WAY (OT) Why outsourcing software jobs may be a bad idea

[Mike McKinlay]

Folks:
 Sorry this off topic but couldn't help myself LOL
Got this from a Apple using friend. With his conclusions at the beginning.
Mike  

Subject: Fwd: Why outsourcing software jobs may be a bad idea


Hmm, all the while that I read this, I kept thinking 
"Microsoft...Microsoft...Yep, definitely Microsoft."

(and possibly Intuit, whose Quicken software has been known to 
disrupt some smaller economies ;)

_d


>From the Volokh Conspiracy:
>
>http://volokh.com/2004_02_22_volokh_archive.html#107792937670055720
>
>In January 1982, President Ronald Reagan approved a CIA plan to
>sabotage the economy of the Soviet Union through covert transfers of 
>technology that contained hidden malfunctions, including software 
>that later triggered a huge explosion in a Siberian natural gas 
>pipeline, according to a new memoir by a Reagan White House official.
>
>Thomas C. Reed, a former Air Force secretary who was serving in the
>National Security Council at the time, describes the episode in "At 
>the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War," to be published 
>next month by Ballantine Books. Reed writes that the pipeline 
>explosion was just one example of "cold-eyed economic warfare" 
>against the Soviet Union that the CIA carried out under Director 
>William J. Casey during the final years of the Cold War.
>
>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. . . .
>
>"While there were no physical casualties from the pipeline
>explosion, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy," he 
>writes. "Its ultimate bankruptcy, not a bloody battle or nuclear 
>exchange, is what brought the Cold War to an end. In time the 
>Soviets came to understand that they had been stealing bogus 
>technology, but now what were they to do? By implication, every cell 
>of the Soviet leviathan might be infected. They had no way of 
>knowing which equipment was sound, which was bogus. All was suspect, 
>which was the intended endgame for the entire operation."
>
>Reed said he obtained CIA approval to publish details about the
>operation. . . .That should be a reminder, I think, that someone 
>might well be doing something similar to us, though we buy software 
>rather than copying it. It could be someone in the U.S. or outside 
>it, someone employed by U.S. companies (here or abroad) or someone 
>employed by foreign companies who are selling software to us. I 
>don't know what the solution would be: intensive source code review 
>within U.S. companies, a shift to open source (I'm skeptical of the 
>ultimate economic viability of open source, but lower exposure to 
>such hidden bombs is one of open source's likely pluses), refusal on 
>the part of the U.S. govenrment and many U.S. businesses to buy 
>software unless the source code is disclosed and thoroughly vetted 
>(something that would be tremendously expensive), or something else. 
>But this definitely does seem like a potentially serious security 
>problem.
>