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If you think that Microsoft's $40 Billion is an impressive number calculate what Bill Gates would lose personally if Microsoft's stock lost half of its value.

His fortune is less tied to MS than you might think. Gates has diversified his holdings over the past several years and as of Sept. 9th of this year only held 11.6% of the company's stock. I believe his current net holdings are worth $43 billion. MSFT has 5,346,449,872 shares as of Sept. 30th, and it closed on that day at $43.74. On that day, MS stock was worth $223 billion, and he held only $27 billion in MS stock. If he lost half that, he'd go from $43 billion to $29.5 billion (ignoring the fact that an MS crash would take down the whole market). Boo hoo. He'd still have over 100 times what he was worth back in 1986.

Of course, this in no way invalidates your argument which is 100% correct. MS is a very stock price-obsessed company, and a lot of mutual funds invest so much money into it because it's preceived as a stable growth company. A major Enron-like shake-up like Bill Parish has been hoping for would devistate the market as badly as Enron's did. MS's business personnel are wholy obsessed with keeping this growth stable, and it's been well documented that MS uses tricky accounting to smooth losses from one quarter to the next by storing up money from good quarters and counting it as "earnings" later.

Incidentally, the Bill Gates Net Worth Page is an amusing collection of statistics and extrapolations about his wealth, though its data is a little out of date. It shows things like how long he could buy off every major official in the government (if he stopped earning money), how fast you'd have to go picking up dollar bills from end to end to earn money as fast as he has since MS went public (35+ MPH), and how if he can maintain his current rate of growth per year (over 35%!), he'll be a trillionaire by 2014.

C'mon -- this is really small potatoes ...

Which is a clear indication that the game is already lost.

That's hilarious! Unfortunately, it's also true.

1. Stop fixing win95 problems when they pop up ... Eventually retire the OS

2. Use those billions in the bank to pay a few companies to make software that requires features in newer versions of windows, i.e., not backwards-compatible with win98/ME any more.

IANAA (I am not an auditor), but point 2 seems an issue for alt.folklore.urban. Microsoft's lost money on every thing but MS-Windows and MS-Office. In the past, Microsoft has has a more than $10 billion discrepancy between the initial accounting report and what they actually lost. Since they've been dropping projects left and right and, at the risk of alienating customers and reducing future sales, sent the Business Software Alliance out to collect extra money. The new license 6.0 was no market winner either. All those actions look like a desparate scamble for cash.

Even MBAs are starting to realize the value of interoperability and that's where Microsoft is historically (and legally) weakest.

Plus on the desktop, OS X beats Windows on ease of use and flexibility and has the apps needed today. The ease of use for the end user, low technical maintenance overhead, and greater security saves support staff. On the server side, even the Microsoft execs admit publicly their products can't compete on price, security, or stability with the regular server OS's like BSD, GNU/Linux, Solaris, QNX, & co.

Many people here prefer to roll their own operating system.

Critics tend to be of two classes. A musician's critique of another performer is often better informed in certain critical aspects than that of a fan, or your ordinary music user. They can spot certain cheats in technique that a non musician would not care about.

In this regard, criticism by people knowledgable in the art should not be so light dismissed.

and then, there is this detail:

As Seen in this Financial Times report Microsoft has revealed its profit margins for the first time. The client division, which markets Windows, generated operating profits last quarter of 2.48 billion dollars on revenues of 2.89 billion dollars, implying margins of 85 per cent. Most other remaining Microsoft businesses made losses, raising questions about the benefits of the group's costly efforts at diversification.

The means that if the full version of Windows XP sells at retail for about $300.00, Microsoft could still sell it for $45 and still make a profit. The difference between what it could sell it for and what it does sell it for is what economists call "monopoly rents". You can see the SEC filing here, in incredibly tiny print. Microsoft was found guilty of illegally maintaining its monopoly in personal computer operating systems in 2000. Penalties in the case have been criticised as a hand slap. We now know where the Microsoft 40 billion dollar cash reserves came from.

