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Windows 2000 to be banned in Germany?
tjansen writes "The German Site Heise reports in this article that Windows 2000 may be banned in Germany. The reason is the included deframentation software Diskeeper that is written by the Scientology-owned company Executive Software. Many state agencies and companies have policies that they are not allowed to use services from a company that is related to Scientology. " A good number of you will probably need to use The Babelfish.Update: 12/03 11:28 by H :Check out the English translation.
Not that I love Windows 2000, but this sounds kind of silly.
The connection between the Psycho company and the software giant is sparkling wine assigning of the large churches a thorn in the eye.
:)
Ah. Good. Things are much clearer now.
Redmond will quickly work around this one by removing the offending program. Good thing the guys didn't write IE 4.0. The Germans never would have gotten win98.
--
then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
If this really is an issue, then the diskeeper softwear would be fairly easy to remove (if it's not, maybe there should be an Anti-Trust suit about that one!)
I've used their product on NT4, and I believe that it is almost identical to the one on 2000. It's just a single program, people - it's pretty easy to remove it and make it a free download from the US MS site.
This -could- be interesting, though, as Microsoft is likely to drop support for ALL other versions of Windows, in order to force people to upgrade.
If Windows 2000 is banned, even if only in Government departments, that will essentially force the de-Microsofting of the German Government. And that could spell some interesting times for *BSD and Linux vendors.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
"The connection between the Psycho company and the software giant is sparkling wine assigning of the large churches a thorn in the eye."
:) Can you feel the hate?
Gotta love that translation. The Psycho (note the capital "P") company.
Now, I'm don't love the church of Scientology, but can someone explain this to me? And what is up with the references to "sparkling wine"?
This sig is false.
W2K may be banned in Germany because a portion of the operating system (sic) was produced by a company owned/partly owned by the Scientologists?
Thats one in the eye for M$ but I can never see this standing up!
Take a moment from your drop-of-a-hat Microsoft hatred to actually read the article. The issue at hand is that the Scientology 'church' operates a suspected intelligence organization (WISE) that the German government does not want to risk contaminationg German affairs. It's not about Microsoft hatred. It's about paranoia.
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
I'm not too sure about that article (Babelfish implied that the spokesman was the Catholic church's official in charge of sparkling wine, which I think would be a pretty cool job actually, Dominus vobiscum), but the German federal government is really serious about Scientology. If I'm not mistaken the legal sanctions being imposed against Scientology are pretty much the same as those being used to suppress Nazism... it would not surprise me if the German government goes toe-to-toe with Microsoft over this one if it proves correct.
--
I am quite civilized, and I should be brought a beer immediately. -- Bruce Sterling
The article quotes an official of the Catholic church, not a representative of the government. The word "Bann" in the headline has to be seen in this context: its a condemnation of the church. So to take this quote and speak of Windows 2000 going to be banned in Germany is quite a leap. So, don't believe everything Babelfish tells you and calm down, folks.
things. take. time.
Why does it always have to be me defending MS from all the FUD on /.
I don't like MS, and it kills my Karma. :-(
Oh well.. if someone said something wrong about Linux, I'd do the same thing.
I suspect the WTO could make a case for this being back-door protectionism, especially given that Germany has a large native OS distributor. I'm not sure who I find more scary, the WTO or the Co$.
Of course, I'm sure there are some Linux contributors who are scientologists, but I guess the regulation concerns companies.
BTW, what does Win2000 need a defragmentor for? I thought disk fragmentation was cracked long before journalling and b-trees hit the agenda.
Doesn't German law try to actively prevent 'cults' from spreading. I have a feeling that this is a side effect of thier anti nazism laws.
Another of my favorites is...Harald bear, catholic representative for sparkling wines and world looking questions. I'm glad someone represents these noteworthy causes! You think Mr. Bear can give us some good tips on champagne futures? I missed out on the RH IPO!
Eric
You know, with the Universe and karma and all being how it is, you're in for one hell of an eternity ;))
Alex.
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
Your answers seem to imply that Windows 2000 will probably banned by Germany. But that is not the case, it's just a report of a German computer magazine (Heise) that the Catholic church is about to ban Windows 2000 for that.
;-)
Actually I personally ban Windows at all - from my personal computers. Although I still have to use that OS at work. But that's another story
Bright Blessings
Mika
Sounds too good to be true. Unfortunately.
OTOH, Germany is funding open source software (GPG).
Agree. I understand the desire to maintain freedom of speech and avoid the appearance of censorship, but this crap is getting out of hand. It is wasting everyone's time and making ./ look foolish.
Why not specify "Fair Use" conditions that automatically assign a special category to "first post" and the use of profanity. And enforce it.
If anyone want to read this junk, they can change their filter limits. The rest of us shouldn't have to put up with it.
What about a mechanism to allow only a limited
number of Anonymous posts from a certain IP Address within a Topic? (Similar to the Poll system) Only registered users may post as they wish.
Sebastian
The Co$ has a history of attempting to disrupt online discussions about them, if they are likely to be critical of the "Church". The Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology is legendary for this.
So I wonder if this loon with the "Natalie Portman" posts has been hatted to disrupt Slashdot?
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
No more Anonymous cowards will not fix this, this guy could be doing this via an automated script, he can easily register an account with any free website, then with his script continue the stupid act. The best thing is simply to trace him and have him spanked, tho he might enjoy that.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
The whole Natalie Portman thing got moved to Slashdot because Segfault.org stopped allowing people to post messages. I was a frequent Segfault reader, and Natalie Portman was a very common topic over there. The Natalie Portman/Statue/Mae Ling whatever/etc... people just moved over here to Slashdot.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Maybe it's time to advertise the use of the GPLtrans engine instead of Babelfish
Unfortunately, their German translation unit is under maintainance for a few days. Too many words [...] and MySQL isn't responding
correctly, the web site says.
