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Microsoft Fakes Citizen Letters of Support
An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this Seattle Times article, Microsoft is sending letters to Utah's Attorney General in support of the company, but with fake signatures of citizens (some of whom are dead!). The article says: "Letters sent in the last month are on personalized stationery using different wording, color and typefaces, details that distinguish Microsoft's efforts from lobbying tactics that go on in politics every day. State law-enforcement officials became suspicious after noticing that the same sentences appear in the letters and that some return addresses appeared invalid."" The original source appears to be this story in the LA Times today. We here at Slashdot would like to take the time to say that strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry, and if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation.
http://128.241.244.96/portal/uploads/27000/27549_w inrg.swf
This
> Microsoft is sending letters to Utah's Attorney General
> in support of the company, but with fake signatures
> of citizens (some of whom are dead!).
Oh my God! The dead have risen, and they're supporting Microsoft!
(with apologies to the Simpsons)
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
The two of us, undersigned, wish to protest your needless hassling of the legendary innovator Microsoft. Please desist.
(signed)
Generalissimo Francisco Franco (Ret.)
John Lennon (Beatle)
Lets wait until the investigation is finished and then, if it's Microsoft, bash them really good.
Didn't MS get a black eye over this before? What has changed to make them think they can get away with it this time?
People write for and against organizations and corporations all the time, let 'the people' speak, MS. Believe it or not, quite a few will speak in your favor.
If you are not getting good press and 'the people' are not happy with your product, that means the marketplace is actually working as it should and people will find someone else with whom to do buisness. Free enterprise means that 'the people' decide whether or not your company survives.
This is not the 'big business' that some folks are talking about when they are looking towards freedom of speech, this is hogwash made by a monopoly looking to embed itself so far up everyone's butt that they can put out the trash they have been putting out and make people pay for the priviledge of owning a piece of the trash.
What's even more pathetic is that a lot of people will still claim that there are not illegal/immoral/fattning business practices going on here.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page
UNIX - Not just for Vestal Virgins anymore
This innovation allows the user to create form letters with ease. It automatically searches the Social Security Administration for deceased individuals to use as senders.
Great for mass marketing.
I think Microsoft was just trying it out.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Asuming the answer is "no it's not a crime" the next questions I wonder are - can it be (given the First Amendment), and should it be (seeing that it's essentially political fraud)?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
You just have to laugh out loud when you read something like this. A company that has so much scrutiny focused on it for underhanded tactics - is using some of the most fraudulent tactics known to man.
The worst part - and not so laughable - I'd bet better than even money that in the end the US government will let them get away with everything... but that's just me being cynical, right?
BlackNova Traders
...but with fake signatures of citizens (some of whom are dead!).
...and in fact, Microsoft doesn't actually do this themselves. Several different "pro-Microsoft" groups are undertaking this.
This is misleading. Microsoft is not sending the letters to the final destination; based on personal surveys, pre-written and pre-stamped letters are sent out to individuals, who then sign and send. In addition, the article states:
Utah officials found two of the pre-fab letters bore the typed names of dead people. Those names had been crossed out by family members who signed for them. And another letter came from "Tuscon, Utah," a city that doesn't exist.
So the statement implying that the dead had been stuffing the ballot box is misleading, to say the least - but no explanation is offered for Tucson, Utah.
But... is is sleazy? You're damn right it is. It even sounds, from the tone of the article, like this isn't a common practice. Is it wrong? Probably.
But it's not as bad as the caption said.
(Favorite section: Microsoft complaining about 'well-funded special interest companies.' Um?)
The Los Angeles Times reported 3 years ago a similar scheme, where Microsoft was planning "a massive media campaign designed to influence state investigators by creating the appearance of a groundswell of public support for the company." [LA Times, "Microsoft Plans Stealth Blitz to Mend Its Image Public relations", Apr 10, 1998]. At the time that target was for free-lance writers to write opinion pieces, which would then be billed to Microsoft as an out of pocket expense.
The only difference is, at the time Microsoft claimed that the idea it "was merely a proposal and 'not something we are moving on'" while this time they seem to be executing this plan.
Faked video tapes, lying executives, and now this. Perhaps I'm overreacting (and it's 7 a.m. for me, so maybe I am), but can this company's actions get any worse? If the government itself were caught doing something like this, people would be in an uproar. But when it's Microsoft, most people respond with, "well, what can you do?"
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
Of course I gotta find out what technology they are using so I can send letters supporting Linux when I'm dead and gone too :)
On a more serious note (not really) you have to wonder what brainiac came up with this - can you imagine the brainstorming session?
OK - so I'm still on my first cup of coffee :)
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
"We here at Slashdot would like to take the time to say that strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry, and if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation."
I think that one of the things that have gotten us to the point of bloated, unstable software is a LACK of regulation and recourse against some of the larger Software companies.
Companies like General Motors or Boeing must abide by safety and quality standards, while a Microsoft doesn't, even though it's products may or may not have more of an impact on daily lives and safety than cars by GM or planes from Boeing.
The point-click-lock-you-in EULA has done away with the ability to have stable software on a computer for the vast majority of users in the United States and the rest of the world.
Hoping for a hands off approach will not make it better, it will make it worse. I think that if you make a product, physical or virtual (software) you should be held responsable for the quality if you are charging money for it. Getting the software industry to the same level that the automotive, aerospace or appliance industry is, isn't excess...it's minimum regulation.
This can only mean one of two things: their marketing staff is too lazy to get real support letters, or they don't have enough supporters to write letters. The answer is obviously number one - any company with millions of products in the hands of consumers can find at least a hundred people willing to write in their favor. Even Ma Bell had customers that were against their breakup. I'm dumbfounded that their staff could be that short-sighted to fake letters, though. The time spent faking could have been spent simply talking to customers and getting the real opinions - no matter which way the opinions go.
