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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.
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)
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$.
Of course, I'm sure there are some Linux contributors who are scientologists, but I guess the regulation concerns companies.
BTW, what does Win2000 need a defragmentor for? I thought disk fragmentation was cracked long before journalling and b-trees hit the agenda.
Your answers seem to imply that Windows 2000 will probably banned by Germany. But that is not the case, it's just a report of a German computer magazine (Heise) that the Catholic church is about to ban Windows 2000 for that.
;-)
Actually I personally ban Windows at all - from my personal computers. Although I still have to use that OS at work. But that's another story
Bright Blessings
Mika
I think you refer to the german section
> Die Verbindung zwischen dem Psycho-Konzern und
> dem Softwareriesen ist Sektenbeauftragten der
> großen Kirchen ein Dorn im Auge.
Now the german word for "sparkling wine" is "Sekt", as opposed to german "Sekte" (note the additional "e") which means "sect".
The mentioned "Sektenbeauftragen" are people who observe said sects. In this case, they are employees of the (catholic/protestant) church.
So sorry, no alcohol this time. Just religion (which - as we now - is opium for the masses, not a bad deal, huh?).
CMBurns, german by nature.
The Co$ 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
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
This is because Scientology is perceived in Germany neither as a church, nor as a sect, but as an organisation threatening the democratic system in germany. They are observed
by the german "Verfassungsschutz" and aswered this with a public relations campaign, even drawing parallels to the persecution of Jews in the Third Reich.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
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.
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.
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.
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
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
See some of these links to understand some of the views
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
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)
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.
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.
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.
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
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 agree. The MMC sucks big time. It's probably one of the most disappointing things about Win2k. The old tools like WinDisk and such are now tied into that load of bloat, making the tool run slower for no good reason. And the startup time is VERY annoying as well.
More Microsoft bloat with no useful gain.
For those who may want an accurate translation of the article, view this article from the authors of the article: Translation Link.
The one factor that made me hesitate 'bout that is that this will screen out *all* non-moderated AC posts -- which often seem to be ignored by moderators in favor of sometimes less worthy non-anonymous posts, despite the fact that some *do* deserve to be upped...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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.
> 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
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)
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.
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?
It's been explained in a few other threads, but just in case you missed them, here's what happened:
Humour site Segfault recently had to disable user comments because the system was being abused; a number of people were posting obscene comments about Natalie Portman and Mae Ling Mak. Every story on Segfault ended up with obscene comments attached to it.
Because Segfault no longer allows commenting, the idiots who posted such comments appear to have migrated en masse to this site. At least we have moderators who can do something about this abuse.
-Stephen (who had never even heard of Mae Ling Mak before the Segfault fiasco, and still hasn't got a clue who she is)
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)
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
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...