Not that we should ever steal anything from Microsoft. It is not wise to steal from the mafia.

The primary way M$ makes its money is through the M$ tax on new computer purchases.

Current compensation of Salon officers is very low by Wall Street standards. Scroll down.

A quick look through their sec filings, shows that they spent way too much money on real estate, and perhaps a risky employee stock compensation plan. Also, some mergers and acquisitions--all the rage in the gogo Nineties.

(cutandpaste)

EXHIBIT 99.1

Monday May 8, 8:45 am Eastern Time

Company Press Release

SOURCE: Salon.com

Salon.com Acquires Digital Audio Leader MP3Lit.com, Moving Further Into Broadband Arena and Developing New Potential Revenue Streams

E-Commerce Division, LoudBooks.com, Featuring Downloadable Audiobooks Scheduled
to Launch in Fall 2000

(/cutandpaste)

There's more juicy tidbits in the 8-K there, but lameness filter, you know. Kinda makes you feel nostalgic, don't it? LoudBooks.com.

Is Microsoft in this business (they label it "CE/Mobility") because they want to make a profit in this business? Or are they taking advantage of other strengths of their company to dominate the new sector?

Microsoft's recent Form 10-Q shows that, between June 1 and September 30, 2002, Microsoft lost $33M (U.S. dollars) on revenues of $17M in this part of their business. (Look for the second occurance of "CE/Mobility", the one under "Three months ending September 30" and "2002," about halfway down the page.) In other words, they spent a total of about $50M (in three months!), and lost almost three dollars for every dollar they spent.

This isn't proof by any means; but it's one interesting test in trying to decide Microsoft's corporate intentions.

P.S.: This rate may represent Microsoft scaling back their efforts! From June 1 to September 30, 2001, Microsoft lost $48M on revenues of $14M; so a total expenditure of $62M, or more than four dollars for ever one they made. Remember that Windows CE devices started shipping in early 1997; this is not a new business for them, but one that's almost six years old.

My mate Al is going to kill me for slashdotting his site ...Hmm, you are not slashdotted if you post a link to a (GOOD!) article in a comment especially if you do not hyperlink it

Most interestin part of the article is a link to the actual contract

Sorry, should've held the parent post until I found the contract.

The pertinent clause is:

(ii) You also continue to have the benefit of a single full-time assistant. (f) In addition, you shall be paid participation equal to 10% of the profits derived during your life by Marvel (including subsidiaries and affiliates) from the profits of any live action or animation television or movie (including ancillary rights) productions utilizing Marvel characters. This participation is not to be derived from the fee charged by Marvel for the licensing of the product or of the characters for merchandise or otherwise. Marvel will compute, account and pay to you your participation due, if any, on account of said profits, for the annual period ending each March 31 during your life, on an annual basis within a reasonable time after the end of each such period.

Note that profits are explicitly mentioned.

First, your scenario is different depending on whether you are an employee or unaffiliated to the company and all of its directors/managers. Second, a court would have to decide whether you overhearing constituted receiving a tip.

The US SEC definition of insider trading includes: Illegal insider trading refers generally to buying or selling a security ... while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security.

To start at the beginning: if you are an employee, you are automatically an insider. ANY securities transaction you do is insider trading, but it may be LEGAL insider trading. Because of your access to privlidged information, whether because of your job or proximity to company officials, you may be called on to explain and justify your trades as being legal.

If you "overheard" a conversation, you have gained access to nonpublic information which affects the security. By trading, you are acting on that information. In the strictest sense, that is illegal insider trading.

[Aside] At the bottom of the US SEC page you'll find a link to a speech on insider trading. It references case law, including some interesting rulings such as an influencial columnist who tipped a broker about the content of his upcoming columns, and was found guilty of insider trading.

