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• Sunday, March 16, 2008 09:22 PM

  @amity

  As a non-sequitor, I'm watching the "Padre de Familia" episode of Family Guy, which lampoons the 9/11 attacks. Ironically, Seth MacFarlane is in a unique position to discuss it, having been saved from certain death on American Airlines flight 11 by a hangover.

  At the risk of stretching my analogy, suppose that the in-house security guy tells you that there was no way of knowing about the exploit, and refused to answer any questions about how the patch that used to be there had been removed — or whether there was any connection to the huge budget increase and sweeping new authority he was demanding to fight future intrusions.

  At the very least, you'd have to consider the possibility that he was grossly negligent and attempting, with breathtaking audacity, to turn his own fuckup into an opportunity for self-advancement.

  And you'd have to at least think about whether he'd been willfully negligent.

  Gross fuckups, audacity and negligence are the rule in the computer security world. That's why, to this day, obvious security holes remain unclosed.

  One need not dig too deep into the security world to see that this is true. One needs to merely scratch the surface.

  9/11 is the classic example of someone turning their own fuckups into an opportunity for self-advancement.

  According to the official story, al-Qaeda has at least two successful attacks against American interests using different methods each time than those used on 9/11.. the Kenyan embassy attacks and the US Cole.

  Anyway, never underestimate your opponent's ability to fuck themselves by being lazy, stupid or just greedy.

  That's what happened on 9/11/2001.

  —Christopher Michael Neill Read Christopher Michael Neill's other letters
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