Trojan Horse Caused A Siberian Explosion 1183
An anonymous reader writes "William Safire of the nytimes [nytimes.com] has an interesting column this week describing how the Soviets purchased bogus computer chips from the West in the 1970's. These chips caused what "was the most monumental non-nuclear explosion and fire ever seen from space." Fascinating story."
Meanwhile in Russia (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Let me get this straight.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Did you even RTFA? The Americans didn't blow up anything. The Soviets bought computer chips and used them to control the operations of the pipeline.
Self-serving delusion (Score:2, Interesting)
Too bad Adolf didn't know that cold wars are so much easier to win than hot ones.
Re:Meanwhile in Russia (Score:5, Interesting)
I cannot imagine how logical operations would work on sutch a thing though.
Sigh. This is Slashdot, so I guess you've never heard of ternary logic [wikipedia.org], eh?
No chips from "the West" (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as we (me and my dad) know no chips or computers were purchased from "the West" before 1980's. We developed and manufactured clones of 360, PDP, VAX and others instead. They were software-compatible with Western ones but contained only Soviet (and other Eastern Europe) components.
Later we got VAXen (I remember two of them), Macs (no personal experience) and IBM PC.
And we wonder why other nations. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
It goes way beyond issues of economic competition. It's a question of independence, control and security.
Rather like your use of Open Source software.
KFG
I'm seriously skeptical (Score:4, Interesting)
Call me cynical but... (Score:1, Interesting)
(ignoring the fact that they did stop the building of any military hardware but a civilian pipeline)
Re:Just great (Score:2, Interesting)
b) The explosion was in the middle of siberia, there was nobody there to be killed.
c) They got what they deserved.
Re:Is this right? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you really going to call Adobe for support when the pirated version of Photoshop you pull off IRC doesn't work right?
Re:Disinformation (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds like total and utter crap to me.
Although it is very thin on details, we can ask a few questions. How much natural gas would be needed to produce a 3 kiloton explosion ? How easy is this to achieve given the air mix required ? Is it likely that the Russians needed to steal software for controlling a pipeline ? What 'chips' were involved when it is claimed it was a software Trojan (firmware) ?
Just another reason (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Just great (Score:3, Interesting)
No known casualties (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, at least it's an example of the CIA doing what it's supposed to do. If I hear one more story about the CIA directly violating their charter by gathering domestic intelligence, well...I guess I'll just hate the CIA even more and not really do anything about it, but that sort of thing really pisses me off.
I doubt it (Score:1, Interesting)
I consider this highly unlikely, due to both the lack of information about such an event, and the events that followed shortly after. .
June 18, 1982-
* President Reagan widens a ban on sales of US oil and gas equipment to Russia, which is building a gas pipeline from Siberia to Central Europe.
July 22, 1982-
* France orders French licensees of U.S. firms to honor all contracts for the Siberian gas pipeline.
November 13, 1982-
* President Reagan lifts his ban against the use of U.S. technology for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Siberia to Western Europe.
So, at the same time this supposed blast occured, Reagan is banning the sale of equipment and technology to the USSR, France is requiring all the contracts to be honored by U.S. companies, and not a damn soul knows that it has either been destroyed, or is about to?
And then, a few short months later Reagan changes his mind, feels bad for the 3 kiloton trojan horse, and decides to make it up by selling them the information they need to rebuild a place we just barely destroyed.
Forgive me if I scoff.
(Source: http://www.cedmagic.com/museum/press/ced-timeline
Pitfalls of outsourcing... (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, the Soviets got suckered because they outsourced the software and chips to US firms.
Doesn't anybody see the similarity between what companies are doing now (with outsourcing) and the Soviet Union did 20 years ago?
And in case you're wondering, this is why Congress is afraid of cyber-terrorism - we literally used computers to kill people in Siberia in the 80's. Perhaps they are scared that the same thing could happen here?
