Ex-hacker leaves Pentagon's TOP-SECRET war boffins for Google

Google has hired a former hacker who has spent the last three years working for the US Department of Defense's secretive military research bureau. The Chocolate factory poached Peiter "Mudge" Zatko from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and will put him to work in its own research skunkworks. He will take …

[Steve the Cynic]

And also...

"Optimized ... source."

Also good at buzzword bingo...

[regadpellagru]

Hero

"He was then summoned to meet Bill Clinton to explain the first vicious DDoS attack. "

That sums it up as being a f***ing hero, then. How otherwise you'd explain that to a wig ?

[amanfromMars 1]

ACID Virtual Testing Facilities

DARPA then requires a Creative AIDirector? And In-House Master Pilot Top Gun Programs to Server?

A Renegade Ride to Rock Renaissance, Mr President?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, he moved departments...

[MondoMan]

Scrambled, maybe, but definitely not "poached"

In an effort to avoid settling into predictability and slowing innovation, DARPA encourages folks to spend only limited, few-year-long stints there. Seems that Mudge, like Dugan before him, hit that limit, and so "poached" doesn't seem an apt characterization.

[NukEvil]

Lots of buzzwords here--translation provided:

"Optimized for speed. Small, lean, resourced. With agility, freedom from bureaucratic constraints, and a willingness to embrace risk as core attributes. ATAP is focused on harnessing best-in-class, interdisciplinary talent from inside and outside Motorola Mobility, as well as technological developments from whatever the source."

In other words, a gigantic money-soak operation that would send even the beefiest black hole into a fit of jealous rage that the taxpayers are somehow paying for, despite the fact it's Google and not DARPA.

<<--You need one of these constantly going off to counteract the gravitational effects of a black hole. Because, without that, everything collapses in on itself and BLAH BLAH BLAH.

[Anonymous Coward]

L0pht

Easy to forget just how massively important Mudge & the L0pht were...I recall many hours spent accessing their server - some of the tricks and tips I learnt there transformed my understanding of how computers, networks and phone systems' operated ... And stood me in very good stead when it came to passing CESG requirements many years later (to say nothing of using their tools to pen test 'my' own Gov Dept 'hardened' environment!)

[David 39]

Re: L0pht

The scariest thing is I recognised the handle prior to reading he was from l0pht, therein lies a great name.

Beer for a guy I used to follow when I was knee high to a grasshopper

[Anonymous Coward]

Google are launching a hostile takeover?

Oh, too late

[mfritz0]

From out of the frying pad, into the fire.

Some people. Not satisfied, the grass is always greener on the other side.