You are also incorrect in saying that Reuters made the information public. Securities Exchanges have extremely strict policies on what constitutes "public" when it comes to information on listed companies. There are certain channels which MUST be notified (e.g. the bourse itself, which streams such news to brokers), and typically the announcement must be in at least one national newspaper in that country.

Therefore Reuters, in publishing the information, did not necessarily make it "public" as contemplated under the bourse rules, and despite its widespread distribution it is treated as nonpublic information.

Really? That's the first I've ever heard that. I find it odd that SEC Filings show that Total current liabilities is over 12 Billion.

Now I am not an ecconomics guru but last time I checked with my accountant, liability is about the same as debt.

The SEC Chairman is Harvey Pitt.

However, the window of time I was referring to was at this time last year when I made similar comments. Then I was more concerned that those backing PATRIOT and other similar anti-american legislation had to slam-dunk it through congress before the window closed. I guess it hasn't.

Others are going to be using this delay, business investors and leaders tend to follow each other's investments and strategies.
Warning, rambling rant...

Bush needs to kickstart active hostilities somewhere, anywhere post haste in order to be able to use them as part of next year's election campaign. It will also delay or prevent a proper investigation about shelving of Clinton administration plans to counter the Taliban and why European airports appeared to be on terribly high alert on 10 sept 2001. Bush needs allies within the U.S. first before he can go on to the UN before starting hostilities. UN agreement is needed avoid further disapproval in Europe. RIAA,Disney, and co. are having severe trouble economically due to failing business models and outmoded leadership and want legislation to postpone their demise a la 1970's U.S. automobile policy. Microsoft needs favors from both Bush administration and the RIAA crowd to, first keep an audit from popping their red dot-com bubble, and second to get one last leverage out of their recent admissions to fatally failed security for the MS-Windows product line to instead push insecure, Palladium-based, MS-owned DRM through legislation.

End of rant.

Ok, time to chill out, it's not like there's anything to gain from prolonged conflict

I never saw this type of spam/scam before until he pointed it out to me a few days ago. But it has been forwarded to uce.gov so hopefully they can catch this idiot.

Chris Beckenbach

Good way of making money quickly. Of coursem your time machine probably breaks SEC insider-trading rules.

• Stock high: around $125. Today, around $6.
• "DoubleClick's ad serving and data collection practices are also the subject of inquiries by the attorneys general of several states. ... DoubleClick believes that, notwithstanding the quality of defenses available, it is possible that our financial condition and results of operations could be materially adversely affected by the ultimate outcome of the pending litigation." Source: 10-Q filing.
• "Throughout 2001, our management took certain actions to increase operational efficiencies and bring costs in line with revenues. These measures included the involuntary terminations of approximately 605 employees..."
• "Revenue for DoubleClick Media decreased 66.1% to $27.1 million for the six months ended June 30, 2002 from $79.9 million for the six months ended June 30, 2001."
• "OUR BUSINESS MAY BE MATERIALLY ADVERSELY AFFECTED BY LAWSUITS RELATED TO PRIVACY AND OUR BUSINESS PRACTICES.
  We are a defendant in several lawsuits alleging, among other things, that we unlawfully obtain and use Internet users' personal information and that our use of cookies violates various laws. We are the subject of an inquiry involving the attorneys general of several states relating to our practices in the collection, maintenance and use of information about, and our disclosure of these information practices to, Internet users. We may in the future receive additional regulatory inquiries and we intend to cooperate fully. Class action litigation and regulatory inquiries of these types are often expensive and time consuming and their outcome is uncertain. We cannot quantify the amount of monetary or human resources that we will be required to use to defend ourselves in these proceedings. We may need to spend significant amounts on our legal defense, senior management may be required to divert their attention from other portions of our business, new product launches may be deferred or canceled as a result of these proceedings, and we may be required to make changes to our present and planned products or services, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. If, as a result of any of these proceedings, a judgment is rendered or a decree is entered against us, it may materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations."

That's the reality behind the happy talk. As a company, DoubleClick is shrinking, losing money on operations, and their stockholders lost most of their investment.

Spamcrime does not pay.

Omnicare's CEO and CFO didn't comply.

Most companies did. Many of the ones that didn't are known to be in trouble. Read the list.

Companies that do bad things in one area tend to do bad things in other areas, so this shrink-wrapped book wierdness might be viewed as an early warning indicator of management trouble.

The missing filing is

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1055131/000 0950130-01-000889.txt

returns a "file not found". But that file was indexed in the daily index file for Feburary 14, 2001,

ftp://ftp.sec.gov/edgar/daily-index/2001/QTR1/comp any.20010214.idx

and thus should be present.

If you try to find this filing via the SEC's search engine, it doesn't show up there, either.

I don't like this. History has been erased. Unclear whether this a bug, or tampering.

The missing filing is

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1055131/000 0950130-01-000889.txt

returns a "file not found". But that file was indexed in the daily index file for Feburary 14, 2001,

ftp://ftp.sec.gov/edgar/daily-index/2001/QTR1/comp any.20010214.idx

and thus should be present.

If you try to find this filing via the SEC's search engine, it doesn't show up there, either.

I don't like this. History has been erased. Unclear whether this a bug, or tampering.

The missing filing is

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1055131/000 0950130-01-000889.txt

returns a "file not found". But that file was indexed in the daily index file for Feburary 14, 2001,

ftp://ftp.sec.gov/edgar/daily-index/2001/QTR1/comp any.20010214.idx

and thus should be present.

If you try to find this filing via the SEC's search engine, it doesn't show up there, either.

I don't like this. History has been erased. Unclear whether this a bug, or tampering.

Who says it isn't going to be?

TIVO and AOL are working together.

Apparently AOL and TIVO want to bring AOL service to you!

Weren't Enron and others were showing record quarter revenues? That's the goal of cooking the books. EDGAR

Look at these quotes from the story:

Ballmer also spoke about the technology sector as a whole, noting that the past year has been one of the toughest in recent history. Still, he says he's optimistic.

"So despite the fact that it's been a tough year, I think about it exactly as that--a tough year, not the start of a cold winter. My optimism and enthusiasm about where we are going has been unabated."

"Some of that change I argue will be net positive over the long run, and some of that change has certainly been troublesome over the course of the last 12 months," he said.

The recent statements about it being Apple's fault they haven't sold half as many versions of Office v.X as they had projected could also play into this strategy. "We would have made our quarterly projections, if Apple would have just advertised OS X more!"

I've been burned by the IBM drives recently, too. The reason Electric Minds is down right now is because the company that made our server put IBM DeskStar drives in it. Even a replacement drive I bought started failing mere months after I installed it, whereas I have Maxtor drives that have been in service for three years and longer, and have never failed once. The server disks are being replaced with new Maxtors now; I don't expect them to give any trouble...but it'll be a cold day in hell before I recommend anyone buy an IBM DeskStar.

[ivan256]
If marketing and sales are that high a percentage of your costs, you're doomed.
[/ivan256]

Sir, have you ever run a corporation? I have, and I support Mr Love's numbers. Furthermore, so you don't think I'm blowing smoke, I will give you an example.

Example: Coca-Cola (KO), FY 2001
URL: (EDGAR report 10-K, annual summary)

From the EDGAR report under Consolidated Statements of Income (p 57):

Gross receipts: $ 20,092 M (1)
Cost of goods: 6,044 M (2)
Gross profits: 14,048 M (3) [(1)-(2)]
Operating expenses: 8,696 M (4)
Operating income: 5,352 M (5) [(3)-(4)]

Line (4) can be further broken down into Selling Expenses and Administrative/General Expenses, which is done in the text of the Management's Discussion and Analysis of Operations (p 48):

Operating expenses: $ 8,696 M (4)
Selling expenses: 6,930 M
Admin/gen expenses: 1,766 M

For Coke in year ended 12/31/01, they spent almost $7 billion on selling their product. That works out to 80% of their total operating expenditure for the year. Since Coke ended up with income of more than $5.3B last year, I'd hardly say they're "doomed".