I realize the fears of cyber-terrorism are overblown, but it is a real threat. The threat isn't from outside hackers, but rather, from insiders who plant trojan software programs and sabotage hardware. What would happen if a nuclear power plant computer was programmed to silently vent small quatities of nuclear waste over a period of months or years? By the time it would be noticed, it would be too late to avert disaster.
Why did the Soviets suddenly suspect all tech? (Score:3, Interesting)
""The pipeline software that was to run the pumps, turbines and valves was programmed to go haywire," writes Reed, "to reset pump speeds and valve settings to produce pressures far beyond those acceptable to the pipeline joints and welds."
They even "stole" the software?
"But all the software it had stolen for years was suddenly suspect, which stopped or delayed the work of thousands of worried Russian technicians and scientists."
Personally, I would have suspected user error or home-grown sabotage first. But that's probably why I don't work for the KGB.
"Farewell stayed secret because the blast in June 1982, estimated at three kilotons, took place in the Siberian wilderness, with no casualties known."
Something blows up in the wilderness and they suspect stolen US technology was the culprit.
"Now is a time to remember that sometimes our spooks get it right in a big way."
-compare/contrast-
"Col. Vladimir Vetrov provided what French intelligence called the Farewell dossier. It contained documents from the K.G.B. Technology Directorate showing how the Soviets were systematically stealing -- or secretly buying through third parties -- the radar, machine tools and semiconductors to keep the Russians nearly competitive with U.S. military-industrial strength through the 70's. In effect, the U.S. was in an arms race with itself."
So, we have the FRENCH to thank for this success?
Re:No chips from "the West" (Score:3, Interesting)
And yes the designs were 'stolen', but at a very low level. They copied the silicon masks and even the original logotype on them! Although I think they could have designed superior chips themselves if they have had anything faster than Apple II:s at the universities. But they didn't because of the US emargo.
Some more interesting things (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Meanwhile in Russia (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was a kid and heard about this type of logic, I assumed it would have to be done magnetically instead of electronically, such that you would represent three states by "positive", "negative", and "no charge". I had no idea how that would fly given magnets and computers, but it was something to think about.
I think they might have done it that way for the Russian computer that was mentioned.
I seem to remember hearing there were lots of technical problems with implementing it that way. I don't really know much about electrical engineering or circuit design, though.
Re:Let me get this straight.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, Mossad would occasionally find ways to sell cell phones to their enemies- except the phones would be packed with explosive, so all you had to do was call the phone and start a conversation to make sure the person who you are after is the one holding the phone, then press a special combination of keys- and BOOOM.
USSR facts (Score:2, Interesting)
The USSR had a certain % of unemployment. However, it was illegal to report on it. Poverty was quite rampant in the USSR: with large quantities of people living in hovels, and millions dying of starvation over the course of its existence.
First of all, it's always mentioned in US schools or corporate media how the Russians occupied Eastern Europe with it's armies. What's not mentioned is that the US occupied Western Europe with it's armies
Both were always mentioned. However, it was well known that the Soviet armies in the USSR were an enemy occupying force to keep places like Poland as a Soviet colony, while the Allied forces remaining in Western Europe were to prevent Soviet invasion.
The US idle class said they would not have foreign bases if not for the USSR.
The idle class (the American unemployed) do not speak like this.
billions go to Colombia to put down worker movements there
The movements in Colombia are quite anti-worker.
In fact, the US doesn't have the USSR to check it's power any more so it becomes even more bold since it has unilateral power.
There is no "unilateral power". Even the retaliation against the terrorists in Iraq last year had a coalition of 60+ nations.
and doesn't like having the US idle class take over the land and natural resources and exporting the profits back to the US.
That has not happened for decades. Besides, the unemployed (idle class) are not really involved with this.
". I'm sorry, but I look back at things such as Safire boss Nixon's support of the democratically elected government of Chile overthrow, replaced by a bloody tyrant
You forget the FACT that while Allende was elected, he quickly destroyed democracy and turned Chile into a single-party terror state controlled by the USSR. He invited East German stormstroopers to put down the Chilean people. Allende was the true bloody tyrant. His overthrow is truly something to celebrate.
as there are many out there who are unhappy about their imperialism, as well as their class war against workers at home.