What's your damage, Heather?
With all the recent articles about "astroturfing" (I'd link to them, but search is down right now) here on Slashdot, why is it that when a Linux group does it, it's the responsiblity of a single person who is quickly singled out, but when the group from Redmond does it, suddenly it's the entire corporation that is to blame?
All we know is that we have a single person, perhaps more, sending invalid letters to the Utah Attorney General. For all we know, it could be just one person within Microsoft sending them because of a mis-interpreted order.
Actually, the more I think about it, for all we know, it is actually a Linux supporter who is trying to discredit any valid grass-roots campaign that has sprung up for Microsoft.
Let's not jump to conclusions here, folks; Let's wait for the facts before we start grandstanding about how terrible the Big Bad Corporation Microsoft is, mmmkay?
they've been astroturfing this place for years with bogus "I love MSIE, w2k, VB, and all other MSTD" posts. It's nice to see them busted.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Is there a mail fraud case in this?
http://windows.scares.us
The part that just kills me is this
The maker of Windows and other software also has stepped up campaign donations, becoming the fifth-largest soft-money donor to the national Republican and Democratic parties in 1999-2000, and it has hired a slew of well-connected lobbying firms.
These letters contained this information.This is all out bribery at this point...and not even close to subtle.
Face it, most people can't articulate themselves very well and prefer to use boilerplate letters. It doesn't make their opinions any less valid.
If dead people can send letters, they surely can vote. If Microsoft can get away with this, they will surely try something bigger. Given the state of the voting system in the US, the logical next step would be to try to get Bill Gates for president, he has the money, and with all dead of the country voting for him, he can win easily. They simply need a good wording for this, something like open voting. This would solve the Departement of Justice Problem.
Then again, this new technique would simply be a rehash of something done by other coutries around the world for a long time, so it's a perfect Microsoft inovation...
Asked why some phrases were identical, Prendergast then conceded that the letters were written by his operation. "We'd write the letter and then send it to them," Prendergast said. "That's fairly common practice."
Sorry to burst your collective bubble, but he's right -- many, many groups do this sort of thing. They go out and find people who share their views on an important issue before congress, and give them suggestions. If you think that's evil, then all the real grass-roots political organizations must be evil, too!
In fact, I've seen plenty of "Dear Congresscritter: This is why the DMCA Sucks" sample letters posted here, with suggestions to pass them along.
All this article shows is that some MS supporters will just repeat whatever the company tells them to ("Innovation! Progress! XP!"), and do not have the capability to think for themselves, or at least phrase things in a different manner than what the company suggests, even when they agree.
And this, more than anything else, is why Microsoft is keeping their market share -- because they've managed to capture the automatic loyalty of millions, with what most slashdotters think is crapware. That's the really evil thing about this...
write a letter to Utah's Attorney General expressing my view that Microsoft deserves eternal damnation. Also I'll produce enough evidence that I'm not dead at time of writing, e.g. my photo with today's newspaper.
Anyone with me?
The first intelligent phrase ever spoken occurred today
" We here at Slashdot would like to take the time to say that strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry, and if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation."
While I'm reasonably sure this was irony as originally posted, but as this AC notes, there are a lot of people who believe--like Sunday morning Gospel singers--that competition and innovation have actually occured, and this has been a Good Thing.
Now, I'm not blind to the appearance of some major conveniences that have been showered onto rich Westerners, but where is the innovation when it comes to feeding people and protecting the environment? Really, all the tech that AC and people like him fetishize has been handed down from the State-Military Nexus as second-rate gear fit for the consumer masses that paid for the original research that created the tech to start with. I'd hardly call that innovation, and you certainly can't say that Raytheon and Lockheed *compete* for the government contracts that float their boats (unless you call the bidding graft sessions "competition".) In this context, "regulation" has no meaning: who watches the Watchmen?
Comfort and longevity do not equate to happiness and wisdom, even if those wonderful gifts are showered only on those rich enough to afford them.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, The Histories
No, it's not Astrosurfing, but rather Astroturfing, as in "fake grassroots movement". (Astroturf is fake lawn).
Regulators became suspicious of the ruse after noticing that the same sentences appear in the letters and that some return addresses appear invalid.
Hard to send out spam to invalid addresses, no?
As for that "other" group or two on the MS payroll:
Microsoft referred questions about the new campaign to the group running it, Americans for Technology Leadership, which gets some money from Microsoft but won't say how much. ATL was founded in 1999 as a spinoff of the Assn. for Competitive Technology, another pro-Microsoft group.
Asked about the relationship between the telephone calls to citizens and the subsequent letters, ATL Executive Director Jim Prendergast initially said those who agreed the prosecution was misguided merely were given suggestions about what to use in drafting their own letters. "We gave them a few bullet points, but that's about the extent of it," he said. Asked why some phrases were identical, Prendergast then conceded the letters were written by his operation. "We'd write the letter and then send it to them," he said. "That's fairly common practice."
Hmmmm. MS is not getting good value here, but I suppose it's cutting edge, the best lobby ever TM! Must be using MS Loby, cuz it's transparent and sucks:
"It's an obvious corporate attempt to manipulate citizen input," said Rick Cantrell, community relations director for the Utah attorney general.
"You can just tell these were engineered. When there's a real groundswell, people walk in, they fax, they call. We get handwritten letters."
Yawn, another second rate offering from MS.
Kissing two points of Karma goodbye! Mr. Overturf is sure to blast this one to -1 flamebait. Eat me!
