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Slashback: Net Neutrality, Bugged Coins, and Pawns

Posted by kdawson on Wed Jan 17, 2007 10:58 PM
from the correction-retraction-and-apology dept.
Slashback Education Government Networking Privacy The Almighty Buck The Courts News Politics
Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including: anti-Net-neutrality article modified; no bugged Canadian coins; a tech program for women in Silicon Valley; Pirate Bay and Sealand; and Microsoft evangelist apologizes for "pawns" comment. Read on for details.

Network neutrality. MobyDisk writes, "Network Performance Daily retracted last week's interview with Professor Christopher Yoo from Vanderbilt University Law School on his opposition to net-neutrality policies. The new article is a clearer, more subdued interview. The editor, Brian Boyko, says he never received Mr. Yoo's corrections to the article before press time. From the apology: 'The article had done him a disservice and we resolved to repair any inaccuracy or anything that would be unfair to his words or image.'"

Bugged Canadian coins. Lars T. writes in a journal article, "A recent Slashdot story asked: Bugged Canadian Coins?. Now The Globe and Mail has an update on the story — or rather the non-story. '[A] U.S. agency that investigated the complaint found no evidence of any secret transmitters, or of any other tampering. It's not clear why this information failed to find its way into the released U.S. Defense Security Service report.' So you can all pack in your tin-foil hats — at least that's what they want you to believe."

Engineering gender gap. Ellen Spertus writes, "Regarding the recent article The Hidden Engineering Gender Gap: Mills College has a post-baccalaureate program in computer science, which was recently written up in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. The program is co-ed, although the majority of students are female. Graduates of the program have successfully gone on to CS PhD programs and industry jobs."

Pirate Bay and Sealand. Kawahee writes, "Coming off previous coverage here of The Pirate Bay's intentions to purchase Sealand after it was put up for sale, The Pirate Bay has revealed on its website www.buysealand.com that it has entered into negotiations with Sealand. From the post: 'The Government of Sealand has initiated negotiation. Tomorrow, the ACFI and Government of Sealand will sit down in the SMTP chambers of the Internets to discuss the future of the micronation. We welcome the request and hopefully we can settle on a price. But knowing how hard non-kopimistic people can be to negotiate with, we will go with Plan B if they're not willing to meet our demands, press officer of ACFI says.' BuySealand.com is also now sporting a donation meter, and as of the 15th of January it stood at USD $13,714."

MS evangelist apologizes for "pawns" comment. gogat0rs writes "Former Microsoft Tech Evangelist James Plamondon, who made headlines this week when a 1996 speech he gave became public during a Microsoft antitrust trial in Iowa, has apologized to the Microsoft developer community for using a metaphor that described key industry influencers and developers as 'pawns.' Plamondon wrote that calling developers pawns was both offensive and inaccurate. He goes on to say, It mischaracterizes the mutually supportive relationship that must exist between a platform vendor and its platforms early adopters, such as that which Microsoft and independent software developers created in the 1990s. I regret having used the "pawns" metaphor; I apologize for any misplaced ill will it may have caused towards Microsoft; and I won't use it in [the] future.' Since the apology was issued, the full text of the Plamondon speech has been released as a public document on a Comes v. Microsoft website, along with 80 other exhibits."

