Bonum Certa Men Certa

More on 'Microsoft Agents' Pushing for OOXML (and What Digg.com Teaches Us About Them)

"MSFTers dust of the same FUD year in and year out. Each time it's trotted out, it's taken as the gospel truth by the media which appears to some how equate repetition with validity. That's the same crowd that can't assign appropriate weights to statements from broad industry consortium and a say-for-pay consulting firm."

--ItsSnakeOil, Digg user, 2 days ago



After posting about 14,000 comments in Digg.com I no longer take that Web site seriously. The site has changed a lot over the course of the past year. I may be the most prolific commenter there (among approximately 2 million registered users), but various abusive stalkers turned the site into a sordid chaos.

“They occupy a variety of popular sites covering technology.”It is very clear that those very same abusive characters have been doing the same thing for one decade or more, even before Digg was born and even back in the OS/2 days. Their names and monikers have remained identical and a bit of studying nets lots more evidence. They occupy a variety of popular sites covering technology. Particularly, they occupy Linux forums, which makes it a case of intrusion (also trolling). It's all simultaneous. They want influence and they systematically spread myths.

The names of the poster make it a fact, not a suspicion. They even admit this when questioned. Whether Microsoft pays these people and whether they work for Microsoft business partners is a totally separate question, so before the "paranoid" word comes up, it is worth clarifying this (more on a related subject is to come soon, but as a separate post).

The other day we mentioned a couple of Web sites, a slanderous blog and a family of recurring usernames that are used to assault ODF and praise OOXML. We may now have an update. One of these users, who for a fact runs the "ooxmlhoaxes" Web site, has posted the following link the other day.

The house inspector

robweird.wordpress.com — An amusing satirical story comparing the inspection of a house to the standardization process of OpenDocument

Submitted: 1 day 21 hr ago

Submitter: Multivac1


As you can see, this link is to a blog dedicated to personal attacks on Rob Weir, an IBM employee. It was posted by the user who runs "ooxmlhoaxes", which suggests that there is a connection, unless it is the same person.

After some bit of investigation, it turned out that hAl might not, after all, be the same person as Multivac1 or the person -- whoever it may be -- that runs the slanderous blog. They might be coordinating some things as a group, but there are separate individuals involved.

“A little quick experiment seemed to reveal that the slanderous blog might be managed by a person who works via zombies PCs or a proxy, indicating need for anonymity and obfuscation of digital traces. ”A little quick experiment seemed to reveal that the slanderous blog might be managed by a person who works via zombies PCs or a proxy, indicating need for anonymity and obfuscation of digital traces. Why be so afraid of promoting Microsoft's agenda? This sounded familiar, even without quick tests.

Attacks on ODF (or a case of defending OOXML) seem common in Slashdot, USENET and other such places especially when the poster is either anonymous and/or uses a known honeypot (as documented in sites whose purpose is to track of such IP addresses).

There are those who go by full names (pseudo-nyms are a possibility though). Examples include a person who goes by the name "Tim Smith" (or username harlowmonkeys, sometimes harlow-monkeys), seemingly a Microsoft partner in business. Included in the messages are endless personal attacks against myself, not just ODF. Seemingly from the UK (he denies this after obsessive stalking by him, which went on for months before polite warnings were sent), he keeps very active in anti-ODF and pro-OOXML in USENET and in Digg. Example from days ago:

There are some more details about personal attacks at Digg specifically in my personal blog if you are curious, as well as in some updates here, but again, BoycottNovell is not a personal site, so let's not make it so.

To Microsoft, the week of the BRM has billions of dollars in stake and -- rather questionably without a doubt -- Microsoft's survival as well, based on what some analysts seem to suggest. As the following article explains very clearly, Microsoft could lose entire nations without an ISO.

If the ISO does not approve the OOXML format, Microsoft might be forced to rethink its strategy around document formats if it wants government IT contracts


To repeat a recently-cited comment from Slashdot:

How 'Firm' Would You Stand For 20 Billion A Year?



I believe Microsoft made 5 billion in revenue from having customers worldwide locked into their proprietary office document format.

The vendor lockin from Office makes up almost half the company's yearly revenue.

Microsoft would cease to exist as we know it if the office document lockin revenue went away to an open format.