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I've got to wonder... usually the way the news media protect themselves is by saying that "so-and-so alleges that..." "it's been claimed that..." and "reports indicate that...". Here, we have a slashdot posting that clearly claims that Microsoft broke a law which, not only have they not been found guilty of, but of which they have not even accused! No one said they faked letters... merely that they "helped" citizens write letters. That's not a crime. In fact, all groups do that ("Please sign and mail the following petition..."). But about the libel issue... normally, to prove libel, you need to prove a gross disregard for the facts... since slashdot added a link to another story, that would suggest they read the other story... so to say that MS faked signatures is clearly unfounded.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
write your own, use the envelope. Have MS pay for anti-MS letters..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The intensive training seminars that Ball-mer (CEO of Microsoft) did for his employees pays off. The employees know, by showing enough idiocy, they could be one day promoted to upper management. Keep up the good work.
Where exactly is the problem? PR firms call the people and asks if they agree with MS's stance. If they do, they send them a form letter that they can then sign and mail to their congressman. IF they change their mind, they can throw the letter away. They can tell the PR guy they don't agree and nothing will be done. It's been done by many groups for years and years. Unless I'm missing something, it's just a case of MS and their PR firm making it easier for people to mail their representatives.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
Because if you did, you'd have realized that it was sarcasm.
Lets wait until the investigation is finished and then, if it's Microsoft, bash them really good.
Good point, I agree. Just because a journalist reported it does not mean that it is fact. If you read the article, you will notice that nothing indicates that it is actually M$ doing this. It could be anybody. The motive can be that of the letters which would help M$ or the motive is for the letters to be discovered as fake to hurt M$. Either way, it is too early to tell who actually was behind this.
I think it's shameful the way Slashdot $shameful_adverb dumps on Microsoft, a $supportive_phrase of our community. Without Microsoft, we might all be {a computerless nation|carving our own boot disks}. Thumbs up for Microsoft and its right to {innovate|forcefully monopolize} on our desktop!
Yours, etc. -
$name
$address
Mormon City, UT 96629
Three others use exactly these words: "If the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation."
Would that be the recent past, or the not-so-recent past? Because I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that the technology sector should not repeat its "success" of the last six months.
If Microsoft is the 5th biggest contributer to both the Republicans and Democrats, vote in somebody that hasn't been bought. Give it a chance-there are already two states with independent governors. Why not make it more?
science is a religion
I found the link to the little incident way back in 1994 with Rick Segal, a microsoft employee. I guess at least microsoft has gotten smarter over the years, now they simply pay people offsite to do their dirty work.
Kudos microsoft, you really are the king of innovation!!
And this business is allowed to feed it's brand of journalism to the public, claiming it to be ubiased news. The best part is that nothing will change. Despite showing a clear desire to deceive the American public by blatantly influencing elected officials with fabricated statements, today will be just another day for breaking news about sharks attacking missing interns. No corporate charter will be outright revoked, in the way that, for instance, an attorney would be instantly disbarred for deceiving a judge or simply their own client in the same way. If a local newspaper made up stories, I gaurantee it would take more flak than microsoft will over this, without even having to lie to any attorney generals.
Let's take a look at the big picture; corporations can commit corporate crimes because they have influence over the governing body, and because they control the mediums through which the public will ever hear about it. Choose your news outlet and their respective owner, which would you trust:
-Fox Broadcasting: News Corp - $$$
-ABC: Walt Disney Company - $$$
-CBS: Viacom-Infinity - $$$
-CNN: AOL-Time Warner - $$$ - $$$
-NBC: General Electric - $$$ - $$$
God bless America.
Jane: Better spend it, or we won't get it again next year. Worse, it might go to another department...
Bob: How about we send out logo'ed thing-a-ma-jigs, like more of those sit on them, and they make you sound like you have gas?
Jane: Nope, to close to an actual product. We are trying to steer people away from thinking they "own" anything - they license, and give a ways don't promote that.
Bob: I'm stuck - no more creative juices after killing off clippy and then bringing him back.
later in PR....
Alice: We just got $47M - Lets start another grass roots campaign!
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
That said, it good to hear a libertarian recognize the role of Governement, rather than merely dissing it.
Why is it that when it comes to anything that has to do with society, the \. editors (yes, the slash leans left on purpose) push forward an authoritarian and often socialist view of government regulation and initiative
Why do you believe extreme authoritarianism is socialism? This is *NOT* true at all. Social Democratic and Communist principles have nothing to do with authoritarianism or Fascism. Stalin may have been a tyrant - but so are plenty of leaders when given an opportunity.
Think Nixon, Think about the AstroTurfing MS is doing in this article, Think about your Government, think about the *REALITY* of American McCarthyism.. (which is alive and well btw) and what *that* really means about America.
Id say that you have a very healthy Authoritarian-Capitalist system in America. You have a body, governing with the tact of Il Duce.
When you ignorantly berate socialism, by insinuating it is an 'extreme form of authoritarianism' is, at best, ignorant and misguided.
Would it surprise you to believe that Socialists have 'personal freedom' as one of its major goals? You do understand that being A Slave to the Bosses vs. A slave to the State vs A slave to the King still leaves you a slave. One of the tenants of Socialism (and Communism) is that the 'economy' and 'means of production' are controlled democratically - by citizens... they are given the additional Civic Right of helping guide their economic destiny, they are given the right to participate in the shaping of their economy.
American Dogma has convinced its people that "economic freedom and free markets mean real freedom, Socialist who seek to heavily regulate and direct the economy are really trying to take away your property && freedom". This is untrue - what Socialists mostly assert is that BOSSES (Capital 'owners') will not be permitted to rule the economy without the input of the citizenry... Everyone must work for a living, and Capital owners, when allowed run freely will incarnate themselves kings and rulers.
