11.28.08
Respecting AstroTurfers?
Smears and Vested Interests
Our frustration and criticisms in this Web site are directed mostly at Microsoft’s management, which is increasingly mirrored in Novell’s (because of staff changes). On numerous occasions we were contacted by Novell engineers, but never by the management. Microsoft never formally corresponded with us directly regarding this Web site.
Frequent anonymous flamings and smear campaigns would be considered informal communications. They sometimes come from Microsoft employee (past and present). We encourage readers to consider Web scrubbings, as once described by Bruce Perens. This one page describes how they wrote to professors to discredit and cause trouble to yours sincerely. Those were not formal communications and some are impossible to associate with a particular company.
Microsoft’s habis of AstroTurfing are not a myth but a reality. It goes a long way back and it is well documented, for example:
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
From: jmur…@shell.portal.com (John – Murphy)
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 1994 18:49:10 GMT
Local: Sun, Mar 20 1994 6:49 pm
Subject: Newspaper exposes “Steve Barkto” as MS agent
Sunday, March 20, the San Jose Mercury News published a front page article on the agent provocatour, alias, Steve Barkto. The article quotes William Zachmann as saying he tracked down Mr. “Barkto” on his Compuserve forum, after this new member made disparaging remarks about IBM, and in particular, OS/2.
Mr. “Barkto” is not a major customer of IBM, but an employee or agent of Microsoft. The account which this mole used, was paid for by the good old folks at MS.
I wrote an letter to Congressman Norm Mineta (D-San Jose) asking that the U.S. Dept. of Justice look into unfair trade practices of MS. In particular, the relationship between computer system manufactures, and MS.
I wonder how many messages we get on this USENET and others, that originate from the corporate headquarters of Microsoft?
John Murphy
Commerical Brokers Insurance
San Jose, CA
More examples of this can be found here. █
Tim said,
November 29, 2008 at 3:11 am
LOL
Needs Sunlight said,
November 29, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Here’s a reprint of a 1994 article on the topic written by the late Joe Barr:
http://lists.essential.org/1998/am-info/msg01529.html
Interestingly he was able to spot MS’ jihad early on.