Brokers that disclose bugs to their selected list of subscribers are necessarily withholding important information from the rest of the public. Brokers may eventually issue public advisories, but in the meantime, only the vendor and subscribers know about the problem.

An interesting discussion of bug brokers.

Wired News: Bug Bounties Exterminate Holes

In January, a vulnerability in WMF surfaced that let attackers use the Windows' graphics rendering engine that handles WMF images to launch malicious code on users' computers via these images. A number of security researchers posted information about the vulnerability to their mailing lists. Within a few hours, researcher H.D. Moore posted a working example of a WMF exploit--a piece of code written to take advantage of a software flaw--on his Metasploit Web site. Some defended the action, saying it offered insight into the rules security pros needed to put on intrusion-detection systems to avoid getting hit. Others argued that what Moore did enabled the average hacker to more easily exploit the flaw.

Information Week published a long, sensational, and patently dishonest article on security research today. This text makes it seem as if malware authors used the information H.D. Moore published. The fact is that this vulnerability was being exploited by criminal organizations in the wild before anyone in the security research community knew about it. The article fails to make this fact clear because it doesn't fit into the narrative that the reporter is aiming for and undermines the questions the reporter is raising. Would any major news media organization be interesting in a peice that discusses whether intentially dishonest reporting is good or bad for society?

InformationWeek | Security | The Fear Industry | April 17, 2006

To those of you who don't know, our country has never been served by a more competent and professional military. For that reason, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent statement that "we" made the "right strategic decisions" but made thousands of "tactical errors" is an outrage. It reflects an effort to obscure gross errors in strategy by shifting the blame for failure to those who have been resolute in fighting. The truth is, our forces are successful in spite of the strategic guidance they receive, not because of it.

TIME.com: Why Iraq Was a Mistake -- Apr. 17, 2006 -- Page 1

The explosive idea of forcing Internet providers to record their customers' online activities for future police access is gaining ground in state capitols and in Washington, D.C.

Top Bush administration officials have endorsed the concept, and some members of the U.S. Congress have said federal legislation is needed to aid law enforcement investigations into child pornography. A bill is already pending in the Colorado State Senate.

Youch! I think the sheep are primed and ready for this step.

ISP snooping gaining support | CNET News.com

One of the jihadist Web sites cautioned its readers to "Beware of Google!!!" with specific warnings about its relatively new product Google Toolbar...

The posting advised Internet cafe users to set up a proxy -- a software program that erases digital footsteps such as Web addresses or other identifiable information -- before Web surfing...

"This kind of tradecraft is essential to survival," Hoffman said.

And now, your moment of zen....

"From a jihadist perspective, they are absolutely right. They should avoid Google like the plague," Brandt said.

Terrorists' Web Chatter Shows Concern About Internet Privacy

I completely agree with Brad about software patents, I think they are useless as a business tool.

Until they are abolished however, I encourage all of our portoflio companies to file for as many as they need for defensive purposes.

A VC: Patently Absurd

Scientists find evidence of a perpetual evolutionary battle in the mind. The process, they suspect, is the key to individuality.

Brain's Darwin Machine - Los Angeles Times

SITTING in a culture dish, a layer of chicken heart cells beats in synchrony. But this muscle layer was not sliced from an intact heart, nor even grown laboriously in the lab. Instead, it was "printed", using a technology that could be the future of tissue engineering.

New Scientist News - Print me a heart and a set of arteries

Acidus wrote:
According to Wikipedia:

-85% enriched is considered "weapons grade" and is the minimum purity of the uranium in the US's arsenal.
-20% will create a usable bomb
-3% to 5% is what a light weight nuclear reactor will use. This is most common reactor and what Iran claims it wants to build.
-While the uranium could be placed in a dirty bomb, this would not be the best use. Since dirty bombs simply spread radioactive material, isotopes like Strontium-90 are more effective than Uranium-235

Some useful perspective you won't get from the press...

RE: Iran enriched Uranium to 3.5%

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
Researchers (Hayes, Bloom) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967. Samuel Johnson thought it took longer than ten years: "Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." And Chaucer complained "the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."

Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years