There are no examples of US imperialism post-WW2. "Class War" is also a myth, created by ignorant bigots (similar of mind to those who try to create "race war").
Re:From the Life Imitating Art Dept. (Score:5, Interesting)
You are correct sir. I was a Midshipman at the US Naval Academy when "The Hunt for Red October" was published. He couldn't get a mainstream publisher, but the Naval Institute Press (which prints mostly textbooks used at USNA) picked it up.
While I don't recall any attempt at subjecting Clancy to a court-martial (remember, the Navy's pet publisher printed this book), I once read a Navy report discussing the accuracy of Clancy's depiction of the US Submarine (the USS Dallas, I recall). It was amazingly accurate, but the report concluded Clancy obtained his information from unclassified sources such as Janes Fighting Ships, etc.
Re:Google Link (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:It's not terrorism if Americans cause it (Score:3, Interesting)
The US had reason to believe that Iraq had some supply of weapons and perhaps some manufacturing capacity left. Why? Because that's what our intelligence and everyone else's led us to believe. Damn near everyone, Europeans included believe Iraq had some sort of weapons.
Hell, we knew they had the weapons in the mid 90s and Iraq failed to provide any documentation of the destruction of those weapons. While it's possible the Clinton administration's airstrikes took them all out, it seemed unlikely.
Meanwhile the ongoing sactions regime was doing a great job of crippling the Iraqi military and further programs. No fly zones allowed the creation of a healthy semi-autonomous and democraticish Kurdish state. Sadly though, these sactions were allowing the leadership in Iraq to live like kings while thousands of children died of malnutrition and poor medicine. Sponsering those kinds of sanctions is something liberals and conservatives alike should be saddened by. The situation had to change.
I would have prefereed an easing of sanctions coupled by a permenant long-term inspection program. However, that sort of high profile program would be an offront to Iraqi dignity and might have caused resentment if carried on for 20 years. I fully believe that our invasion of Iraq was a good thing for Iraq. I'm not sure it was a good thing for us. For Iraq though, it gives them a chance to build a free(er) country. Whether that works out or not remains to be seen.
Yes, many American, Britain, and allied troops of died. And yes, far more Iraq troops have died. And yes, many civilians died. That's sad. Hopefully though, we will see fewer Iraqi children dieing. And while it now appears that there was not a major threat of Iraq giving WMD to its agents or assorted terrorists, there was a threat percieved.
Now, if you'll permit me, I'll put on a neo-con mask. More important than reducing the threat in Iraq, was taking the stance that if you are developing WMD you might be next. Maybe we come off looking like heros, maybe we look like crazy cowboys out for vigilante justice. Either way, we strongly encourage countries who have big league aspirations to reconsider the WMD approach.
The reform of Libya, which made sizeable strides in the Clinton administration recently took on a very differant tone. It stopped being about past terrorism and a pledge to stop that, and changed to being about them giving up their WMD and revealing where they got them. One could argue they didn't want to be next. By that logic, one could say that we wanted to take out the Iraqi threat, but when there wasn't one, took care of the real Libya threat as a bonus. Frankly, if you trust Libya to protect their weapons from other nasties, you have more faith in them than I do.
That event opened our eyes to how the underground WMD market works. Witness the recent news from Pakistan as it comes to grips with being a major exporter of nuclear weapons technology. We're seeing some "I guess the US means business" reaction from other hotspots as well.
Neocon mask comes off.
It's possible that these developments might have occured without our actions in Iraq. We'll never know. I do agree with you that the Democrats and media need to be more skeptical of what we do and we need serious debate on the matter. I get terribly pissed off whenever I see anyone who questions our foriegn policy having their patriotism questsioned.
However, I think we went into Iraq with relatively noble intentions. We thought they had WMD, even if we were wrong or made the evidence sound a bit stronger than it was. In Iraq, I think our boys have done their best to shoot the people shooting at them and try to avoid hitting civilians. War sucks though, and since we've left the days of two armies meeting in a nuetral battlefied, civilians pay a terrible price. I would argue that describing our actions as war crimes is unfair and wrong.
