Comments

• Needs Sunlight

  2009-10-31 15:37:53

  IIRC, Scoble was in charge of a team of astroturfers who had a search engine scanning forums for M$ related strings. If the string was used in a post, the astroturfers would rat-pack the poster. I remember spotting that phenomenon for a long time before the activities of Scoble and scum became known.
  
  Mono serves to make GNU/Linux look bad, to tie defectors back into the M$ quagmire, and to impede use of Java. In the long term, it probably is a way make all computer users pay M$ for using the computer.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-10-31 15:55:50

  Scoble took a a shot at my post about back doors in Windows. Of course, we now know that I was right and Scoble was wrong.

• your_friend

  2009-11-01 02:00:33

  Wow, what a sad rant. Scoble goes a long way to prove he does not know what he's talking about while trying to distract from the issue and facts. It is hard to read without cringing for him.
  
  A person who describes knowledge of programming and computer science as "a pissing match" should not then brag about having edited Visual Basic Programmer’s Journal. This is about as credible as saying you understand civil engineering because you have written about Tinker Toys.
  
  His next biggest mistake is defend himself by insult rather than focusing on the issue. Had he done some critical thinking of his own, he'd have concluded that the only evidence he had was Microsoft's word. That's worthless in general and particularly for backdoors. Because he could not point to source code, he resorted to distraction by calling a 24 year old PhD student rude.
  
  The biggest mistake is the hypocrisy of accusing Roy of having bad manners and being a poor advocate. Scoble's very selective quoting serves to hide prior history and, of course, he was wrong. Backdoors are one of the biggest reasons to avoid non free software. All of us should value our privacy the same way we value free speech and other basic rights. People like Scoble, who work for the rich and powerful, might not think he benefits from a free society but he is mistaken. The power to listen in on private conversations is the power to identify and neutralize your economic and political opponents. A society without dissidents is one that rapidly falls into greater tyranny and economic ruin. That free software happens to work better than non free software most of the time is a trivial concern for short sighted people.
  
  Apparently, Scoble's job at the time did not require him to be factual or get things right. The rest of us should conclude that doing 500 Microsoft interviews without preparing for a single one will leave you worse than ignorant, it will leave you missinformed and wrong headed.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-11-01 06:34:40

  And here is another link on this: http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2009/03/trusting-hardware.html

• your_friend

  2009-11-01 07:52:02

  FUD. Non free software is demonstrably treacherous and the only solution is free software. Knowledge of these things is not so much paranoia as trust in vendor supplied solutions is intentional ignorance.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-11-01 09:11:26

  They promise "security" in exchange for erosion of control. But it remains to be seen; it's like saying that cutting sharers off the Net would save the copyright cartel. In reality it doesn't work that way.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-11-01 00:30:47

  Do you have any links on this?

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-11-01 00:41:16

  The back doors? See many examples above (external references). Even Gartner admitted this a year after the Scoble rant.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-11-01 01:13:39

  I know, I am asking about the parent comment by Need Sunlight about astroturfing.

• Yuhong Bao

  2009-11-01 06:34:18

  And I h http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2009/03/trusting-hardware.html