I for one hope that GPLtrans will be mentioned next time a non-English article is referenced on Slashdot.
Kk.
Don't use version 5... I had a similar problem.
You know you're in trouble when they threw out the fairly useful interface in version 4 in favor of hooking into the Microsoft Management Console.
The program also seems to run in real-mode priority regardless of what you tell it. My machine took 20 minutes to repaint the screen so I could shut the d*mn thing down.
User Interface Hell... and it locks up your computer. I never had trouble with DK until version 5 and have just switched back to 4, no useful functionality lost either.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
We know Microsoft is rather un-ethical as far as companies go. And Scientology is the ultimate Evil. Is there any doubt that the two are linked? It won't suprise me to see more `alliances' in the future between these two tyrants of vile injustice.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
The Scientology issue may sound odd, but as the government has found that they have been trying to infiltrate the state agencies to gain power and thus they have been considered a risk to the country's security, the decision not to use Windows 2000 would just be a side-effect of the politics of avoiding such threats.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
as follows: Windows 2000 contains Diskeeper, a disk defragmenter. Diskeeper was created by Executive Software. Executive Software's CEO is Craig Jensen, a fairly high-ranking Scientologist (OT VIII and stuff). Scientology has been under investigation as being a danger to Germany under the `Verfassungsschutz'-laws. Partly due to those investigations many companies and governmental agencies in Germany are asking their members, employees and commercial partners to sign documents in which they declare not to have anything to do whatsoever with the teachings and religion of L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology. Now, Microsoft cannot truthfully sign these contracts anymore, and therefore many companies will at least think twice before doing business with Microsoft. Microsoft's official reaction is that you can simply remove the offending Diskeeper. This, however, seems to be quite somewhat easier said than done.
Years ago, they tried the same kind of shenanigans against the alt.religion.scientology board, which is a forum for scientology criticists. First they tried to shut down discussions by forge-cancelling any critical article, and when that didn't work any longer, they tried swamping the board with meaningless rubbish.
Say no to software patents.
Right I'm moving to Germany ;)
;-)
Does this mean that GNU/Linux will be banned in the US of A, since Richard Stallman is obviously a communist...
On a serious note, though, this amounts to state censorship, and should not be tolerated - I'm surprised that this doesn't contravene some EU directive. Perhaps if the defragger had some pop-up instructing the user to join the Church of Scientology, then it might be justifiable. Also, do the German government intend to ban all John Travolta (or any other star related to the Scientologist) films?
If you want to ban W2K, I can think of far better reasons.
You have convinced me that you must be a Scientoligist trying to completely disrupt any discussion here.
You have also convinced me that Scientologists and M$ actually deserve each other.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Hmm...
I guess you can see this is another bad
thing that happens when you start bundling
too much stuff together with OS... if Microsoft
had sticked to only making OSen and not bundling
everything into it, they would not have run
into all this hassle...
Internet Explorer, Stacker, this defragging
software... the list goes on.
Seems like the old saying of sticking
to your corebusiness still holds some truth....?
Why are products by Scientologists banned by German companies? Does Scientology have ties with neo-Nazi groups or something? Babelfish rather garbled that article, so I coundn't discern the reasoning of that if it was in the article, and I can't find any info about that elsewhere. Anyone know?
Deosyne
Good idea, although I happen to like Windows 2000. If you actually USE it it's damn good (and looks cool, esp with Transperizer...).
This is a legacy I think from the Anti-Nazi laws everybody made Germany pass after WWII. But if it allows somebody to halt the march of such an enigmatic (and law bashing...) cult then they can't be that bad!
While we're on, could we ban Mormon's as well?
This is post number 643.972571563*2984
/. reader's nerves with posting senseless $h*t!
Shut the heck up, people, and comment on what's going on, or at least post nude pics of NP here *grins*
Seriously, if you want to babble on like that, get a life, and get a list, they're free at Onelist, you know... that way you're not getting on any
Do good for once!
you never know - reality may leave beta-test today!
??????
I mean it could happen, couldn't it?
When reading this, two things occured to me.
.. I think the germans make good use of their laws. And, I guess it really could help SuSE, if windows2000 cannot be sold in Germany. I vision the entire German population using Linux and so forth. Oh, sweet dreams. :-)
:-)
First, i don't like the idea of banning neither religions, free speech or programs made by people / companies that has a certain belief. I have this nagging feeling when I hear about germans banning nazism. Of course, nazism is a Bad Thing(tm), but on the other hand.. it should be *legal* to have certain kind of opinions, and it should be legal to meet other people with the same opinions.
The same thing applies to Scientology. Its a Bad Thing(tm), but on the other hand, I think its bad banning them, and I think its absurd to ban Windows 2000 just because a tiny little program inside it, is made by a company funded by clams. (Clams, slang for "scientologists").
But, when we think about OUR goals, that is, killing of microsoft, scientology, nazism, and so forth
But, on the whole, I really think it stinks that they ban win2000, just because of some clams. Even though I don't like clams.. except for dinner.. I think
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Wow, there is surley enough derogatory comments about the clams in here to send them off into a legal frenzy. Can Slashdot stand up to the Scientologist Effect? Will they remove comments once the legal eagles come swarming in? Will they withstand the personal threats to their home and family!? Will they even notice the private dick who has been watching their every move since the article was published?
All this and more....
Fish! LipHo
Windows 2000 in danger of being banned
A component of Windows 2000 was made by a scientology company. The defragmentation program "Diskeeper" is scheduled to be shipped in February as a standard part of the NT successor.