If you want true war crimes, look to the man who last led Iraq. He gassed e
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you RTFA?
Straight from the article:
The catch: computer chips would be designed to pass Soviet quality tests and then to fail in operation.
While the main anecdote of the article is about bogus software, computer chips are mentioned.
Basic flaw in Soviet strategy (Score:2, Interesting)
However, the fundamental problem with copying is that you will ALWAYS be behind. The next problem is that if you don't wnat to get even farther behind, you will not take the time to check and re-test the technology that you obtain, thus leaving yourself open to disinformation, trojan horses, etc.
When the history was actually revealed, it turned out that we were far further ahead of the Soviets in almost all areas than anyone suspected. This was partly because western intelligence services had a bias to interpret their scarce data to elevate the Soviet's capabilities (legitimate caution to avoid being blindsided, bureaucratic impeitive to increase budgets, etc), but there wre also some genuine alarms from misread or misleading data.
My favorite was one I heard from a guy that works in the aerospace industry designing satellite and weapons systems, which I believe occurred in the mid-70s. They apparently got some dispersed radar data inticating that a MIG had taken off from Lybia and flown towards Egypt at an almost insane speed, indicating a huge technology breakthru. This data really got the attention of the right people, and of course the engineers in the classified aerospace programs were challenged to explain and beat this achievement. Some weeks later, they figured out that the plane had crashed, and the data was erroneous. But think of the engineers who had to receive this challenge -- talk about outrageous demands from management!
Re:No chips from "the West" (Score:1, Interesting)
First of all they reverse engineered the chips and realised designs suited for the mask width limitations they had. So if the 386 used 1um designs the Soviet could only make down to 3um and that is the design rules they used. And it worked. Sure it was slower, used more power, emitted more heat, but it did work.
Moreover the Soviets and later the Russians always kept the limitations in mind, used the simplest design that did the job. That is why their space station Mir was operative for so many years and why it survived severe degradation without catastrophic collapse and loss of life.
U.S.S.R. wasn't "far behind on technology" in '70 (Score:5, Interesting)
First men in space: Russia (implies better ICBMs)
First operational jetfighter with thrust-vectoring (MIG): Russia
First working long-term space stations: Russia (also used for spying)
First undedectable stealth fighter dedected and shot down by: Russian technology in Yugoslavia (nice done, guys!)
World's most powerfull rocket: Russia (Energija), implies that they could launch a BIG amount of plutonium for a BIG shot.
Most reliable rocket technology: Russia
First figher plane with look-and-lock systems (you look at your enemy and the rockets automatically lock onto that target): Russia (IMHO the MIG25)
Well, sure, USA has a great deal of hightech gadgets lying around, but the Soviets are the guys that actually made them working.
There was also a big fuss about that the USSR stole the space shuttle technology for their Buran shuttle. Actually, the Buran uses a more modern design, has a much higher capacity, better aerodynamics and even can fly completly on automatic (whereas the US shuttle must be landed per joystick).
Sure, the USSR stole *some* technology, but the US wasn't any better. Didn't they steal MIG's whenever they saw a chance, just to try out how to beat them in air combat and integrate russian thruster-design into US fighters?
Total Crap (Score:5, Interesting)
I served in Strat. Int. and I can say with total confidence that -if- such a thing happened heads in the community would roll.
In a time of all out war, yes it would be ok.
But the Cold War was not all out war and such a thing would have been an act of war, and not worth the risk.
The Nixon and Reagan administrations would have been stupid enough to risk GTNW for a feather like that, but nobody else until GB2.
The pipeline was not a proper target for such an action.
Re:awesome (Score:5, Interesting)
Sabotage (Score:3, Interesting)
Technology theft was a very big deal back in the 70s and 80s. There were many cases where Soviet chips were direct ripoffs of American designs, even to the point of including non-functional details from the American designs. The KGB and GRU invested huge amounts of effort into stealing Western technology. Stolen Western computer designs also allowed the Soviet Union to steal Western computer software.