What does this have to do with the article? Well, when you think about it, M$, now completely so out of control - seemingly above the law - that it will now replace the political will of * real * people with its own.. you see the final step of Capitalism out of control - the inevitable end of Free Market Capitalism: Plutocracy
This is why people goto Seattle, Genova, Quebec and Washington, D.C. this September.
those sentences are two of the sentences duplicated in a lot of letters.
In other words: It's a joke, dammit.
Paperclip: /pr/astroturf/currentsuits.asp , line 145] case?
It seems that you are writing a letter. Do you want me to change it into a letter supporting Microsoft in the [ODBC: SQL Error in
[Yes] [Yes]
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
They've made a grave error here.
They provide a free service writing protest letters for you, although I imagine they need to be in agreement with your politics. [I found the link over on protest.net]
Some how I think that this is not what microsoft did, considering that the politics are a bit different.
- - -
Radiofreenation.com
is a general news site based on Slash Code
"If You have a Story, We have a Soap Box"
- - -
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The difference being that Microsoft isn't a non-profit organization, but a for-profit corporation. Corporations had been prohibited, by law, from influencing elected officials since the days of Abraham Lincoln all the way up till 1886.
a political group would either present you with
a form letter, and ask you to send it in yourself,
in which case the recipient sees that you didn't
write the letter in the first place (since they'll
receive lots of copies), and treats it accordinly (it's easy to get people to sign form letters, so
there has to be more of them to mean anything),
or alternatively they ask you to write a letter
yourself, perhaps giving you some ideas to convey.
In this case they appear to have prepared letters, but tried their best to make it appear as if ordinary citizens wrote them, and then used sleaze phone "interviews" to get people to agree to sign them.
The issue here isn't with pro-Microsoft groups getting people to sign letters supporting Microsoft, but with these groups trying to make it
look like this is something people are doing of
their own device because they are angry with how
the case is handled.
That is deceptive at best...
This is clearly only the first version of Microsoft LetterWriter, so it's bound to have a few quirks. Everyone knows that by version 3.0, it'll be much easier to use, and will probably include support for faxes, answering machine messages, and "handwritten" fonts as well as these printed letters that were spotted so quickly.
instead of just the regular EndUserLicenseAgreement, there's now an ammendment at the bottom of the rest of the text with a letter already composed and adressed to your local representative.
Before proceding you must now click "agree" instead of "accept".
This letter is not from Microsoft, it was added by a non profit organization for the future of world conformance performance, who is only partially funded by microsoft.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
When you receive a form letter, do you expect the sender to have spent lots of time crafting a letter conveying their emotions, and that they deeply care about the subject? Of course not.
When you receive a letter with personal letterheads, and a seemingly unique content, do you expect that letter to be a letter not written by the sender, but by a lobbying organization? Normally not.
It's the last case that upset people about this campaign.
Now I'd like to know what Hatch's letter said to inspire such a turnaround. Anyone have a copy?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I'd say that qualifies as good enough to cast stones.
VIrg
On the other hand, I've been using Microsoft's " Freedom to Innovate " channel to send hardcopy protests to elected officials with a strictly anti-MS and anti-DMCA tone. Note: it does require a hotmail/passport account.
Elected officials don't read email anymore. Orrin Hatch (the DMCA's writer) bounces email sent to him -- you're supposed to fill out an online form that doesn't mention IP or the MS antitrust suit under "topics".
The FTN sends my verbiage snail mail hardcopy. If you sound mad, like "damn DMCA", and "Tell Orrin Hatch to take personal responsibility for Sklyarov" they send back two-page responses telling you they don't agree with you (except for Borin' Orrin himself, who always agrees with me).
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
I wonder if those dead people all sent their letters in alphabetical order, the way dead people usually vote in Bexar County, Texas...
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
They probably retained John Edwards to speak with the deceased. I imagine that it went something like this.
John addressing a man in the crowd: Do you know a Mike...Michael?
Man in crowd nods emphatically: Michael was my father's name.
John: Michael's holding up a piece of corn, did he like corn, did he work in a corn related field?
Man: My father was born in Iowa!!
John: I'm sensing a crash, did Michael die in a car crash?
Man: No...but he did use Windows and his computer crashed alot!!
John: Michael has a message for you sir, "Strong competition and innovation
have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry."
-- Good judgement comes with experience. -- Experience comes with bad judgement.
Here, let me help you get your head out of your ass.
I hadn't even read the article and I could tell the front page story was sarcasm. I even suspected they were quoting from the article I was about to read (and did, unlike you). Put the whole thing in context - a story about Microsoft people putting words in the mouths of other people, and here's Slashdot delivering the MS-party line. You don't get it. You must be new here.
I would like to close by saying if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation. Strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry.
Whatever. In any case, I think Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch was right. "This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries." And not very much bothered by legal ones, either.
Microsoft Corporation is a legal person. Who the hell would deal with a real person with such a fucked-up mindset, unless they couldn't avoid dealing with them?
If it is not a crime - it's only fair game.
The thing that amazes me is that of all of the people to whom to send an obviously fake letter campaign, they choose Mike Hatch. What the heck were they thinking?!?
Virg
P.S. Science is not a religion. I read your user comment, and I have a rebuttal, but it's offtopic to post it here and you don't provide an address.
On the one hand, I'm glad MS is getting found out oftener and oftener these days and in particular I'm glad their fake "grassroots support" is being exposed.
OTOH, this sentence is ominous (where it isn't misinformed): "State law-enforcement officials became suspicious after noticing that the same sentences appear in the letters and that some return addresses appeared invalid."