Fight? LOL! This is the type of sh*t Microsoft execs live for.

Fake grassroots efforts. Standards body subversion. Paid for media shills. Shame studies. Mysterious compatibility problems with the competition.

All in a days work.


Judge for yourself and decide how far Microsoft has been willing to go. Presented here were mainly facts.

Recent Techrights' Posts

[Video] Richard Stallman's Talk in Sweden, Attended by Nearly 700 People, is Now Online
The Web page is in Swedish, but the talk is in English
Coping With the Site Going More Mainstream
Fame is no laughing matter
21 Pages in Less Than 7 Hours is No Joking Matter
We've become a lot more effective and efficient
Generation Chaff - Phase V: Censorship of Dissent (Painted as Harassment or Terrorism)
Censorship is all around us now
Generation Chaff - Phase IV: Apps Only Few Companies Decide On
Tools are being collectively confiscated, under the premise or false prospect of "security"
 
The Serial Slopper Starts Up - or Restarts - His Plagiarism Machine (LLMs)
Serial Sloppers like these don't belong in news sites. That's why he got sacked by BetaNews.
Links 24/10/2025: Esperanto Music History, Anxiety, and New Portals
Links for the day
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity.com, Linux Journal, and Pet Slopfarms of Google News
Why does Google News still advance these fake sites to the top of search results?
Links 24/10/2025: Inequality Grows, Billion-Dollar Scam Center Industry
Links for the day
Links 24/10/2025: "Independent Media in Cambodia is Collapsing" and Serious F5 Breach
Links for the day
They Never 'Put Down' Corporations
There are "pests" that are traded in Wall Street
Correct Information is a Valued Asset in the Age of Slopfarms and Public Relations (PR) or Spin
Publishing suppressed facts is never easy
The Register MS Continues to Bag Money to Promote a Ponzi Scheme, Even Money From China
Today in the front page
analytics.usa.gov: The Only Supported Version of Windows (This Past Week) is Only Used by About 13.9% of People in the US, the Home Base of Windows
Even Vista 7 is still used more
Rust is Very Secure
If only Rust itself is secure
Who Will be Held Accountable for Breaking Ubuntu by Imposing Rust on Otherwise-Functional Programs, in Effect Replacing GNU With Proprietary Microsoft (GitHub)?
they're practical people who merely point out that a bunch of buffoons not only ruin Ubuntu but also every future distro based on Ubuntu
Generation Chaff - Phase VIII: In Summary
Like "Science" with a capital "S", what we see here commercial interests usurping everything
Generation Chaff - Phase VII: Curtailing Alternative Media
There was always an obligation - a collective duty of sorts - to uphold independent journalism
Generation Chaff - Phase VI: Centralisation of Information (X, Cheetok/Fentanylware)
Would you trust information when controlled by such people?
Generation Chaff - Phase III: Slop and Plagiarism
A lot of the current so-called 'economy' is built upon false valuations
Generation Chaff - Phase II: "Cloud", Blockchains and Other Hype
For those of us who turned down those propositions there was a struggle; we needed to justify not having skinnerboxes or "social" accounts in some site run by a private company
Generation Chaff - Phase I: Social Control Media
IRC predates the Web
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 23, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 23, 2025
More Clues Shed on Collapse of Microsoft XBox
XBox is basically circling down the drain as Microsoft implements 2-3 waves of layoffs each month
'Vibe Coding' Doesn't Work
In a lot of ways, so-called 'Vibe Coding' is already considered vapourware or a passing fad promoted in the media by managers who try to justify mass layoffs, especially ridding companies of "very expensive" software engineers
Links 24/10/2025: Microsoft's Killing of XBox Connected to Revenue/Profit Problems, "How Elon Musk Ruined Twitter"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/10/2025: 86,400 Seconds and "Society's Task"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Google News and Slopfarms That Relay Nonsense From LLMs
Google News, which once prioritised or used to care about provenance and quality, is feeding slopfarms
Links 23/10/2025: More Health Concerns Over Dumb Chatbots (LLMs) and "Talking Cars" as Latest Buzz
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Daylight Savings Time and Duration Shorthand
Links for the day
Links 23/10/2025: LLM 'Hallucinations' (Defects) in Practical Code 'Generation', China Becomes More Economically and Technologically Independent
Links for the day
Why We Support Richard Stallman and You Probably Should Too
It's not about being "Richard Stallman fan", it is about maintaining the right to hold positions (on technology) like his
Linux Foundation Uses LLM Slop to Promote Microsoft in Linux.com (Again), Rendering It a Linux-Hostile Slopfarm
Openwashing with slop by "Linux.com Editorial Staff", which basically seems to be a bot
Some Large German Media Covers Richard Stallman's Talks in Germany Earlier This Week
LLM-based chatbots are just "bullshit generators" (as he has long called them)
Links 23/10/2025: Windows TCO Galore and "The Internet Is Going to Break Again"
Links for the day
Trouble in Red Hat/IBM and a Retreat to Ponzi Economics in Search of Wall Street Market Heist
Would you invest your life savings in this kind of crap?
Who Asked Software in the Public Interest (SPI) for a Refund? ($100,000, Resulting in Losses of $267,201 in 12 Months, Highest-Ever Losses)
The IRS does not reveal who or what's tied to this refund (or the cause/reason)
Social engineering attack: Debian voted to trick you on binary blobs
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Techrights Will Always Stand for Women's Rights
We even invest money - personal savings that it - in our principles
Certified Lawyers Should Know Better (Than to Intimidate Us With Man Who Drives on Motorcycle Through a Really Bad Storm Between Distant Cities, Then Collects Photos of Our Home)
Mentioning someone was in prison for bad things isn't a crime, it's a public service
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble is Already Imploding
"ChatGPT Usage Has Peaked and Is Now Declining, New Data Finds"
The So-called "Sexy" Buckets (AI, Quantum) Cannot Save IBM From Reality, Shares Tank
"No matter how much financial hocus-pocus they use to reclassify revenues to land in the "sexy" buckets (AI, Quantum), it still smells old and musty - just like this company."
Paul Krugman is Wrong About the Scope of Mass Layoffs in the United States
A few years ago society was accelerating its journey towards feudalism, boosted by COVID-19
Links 23/10/2025: Proprietary Blunders and CISA's Latest Disclosure of Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/10/2025: Fast Past (F1), 99.9% Uptime
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Slopwatch: Google News is Promoting Fake 'Articles' About Fake Xubuntu, Fake Articles About Replacing Windows With GNU/Linux
The quality of the Web deteriorates and unless someone cleans up the mess, real sites will lose an incentive to produce anything
When "AI Layoffs" Mean Layoffs Due to the "AI" Bubble Popping
many people that are laid off by Microsoft claim to be specialists in "AI"
Mysterious grant forfeited, $100,000 from Software in the Public Interest accounts 2023
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: bullying, student union behaviour: Armijn Hemel's FSFE resignation
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Evidence: psychological abuse, stalking, Galia Mancheva, Susanne Eiswirt ignored by FSFE judgment for Matthias Kirschner
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Helping FSFE scam victims and conference organisers
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Nigerian fraud in FSFE constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Worrying and Amusing Stories of "Clown Computing" Gone Awry
Many of these disasters could be avoided
Links 22/10/2025: Amazon Plans to Replace Workers With Robotics, AWS and Clown Computing in General Ridiculed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/10/2025: Niri Completely Changes Multitasking and Overview of Diff-ers
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2025: Study on Misinformation by Slop and Heavily Debt-Sabbled Microsoft OpenAI (ClosedSlop) Uses "Browser" as Gimmick/Distraction
Links for the day
They've Already Spent Close to a Million Dollars on Lawyers and Sent Us About 50 KG of Legal Papers (Sponsored by Mysterious Third Party) to Try to Censor Techrights, Without Success
They try to overcompensate with sheer volume for a lack of solid, clear arguments (we are the victims here)
12 Months Ago the 'Hulk Hogan of UEFI' Officially Went 'Tag-Team'
We're actually sort of flattered or proud that such despicable people are so desperate to censor us
"Cloud Computing" Was Always a Joke, But This Week Was the Punchline
Maybe stop following tech trends and fashions
"Cloud Computing" Does Not Mean Safety
Fault tolerance is related to the notion of software freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 21, 2025
The Fall of Windows: From Something to Nothing
Of course Microsoft will pretend everything is fine and "just trust the hey hi" (AI)