Kazaa, as previously discussed, comes bundled with a piece of adware called "Projector", from Brilliant Digital Entertainment. Projector not only accepts ads from some specified server, it sets up a peer to peer network and passes them to other Projector clients. It can also distribute updates to itself in a peer to peer fashion. That's its normal operation. So as delivered, it's basically a worm, one that installs a backdoor in user's systems and sets up a whole network to exploit that backdoor for commercial purposes.

The idea is that it allows Brilliant Digital, which is a tiny company in L.A. that used to produce hip-hop videos, to distribute vast numbers of ads without having a giant server farm. The Projector steals resources from the client machines to push ads around. It's peer-to-peer spam.

This opens up a huge backdoor into millions of systems. All that's necessary to exploit it is to figure out how to insert new content into the peer to peer system. Worse, because this is a push-type system, an attack can spread very fast. It doesn't require any user intervention. It's an ideal environment for distributing an attack, because it has everything an attacker wants. Built-in!

And now, somebody's used it.

As I said previously, if you have any responsibility for computers that do anything important, get Brilliant's software off them now!

Bill Gates' SSN: 539-60-5125

I found your sig a little hard to beleive, so I did some google research (and its true!).

You ought to add this link to your sig to add some legitimacy to it.

Gotta wonder why sec.gov took down Bill's ssn, but left Paul Allen's (536-58-3118) online?
Oh well, no matter, archive.org is my friend :)

There's no need to take over the Brilliant servers. An attacker should be able to do it all from any suitably modified Brilliant client.

If someone writes an effective Brillant-based attack, it might contaminate most of the clients in a very short period of time. And most of them woudn't even notice, until it was too late.

Brilliant isn't exactly a tech-savvy company, either. Their previous business was producing hip-hop videos. They have 18 employees. Plus one software consultant. (Read their SEC filing.) They have no track record of producing secure systems. They make no claim that their product is secure against external takeover. And they don't have enough assets that if they screw up, they'll be able to pay for the damage.

If you have responsibility for any computers that do anything important, scan them all for this program immediately, remove it, and block it at your firewall.

It's possible that the Brilliant "projector" is so secure that it can't be used as a pathway for an attack. But without independent verification of its security, it has to be viewed as highly dangerous. All it takes is a buffer overflow and some carefully crafted "ad content" to use this as a virus distribution system.

Some of the same potential vulnerabilities apply to other peer-to-peer systems. Netnews/NNTP, for example. But Netnews is typically run on UNIX machines under its own userid, so even if an exploit in it exists, it can be contained within the Netnews world. And it's a mature system; the obvious holes were plugged long ago. Most of the other peer-to-peer systems, like Gnutella and Freenet, are pull-type systems; they only bring in content when the client asks for it in response to a user request. That slows down propagation and associates it with specific content, like an ordinary virus. But Brilliant, from their description of what they do, pushes automatically and peer to peer. That's much more dangerous.

There's no need to take over the Brilliant servers. An attacker should be able to do it all from any suitably modified Brilliant client.

If someone writes an effective Brillant-based attack, it might contaminate most of the clients in a very short period of time. And most of them woudn't even notice, until it was too late.

Brilliant isn't exactly a tech-savvy company, either. Their previous business was producing hip-hop videos. They have 18 employees. Plus one software consultant. (Read their SEC filing.) They have no track record of producing secure systems. They make no claim that their product is secure against external takeover. And they don't have enough assets that if they screw up, they'll be able to pay for the damage.

If you have responsibility for any computers that do anything important, scan them all for this program immediately, remove it, and block it at your firewall.

It's possible that the Brilliant "projector" is so secure that it can't be used as a pathway for an attack. But without independent verification of its security, it has to be viewed as highly dangerous. All it takes is a buffer overflow and some carefully crafted "ad content" to use this as a virus distribution system.

Some of the same potential vulnerabilities apply to other peer-to-peer systems. Netnews/NNTP, for example. But Netnews is typically run on UNIX machines under its own userid, so even if an exploit in it exists, it can be contained within the Netnews world. And it's a mature system; the obvious holes were plugged long ago. Most of the other peer-to-peer systems, like Gnutella and Freenet, are pull-type systems; they only bring in content when the client asks for it in response to a user request. That slows down propagation and associates it with specific content, like an ordinary virus. But Brilliant, from their description of what they do, pushes automatically and peer to peer. That's much more dangerous.

• The company has 18 employees.
• They're losing money, and if they don't get new financing in 2002, they'll go under.
• They have considerable debt that has to be serviced, and if they can't pay, they'll go under.
• Brilliant's stock (ticker symbol BDE) is selling for around $0.50. They're below the minimum stock price and the minimum capital requirements for listing on the AMEX, and will probably be delisted.
• This new thing is not their first business. Previous businesses include The Auction Channel and Digital Hip-Hop (music videos). Both are defunct.

I don't expect the Next Big Thing from these people. Their filing looks like Yet Another Failed Dot-Com.

If you would like to forward unsolicited commercial e-mail (spam) to the Commission, please send it directly to UCE@FTC.GOV without using this form.

What really surprises me is how similar the Hop-On website is to the known scam education website that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is using to educate people about website investment scams.

What really surprises me is how similar the Hop-On website is to the known scam education website that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is using to educate people about website investment scams.

Just sign up anyone listed in these documents.

That should nip this in the bud in 60 days or so.

Seven spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors in twenty-five words.

That's not a record for Slashdot, of course. In fact, it's not much worse than the average around here. That sad truth of the matter is that the average Slashbot has an IQ in the low nineties and an eighth-grade education. That eighth-grade education is worth about what a third-grade education ought to be. They can't read, they can't spell, they can't form a complete sentence, they can't express any but the simplest of thoughts: "Me haet bil Gaits!" That's about the best they can do.

If you're wondering what led to the catastrophic technical and financial failure of Loki and of the Open Source movement in general, you've just found the answer: Read The Bell Curve . The answers are all right there. We all know that people of inferior intelligence can't write usable or even stable software, and we've all noticed that "Free Software" is rarely usable and never stable. What we learn from studies in the field of human intelligence is that these people can't afford to pay for software, either. People in the Slashdot "IQ bracket" work in convenience stores and the like. Who bought Loki's games? Nobody. Their target demographic can't even afford to pay for an operating system, much less video games to run on it. No revenue, no business. It's that simple.

Loki hired semi-literate burger-flippers -- oh, excuse me, "free software evangelists" -- to create their products. No viable products resulted.

What led the founders of Loki to believe that this was a viable business model? Nothing. Like the well-known penny stock VA Linux, they were cashing in on a craze. Their sole intent was to defraud investors. If you think Larry Augustin at LNUX has any goal but to grab the money and run, have a look at these numbers. He's been cashing out since day one. While he tirelessly flogs the stock to investors, he's selling every share he can sell.

This is why the Securities and Exchange Commission recently (July 1, 2001) updated their regulations to state the following (and this is a direct quote, kids):

"...statements by the issuing party indicating involvement in 'Free Software' or 'Open Source Software' shall be taken by investigators to indicate a strong likelihood of fraudulent intent.

"Geeks" are a permanent underclass, condemned to economic irrelevance by low intelligence and lack of marketable skills. It's sad, but that's the way a free country works: The parasites don't get the goodies. So sorry.

