And just why do you want to know where I work? So that you can complain to my boss that I made you look stupid and that he should fire me for that?

No, he wants to know where you work so he can complain to the politicians that your company is costing his company money.

Which is exactly the strategy that Cary Sherman of RIAA suggested when SOPA failed.

If it's about "Hollywood vs. freedom", Hollywood loses.

But if the debate can be reframed to "MPAA vs. Google", or "RIAA vs. Telcos", Hollywood wins, because they can just point the finger and say "Look, we're only saying the things we say because we work for Paramount, Universal, and other MAFIAA organizations. But you're only saying that because you work for Google, a telco, or an ISP, you're a lobbyist just like us!" and with the debate framed in a context that the politicians will understand, Ari and Sherman can easily demand a law that transfers wealth from "Northern California" to "Southern California" (by transferring the cost of preventing piracy from "Southern California rightsholders" to "Northern California companies whose customers happen to infringe on those rights").

No, that's all factored into it. That's why we have temporary walls, so we can have temporary positions. Everyone knows that the next HMFIC is going to re-org. It's part of the job. So make sure everything can flex when they get rid of the current old bad leader to make room for the next new bad leader.

But the one thing the board never does is to blame the leader, because that calls into question their ability to wisely pick good leaders.

Honest feedback is fine for those of us down in the trenches. But *don't you dare* raise those ugly truths higher up!

Very good point that I completely missed, thank you.

Because this story fits so well with the facts we've already heard. There is the video of the Israeli general's retirement party where he acknowledged they were celebrating his victory with Stuxnet. There are the claims that the U.S. had the leftover Libyan centrifuges, that they couldn't get them to work so they shared some with the U.K., and when they didn't get them working either so they gave them to Israel who figured out how to both make them work and how to sabotage them. There are the estimates by Langner who posited that the complexity of Stuxnet meant a very well-funded, extremely talented group of developers. There is the evidence of the two Chinese frequency controller factories, both of whom had their private keys stolen, presumably by physical break-ins to the plants by spies.

And there are the facts of the worm's behavior. Its first incarnation was only to perform reconnaissance. It wasn't weaponized until the components found themselves in precisely the configuration of the Natanz centrifuges. It would cause no damage to any kind of facility other than Natanz (or Busheshr). It was precisely stealthy. All these suggest great expense in creating a very specifically targeted weapon, as opposed to a randomly opportunistic criminal or vandal.

Now, if someone were to look at all these other facts and wanted to spin a tale that weaved in threads of Obama and the U.S., then this story would be an almost perfect fit. But any other explanation right now would strain credulity. This story looks far more more like corroborating evidence than an attempt to divert attention away from any other players that have been mentioned before, such as China, the mob, Estonian hackers, or even from Iran staging an attack trying to gain international sympathy.

I think the time for nay-saying is over.

Maybe it was the IOC that outed them. By monitoring every computer on the planet for use of the phrase "Olympic games", perhaps they caught the details of the plan, then leaked it to the press.

Actually, I think this could work out to our great advantage. It's perfectly legal here to report the news. If the news includes the trademarked and protected all-rights-revered IP of the IOC, Inc., well that's just too bad for them.

It also is a strategically brilliant name. You can't google for "Olympic Games" and hope to find anything but millions of hits on torches and athletes and lawsuits.

You do know that's public air you're consuming? You;re lucky I'm not writing this ticket for breathing heavily, that's a moving violation. I'm going to let you off easy this time but don't do it again. Sign here. What? Oh the fine. It's $148.

I'm still trying to work out if Google is not being American evil, not being Chinese evil, being completely evil, or not being evil at all in all of this.

As I'm not an audio engineer, I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to properly mix them down. I know there are levels to be set, times to be synchronized, lefts and rights to be balanced, and probably a dozen other things that a trained ear would do that I wouldn't know to do, wouldn't know how to do, and as an amateur wouldn't do well. Even if I were to spend a few hours to get audio output from all these sources somehow mangled into the same pot, it would sound like crap.

At this point I can only sit back and wait for a professional to handle that not-inconsiderable task. So the files themselves aren't worthless, but in this state they're all-but-worthless to me.

So I'm a species bigot. Guess what? That's the advantage of being at the top, and owning the classification system. Until another superior life form comes around and classifies us as vermin, we aren't.

That's not to say we don't have responsibilities to other species. Of course we do. Right now, the responsibility to other species regarding roaches should be "human activity brought non-native roaches across the oceans to become invasive species where they don't belong, so our responsibility is to the native species that are harmed by the roaches. That means we should make every attempt to eradicate roaches."

However, if you really think that humans and roaches should have equal rights, be aware that your only real opportunity is to go join with the roaches, and hope the rest of us don't choke you in a cloud of pesticides. Or you could quit trying to defend really stupid arguments on the interwebz and go volunteer in the community instead, and make a difference to actual suffering humans who need your help.

Assuming that phrase truly is misleading, that pretty much guarantees it will continue to be used. "Misleading" means that someone is benefitting from the improper usage, and they will not willingly give up this tool.

And we know which industry groups love to use this phrase.