfilled the legal requirements for culpability: They were aware that what they were doing was against the law, and they did it anyway of their own free will.

Being offered a large sum of money or a convenient opportunity doesn't magically dissolve the perpetrator's free will, despite what dbill seems to think.

You ought to learn a bit more about entrapment before trying to discuss it.

The determination of what someone would otherwise have done is based on what they do, given the means (and even encouragement). All the guy had to do was say "no".

Yes, there are some folks who are drawn to the Hollywood appeal of being super-secret spies. Some folks just want the money.

...Then there's one guy I heard of who abruptly left his company, retired at age 40, and promptly settled down in a particularly-disliked nation with a new very-young bride.

Temptation comes in many forms.

No, it's called "misleading", and it's perfectly legal.

Entrapment is when the law enforcement officers don't give you the choice to follow the law. For example, if the agents had claimed to have taken this employee's family as hostages, and threatened them with harm if he didn't steal the plans, then he wouldn't have had a reasonable choice.

Rather, the agents here merely offered him a chunk of money. It may certainly be tempting, but the employee still had the ability (and the legal obligation) to decline.

"Greedy and gullible" makes the perfect target for actual espionage, too. Of course, even greedy and gullible people can still say "no" and follow the law.

There are proper channels for reporting such suspicious contact, and people with clearances are required by law to use them. This guy didn't. He went ahead and tried to sell secrets, compromise security, et cetera... but the key detail is that he chose to do so, rather than report the event.

Sure, he was misled. He still believed he was selling secrets to foreign nations, and chose to willfully engage in a crime.

You're not thinking very hard.

"Gee, Mr. Mayor, it's really a shame that particular legislation is going to disrupt our construction. That means even more delays bringing in those new jobs and that economic boost we've been working towards. You know, with just a few small changes, that law wouldn't affect us. When's a good time to talk about that? Booked all week, huh? How about Saturday? Over a game of golf and a nice dinner? Fantastic! Glad that will work out. I'll see you then..."

As is often the case, it's a little more complicated than that.

The French appreciate standardization and conformity more that Americans. Where Americans would care about getting a job done, the French care about doing the job correctly. Along with that, there is a distaste for frivolity and absurdity when those aren't the matter at hand.

I'm not sure if you're serious.

The expert system you're looking for is a "judge".

What's actually written in legislation or on a contract doesn't matter. What matters is how a judge will interpret that law or contract in the context of your particular case. Yes, there have certainly been cases where a criminal defendant has gotten away with something because it wasn't technically a crime, and many contracts have been useless because they didn't explicitly prohibit a particular interpretation.

Just like computer programs, all well-tested legal "programs" are far more complicated in detail than their basic design document. There are many edge cases and known weaknesses to account for, leading to many seemingly-irrelevant statements.

I first learned about C. elegans while researching simple neural systems. There's a nice map of the neural connections available. Today, I stumbled across the name again, when Wikipedia informed me that Caenorhabditis elegans is the most primitive animal that sleeps. Now I find that there's a robot worm that I'd consider to be alive.

This guy's pretty awesome.

This is very much the case. Much of west Africa (Ghana in particular is mentioned in TFS) alternates between "too wet" and "too dry". In the dry season, the winds from the Sahara leave farmland covered in moisture-sapping dust, which isn't particularly fertile when the wet season comes, but it sure is good for letting the water run away downhill.

The best chance a farmer has is to have mostly-level farmland where he can control the runoff, to lengthen the short ideal growing season. There's not much land that fits those qualifications. On the other hand, West Africa has a thriving trade network, so getting chemicals and supplies is just a matter of making a deal with the local tro-tro master. Using seeds that are more likely to thrive in the harsh conditions is a pretty good bet for a farmer.

So it's not exempt from environmental regulations (part 25), serial numbering regulations (subpart B of part 801, and part 830), written instruction regulations (subpart D of part 801), or reporting regulations (part 803). Then there's part 806, which requires a report to the FDA every time a design is changed. That could be interesting for a 3D-printed device.

This is a Slashdot discussion regarding how many clocks we need on a boat, planning on using a centuries-old navigation technique, and debating the minimal number of signals we need to receive from space, just in case every timepiece on the vessel fails. The discussion started with pithy sayings.

We cannot assume that "making sense" is a requirement.

So it's PlanetLab, now on Internet2... because apparently some folks still care about that.