It is being developed by the firm "Executive Software" of the confessing [?] scientologist Craig Jensen, as has been reported in c't issue 25/99. The connection between the psycho trust and the software giant is a thorn in the side of the large churches.
"This will not be interesting to the Catholic Church alone, but also to the states, the Verfassungsschutz [one branch of the secret service] as well as the German industry", Harald Baer, catholic commissary for sects and wold outlook issues [Weltanschauung issues], commented to the German press agency (dpa). According to Ursula Caberta, leader of the Scientology working group of the Hamburg interior authority, Executive Software is one of the leading businesses in the Scientology organization WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises). [She says] WISE is "the decisive branch of Scientology in order to infiltrate and spy on the economy". In the states of Bavaria and Hamburg, there have been resolutions according to which authorities, in particular in the area of information technology, are not allowed to buy services from scientology businesses. (em)
(cp/c't)
Lots of people got beef with scientology. And vice versa as well...
Check out this link: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/
This page belongs to a good friend of mine, and she's been crusading against scientology for quite a while now. Not to mention that Scientology is trying to shut this down as well.
Choas in the street! has BANNED distribution. Slashdot erupts with rasied voises calling for immediate revokation of the ruling and flames the entire nation.
said "this is a direct attack on the freedom of the people to choose what they wish, we should fight this at all costs".
When contains GNU/Linux, this would be the story. The Spokeman would no doubt be Eric, Bruce or Richard and we'd all be telling each other to hold back the mindless mail bombings to whoever's government is offending.
But this times its Microsoft, so it doesn't matter. Good on !
Surely there is something wrong here. Yes, I know its MS. Yes, I know its scientology but this a stupid reason to suggest not using something, let alone banning it.
We'd not let anyone suggest not using GNU/Linux just because Linus and the TLA crew[*] converted to some minority, much less becuase line 5329 of Perl was bug fixed by a member.
Phill
* ESR, RMS, ETC.
ESR has it right, even though I don't totally with him - Microsoft should be taken down by natural forces (ie. market). Let's ignore the fact (ie. MHO) that it wouldn't be possible without the intervention of the DOJ for now, since it's not really relevant.
Windows 2000 banned in Germany ? Fine with me. Doing it because of scientology is simply clouding the issue - the only good reason to do it would be because Microsoft and its products are bad for your health. Any other reason will allow Microsoft to be victimized and gain symphaty.
Like I said, I don't like to be on the same side with Microsoft, but for the sake of doing the right thing, I'll do it.
Windows 2000 threatened to be banned
A component of Windows 2000 comes from a scientology-company. The defragmentation program "Diskeeper" is intended to be marketed as an integral part of the NT-successor. It was developed by Executive Software, a company of the confessing Scientologist Craig Jensen. The connection from the Pseudo-company [Scientology] to Microsoft bothers representatives of the big Churches concerned with sects.
"Apart from the catholic Church also all German states, the office responsible for defending the constitution, and the german industy, will take an interest in this." comments Harald Baer, catholic representative for sects [...]. According to Ursula Caberta, head of the "workgroup scientology" of Hamburgs interior office, Executive Software belongs to the leading businesses of the WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises) Scientology organisation: "WISE is the main branch of Scientology for undermining and spying out the economy." In the german states Bayern and Hamburg resulitions exist, saying that official authorities may not buy services from Scientology-companies, especially in the Information Technology sector.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Windows 2000 threatened by Bann
A component of Windows 2000 comes from a Scientology company. The defragmentation software "Diskeeper" is to be shipped in February as a fixed component of the NT successor. It is developed by the company "Executive software" of the admitting Scientology member Craig Jensen, as c't reported in the issue 25/99. The connection between the psycho company and the software giant is a thorn in the eye of large church sect-observers.
"That will not only interest the catholic church, but also all provices, the Verfassungsschutz [German equivalent to the FBI], and the German industry" comments Harald Baer, catholic official for sects and Weltanschauung-questions, to the german press agency dpa. Accoring to Ursula Caberta, head of the Scientology working-group of the Hamburg office for internal affairs, "Executive Software" is among the leading companies of the Scientology-organisation WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises).
WISE is the "crucial lever of Scientology to infiltrate and spy the economy". The states of Bavaria and Hamburg have existing resolutions which forbid offices the aquisition of services form Scientology-companies, esp. in the field of information technology.
> MS will support NT & 98 for four years
> after they stop shipping. It is in their
> standard support agreement.
Well since two years ago, it has not been possible to get a copy of Win 3.1 which has had all known security holes patched, and Win 3.1 stopped shipping only two years before that. I think "not fixing root exploits" is not the same as "supporting".
Didn't MS claim to have lost some of the Win 3.x source code last year? That was less than four years after they stopped shipping it. How they're supposed to "support" a product to which they don't even have the source code, I don't know.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Everything in [] are my comments to explain things. Translating this shows me how much a good translator is worth! ;-)
--
Windows 2000 threatened by ban
One component of the Windows 2000 software is coming from a Scientology enterprise. The defragmentation program "Diskeeper" is going to be released in February as integral part of the
NT successor. It was developed by Executive Software, an enterprise belonging to the confessing scientologist Craig Jensen, as C't magazine reports in issue 25/99. The connection
between Scientology and the software giant is not liked by the Sektenbeauftragter (person responsible to review the activities of sects) of the large churches.
"This is going to interest not only the Catholic church but also the Bundesländer (states ), the Verfassungsschutz (government institution that supervises activities that are against the German constitution) and the German industry", comments
Harald Baer, Catholic representative for sects and philosophy of life [that's a straight translation] in response to DPA [a news agency].
