I am soliciting real examples, suitably camouflaged, in response to this post. Examples can be of decisions made by a variety of people with a known motivation (i.e. well-intentioned, malicious, irresponsible) or an unknown motivation.
Silicon Valley investors have been characterized as lemmings charging towards the latest buzzword (defined as cliffs) with tribal abandon. Trends I recall from the top of my head include RISC (reduced instruction set computers), client-server, PDA’s, browsers, search engines, java, security, appliances, managed services, Linux, virtualization, mobile applications, cloud, big data and the latest craze – Software Defined Networking (SDN).
From http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57428067-83/fbi-we-need-wiretap-ready-web-sites-now/:
FBI: We need wiretap-ready Web sites – now
CNET learns the FBI is quietly pushing its plan to force surveillance backdoors on social networks, VoIP, and Web e-mail providers, and that the bureau is asking Internet companies not to oppose a law making those backdoors mandatory.
From http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-condorradar2-20120528,0,2831784.story?track=lat-pick:
By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times
May 28, 2012
From http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/320137:
