So, they introduced a backdoor into software that can be/is used to secure US nuclear secrets, in the hopes only they would be able to take advantage of it? This is just another variant of "security through obscurity." Really, really fucking stupid!

+1 for the clit. I first learned to work the clit when I bought a Toshiba Satellite Pro 2400CT back in '94 that had a green clit. I totally fell in love with the clit as it allowed me to mouse around without the need for a hand to leave the keyboard, which I'd think a great deal of touch-typists would appreciate. I loved it so much I went out and bought an IBM keyboard with a nice red clit that cost me over a $100; which back then was 1/3 of a month's rent. Since then every Intel PC keyboard that has been attached to a system I used regularly has had one. It kinda annoyed some of my co-workers as I'd always get the KVM keyboards replaced with clit-endowed ones; praise be to the ergonomics fad which makes it easier to justify.

Unfortunately, the clit has fallen on disfavor and is mostly only available on business-class laptops. You can, however, still buy nice IBM Model M-type mechanical-keyed keyboards with a clit from the company who bought IBM's IP for their keyboard technology and the factory in which they were manufactured - Unicomp. www.unicomp.com

Niven's Law: "There is a technical, literary term for those who mistake the opinions and beliefs of characters in a novel for those of the author. The term is "idiot."

I have seen no evidence that Heinlein believed that the idea of Citizenship in ST should be realized. If you can cite some credible, non-fiction source where Heinlein advocates the realization of the governmental form for found in ST, I would be most interested. I believe Heinlein was a strong believer in one realizing the existence of, and paying one's debts to society, and nothing more.

Secondly, you err in your statement re: ST "That only those who serve in the military and commit violence...." Full-Citizenship afforded one the opportunity to vote, hold elected office, and teach the high school History and Moral Philosophy course. Obtaining this required NATIONAL SERVICE of some sort, the form of which was based upon the needs of society and the aptitude and skills of the individual in question. There was ABSOLUTELY NO requirement that one serve in the military nor participate in some form of violence (war?) in the name of their country. You are incorrectly trying to tie the requirement of jingoistic beliefs with citizenship requirements in Starship Troopers. Perhaps you should go back and read it again.

Thirdly, the article is about the MOVIE by Paul Verhoeven, not Heinlein novel. The movie does indeed poke fun at jingoistic ideals, portrays a fascist government, etc. whose military intelligence service wears SS-like uniforms, has a national news service that uses heavy-handed propaganda techniques. I had not read any of the critiques of the movie upon its release, and am surprised that these obvious themes and messages weren't remarked upon.

I guess by my 'nick you can guess I'm a bit of a Heinlein fan. :-)

Life in Russia sucks, and it doesn't surprise me at all that this was developed there and gained such widespread use. I bet the rural population was hit particularly hard by this drug.

I also won't be surprised if it finds a receptive userbase in US cities.

Your attitude is typical of egocentric anarchistic coders with zero sense of social responsibility. Thankfully the majority of Western civilization believes and acts otherwise in relation to their fellow humans. Else we'd live entirely in a 'might makes right' society.

I hope your lack of a sense of professional responsibility extends to those professions upon which you rely, and that you do not expect them to act out of anything other than base mercenary motivations. And I hope you accept personal responsibility for all ill that comes your way in life. After all, it isn't anyone else's fault than your own that you don't have limitless resources and time to spend to prevent it.

...but not disclosing it to the vendor first and giving them a chance to release a fix is both unprofessional and irresponsible. Add in the fact that this is coming from a Google employee makes it inexcusable, and reflects poorly on Google. If I were his manager he would certainly receive a reprimand.

Aha! Russia has retaliated for our meteor strike over Chelyabinsk!! ;-)

In case you don't get the reference:

http://rt.com/politics/zhirinovsky-meteorite-american-weapon-316/

Check out www.virusbtn.com for their VB100 comparison of antivirus solutions. Avira free comes out ahead of the majority of the best known commercial offerings.

One might think that the jurisdiction is that in which the damage occurred. i.e. if the servers were in the US, that is where it lies. This is simply an international attack, the same as mailing a bomb from one country to the next.

There is a far too prevalent belief or ethic amongst the techno-educated from the former Soviet republics that it is their right to take advantage of whoever is 'stupid' enough to be vulnerable to their skills. This needs to come to an end. The Internet is not the cyber wild west. I am not saying that the US should be the marshal, let Interpol do it, or whoever. It just needs to be done.

First, to prevent morons who are unable to distinguish the difference between culture and race labelling me as racist, I am speaking about culture.

IMHO and experience, Russians and the PRC are far more willing to take risks with human life than Western Europeans and North Americans. Add this to their desire and know-how and you have a better environment for advancement.

The Russians and PRC will be slugging it out over the Moon, Mars, and the asteroid belt while NASA is still dithering over the shuttle replacement.

Isn't it interesting how stuff like this sticks in people's minds and they seem incapable of evaluating new data and reevaluating their stance? The longevity of opinions like this seems to increase when there is some cute catch phrase involved, such as "Deathstar" in this instance.

"To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods."
  -Robert A. Heinlein

Falling back to metrics is a lazy manager's way of proving to her superiors that her drones are operating at peak efficiency. The most lazy of all will rely on utterly meaningless metrics such as the number of help tickets closed per day, per individual per day, etc. A metric such as this is completely useless as all tickets don't require an equal amount of effort to complete. Diagnosing a problem due to an intermittent hardware issue doesn't take the same amount of effort as helping a user change their password. Unfortunately these types of issues generally comprise the vast majority of tickets generated and therefore often end up being the ones that are 'measured. ' This often leads to a drop in morale and thereby negatively impacts performance; ironically the opposite of what the whole exercise is attempting to accomplish.

Trouble ticket data is primarily useful for detecting trends, thereby helping an IT team appropriately focus their human capital on issues that will enable their users to be more efficient. Going back to the password issue above, the speed and alacrity with which the IT staff help users change their passwords isn't a useful metric at all. A more meaningful metric would be the frequency of password change requests before and after the installation of a self-service password reset solution that was put in place in response to the analysis of help ticket data that showed that this was one of the most frequent issues and one that could be easily solved with little effort and financial expenditure. Measuring a sharp drop in password reset requests would show that the solution worked and was therefore beneficial to the organization by enabling users to help themselves, resulting in their having more time to concentrate on their primary tasks, and also by allowing IT staff to allocate their resources on issues that are less amenable to resolution via automation.

Unfortunately, in my experience, ticket systems get used to determine useless metrics such as the first example mentioned above, and therefore end up being the bane of IT staff, rather than a useful analytical tool.

Graft and corruption is endemic in Chinese society, so this is more of an opportunity for the newly employed to line their pockets with money from bribes.

RSA should never have allowed systems containing anything related to SecureID beyond marketing data be connected to a network with an Internet connection. SecureID development should have been restricted to a physically separate (air-gapped) network.

Why would I ever want to trust any security company who would make such a fundamental mistake?

It's not science or tech-oriented. If the decision threshold is merely whether or not an article could pertain to a 'nerd' why not post articles about knitting, beach fashion, proper cleansing before performing analingus, and all manner of other inane non-tech-related crap, with no editorial focus. This will speed Slashdot's decline into irrelevance as the editors post every bit of drivel that is submitted. IMO this is what has been happening to Slashdot over the last few years. Evidently our perspectives are different as we apparently have disparate histories when it comes to observing Slashdot.