+ -
story

Related Stories

[+] A Case for Non-Net-Neutrality 345 comments
boyko.at.netqos writes "Network Performance Daily has an in-depth interview with Professor Christopher Yoo from Vanderbilt University Law School on his opposition to Net-Neutrality policies. While some might disagree with his opinions, he lays out the case for non-neutrality in an informed and informative manner. From the interview: 'Akamai is able to provide service with lower latency and higher quality service, because they distribute the content. This provides greater protection against DoS attacks. It's a local storage solution instead of creating additional bandwidth, and it's a really interesting solution. Here's the rub ... Akamai is a commercial service and is only available to people who are willing to pay for it. If CNN.com pays for it, and MSNBC.com does not, CNN.com will get better service.'"
[+] Sealand Put Up For Sale 290 comments
antic writes "The Principality of Sealand is up for sale. The 550 square meter steel platform boasts "uninterrupted sea views", complete privacy and has been mentioned on Slashdot in the past for its offers of hosting outside the jurisdiction of (some) traditional laws."
[+] Your Rights Online: Developers As Pawns and One-Night Stands 268 comments
jcatcw writes "At the Comes vs. Microsoft antitrust case, last Friday's testimony included evidence that James Plamondon, a Microsoft technical evangelist, in a 1996 speech referred to independent software developers as 'pawns' and compared wooing them to trying to win over a one-night stand. Last week's proceedings also included testimony by Ronald Alepin, a former CTO at Fujitsu Software Corp. and currently an adviser to the law firm Morrison Foerster LLP. He said that Lotus 1-2-3 was killed, in part, by Microsoft encouraging Lotus's programmers to use the Windows API even though Microsoft's own developers found it too complicated to use." The plaintiffs have created a site that includes transcripts of testimony presented in the case.
[+] Bugged Canadian Coins? 354 comments
tundra_man writes "CBC has an article about RFID type devices in Canadian coins found on US Contractors. From the article: 'Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.' The report did not indicate what kinds of coins were involved."
[+] News: Pirate Bay to Purchase Sealand? 703 comments
paulraps writes "Notorious Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is planning to buy its own nation in an attempt to get around troublesome international copyright laws. The organization, the world's largest bit torrent tracker, has set its sights on Sealand, a former British naval platform in the North Sea that has been designated a 'micronation' and claims to be outside UK jurisdiction. With a target price of £500m it won't be cheap, but Pirate Bay says contributors will become honorary citizens."
[+] News: The Hidden Engineering Gender Gap 807 comments
ifindkarma writes "Joyce Park, CTO of invitation site Renkoo.com, has written a two-part essay exploring why there is no pipeline of self-taught female engineers entering the tech industry via Open Source or other individual efforts. In The Hidden Engineering Gap, she asks why there are so many self-taught male software engineers in startups, but no similar pool of women. In A Modest Proposal, she discusses a potential short-term fix to the problem: a one-year, co-op, certificate-granting program for women set up and sponsored by Silicon Valley companies." dgilik notes that his unscientific survey suggested that 93% of Linux users are male.
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Slashback: Net Neutrality, Bugged Coins, and Pawns 50 Comments More /

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  • whew (Score:5, Funny)

    by macadamia_harold (947445) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @11:01PM (#17658592) Homepage
    MS evangelist apologizes for "pawns" comment.

    I suppose that's better than an MS apologist evangelizing for the "pawns" comment.

    • Re:whew (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Alien54 (180860) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @11:29PM (#17658810) Journal
      But it accurately reflects what their attitudes was, and likely still is. They view people as pieces in their game. Which is well until people realise what is going on.

      • Re:whew (Score:5, Insightful)

        by grasshoppa (657393) <(skennedy) (at) (tpno-co.org)> on Thursday January 18 2007, @12:52AM (#17659364) Homepage
        But it accurately reflects what their attitudes was, and likely still is. They view people as pieces in their game. Which is well until people realise what is going on.

        Hate to break it to ya, but that's all business has ever been. MS is just blatant about it, but they are hardly the most blatant. We, as an industry, just find it offensive because on the whole, we are a rather naive bunch.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by fatphil (181876)
          I don't see how you can say that something that remained publicly unknown for 10 years, and then retracted when it became known, can be described as 'blatant'.

          Yes, it's obvious, as it's business. But MS were and are doing their best to try to pretend to be the friendly, helpful, forward-thinking face of the IT world, even if it's a complete fabrication.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by spun (1352)

          But it accurately reflects what their attitudes was, and likely still is. They view people as pieces in their game. Which is well until people realise what is going on.

          Hate to break it to ya, but that's all business has ever been. MS is just blatant about it, but they are hardly the most blatant. We, as an industry, just find it offensive because on the whole, we are a rather naive bunch.

          No, we find it offensive because it's actually offensive. The fact that "that's all business has ever been," does not ma

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by nmb3000 (741169)
        But it accurately reflects what their attitudes was, and likely still is.

        I would hazard a guess that most people won't even read the part of his speech where he compares ISVs (independent software vendors) to pawns.

