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MS Struggles to Discredit Linux
PrimeNumber writes "The Register has this interesting story about a supposedly "leaked" email from Microsoft Windows division VP Brian Valentine. Although half of it is admittedly suit/rah rah speak, the interesting nuggets mention use of Microsofts "Sun and Linux insiders"."
The whole email is pretty funny actually.
What especially rings my "hoax/troll bell" is the last couple of lines about the message being "Microsoft Confidential" and how he can track any and all forwards. Give me a break.
This article is complete bull. Nobody will ever be able to convince me otherwise. It was written by a well-intentioned Linux advocate and sent to The Register because it would give the people of Slashdot a reason to cheer.
Nothing to see here, folks. These are not the e-mails you're looking for. Move along.
Theres one important clue here that points to this email as being legitimate. The lack of British euphamisms. The Register is a UK-based resource. If they wanted to doctor up a fake email in a conversational tone, it would have been written differently from the style in which it appears. Infact, when I was reading it, I kept expecting to see language differences, and didn't find any. Hell, to any self-respecting haxx0r, that bad-bad-doggy conclusion at the bottom of the email just begs to be disobeyed.
Even more true is the snippet about DH Brown being total FUD-whores. It says so right on their damn webpage, you can pay for the results you want.. Give em $1M and they'll tell that the majority of people surveyed think the sky is green, Windows is better, and we all ride around on invisible pink unicorns.
Bowie J. Poag
unless they are really stupid.
It's a simple trick - they sent out slightly different copies of the email to everyone on the list. Then, when the public version gets published they can reference the published version against who got what.
The changes can be cosmetic - slight changes in phrasing, additional punctuation, spacing, line breaks. Stuff like this would be pretty much unnoticeable without having a couple of different copies to compare against. Even then, it would likely be tough to notice the difference.
Add in 3 separate requests to "not distribute" as a tempting goad to the leaker, and the odds are that MS has solved their problem with that person.
Unless The Register sliced up the email themselves....
Nah, this is a real leak. Look at all that marketing speak.
Check out the part about the consulting company doing a study, comparing the cost of Microsoft solutions to Linux solutions in Unix upgrade costs. There's two possible conclusions to that study. One, Linux could come out on top, and then Microsoft would never release the study. Two, Microsoft would come out on top, and now a Linux company (Red Hat) can proactively do their own study, so that they have something to give to their own marketing people. Even without a "leaked memo", the sales folks could have said "yes, DH Brown is releasing a study in a few months, showing hard numbers that Microsoft is better, I'll get that to you when it comes out, etc. etc.". No real advantage in leaking the memo.
At the same time, I doubt he's really concerned about a leak - there's no real facts in there, just strategy. I imagine the sales team is out there, selling Microsoft products, and complaining to each other that the customer brings up Linux, and they have no ammo to use. This is the boss saying "we've heard the coffee room conversations, we do have a Linux strategy. Here it is. Sell, you beautiful marketers, Sell!".
Now we just need real cost-of-ownship numbers, since you know the DH Brown report will use top consultant by-the-hour numbers...
Unless he has the message "Canary Traped" This is a fairly well known method of determining where documents are being leaked. Your format the message slightly differently in each case, not enough to change the meaning or even enough that a casual reader will catch it, but enough that each document is unique. You might use a : instead of a ; or leave out a comma or period here or there. By comparing the leaked document to your originals you can figure out who the document was sent to, and therefore who leaked the document.
"You can't fight in here! This is the war room" --Dr. Stra
We're embarking on several initiatives in 2002 to deal with this.
-
The "99.999%" reliability program will be offered competitively to IT shops which use
only Microsoft software.
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Presentations to Fortune 1000 clients will emphasize the migration path planned
for Windows XP and its successors, which will move consumers away from a
generic Web environment to one that requires
.NET-enabled web sites.
-
We will be introducing a new mail protocol in 2002 which will replace the
present "SMTP" protocol. This protocol will provide authentication of
mail senders (but not encryption of content) and will protect mail servers
from unauthorized use. The client for this mail protocol will be distributed
as an update to Internet Explorer. Initially, users will see no change
as a result of this action. But when ISPs transition to our replacement
for Post Office Protocol, our mail clients
will treat old-format unauthenticated mail as potentially hostile.
In high-security environments, old-format mail will be down-converted
from HTML to plain text, and attachements will be stripped.
Our intellectual property will prevent the cloning of this mail protocol, giving
us control of the worldwide e-mail system within three years.
-
We are working with PC manufacturers to develop firmware which
enforces a secure boot process.
This will prevent the loading of non-signed operating systems.
While any company will potentially be able to obtain permission
to sign an bootable file, we are working with the National Infrastructure
Protection Center to insure that such authority is only available to
U.S. companies able to qualify for Government security clearances.
With these new initiatives, you should have no trouble convincing top IT management that conversion to an all-Microsoft environment is inevitable."Um, no they aren't. There are absolutely no plans to switch any Sun Cobalt product lines to Sparc/Solaris (and I work in the Cobalt Server Appliance group, so I know of whence I speak =8^} ) There is support from the highest levels within Sun (from Scott and Ed on down) to continue moving forward with Linux-on-x86 as the basis for the Cobalt appliances.
They bought us because they liked the appliance concept. Cobalt is not, and won't be, a general purpose Linux/Unix solution. We play at the edge of the network, providing a front-end to the Sun big iron in the datacenter.