Yes. I can see the religious programming now:
"Looks like Bin Laden" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Has hook instead of hand" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Darker than a bag of flour" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Has Koran instead of Bible" - HRESULT_FULL_CAVITY_SEARCH
"Has Casio F91-W watch" - HRESULT_STRAIGHT_TO_GITMO
In a capitalist society, a divide develops and society falls into those who control and those who are controlled. This software exists to enable and reinforce that divide by criminalising people.
Regarding maturity, do you find it unacceptable that someone should be principled and express that verbally? Sometimes "fuck you" is the best answer.
A couple of years ago I went for an interview for one of these companies rather naively. Their product wasn't described as profiling, surveillance or monitoring but "adaptive security". After I finally cut through all the bullshit and worked out what they were actually selling, I bailed on it (with a proverbial "fuck you stasi bastards" and loss of the job agent). However I couldn't help noticing one thing:
The management staff were utterly convinced that this was the best way to go and that the entire world's problems were going to be solved by profiling in this way. I'm not talking about it being the marketing pitch, but actually some kind of crazy psychopathic paranoia about their own mortality in the hands of terrorists. I cannot fathom how these guys actually operate with this mindset at all. It was rather shocking actually and has permanently destroyed my acceptance of capitalism. It was literally like OCP or Weyland corporation were real for a few minutes.
Someone needs to legislate this out of existence because we're fucked if society ends up at the hands of nutjobs like them.
It has been proven recently that the whole WinTel PC thing and the associated lock in is on its way out as UEFI Secure Boot would be as well. ARM and Linux is where everything appears to be heading. Look at all the Android tablets and phones, Chromebook, Raspberry Pi, Beagleboard etc. Even Apple is rumored to be looking at ARM for newer laptops and are throwing their own cores together.
It's only a matter of time...
In the UK at least, they've been paying for various celebrity trolls to say "OMG WINPHONE8 IS TEH WIN" all over advertising. I assume this is the same forces at work trying to undermine the intelligence of the masses.
A more realistic assessment is walking into my local Currys/PC World shop (like a UK version of Best Buy which is less interesting) and watching the various people milling around. One guy was buying a Samsung Smart TV, another guy a dryer, some woman was buying a USB internet dongle and asking if it worked on her MacBook and another guy was buying a Galaxy Tab and some overpriced HDMI cables.
Windows 8 love? Absolutely sod all. No one gives a flying fuck.
Now I could be considered to be a Microsoft shill. I work for a well known Gold Partner in the UK, are a certified Microsoft software dev, have used every MS OS from DOS5 and know their shit inside out, but fuck me no one cares about them any more, me included. I'm even jumping ship with my vested and historically expensive interest in them and leveraging the 15 years of Linux experience I've picked up on the side.
If you actually had a process with holes large enough for that to get through, I have no sympathy. You should be automatically building the production artefacts from the source control. There should be no intermediate process where someone can throw something in.
Ego should be isolated from production.
Our developers can only check out/check in and we keep deployment to two well trusted specialist guys who have been with us for 10 years. We also audit every damn line of code that goes in the repo.
Even though I'm in charge of the whole process model, I have to comply with the rules as well. Someone always reads my code before it goes out and there is always test coverage.
Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin
