▲, The NYTimes today reports on how easily the US...

The NYTimes today reports on how easily the US government was conned out of millions of dollars for software that could supposedly decode secret al-Qaeda messages being transmitted via bar codes in Al-Jazeera broadcasts.

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And a substory: Marginal Revolution investigates and discovers that the NYT report is being a bit disingenuous in not giving Playboy more credit for actually uncovering the story - I will take credit for that little pun, but Marginal Revolution ends their article with an even better one:

Are you surprised that Playboy would break such an important story? I was, that is, until I remembered that Playboy has been uncovering fakes for a long time.

All the joking aside, a fascinating story into how a big government can be so easily duped, particularly when technology is involved.