Your source shows 1 year and mine shows 19 years. Your source is also only looking at benefits instead of total government spending. it isn't counting military spending, income from federal jobs, or farm subsidies.
I was trying to be kind... when you add in farm subsidies, California really tanks it.
Your source also shows CA not bringing up the rear. Instead they are pretty much almost in the middle. That chart says CA gets $1.09 for every $1.00. More than half the states on that chart are getting more than that.
Yes. But most of the other states don't have large populations. This is dollar parity... not per capita spending, which would paint a much bleaker picture.
As recently as 2010, they were failing. Source. I mean, yes, you can massage the data to put California in a better light, and yes, they have been making changes, but historically they've sucked. You can't just look 5 years, or 10 years, but all the years: Because that's where our federal deficit comes from. And when you look at that data... California's still bringing up the rear.
That shows the past year. One. Single. Numero Uno. After severe and numerous budget crisis California has cleaned up its act, mostly due to threats of severe economic sanctions if it didn't fix the problem _now_. It doesn't erase decades of debt overnight. Look at it this way: You suddenly get a good job that pays twice as much as your last job. How many years does it take to catch up on all that credit card debt and stuff you accumulated up until now? Answer: A long time.
We're paying for past indiscretions of California and will be for some time to come. But hey, congratulations on the new job.
In other news, much of the national deficit is due to this pathetically disorganized, in the red, severely overbudget, bloated state. Why do businesses continue to flock there? There's plenty of good homes along the east coast. Texas has a healthy tech sector. Even in the flyover state of Minnesota you can find plenty of talent. WHY CALIFORNIA PEOPLE? WHYYYyyyyy? Even Mexico didn't fight that hard for it -- they practically gave us the desolate, flood-prone, earthquake-prone, mudslide-prone, forest fire-prone state. How many hints does nature have to give a business before it takes the hint?:/
Of course the U.S. could threaten any payment processor - U.S.-based or not - with sanctions but since Antigua's move seems to be a WTO-approved measure, those sanctions would probably be found illegal again by the WTO allowing further compensations. And soon we are in a full-scale economic war.
That's actually been happening for some time. The dollar has been on a steady decline for years as more governments and business opt for other forms of currency. The US has reacted by taking unilateral action like this -- essentially doing everything they can to strong-arm the financial world into doing things their way or else. This is one of the motivating reasons behind the creation of the EU. It's the same with the internet, and why the UN is fussing over getting power away from the United States: Especially since we're now talking about creating an "internet kill switch" and are deploying cyberwarfare weapons targetting economic infrastructure of other countries. It's nuts out there. It's no surprise the rest of the world is slowly ganging up on the 3000 ton gorilla in the room and saying "Enough is enough."
Many countries' relationships with the US have soured due to economic policy. Most of the middle east, for example. Many countries are rejecting our "intellectual property" non-sense as just another way of maintaining economic superiority... and Antigua just called their bluff. The US now either has to throw the country into the same category as, say, Cuba, which will prompt an even stronger international response, or back off.
I think you know what my vote is: The US would rather implode than admit it was wrong.
Not if step one in the process is: 1) get permission from the system operator/administrator/owner. That's where this guy failed.
I'm not talking about this guy: I'm replying to the comments of the OP talking about how schools today don't teach security, and they don't. They don't because they're afraid -- teaching someone security is like teaching them how to use a firearm. In the process of learning that, you learn how to disarm it safely, etc. Learning is a two-edged sword, but unfortunately our government has demonized learning that could lead to political fallout. Look at how the press reacted to the gun control debate -- by publishing the names of thousands of people who were granted carry and conceal permits, and then putting it on an interactive map with a giant "rape me" sign above each of them. I don't know how that helps foster a sincere and open discussion on the topic.
The moment something becomes political you can't learn about it anymore, not objectively anyway. It becomes very time consuming to sort through the bullshit and get to a good answer... and this is when the government isn't actively looking for your inquiries and adding you to terror watchlists. People can't have an open dialog about computer security right now because it's too political. That doesn't mean you can't learn it, or even teach it... it just means it's a lot riskier.
You shouldn't have to risk your career just to show some kids how to do something that might actually help them and their community, but there it is, and that's what's up.
Students learn much more from professors who have backbones than those from the family of invertebrates.