        He wasn't saying the developers are pawns as in "worthless minions to do our evil bidding" or "clueless morons who can't make it without us". It was more of a chess analogy, saying that while each of the individual vendors/developers are not strong by themselves, when you take them as a group th
        • See the great-GP post.

          I kid, I kid... ;-)

        • He wasn't saying the developers are pawns as in "worthless minions to do our evil bidding" or "clueless morons who can't make it without us".
          Huh? It's quite clear what he's saying. Essentially he's saying that ISVs aren't partners with Microsoft, but companies that can be strategically set up to either be sacrificed for the greater good of Microsoft. Or maybe just used to gain competitive advantage.

          Gee.. why would any ISV be offended at being sacrificed or duped into a certain strategy that only helps M
        • But the chess analogy is precisely why it's offensive. Pawns are considered interchangeable, and the first things you sacrifice when it is to your advantage to do so. You put them in a position where they might gain an advantage (and you're happy to take the benefit of that if it happens) but where they're more likely to be squashed (indirectly gaining you advantage somewhere else).

          You don't sacrifice them for no reason, but they're the first under the bus when the time comes.
      • unfortunately, the mathematics of game theory I have seen so far does not seem to integrate the range of roles in a game
        • Game maker
        • Game player
        • Game player - low level
        • Game Piece
        • Broken Piece
        • Road Kill

        Of course, games are fractal, and there is a range of awareness/education that runs along side of this, going from the Clue Zone to the No Clue Zone

        One nice tidbit - when you know you are a piece, you have become a player on some level.

  • Yay! (Score:3, Funny)

    by numbski (515011) * <`numbski' `at' `hksilver.net'> on Wednesday January 17 2007, @11:02PM (#17658594) Homepage Journal
    All will be well with TBP...until the Ninjas come, and they will come [drmcninja.com].

    Arr mateys.

  • Plamondon corrected his "pawns" statement (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snarfangel (203258) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @11:07PM (#17658624) Homepage
    ...by saying "Actually, more like those little horsies that move in an 'L' shape."

  • $13,714? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Otter (3800)
    The price tag for Sealand is reported in the $1 billion [usnews.com] range -- a bit steep for a bunch of overgrown w4r3z kiddies, even with $13,714 kicked in by a bunch of undergrown w4r3z kiddies. Particularly since the whole "Sealand" thing is just an elaborate prank in the first place.
    • If I had anything close to Sealand's asking price, why would I want it? With that kind of money, you could probably negotiate with an impoverished country for the sale, including sovereignty, of a small island. I'd rather have a real island instead of an old, burned-out gun platform.

      • Re:$13,714? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by batquux (323697) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @11:45PM (#17658926)
        Or you could just buy all the movies, music, and software you wanted...
      • Sealand's sovereignty isn't even recognized...the UK government could take/destroy it whenever it felt like it. A decent warship could do the job before breakfast, and they would, as soon as it became anything more than a millionaire's toy.

        OTOH there's plenty of islands for sale where nobody will dispute their independence. Win-win.

        PS: Would you even bother with this sort of stuff if you had enough money to buy Sealand? I wouldn't, I'd buy my island and spend the rest of my life debauching on it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by thrillseeker (518224)
      The price tag for Sealand is reported in the $1 billion range

      They'll probably take an IOU and $20 cold hard cash.
    • The price tag for Sealand is reported in the $1 billion range

      Appropriately enough, that's in sea-dollars, which are really just Polaroids of Prince Roy with a denomination written on it with a Sharpie.
      • A single exposure of color polaroid film is about a dollar anyway [amazon.com]. That's 20 exposures for seventeen bucks and change and that doesn't include tax and shipping. Unless you're sure that you can make greater-than-one-dollar denominations, it won't save you anything :)

