Former Hacker Irks Microsoft in EU Dispute

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The Wall Street Journal profiles Neil Barrett, 'a former computer hacker who once infiltrated the system controlling a telescope at a Hawaii laboratory' and is now an expert witness causing problems for Microsoft in its antitrust battle with the European Union. Barrett 'has helped put the British glam rocker Gary Glitter behind bars for pedophilia. And he also has helped prosecute a teenage hacker from Wales, who claimed to have stolen Bill Gates' credit-card number and sent the Microsoft founder a shipment of Viagra. [...] In the corporate world, Mr. Barrett once met a challenge to hack into a large multinational company's system in four days to win a security assignment. He stole the company's undisclosed new logo as a trophy, he wrote.'"

Comments

resume?

[PrinceAshitaka]

This summary doesn't actually say anything of how he is causing problems for microsoft. It is just his hacking resume.

Here's a link to a microsoft document about it. .

[dreez]

googling brought this up. http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/3/2/53239 546-efee-460c-a583-11c20cdea9ab/03-02-06Supplement ary Response SO final NC.pdf Basically it says 'he is in a anti-microsoft conspiracy', and 'he don't know how to program' Grtz Drz WARNING: no tag line. . .

Re:The guy who discovered Gary Glitter's paedo-fes

[solarbob]

Well hindsight is 20/20 but its definitly a grey area as it depends what "Pissy World" was doing to the PC. IF scanning for viruses then its feasible the files would be opened. If just being nosey...

Re:Is this for real? It seems to be false

[miffo.swe]

Any attempt at throwing dirt at him will backfire because they choosed him in the first place. Pissing the EU off isnt a shrewd move for a company that basically only leeches and dont create any real value inside the EU. This will underline the fact that some corporations have to much power.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a look at how much money is flowing into Ireland from Microsoft, but then again, who is the major proponent of software patents in Europe and where does he come from? Charlie McCreevey, from Co. Kildare (ex Irish finance minister). Nobody can say there is no coincidence between Ireland's stance on software patents and the inflow of foreign investment from major multinational software companies.

A security consultant

[BadAnalogyGuy]

From what I've been reading from him and in articles quoting him, he seems to be a very outspoken security consultant. His analyses seem very even-handed. He is able to praise Microsoft's security efforts when they do well, but he is also able to criticize them when they do poorly. He doesn't take any sort of hard stance against anyone except criminal hackers, a stance which is very firm. His credentials seem to give him and his security business quite a bit of gravitas.

Does that qualify him to sit in judgement of something which he could arguably be considered uninformed or unqualified about?

Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with Barrett personally or politically, but is he really the best person to provide expert witness in this case? Wouldn't someone from, say, the Samba team be more qualified to judge whether Microsoft's internetworking protocol documentation was sufficiently made open?

Re:A security consultant

[caffeination]

I disagree. I think someone of his stature can at least be trusted in his opinion of the quality of documentation.

Following your idea through, that would mean that Microsoft deliberately nominated a non-specialist just so that if he said anything negative, they could attack his competence. How sick would that be? And how unsurprising?

Re:A security consultant

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You do answer your own question there at the end. :-)

Reading through Microsoft's Criticism Report (PDF), it seems that Barrett was unknowledgeable about standard things such as "context handles" and "void pointers".

This document provides a scathing critique of Barrett's programming abilities or lack thereof. The document is provided by Microsoft, so the only way to tell if Trustee criticisms were cherry-picked or not would be to compare what was presented in this document with what was contained in the Trustee reports. However, from just an initial examination of the crticisms selected, Barrett indeed is not a programmer and was ill-qualified to provide expert testimony. Caveat: This is given only what is available for analysis in the document linked above.

Anyone got links to the Trustee reports?

Hmm, this explains things

[smithwis]

Evil Microsoft aside. Let us suppose that this is the same level of documentation Microsoft's internal development teams get:

Could this be why Microsoft projects consistently run over deadlines and behind expectations? (At least in the first iteration.)

This isn't Microsoft trying to screw the competitor, but just a peek into the hole that Microsoft has dug themselves into. Afterall, Microsoft hires can't all be dull-witted-code-monkeys, but perhaps the existing codebase has become a steaming pile of sh*t.

Working with c# and attempting to do anything beyond the immediately supported seems to support this. (Try overriding an OnPaint event on a ListViewBox for instance)

No, Bill should try traditional methods.

[Savage-Rabbit]

Thier lawyers seem even better at p****ng off European judges. Only this time there is no President of Texas to ride to the rescue. They are not a major generator of jobs or revenue for any european state, and, they cannot legally contibute to any European polititions campaign fund. Thier only hope was a sound legal case and ass kissing, but, its too late for that now. I think this is just starting out and Microsoft will be paying anf paying for years to come.

They should have used the tried and tested method of offering 'Sales commissions' and 'Consultancy fees' to key officials like Lockheed did to convince certain European leaders to spend obscene amounts of money on a mediocre combat aircraft called the Locheed F-104 Starfighter. Judges may have strange delusions of independence over here but our politicians can certainly be rented, leased or bought just like their US counterparts and politicians as we all know can 'persuade' judges to think of the 'greater picture' by dropping hints about career death.

Most Interesting

[Zygamorph]

What I found the most interesting in this Wall Street Journal piece.

"With their orders to Microsoft, the regulators are aiming to level the global playing field and make it easier for rivals' inexpensive, easily modified "open source" software to interact seamlessly with Microsoft's more-expensive, less-flexible products."

OSS - inexpensive, easily modified

MS - more-expensive, less flexible

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[xtracto]

This isnt a case where Microsoft can point at a random OSS project and yell "they suck too!".

Haha, nice that you touch that point about documentation, just take a look at the KDevelop documentation that "comes" with the IDE suite, now *that* is what I call an unusable worth nothing piece of crap:

From the KDEvelop Handbook:

The Problem Reporter
  (... to be written ...)
Code Completion
  (... to be written ...)
Creating New Files and Classes
  (... to be written ...)
Editing the Templates
  (... to be written ...)
Class Hierarchy
  (... to be written ...)
Elements of the User Interface
  (... to be written ...)
The Workarea
  (... to be written ...)
The KDevelop Titlebar
  (... to be written ...)
The KDevelop Statusbar
  (... to be written ...)
The menubar
  (... to be written ...)
The Toolbars
  (... to be written ...)
The Tree Tool Views
  (... to be written ...)
The Output Tool Views
  (... to be written ...)

This one is GREAT:
"Class Tools
  The class tool dialog is activated by right clicking on a class in the class view and choosing Class tool...."

Automake Projects
  (... to be written ...)
Custom Makefiles and Build Scripts
  (... to be written ...)
Compiler Options
  (... to be written ...)
Make Options
  (... to be written ...)
Chapter 11. Advanced Build Management
Multiple Build Configurations
  (... to be written ...)

And that is /only/ for the C++ section of Kdevelop... but most of the Linux or OpenSource documentation provided is a joke.

Seriously, I may sound as a troll here but, there is *no* way you can tell me that is better than even the documentation on Borland C++ IDE!!!

Go ahead, mod me down I have tons of karma to burn but this is one of the /thousands/ of details why some open source software just can not make it. And the people that closes their eyes and negate it will never get it...

Re: essential bullshit, Karmaman

[Anonymous Coward]

"The EU essentially said they intend to milk Microsoft for non-compliance for a MINIMUM of 5 years"

A duly appointed body found Microsoft guilty of non-complience and instructed them to acquiesce. The five years to to make sure the slippery one doesn't wriggle out :)

It's interesting that Microsoft has historically called into question the credentials of the Judge when found guilty . er .. `findings of liability' :)