Also, WTF is this supposed to mean: "'I walked up to a three-star general on Wednesday and asked him if he could help me deal with a million-node botnet,' said Rick Wesson, a computer security researcher involved in combating Conficker. 'I didn’t get an answer.'"
Moreover, is any 3* general supposed to know what this is all about ? Are we talking about a specific general well versed in these matters ?
I submitted this story though, because I have not heard about this worm before and I found the speculations about the final goal of this attack rather surprising.
The idea that anyone in the military would have up-to-the-minute intel about malware doesn't ring true to me. My sense of it is, from talking to people who've worked there, the NSA deserves the reputation it has. The rest of the government is a backwater.
The idea that a Lt. General --- in command of 50,000+ unforms, roughly the equivalent of a Fortune 200 company plus rifles and tanks --- would have an opinion about Conficker seems even less likely.
(I never met Casciano, but I did get to go to the Pentagon a couple times --- it feels like the largest public high school you've ever been in, except that people brandishing automatic weapons stare at you when you come through the door. Apparently unless you're a ret. 2-star, in which case they salute.)