According to Ursula Caberta, who leads the study group Scientology of Hamburg's Innenbehoerde [an institution of the City of Hamburg], Executive Software belongs to the leading enterprises of the Scientology organization WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises). WISE, according to Caberta, "is the crucial arm of Scientology to infiltrate and spy on trade and industry". In Bayern and Hamburg [German states, Hamburg is a city state] there are laws that forbid public institutions, especially on the information technology sector, to buy services from Scientology enterprises.
Hah. I didn't even notice all the Natalie Portman spam because I always read with at least a minimal level of filtering based on score.
That must drive the CO$ weenies crazy. I remember when they successfully ruined alt.religion.scientology by spamming the group with so many messages that any real discussion was lost.
Scientology is an evil organization that is willing to go to any lengths to further its greedy interests. I'm not talking about protesting, or organizing church dinners here--death threats against "enemy" newspaper reporters, collecting damaging information about their own members for use as blackmail in the event that they testify against the cult, attempting to shut down, harass, and bankrupt critics... the list goes on.
I don't blame the German govt. for not wanting to run any software written by Scientology. Given their thug like behavior in every other area, why would you trust their code? They probably did build some backdoors into it.
Choas in the street! [Country] has BANNED [Vendor's] [OS] distribution. Slashdot erupts with rasied voises calling for immediate revokation of the ruling and flames the entire nation.
[Spokesman] said "this is a direct attack on the freedom of the people to choose what they wish, we should fight this at all costs".
When [OS] contains GNU/Linux, this would be the story. The Spokeman would no doubt be Eric, Bruce or Richard and we'd all be telling each other to hold back the mindless mail bombings to whoever's government is offending.
But this times its Microsoft, so it doesn't matter. Good on [Country]!
Surely there is something wrong here. Yes, I know its MS. Yes, I know its scientology but this a stupid reason to suggest not using something, let alone banning it.
We'd not let anyone suggest not using GNU/Linux just because Linus and the TLA crew[*] converted to some minority, much less becuase line 5329 of Perl was bug fixed by a [cult minority of the week] member.
Phill
* ESR, RMS, ETC.
Even if some WTO officials don't want to admit it, but democratic principles, health, culture etc. still matter.
In Germany (and Austria AFAIK) there are tough, constitutional rules intended to defend democracy and a lawful state. This means groups that aim t undermne the democratic order, like right-wing extremists or extreme communists are banned, and so are references to Nazism etc.
Co$ is suspected to be a group that intends to destroy the democratic order as defined by the constitution, as these intentions are expressed in their writings.
Those constitutional principles, based on General Human Rights, are definitely more important than WTO regulations.
In your /. preferences, set your threshold level to 1. Then when losers like the original poster get moderated to zero (usually pretty quickly), you'll never even see their inane babbling.
"We're sorry, but the website you're trying to reach has been disconnected."
Folks,
It should be noted that Windows 2000 is still quite a ways from being shipped for overseas editions. The North American edition (for US/Canadian use) will ship on February 17, 2000; the versions for European users will probably not ship for at least a month after that.
There's still time to substitute a different disk defragmenter (or remove it altogether) to comply with German laws. For example, doesn't Symantec make a version of Norton Utilities for Windows NT? This means the German version of Windows 2000 will use Symantec's disk defragmenter instead of Diskkeeper.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
For those who doesn't know, German law said that the people who owned the Internet providers were personally responsible for everything that the customers put on the Internet, which lead to the Compuserve boss being sentenced to jail for, I believe, pedophelia (since Compuserve Germany hadn't monitored all Internet traffic in and out and stopped a customer from distributing nude pictures of children)!
I believe the ban will never be a reality. Good thing too. I have no love for Scientology, but this is absurd.
************************************************ ***
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
To clarify that Scientology produced disk
:)
:)
defragmentation thing:
It is the German catholic church which is opposing
Windows 2000 because of that piece of software
This has nothing to do with German government or
German laws (not yet
As so often, IMHO moral and business are often
pretty close together. Among moral considerations,
churches see Scientology as competition for the
souls and the purses of their faithful.
The church ban
was often used in former times to fight against
individuals which were not in line
with religious (or political) ideas of those at
the top of the catholic church.
More famous people banned were Martin Luther (in 1521),
who later translated the bible from Latin into a
living language and queen Elisabeth I of England (in 1570).
So if you should get banned by accident, you are
in prominent company
--
The Germans are concerned about Scientology's well documented track record for
... ah, religious ... goals
:-) (one must use a very liberal definition of intellectual to include anything written by Hubbard. Talk about horrible science fiction!).
- suppressing free speach through legal intimidation
- violating people's privacy through various means, legal and otherwise
- efforts to gain positions of trust and power
- willingness to use such positions to promote their own corporate
They are concerned that Scientology is engaged in a power grab of titanic proportions which poses a direct threat to their democracy, which the above pattern of behavior appears to underscore rather clearly. Having a corporation controlled by Scientologists in turn controlling a critical peice of software (such as, say, an integral component of an operating system running on 95% of all PCs) is, they feel, a grave concern.
OTOH if a scientologist contributes to Linux, the code is under the GPL. This takes control away from the Scientologists and puts it in the hands of the user. I doubt the German government would have any problem with that, though I suspect the hypothetical Scientologist contributing software of this kind might face immediate excommunication for giving away "intellectual" property which could have belonged to The Church.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
You're wrong. Executive Software is part of WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises), and that bothers the Germans. As they say in the article, the Germans consider WISE an organisation committed to spying on and undermining the economy. The fact that individuals who are scientologists may have contributed to the coding of Linux, or that individuals employed by Red Hat (or others) may be scientologists wouldn't bring about the same reactions in Germany.