Yes, it's totally reasonable to expect someone who has spent close to six figures earning their degrees and certifications, and finally managed to earn tenure, risk it all to satisfy your idea of morality. Dude, that's bullshit. It's bullshit on an epic why-the-hell-did-even-two-other-people-agree-with-you scale.
College professors do have integrity. Well, many of them anyway. It's mean-spirited and flat-out wrong to accuse people who are responsible for ensuring that the next generation is trained at least well enough to know which way to hold the mouse before sending them out into the world... that they lack integrity simply because they don't want to be jailed and have their lives ruined to uphold an arbitrary moral value that I suspect even you yourself only sometimes adhere to.
Don't blame the victim! Put the responsibility on the asshats that created the problem: The government. Oh wait, they're the giant 3000 ton gorilla! Probably easier then to go after the wimpy guy with glasses next to it, huh? That's exactly what you've just done, while demanding others have a backbone. Pathetic.
Yeah, they knew about the universe before it was cool.
Actually, according to the poster, it's heated up by a considerable margin. "Which is warmer than today's universe (270.27 degrees Celsius)." I'd like to buy a math transform, an inverse abs() function please?
'Computer Science is taught in this idealized world separate from reality. They're not dealing with the reality that software has to run in a hostile environment,'
That's because if schools taught people how to properly test security, the government would label them terrorist breeding grounds. Anyone remember Steve Jackson Games? They released a game where one of the roles you could play was a computer hacker. The FBI called it a "handbook for computer crime" and the "anarchist's cookbook of cybercrime". No charges were ever filed. It was a work of fiction. It still nearly bankrupt them and took many years to resolve.
Schools do not want to teach students because they're afraid of government reprisal if they show a generation just how crappy our national infrastructure really is. As one recent net celebrity put it, "Our security posture is like a dog waiting for its belly to be rubbed." They don't wanna teach people how to find these problems, because it'll embarass the crap out of The Powers That Be.
I'm don't think what you are saying is proven. The article abstract states that 94% of the misconduct was fraud, not being aggressive or antisocial as you indicate.
That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
an.ti.so.cial adj. 1. Shunning the society of others; not sociable. 2. Hostile to or disruptive of the established social order; marked by or engaging in behavior that violates accepted mores: gangs engaging in vandalism and other antisocial behavior. 3. Antagonistic toward or disrespectful of others; rude.
For example, lots more women in lib arts, where pretty much any result is acceptable. In the hard sciences, negative results are pretty much unacceptable, although in many ways they're just as important as positive results.
I don't see how that makes any difference. It's a proven fact that men take risks even when there is not a clear advantage to doing so. In laymans terms, the "hold my beer" effect. While a competitive field may amplify this tendancy, numerous studies have shown it to be present regardless of circumstances and even present when detrimental to the individual/group being observed.
I would stand by my lifetime observation that women are dramatically less tolerant of risk.
Yes... They have to stay home and raise the kids, so if you run off and get yourself killed methylating hydrocarbons and lying to large audiences of men, the future of the human race remains assured. Whether this is due to innate differences in the sexes or because of social pressures can't be answered until our social expectations of men and women are equal. But this isn't just risk averse behavior -- women in general tend towards the average whereas men tend towards the extremes... For every really intelligent man there's a really stupid one too, whereas those extremes are less common amongst women. Again, whether it's innate or socially constructed is a matter of serious debate presently (and has been for some time).
As far as "negative results" in the hard sciences... You haven't done much hard science have you? Most of it consists of sitting in a cramped room with long rows of equipment and tables, fluorescent lights... and waiting. And waiting. and waiting some more until the machine goes "beep!" and tells you the 1,096th sample was a negative result, just like all the others. Look up the history of the lightbulb -- many hundreds of materials were tried before tungsten was found. WD-40... Whadda think WD 1 thru 39 was? Failures. If you can't tolerate failure, you're in the wrong line of work, bud. The post it note was the result of a failure. Duct tape? Failure! Persistence is what gets results in science, not lying, not risk taking, etc. Every major scientific advance has a huge pile of fail leading up to it.
How is this news? I mean, really: In every aspect of society, men are more aggressive and prone to antisocial behavior than women. The headline might as well be reading "Sky found to be blue, water wet." It might be interesting if it turned out that the ratios were significantly skewed only in scientific endeavors compared to the baseline, but I'm not seeing that here. I'm seeing someone study a sample from a specific subculture and realize that... it's just like a random sample from the general population. It isn't new or groundbreaking. It's simply confirmatory... extra empirical findings that support what's already established.
