The problem is break one and break all are not the only cases. Perhaps you only want to break some but not all levels of nesting.

In assembly language. :-)

Why would an automated system need to attempt more than one login with the "password" from the manager? Its not like it has to worry about typos.

Except when a site truncates the password to 8 characters.

Reflection off your glasses picked up by your monitor's camera. :-)

As I said, a niche. I've been there too. Doing the firmware to initialize standard components (various cpu tables, ram refresh, timers, i/o, etc) on powerup and offering a hook for proprietary software to take over. Yeah, they don't care about the hardware initialization, however if involved in the proprietary app specific stuff they start to care beyond something exceptionally generic like remote logging.

More importantly you seem to be referring to what I already described. Bringing your own software to the job and being allowed bug fixes and minor enhancements. Once we get into app and business specific stuff the rules usually change.

Only a few client's would find those terms acceptable, many would move on to the next consultant.

If you found a niche or a few customers who do accept that then congratulations. You won a lottery of sorts.

When a contractor gets such terms they take a massive cut in pay. Getting rights to the software involves some tradeoff.

I think people are confused. What typically goes into contracts is that contractors get to keep software they *brought* to the job, not new code written for the customer. For example I own software under a proprietary license. I will use that software in client's project. The client gets a license to use that software. I get to keep bug fixes and minor enhancements. Major enhancements for this particular job/client, now we are getting into that gray area and a price cut might be needed to retain ownership.

Only some people go into software development because they have an inherent interest. Others go into it as a career path.

The former are usually the better developers. The former usually don't ask that question because they already know the answer, the work interests you. Admittedly some of the former have also moved on to management out of necessity.

Its not that simple. The legal and property protections offered by a trade secret, a legally recognized type of intellectual property, is lost. The owner deprived of its benefits.

That is a title not a trade secret. Again a trade secret is a legally defined type of intellectual property that offers the owner specific legal rights and privileges. For example something in the process that Ford uses to manufacture those trucks. A Ford employee could not take that process to Toyota.

It may actually be stealing in the sense of depriving someone too. The code supposedly included trade secrets. Trade secrets are no longer valid once disclosed. The disclosure does not have to be intentional, my understanding is that accidental, negligent, etc disclosure counts too. So if the trade secrets were lost through the source code being copied then the owner was deprived of their trade secrets and theft would have occurred.

"secret scientific material" is probably a pseudonym for trade secrets. Sorry, but if so then the charge is quite reasonable. Trade secrets are intellectual property just like copyrights.

My point is about an intentionally manufactured backdoor, specifically how can it be engineered so that it is restricted to only the good guys?

Perhaps I should have included Lieu's next sentence: "That's just stupid. Our founders understood that an Orwellian overreaching government is one of the most dangerous things this world could have,"

How is "a technological backdoor" restricted to just the good guys? I don't think we need to go to the Orwellian level to demonstrate how misguided such a notion is. The fact that bad guys will likely gain access as well should be sufficient.

Actually I watched the recent excitement regarding Tesla on CNBC earlier this month, but googling shows:
"April 5 (UPI) -- Tesla Motors announced it broke a company record for the first quarter of 2015 ... The record was broken through a 55 percent sales increase for the same period from the previous year."
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Wo...