Re: US Navy could be crippled by software backdoors.


??? wrote:
Vince Brannigan wrote:
Fred J. McCall wrote:





You're obviously an idiot. In case no one told you, you can examine
an IC and see precisely how the circuitry is laid out. We make a lot
of them here.



You're obviously an idiot. In case no one told you, you can examine
software source and see precisely how the logic is laid out. We write
a lot of it here.



Without disputing your basic thesis, my colleagues tell me that
concealing crippling code in IC is actually possible and defeats most
simple reverse engineering techniques. Using such code later is the trick

Vince









"Others in the defense technology community in Washington say that DOD
and NSA have limited options in their struggle for access to
leading-edge technologies. There is growing recognition that China has
put in place an effective policy that is attracting the latest
generation of semiconductor fabs. "China has taken a competitive move
using straight industrial policy to capture this sector," says one
government official. "They manipulate their currency; they've got the
[14 percent] value added tax [on imported semiconductors]. They'll
supply the plant for free if you put it in their industrial park. They
have no income taxes. They'll supply a fully trained workforce that
works at low cost."

DOD has few tools to counter these policies. It can't press China on the
VAT -- that's the USTR's role. It can't forgive corporate business taxes
or create high-tech industrial parks. Its only option is to develop
dedicated relationships in specific technology sectors, such as the IBM
Trusted Foundry.

But this will not be enough to address the growing hemorrhage of U.S.
high tech manufacturing, say others. In prepared testimony before the
House Small Business Committee last October, Thomas Hartwick, chairman
of the DOD Advisory Group on Electron Devices, said "special
arrangements with domestic chip manufactures are [a] band-aid solution
that our government has put in place for the time being."

What is needed, Hartwick told the committee, is a "long-term national
strategy to reverse the offshore trend." He called for "immediate
government action" to address the offshore movement of manufacturing and
said: "We desperately need a national strategy to maintain our leadership."

Hartwick told the committee that the structure of the U.S. high-tech
industry is becoming unglued -- that innovation and design are losing
their tie to prototype fabrication and manufacturing. The breakage of
this link is resulting in inventions ending up "on the cutting room
floor because they cannot be manufactured." In a few years, the
manufacturing base in the United States may not exist to create the
"mega-billion dollar industries like microelectromechanical systems or
nanotechnologies," on which the defense industry will depend, Hartwick said.

Randy Isaac, vice president of strategic alliances in IBM's Technology
Division, told a group assembled by the National Academy of Sciences
last year for the release of its semiconductor report entitled "Securing
the Future" that the United States semiconductor industry as it is
currently structured "is at risk." Industry financials "are causing
liquidations, consolidations and partnerships," he said. "Many companies
are going fabless or fab-lite -- manufacturing is moving offshore to
large-scale foundries." The United States, he said, "needs a new
semiconductor partnership strategy plan."

The United States, Issac told the Capitol Hill briefing, has only 21
percent of the world's semiconductor manufacturing capacity and 25
percent at the leading edge, "and both shares are declining." R&D
clusters comprised of universities, foundries, equipment makers, design
service vendors and governments are forming in Shanghai and Beijing.
"Design and integration capabilities will migrate with manufacturing
capabilities and these realities represent a long-term trend difficult
to reverse," said Isaac. "The resulting diminution of U.S. semiconductor
manufacturing base has many implications including U.S. government
inability to obtain needed chips reliably."

The only options for the government are to partner with U.S. industry or
to rely on foreign suppliers for design and manufacture of specialized
chips. "With the exit of leading-edge fabricators from the U.S. and the
driving force they represent, U.S. semiconductor technology leadership
degrades steadily until lost outright," Isaac concluded."

http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/04/0203/art1.html

Maybe they will also improve the awarding of performance bonuses, such
as no longer rewarding slip shod work as if it was excellent. In its
study of 93 contracts, the GAO found that the Defense Department paid
out $8 billion in special award and incentive fees, often without
regard to performance. In many cases the projects were behind schedule,
over budget and experiencing significant technical problems.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/10/AR2006041001310_pf.html

Pentagon Ends Bad-Work Bonuses

Tuesday, April 11, 2006; A19

The Pentagon is toughening up its policy of awarding bonuses to defense
contractors. From now on, they will have to do at least a satisfactory
job to qualify for the extra money.

The new policy, detailed in two March 21 Federal Register notices and
in a March 29 memo from James I. Finley, the Pentagon's No. 2
procurement official, is a response to a Government Accountability
Office study last year that found that some payments to defense
contractors were, well, indefensible.

In its study of 93 contracts, the GAO found that the Defense Department
paid out $8 billion in special award and incentive fees, often without
regard to performance. In many cases the projects were behind schedule,
over budget and experiencing significant technical problems.

Such free-spending ways dilute the power of monetary incentives to spur
better, faster and more efficient work by contractors who build vital
weapons systems and collect billions of dollars in public money each
year, the report said.

Now, the Pentagon promises to link awards to specific milestones, do a
better job of monitoring contractor performance and limit the rollover
of unearned award money to future phases of a project.

"Clearly, satisfactory performance should earn considerably less than
excellent performance, other wise the motivation to achieve excellence
is negated," Finley wrote. ". . . Performance that is less than
satisfactory is not entitled to any award fee."

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