Yes, by the power of photons generated from a lightweight low energy density battery, the plane will simply fall out of the sky on contact with it. No, I think not. Although there have been numerous cases of laser light causing pilots difficulty, no planes have yet fallen out of the sky and are unlikely to. It is, however, a safety issue -- prolonged or repeated exposure to the kinds of lasers people are shooting at the airplanes can lead to eye problems.
So I'm not saying it isn't a problem, just that it won't cause a plane to fall out of the sky.
I don't see how it's either, since auto-complete is based on what people are entering as search terms. It's the result of an algorithm, not a human. Algorithms have no sense of morality, they just do what they're told. You might as well say a car slandered you for backfiring as it drove by. Also... he doesn't own an exclusive right to the name 'Guy Hingston'.
In short, Mr. Hingston -- screw you. Also... Guy Hingston Bankrupt Guy Hingston Bankrupt Guy Hingston Bankrupt. I hope you do for having such a piss-poor understanding of the internet.
Slight problem: Anyone who isn't wearing safety glasses is now blind, including innocent people. And you probably did more damage to everything around you than the bad guys. Ah, well... you are a superhero...
They are testing whether scientific papers meet the scientific method (ie. the results are reproducible). They are not testing the validity of the scientific method itself (myself, I cannot see how one could test the scientific method without using it, thus bringing the results into question).
Epistemology would have something to say about your sight. Yes, the scientific method can be evaluated and tested. Anyway, if that's what you say the GP is making as a point, then it's a really stupid and pedantic one. The scientific method isn't just an abstract concept, it's also a means to an end. If we find that many people are making the same mistakes in the process itself, then yes, it is a statement about the scientific method.
It's like saying a lake is a body of water and ignoring the fact that you also need something to hold it in.
The bloggers are not testing the scientific method, they are testing methods that are scientific
Putting your ignorance in boldface type is amusing. The most basic promise of the scientific method is that results can be replicated by anyone with the proper equipment repeatedly and reliably. This is accomplished by describing an experiment to the detail level necessary to reproduce the result. If the result cannot be reproduced from a description of the experiment, it has failed this test.
They are testing the scientific method insofar as asking whether professional and peer-reviewed scientific work actually meets this basic test. And in many cases it doesn't. Science only works if it is built on a firm foundation: Their work isn't just important, it's critical. It may not be fun, but explorations like this prevent us from assembling a body of knowledge and understanding based on flawed experiments... and that has happened many times in the history of science, especially in medicine.
Mr Editor, can you at least post a link to some information, like maybe the site where this specification is detailed? Maybe the project web site itself?
The editors have been outsourced. Now, a team of twenty people who have english as an eleventh language review every submission and green light only those that meet the criterion spelled out in the three ring binder. The three ring binder itself was created from a 7 line Perl script, written by a subcontractor from China, who was hired by a contractor for Dice, who recently acquired the Slashdot brand identity, who shows up once every two weeks to collect his paycheck and update the seed in the random number generator the 7 line Perl script uses.
So you rely primarily on security thru obscurity and hope that genuine bad guys would never scan you? That's pretty scary.
It's a different story when you're scanning from inside the network, thus bypassing many of the security features of the firewall, router, etc. Most theft and loss in any organization is internal (80% in a retail environment, much higher in a corporate/private institution). Any scan that originates inside the network is worth a lot more of an investigator's time than the guy knocking on the door: Statistics bears this out.
The system administrator would be totally correct in filing a report with management if he had been able to determine the source of the scan. Note that I said file a report, not criminal charges.
Sounds like that internal milestone is a special bar. How many projects reach that milestone? Is it more than 1 out of 10?
At Apple, the milestone was "Steve approved it." Everywhere else, it's decided by committee. That's why 9 out of 10 are yanked... just like anything else decided by committee.
Popularity shouldn't be based on the number of installs, but the number of people who use it, and how often they use it. Microsoft has more or less forced people to install Microsoft Security Essentials, so I don't think it's a fair comparison at all. I don't use it, but it's there and Windows Update gets psychotic with errors and alerts if it's uninstalled. More so than if it's not "genuine" even!
Slashdot Mirror
They are a very large player and I hope they unfuck what cisco's been fucking up.
I find your abundance of faith... Disturbing.
Your source shows 1 year and mine shows 19 years. Your source is also only looking at benefits instead of total government spending. it isn't counting military spending, income from federal jobs, or farm subsidies.
