[Lionsion]

> On complexity vs sophistication: During the cold war, a US company noticed the USSR had stolen the plans for a natural gas pipeline system, but not the software.

I think this account might be a bit wrong. The one I read said that the CIA acquired a "shopping list" of Western technology that the USSR wanted to acquire. It included the pipeline control software, so they arranged for a trojaned version to become available to the Soviet shoppers.

Apparently this was a pretty common Soviet activity. Their electronics technology was behind the West's, in general. IIRC, many US semiconductor designs has little cartoons on the dies to taunt the Soviet reverse engineers.