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/VA Linux investigation was held at the SEC Northeast Regional Office in Manhattan. More specifically, 7 World Trade Center, Suite 1300. The board decided that a simple burglary or arson attempt would not be satisfactory to destroy the evidence; anything so simple had a significant chance of being botched, and regardless of success would leave too many witnesses or living accomplices.

It was then that Eric S. Raymond suggested something he had read in a book by Tom Clancy. Crashing two planes into the World Trade Center Plaza would guarantee the destruction of the SEC offices, killing the operatives and possibly a number of SEC investigators at the same time. The plan seemed flawless, and would cost little more than the price of a few plane tickets. In a secret session, the board voted unanimously in favour of Eric's suggestion, and began to put it into action.

VA Software/Linux, at the time of planning the attacks, had no shortage of H1-B visa workers, who they employed for the purpose of writing and improving hacking, encryption, and other terrorist tools for the Linux operating system. It had been decided that a hand-picked few of these foreign H1-B workers would be used as the "patsies" in the operation. A contest was held, and the most zealotous Linux advocates were chosen for this secret assignment, direct from the board of directors. They accepted their mission after being told that, if successful, it would guarantee the adoption of Linux in the desktop market.

Alan Cox was brought into the fold to provide some planning and logistics for the mission. It was he who determined that since there was no adequate flight simulator software for Linux, the patsies would need to train at a flight school in order to pull off the plan successfully. It was also his idea to hijack a third and fourth plane for the purpose of crashing them into Washington D.C., to express his extreme rage over the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The board of directors agreed with this addition to the plan in the hopes that it would help divert attention from the purpose of the WTC attack.

The H1-B workers were given false identities by using Linux hacking tools. Once they had attended the necessary flight training, they stayed at the Massachusetts home of Richard M. Stallman for a brief "faith building" retreat. During this time spent at the house of Stallman, between the nauseating stench of patchouli, Stallman's incessant, pitiful recorder playing, and Stallman's droning seminars on the grammatical and syntactical accuracy of various statements by Microsoft representatives, the H1-B workers were effectively hypnotized to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for Free Software. It was then that they departed for Boston's Logan International Airport to board the planes.

(The preceding inside information has been obtained from a credible source close to the VA Linux/Software Board of Directors. He/she is in hiding for obvious reasons in light of this damning evidence, but has presented hard, physical evidence of VA Software/Linux's complicity in the events of 9/11 to federal investigators.)

From the annals of the Troll Library .

Here it is, in case people wanted it...

Until they issued the prospectus we had no info at all but now we can see they have $132MM to cover $140MM in deposited money. They have other money of course, but it is interesting they do not list this customer deposited money as "restricted funds" They can at any time spend this money on bonuses and trips to Fiji. Their big problem is they are either a bank and must be regulated like one or they are creating a Paypal currency pegged to the dollar.

McWhortle is actually listed in an SEC Press Release, so it's not only slashdotters... Where are the other sites though? Alex

• Registrant:
• 
  VX2 Corporation
  PO Box 27103
  Las Vegas, NV 89126
  US
  

Another report indicates that the Blackstone Transponder is connected with Mindset Interactive. And, sure enough, there's a press release from Mindset boasting about it:

• IRVINE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 20, 2001--Mindset Interactive Corp. (OTCBB:MSIA - news) has just completed development of a new software application which provides advertisers with the ability to deliver an ``instant message'' to a consumer as they are purchasing a product or service from another site. Mindset Interactive currently offers a full suite of ad units that include:

  Keyword targeting: Whenever a consumer types in a keyword search on any search engine, Mindset's software can deliver an instant message to that consumer (i.e. if a consumer types ``cheap airfares'' into any search engine, the software reacts with an ad for low fares from an airline.)

  URL Targeting: When consumers visit a Web site Mindset has the ability to deliver a targeted ``pop up'' instant message. In this manner, an advertiser such as any automobile manufacturer can select to run instant response advertisements to consumers visiting car buying or leasing sites.