First of all, same sentences are no big deal. All organized letter-writing campaigns send out a script. Some of these are "sample letters" that people just copy, some are just bullet points but nobody should be surprised if some people come up with the same sentence to express the same thought.
What's ominous to me is that state law-enforcement is checking return-addresses of citizen petitions. I'd hate to think that information was being cross-referenced with anything anywhere. For instance, should I refuse to sign a petition or send a letter if I have outstanding traffic tickets?
324006
You know, this is bad and all, and it was very dumb of Microsoft (or more specifically, someone at Microsoft) for doing this. But at the same time, the Linux community does this kind of thing all the time. In the recent OpenGL vs. Direct3D thread, for example, everyone was bashing away at D3D based on info from years ago and without ever having used D3D. Pro-OpenGL rhetoric from such people is right up there with writing fake letters supporting OpenGL, in that they have the same lack of honest information content.
Everyone knows that the .gov types never read anything which actual citizens send them. Unless it's a memmo from one of corporate america's finace departments with a check in it, it's tossed in the trash.
I guess the reporter must have been dumpster diving again.
Fish! LipHo
Yes. And like I said, the regulations started to crumble around 1886. My point was that it's been understood since the days of the founding fathers that the private sector has no business influencing the peoples' government, and that it's only become acceptable through years of corruption; soft money and otherwise.
no, they are sending them from The Final Destination... that's the problem ;)
...to pull another one of these fake grasroots support stunts when you've been found out before?
Just another one for the ``Help Me! I still have four bullets and I'm all out of feet'' folder.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I don't like that Microsoft has more money than the Sierra Club and can therefore afford to call people and personally convince them to sign the letters, but I don't believe that this is unethical. It's simply one of the prices we pay for freedom of speech - everybody has freedom of speech, and those who have more money can speak louder.
Sigh. And I have to say that I am disappointed by the Slashdot article here - the person who wrote it should have read the original article, so that the slashdot article could have been a little more factual. I am very fond of slashdot, and it worries me when I see stories that really belong in the Slashdot Enquirer.
_MelloN_
No...the 747 was built to a spec.
The Spruce Goose was like trying to run Windows 95 on 4 MB of RAM.
Aviation bloatware...Shuttle, B-36, FB-111 when it was a fighter for the Navy and a Bomber for the USAF, the Nazi Germany Giant Gilder/Bomber/Transport. Those are examples of Aviation bloatware...but the Shutte is awesome, but it was an attempt to do everything in one vehicle. Like Homer Simpson's car for his brother's company.
"All my life, I have searched for a car that feels a certain way. Powerful like a gorilla, yet soft and yielding like a Nerf ball. Now, at last, I have found it."
Ha! Blue screen of death. Literally!
Disconnect your television. Do your own research. Draw your own conclusions. They're probably lying. Don't be a sheep.
> I mean we all know you'd have ot be brain dead to use windows
> anyway - this just takes it a stpe further.
Hey, this is just mean. Maybe you should say, "...brain dead to use Windows by choice" instead, since I'm required to use Windows by my employer, and I manage to keep some brain cells alive with regular Linux injections at home.
Virg
Face it, Microsoft has millions of supporters, buy a tiny, vocal group of anti-Microsoft crazies (like Guy Kawasaki).
Surely this isn't what was meant in the famous X windows "virus alert" by the line "X Windows. You'll envy the dead."...
The ironic thing is that if Microsoft didn't spend all of it's time kicking it's customers in the teeth then there probably would be an actual groundswell of public outcry against the DOJ and the states that are suing. Microsoft's customers like the integration and the standardization that Windows and Office have fostered, and Microsoft has made software more affordable. It used to be pretty darn expensive to outfit your PC with all of the software you needed to run a business. MS Office is way too expensive, but it is less expensive than WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 used to be.
However, Microsoft, has gotten greedy, and has basically resorted to extorting money from their users. Windows XP has a whole raft of anti-consumer "features," Microsoft's BSA goons are out in force, and Microsoft's licensing tactics get more and more predatory every year. Because of their actions nearly everyone in the computer industry is hoping that Microsoft gets taken down a peg or two. Even Microsoft's biggest customers are hoping that the DOJ chews them up and spits them out.
Perhaps someday Microsoft will learn something about customer service. Until then, don't expect any actual public support for their actions.
I never find the argument that some entity is too smart to do something stupid very convincing. That reminds me of when people claim that some "psychic" must be real because if he were a fake, his tricks would work all the time. Since the tricks only work some of the time, he must be the real thing!
Microsoft isn't infallible. And although it's unlikely that Balmer explicately told them to send out letters with dead people's signatures, he probably implicately told them to do whatever it takes. It's hard to believe that anything Microsoft does in relation to this case would be done without executive management's approval or consent.
Don't forget, although this case is extreme, it isn't completely unheard of considering other things (faked demos in court, misleading videotape in court, the other astroturf campaign, Gates claiming they don't track marketshare, etc) they've done lately.
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.
...farmers do indeed...
...from the government. While it's true that farmers need these benefits more than the general populace, the governmental assistance is enviable. For example, imagine I'm a small computer maker. Can you imagine the government paying CompUSA not to sell more than X computers in my area, so that there's enough demand for my machines so I don't go out of business? This is an overextension of the idea, but you get the point. And, the original poster's point is valid, in that corporations that can get favorable legislation passed reap huge rewards for it. If you don't like using farmers as an example, use the Baby Bells instead.
>...get "enormous benefits" compared to regular people
Virg
Is it wrong? Probably.
... an inability to differentiate right and wrong even in some of the more obvious, less grey areas, of which this is one. Impersonating individual people (including dead people) in an effort to decieve and undermine the very fundamental, personal feedback upon which our democracy relies in no small part and thereby distorting the entire governance process ... let me give you a hint: YES, IT IS WRONG. You are robbing people of their voice, stealing their identity and speaking out in their name without their knowledge and quite possibly against their wishes. Certainly the dead have no business lobbying legislators, even if they are known to vote for party machine candidates in Chicago elections from time to time (Mayor Daley being the quintessential example). This goes well beyond lobbying one's own point of view and agenda and is, at the very least, fraudulant.
Probably? I think this sort of ethical blindspot is something Microsoft shares with most serious criminals, and differentiates them from most decent people
This is wrong, pure and simple. There is no "grey" area here, no uncertainty, no "maybe" about it. And if this uncertainty is indicative of the ethical maturity of Microsoft and those who apologize and shill for them, and I think it probably is based upon their actions to date (not to mention some of the absurd forms the defense of those actions has taken), then I can only say that the worst behaviors attributed to Microsoft and its lackeys are emminently believable.
To underscore one aspect of why this is wrong in as dramatic a notion as possible, let me ask: how many of those impersonated are actually Macintosh users. GNU/Linux or FreeBSD users? None? Perhaps, but if they have impersonated thousands, then likely it is a number greater than zero, in which case Microsoft (or their "we must maintain deniability" outsourced PR subcontractor) is not only decietful in their representation of an astroturfed campaign, but are actually stealing people's voices to "campaign" for the opposite of what they want. And before someone starts bemoaning Americans' apathy and using that as an excuse, the right to say nothing is just as protected as the right to speak out, and saying nothing does not entitle someone else to put words in your mouth, certainly not in a political context, any more than not voting entitles someone else to cast your vote in addition to their own.
If what Microsoft and their paid shills did isn't defined as criminal under current law, it damn well should be.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
So here we have it -- final proof that Microsoft is innovating. This is their new astroturfing/letter writing software, which can even scan obituaries to find "real" names to use, and rearrange sentences in interesting ways so that it doesn't seem like a machine is doing the writing. Tell me that's not innovative.
Now just watch as they use this argument in one of their law suits.
-Puk
They had people sign pre-done form letters and send them in. Big deal. EVERYONE does this, ALL lobby groups do this.
/.? Well, let's see. Everytime we need to write a congressman someone comes up with an automailer or sends out a form email. What's the difference? Oh yeah, this is Microsoft and I'm on Slashdot.
How hypocritical is
State officials said they won't be swayed by the effort, and Hatch responded with his own mailings to the senders, explaining his position.
Some recipients wrote back by hand, apologizing for passing along the Microsoft-inspired letters. "I sure was misled," one wrote.
But to really show up what was going on here, in case you missed it earlier, consider this:
Some residents who fielded ATL's calls believed the states themselves were soliciting their views, according to the attorneys general of Minnesota, Illinois and Utah.
When a caller started asking Minnesotan Nancy Brown questions about Microsoft, she thought she was going to get help figuring out what was wrong with her computer.
Instead, the caller wanted to know whether she agreed that federal and state antitrust prosecutors had better things to do than attack the leader of the high-tech economy.
"They were trying to get me to say the government had no business interfering with Microsoft," Brown said. "I said I didn't agree with that."
Recap! This organization, under pay from MS, called up people in at least three states under false pretenses and harrassed them with this kind of bull. They then lied about mailing their victims forms to rubberstamp and mail back, and pretended all the letters were spontanious. False addresses and dead people make it look like they lied about all of it, and cast doubt on the authenticity of any of the letters. Shoddy work, poorly executed and compounded with dishonesty.
Nothing new here, par for the MS course.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you had bothered reading the link, you would know a few things.
1) It is not a single person within Microsoft "mis-interpreting" their orders. It is several PR companies, doing exactly the same thing, along with Microsoft.
2) After the PR company calls the target, and confirms they are supportive of Microsoft, The letterheads, return addresses, and envelopes arrive at the house pre-printed and ready to go, complete with paragraphs moved around and paper colr/font changes to make them appear to be from "individuals".
3) There's a lot of money flowing. How can be be from a Linux company?
The "facts" were there, had you bothered to go read a little. But as this story shows, Microsoft supporters have a few issues when it comes to writing. It's not too much of a stretch to imagine they have issues following links and reading the articles as well.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
> I honestly am hard pressed to believe the people at
> the top could be 'this' stupid.
I'm not so sure it's stupidity so much as an astonishing amount of hubris. For example, shortly after Judge Jackson's remedy was thrown out, Mr. Gates himself held a news conference in which he explicitly said that the event was proof that Microsoft did not illegally tie its browser to it OS. Since several courts since then have not overturned the conviction (only the punishment), this statement was either an horrific mistake on his part, or a bald-faced lie. In either case, with this episode (and the falsified benchmark video) in mind, it does not strike me as out of character for the top brass at Microsoft to try something like this.
Virg
No, it's real. It may not be visible now, but this user has been changing his sig to remove the evidence. He HAS been placing goatsex links in his sig, where the link-checker doesn't yet function.
See this bug and several others on sourceforge... they all appear to be closed, but apparently the problem still exists.
We here at Slashdot would like to take the time to say that strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry, and if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation.
I agree. To put it another way, strong competition and innovation have been the twin hallmarks of the technology industry, and if the future is going to be as successful as the recent past, the technology sector must remain free from excess regulation.
Microsoft is much better than Cats. I'm going to see it again and again.
J. Doe (deceased)
I think my headline kicked butt over the winning submission, though...
Microsoft Lobbies With Dead People
It makes a good point, and everyone in the US that reads Slashdot should do it!
