Posted on 11/09/2015 11:01:08 AM PST by Enlightened1
The Pentagon was tipped off in 2011 by a longtime Army contractor that Russian computer programmers were helping to write computer software for sensitive U.S. military communications systems, setting in motion a four-year federal investigation that ended this week with a multimillion-dollar fine against two firms involved in the work.
The contractor, John C. Kingsley, said in court documents filed in the case that he discovered the Russians’ role after he was appointed to run one of the firms in 2010. He said the software they wrote had made it possible for the Pentagon’s communications systems to be infected with viruses.
Greed drove the contractor to employ the Russian programmers, he said in his March 2011 complaint, which was sealed until late last week. He said they worked for one-third the rate that American programmers with the requisite security clearances could command. His accusations were denied by the firms that did the programming work.
“On at least one occasion, numerous viruses were loaded onto the DISA [Defense Information Systems Agency] network as a result of code written by the Russian programmers and installed on servers in the DISA secure system,†Kingsley said in his complaint, filed under the federal False Claims Act in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on March 18, 2011.
Asked to confirm that the Russians’ involvement in the software work led to the presence of viruses in the U.S. military’s communications systems, Alana Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Defense Information Systems Agency, declined to answer on the grounds that doing so could compromise the agency’s “national security posture.â€
“It’s something that we take very seriously,†Johnson said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “The Department of Defense’s posture on cybersecurity ultimately affects national security.â€
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailybeast.com ...
We are being governed by fools.
Notice I said *good* workforce? I have no idea the quality of the Russian developers. For all I know they are no better than those on the US.
Whomever made that brilliant decision needs to be covered in honey and staked to the ground next to a fire ant mound.
Literally the fate of the nation, and the lives of every single soldier, sailor, airman and marine has been placed in jeopardy because of this. WTF was going through the idiot’s mind? WTF was going through the minds of his/her supervisors?
Our “leaders” are anti-American fools...and traitors.
Amazing
Or that bill clinton sold our nuke weapons and missile guidance tech to the Chinese. Who’s gonna’ believe that?/sarc
I’m a pretty good programmer...
But the finest programmers I have ever seen were all Russians...made me look like a noob.
For some reason they just have the knack.
Moscow University has a pretty good nexus of computer scientists and top notch programmers working for US companies via third party corporate cutouts.
The Russians are technically very good. A favorite activity is to find ways to tweak the lesser abilities of USA programmers in their work.
It is common lore that the Russians are good because their computers were once so underpowered that they had to make up for it by better programming techniques.
I’ve run a corporation overseas and employed Russian developers... They are no better the US devs and in some respects, they can be worse. The lack of a teamwork concept is definitely detrimental. Many Russians play CYA most of the time, especially the older generation
My guess is Russian developers going to work on a US military project have, uh, “special” capabilities.
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