enthalpy

Saturday, February 28, 2004


The CIA used what could only be described today as "computer terrorism" against the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold war. Wow, there's a shocker:
At the time, the United States was attempting to block Western Europe from importing Soviet natural gas. There were also signs that the Soviets were trying to steal a wide variety of Western technology. Then, a KGB insider revealed the specific shopping list and the CIA slipped the flawed software to the Soviets in a way they would not detect it.

"In order to disrupt the Soviet gas supply, its hard currency earnings from the West, and the internal Russian economy, the pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines, and valves was programmed to go haywire, after a decent interval, to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to pipeline joints and welds," Reed writes.
What they don't tell you is that plucky young CIA coder found a nice job at MicroSoft, and he's been doing a fine job of making MicroSoft products go haywire for no fucking reason ever since.

But there's more to this story that bugs me. If Al Queda did this and there was a small explosion in Regan County, Texas, G'dumb couldn't gas up the bombers fast enough. But since we're the good guys and the Soviets were the bad guys, it's OK?

I guess it's never occurred to anyone that no one thinks that they are the bad guys. And I'm sure if Al Queda reads this article, they won't change their mind at all.



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