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
The correct opinion is not 'halfway in between'. The correct opinion is, 'gee, Microsoft attempts to turn off the antitrust case with a massive lobbying effort lying to people and using the names of dead people'. You know, when government officials get caught carrying on like that we just about run them out of town on a rail. Why are we supposed to extend extra consideration to Microsoft? They deserve to get gutted for this. Bluntly, they are fucking with our government.
Speaking of the not-so-recent past, remember that when Microsoft and Compaq stole the show from IBM, it was only after big blue had been taken down a couple notches by some pretty aggressive pursuit of anti-trust regulations.
By today's standards, this was somewhat "excessive", but if not for that where would Mr. Gate's "freedom to innovate" come from?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You just have to laugh out loud when you read something like this. A company that has so much scrutiny focused on it for underhanded tactics - is using some of the most fraudulent tactics known to man.
Oh, I agree, it's funny as all hell. But the lobbying groups are doing it.
A parallel pretty close to home for both of us is the Walkerton water crisis.
The mayor didn't supervise the water supply very well and has even helped to keep PR nightmares (like people getting sick from the water) quiet.
Now, his minions are taking the fall, but you'd think that it would have killed his credibility. No way! The idiot residents of Walkerton re-elected him.
It's as dumb as Detroiters voting for Coleman Young over and over and over... despite his noble views, he was clearly destructive to the city.
Just like these mayors, Microsoft will manage to skirt the PR nightmare. Just you watch.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
[spooky music - we see that kid from AI and a certain ex-husband of Demi Moore - slowly zoom in]
...
Bruce Willis: [hushed tones] What do you see when you look in Microsoft's PR department?
[pause, music builds]
Hailey: [plaintive voice] I see dead people
[music crescendo, hush]
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
My comment was to indicate that I'd read the comments in your user info. Do you have a crash account (Yahoo or Hotmail or such)?
Virg
That's fraud, and possibly criminal impersonation. This isn't like faking letters to the editor of the Washington Post in the name of fictitious microsquish lusers, this is identity theft; and since the letters went to a law enforcement official, there might very well be a charge of obstruction of justice here.
I hope that the judge who decides their sentence in the anti-trust case takes their recidivism into account.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
can really burn your knees. Just ask Bill.
State laws on forgery differ. Minnesota and Utah have weak ones, but see Maine.
I don't think the A.G.s this letter was directed at find it very funny at all, and Microsoft does need to settle with them.
If this should provoke a *real* grassroots letter writing campaign expressing support for the prosecution (and outrage at Microsoft's tactics) it could prove more than a little counterproductive.
Legality aside, I don't see this as a minor matter. Expression of popular sentiment is close to the only peaceful feedback mechanism we the people still have. Diluting it will not promote domestic tranquility. Especially if the purpose is to make corporations even less accountable to the law.
...signed, Lenin ;)
No. The body of law having to do with this sort of behavior is called 'fraud' law, and no, you do not have the freedom to committ fraud any more than you have the freedom to rob banks, and no, these tactics are not to be expected.
They are to be arrested.
No you won't, cause you cannot libel the dead. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09210a.htm, http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/specials/w eblines/533.html, http://www.wga.org/WrittenBy/0401/essay.html,http: //www.freeadvice.com/law/5765us.htm,http://codoh.o rg/bbs/messages/1649.html as just a few references.
Point: Microsoft's proxies are paid PR flacks, and Microsoft is responsible for their actions, no matter how much Microsoft tries to disclaim it.
In other news, The Register reports that Microsoft is making false accusations of selling counterfeit software in order to shut down dealers who dare buy shrink-wrapped copies of OEM product on the open market. This shows exactly how anti-competitive Microsoft really is -- they believe in the open market, as long as it's not their own product being sold in it! It also shows that Microsoft is a company whose management is made up of habitual liars, but we already knew that.
-E
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
How much you want to bet the letters begin with "I send you this file to ask your advice"?
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
That is true for theft or wrongful death, but not for libel or slander, as the multiple links I gave show.
Okay, if you don't have an email to use, I'll just do it here.
...science is not based on, or even really concerned with, truths.
...they must be testable and repeatable...
.sig.
> Sig: Science is a religion.
It's not. I think you're confusing science with Scientism (or scientific humanism). Science isn't a belief system. It's a method of inquiry.
> You place your faith in what you can sense and in the words of those
> you respect, e.g. the scientific comunity.
Placing faith in anything, including scientists, isn't science. It's faith.
> I also place my faith in what I can sense and in those I respect.
Good to know, but that's also not science.
> Things that are literally inexplicable by science have happened
> to those who are close to me.
Nothing is inexplicable to science, because science allows "I don't know" as an answer. Scientists generally don't _like_ that answer, but there's nothing in the scientific method that requires an answer to any question. Since you can't explain the things that happened to those people by any currently known scientific laws, you can say "I can't explain what happened by any currently known scientific laws" and still be within the scientific method.
> That is enough evidence for me to have faith that my religion and
> science are equally legitimate.
Evidence and faith are contradictory. By definition, faith is belief in something, in the absence of proof one way or the other. This statement does, however, point up an issue that I suspect is causing much of your confusion. See below for more on science and religion, and their relationship to each other.
> >
>
> Then what is the point? AFAIK, scientist base their theories on
> facts. Darn! What was that expression...the facts don't lie? Science
> is a bunch of statements that are true or false. If they are true,
> it is sound science. If they are false, it is quackery or
> pseudo-science (if somewhere in between).
The point is specifically that truth is a relative term. Science isn't a bunch of statements that are true or false, it's a method of determining the truth or falsehood of a bunch of statements (scientists call 'em "hypotheses"). Sound science is hypotheses that are consistent with observation. Quackery is the use of scientific jargon to deceive. Pseudoscience is the use of the scientific method backwards; that is, trying to bend facts to suit theories instead of the other way around.
> >
>
> So what is the "Big Bang" theory? How is that either testable or
> repeatable? Sure you can make similar astronomical observations and
> recalucalate the results to formulas, but you can neither really test
> it or repeat it.
You're badly misinterpreting this idea. The "testable/repeatable" idea applies to experiments. The Big Bang (if it ocurred) is an event, not an experiment. One does not need to repeat the Big Bang to investigate the validity of the theory. It works like this:
Theory: The universe started with a big explosion.
Corollary: This explosion (to be consistent with known physics) would have left an EM signature.
Experiment: test for the presence of postulated EM signature.
The test for a background signature is testable (either the EM field will be detected or it won't) and repeatable (anyone with the necessary equipment can repeat the test at any time). If the field is found (it was), this evidence can be used to bolster the case for the Big Bang theory of universal origin, and it weakens the steady-state theory of the universe, because the steady-state theory (again, to be consistent with known physics) would not reasonably contain said field. Now, all of this said, the scientific method also allows that if something new in the field of physics comes up that would reasonably explain the field better than the Big Bang theory, BB would be rejected in favor of that new idea. But, as you see, the theory does not require direct observation or repetition of the event, only of the tests.
> IMHO, the "Big Bang" theory, archeology in general, and any other
> branch of science that deals with events distant in the past are very
> hard to test or repeat. They attempt to explain how things came to
> be. How did the universe really start? Did Neanderthal die out or
> merge with Crowmagnon (sp?) man? What event occured that caused so
> many religions to have a story of a great flood? Where does the
> personality of a person reside?
Again, the events don't need to be tested. The hypotheses are the attempted explanations, and the tests that prove or disprove those hypotheses are what need to be falsifiable/repeatable. To take an extreme example, I'll use your last hypothesis. I propose that the personality of a human resides in the left foot. My test is to find people who have lost their left foot, and see if personlity changes ensue. This is both falsifiable (either I will observe changes or I won't) and repeatable (any researcher can find someone who lost their left foot and repeat the experiment). Therefore my hypothesis is a scientific one. However, as you can well guess, my experiments will show that it's erroneous. As a good scientist, I must therefore say that this theory fails the consistency test (my hypothesis is inconsistent with observation), and therefore I must discard it.
> Most religions also have an explanation of how things came to be.
> Scientists are researchers who try to uncover and support scientific
> "laws". Theologins are researchers of who try to uncover relgious
> "truths".
You must be careful not to confuse these two ideals, especially because scientific laws must stand up to direct experimentation, and religious beliefs do not (and cannot) have such constraints, because they are not quantitative by nature.
> What is the difference? What you believe is a fact. That is what
> seperates religions from each other and religion from science. Hence
> my
Not by any quantitative definition of the word "fact" is a belief a fact. Facts, as defined by the scientific method, are phenomena that are consistent with any experiment that can be run against them. More important, no "fact" is accepted as perfectly immutable in science. Newton's laws of motion spring to mind, which were considered "laws of nature" until that Einstein troublemaker came along. What separates religions from science is the type of questions they try to answer. Too many people try to use religion to answer questions about scientific theory, or the scientific method to try to answer religious or philosophical questions. Each method is ill-suited to address the other's issues, as science deals in quantitative methods, and religion (and by its extension philosophy) deal in nonquantitative methods, which is why I can say at last that science is not a religion.
Virg
I didn't mean the software.
I meant the way the system was designed.
Take an airplane, a rocket, reusable systems and disposable systems and wrap it into one system.
It was almost as if all the pre-1970 NASA and USAF programs that Nixon chopped got parts wrapped up into Shuttle.
Like most of the Outlook 'viruses', this exploit relied on human gullibility. Microsoft didn't forge anyone's signature - rather they sent the letters and envelopes to people and somehow persuaded them to sign and mail them. The fundamental problem is that many people are so pliable that they are simply putty in the hands of any persuasive talker.
One of the 'victims' said, "I sure was misled." Was he? Did he believe the things in the letter which he signed?
This is similar to the democrats busing in senior citizens to vote. The alleged autonomy of the human being is superceded by the gullibility of individuals.
I really wonder. I mean, there's a company as big as Microsoft, As we all know they have a good marketing team (apparently their marketing is better than the developers, but nevermind), and they don't even manage to do these fake letters right. I mean, this is obviously a planned thing (they even had a statement ready for damage control, after it was discovered), so we can only conclude, that Microsoft wasn't able to come up with enough genuine letters. They could've hired a team of language professors, they could've done som search&replace on other similar letters, they could've built a whole database system compiling genuine support letters. But no, they did it in such an obvious way, even pupils can do better, when copying down their homework from someone else. I think, much scarier than microsofts attempts at world domination is their incompetence.
This shows in marketing, the recent campaigns agains Linux and against softwarepirates did more to discredit Microsofts statements and to drive people away from their products, than to build more customer-relationships. It shows in Microsofts obvious carelessnes with respect to the still ongoing legal battles (their stalling strategies are too obvious, and they're bundling other applications with windows XP, regardless, making it very hard for the courts to be generous about it). And now their incompetence is showing in this campaign, which, now that it became public, is worse for Microsoft, than anything Sun could do to Microsoft with the recent haggling about bundling Java with Windows XP.
Well, i don't know what's disturbing me most: Microsofts success, despite their incompetence, or their incompetence despite their success.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
See http://hedland.edu.au/~ad-temp/, cue twilight-zone theme.
Unbelievable. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing