Slashdot Mirror
New Microsoft Dirty Tricks Revealed
Conrad Mazian writes "Robert X. Cringely has an article on the Technology Evangelist web site where he claims that Microsoft destroyed evidence in the Burst vs Microsoft case. Specifically Burst's lawyers had asked for certain emails, Microsoft claimed that they couldn't find the backup tapes the emails would be on, and while this was happening the tapes were in a vault at Microsoft — until they mysteriously disappeared. It's a fascinating story, and even names one person at Microsoft."
This is *real* journalism:
... the headline here said somehting about Microsoft's "NEW" dirty tricks? WTF?
- Nth hand unverified, information (My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. )
- this is about stuff along time ago.
- There is a lot suspect in what's being claimed in the article as well.
Well, as the tagline says:
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
These days when you are as large as microsoft is, it doesnt really matter if you break the law.
If you do, and actually get caught, you get some token fine and you chalk it up as a cost of doing business and move on.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Microsoft didn't loose the tapes, it's just that the backup server was being run by Vista!
The original generic sig.
As far as i am aware these aren't new allegations, i remember hearing about this back as far as 2 years ago at least. Some casual googling turns up documents from that time period.
There are lives at stake here!
It's a fascinating story, and even names one person at Microsoft.
Oooh! It names someone at Microsoft. I'll tell you, but you gotta keep it a secret, okay? Bill Gates. Shhhh, don't tell anyone I told you...
This guy's the limit!
It's not like the story is looking at this wide-eyed and saying that this is the first time it's ever happened. We all know it happens all the time. The main point, is what can be done to stop this sort of thing from happening short of killing all business owners who resort to this type of evil behavior. There is nothing noble about it, therefore it shouldn't be defended nor should it be ignored or allowed to continue. This type of behavior should be brought out in the open, the perpetrators brought to justice and the business made to pay for it's crimes. Frankly, I'd love to see them all lined up and shot, but that's just me. I'm in this business purely for technical interests and could give a rats ass about anyone making a buck.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Microsoft was saying that it couldn't find the tapes and that it would take millions of man-hours to search for them ...
And Microsoft wants to be number one in search?
Cringely posted the story in two parts, but the summary only links to the first. Second part here.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
"They generate a large fraction of the US GNP, "
They do? And assuming they do, is that a get out of jail free card?
If so, why?
"they make the software that has made computers cheap and ubiquitous for everybody on the planet,"
There were many others in that game too, till they were crushed.
And they have made a very pretty penny from it.
And it is not like it would not have happened anyway ( there is nothing all that special about Microsoft
in that regard )
"and Bill Gates personally funds one of the largest charities in the world."
Again, is this a get out of jail free card? Why do you bring it up?
Is it OK to destroy evidence because you donate money to a charity?
"Now, if I can only get one of their salespeople to call me back about a large new installation I'm getting ready to do..."
Good luck on that.
emt 377 emt 4
Any one noticed one big problem in this post. All of Microsoft's email is stored in pst files? Wouldn't they be using a email system like Microsoft Exchange that stores all emails on the server? It does not make sense from a company standpoint to download all email to your desktop at work and not have it available anywhere.
I had a dog eat my home work once. Actualy is was more then once but i finaly figured out the problem. We used to put peanut butter in the dogs chew toys as a reward for doing something good like not tearing anything up when we left him along or comming when called.
Well, long story short, When I would eat a peanut butter sandwich while doing my homework the dog would seem interested in my backpack that night. When I left the zipper open or worse yet, it broke fro shoving too much stuff in it, the dog went in and ate the papers I was working on while eating the peanut butter sandwich.
Wasn't that
"Schlemiel, Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!" ??
This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
How exactly is this pandering to the Anti-Microsoft element on slashdot?
It is a story about a company that when faced with legal action regarding their behavior deliberately destroyed/hid evidence that showed they as corporate entity were perfectly aware that their behavior was wrong in the legal sense.
The fact that corporations routinely do this is completely irrelevant. All this story is exposing is a pattern of behavior on the part of Microsoft with regards to compliance with the law, or in this case a complete disregard for the law. While it may be redundant as the case against Microsoft has been made time and time again it isn't pandering to the anti-Microsoft zealots. It may be embarrassing to the pro-Microsoft evangelists, but we all know they are nuts ;-).
If Apple, Red Hat or Novell had done something similar they would be called on it. However, none of those corporate entities have done anything like that to my knowledge. But Microsoft has. And considering that Microsoft products are on ~85% of the PCs out there makes it relevant to the slashdot community.
If I remember correctly, Burst started a court case against Microsoft for patent infringement a few years ago (one of those that we all love on Slashdot), and Microsoft paid them about $60 million in settlements. The court case looked very bad for Microsoft, not because there was any evidence of any wrongdoing, but because Microsoft had "lost" emails exactly for a critical time period, but not others just before or just after that time period. These are exactly the emails that this article is about.
To the courts, it doesn't make much difference whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails by accident" and say the truth, or you say "we destroyed these emails, take that!" and say the truth or not, or whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails" and are in fact hiding them. In each case, the emails are not there, and the courts will assume that whatever they might have contained was not good for you. So whether Microsoft really lost these emails or was just hiding them, it doesn't matter.
Similar, if you are taken to court because someone claims you downloaded music illegally, and you just happen to format your harddisk by accident, you are in deep shit. And it doesn't matter whether there was evidence on that harddisk or not.
A fine counter-argument. I'm surprised it isn't used more often.
"Come on, Your Honor, it's not like I'm the first to EVER commit this crime!"
Courts of law are not about punishing the guilty they are about protecting the public from the government and from thugs in uniform. A terrorist suspect is only a suspect because some one 'thinks' or 'decides' they should be one, there is no proof, if there was, that person would be arrested and sent to the courts where the validity of the evidence could be tested and to ensure some incompetent ass wipe didn't falsify the evidence or just outright lied to get promotion or even to hide their own incompetence (if you can't catch the guilty then convicting an innocent can still get you re-elected).
Consider the long term ramifications. Through out history, torturers where isolated from the rest of the community because any individual they can achieve job satisfaction and a personal sense of accomplishment from the infliction of pain, suffering and degradation upon others, is a dangerously deranged psychopathic individual and a threat to the community. Honestly, would you want a US military approved torturer living next door to you and having access to your family (a thug that listened to the agonised screams of human beings 8 hours a day with out a qualm whilst eating undisturbed meals, sleeping peacefully and collecting what they considered to be their well deserved pay check).
How many thousands of CIA trained torturers will the US government be releasing upon an unsuspecting public, torturers who no longer have the legal means by which to fulfil those urges they have became accustomed too. Check with any real law enforcement authority and they will tell you exactly what kind of long term threat those individuals who voluntarily participated in that kind of abhorrent behaviour really are.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen