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JBoss Caught in Anonymous Posting Scheme
Reader scubabear writes "For years rumors have run rampant about employees of JBoss Inc. being actively encouraged to post anonymously, drumming up business by flooding the net with fake posts and simultaneously attacking competitors, all from behind a safe veil of anonymity. With the advent of a new feature for tracking users by IP on TheServerSide.com, the floodgates have been opened and those rumors have apparently been confirmed.
The Java blog space now erupted with posts from a variety of bloggers (here, here, and here for a start) exposing a variety of anonymous/pseudonymous accounts used by JBoss employees to put forth their Professional Open Source message and simultaneously slam anyone who gets in their way in online technical communities such as TheServerSide, JavaLobby, and various personal blogs. The evidence shows how a corporation can manipulate popular opinion via anonymous personalities, that open source companies can be just as ruthless as closed source when it comes to marketing their wares, and that you should never forget that your cookies and IP address can and will be tracked online. No official response has been heard yet from the JBoss crew. Disclosure: I'm one of those bloggers erupting on this issue (see my story here)."
My heart is forever broken. To think that this kind of crap would go on within the open source "Community". Newsflash : This happens everywhere. On every review site, on every opinion forum - EVERYWHERE. I have competitors anonymously bashing me on Yahoo Shopping, E-Pinions, Shopping.com etc. It is done for one reason - profit. J-Boss is trying to make money, and they are willing to use all the tools at their disposal to discredit everyone who does not share their opinions. This is nothing new and nothing that will not happen again.
Isn't doing anything new. This particular technique was around long before the internet, or blogs...
-LoneWolf-
It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
Actually, in today's world of lawsuits, posting slanderous material on the internet is termed libel, not slander.
This is interesting, because if you can remember the stock market has even been swayed by posts on the yahoo economic forums in the past...I think this is a step in the right direction, anonimity is great and all, but when your using it to ruin the competition and make yourself look better (or in the case of the stock market to weasel people out of their money) then someone has to crack down on you....in this case I'm even more excited because it seems to be public/private intervention rather then the government, so these people DEFFINATELY are going to get what's just deserts for their actions.
Sad for Open Source primarily. Astroturfind is the sort of activity you expect from corporations like Microsoft, but I would much prefer F/OSS (and the industries it created) to flourish on its own merits, just to prove to the world that there is no need for dirty tricks when the software and development methods are good.
This is just sad. Shame on JBoss...
You know, there's no real distinction between Anon Coward and "ElitePenguin231 (771235)" who will forget his slashdot password in a couple months. I'd say than 10% of slashdotters post with personally-idenfiable information.
Sure OSDN can track you, but that's not going to stop you from astroturfing.
Anonymous or not opinions count. (Score:2, Interesting) by jelwell (2152) on Tuesday May 18, @04:29PM (#9189227) I guess I don't see the problem. Whether the posters were anonymous or not, don't their opinions and refutations of the facts matter?
It depends on the nature of what they're posting anonymously.
Suppose I work for JBoss and I write up various posts of the form: "I used (fill in JBoss competitor here) for my business. Not only did they not do the work I paid them for, but they anally raped my mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank! Next time I will go with JBoss for sure."
Or, suppose I work for JBoss and I write up a glowing review of JBoss's work, glossing over the problems or bugs. Then I post a few times agreeing with myself about how excellent they/we are. Astroturfing may be as old as the Internet (if not older) but that doesn't make it particularly ethical business.
I guess I don't see the problem. Whether the posters were anonymous or not, don't their opinions and refutations of the facts matter?
Well, it's like when you start having cybersex with somebody. It does indeed matter whether they're an 18 year old hot chick, or a 50 year old fat guy. Even if they both say the same thing, like "I wanna get with you, baby!"
More seriously, it matters because it matters who you're speaking for. When I stand up in a developer community and say my company is using ___ and the speed has gotten better between versions, that it crashes less often, or that the new features work as advertised, then I need to have something behind those claims. While people usually claim they're not speaking for their company, it still means more when someone is actually employed.
Furthermore, nobody wants to make enterprise software decisions based solely on the vendor's recommendations: you want to find a group of users that can verify the stuff works correctly. If I looked up JBoss's users to find out how it's working, and it turns out the entire JBoss user community consists solely of their employees posting under pseudonyms, you'd better believe we've got a problem.
What's your damage, Heather?
Any company that has to make a marketing effort to declare themselves "professional" most likely is not. Afterall, real professional companies just act that way and everybody else applies that term to them.
This is another ugly story that shows how little we need SCO and Microsoft to attack the open source community, because we are so willing to do their work for them.
First, JBoss Group betrayed the trust of what should have been a largely sympathetic community in TheServerSide with their anonymous posting campaign.
The fraud was exposed by levelheaded participants, including the submitter of this story and staff at TheServerSide.
Then, the opportunists jumped in.
Some bloggers gleefully joined the witchhunt, accusing their least favorite people of being anonymous posters, including real people, of course.
When I told one blogger that he needed to offer evidence when he accused someone of being an anonymous poster, he publically implied that I supported the posting scheme.
Several of the bloggers are themselves contributors to respected open-source projects, making this a particularly disturbing form of cannibalism.
The net result is another wedge driven into what was already an overly polarized community. No real winners here.
How ironic is it that these people can have a normal discussion with "faceless individuals" but as soon as they realize those individuals were from JBOSS they want to scream bloody murder?
Because now they know that those "faceless individuals" were not there to help them but instead were there entirely for their own profit and deliberatly misleading, even lying, to them in the process. If I found out someone whom I'd been turning to for advice because they claimed to be an honest individual had been lying about who they were the entire time to conceal a conflict of interest so they could sell me something I'd be pretty pissed off too!!
(and although I suspect my company *might* make something that may compete with JBoss that doesn't have any affect on my opinion)
I stole this Sig
that open source companies can be just as ruthless as closed source when it comes to marketing their wares,
An ethnic minority person walks into an ethnic majority bar and orders a beer. The ethnic majority guy next to him says, "we don't like your kind around here." Words are exchanged, and the ethnic minority guy pulls out a knife. The ethnic majority guy pulls out a gun and shoots him. Ethnic majority guy turns to the bartender and says, "just like an ethnic slur to bring a knife to a gun fight."
So what should you do when the enemy is both more powerful and unethical? Most business people don't grasp (or care about) the long run benefits of open source software. If they don't see the open source equivalent as being better - and let me stress, they have to see it as being better, regardless of whether it is better - if they don't see it as a better product, they're not going to use it. If they're reading the trades, the open source people should be promoting their products there by all means necessary. Anonymous? Do you think Microsoft's shills on this site are adding disclaimers? This isn't pattycake, this is business. This is war. If you can't handle it, at least stay out of the way.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Well lets turn this question around. If it doesn't matter who the opinion is comming from then why do the JBOSS employees have to hide behind anonymous psuedonyms? Why don't they just admit that they are JBOSS employees and let the peole judge the merit of their posts in that light rather than pretending to be satisfied customers? The fact that they do hide thier identity shows that they believe that there is an advatage to misleading people as opposed to telling the whole truth. If they are willing to mislead people about their credintials, why should the content of the post be considered trustworthy?
And besides, an opinion is only as valid as person giving it, and a "hard data" is only as valid as the method in which that data was collected. So if company X says their product works great that is less valid then a third party saying it works great. Furthermore, if I know that group X is conducting a study I will be more on the guard for things that might might tilt the results in thier favor.
This behavior is deliberatly misleading and thus unethical. Period.
Well, it's like when you start having cybersex with somebody. It does indeed matter whether they're an 18 year old hot chick, or a 50 year old fat guy. Even if they both say the same thing, like "I wanna get with you, baby!"
/.ed so I cannot find out more. Itsure seems like anyone going to these lengths to track down anon IP's and such have some kind of personal beef so I'm not sure how much to trust them either! The truth is probably somewhere in-between.
Here's a hint - if you are having cybersex you can rule-out right away that it's a hot 18-year-old.
But why does it REALLY matter? You have no way to know, so if you are doing this by definition you do not care.
More seriously, it matters because it matters who you're speaking for. When I stand up in a developer community and say my company is using ___ and the speed has gotten better between versions, that it crashes less often, or that the new features work as advertised, then I need to have something behind those claims. While people usually claim they're not speaking for their company, it still means more when someone is actually employed.
Possibly. The thing that bothers me about the accusations of foul play are this - what are the exact contents of the posts being made by JBoss employees? There's nothing wrong with having an opinion and being employed all at the same time. Sometimes I just want to give quick technical advice without bothering to identify myself. The links seem to be
I can also see the possibility of people wanting to defend thier company being bad-mouthed on forums without nessicarily revealing they work there. Sometimes you do that so you don't get in trouble at work, sometimes because if it gets out you work somewhere you have a lot of people contacting you for various things related to the company and you don't want the hassle. There are a number of legitimate reasons to conceal identity when posting online.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You don't see a difference between posting pseudonymously in order to respect obligations not to express opinions of your employer, and posting pseudonymously in order to give the impression that you are specifically NOT affiliated with your company and represent an independent viewpoint, including referring to yourself in the third-person and making up false claims that make the company look good?
One is called discretely exercising your right to free thought and speech, the other is astroturfing and inherently deceptive.
You sound like a shill, but that really is irrelevant (I don't want to be guilty of ad hominem). The fact is, these individuals at JBoss look like complete asses. I would be embarassed if I was discovered to be the fake identity that was writing great things about me. Gawd!
It's stupid and dangerous. Posted By: Mouloud - on May 18, 2004 @ 05:58 AM in response to Message #122469 1 replies in this thread
... deleted some
Retroactively identifying people is highly foolish - particular subsequentely linking individuals to a company. If a site provides an anonymous mode:
If people using anonymous mode in an "unethical way" may be a problem - remove it, give everybody warning and move on.
No i don't work for JBoss, and yes i know IP/cookies etc. are tracked - however i don't expect amazon of anybody else to post what that information!
.sig
>> Free speech cannot exist without a degree of anonymity
Why is that? I don't see how they are tied together.
Not wishing to be help accountable for your speech might make you want to be anonymous. Not wanting to be held responsible for what you say might make you want to be anonymous.
But neither of those are infringing on your right to free speech. You are given the right to speak freely, you are not given the backbone to do it.
Now THIS is an interesting article. It touches on several issues at once: Privacy, Honesty, Openness, Conspiracy, Propaganda, Media manipulation... I could go on.
...um... thirty something, combined. OK, its drivel, but if you multiply that by all the Internet users, there is some good stuff out there that would not be out there otherwise. The trick is of course to separate out the good stuff from the drivel. You know, signal to noise ratios and all that. Systems like Slashdot's moderation system help, but they are a long way from perfect yet. In particular...
We all want privacy don't we? Do you really want someone throwing a rock through your window because you said something negative about a group they are a member of on Slashdot?
Open Source is all about, well, openness right? It seems so ironic that a company based on the Open Source philosophy would do such a thing. But how many times have many of us said that Open Source is about freedom to create not about anti-commerce. If it is ever proven that Open Source companies CAN'T be profitable, then I think the future of Open Source will be bleak.
Media manipulation is both harder and easier with the popularity of the Internet. Anyone who wants to can be a publisher now. How many of you regular posters to Slashdot used to write letters to the editor of your local paper on a regular basis? I know I didn't. I've written more on issues I care about in the last 2 years than the previous
Systems such as Slashdot are easy targets for conspiracy. We "rate" one another by name. My real identity MAY be secret, at least if I've been very very careful, but unless I do all my "Karma whoring" under this id and all my controversial posts anonymously, people are going to have a pretty good idea of what cmacb thinks about things. They may have a pretty good idea of what other Internet activities I engage in, who my online friends are, and a lot of other inferences not so easily drawn. Am I comfortable with this? Sometimes I'm not so sure...
The other day I posted what I thought was a perfectly normal reaction to a Slashdot article. I was a bit surprised that it got quickly modded up to a 5 (I really don't care that much about mod points other than the general "acceptability" of what I've said) I was even more surprised though to find myself personally insulted several times in the 14 posts that followed and then shocked to see the posts containing nothing more than insults modded up to 3, 4 and 5 while my original post dropped down to "1 troll". There was nothing the least bit resembling a troll in my post. I didn't bother to defend it though, as I don't want rocks through my window and I had clearly offended a group who, by their own writings, is capable of doing such a thing. Hopefully the fact that they had enough mod points among them to make my post disapear and their insults at me "informative" that they won't be tempted to hunt me down as well.
It made me realize that Slashdot, and several other systems I use just like it, are broken in a serious way. The moderation is good, but allowing me to filter posts based on WHO and individual is is just plain wrong. Some of the best posts I've seen on Slashdot are AC and some of the worst are by other people with good Karma. But I'm more interested in rating the post than the person. Why can't Slashdot (and systems like it) tally the ratings on my posts in such a way that nobody even knows what my ID is? Essentially combining the moderation and meta moderation and providing anonymity at the same time. I thiink that if you rated a particular poster poorly some number of times you would stop seeing their posts, without even knowing who they are or that you had done so. Some people ONLY want to see posts they AGREE with, and those people could rate posts accordingly and they would gradually get their wish. Others (like me) would rate on the "quality" of the posts without regard to agreeing or disagreeing with the content, and event
My first job, at IBM, wonderful, the only company I'll name because they were perfect. Awesome. My granddad set me down before I took it, he had 35 years there and is a true blue retiree, blue to the end. He told me something that I still remember, it may not be the best place, they have their problems but not once was he ever asked to do or expected to do something uncomfortable for him ethically. They don't speak negatively about their competitors, generally, and they don't expect anyone to. I got bored, the place didn't move fast enough for me, there were politics but I never felt obliged to do anything uncomfortable, in 5 years. It didn't seem like much at the time.
Next job. They cursed at each in the status meetings, first week there I was treated to a stream of insults during a status meeting, because that's how they are. In the two years there I saw people lie to other people I saw people intentionally break code before handing it over to business partners. I saw a whole assortment of dishonesty. That shit runs down hill. They will treat you that way by the time you're done. I remember some of the meetings with vendors, I felt embarassed, I felt like we were treating them like crap and I was ashamed to be part of it. It's one thing to hate your job and just do it because they pay you to and you're a professional; something else because you don't like the way the company makes other people feel. I'm not talking about cut-throat business or anything like that, I'm talking about making people feel bad about themselves, on purpose. There is something to be said about professional conduct.
Insert a few good years of consulting, pretty much clean and pure capitalism. All the shit is kind of taken care of before you start. I always felt inclined to do more though. It may be some of the purist moments of my career; I did work and got paid and that was that. Not completely satisfying, I didn't get to see a lot of projects all the way through, but not all together bad either.
Now I work for a startup with the real deal sleezy VC people pulling the strings. We take open source software, put some pretty kind of GUI on it and then oversell it to people and charge a lot of money. At first we didn't want to admit that we used open source until we learned that it was a benefit in the market place. During that time we actually tried to hide the technology under the covers. Then we started claiming that we did more to it, we took it and made it better, when in reality we never touched a damn thing. Then we placed a couple of TM's on shit that the OSS does, gave it a name and called it our own. Then when an author took exception to some of our practices we were told to go out anonymously and bad mouth him. We've done this to 2 or 3 open source authors. (Now I've done a fair amount of my own OSS coding, I'm a bit of an ideologist and I'm kind of taking a back seat in this new biz, I know what it's like to have people telling you your free code is shit and that you're no good because of it.) I've never directly disobeyed my boss until I got here, if they asked me to do something and the pay kept coming, I'd do it even if I thought it was bad engineering or something; here they have asked me on several occasions to try to influence people, use my reputation to do it, do it anonymously, to try to spread bad FUD about specific people, all while riding on their backs and I won't do it. I sit in on sales calls all the time and we pretty much lie to people, I know how sales is and you put your best side forward but we lie to people. "Do you support blah hardware?" The answer is that we support a particular model, the answer told is that we support most models. I've been tutored in the techniques, you are never supposed to say no, first you say that most people don't want that to make the customer think they are odd by asking for something nobody wants, then you change the subject, then if that doesn't w