I was trying to be kind... when you add in farm subsidies, California really tanks it.
Your source also shows CA not bringing up the rear. Instead they are pretty much almost in the middle. That chart says CA gets $1.09 for every $1.00. More than half the states on that chart are getting more than that.
Yes. But most of the other states don't have large populations. This is dollar parity... not per capita spending, which would paint a much bleaker picture.
As recently as 2010, they were failing. Source. I mean, yes, you can massage the data to put California in a better light, and yes, they have been making changes, but historically they've sucked. You can't just look 5 years, or 10 years, but all the years: Because that's where our federal deficit comes from. And when you look at that data... California's still bringing up the rear.
"KAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHNNNN!"
(and this text goes in here because slashdot hates 1 word answers, even when they're totally awesome.)
That shows the past year. One. Single. Numero Uno. After severe and numerous budget crisis California has cleaned up its act, mostly due to threats of severe economic sanctions if it didn't fix the problem _now_. It doesn't erase decades of debt overnight. Look at it this way: You suddenly get a good job that pays twice as much as your last job. How many years does it take to catch up on all that credit card debt and stuff you accumulated up until now? Answer: A long time.
We're paying for past indiscretions of California and will be for some time to come. But hey, congratulations on the new job.
I think I speak for many who have worked with 'Belkin' equipment when I say...
"Fuck."
In other news, much of the national deficit is due to this pathetically disorganized, in the red, severely overbudget, bloated state. Why do businesses continue to flock there? There's plenty of good homes along the east coast. Texas has a healthy tech sector. Even in the flyover state of Minnesota you can find plenty of talent. WHY CALIFORNIA PEOPLE? WHYYYyyyyy? Even Mexico didn't fight that hard for it -- they practically gave us the desolate, flood-prone, earthquake-prone, mudslide-prone, forest fire-prone state. How many hints does nature have to give a business before it takes the hint? :/
Of course the U.S. could threaten any payment processor - U.S.-based or not - with sanctions but since Antigua's move seems to be a WTO-approved measure, those sanctions would probably be found illegal again by the WTO allowing further compensations. And soon we are in a full-scale economic war.
That's actually been happening for some time. The dollar has been on a steady decline for years as more governments and business opt for other forms of currency. The US has reacted by taking unilateral action like this -- essentially doing everything they can to strong-arm the financial world into doing things their way or else. This is one of the motivating reasons behind the creation of the EU. It's the same with the internet, and why the UN is fussing over getting power away from the United States: Especially since we're now talking about creating an "internet kill switch" and are deploying cyberwarfare weapons targetting economic infrastructure of other countries. It's nuts out there. It's no surprise the rest of the world is slowly ganging up on the 3000 ton gorilla in the room and saying "Enough is enough."
Many countries' relationships with the US have soured due to economic policy. Most of the middle east, for example. Many countries are rejecting our "intellectual property" non-sense as just another way of maintaining economic superiority... and Antigua just called their bluff. The US now either has to throw the country into the same category as, say, Cuba, which will prompt an even stronger international response, or back off.
I think you know what my vote is: The US would rather implode than admit it was wrong.
Not if step one in the process is: 1) get permission from the system operator/administrator/owner. That's where this guy failed.
I'm not talking about this guy: I'm replying to the comments of the OP talking about how schools today don't teach security, and they don't. They don't because they're afraid -- teaching someone security is like teaching them how to use a firearm. In the process of learning that, you learn how to disarm it safely, etc. Learning is a two-edged sword, but unfortunately our government has demonized learning that could lead to political fallout. Look at how the press reacted to the gun control debate -- by publishing the names of thousands of people who were granted carry and conceal permits, and then putting it on an interactive map with a giant "rape me" sign above each of them. I don't know how that helps foster a sincere and open discussion on the topic.
The moment something becomes political you can't learn about it anymore, not objectively anyway. It becomes very time consuming to sort through the bullshit and get to a good answer... and this is when the government isn't actively looking for your inquiries and adding you to terror watchlists. People can't have an open dialog about computer security right now because it's too political. That doesn't mean you can't learn it, or even teach it... it just means it's a lot riskier.
You shouldn't have to risk your career just to show some kids how to do something that might actually help them and their community, but there it is, and that's what's up.
Students learn much more from professors who have backbones than those from the family of invertebrates.