    • Now is that ever a silly idea! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by robbak (775424) on Wednesday January 17 2007, @11:53PM (#17658992) Homepage
      I do not think that basing any part of their operation in the United Kingdom would improve The Pirate Bay's lot. And, like it or not, HM Fort Roughs is in the United Kingdom, and is probably still property of the Crown. However, it is not (at this time) worth the Governments time to throw them off, especially as they are not doing anything blatently illegal. If ThePirateBay set up on HM Fort Roughs, the bobbys would be all over it like a rash.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by spune (715782)
        While this is no doubt what a thorough shake-down would resolve, such a shake-down has not yet occured and Sealand's sovereignty has not been disputed during its decades of existence. Additionally, Sealand claims that certain interactions it has undertaken with other nations constitute de facto international recognition. Until the UK gets pissed and tries to take out the tiny nation, your bold declarations are legally baseless. Remember, at the time of Sealand's proclamation of independence, the British mar

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by redcane (604255)
        They would have to overcome their own court precidents to do that. Considering the "bobbys" didn't show up when the German government appealed for intervention to the UK when sealand held some of it's citizens as Prisoners of War, I think they are in OK shape. That is also where the UK courts ruled they had no jurisdiction over sealand.

        • They would have to overcome their own court precidents to do that. Considering the "bobbys" didn't show up when the German government appealed for intervention to the UK when sealand held some of it's citizens as Prisoners of War, I think they are in OK shape. That is also where the UK courts ruled they had no jurisdiction over sealand.

          Funny thing is, he never held any Germans as PoWs. Unless he admits that his "Prime Minister" could never have been a Sealand citizen to begin with.

        • Or just send in the marines. Invade it, problem sorted.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by elrous0 (869638) *
          It's an rusty old anti-aircraft platform. Anyone could destroy it with a nerf gun, for Christ's sake!

          The only reason the UK has basically tolerated/ignored them is because, until now, it's just been a small family of crazy squatters living there.

          -Eric

    • Re:$13,714? (Score:5, Funny)

      by larry bagina (561269) on Thursday January 18 2007, @12:14AM (#17659130) Journal
      That's enough to pay for a boat rental, some shotguns, and a coup.
    • I'm sure even the people who currently "own" Sealand know that they will never get hundreds of millions of dollars for it. If you really want to start your own country and you have hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around, there are much better ways to go about it. There are many tiny island nations that have territorial claims to a lot of small, uninhabited islands. Many of these countries have GDPs in the low tens of millions of dollars. Tuvalu [wikipedia.org] comes immediately to mind, but there are plenty of oth
  • MS evangelist apologizes for "pawns" comment

    Hmmmm, 1996, are we sure he didn't mean pwned? I mean, someone had to be an 31337 pioneer.
  • First, a bunch of 'real' hackers wouldn't need to come up with the money. They could just havk away, steal the money, give it to sealand, take the deed, steal the money back, and be the better for it.

    #2; Wouldn't it be full of Sea-men at this point?> what about the families that live there? Would they be happy sailing with a Jolley-Rodger?? Or would they be allowed to be voted off the boat? Like survivor-cast-away thing?
  • A lot of people are going to read that "pawns" speech and, well, freak out. And he just goes on and on and on. Just when you think it couldn't get any more obnoxious...

    I couldn't even read half of it, I was laughing so hard. It's like listening to your drunk brother go on and on about how the wife that just dumped you was a lousy lay anyway.

    Definitely going to save this one.

  • I was kinda happy when I heard the original story...at least, with bugs in them, the Canadian dollar would be good for something.
  • "Tomorrow, the ACFI and Government of Sealand will sit down in the SMTP chambers of the Internets"

    Can we please stop using that "Internets" George Bush mistake - it 's so dumb it makes my head hurt. Please just scratch fingernails on blackboards instead.

    • Can we please stop using that "Internets" George Bush mistake - it 's so dumb it makes my head hurt. Please just scratch fingernails on blackboards instead.
      Very well! From now on, it is known as the Intertron!

      Or the Interblag [xkcd.com], whichever you prefer.
      • Or, you know, just talk about the tubes instead.
      • Can we please stop using that "Internets" George Bush mistake - it 's so dumb it makes my head hurt. Please just scratch fingernails on blackboards instead.

        Very well! From now on, it is known as the Intertron!
        Or the Interblag, whichever you prefer.

        I prefer "intertube" myself.

  • The 'new' Yoo article (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TubeSteak (669689) on Thursday January 18 2007, @01:25AM (#17659540) Journal
    /. has the wrong link
    here's the correct one
    http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/2007/01/cla rification_a_case_for_nonne_1.html [networkper...edaily.com]

    Here's Yoo's response to comments [networkper...edaily.com] that NPD graciously published to make up for it's original error.

    As an aside, IMO, it's poor form to pull the original article & substitute the revised one without explaining what the flawed portions of the original were.
    • I'm the editor of Network Performance Daily, and I agree.

      But the original article just simply was not fair to Prof. Yoo nor accurate as to what his views were, and although we debated whether or not to leave the original article up, we decided that it was best to our readers to take it down.

      However, I left my contact information up, and anyone who wants to e-mail me directly can request the original article so that they can see what was changed. I thought this was the most optimal solution to the problem.

      S
  • It's not clear why this information failed to find its way into the released U.S. Defense Security Service report.' So you can all pack in your tin-foil hats --

    Wouldn't that be tin-foil trousers?
    • Considering where most men do most of their thinking, I would say that it is appropriate... :)

  • Besides the "pawns" comments... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jesterzog (189797) on Thursday January 18 2007, @02:18AM (#17659846) Homepage Journal

    ...the speech is full of really interesting comments. I've only just skimmed it for now, and there are several highlights for me. eg. Page 26:

    But nonetheless, I mean, Windows 95 programming for Mac developers on the conference agenda at the Macworld Expo--I mean, you couldn't pay enough to get that. And all it cost me was some free software, and her husband had had a stroke and I sent her some articles about recent therapy and research in strokes, went to the library and looked it up. I had a problem with that one. I mean, that one was...you know, I care about her as a person, I've known her for years, you know, I was truly sorry that her husband had a strokel my grandmother died of a stroke. I was kind of interested in the topic. I went to the library anyway, I found this information. I was about to fax it to her, and I said, 'Wait a minute. This is, like, totally scummy. I know I'm doing this for a purpose!'"

    Page 27:

    "I've killed at least two Mac conferences. First there was hte Mac App Developers Conference. I was on hte Board of Directors of the Mac App Developers Association long ago, and after I left I worked to try to turn it into a cross-platform developers conference, and I did. I managed to make it...their last conference was very cross-platform, both Windows and Macintosh, which of course turned off their Macintosh audience; half of the conference was irrelevant to them. They didn't care about Windows. They were a bunch of Mac guys. Which diluted the value of the conference. And they didn't know how to advertise the Windows guys when the Windows guys showed up. So they lost money that year and the group folded. Oh well. One less channel of communication that Apple can use to reach its developers."

    Here's the funniest bit from page 32:

    "Don't look like you're trying to snooker them or something, and don't sound arrogant. Microsoft people have this...It is going to be presumed that you're an arrogant asshole until you prove otherwise. So be nice and polite on email."

    Page 37:

    Technical support. Well, you know, tech support costs money, but you can fudge a little on it. What I do is I promise people enhanced technical support, which means that they go through the normal technical support channels, and if PSS doesn't satisfy their need, then they send me the email thread of the service request, and then I'll send it around through the channels and say, hey, PSS, why didn't you solve this problem? The key thing there is that they have to send me the email thread of the service request, which means that PSS actually has to screw up for them to send this to me. They have to go through PSS first. PSS is very good, and so it doesn't usually happen. So I almost never have to deal with this, but it sounds great. Ooh, if you have a problem with PSS, escalate it to me. Cool.

    • Re:Besides the "pawns" comments... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by SaleNowOn (846913) on Thursday January 18 2007, @08:31AM (#17662280)
      "the speech is full of really interesting comments"

      Wow, That speech is just out there, really absorbing reading. Inside the mind of an Evangelist....its a frightening place.

      You read the article, then read the retraction and you realise his retraction and apology from a personal point of view would mean nothing to him, absolutely nothing at all. It would just be the best strategy to initially limit the damage and then work out the next move.

      Favourite Question is on page 26

      Different Speaker: I go back to my former question. How do you sleep at night ?
  • THat's what the Canadian Secret Service wants you to believe.
  • Surely there are enough Pirates in Pirate Bay to raise the Jolly Roger over Sealand!

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