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

Shipment

[Anonymous Coward]

of herrings...that's what he should've sent Bill. And a first anonymous post!

Wow

[Galston]

epenis++;

Frosty Pist

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup it's all mine beeyotches.

resume?

[PrinceAshitaka]

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

Re:resume?

[mtenhagen]

From the article:
Last year, Mr. Barrett studied the manual Microsoft produced for four days, tried to use it to write programs and, in December, pronounced it "totally unusable." "There is apparently no structure and no logic in the whole documentation," he wrote in his report

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

It also firmly establishes that this guy is nothing more than a backstabbing little shit. He illegally hacks into systems and then proceeds to turn anyone and everyone he can over to the authorities. Makes me wonder what kind of "friends" he has.

These are the kind of people we punk where I'm from. A snitch is already just about as low as one can be, but a completely hypocritical snitch deserves twice the beatdown.

Re:resume?

[dotgain]

It also firmly establishes that this guy is nothing more than a backstabbing little shit. He illegally hacks into systems and then proceeds to turn anyone and everyone he can over to the authorities. Makes me wonder what kind of "friends" he has.

Rich ones.

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they'd have to be to pay him off, lest they become the next people he decides to fink on.

Re:resume?

[stiggle]

I'm not sure where you get the "backstabbing little shit" from..
As part of his job he is asked by the authorities to examine evidence they already hold - in the case of the Welsh hacker and Gary Glitter where the police already had the evidence.
As ANOTHER part of his job, he does systems penetration tests.

He doesn't do illegal stuff these days - it would completely destroy the reputation he has built up as a credible expert witness. Why bother illegally breaking into systems when people will pay you to break into their own?

According to your thinking, every CSI and other specialist investigator is a "backstabbing little shit" as they turn over all the info they find to the authorities (who also hand it over to the defense as required to do so if they are using it in a court).

Re:resume?

[aussie_a]

You're right, it is a bad resume^H^H^H^H^H summary, but if you're interested, perhaps you should read the article itself.

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

He *is* a backstabbing little shit and so is the one who modded you down as troll.

Re:resume?

[gnufied]

It should be a Cracker at least............

Re:resume?

[gutnor]

At first I thought "Yeah, except that you don't hire a serial killer as Expert CSI and give him a suit and a medal instead of jail time", because I was confused by the title of "hacker" in the summary.

But I can't find anything on this guy that would that say he actually did anything illegal in the past. He seems to be a real Hacker as in "Linus is a hacker".

All I found is this 'http://bcswiki.walmsleys.com/NeilBarrett/show?tim e=2005-11-16+17%3A32%3A07'
if that's the same guy. Look indeed like a real "IT-CSI", worth respect!

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure where you get the "backstabbing little shit" from..

It's obvious. He's angry because he's one of the people Neil Barrett would help convict.

Who is angry with somebody that convicts criminals? The criminal himself.

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to your thinking, every CSI and other specialist investigator is a "backstabbing little shit"
yes along with 90% of cops and 99% of politicians

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no such thing as a CSI. It's a made up acronym.

Re:resume?

[indy_Muad'Dib]

he hacked the gibson using nothing but 9600 baud cradle modems, 5 friends and a bank of payphones.

afterwards he had to wear a dress in a pool for some reason.

Re:resume?

[Anonymous Coward]

"According to your thinking, every CSI and other specialist investigator is a "backstabbing little shit" as they turn over all the info they find to the authorities (who also hand it over to the defense as required to do so if they are using it in a court)."

If you were a criminal you'd understand.

Re:resume?

[Tweekster]

You equate murder with at most a mild nuisance (he could have done some really bad things, he didnt) in the grand scheme of bodily harm he is equivelent to a kid in a fist fight

He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[freedom_india]

He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X bought using Bill's credit card along with a kindly note reminding him about XP's "security".

Or much better, he should have "donated" 8,500 dollars to FSF or Open Source Linux... man that would be rich...imagine calling the press anonymously and telling them that all the time Bill was against Free Software, he is supporting them quietly in order to "embrace" better ideas from them...

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[poeidon1]

and then invite the wrath of a lot of critics of open software who will characterize all FSF people as hackers. And do you think, it is etical to accept stolen money for a holy purpose?

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[Anonymous Coward]

Happy 13th Birthday from all of us here at Slashdot!

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[freedom_india]

And do you think, it is etical to accept stolen money for a holy purpose?

I don;t know...the church used to accept a lot of unehtical money...

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when was the church ethical?

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh c'mon, you know that you were thinking the same thing on some level. Troll my foot.

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[alexmipego]

Actually Bill personal computer uses OS X :P Don't forget he owns part of Machintosh too.

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[sakasune]

Don't forget he owns part of Machintosh too.

Used too...I believe Apple paid off their debts to Bill last year

Re:He should have sent Bill a copy of OS X...

[sakasune]

That should be "used to"
I even used the damn preview button and didn't catch that

woopdeedoo basil what does it all mean?

[Anonymous Coward]

CORR this coffee smells like shit

Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[BadAnalogyGuy]

But for a guy who is able to hack locked-down networks in four days and can track down criminals by following their online scent, he sure seems to be giving up quite easily when claiming that Microsoft's manuals are "totally unusable" after four days of use.

Perhaps his qualifications are more along the lines of networking systems rather than networked filesystem protocols. Perhaps he's made a living using tools made by others. Whatever the case is, this is a guy who (without manuals) is able to hack his way around the Internet with seeming ease, but he is at a loss to understand and use documented code.

I don't think Microsoft is doing their best to put forth usable documents, but even a simple API grep and some token remarks about parameters should be enough for such an expert.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[CaptainZapp]

he sure seems to be giving up quite easily when claiming that Microsoft's manuals are "totally unusable" after four days of use.

Looking at Microsofts history and some of their stunts they pulled off I wouldn't put it beyond them to indeed produce unusable crap.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Frogbert]

I have been programming for 20 years, I have created extensive systems using Cobol and C++. I am able to debug programs from large memory dumps over the phone. In my time I have come across loads of code in many different languages, and I have to say even though a peice of code may documented it doesn't make it readable, understandable or even usable. Especially when said documentation starts with "I don't know exactly why this was included, what it does, or how it does it but the system won't work without it" or simply "Sorry about this..."

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[miffo.swe]

The problem was that the documentation said different things at different places without specifying wich way was the correct way. A documentation should do that, else its pretty much useless. You could just as well just reverse engineer if the end result of using the documentatin is random.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[aaribaud]

But for a guy who is able to hack locked-down networks in four days and can track down criminals by following their online scent, he sure seems to be giving up quite easily when claiming that Microsoft's manuals are "totally unusable" after four days of use.

Well, to me a guy who is able to hack locked-down without documentation seems quite able to not need more than four days to ascertain whether some documentation for some code is useable or not according to what was asked from MS by the EU.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

ummm try reading many OSS documents or SUN or IBM for that matter. They are all full of badly documented API's. I had one IBM MVS manual that contradicted itself on the same page. It was still a 100 times more usefull than reverse engineering as it gives you a starting point and even the most incompetent programmer can work out which piece of doco is correct with a short test piece of code.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Given your extensive experience in programming, would you be qualified to hack into a locked down network and retrieve a file?

Maybe yes, maybe no. But given your experience, and given Barrett's experience, wouldn't it be better to ask Barrett to do the deed rather than you?

No one is questioning his ability to do what he does well (maybe someone is, but they are irrelevant). But what he does well and what is being judged are not overlapping fields. He is a network security consultant. The manual is for network filesystem programming (unless I'm way off base here and thinking of another trial).

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[miffo.swe]

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

If the sentence is hard then tough luck, dont break the law in the first place. Its a punishment and its supposed to sting. It doesnt matter one bit if its hard to document the protocols but its pretty strange they arent already documented.

Its not surprising that it takes for ever to do patches when nobody inside Microsoft seems to know how things should work. They have to test every single line they alter because they dont know how things are supposed to work.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Especially when said documentation starts with "I don't know exactly why this was included, what it does, or how it does it but the system won't work without it" or simply "Sorry about this..."

Oh, nothing beats this one!

I was working on an asp project a few years back, and did something just like this; except it was far, far worse.

Basically, a variable was coming back from a SQL statement after hitting a NULL value, and I needed to evaluate it. Trouble is, not matter what the logical statement was, the check always evaluated to false. To whit:

variable or not variable

evaluated to false. Regardless. To prevent this, I believe I wrote code along the following lines:


varcheck = "NOT OK"
if variable then
    varcheck = "OK"
    else if not variable then
              varcheck = "OK"
              end if
end if


The comment was essentially a long, intricate writ of apology, pleading with the reader to attempt to understand my hopeless position and to accept the presented obscenity before the gods of computer logic.

Shortly afterwards, I resolved to never program in ASP again as long as I lived. I think that code is still out there somewhere. Here's hoping Microsoft never update the ASP interpreter to pre optimise!

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this says more about you than asp. It makes perfect sense (to me) that null is a special case which is neither false nor true. It's simply null. In fact VB supplies a two ways to check for null;

if variable = null

and

if isnull(variable)

Of course maybe like the original story you found the documentation too difficult?

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

I am able to debug programs from large memory dumps over the phone.

How would that even work?!

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[NekSnappa]

Sounds like you're talking about commenting within the code. Which is there to help some one who comes along later to work on it to understand what different routines are doing and why.

Mr. Barrett was talking about interface documentation intended to be given to other developers working on thier own projects so that they might properly interact with Microsofts' OS.

So if all they did was put out comments from witin the code then, yea it would be totally useless for the porpose for which it was intended, i.e. an interface document.

But I don't think this is what they did. It sounds as if they threw together a bunch jargon laden instructions, obfuscated it with interchangeable naming conventions, put it in a book and said "See what a good boy I am?"

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It makes perfect sense (to me) that null is a special case which is neither false nor true.

Then you either must have gone to a very strange school of programming, or have been using VB and ASP for far too long.

In fact VB supplies a two ways to check for null;

Yes I know. Neither worked. If the variable was present in a logical expression, the expression evaluated to false.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[lcam]

... Then I suppose hacking a lock down is quite a bit different from creating applications that interface themselves to a microsoft server and do something useful

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

well actually it should be a case of pointing at others and saying they suck too. The IT industry in general does an atrocious job of documenting, to single out MS implies they are doing worse and to say a hacker could not work it out shows either incompetence on the hackers side or simple bullshit. If everyone gave up because of bad doco there is hardly a product around that would have ANYTHING written to its API's. You can't hold up MS in court and say they do a bad job when they do as "good" or in this case as "bad" a job as everyone else, that is hipocrasy.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the shit you guys call Insightful.

This has nothing to do with a law or a punishment. This has to do with some douchebag saying he doesn't like the documentation for something. WHOO WEEE!

You guys are a bunch of fucking fags.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Rauser]

He can speak baud, of course.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[aaribaud]

... Then I suppose hacking a lock down is quite a bit different from creating applications that interface themselves to a microsoft server and do something useful

Leaving aside this curious dichotomy which seems to imply that "hacking a lock down" would be useless, indeed "hacking a lock down" is quite different from using APIs for maintstream programming, in that mainstream programming requires one to understand what the API is supposed to do, whereas "hacking a lock down" requires understanding what the API actually does, and that is quite more difficult.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[ValiSystem]

I am sorry but the statement variable or not variable is necessary true, whatever the language you use. Why ? because even if variable has a state which connot be true or false, it shouldn't return true or false. Worse, here, the result means that the not operator has been redefined for the null value. That's a terrible witness about asp language. A language should not do that. You must not redefine operators if you can convert data. That means that variable should be converted to a boolean value and the not operator be applied to a boolean value. Because this is the expected behaviour. If this is expected, this is the correct behaviour. Ok, you can say "But the null value cannot be converted to a boolean value !". Then if it cannot be done, the language should not allow it, and refuse to compile for compiled ones or break the code path for interpreted ones. Not return an arbitrary result.

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:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

He is a network security consultant. The manual is for network filesystem programming.

Isn't the emphasized word a clear hint of an overlap?

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I have a feeling that that would be the reason he was offerred up in the first place. I think Microsoft completely misjudged Barrett's programming abilities based on his reputation as an industry-leading consultant. They looked at "Network Security Consultant" and "Network Programmer" and said close enough.

If anything, I think this highlights the difference between programmers who write programs and sysadmins who shepherd boxen. A valuable lesson, and one to consider when submitting that Ask Slashdot requesting programming help.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The other poster is right. This is the definition of NULL.

You have the very same thing in C with NaN.

How to test is a value is NaN ?

if (x!=x) /* This is a nan */

(Would have also probably worked for you)

The IEEE NaN and SQL NULL behaviour are very standard and widely known things. This is *by*design*. Now, you may disagree with the correctness of the design, like C J Date and others...

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

this is hilarious! someone does not comprehend the basics of relational databases and then goes on to blame it on ASP ( never touched that myself btw ).

null for boolean ( or every other type ) : undetermined, never filled in.

for example you have a table with customers. you add a field "mailing_list ( boolean )" which defaults to false, but the values for the present customers will be null. this is handy, because this way you can identify the customers you need to approach for asking wether they want the mailing list or not.

anyway, nz() coalesce() ifnull() are your friends.

bye.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you understand the difference between "...to be written..." and "...will never be written..." ?

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[Plunky]

I have a feeling that that would be the reason he was offerred up in the first place. I think Microsoft completely misjudged Barrett's programming abilities based on his reputation as an industry-leading consultant. They looked at "Network Security Consultant" and "Network Programmer" and said close enough.

And this is something I find scary. The guy who was fifth (out of what, 6 billion people to choose from?) on the list isnt capable.

Microsoft make *how* much money every year? Could have sent a couple of drudges to check the people on their list out..

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The IEEE NaN and SQL NULL behaviour are very standard and widely known things. This is *by*design*. Now, you may disagree with the correctness of the design, like C J Date and others...

All very well, but in a weakly typed langage like ASP, NaN and NULL are both the same data type as everything else. It's all very well to say that x!=x should be true if x is an integer, but when x is simply an ASP var, the rules based on numerical evaluation cease to apply. The result should always return true if var comparision is to be a well defined operation.

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[unknownworld]

Source code never lies or misleads...

Re:Not that I question Barrett's qualifications

[ookaze]

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

I have 2 big problems with what you say :
- Kdevelop has nothing to do with an API, and most devs (me included, even though I'm no dev) can use it without doc. What's even better, you can ask the authors or the community about a feature you don't find or don't understand in Kdevelop.
- You're quick to assume every doc in FOSS is in the same state
So you failed to talk about the equivalent to what is asked of MS here, which would be kdevelop or KDE API, which are documented, and pretty well. Was this cluelessness or on purpose ?
Even if they were not documented on KDE, the code is available. Which is not an option for MS, which is why everybody have trouble interoperating with them, which is the reason they are on trial. How could you

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!!!

Of course not, you are comparing apple and oranges anyway !! The problem here is not the documentation of the IDE, it is the documentation of API, which is much more important.

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...

People don't close their eyes nor negate it, but as long as everybody using KDevelop can use it without this doc, I don't see the problem.
Switching topic won't prove anything BTW, and your rhetoric about "thousands of details why some open source software just can not make it" won't work either.
It's just poor FUD.

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. . .

The guy who discovered Gary Glitter's paedo-fest..

[Channard]

.. was actually a technician working at UK computer chain 'PC World'. You could say that he's more responsible for Glitter's incarceration than this guy. Though I guess Glitter himself is most responsible. Thing is, the computer technician actually got the sack because he was breaking the Data Protection Act my snooping.

hacking?

[dajobi]

More like cracking.

Re:hacking?

[RPI Geek]

For a site that thrives on being pedantic, modding the parent "Flamebait" is very hypocritical. What the fuck is wrong with the mods these past few weeks?

Re:hacking?

[welshwaterloo]

What the fuck is wrong with the mods these past few weeks?

You must be new here.. :)

Re:hacking?

[RPI Geek]

I suppose I should start meta-modding more often.

Re:hacking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... Point one: SLASHDOT IS A COMMUNITY, NOT A SINGLE PERSON! Oh, and, from what I can tell, he actually isn't a cracker hacker, but rather, a computer-expert hacker.

Guess who's paying him?

[tpgp]

The really funny bit of the article:

by the commission, which has signed him to a five-year contract at an undisclosed salary that it requires Microsoft to pay.

*heh* I bet that drives Bill crazy....

Re:Guess who's paying him?

[maxwell demon]

He's payed by Microsoft? Obviously he's not trustworthy! Everyone knows people payed by Microsoft are not trustworthy! :-)

Re:Guess who's paying him?

[dhakbar]

Pssst... try "paid."

Bill should hire new lawyers.

[supersnail]

I was pleasntly surprised during the US anti-trust case that Microsofts legeal team was so inept. Microsoft surivived that because of politics.

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.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean president of Arkansas at the time the case.

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.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[supersnail]

Under the regime of "Bill the Bonker" as he is known here the DoJ were winning the case against MS hands down.
Queue the "Bush Brothers" and after a bit of vote rigging in Florida the DoJ were instructed to quietly drop the case.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[eturro]

They are not a major generator of jobs or revenue for any european state.

Oh yeah? From http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=8883686/:

With about 1,700 employees, Microsoft operates three businesses in Ireland -- a European operations centre, a European product development centre, and its Ireland sales, marketing & services group. After its headquarters, the Irish facility is the company's second largest in the world, alongside an operation in Japan.

Microsoft spends around EUR350 million each year in the Irish economy, and the software behemoth accounts for about 6 percent of national exports.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[the_womble]

And MS (like a lot of US multinationals) stuctures is European operations to generate as much of its profits as possible in Ireland (because Ireland has low corporate tax rates).

The results are:

1) Ireland gets a lot of tax revenue
2) Ireland does what its told to by MS and others

This is also why Ireland was behind the EU attempt to introduce software patents.

All that trouble to get independence from Britain ... and a few decades later they sell themselves to the US.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[boule75]

May I add a bullet:
The results are:

1) Ireland gets a lot of tax revenue
2) Ireland does what its told to by MS and others

and 3) the other EU states are deprived of legitimate tax revenues by fiscal dumping. And one wonders why their growth is sooo strong. It's a wonderfull country and people though.

Cheers Eire !

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

All that trouble to get independence from Britain ... and a few decades later they sell themselves to the US.

With god knows how many tens of millions of Irish Americans and Americans of Irish descent, one might say we are just looking after our own.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[91degrees]

Well, Microsoft is as guilty as sin...

I was impressed with their arguments in the US. Not that the arghuments made sense but that somehow they were able to convince the court (or maybe it was just the DOJ) not to apply punishments that could harm the company, and largely their punishment was that they were barred from acting illegally.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ireland is a business friendly country, but to say that Microsoft runs Ireland is ridiculous. Get a grip. None of you know anything about the country and most of you have probably never been outside of the US anyway.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[kilgortrout]

There's an old expression among trial lawyers - "A lawyer's as good as his case". Every attorney soon learns that an average lawyer with good facts almost always beats a brilliant lawyer with poor facts. The government had overwhelmingly supportive facts in the antitrust trial. That's why they won, at least until they gave away the store in the settlement after the election. I suspect it's no different in the EU.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[greenrd]

No wonder Charlie McCreevy (Irish EU commissioner) is opposed to EU harmonisation of corporate taxation laws!

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's put it this way: there are more of us here in New York and Boston than there are in Ireland.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[akintayo]

3.4 I believe, second only to the germans.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[deKernel]

You are without a doubt, one of the biggest idiots I have seen posting here. You spout unsubstantiated statements like they are facts when, in fact, all have been disproven. Please just go away. Go crawl back into your world where the sky is not blue, the Earth is flat and the center of the universe and where you apparently see to make sense.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[KarmaMB84]

There's a few of us down here a little lower!

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[visualight]

Supersnail wrote:

Under the regime of "Bill the Bonker" as he is known here the DoJ were winning the case against MS hands down. Queue the "Bush Brothers" and after a bit of vote rigging in Florida the DoJ were instructed to quietly drop the case.

deKernel wrote:

You spout unsubstantiated statements like they are facts when, in fact, all have been disproven.

I recall that after Bush came to power the DoJ settled with MicroSoft when (according to the papers I read) they had all but won the case. Also, the issue of vote rigging in Florida is FAR FAR FAR from proven either way. I think it's pretty clear the vote was rigged, but proof, well short of a confession I think we'll never have it. So, what "facts" have been disproven, and where is your substantiation? I want to know.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't know you were Irish, Monica.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[jejones]

"legitimate tax revenues"? Sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Goth Biker Babe]

Yes but half of those will claim Irish descent if their great great great great great grand pappy once had a guiness. I can claim better Irish descent than most of them and I'm English (well 1/8 French, 1/8 Irish, 1/4 Welsh and 1/2 English i.e. a mongrel which is fairly typically for an inhabitant of these Islands).

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Yes but half of those will claim Irish descent if their great great great great great grand pappy once had a guiness.

Yup, you're English alright. :p

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Goth Biker Babe]

I note you didn't actually say it wasn't true *grin*.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Its true I didn't say it wasn't true, but by not saying what was unsaid I was saying what would be the truth if I had said the truth, if indeed I didn't say the truth in the first place. Faith and begorrah.

Re:Bill should hire new lawyers.

[Anonymous Coward]

And stuff like that is why I laugh when someone says they consider Slashdot to be a good, informative, accurate, and unbiased source.

Is this for real? It seems to be false

[Anonymous Coward]

I read his profile, he's Dr Barret a computer security expert, not a hacker, I can't find anything relating to a hack in Hawaii:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Neil+Barrett+hawaii +telescope

He does seem to be a normal expert.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/creditanddebt/creditca rds/story/0,1456,717426,00.html

This looks like a Microsoft inspired misinformation campaign.

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:Is this for real? It seems to be false

[KarmaMB84]

He was pretty far down the list. The EU rejected 5 other people before deciding on this guy.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

I read his profile, he's Dr Barret a computer security expert, not a hacker

"Hacker" as in old-school. He's a hacker, not a cracker (although it does say he does pen testing, which would be cracking, I suppose).

hacker!=cracker, hacker==skilled programmer

As in "I used to be a gay hacker, but they changed the language. Now I'm just a happy programmer."

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

[Danse]

Only 5? I would've thought you'd have to get even farther down Microsoft's own list to find someone who is relatively unbiased.

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

[KarmaMB84]

I'm more surprised they didn't reject them all and fine Microsoft for not complying with their demands for a list of candidates. I also find the 5 year contract interesting. The EU essentially said they intend to milk Microsoft for non-compliance for a MINIMUM of 5 years and they're counting on this guy to keep the charade going. If Microsoft came into compliance on the deadline, there wouldn't be much of a need to give the guy a 5 year contract. Throw in a few blood thirsty competitors (one of which was a monopolist themselves) who want Microsoft smashed to bits and you have a pretty secure revenue stream.

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

[Danse]

It's hard for me to sympathize with Microsoft. They do make some good products, but they bring these problems on themselves. The emails that were revealed during the last two anti-trust cases here in the U.S. illustrated perfectly that they knew that they were breaking the law, and they laughed about it, and came off as a generally arrogant and unruly company. It seems to be their culture. Then again, they always manage to get away with it too, so I guess it works for them. So I don't begrudge anyone getting a piece of them while they can. It's a lot less punishment than Microsoft actually deserves.

Your link doesn't work.

[alexhs]

(you've put spaces where %20 were needed)

"neil barrett" site:microsoft.com Google search gives two (pdf) results, the one you were linking to is here

Re:Your link doesn't work.

[wish bot]

It's not his fault.

Slashcode inserts spaces in long words to prevent page widening trolls. That's why it's always good to use 'a' tags and 'href=', rather than relying on Slashdot to autolink.

Re:Your link doesn't work.

[badzilla]

Here it is then

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...

Worthless slimeballs

[caffeination]

European Commission regulators in Brussels chose Mr. Barrett from among Microsoft's own nominees

His testimony leads to threats of fines by the EU....

prompting Microsoft to attack Mr. Barrett's competence and to accuse him of colluding with its rivals

The EU publishes the previously secret terms of Mr. Barrett's mandate, arguing he is required to seek input from Microsoft rivals.

Not that I'd expect Microsoft to know about the secret terms, but the fact that their lawyers can do a u-turn on their own fucking nominee like that and retain credibility is incredible. I'm more inclined to trust an ex-hacker who says things like this:

"Although experts [in the U.K. courts] are usually employed on one side of a particular case, we are not 'on their side' once we are in court," he wrote. "We are there to see that justice is served."

To end, here is a list of companies who agree with Barrett about Microsoft's documentation:

• Oracle
• IBM (this dumbass news site thinks they're still International Business Machines)
• Sun
• Novell>

Even if they can undermine belief in his competence, they can hardly do the same for companies like those.

It's just a shame that all that this will lead to are chump-change fines that probably won't even equal the money made by all the lawyers - the real winners. I'll go as far as to say that the EU would have spent its money better on OpenOffice development.

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[mindstormpt]

Then the dumbass news site is right. Take a look at this, or if you don't believe Google go here and take a look at the address.

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[panaceaa]

IBM is still International Business Machines. In fact, they file their yearly financial statements with the SEC as International Business Machines. What do you think IBM stands for these days?

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[Anonymous Coward]

I've Been Misled?

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[Antimatter3009]

Hopefully they'll hit them with more than a small fine. The EU really has no reason to prop up Microsoft. They don't put a significant amount of money into the EU compared to the US, and most governments are starting to see OSS as a viable alternative. The US, on the other hand, has every reason to let them do what they want because of all the money they have.

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[ClamIAm]

IBM == International Business Machines. You can't trademark an acronym that doesn't stand for anything. Just ask Intel. (MMX)

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[mal3]

MMX=MultiMedia eXtensions.

AMD gets to use it because of thier reciprocal licensing agreement on x86.

Re:Worthless slimeballs

[ClamIAm]

Intel tried to trademark "MMX" (no meaning) and came up with a meaning for it after they found out they couldn't trademark an acronym with no meaning.

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

[meringuoid]

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...

IIRC, Mr Gadd brought his laptop in for repair for something mechanical (battery issue or something), and specifically told the technician not to look at the contents of the hard disk.

Third-rate glam rockers clearly do not make great study of basic human psychology, it seems. The technician proceeded to think 'hmm, I wonder why he's so worried about people looking at the OH MY GOD OH NOES AAARRRGH MY EYES MY EYES THE GOOGLES THEY DO NOTHING!'

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?

Re:A security consultant

[!the!bad!fish!]

Wouldn't someone from, say, the Samba team be more qualified to judge whether Microsoft's internetworking protocol documentation was sufficiently made open?

If only. The licence used makes it impossible for any Samba Devs to even look at the code.

Important: In order to avoid any potential licensing issues we require that anyone who has signed the Microsoft CIFS Royalty Free Agreement not submit patches to Samba, nor base patches on the referenced specification.

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

[martinmarv]

I'm not aware of any virus scanners that would say "Hey, this JPEG looks infected, want to open it?".

That being said, I've not tried the Microsoft "One Care" solution ;o)

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

[iainl]

According to someone in the same department at that branch, Gadd brought the laptop in partly because it wouldn't work with image files (the association between JPEGs and an image viewer program was lost).

So, in order to confirm that everything was fine again, he opened some random files to check everything was ok. Oops.

All well and good....

[The Fold]

but has he hacked the Gibson?

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)

Re:Hmm, this explains things

[expro]

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

With one advantage. Most Micosoft teams have been on the same campus so they can go around and talk to the team that developed it or to others who have talked to the team that developed it.

Re:Hmm, this explains things

[CodeBuster]

Try overriding an OnPaint event on a ListViewBox for instance)

I have written an entire design surface control in C# complete with resizing, scales, transforms, rotations, layers, and rubberband selections all without flicker. It is not difficult to create custom controls for either Windows Forms or ASP.NET, especially when you compare it to using MFC or the Win32 C APIs. BTW...if you want to handle your own drawing in OnPaint, the proper way to implement this is to inherit from UserControl rather than an existing windows control such as ListView.

I'm the dumbass

[caffeination]

I realised this the moment I hit Submit. If only I didn't word every single thing I write so strongly. God only knows where that idea came from. Thank you for not being a prick about it - this is the nice thing about Slashdot in the morning.

Only Chuck Norris..

[Anonymous Coward]

...is able to debug programs from large memory dumps over the phone

True Occupation of a Hacker

[Anonymous Coward]

While looking for Occupations from the pre 1900's, i came across the following in the list.

HABERDASHER - Seller Of Men's Clothing
HACKER - A Maker Of Hoes
HACKNEY MAN - Renter Of Horses & Carriages
HANDWOMAN - Midwife Or Female Attendant

So the true definition of a 'Hacker', was a Maker of Hoes.

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[Anonymous Coward]

Maker of Hoes... referred to more commonly these days as a 'pimp'...

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[EntrancedX]

"So the true definition of a 'Hacker', was a Maker of Hoes".

...therefore; HACKER - Pimp

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So the true definition of a 'Hacker', was a Maker of Hoes.

Well now they're simply makers of holes, so everything works out in the end. Hooray for english!

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[db32]

I imagine that is hoes as in the garden tool. Which ironically isn't far off from today if you think about it. They make tools to break up clumps of dirt and shit. Its just digital shit(code) instead of literal shit(fertilizer).

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[Anonymous Coward]

Now it's more like: Maker of Woes

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[Kiaser Zohsay]

I rocks in the East and I rolls in the West

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[meltedeyes]

It probably means hoes or hose as in stockings. You rarely see men wearing them today (unless you go to a ballet, Ren. Fest or something similar). A thinner, lighterweight verion you may be familiar with are called pantyhose. But then there's hack can mean to chop vigorously, which is something you are likely to do with the garden instrument, so you may be right .

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[db32]

Let us not associate men wearing pantyhose with hackers. The media already has enough problems not blowing "hackers" WAY out of proportion.

Re:True Occupation of a Hacker

[inKubus]

Making hoes... I thought that's what a pimp does..

chrs

Importances of secure Operating System

[Anonymous Coward]

I came to know an article from http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS7069459557.html website which this OS claimed to be resistant to Phishing, virus, how to justify these and is there another operation system having the similar features to offer.

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

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Thing is, the computer technician actually got the sack because he was breaking the Data Protection Act my snooping.

Rightly so. He "helped" catch one pedophile, but so what? We all know that paticular suspect was under surveillance for quite some time anyway. And you're simply naive if you this this paticular tech only snooped once and just happened to stumble over one celebrities hidden cache. Dollars to doughnuts the tech regularly slurped customers hard discs for porn and the like.

To paraphrase:
It were better that Ten Suspected Pedophiles should escape, than that the Innocent Person should be subject to warrantless seizure.

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.

a gibson? THE Gibson!

[astro-g]

a gibson? THE Gibson!

Re:a gibson? THE Gibson!

[Anonymous Coward]

Prop3r sp3lling, plz.

> a gibson? THE Gibson!

yuo m33n TEH Gibs0n!

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

[Anonymous Coward]

According to who? These things are arbitrarily defined and subjective...

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

I don't get your point. Or maybe you don't...

[Anonymous Coward]

"a guy who is able to hack locked-down networks in four days [...], he sure seems to be giving up quite easily when claiming that Microsoft's manuals are "totally unusable" after four days of use."

Well, yes, and that's reasonable. Remember, he's judging the documentation that MS has produced to help every programmer understand their interfaces, not just the ones of special talents and ability.

Unless you think its *reasonable* that MS's documentation should only be understandable by a tiny fraction of the programmers on the planet.

If that's what you consider "good documentation", then yes, this guy should have tried harder.

Conversely if you are one of those programmers who insist that Microsoft document their interfaces in a reasonable way, then you'd probably agree with this guy.

To repeat...

[caffeination]

As you can see, I'm the dumass. I'll answer your question though - I think I was acting under the belief that they had officially downsized their name, a la Lucky Goldstar.

However, having considered all the available evidence, I have concluded that I acted in good faith, even when I did not, and should not be punished in any way.

The Anti-trust Circus... again...

[stmr]

With all the money the Euro tax payers probably spent on this worthless crusade, they could have probably built their own alternative OS or retooled some Linux with even better usability.

At least the american DoJ were smart enough to know better when they stopped going at MS for nothing.

What a wonderful morning!

[erroneus]

Okay, so I read the article.

* Microsoft offered a list of people, including Neil Barrett whose opinion they would respect
* EU rejected most of them but accepted Mr. Barrett
* Mr. Barrett evaluates the Microsoft offer of compliance and deems it useless
* other [competing] professionals agree
* Microsoft changes its position regarding Mr. Barrett because of Barrett's opinion

Yay!

Just love it.

EU: Gimme a list of people you think could be unbiased when evaluating your offer of compliance.
MS: Blah blah, Blah blah, Neil Barrett, Blah blah, ... and Blah blah
EU: Our experts don't like your Blah blahs but Neil Barrett will do
EU: Neil? What do you think about MS's offering?
NB: Uh... it sucks. I talked to everyone I'm allowed to speak with about it and they couldn't make it work either.
EU: MS, your stuff sucks.
MS: Neil is the devil!

Re:What a wonderful morning!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go and have a read of the comments MS submitted back to the EU. If criticisms from the EU came from barret then he really is an incompetent programmer that should not be reviewing this documentation. Some of the fundamental concepts that the reviewers were unable to grasp show they should not have been reviewers in the first place. I mean FFS, not understanding void pointers or context handles, what sort of moron programmer was he. Not even MS could predict a supposedly competent security consultant/hacker could be so moronically incompetent.

Re:What a wonderful morning!

[Anonymous Coward]

If criticisms from the EU came from barret then he really is an incompetent programmer that should not be reviewing this documentation.

Then why did Microsoft themselves nominate him?

Re:What a wonderful morning!

[KarmaMB84]

I don't know if being the fifth or sixth guy on their list is a "nomination". They nominated the first and maybe second and third guys. After those were rejected, the list was probably more like "people we don't THINK will fk us". They were obviously wrong.

Re:What a wonderful morning!

[typical]

Because Microsoft has its own weighty share of technically incompetent people, perhaps?

To play devil's advocate

[SlappyBastard]

If the current market will bare only one dominant operating system, who the hell is the EU to complain? There arguments to this extent for some time about Nintendo, but eventually competition -- not regulation -- broke the monopoly and now provides us with a fairly diverse market. Everyone whines about the largest companies in the world. Whether it's Microsoft, Walmart, GM, or Standard Oil, the big "monopoly" of any day will always be the object of contempt while people flock to its products. If closed practices alone are the standard for whether a company sucks, where's the Apple bashing? Apple's practices, historically, have made MS looked like an Open Source company. And if you think how you feel about a product or company justifies not using the product, you're sorely mistaken. The question on any product is and will always be: does the damn thing work? All things being equal, the average consumer is convinced that Windows does work for their purposes, because the average consumer will just an operating system by whether it can run their $10 card game they just bought off the shelf from Walmart.

Re:To play devil's advocate

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop rambling and try to make a coherent point. You're embarrassing yourself.

Re:To play devil's advocate

[coofercat]

I can't be sure about 'Europe' as an entity, but here in the UK (and other member countries), monopolies are accepted for a time, and then regulated into competition.

The way it generally works is that some company springs up and sweeps the market. At some point it is generally considered a monopoly. At that point, someone/something brings some sort of law suit against the monopoly, at which time it's market dominance is assessed.

If it's market control is broad, that's okay, so long as it's not at the expense of competitors or potential competitors. In the case of MS, it's monopoly is at the expense of other players, because they're not allowed to join in unless they get into bed with MS - whilst they're separate companies, they're part of the monopoly.

Someone like Apple is much less likely to be considered a monopoly (although there's definitely room to argue they are). Whilst they lock the iPod to iTunes, there's no restriction on who can get onto iTunes, and the iPod plays other formats. In short, we consumers aren't limited to the iPod/iTunes combo, indeed, it could be argued quite the opposite, because unless you have an iPod, iTunes has a pretty small value proposition.

As for people choosing MS, a large part of this is of course because 'everyone else does'. That causes the $10 (or should I say 10euro) card manufacturers to ignore the minority that don't use MS, thus circularly extenuating the monopoly situation. Even though MS isn't stopping OEMs supporting minorities, the market is at 'critical mass' where it self-enforces the monopoly. The intention of regulation is to provide market/capitalist encouragement to OEMs to support minority vendors, allowing them to compete.

In the case of this documentation request, it's there so that the little guy in his shed can produce MS compatible products and sell them. It's not even that much about big companies doing the same thing, because they could arguably pay the money for the doco. The EU is aiming this at the little guy, because with enough of those, the market will self-regulate, without an over-bearing monopoly (even if IBM, Apple, Novell, Oracle etc all got in, it'd just be a pent-o-poly, so still not really self-regulating). Clearly, if that little guy can't make his products, either because there is no doco, or because he still needs (presumably paid for) help from the monopoly, then the EU doesn't like it because it hasn't achieved the original aims.

The bottom line is that if you're dominant in the market, you can't be actively freezing out other players, nor can you be forcing them to play along with you in order to compete with you. Both situations make you look like a monopoly, and so you'll get regulated.

Re:To play devil's advocate

[SlappyBastard]

In fairness, not long ago similar arguments about Intel could easily be made. Now, if you want a study in monopolistic practices, Intel is a gem. AMD's eventual rise to parity hinged on building a better mouse trap. So, if the operating system market is worth targetting, then perhaps an AMD-type entity will come along and replace MS. Certainly, with the rise of virtualization software, the odds are better than they used to be. I just think that, long-term, large companies develop major disadvantages and it is the job of smaller firms to exploit those disadvantages. Look back at Intel vs AMD. Intel banked a lot of money that consumers only cared about XXXX MHz speed, assuming that a piss-poor 2.4 HGz processor was better than a damn good 1.4 GHz processor. AMD flipped that game on its head by changing the conventions for comparing processors. Consequently, Intel ran into a lot of development trouble while AMD gained market share with a better processor. Intel has recovered most of the lost ground in processor performance, but they're still looking at their asses wondered what happened and wondering when their stock price will recover. Had Dell gone AMD, Intel would be nearing death as a company. Point? The market took care of itself because Intel became lazy and took consumers' intelligence for granted.

What does the EU want from microsoft?

[jonwil]

Best I can tell is "documentation".
But documentation for what?
What things are microsoft being asked to document?

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

http://europa.eu.int/comm/competition/antitrust/ca ses/decisions/37792/en.pdf

Articles 4-5 describe the issues which Microsoft was concluded to be guilty of. Article 6 (p275) describes the proposed remedy.

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[jonwil]

From reading the legaleze in that PDF, it looks like the EU basicly wants microsoft to unbundle Windows Media Player (which it did by creating the Windows XP N edition) and to publish specs for the protocols used by windows machines to provide file sharing, printer sharing and user management.
If the EU really wants to see the details of windows file sharing and such, they should go read the SAMBA source code, as far as I know SAMBA is a 100% working implementation of the protocols in question (correct me if I am wrong here)

Personally, I want to see the EU (or some other agency) force some real penalties on MS. Examples:
Ban MS from having secret contracts with OEMs and force them to have transparency in dealings with OEMs and restrictions on telling OEMs what they can and cant ship alongside windows (e.g. if microsoft says to an OEM "If you ship Firefox/OpenOffice/BeOs/Linux/" as well as shipping windows (either on the same PC or on different PCs in the lineup) you will have to pay more for windows, that would be a violation of this)
Force microsoft to disclose more of their "secret recipies" such as the office document formats (is there anything that can read an access MDB file without going through microsoft libraries?) or the NTFS file system or the MSN messenger protocols or the Windows Media audio and video formats (obviously an exemption would be given to allow them to keep the DRM parts of the format a secret :)
Force microsoft to publish more APIs that they are using but not disclosing to their competitors (including APIs in dlls related to internet explorer, windows media player, themeing etc). This should include some kind of way for people who find an API that isnt documented by microsoft to go to the "review board" monitoring the MS penalty and point out that microsoft is not in complience. (they documented a bunch of APIs as part of the US lawsuit but there are plenty of APIs that are still completly undocumented)

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

We are the only two who have read that thing apparently.

Direct link to EU decisions and press releases regarding this case.

Those measures you've specified are behavioral changes, but not necessarily punishment for past crimes. IOW, those are measures that should be standard practice regardless of whether they are guilty or not. What type of punishment do you think is necessary, above and beyond those, to adequately punish Microsoft?

I will read any responses later because I have a feeling I'm about to be banned for pinging this site too often.

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[tinkerghost]

What they have said is that MS has unfairly used it's dominance in desktop OS sales to force Server sales. That's the core of what they are looking to remedy now.
The actual documentation as I understand it is the core protocols/APIs for connectivity between MS applications.
What they got was a limited copy of the connectivity source code with no explanation of the APIs referenced, and that's why it was deemed to be useless.
MS provides:

function set_connection(pointer preconfigured_array){
push (preconfigured_array, connect_to_who);
go=make_connection(preconfigured_array);
if (! go){
return rnd(0);
}else{
return go;
}
}

MS agent says "What do you mean you need documentation? It's right there, everything you need to know about making a connection!"

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[jonwil]

Forcing behavorial changes on microsoft is better than just punishment. Even if they were forced to pay huge globs of money to the EU in fines, its not going to stop them from continuing their monopolistic business practices that keep competitors out.
The only way to way to resolve the situation is to force behavorial changes. That means blocking monopolistic business practices (all the things microsoft does to OEMs because they are a monopoly and the OEMs have to do what MS says for example). That means forcing microsoft to open those things which it is using to maintain its monopoly like Windows Media Player file formats, MSN Messenger protocol, office document formats etc.
That means real change (A complete breakup of microsoft might be the only way to solve this for good)

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[LeRandy]

In summary:

• FULL documentation for CIFS/SMB and possibly how to let the user part of the reqistry be stored on non-MS servers, and possibly parts of how Active Directory talks to its clients.
• Unbundling WMP from Windows, and making sure MS doesn't try to give better deals to conusmers/OEMs who choose to install WMP bundled.

Taken from European Commission press release IP/04/382
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do? reference=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN &guiLanguage=en

In order to restore the conditions of fair competition, the Commission has imposed the following remedies:

• As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant products.

To the extent that any of this interface information might be protected by intellectual property in the European Economic Area(6), Microsoft would be entitled to reasonable remuneration. The disclosure order concerns the interface documentation only, and not the Windows source code, as this is not necessary to achieve the development of interoperable products.

• As regards tying, Microsoft is required, within 90 days, to offer to PC manufacturers a version of its Windows client PC operating system without WMP. The un-tying remedy does not mean that consumers will obtain PCs and operating systems without media players. Most consumers purchase a PC from a PC manufacturer which has already put together on their behalf a bundle of an operating system and a media player. As a result of the Commission's remedy, the configuration of such bundles will reflect what consumers want, and not what Microsoft imposes.

Microsoft retains the right to offer a version of its Windows client PC operating system product with WMP. However, Microsoft must refrain from using any commercial, technological or contractual terms that would have the effect of rendering the unbundled version of Windows less attractive or performing. In particular, it must not give PC manufacturers a discount conditional on their buying Windows together with WMP.

The Commission believes the remedies will bring the antitrust violations to an end, that they are proportionate, and that they establish clear principles for the future conduct of the company.

To ensure effective and timely compliance with this decision, the Commission will appoint a Monitoring Trustee, which will, inter alia, oversee that Microsoft's interface disclosures are complete and accurate, and that the two versions of Windows are equivalent in terms of performance.

Re:What does the EU want from microsoft?

[ThePilgrim]

Who are you?

The New EU Complience Director.

Who's side are you on?

That would be telling.

Wat do you want?

We want documentation.

You won't get it.

By hook or by crook we will

Who is the Comminishoner?

You are the defendent.

We am not the defendent. We are Microsoft.

Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Fuck the EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Put Microsoft ASIDE for a hot second...

Your Car INCLUDES DOOR locks on your car, SINCE you BUNDLE the door locks you cant sell your car here... YOU MUST remove the door locks or we will fine you Million Dollars a day... Fuck THEM...
Linux / Windows ..What ever, I want it to BOOT UP and get on the web, I DONT care if its IE or MOZILLA, I dont want to JUMP through hoops because "Its not FAIR". FAIR? - Provide a BETTER Product and stop bitching. Blah Blah, troll Me all you want, Take a LOOK at firefox. Its gaining market here and there, but my grandma still cant install plugins/addons. EU just making life a little harder for everyone with their whining..... NOT everyone is able to apt-get/emerge/make whatever libdvdcss... not everyone is able to download plugins etc.... a consumer will choose their product, bundled or not.

Re:Fuck the EU

[someone1234]

ms's genuine advantage just screwed my father's computer. It lose all previous restore points and suddenly didn't recognise the anti virus product on the machine (probably because MS pulled some of those from the supported list). All this because those greedy bastards don't trust him buying original XP. The XP was practically shown down his throat when he bought his PC, he couldn't even buy a PC without that crappy OS. Don't talk me about MS is a better product. It is a pile of steaming cowdung.

More details

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Specifically, what Microsoft seems to be impeaching is under Section 3 of the Trustee decision is Article 2:

Trustee is to provide ad hoc opinions to the Commission on issues pertaining to whether:

Section 3.b.i: the Interoperability Information that Microsoft is required to make available under Article 5(a) of the Decision is made available completely and accurately.

Microsoft claims 1) that Barrett is unqualified to make such a judgement based on his Trustee Report which they claim shows he knows very little about actual programming and less about industry documentation, and 2) that the valid claims that were reported by Competitors were based on an early version (August) that was subsequently cleaned up and redelivered (December) with most problems fixed.

Section 3.b.iv: the Interoperability Information made available pursuant to Article 5(a) of the Decision is kept updated on an ongoing basis and in a Timely Manner

Microsoft claims that this is exactly what they have done, yet the Trustee has not subsequently given "ad hoc opinion" to the Committee since the initial August evaluation.

Section 3.c: advise the Commission on whether substantiated complaints by third parties about Microsoft's compliance with Articles 4 to 6 of the Decision are well-founded from a technical point of view

Microsoft claims 1) that as above, Barrett is not qualified to make such a judgement, and that 2) Barrett's secret meetings with Microsoft's competitors does not allow Microsoft the right to defend themselves from accusations.

Section 3.3: (paraphrase) The Trustee must make available a means for third parties to make complaints related to Microsoft's compliance with Articles 4 to 6 and is required to keep the identities of those third parties secret from Microsoft. Non-confidential complaints ought to be forwarded to Microsoft for informal resolution of complaints.

Microsoft claims that this violates their right to defend themselves. By keeping secret "confidential complaints" from Microsoft, they are unable to prepare a proper defense.

I would still love to see those Trustee Reports.

That must have hurt...

[tkrotchko]

Microsoft used a PDF. I'll bet that must've burned to use a PDF instead of the more industry standard CHM or open-source implementation of the MS-Word file format.

In any event, if you read MS's response, they seem to disagree less with his conclusions than object to the way he reached them. In fact, I flipped through the entire document and didn't find any disagreement with the conclusions.

MS is too smart for me. In fact, I think MS is sometimes too smart for their own good. Maybe they should have just documented everything properly. That seems like less work than the amount of work they've put into complaining about the process.

I've done it before, and I'll do it again

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are a bunch of fucking fags.

Balmer?

The good thing...

[jesterpilot]

Ireland is but a small country in the EU. Other member states see how Ireland gets revenue from taxes not paid in countries where the actual business was done. They will not think 'hey, that's fair, let them have that money, now let's listen what they have to say'. Other, more important member states will see the economic benefits from MS as stealing, not only from their own IT-business but also directly from their own treasure chest. And they are France, Germany and Italy, not Ireland. By evading taxes, MS might turn out to be penny wise, pound foolish.

Re:The good thing...

[kadathseeker]

Ireland is but a small country in the EU.

[US-EU jibe]
Hehe. What country in the EU isn't?
[/US-EU jibe]

Re:The good thing...

[zippthorne]

Vichy France?

Re:The good thing...

[kadathseeker]

My state is still bigger than France.

Our English isn't as good though...

That's really the wrong spin to put on it.

[Rob T Firefly]

Whoever this guy is, to say an expert witness in court of law is the one "causing problems" for anyone is a wild distortion of the role of an expert witness. Barrett's job in this situation is ostensibly to give a neutral, factual examination of the evidence, as relates to his field of expertise. His skills qualify him to dumb technical facts down so that the court can understand it. He is, more or less, a talking piece of evidence. MS or anyone else blaming him for causing any sort of problems is like Colonel Mustard blaming the lead pipe.

So where's the apple suit?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see i-tunes API being opened up and they sure seem to have a monopoly on the mp3 market...

Lol...

[Spy der Mann]

Hackers cause problems to Microsoft's OS.
Ex-hackers cause problems to Microsoft's lawyers.

Poor Microsoft, hackers are so bad with you! :P

Not the same guy, surely, as....

[Le_Batleur]

...here?

http://www.itwales.com/998622.htm

Hello?!? MSDN

[LinuxPoultergist]

Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to read MSDN documentation can see that Barrett speaks the truth.

Re:Hello?!? MSDN

[HellYeahAutomaton]

Yeah, but it shouldn't take 4 days to figure out how unusable it is. Clearly, MS was in the right for knocking his street cred.

That's normal

[megaralf]

Hey, thats normal.
I mean, where do you get a usable documentation. My personal top canidates:

Unusable Documentation:
Symbian/S60 (and what is a hbufc anyway?)
Winamp Maki (TODO since years)
Alsa (complete documentation of all classnames. Wow)

Best documentation:
Java
Ogre

Working with external companies since a couple of years I can tell you that I never got a usable documentation. After all, why should they risk the maintenance contract going to their competitiors.

I understand

[Anonymous Coward]

Take a LOOK at firefox. Its gaining market here and there, but my grandma still cant install plugins/addons.

Ah.

I see idiocy runs in your family.

and speaking of sw patents ...

[SgtChaireBourne]

...
2) Ireland does what its told to by MS and others

This is also why Ireland was behind the EU attempt to introduce software patents.
...

And speaking of software patents, the EU is soliciting input on 'reform' of how it handles patents.

"Views are sought on the patent system in Europe, and what changes if any are needed to improve innovation and competitiveness, growth and employment in the knowledge-based economy.

Stakeholders [that's you there with the computer] are invited to submit their contributions by 31 March 2006."

The theme of 'harmonization' has already been used in previous recent attempts to bring sw patents into Europe. Soliciting ideas of how the current EU patent system can be 'improved' will in all likelihood serve as an additional invitation for pro-sw patent lobbies to bring up the topic.

If only their voice is heard, then the outcome of any decisions based on that input is not likely to be useful for anyone planning to use a computer in the EU. sw patents create problems for more than just developers, though the developers are likely to feel the pain first.

wut

[Darkman, Walkin Dude]

Other member states see how Ireland gets revenue from taxes not paid in countries where the actual business was done.

Erm wut? Thats a good trick. As far as I know, if you do business in a country, you pay that country's taxes. If that means a company will go to where tax rates are lowest, then thats where they go. No one is evading taxes. Don't like it, reduce your own tax rates. In a competitive market, it just so happens that Ireland's offer is the most attractive. No one owes Italy, France, or any other country jobs.

Non sequitur?

[Andr0s]

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.

Does anyone else see this as a non-sequitur to the whole article? In general, original article is very interesting, and more than a little amusing - but the OP on /. is, to say the least, addlebrained and lacking any resemblance of article summary (which is what it really should be). The article, indeed, speaks of mr. Barret's role in Microsoft anti-trust lawsuit as a sort of a technical witness, and explains the background and circumstances of his involvement with Microsoft's 'rivals'. And then, out of nowhere, 'Yeah, he also once stole some company's logo from their network'. Talk about going out on a non-tangent.

Re:Non sequitur?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone else see that there is no reason to ever use the phrase non-sequitur?

What?

[koreaman]

Since when is pedophilia a crime? If we've started making it a crime to have some sexual orientation, I'm getting the hell out of this country, just out of principle.

Re:What?

[16777216]

Web definitions for Pedophilia
        Sexual attraction to a child; clinically, a person sixteen years of age or older who is at least five years older than the child. Pedophiles will prefer males, females, or both. Generally considered to be an incurable mental disorder.
http://www.reasoned.org/glossary.htm - Definition in context

It is not an orientation moron, or do you like to rape kids too?

Re:What?

[koreaman]

I am not a pedophile. Nor do I rape children. But what you have to understand is that the two are not one thing. Pedophilia is attraction to children. Child rape is raping children, i.e. acting on one's pedophilia. Do you see the difference? Whether you want to call pedophilia an orientation or a mental disorder is just semantics. Either way, my point is the same. We should be making neither mental disorders nor sexual orientations illegal to possess.

Re:What?

[hkmwbz]

A definition from a page saying "Exploring spirituality, the meaning of life, the concept of God"?

Great one.

Wipedia says: "the paraphilia of being sexually attracted primarily or exclusively to prepubescent children"

Sure it is an orientation. It described an attraction, not an act.

Re:What?

[16777216]

OOPS, CRAPTY-SHIT-SHIT!!!
I am a total numb nuts!
will look at those links next time.
The bad thing is that I am Pagan!

Re:What?

[16777216]

So would you mind if someone deeply desired your four year old daughter? What if this person decided to act on this desire? Would you mind that? This is a mental disorder. Anyone who posses the want for children has issues about their own childhood. It has been proven most people who desire children were once raped as a child. This evidence proves this is an aquired taste, therefore NOT a sexual preference. A sexual preference is something someone is born with, and is not aquired. It should be illegal to possess anything related to child sex acts due to the fact some child had to be molested in order for that material to be created, thusly creating yet another child rapist. It is a viscous circle. Not all people who were raped as children become child rapists, but 99 percent of child rapists were raped as children. I am saddened people like you frequent this board. i thought the members of this board of a higher caliber.

Re:What?

[koreaman]

OK, so it's a mental disorder, are mental disorders illegal to have now?

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

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA never claimed that Barrett was responsible for Gary Glitter's incarceration:

In the years since, Mr. Barrett, who is also a visiting professor of computer forensics at several British universities, has helped put the British glam rocker Gary Glitter behind bars for pedophilia.

Barrett is an expert witness, he probably testified in the trial against Glitter. He helped, he's not responsible.

OT: .Net listview

[Nef]

I've used the listview pretty extensively in both C# and VB and aside from update issues(flicker, etc.), or adding proper sorting (by columnheader click) I haven't had much of a problem. And both the issues I mention I was able to create code that handled any issues gracefully.

If you're more specific, and I can help in that area, I'd be more than willing to share.

Let me know: nylyst(at)gmail(dot)com

Re:OT: .Net listview

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really a big deal but the OnPaint is never called when overriding in a class inheritting from ListView and TreeView.

More information can be found at:
http://www.thecodeproject.com/cs/miscctrl/genmissi ngpaintevent.asp

Who really knows why this was left out on some .net controls and not others but it is.

write report critical of Micros~1 get fired ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I learned I was fired from a press release

Dan Geer, former CTO @stake Inc. - Sep 25 2003

See also: SWT

[metamatic]

Yeah. Try and find some usable online documentation for SWT and JFace, for another example. They finally put up some JavaDoc for SWT, but it's useless unless you already know how to write applications using it.

And one of my big beefs with Ruby is the quantity of completely undocumented code in the standard library. I've been trying to help improve the situation, but some people don't even seem to understand that there's a problem.

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

[unixbob]

"now an expert witness .....Barrett 'has helped put the British glam rocker Gary Glitter behind bars for pedophilia'"

It doesn't say he discovered Glitter's kiddie porn. It says he helped put him behind bars as an expert witness

OGRE?

[phorm]

Which documentation, exactly, are you using? I've played with stuff from the wiki, but it's always seemed to me that it was starting partway through. For example, telling you to use various already-built functions which load a prebuilt mesh. However, as the failure seems to be in loading the mesh... it's not very helpful to use the provided functions.

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' :)

Please mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of good discussion in this thread.

Re: What MS are trying to do ..

[Anonymous Coward]

"What we are trying to do is use our server control to do new protocols and lock out Sun and Oracle specifically . Now, I don't know if we'll get to that or not, but that's what we are trying to do"

"Dominance on the server infrastructure on the Internet is a tougher nut to crack [but] we just might be able to do it from the enterprise out if we could own the enterprise (which I think we can)"

"[Microsoft] has a huge advantage in the enterprise computing market by leveraging the dominance of the Windows desktop"

Microsoft internal communication

Were I the EU regulators...

[Slime-dogg]

I'd say something along the lines of "you nominated him, we appointed him. He's not going away, and you still have to listen to us. If you don't like it, tough shit."

I dislike how some companies feel like they have a right to bend the rules and laws, just because they get caught doing something illegal. Instead of admission of guilt and a promise to do better, they say it isn't fair. Last time I checked, a slap on the wrist by a certain administration wasn't exactly "fair," either.

Re:Were I the EU regulators...

[tedmg09130913]

Most laws aren't quite as rigid as you make them sound. If they were, you could use something like a very complicated logic table to automatically hand out sentences and judgements without much use for judges and juries.

Is it just me? or is the WSJ hack quite rude

[LeRandy]

Am I the only person to be incensed that Mary Jacoby doesn't refer to Professor Barrett by his proper title, instead relegating him to Mr. Barrett?

I agree as well

[donford74]

Mr Barrett could more properly be refered to as Professor Barrett or Dr. Barrett. "Hacker" sounds so much more dramatic than "highly qualified and experienced software development and security expert". Professor doesn't match "hacker", so we get Mr. instead. Journalistic spin.

among his own

[Anonymous Coward]

how about this line "European Commission regulators in Brussels chose Mr. Barrett from AMONG Microsoft's OWN nominees for the job of judging whether the company is complying with a 2004 EU ruling that it help its competitors design software to mesh with its nearly ubiquitous Windows operating system"