Yes, it's totally reasonable to expect someone who has spent close to six figures earning their degrees and certifications, and finally managed to earn tenure, risk it all to satisfy your idea of morality. Dude, that's bullshit. It's bullshit on an epic why-the-hell-did-even-two-other-people-agree-with-you scale.
College professors do have integrity. Well, many of them anyway. It's mean-spirited and flat-out wrong to accuse people who are responsible for ensuring that the next generation is trained at least well enough to know which way to hold the mouse before sending them out into the world... that they lack integrity simply because they don't want to be jailed and have their lives ruined to uphold an arbitrary moral value that I suspect even you yourself only sometimes adhere to.
Don't blame the victim! Put the responsibility on the asshats that created the problem: The government. Oh wait, they're the giant 3000 ton gorilla! Probably easier then to go after the wimpy guy with glasses next to it, huh? That's exactly what you've just done, while demanding others have a backbone. Pathetic.
Yeah, they knew about the universe before it was cool.
Actually, according to the poster, it's heated up by a considerable margin. "Which is warmer than today's universe (270.27 degrees Celsius)." I'd like to buy a math transform, an inverse abs() function please?
'Computer Science is taught in this idealized world separate from reality. They're not dealing with the reality that software has to run in a hostile environment,'
That's because if schools taught people how to properly test security, the government would label them terrorist breeding grounds. Anyone remember Steve Jackson Games? They released a game where one of the roles you could play was a computer hacker. The FBI called it a "handbook for computer crime" and the "anarchist's cookbook of cybercrime". No charges were ever filed. It was a work of fiction. It still nearly bankrupt them and took many years to resolve.
Schools do not want to teach students because they're afraid of government reprisal if they show a generation just how crappy our national infrastructure really is. As one recent net celebrity put it, "Our security posture is like a dog waiting for its belly to be rubbed." They don't wanna teach people how to find these problems, because it'll embarass the crap out of The Powers That Be.
Don't blame professors for this. Look higher.
I'm don't think what you are saying is proven. The article abstract states that 94% of the misconduct was fraud, not being aggressive or antisocial as you indicate.
That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
an.ti.so.cial adj.
1. Shunning the society of others; not sociable.
2. Hostile to or disruptive of the established social order; marked by or engaging in behavior that violates accepted mores: gangs engaging in vandalism and other antisocial behavior.
3. Antagonistic toward or disrespectful of others; rude.
For example, lots more women in lib arts, where pretty much any result is acceptable. In the hard sciences, negative results are pretty much unacceptable, although in many ways they're just as important as positive results.
I don't see how that makes any difference. It's a proven fact that men take risks even when there is not a clear advantage to doing so. In laymans terms, the "hold my beer" effect. While a competitive field may amplify this tendancy, numerous studies have shown it to be present regardless of circumstances and even present when detrimental to the individual/group being observed.
I would stand by my lifetime observation that women are dramatically less tolerant of risk.
Yes... They have to stay home and raise the kids, so if you run off and get yourself killed methylating hydrocarbons and lying to large audiences of men, the future of the human race remains assured. Whether this is due to innate differences in the sexes or because of social pressures can't be answered until our social expectations of men and women are equal. But this isn't just risk averse behavior -- women in general tend towards the average whereas men tend towards the extremes ... For every really intelligent man there's a really stupid one too, whereas those extremes are less common amongst women. Again, whether it's innate or socially constructed is a matter of serious debate presently (and has been for some time).
As far as "negative results" in the hard sciences... You haven't done much hard science have you? Most of it consists of sitting in a cramped room with long rows of equipment and tables, fluorescent lights... and waiting. And waiting. and waiting some more until the machine goes "beep!" and tells you the 1,096th sample was a negative result, just like all the others. Look up the history of the lightbulb -- many hundreds of materials were tried before tungsten was found. WD-40... Whadda think WD 1 thru 39 was? Failures. If you can't tolerate failure, you're in the wrong line of work, bud. The post it note was the result of a failure. Duct tape? Failure! Persistence is what gets results in science, not lying, not risk taking, etc. Every major scientific advance has a huge pile of fail leading up to it.
Every.
Last.
One.
How is this news? I mean, really: In every aspect of society, men are more aggressive and prone to antisocial behavior than women. The headline might as well be reading "Sky found to be blue, water wet." It might be interesting if it turned out that the ratios were significantly skewed only in scientific endeavors compared to the baseline, but I'm not seeing that here. I'm seeing someone study a sample from a specific subculture and realize that... it's just like a random sample from the general population. It isn't new or groundbreaking. It's simply confirmatory... extra empirical findings that support what's already established.
