Feds Pay Millions For Bogus Spy Software 221
gosuperninja writes "The US Government paid tens of millions of dollars to Dennis Montgomery because he said he had created software that could decode secret Al-Qaeda messages embedded in Al-Jazeera broadcasts. Even though the CIA figured out that his software was fraud in 2003, other defense agencies continued to believe in it. To date, the government has not prosecuted Montgomery, most likely to save itself the embarrassment."
They should have been suspicious (Score:5, Funny)
When the message decoded to "There's a sucker born every minute."
Re:I saw something very similar. (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not sure you're following the game. This conversation all started with an article about U.S. intelligence agencies paying a man US$20,000,000 to detect and decode (presumably) steganographic messages in news broadcasts. That charlatans can weasel their way into the most sensitive parts of the government on this side of the pond is, if not a proven fact, at least a given for the purposes of our little chat here.
The closest I've ever gotten to being in an intelligence agency was taking the tour at the FBI in D.C. about 20 years ago. But I did spend 25 years working for the FAA, which is responsible for ensuring the safety of aviation in the U.S. (presumably without choking off air travel to a trickle), and I saw examples of ignorance and incompetence in positions of authority and consequence that have scarred me for life. Most people don't know anything, and they don't know anything about what they might know if they did know anything, and they don't know any way to figure out the extent of their ignorance if they did want to know (which they don't).
As a humorous aside, here's an example of what passes for "security" in the U.S.: a supervisor of mine (we'll call him Tom, since that's his name) told the story of how, when he had been in the agency for just a couple of years, a friend of his broke up with his wife. The wife got angry and called the ATC center where we worked and told management that her (future ex-)husband and his buddies (including, naturally, Tom) had smoked marijuana in her presence. This, of course, started a witch hunt which ended with Tom being interviewed by his superior. It went something like this:
Tom's Boss: Tom, we hear you've smoked pot. Is that true?
Tom: Yes.
Tom's Boss: We can't fire you for that because we can't prove it, but since you admitted it to me we'll have to fire you for falsifying government documents.
Tom: What documents?
Tom's Boss: Your SF-171 Application for Government Employment. Where it asks if you've used illegal drugs, you said "no."
Tom: No, I didn't. I said yes.
Tom's Boss: Huh?
Tom: When I filled out the SF-171, I said I had used marijuana.
Tom's Boss: You did?
Tom: Yes.
Tom's Boss: Oh.
And that was it. As far as I know (I'm retired now), Tom still works there, 30 years after the PATCO strike opened up a position for him. And that, my friend, is what passes for due diligence in the U.S. government.
Satisfaction Guaranteed (Score:3, Funny)
Guy passing bogus checks to casinos: One point eight million dollars.
Guy defrauds US government: Tens of millions of dollars.
Seeing Guy hanged for treason alongside idiotic government bureaucrats who helped perpetrate this boondoggle: priceless