Re: XP has no significant bugs that any significant number of users want fixed
- From: Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/>
- Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 09:45:05 +0000
"...there is a considerable effort using Microsoft employees who
"participate" in on-line discussion groups, usually without admitting
they are Microsoft employees.
The most famous "participation" case was the "Barkto incident". A
person calling himself Steve Barkto appeared in OS/2 discussion groups
claiming to be a big IBM customer in Oklahoma who had adopted OS/2.
Barkto had nothing good to say about OS/2 or IBM, and many of the
things he said were outright lies. His posting was traced back to an
account that was paid for by the credit card of Rick Segal, a high
Microsoft executive.
Years ago, on-line postings by Microsoft "shills" were easy to spot.
Not only did they spout the party line precisely, but their grammar
and spelling were always excellent - highly unusual for newsgroup
posts. They learn - today's shills use some of the worst spelling seen
on the net and are often almost incoherent. pro Microsoft "Shill
fests" often follow magazine articles embarrassing to Microsoft but
verified to be true. If you can't deny it, bring out the shills!"
- http://www.aaxnet.com/topics/msinc.html
"Microsoft Corp. acknowledged Thursday that one of its programmers
apparently masqueraded as an independent computer consultant earlier
this week in an effort to discredit America Online's tactics in the
companies' quarrel over instant messaging.
Microsoft had reason to be red-faced about the incident -- first,
because the company was unable to identify which employee had forged
an e-mail message on Tuesday accusing America Online of irresponsible
behavior and second, because whoever did it sent the message to the
one computer security expert who was most likely to find a way to
trace it back to Microsoft."
The ruse has added a bit of Spy vs. Spy melodrama to a bitter dispute
over instant online messaging that American Online and Microsoft --
the world's two largest Internet service providers -- have been waging
for several weeks. ... America Online executives say Microsoft is
making illegal use of proprietary directory information that is
essential to connect instant messenger users with each other via the
Internet."
- San Jose Mercury News, Aug 13, 1999
"Rick Segal is an overt on-line Microsoft representative who is quite
active on CompuServe. If you signed onto Will Zachmann's Canopus forum
about this time last year, you would have seen him there resolutely
trying to improve Microsoft's image. Today Rick is in self-imposed
exile from Canopus following an extremely embarrassing episode which
has become known as 'The Barkto Incident.'
Bartko was an aberration. It's hard to know if the incident was a
one-time thing or if it is symptomatic of widespread disinformation
campaigns. Here's what happened. In January of this year, a newcomer
popped up in the Canopus forum named Steve Barkto. He said he was from
Oklahoma City and had been an IBM customer for seven years. He wasted
little time before attacking IBM, Dave Whittle, and your fearless
reporter over issues we had previously discussed with Rick Segal. This
Bartko character had a writing style which was so similar to that of
Rick Segal's that it immediately caught my eye. In fact, I responded
to his first message to me by asking if he were Segal in drag. Nobody
(including myself) took my question seriously. At least not at first.
Then one of the forum Sysop's noted that instead of calling from
Oklahoma City, where he claimed to be from, Bartko's calls were
originating from the node closest to Microsoft's headquarters in
Redmond, Washinton. This led Will Zachmann, who 'owns' the forum and
is Wizop there, to look more closely. What he found was incredible:
Barkto's account was in fact owned by Microsoft. It had been opened
with a corporate credit card belonging to Rick Segal. Will sent a
letter to the Microsoft Board of Directors demanding an investigation
and explanation, but no explanation has ever been forthcoming. An
internal Microsoft 'investigation' was conducted, headed up by Mike
Maples, an MS vice-president who ironically enough hails from Oklahoma
City. Unfortunately, it appears the investigation was little more than
a cover-up. The Barkto Incident did not escape the attention of the
Department of Justice who was winding up their five-year investigation
of MS when it occured. They flew a special team to Redmond to take
depositions on the matter just weeks before Microsoft agreed to the
Consent Decree designed to stop their predatory and anti-competitive
business practices.
Not long after the Barkto affair, a similar incident occurred on
another forum on CompuServe. In the LANMAG forum (short for LAN
Magazine), a man named Bill Diamond showed up one day and began
offering to one and all his views on varioius networking solutions.
Bill's views just happened to be highly critical of those from IBM
(especially OS/2), and from Novell, whose turf MS is trying to crash
with their NT and NTAS products. But he was very lavish in praise for
those from Microsoft. More than a couple of the forum regulars noticed
this slant to his posts and asked him directly if he were a Microsoft
employee. No, he said: he was an independent consultant. If you're
guessing that he wasn't being entirely honest, you're right: he was a
Microsoft employee.
Becky Campbell, the LANMAG forum Sysop, thought Bill's posts sounded
more like marketing hype that technical savvy and so she made a
discrete call or two and learned that he was indeed a Microsoft
employee. Becky gave him an ultimatum: come clean and admit his
deception or she would do it for him. He did make a public admission,
then tried to erase all evidence of his participation there by deleting
all of his messages..."
- http://www.pjprimer.com/jihad.html
"The messaging war between Microsoft and America Online got even
nastier last week when a Microsoft employee apparently sent phony
e-mail accusing AOL of security violations. A Microsoft worker posing
as security expert "Phil Bucking of Bucking Consulting" (play around
with the syllables and see what comes up), reportedly sent an e-mail
to legitimate security expert Richard Smith, President of Phar Lap
Software. 'Phil' claimed to have found a security hole in AOL Instant
Messenger that helps AOL determine what messaging client is being
used, but also risks the privacy of AIM users.
After trying unsuccessfully to find information about Mr. Bucking,
Smith determined AOL V. Microsoft: War of the Messengersthe sender
used a Yahoo! Mail account that had only been set up the previous day.
Since Y! Mail includes user IP addresses, it didn't take much work for
Smith to trace the message back to Microsoft. When confronted about
the discovery, a Microsoft spokesman initially denied it, but then
admitted that the e-mail did apparently come from Microsoft's
intranet. However, he said it would be impossible to determine which
Microsoft employee had sent Smith the message."
-http://www.msboycott.com/news/99_08_16.shtml
also see:
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm
http://www.developer.com/net/net/print.php/11087_617341_1
http://www.developer.com/net/net/print.php/11087_617341_2
http://www.developer.com/net/net/print.php/11087_617341_3
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/articles/msftcase/index.html
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/articles/msftcase/index2.html
http://sysopt.earthweb.com/articles/msftcase/index3.html
http://www.langston.com/Fun_People/1994/1994AFH.html
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-515423.html
.
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