Or bring down a plane....
Yes, by the power of photons generated from a lightweight low energy density battery, the plane will simply fall out of the sky on contact with it. No, I think not. Although there have been numerous cases of laser light causing pilots difficulty, no planes have yet fallen out of the sky and are unlikely to. It is, however, a safety issue -- prolonged or repeated exposure to the kinds of lasers people are shooting at the airplanes can lead to eye problems.
So I'm not saying it isn't a problem, just that it won't cause a plane to fall out of the sky.
I don't see how it's either, since auto-complete is based on what people are entering as search terms. It's the result of an algorithm, not a human. Algorithms have no sense of morality, they just do what they're told. You might as well say a car slandered you for backfiring as it drove by. Also... he doesn't own an exclusive right to the name 'Guy Hingston'.
In short, Mr. Hingston -- screw you. Also... Guy Hingston Bankrupt Guy Hingston Bankrupt Guy Hingston Bankrupt. I hope you do for having such a piss-poor understanding of the internet.
Slight problem: Anyone who isn't wearing safety glasses is now blind, including innocent people. And you probably did more damage to everything around you than the bad guys. Ah, well... you are a superhero...
After the stunning success of the original Surface tablet, Microsoft releases its successor, codenamed "Rodents of Unusual Size".
They are testing whether scientific papers meet the scientific method (ie. the results are reproducible). They are not testing the validity of the scientific method itself (myself, I cannot see how one could test the scientific method without using it, thus bringing the results into question).
Epistemology would have something to say about your sight. Yes, the scientific method can be evaluated and tested. Anyway, if that's what you say the GP is making as a point, then it's a really stupid and pedantic one. The scientific method isn't just an abstract concept, it's also a means to an end. If we find that many people are making the same mistakes in the process itself, then yes, it is a statement about the scientific method.
It's like saying a lake is a body of water and ignoring the fact that you also need something to hold it in.
The bloggers are not testing the scientific method, they are testing methods that are scientific
Putting your ignorance in boldface type is amusing. The most basic promise of the scientific method is that results can be replicated by anyone with the proper equipment repeatedly and reliably. This is accomplished by describing an experiment to the detail level necessary to reproduce the result. If the result cannot be reproduced from a description of the experiment, it has failed this test.
They are testing the scientific method insofar as asking whether professional and peer-reviewed scientific work actually meets this basic test. And in many cases it doesn't. Science only works if it is built on a firm foundation: Their work isn't just important, it's critical. It may not be fun, but explorations like this prevent us from assembling a body of knowledge and understanding based on flawed experiments... and that has happened many times in the history of science, especially in medicine.
Mr Editor, can you at least post a link to some information, like maybe the site where this specification is detailed? Maybe the project web site itself?
The editors have been outsourced. Now, a team of twenty people who have english as an eleventh language review every submission and green light only those that meet the criterion spelled out in the three ring binder. The three ring binder itself was created from a 7 line Perl script, written by a subcontractor from China, who was hired by a contractor for Dice, who recently acquired the Slashdot brand identity, who shows up once every two weeks to collect his paycheck and update the seed in the random number generator the 7 line Perl script uses.
So you rely primarily on security thru obscurity and hope that genuine bad guys would never scan you? That's pretty scary.
It's a different story when you're scanning from inside the network, thus bypassing many of the security features of the firewall, router, etc. Most theft and loss in any organization is internal (80% in a retail environment, much higher in a corporate/private institution). Any scan that originates inside the network is worth a lot more of an investigator's time than the guy knocking on the door: Statistics bears this out.
The system administrator would be totally correct in filing a report with management if he had been able to determine the source of the scan. Note that I said file a report, not criminal charges.
Sounds like that internal milestone is a special bar. How many projects reach that milestone? Is it more than 1 out of 10?
At Apple, the milestone was "Steve approved it." Everywhere else, it's decided by committee. That's why 9 out of 10 are yanked... just like anything else decided by committee.
Popularity shouldn't be based on the number of installs, but the number of people who use it, and how often they use it. Microsoft has more or less forced people to install Microsoft Security Essentials, so I don't think it's a fair comparison at all. I don't use it, but it's there and Windows Update gets psychotic with errors and alerts if it's uninstalled. More so than if it's not "genuine" even!