Note: I am a native speaker of English who has been studying in Germany for 4 years; my German is basically fluent, though my English seems to be degrading ;-)
My notes are italicized.
Windows 2000 in danger of being banned
A component of Windows 2000 comes from a Scientology company. The defragmentation program "Diskeeper" will be released to the market in February as an integrated part of the NT successor. It is being developed by the company Executive Software belonging to (or led by?) the admitted Scientologist Craig Jensen, as reported in c't 25/99. The connection between the (Psyho: here I read psychological, in the sense that it's not just a regular company but based on the philosophy of Scientology) company and the software giant has been a thorn in the eye of sect specialists/observers from the large churches.
"This will be of interest not only to the Catholic Church, but also to all States (in the sense of 'California is a State'), the Verfassungsschutz (This is the division of the government concerned with protecting the German Constitution), as well as the German industry", commented Harald Baer, the Catholic specialist/agent (person assigned to a certain task; my English is really deteriorating) for sects and worldview (though Weltanschauung is used in English too), to the German Press Agency (dpa). In the view of Ursula Caberta, Chairperson for the Hamburg (the state!) Internal Affairs: Scientology Task-force, Executive Software is one of the leading companies in the Scientology organisation WISE (World Institute of Scientology Enterprises). WISE is the "...key arm/branch of Scientology for infiltrating and spying on the Economy". In the States of Bavaria and Hamburg there are government-policies which forbid agencies -- particularly those in the area of information technologies (basically computers) -- from purchasing services from Scientology companies.
Chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
Germany seems to defend itself against an intelligence organisation trying to undermine the democratic system. This intelligence organisation happens to be the one of the CoS. An organisation which hasn't precisely a track record of lawful, democratic behaviour and respecting human rights.
It's the dammed right of the German government to decide which type of software from what organisation they want to run on government computers. It is as well the dammed right of the German church to run or not run whatever software they want on their system.
The problem here is, that it is closed software, so there is no easy way to find out if it is harmless or not. Would it be open-source, this wouldn't be much of an issue, since then they would be able to check the code, independent of who wrote the software. They have chosen not to trust software related to the CoS - fine. Most of us have chosen not to trust software related to MS - very fine. So, if it's fair for us to bann some MS software from our computers, it's their dammed fucking right to do so on theirs.
The remaining question is, why do we Americans react so sensitive to any news /. reports from Germany? I suggest some answeres:
Personally, I have a lot of sympathy with German laws against scientology. Scientology does do some good, it really does get people dried out, but it also really does people over, a friends brother joined and the whole issue was horrible.
But I really think another dangerous cult, that of Bill and MS, should also probably be banned in Germany. Chairman Bill has inspired his minions into countless evil acts, and even the US government is being forced to investigate this horrible religion and it's icon "the blue screen" before too much more damage is done.....
PS ( I really like Natalie Portman )
I'd really like to know if Andover.net gets any death threats or lawyer threats over this one. The Co$ is a pretty well known cult/terrorist org and has fscked up some people I know (it doesn't pay to try to leave the Co$, kind of like the mafia)
As for Germany, good for them. If the WTO doesn't like it, fsck them! Germany is a soverign nation and they can do what they want. Sometimes in this messed up world, it's kind of nice to see a country stand up for it's ideals. It's a shame more countries don't take a stand against this money scamming cult.
Finkployd
Beware clams, I'm Xenu!
hehe
Scientology practices extortion and other bad things. The german government is very right in staying clear of anything this organization is involved with.
Actually I think the idea of MS teaming up with a scientology owned company is pretty ironic. Believe me MS' fud practices are amateurism compared to what scientology is capable of.
Some might claim that prohibiting an organization like scientology goes against free speech but does free speech include extortion practices?
Jilles
I care little what religion people subscribe to when I use their software. Would you feel happy if your comments here were removed simply becuase you were [insert discriminatory reason]?
I am not a Microsoft apologist, nor do I think scientology anything other than complete junk but I do think it stupid to cheer on these sorts of things just becuase it suits one specific purpose. Should that purpose ever be joined by less popular ones (such as the Pope asking that Catholics don't use GNU becuase Stallman is atheist) I'm you'd get the point.
Phill
For those who may want an accurate translation of the article, view this article from the authors of the article: Translation Link.
Here is the explanation of the sparkling wine stuff. In German, Sekt means a kind of German sparkling wine. Sekte means Sect. Interestingly their plural is similar or quiet close and Babelfish goes wrong... A+ L
Microsoft and Scientology are 2 organizations that try to get you into giving them lots of money. So it's not surprising they'd join together. Anyway, even if this isn't an official ban on W2K, the scientology link is very bad for Microsoft in Germany. I'm sure alot of people here in the US and around the world are also disgusted by this cult. Also, a modern file system shouldn't defrag, period.
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Windows 2000 impends truncated Bann one component from Windows 2000 stammt from einer Scientology-Firma. that Defragmentierungsprogramm "Diskeeper" desired im february than fester ingredient des NT-Nachfolgers to come onto the market developed becomes it from the inc Executive software des bekennenden Scientologen Craig Jensen, as c't into issuance 25/99 refered. tue chaining among dem Psycho-Konzern and dem Softwareriesen is Sektenbeauftragten the großen churches truncated thorn im eye. "Das becomes doesn only tue katholische church interessieren, sondern also all Bundesländer, den... etc. etc.
Not quite useable yet then. I have my doubts about the effectiveness of brute-force word lookup, no matter how many people you have adding to your database.
As an ex-scientologist news like this just makes me laugh with joy. Scientology is an evil cult whose goal is to take over the world and imprison or kill anyone who doesn't agree with them. Anyone who has spent any time in it can tell you that. Just look up the Fair Game PL. Scientology claims to be a religion but in fact the religious trappings it puts on are for PR and legal protection. It's no more a religion than Amway is. It's true nature is more like the Nazi party of the 1930's. If anyone could recognize this, its the Germans.
Many scientologists as individuals are decent honest people. Its unfortunate that they have made such a poor choice in remaining in the "church." I could go on all day long about them, but many others have already covered it and more eloquently than I could.
What is the difference between Scientology and Microsoft? One is an evil cult bent on world domination and the other was begun by L. Ron Hubbard.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
...bear with me on this one. Germany is one of the few gubbamints' that actually bothered to investigate scientology a fair bit. What they found as far as I can figure is that they are a psuedo doomsday cult, and aren't above helping the doom along a little. The idea is that they might be motivated to *intetntionally* put malicious code into their programs. Since W2K has had a defragger since at least RC1 (and needed it since NT 3.5 as any NT admin could tell you!) and will have it in the final release... Even though I love linux like the rest of slashdot, by the end of 2000 (BTW, the 'true' end of scmillenium: 11:59 12.31.00 :) there will be a fair share of W2K installed arund the world. Now, could you imagine if the friendly little app that microsoft ingested just happens to have a timer in it? BOOM bzzzzzzt /delete/ OR, how about data mining? The scientologist love to gather dirt on people and use it to get their way, a la Hoover and his Female Body Inspectors. Microshit might not have gotten the source to it, or it might be under control by a department or whatever composed of mainly people who worked/owned the previous company. Either way, the shitologists likely have access and control to the code. Ok I know its paranoid, but this is the 'reasoning' behind restricing software used. Its similar to most agencies having 'quality control' and specifications (like US of A's infamous C2 level requirements) dictation what will and won't be installed. Maybe some gubbamints out there will realize *anyone* could put what they want in the code...and demand Open Source :) Buh Bye M$ in respective country if anyone ever puts that particular 2+2 together ;)
heh...this is the most intelligent post yet! I bet the clams are squirming all over the place concerning this post. Too fscking bad for them ;)
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
http://www.btb-online.de/software/dkp 40wi.htm
Diskeeper is already sold in Germany, so why would it be a problem for Microsoft to sell it as well?
ms
Natalie Portman in addition to being talented and gorgeous, is also from Israel. Scientology isn't exactly fond of Jews even though it doesn't promote this aspect of the belief system. Truthfully they are not fond of anyone or any group that isn't tied to scientology. Anything outside of the Co$ is considered inferior or corrupt and is generally called "wog" which is a british term equivalent to "nigger."
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
When Mission impossible came out, I remember the german people and the church boycotting the film becasue Tom Cruise is a Scientologist, and as a result it did poorly in German. And since the scientologist movement is still alive, I can only imagine that anti-scientologist sentiment will strengthen.
---- Say thank you to Dr. Pickel
> You really have got to wonder about a cult that can scare the IRS into submission.
Not really. They just
a) moved all their money off-shore, outside the jurisdiction of the IRS (hence legally being external to the Internal Revenue Service), and
b) then adopted tactics of the IRS by spreading misinformation, fear, intimidation and harrassment. Of course paying off a few IRS people helped too.
What you have to be scared of is your friends and loved ones being brainwashed by the cult.
Cheers
When Scientology is outlawed, only outlaws will be Scientologists!
Oh. I guess that's already the case.
The article contains some more details:
- Diskkeeper has of course access to the full harddisk.
- c't could find no obvious hints that the software is spying.
- Of course you can only be sure when you have the source.
- Microsoft, it seems, has the code.
- Microsoft's Recommendation (to uninstall Diskkeeper) is not working. The files will be restored by the `System File Protection' (SFP).
It will be worth to wait for the translation. It will contain some more background information.Scientology agents are watching my house
Slashdot | Posted by CmdrTaco on 1999-0-0
from the just-because-you're-paranoid dept.
About twenty minutes ago, a gang of three Scientology agents collected outside Taco Mansions. They tried to harass one of my visitors when they arrived, telling them that I was hosting child pornography and was a convicted felon. If anyone's in the XXX area just now, you might like to come and look, they're on the corner of XXX and XXX. I've posted PNG images of them *here*. I could use some backup on this one.
Cheers,
CmdrTaco.
No, I don't think the Co$ would be stupid enough to try that one. The Commander is far from powerless.
--
Xenu loves you!
This is one of the main reasons that Germany is down on Scientology (that and some real estate scams by its members)
I've been a reader of /. for about 6 months. Normally everyone is honest, direct, and polite. What is up with this "Natalie Portman" thing? Where can I find a history lesson? Thanks
The central question about scientology is whether it is considered a church or not. While the US constitution protects basically everything that calls itself a church, this is not the case in many different countries. In germany scientology is not considered a church but an organisation with a clear financial purpose. However, there are laws that prohibit some form of moneymaking and scientology uses some of them. That's where the illegal stuff comes in.
You know, if they didn't have any, it might explain a few things :-)
Seriously, the Church of Scientology is a nasty group of people. I don't know how comfortable I am with a connection between them and the software platform virtually everyone has to use at some point.
D
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is here. That link has been obviously added later at the bottom of the original German article.
ahhh, i love americans. (yes, I am american too)
We're so ignorant about the world. Hmm, let me start. Firstly, the EU doesn't care if germany censors films, software, etc. They'd be delighted... two reasons: germany is the EU, and the EU stays away from domestic issues as to not piss off any of the member states.
"this amounts to state censorship, and should not be tolerated"
Well cowboys, germany ain't the good 'ol US. They have their own constitution. And it allows state censorship. And ask any german, they like it that way. *my god! they like it you say!* Yes, they like it. You cannot show a film in germany depicting nazis as good people for society. Nazis cannot organize anything. You cannot be a nazi. (it's legal but you won't live long)
"Also, do the German government intend to ban all John Travolta (or any other star related to the Scientologist) films?"
Well, at least you get relative freedom of religion here. But weather or not it's a religion is up to the government to decide. The church and state are not seperate here. There are 3 religion classes in the public schools. You can choose catholic, lutheran or neither/none (ethics). You must take one. If you want to be catholic or lutheran you pay a tax that goes to the church. Otherwise you don't get married or buried by them. I think the tax is a 2% income tax. *what's that you say? no seperation of church and state! my god!*
hmm. what else should we nice americans learn today? oh yeah. porn is legal. so is alcohol. A 16 year old can go to a grocery store and legally buy a condom, porn mag, beer and a pack of camels. And he can enjoy them too. But if the light doesn't work on his bike when he rides home the police will stop him, give him a ticket for the light and tell him to have a fun night.
Know a little about another society before you start saying what they can and can't do, would ya please?
Now if you would please excuse me, I'm going to eat dinner, go to the pub and have a good german ale. I'm 17 and it's legal.
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Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
The connection between the Psycho company and the software giant is sparkling wine-assigned the large churches a thorn in the eye.
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
I, for one, do believe that: when a user of xs4all in the Netherlands published a copy of the German forbidden radical-left magazine Radikal on his homepage, the German government instituted a ban to all of xs4all from Germany, which got widespread implementation, thereby also banning access to Dutch writer Karin Spainks anti-Scientology pages one the same site. So I don't see why a ban on Windoze Y2K would not be similarly accepted and followed. xs4all sued, but I can't remember the outcome.
The truth shall make you fret. (Ankh-Morpork tImes motto)
Much better to use the excellent free stuff from www.sysinternals.com for all of us who are stuck with at least one Windows machine at work.
>WTF do you think a democratic company ;-)
This is probably meant to mean "country".
>would ban a software because of the religion
>of its authors?
Yes, I think that is perfectly possible. (I am German, so I think I know something about German politics.)
Scientology is not regarded as a church in Germany but as a criminal organisation trying to subvert companies and governments.
Note that the article on heise.de is so far only talking about the opinion of a spokesperson of the catholic church.
But many companies and government agencies have a policy of not buying any services from companies that have connections to Scientology. This is because they are concerned they might get subverted by them. (Which is quite possible, just imagine such a person installing BackOrifice on a database server in a government agency.)
regards
Thomas
Would the Germans also ban software under the GPL written by Scientologists? I think it's a fairly safe bet that at least some GPLed code was written by one...
(This sounds like a non-tariff barrier, rather than a legitimate social concern. Unless the software is designed to convert people into Scientologists, or Nazis, or tree-huggers, I can't see any good reason to ban it.)
My Blog. Sela Ward can sell me long distanc
The Co$ is pretty much a terrorist cult that uses money, lawsuits, and worse to silence opposition. They basically prey on weak minded people and exploit them for money, work, you name it.
Basically, they are a corporation pretending to be a religion to get tax breaks. There are lots of sites on the net dealing with these people, the largest of which is Operation Clambake. An interesting note is that the Co$ distributes internet software to it's drones that have nearly all of these sites, newsgroups, and such filtered out.
Finkployd
Come on, people, let's be as intelligent as we think we are. If a company is run by a Mormon, does that make their software Mormon software? The US (mistakenly supposed to have been founded on principles of religious freedom -- it wasn't -- it was founded to let people practice their own flavor of persecution) has long been a hotbed of narrow and provincial thinking. The small town in which I was raised (in Michigan, not the south) was, until the 30s, restricted (no blacks, Jews, or Catholics, thank you.) It only changed because the law made it do so.
There are good and bad people in every company, country, and religion. Many religions look pretty cockeyed to one not raised within them. All religions look cockeyed to an atheist. Focus on purpose, not packaging.
Supposedly we hate M$ for their bloated and buggy software, not for their money. Yet the current DOJ action is money-motivated, not anything to do with either merchantibility or fitness of purpose, either of which might provide clear grounds for action against them.
I have German ancestry. Having said that, I can also say that my German grandfather was the most narrow-minded, hidebound, and opinionated man I knew while I was growing up. Does that make all Germans the same? Of course not.
On the matter of religion, I believe in a Creator. I do not believe in organized religion. I dislike Churches for the same reason I dislike M$ and governments: large organizations typically give rise to petty tyrants and corruption. In smaller organizations they have nowhere to hide while amassing their power.
Software is written by people, not by churches. From what I know, Executive Software is a company motivated by commercial desires, as is M$, as is Be, Inc., as is Red Hat. If we do not care about the religious beliefs of Bob Young, or of Jean Louis Gasee, why then should we care about the religious beliefs of Craig Jensen?
A mind is a terrible thing to waste. Let's not waste ours on the ignorance of persecution and paranoia.
--- Bill
We see that on the internet- unpopular groups
have their say, so that everyone can use it
openly and cheaply.
The German Government doesn't get what freedom
is about if this article is true.
Ah yes, the dark practices of the "Church" of Scientology. My high school German teacher had a great story about scientology. Back in his younger days, he angered the church enough that they declared him officially dead. So somewhere in the churches files, there is record of my teacher's death, even though he is quite alive to this day. (apparently he was supposed to die after they declared him dead... don't ask)
I dunno, people like that freak me out. The German govt. is right to be suspicious of them even if their measures may seem extreme at times.
