[jhiska]

Ah, yes; the Russian defense. I know it well. How did it go?

"The hard-coded backdoor that was found can't be a hard-coded backdoor, because Western Digital would never be so crass and incompetent as to put a hard-coded backdoor hidden in such a way that a security researcher would find it and attribute it to them."

How can one argue against such flawless logic when it even has an aphorism to describe it?

[EgoIncarnate]

The same effect of a backdoor could be accomplished with a buffer overflow, and at least that would have the plausible deniability of a bug.

It's either the result an incompetent "secret backdoor" developer, or just plain incompetent development. Either way it's incompetent.

If it makes you feel any better, I acknowledge the spies / hackers / whatever will take advantage of it regardless of it's intent. :-)

[justinpombrio]

> How can one argue against such flawless logic when it even has an aphorism to describe it?

How about creating a new aphorism?

"Never attribute to stupidity alone that which is adequately explained by both stupidity and malice."

[dsnuh]

>How about creating a new aphorism?

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by management."

[EgoIncarnate]

Does that logic apply to Occam's razor too? Never choose the simple explanation when a complex one is available? :-)

[jhiska]

The keyword in the rule of thumb known as Occam's razor is neither that the explanations be simple or complex, but that they be adequate to a knowledgeable person, and that given two (or more) highly adequate explanations -- one simple and one (or more) complex -- that the complex ones be cut in favor of the simplest one.

I guess the answer is no.

[EgoIncarnate]

The original statement was "Never attribute to stupidity alone that which is adequately explained by both stupidity and malice."

It seems to me that both are adequate explanations. One explanation requires one factor (stupidity), and the other two factors (stupidity and malice). The one factor explanation would seem to be the simpler of the two explanations.

It seems to me the original statement reverses the logic of Occam's razor by preferring the more complex example. I think my point still stands. The original statement makes as much sense as trying to reverse Occam's razor.

[jhiska]

>How about creating a new aphorism [based on Hanlon's razor]?

The whole enterprise is sabotaged by the simple fact that the logical foundation behind that aphorism can be bluntly, but better, summed as:

"Choose the most adequate explanation."

[EgoIncarnate]

Stupidity alone is adequate to explain this backdoor. The malice explanation requires (in this case) malice and stupidity.

In this case Hanlon's razor (and probably any where it really applies), is just Occam's razor applied to a particular type of circumstance.