Well, well, well. I wonder if this explains some of those "collateral casualties". :x
CIA Drones May Have Used Illegal, Inaccurate Code (http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/09/24/1854229/CIA-Drones-May-Have-Used-Illegal-Inaccurate-Code)from the fighting-terror-with-ctrl-c-and-ctrl-v dept., skids writes
Quote"Coders hate having to rush code out the door before it's ready. They also hate it when the customer starts making unreasonable demands. What they hate even more is when the customer reverse engineers the product and starts selling their own inferior product. But what really ticks them off is when that buggy, knockoff product might be used by targeting systems in military unmanned drone attacks (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/24/cia_netezza/), and the bugs introduce location errors of up to 13 meters. That's what purportedly happened to software developer IISi, based on an ongoing boardroom/courtroom drama that will leave any hard-pressed coder appreciating just how much worse his job could get. The saddest part? The CIA assumed the bug was a feature. The tinfoil-hat-inducing part? The alleged perpetrators just got bought by IBM (http://technews.tmcnet.com/topics/associated-press/articles/104009-ibm-buying-netezza-about-17-billion.htm)."
Whatever happened to the good old days, when the CIA just waited for the target to be on top of a tall building and pushed them off, or somehow convinced a mentally unstable "lone gunman" to carry out an assassination?
It may not have been pretty, but at least 20 odd civilians within 13 metres of the target weren't killed along with them.
No one wants to get their hands dirty anymore.
I do not believe the CIA actually assumed it was a feature.
That's them saying "lol collateral".
cololateral.
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 25, 2010, 06:36:35 PM
I do not believe the CIA actually assumed it was a feature.
That's them saying "lol collateral".
You are attributing to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.
Sigh..
I just flunked out of "Quintessential Examples of Hope 101".
Quote from: Sigmatic on September 25, 2010, 06:36:35 PM
I do not believe the CIA actually assumed it was a feature.
That's them saying "lol collateral".
It seems that errors of 1 to 13 meters was actually better than what they had before.