Not the biggest (Score:2, Interesting)
gus weiss (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's some info about the fall which killed Gus Weiss:
washinton post article [washingtonpost.com] and Nashville Tenessean obit [tennessean.com]
Notice that Audrey Wolf, mentioned in the latter obit, is Joseph Wilson's literary agent [publishingnews.co.uk].
Not that that should mean anything...
Re:Disinformation (Score:5, Interesting)
Overall an OK hypothesis, but I think it falls down on this one point.
It was very easy for the government to lie about WMD. Say, the Intelligence Services have someone who says his brother knows a man who thinks overheard someone talking about Saddam's biological weapsons. The Intelligence Services dismiss it as poor evidence, but the government are so desparate to find anything that will support their desire to go to war that they choose to accept it. So in accepting a peice of dubious evidence, and then passing it onto the public, they have effectively lied. I don't find it too difficult to imagine this kind of "conspiracy" has taken place.
What you're talking about is in a whole different league. For the Brits or Americans to deliberately take biological or nuclear weapons into Iraq, hide them, and then pretend to "find" them - the risks of doing that, and the chances of getting found out, are so high that it's something I don't think they would never try.
I think they probably thought "we think they might have WMD, but we haven't got much good evidence. Let's tell the public we do have good evidence so they object less when we invade, then we're sure to find something once we're there and the public will be satisfied." Only they didn't.
At least one of your three "facts"... (Score:3, Interesting)
...has some tiny chance of being appropriate.
Actually, they bought the technology and tested it before they used it. It was against our laws for them to buy it, but they paid for it. That's not the same as stealing. And the article clearly states that the software was designed to pass tests and fail in actual operation.
Since this thread is about whether the U.S. cared whether it killed people or not, the fact that it was in the middle of Siberia is only relevant if the terrorists who planned the operation knew it would happen in a place where no one would be killed. They didn't.
This one might actually be right.
Re:No chips from "the West" (Score:5, Interesting)
They knew they were,at the time, basically immune from prosecution so were not concerned about being so blatant.
These were by the way telecom chips not exactly militarilly sensitive.
Re:use varying voltages instead... (Score:3, Interesting)
Every serious effort to develop higher than tri-valued logic starts from recognizing that the error rate will always go up, not just for a decimal system such as you describe, but for any number greater than 3, but there is some benefit from the design that will make some of those other things not equal, and so drive it back down.
Unless the designer can explain how those other design advantages will more than overcome the error rate increase, the machine will never be a practical working computer. Quite a few of these designs get proposed or supported by people who can't explain that point.
Re:What helped "us" "win" the Cold War (Score:1, Interesting)
On objective side, average life expectancy in Yugoslavia in mid 1980's was 7-8 years higher then current one in Croatia. Average monthly income was twice the current one in Croatia. And Croatia is considered well-off by Balkan standards. Most other Eastern European countries are in a far worse position.
Talking about freedoms, I never experienced supression, nor did my family. At least until the country fell apart and pro-West nationalists (read: fascists) took over. They hounded, persecuted and imprisoned journalists, squashed public protests, did away with our economic and political rights, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down. All this to the resounding cheering of the West, who had no qualms about helping these crooks take everything. See, it is in the interests of the West to have a cheap labor force, highly trained and educated (pre-fall Yugoslavia had about 20% of its population with a college degree or better). Not to mention that a large number of Western corporations got in on the looting of the national economy.
Do I sound bitter? Of course I do. Through good luck, I am now in a better economic position then I was in former Yugoslavia, but only thanks to my father working for a rich Arab employer. Most of my friends are back home are dirt poor, in comparison to what we all had 10-15 years ago. We got screwed by the West. We are only beginning to get properly screwed by the West.
So yeah, some other people's mileage with communist systems may vary, but as far as I am concerned, we had a worker's paradise, and we blew it, with a helpful nudge from the West.
Re:Meanwhile in Russia (Score:3, Interesting)
For, say, a boolean column you have true, false and NULL as possible "values."
