04.12.09
Does Microsoft Silence Dissent Against Vista 7?
“Someone from Microsoft emailed me,” said Vista 7 reviewer
“No other large companies as far as I know use their employees as attack dogs to silen[ce] dissent. It’s time for Microsoft to stop this nonsense.”
–The Prickly Prince From Microsoft Strikes Again
DaemonFC from the Boycott Novell channel has reviewed Vista 7 and demonstrated its serious problems. Others whom we hear from allege that Vista 7 is a huge marketing campaign which is fueled by many things including bribes. Watch what happens to critics of Vista 7.
The mention of Comcast could be interesting because of the Microsoft relationship [1, 2], but that’s a negligible or irrelevant part. Surely there will be some skeptics out there who will call DaemonFC “paranoid” and other such words . But we already know for a verifiable fact that Microsoft hires marketing agencies (or agencies that recruit people) for manipulation of information that’s presented in the press, the Web, and the journals.
Regarding smears and personal attacks, see:
- Microsoft Smear Campaigns in India: Watch and Be Disgusted
- OOXML Defeated Easily in India; Microsoft in Hot Water in New Zealand Over Smear Campaign
- “If you Can’t Deny the Truth, Run a Smear Campaign” (Updated)
- Bullying, Intimidation and Smears, Courtesy of Microsoft
- Microsoft Wants War: Starts Blatantly Attacking Critics with Cowardly Attacks via Employers
- Microsoft Launches “Get the Facts”-esque Smear Campaign Against ODF and OOXML’s Critics
- Smear Campaign Against Boycott Novell (Updated)
External links:
- Windows DRM: A Response to the Disinformation (Peter Gutmann)
- Life Is Complicated (Tim Bray)
- Intimidation (Pamela Jones)
- Ethics (Pamela Jones)
- A Microsoft Slur in the OOXML Saga — Did I Tell You or Did I Tell You? (Mathew Holloway)
- Microsoft Says Worker Wrote Smear of Rival
Regarding Microsoft’s (or Microsoft-funded) AstroTurfing, here are examples that are largely substantiated:
- LawMedia Group May be Another Confirmed Microsoft AstroTurfing Agency
- The Microsoft Connection with Dewey Square Group and DCI/New Media
- Microsoft ‘Bribes’ Mac Bloggers to Slam Apple, Gartner Hosts Google FUD
- Microsoft, TCS, DCI, Edelman, and Those Fake Letters About IP/SCO/Monopoly
- James Plamondon: Microsoft Guerrilla
- FullSIX and Mr. Youth LLC May Be Ruining the Web (AstroTurfing) on Microsoft’s Behalf
- Microsoft: 800 lb. Guerrilla
- Astroturfing Examples: Learning How Microsoft Tames the Internet
- Waggener Edstrom, Maureen O’Gara and Other Microsoft Shills
- Partial Index: Summary of Bribed Sites, Journalists, and Bloggers (Vista 7)
- Waggener-Edstrom Behind the 2008 Laptop Bribes, Edelman Behind 2006’s
- Manipulation, Astroturfing, and What Governments Can Do
- Beware the OOXML AstroTurfer: “The Wraith”, “multivac1”, “hAl”, Among Other Nyms
- Microsoft May Have Bribed India for OOXML Pressure
- Microsoft Has Been Rigging Votes/Polls for Ages
- Gary M. Stewart (aka “Flatfish”) About Microsoft AstroTurfing: “It’s made me A LOT of money….”
- Former Microsoft Shill Openly Confesses, Alleges Microsoft Still Does This
- Respecting AstroTurfers?
- Some New (But Very Old) Microsoft AstroTurfing Examples
- Joe Barr, Linux.com Editor – My Obituary
- Joe Barr Knew Microsoft’s Tactics All Too Well
- 66 Pages of Microsoft Evilness
- Another AstroTurf Scam Exposed?
- Quick Mention: Sony is AstroTurfing, Just Like Microsoft
- Microsoft Blast from the Past: Ads Banned for Spurring Violence
- Microsoft/Munchkin ‘Breaks’ the Web to Break Open Document Standards (Again)
- Rob Enderle Guarantees “Amazing Numbers”, Show E-mails to Microsoft
- Microsoft Agents from Waggener Edstrom Airbrush Wikipedia, Glorify Paymaster
- Microsoft Unleashes Proxies at Journalists to Defend Vulnerable Vista
- Microsoft’s OOXML Viral Marketing Reaches YouTube
Whenever people insist that it’s “just paranoia”, the stories above are worth revisiting. It’s not so easy to rub off the past and Microsoft does occasionally get caught. It’s a strategy, it’s not out-of-control employees. █
“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
ml2mst said,
April 12, 2009 at 10:45 am
Business as usual @ Mugabe$oft. How long does their gestapo gets away with it?
Cheers
Dan O'Brian said,
April 12, 2009 at 2:08 pm
So his only evidence that it’s Microsoft is that it comes from a bunch of anonymous Comcast-owned IPs in Minnesota?
He basically admits he doesn’t know who it is, so he concludes that it must be a Microsoft agent doing it. Wow, solid detective work there. Can’t argue with those “facts”.
Yfrwlf said,
April 13, 2009 at 2:39 am
Sure that’s pretty vague, but the fact is that it wouldn’t surprise anyone, because Microsoft and other companies do pay for propaganda, influence, and often flat out deceit/lies in every form in every way they can.
What I would like to see is someone actually taking the time to track them and try to go after them until they get somewhere. If you could track these companies down, perhaps landing some kind of lawsuit against them and their funders would be possible.
Dan O'Brian said,
April 13, 2009 at 8:13 am
Yfrwlf: my point was that until it’s proven that it’s Microsoft, it’s just libel. IMHO, that guy just wants attention. He’s got no facts to back up his accusations.
The only reason you believe it to be true is because you *want* to believe it to be true, because you hate Microsoft. If you were neutral, you wouldn’t believe it without actual proof. You are letting your bias influence your perception of the truth.
Yfrwlf said,
April 13, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Lol, I never said it was true, I said it wouldn’t be surprising if it was, and Microsoft and especially other larger corporations with lots of money DO pay “PR firms” to spread PR in all manners of forms, and astroturfing is one of those.
It’s like if someone said they were spoke to by some god, I’d probably immediately walk away knowing that that is most likely BS, but if someone said they felt the effects of gravity, then yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true and they really did feel the effect of gravity.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 13, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Yfrwlf,
DaemonFC said he did reverse DNS lookup.
Shane Coyle said,
April 13, 2009 at 5:04 pm
DaemonFC said he did reverse DNS lookup.
And?
I mean, did it resolve back to "1 Microsoft Way", or whatever their address is?
(I watched about 50 seconds of the video before I said "Yup, he sounds paranoid." and clicked stop, so I honestly don’t know the answer.)
Anyhow, I had for a while been receiving some nastygrams from time to time during the early days of BN, so I can certainly {sy|e}mpathize, and it certainly does not need to be tolerated nor condoned, but I think it’s a just a bit of a leap to think that MS is orchestrating it.
"Internet’s fulla crazies" (including "us"), that usually explains it.
I suppose I could be wrong, I’ll go ask the man with the parabolic mic parked out front in a van with Washington license plates if he’s aware of anyone assigned to DaemonFC, be back in a sec… ;^ )
Dan O'Brian said,
April 13, 2009 at 9:05 pm
RDNS just pointed to random Comcast home IP’s in Minnesota according to the video. No “One Microsoft Way”, no connection to any known Microsoft partners, nothing.
Paranoius Maximus.
Yfrwlf said,
April 16, 2009 at 4:40 pm
With the things many companies do, I don’t think it’s paranoid to wonder such things at all. Like I’ve said many times before, corporations like Microsoft do pay for PR firms, and those firms do put out positive publicity for their payers, and negative for others against their payers.
Proof is what is needed to really know for sure, I totally agree. Just remember Microsoft’s pockets are particularly deep along with many other of the large corps. They can afford to pay for propaganda and they do.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 16, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I put a question mark in the headline for a reason.