  Multiple message units (MMU): Imagine being able to serve pop up ads anywhere on the Web to consumers who are shopping in your product category. Mindset MMU's give you multiple impressions and allow you to control the order in which consumers view your messages.

And, for confirmation, we check Mindset's latest 10QSB filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. They're not doing too well; they lost $247,000 in the last quarter, on sales of $252,000, and just had a layoff. They mention the "transponder", but call it "Net Pal":

• "Net Pal" - The "transponder" Net Pal software is a proprietary software application Mindset Interactive has acquired that will be downloaded onto a user's browser. The software will launch advertisements based on the contextual content of the website the user is currently visiting. The various features of the Net Pal software allow corporations the ability to market "on-line" directly to their client and prospect base.

Many large retailers are public companies, and as such they have to release financial information about their business. In this information is their revenue, their Cost of Goods Sold, sometimes abreviated as COGS, which is their cost, Selling General & Administrative, abriviated as SG&A which will usually contain most of their costs in the markup this usually leaves operating profit, which they subtract their interest and other expenses from leaving net profit. So while this does not show the markup of the item you are buying, but it does give an average. Some will also break their revenue and costs out by there segments, search for segment in the 10-Q. All of these are available here.

go here to search the SEC's Edgar archives and get corporate switchboard numbers. Call and ask to be connected to the office of the president/ a board member/ CTO/ whatever strikes your fancy. You will most likely be connected to their secretary. Tell the secretary what's going on, and she will do the legwork for you of figuring out who in the company needs to be contacted and hook you up with them. Works for me.

The way I see it :

Nintendo issues press release with sales figures for -shipped- and -sold-trough- numbers.

Microsoft issues press release stating they sold-trough a lot of units, without number, but pointing to one of MANY independent, seemingly incomplete researches.

Now, if a company lies with numbers in a press release, wouldn't that give them a REALLY hard time with the SEC ? However, independent researches aren't legislated by the SEC, right ?

Could that be why Microsoft never stated numbers officially in press releases or I'm I being paranoid here ?

For example, from a filing from 1995, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen's is:

539-60-5125.

Bill Gates', whose URL I lost, is 539-60-5125.

- A.P.

Michael Tiemann: Well, as a matter of fact, we were profitable, increasingly profitable, every single year until we attracted so much attention that people wanted to invest money in Cygnus. That happened in 1997.

Red Hat S-1A Filing, January 28, 2000 (search under "3. BUSINESS COMBINATION (CONTINUED)") says that Red Hat lost $1.5M in fiscal 1996, $2.9M in fiscal 1997, $5.7M in fiscal 1998, and $6.4M in the nine months before it was acquired.

Sleepycat employs under twenty people, as does ACT. Peter Deutsch is one person, and may well be discussing a modest retirement in Wisconsin, which is dirt cheap.

So that's less than forty people, none of whom have had the payoff of a second-tier engineer in a moderately successful IPO.

Tim

• The House of Representatives
  
• Thomas at the Library of Congress
  
• The US Postal Service
  
• The Securities and Exchange Commission
  
• The Federal Trade Commission
  
• (FWIW: i.e. not much) The Internal Revenue Service This is one of the poorer examples, but at least you can download forms in PDF.
  
• The White House
  
• The US Dept of Justice Not as useful as the others...
  

Interesting. I'd forwarded some to them, 'tho I'd thought that was only for the FTC's information gathering.

Relevant to some might be the US Postal Inspectors Service, at fraud@uspis.gov -- to which I resend pretty much every pyramid scheme I get that involves a US postal address, which is pretty much all of them; the enforcement branch of the Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement@sec.gov, to which I resend probable attempts at securities manipulation; and netpiracy@spa.org, for people who appear to be advertising for pirated software (plus I resend such to relevant specific companies that are likely large enough to have anti-piracy people, such as Microsoft).