As far as I know, the filesystem-inspecific optimization routines present in Windows NT had been written by Executive Software back for NT 3.51 Service Pack 2. From what I remember, to run Diskeeper on Windows NT 3.51 (or was it 3.5?), you needed to install an Executive-software specific kernel to replace the Microsoft-standard Windows NT kernel. The Executive Software kernel added a few NT-native function calls that talked directly to the filesystem drivers to move blocks of data around and return various statistics (the sort of which generally aren't of interest to software running atop to OS, but vital to the OS itself). Basically, it was a layer of abstraction that let priviledged processes talk to the FS drivers through a standard interface (sort-of like ioctl()IIRC, Microsoft thought that this was a good enough idea (so that someone else could also write a defragmenter for NT) to include in the Microsoft kernel in a certain service release of NT 3.51 (I think it was either SP2 or SP3). Those functions were carried over into Windows NT 4.0. So basically, all versions of Windows NT since 3.51 SPwhatever have had some code written by Executive, albeit not as much as a whole defragmenter. Why now is the German government upset? Is there a lines-of-code limit to how much Scientolgist-written code may exist within a product?
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
To me it seems a more than a little worrisome that a government wold try to suppress software just because of the religious belief of its programmers. I'm sure the Nazis thought they were justified in oppressing the Jews to. Oppressing religious freedom is the first step on a slippery slope. If the software works and people want to buy it than it should be available.
I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing star! -Nietzsche
Perhaps I was reading a different article than you, but where did it say anything about "[preventing] a threat to its very existence"? Methinks you're the one who has it all wrong.
at least on country has done the right thing and ban microsoft
Well, if Windows 2000 were banned, what would the German government use? Slackware? :)
http://www.livejournal.com/users/whiskeyjuvenile/
As Isaac Asimov said (in his autobio), L. Ron Hubbard should have stuck to Science Fiction. Some of it is pretty good. Asimov could already see that Scientology was a "bad thing". Personally, I only got about half-way through the scientology book before I concluded that these people were psuedo-science spouting lunatics.
And on another note, if you're lucky enough to have an NT workstation that is stable for several years without DisKeeper, you will be very happy you bought DisKeeper.
It was a no-brainer for MS to buy DisKeeper, or the rights to it or whatever. It's badly needed on any seriously active NT (FAT or NTFS) file system.
Please note.. this is about government 'banning' the use of w2k in ITS OWN OPERATIONS, not banning it from public use or from entering germany.
This is not much different than other corporations who have certain rules about what kind of software is permitted.
People, they are possibly banning the use of w2k in government operations, not banning it from sale in the country.
MOD UP the post above!
It has a REALLY smart database of phrases right now, since it's getting started.
But that's no reason to be against it.. it's just that it needs a lot more work.
However, in addition, it uses a simply phrase-replacement algorithm that I don't hope to much hope in...
Excuse me? Article #59 reads nothing of the sort, and is a perfectly legitimate statement (save the remark specifying the Germans).
The fact is that the United States doesn't "rule," and is just as fascist in certain areas.
The United States is better with regard to freedom of speech, and has not yet made illegal Nazism, Scientology, and other "questionable" beliefs.
heh obviously? Did they leave a hair or something? Or was their choice in few words a dead giveaway?
Suggestion for posts that are of interest only to masochists and (meta)-moderators. Use something like 3 strikes (3 independent deep six moderations) to effectively kill the post. Shouldn't use moderator points, but should be near unanimous agreement by meta-moderators.
#244, this has got to be a record for first posts!!! Fricking idiot!
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Subject: Deep Six (Score: -6)
got changed to (Score:1)
This time I'll try preview first.
Thanks, you just made my day.
Yeah, I'm starting to love Germans more and more! Forget about that little World War II thing. You guys are ok in my book! Hell, what am I saying, I'm part German!
Thanks, you just put it into perspective.
In fact I still attend 10 hours of church a week because I am forced to by my parents. I have gone to church my entire life and started truly questioning the church when i was 14. The false logic that our church uses is amazing.
M$ had said that NT4 didn't need to be defragmented, and people at the hospital where my dad works were instructed not to defrag their NT workstations (NTFS != VFAT and all that).
Unfortunately, NTFS needs to be defragged, which is a bug in NTFS, and M$ admitted as much by releasing a defrag utility. My dad found his workstation at work horribly defragged, and I do believe this did help with its performance...
But we users of Linux and Ext2 wouldn't know anything about that kind of problem, now would we?
Jeff
You can find the article ("Windows 2000 threatened by excommunication") at http://www.heise.de/ct/english/99/25/058/ . The German version of the complete article is at http://www.heise.de/ct/99/25/058".
- the guy is charged with the topict of sects.
The German Word for that is 'Sekte'. 'Sekt'
on the other hand is Champagne... so this is
a Babelfish error.
- The guy is just speculating. Don't hold
your breath. The regulation in question is
aimed at keeping dubious and untrustworthy
$cientology cover firm from doing government
related work. I doubt they apply it here.
This is nonsense as well. _The_ catholic
Church hasn't even a central Authority in
Germany.
It is just some guy charged with studying sects,
who is speculating.
McCarthy strikes back, but this time from a different angle, hehe.
Use The Source, Luke!
Another thing that is a problem with Scientologists retaliating is that once they've made up their minds, they won't change them... For example, I use Sixdegrees a lot (don't laugh!), and there is a Scientology Discussion Group there. At first I thought they were skeptics, but then I found out they were all bona fide Scienos... OK, so I put my foot in it with a few of my remarks, but eventually they were nice to me... Then this really annoying woman shows up, somehow reads my webpages, and decides I am publishing "bad-PR", and this other guy thinks they should report me to their high hegions...
It's so annoying!