Regret the Error

A report from the Christian Science Monitor:

The world’s most infamous agent of nuclear proliferation, Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, has added a fresh feather to his cap following revelations that a newspaper column he penned two weeks ago for Pakistan’s The News heavily plagiarized websites of British universities…

The newspaper column in question, “Science of computers — part I,” appears to have been lifted almost verbatim, from the computer science homepages of the University of Sussex, Imperial College London, and the University of Cambridge. A blow-by-blow comparison can be viewed in a letter to the editor of Pakistani daily The News, the same paper which carried the original column. (In the letter, the link to the University of Sussex is broken. Click here for the correct page.)

Reaction on the Pakistani blogosphere has been harsh, with one blog carrying the item under the headline “A.Q. Khan Plagiarizing Op-Ed Pieces After Lifetime Of Stealing And Selling Nuclear Secrets” in reference to the allegations of espionage that dogged Mr Khan’s tenure as head of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Thanks, Steve!