And NULL is never equal to anything, and it is also never not equal to anything.
boolColumn != true
charColumn != 'x'
intColumn != 1
(etc)
will not match a NULL, you have to explicitly say IS NULL or IS NOT NULL.
Obviously not news to anyone who knows SQL, but I just felt like pointing it out...
Re:awesome (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry folks. Nothing to see but a bunch of soviet-era screw ups. The pipe technicians noticed a drop in pressure. Instead of going out and looking for the leak, they increased the gas flow.
The explosion was set off by 2 passing passenger trains, killing about 1200 people.
Re:There *is* a clear definition of terrorism. (Score:3, Interesting)
We'd resort to "terrorism" should we ever find ourselves in a losing or weak position. Everyone will. When it's die or be terribly oppressed, nearly everyone will resort to "terrorism." It's just that we've not been in a losing position and thus never had to resort to "below-the-belt" tactics. That's find, just don't try to convince me that we wouldn't do the same, if push came to shove.
Our morals are not much better than the "evil-doers" we so malign. *Really!*
Another view - who supports the US Gvmt? Us, right? We pays our taxes, we elect our government etc. So, if there's anyone who's responsbile - the most responsible - for the acts of their government, it's us!
So, when our government go's and trains goon squads in Guatamala and other south American countries - who should be held responsble?
I'm not saying I advocate terrorism, as I don't. But to see what the US tolerates and actively supports in the rest of the world - Saudi, Iran (The Shaw of...), South America, Pinochet etc etc etc etc etc etc... ad nausium
They're not some oppressed people who are *forced* to support their terrible government - like those in Iran under the Shaw, or those in Iraq under Saddam Hussain in the 80's.
We elect our leaders - we give our government taxes - we even have guns to ensure the government is not violating the will of the people. Yet we, by and large, do nothing to stop the abuses of our government the world over.
Sure, a few people protest and vote accordingly, but the vast majority don't.
So, given these terms, just how innocent are US civillians?
Just some thoughts.
Cheers,
Greg
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:1, Interesting)
It is very clear that Safire has no idea what he is talking about. I suspect that is because he simply printed the story without first checking it for credibility with someone who would know.
These chips didn't have to be CPUs, they could have merely been ROM chips. Remember your old design classes (yeah, it's been a while for me as well, but...)?
ROM chips don't make a lot of sense until you have invented microprocessors. In 1974 when this plot is meant to have started the 4004 has been out for only 3 years. It only appeared in the first pocket calculator in 1972. Microprocessor based industrial control systems simply do not exist at this point.
It does not make sense for the US to plot to give the Soviets something that would not even be common in Western oil and gas installations for ten years. Or to believe that the Soviets would be eager to throw away the three term control units that work perfectly well and replace them with a bleeding edge technology stolen from the West.
Even if we accept your 'ROM chips' theory, why would the soviets steal and copy blind 256 bytes of code? ROM chips were simply not very big at the time. 2Kb was pretty big even in 1978.
It would be a pretty easy matter to hide a trojan in Windows NT or Linux today. The systems that existed in 1980 were simply not that complex. The Soviets were not stealling to simply copy blind, they were stealing to learn the technology. The US had to expect that every line of code they gave would be reverse engineered and disassembled.
I don't care what the alleged technology is, there was no technology available at the time that was complex enough to hide a trojan in and expect it not to be found.
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:4, Interesting)
As far as your time tables are concerned, you are using the same source of this story - the news media and government (which you appear to disbelieve) - for the fact that the Soviets were 5 years behind us technologically. Sure, I'd believe that overall, life was not as modern in USSR as it was in the USA at the time. However, is it not remotely possible that at least a handful of people had access to more up-to-date western technology?
And finally, since your sig suggests you just have a problem with the government in general, what makes you think the CIA even thought of the negative consequences of leaving "sleeper" chips out in the open for the KGB to grab? Maybe they assumed the Soviets were behind in technology 5 years and didn't think they had anything to control like what they used the chips to control. What makes you think they planted chips to cause an explosion? More likely, they planted the chips to cause the slowdown of development of some technology, and the unintended result was an explosion.
Where in this whole thread do Republicans come into play? Or, were you just reaching to make some sort of over-generalization? Or maybe you just call everyone that has a differing opinion a republican, kinda like a swear word?
UNDERRATED (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Dictator's paradise (Score:3, Interesting)
1) everyone was able to join labour unions
2) the home might have been owned by the state, but that didn't really matter after all
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:3, Interesting)
The simple fact is that certain semiconductor manufacturers (still in existence, so no names....) were allowing reject chips to leave their plant, they were then re-tested and if they worked after a fashion, were re-labelled as genuine, by some dodgy business somewhere. I remember being on the receiving end of a batch of faulty 741 op-amps, which had made their way from somewhere in the US, via Egypt and I forget where else, eventually ending up on the UK market. Re-marking supposed military-grade components was much more lucrative. But, at least two major semiconductor manufacturers were themselves fined for cheating on some part of the testing process of military components.
As for microprocessors, a lot of junk came out of the major manuafacturers anyway, because process control was not what it is today, and only so much testing was possible. They were no doubt doing their best, with a new technology, but I know that EPROM, RAM and for some reason clock generator (surely the simplest?) chips from one manufacturer had an abnormally high proportion of defects.
The story of this explosion is just that, a story created to fit the known facts of a very real and tragic accident, caused by human error.
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:1, Interesting)
No, no and no. In computer hardware technology soviets were AT LEAST 5 years behind west, and that's considered pretty much a fact nowadays (including russians' own analysis, after the fact). While Soviet Union definitely did possess cutting end technology in some areas (metallurgy, optics), electronics by and large was woefully behind the times. Now, getting access to pieces of more sophisticated chips would have been possible, but gee, those parts wouldn't have ended in installations as mundane as ones described. Plus, one chip does not a system make; and more importantly, you'd NEVER want to create one of a kind systems without spare replacement parts. All in all, the whole story sounds very very unrealistic, more like an urban legend.
And as to republicans, I'd guess his comments were just based on observation that author himself is a conservative, generally read by like-minded, and commentary post was downgraded. Nothing more magical there.
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:3, Interesting)
I have read a lot of the history of the US intelligence services. Enough to know the difference between the CIA crew at Langley and the rest of the agencies.
Interception of signals and decoding them is the job of the NSA. The CIA is only a small part of the US intelligence services, it is not even the largest part of the intelligence budget. Submarine intelligence would be the primary responsibility of naval intelligence and the signals would be decoded by the NSA at Fort Meade. The CIA would have nothing to do with that.
Re:What helped "us" "win" the Cold War (Score:4, Interesting)
So what is important is the scale of poverty and the structure of income distribution. The fact is that today the decile ratio (total income of the richest 10% divided by total income of the poorest 10%) in Russia is 14, which is almost 4 times higher than in the USA and EU. The same ratio for Moscow is 45. So the social inequality is an order of magnitude greater than anything we had in Soviet Union.
And overall the real incomes are still lower today than they used to be in the 1980s after the GDP fell more than 50% in early 1990s. And the situation is much worse in other Soviet republics (except for Baltic states, thanks to generous investments from Scandinavia).
It is already 13 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but people are still worse off than they used to be. May be the personal incomes were not that low, compared with the Western countries, but it was more than compensated by great access to public services, such as free medicine, free education, free everything else. Yes, the state was corrupt, but not to the extent it became corrupt now.
P.S. Personally I am better off than I was, but when I consider the intangible things that were lost (like being proud of your country and stuff), I am no longer that sure. And of course, hope. Being a realist and relatively well informed about the economy (working in an investment banking and management consulting here for some time), I don't have any hope for the country that used to be my home. The only rational thing to do now is to move to the Western Europe.
Re:What helped "us" "win" the Cold War (Score:2, Interesting)
My family background includes strong Serbian ties. Many of my 3rd and 4th cousins live in areas that were our ancestors' homes for 400+ years. Those areas, btw, were and are Serbian enclaves in what is now Croatia.
My great-grandfather deserted in 1902 from the Prussian Army (a Serbian regiment on loan from the Austro-Hungarian Empire) after his firstborn son starved to death. (He was a draftee with a 25 year commitment, btw.) He made his way to the coast and found passage to the US. He left behind his wife and unborn daughter until he could send for them a year later.
At that time, his relatives were all, almost without exception, peasants. Hardworking illiterate farmers and blacksmiths. The most well off one that I know about owned a small shop in one of the villages.
The American branch of the family recently celebrated the centennial of our arrival in Chishom, Minnesota. At that gathering were mechanics, carpenters, engineers, teachers, salespeople, a couple of IT geeks, and at least one retired senior VP of an American corporation.
During WWI my family lost overseas relatives to the pogroms. During WWII it was the Ustache. We lost people during the last 6 cornered war, too. In most cases the dead were innocent civilians murdered by thugs in uniform.
Meanwhile, the surviving overseas branch (hampered as they are by the political mess that is the Balkans) have still managed to thrive. A century after my great-grandfather left I now have relatives over there who are microbiologists, psychiatrists, professors, business owners, and at least one lawyer that I know of. We still have some dirt poor farmers for relatives, too, and at least one family that I know is still in a refugee camp.
The thing is, they don't blame the West for all the deaths that they have suffered. They don't blame the Croatians, the Bosnians, the Moslems, or the Albanians. Heck, they don't even blame the rest of the Serbs who supposedly kicked off the war to 'save' them from the bloodthirsty Croatians. They know the difference between a thug in uniform and the guy down the street who grew up Roman Catholic instead of Serbian Orthodox.
Like every generation before them, they have mourned and buried their dead, picked themselves up, and got back to work building a better life for themselves and their children.
If they can do it, so can you. Don't blame others for your situation. Deal with things as they are. Work with your neighbors, your friends, and your relatives to better each other.
Re:Pentium I bug. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Soviets were not stealing to simply copy blind, they were stealing to learn the technology. The US had to expect that every line of code they gave would be reverse engineered and disassembled.
There's no code, they would have to examine every single transistor -OR- they perform testing to ensure the chip produced the correct output for a given input. We had to hope they missed the exception condition, which they apparently did.
I don't care what the alleged technology is, there was no technology available at the time that was complex enough to hide a trojan in and expect it not to be found.
I'm sorry, but this simply isn't correct. You're making this MUCH more complicated than it was, it wasn't as complex as "trojan horses" we see today. But it was a "trojan" in that it appeared to have one function when there was a hidden, malicious sub-function being hidden.
It would be a pretty easy matter to hide a trojan in Windows NT or Linux today.
Agreed, AND we could have had MUCH better control over the results. BTW, I'm NOT trying to be combative (as in typical /. style, which I fall victim to myself sometimes), I merely want to point out what was described very definately could have been (and seemingly was) done given the tech available. It's much more "basic" than they author describes, but roughly accurate...
Re:Let me get this straight.... (Score:2, Interesting)
It also implies "don't trust computer hardware and software products from the US". And they say countries like China are paranoid for starting to develop their own. If this story could be proved, it would pretty much conclusively 'prove' that no other government of ANY country should ever use American hardware or software for anything serious.
Re:This is troubling (Score:1, Interesting)
The moral responsibility of preventing a nuclear holocaust, at all costs, far outweights the petty theif's "moral right" to steal. The USSR was simply not allowed to keep up the arms race - it was not an option that the world could accept. When it comes to nuclear, there IS NO OPTION other than to make DAMN SURE nobody launches. Conventional wars can be stopped, but a nuclear war is THE END OF IT ALL, FOREVER. That's something you appeasists just never seem to understand.
And, if you think that these sorts of activities are no longer done, you're sorely mistaken. If the second place guy is so far back there's no hope of winning, nobody will fight that hard. That's good. AS soon as you have two contenders for the throne, things get ugly, fast.