After finally unloading washed-out security czar Howard Schmidt on the US government, Microsoft has turned around and got itself a government re-tread to replace him.

Former DoJ cybercrime prosecutor Scott Charney, a man who once said, inanely, of home computing that "we're giving weapons of war to five-year-olds," will replace him at the helm of the world's largest software maker.

Schmidt, meanwhile, will descend into the bowels of government intelligence to share his expertise with the White House on matters of network and infrastructure security, after having distinguished himself at Microsoft, which until recent months had its most popular e-mail client primed to launch executables automatically.

It's an interesting dynamic. The government accepts failed re-treads from Microsoft who clearly havn't a clue about security; and MS turns around and willingly accepts candidates from an operation that's willing to take its rejects.

You'd expect a company that's just made security its primary concern to reject candidates from an outfit where a Howard Schmidt can make the grade, but you'd be wrong.

It would all be extremely funny, if only your online bank wasn't running IIS. ®