Thanks for the suggestion. That's funny! I will do my best on all fronts at HP.

LOL, only only Slashdot.

If you can fix that one thing, you will have been a stunning success, for all else that it encompasses. ;-)

Cheers (and good luck!)

Every time a patent gets invalidated ... a developer gets their wings. :-P

There may be some things which truly are inventions, but so many software patents come down to "a system and methodology for doing something which has been done in the real world for decades, but on a computer". And then someone comes along and patents the exact same thing on a tablet. And on a cell phone. And soon, on an iWatch.

There's no net-new invention, just an implementation of something which has been seen before.

Since HP is apparently paying every tech news site include Slashdot not to mention their recent court ruling, I'll just leave this here:

Dude, what are you talking about?

It was on the frigging front page this morning, ZDNet, and a bunch of other places have covered it.

If you're gonna claim some kind of conspiracy theory, at least go with one that's plausible.

Maybe he can show HP how to do URLs instead of the gibberish ones they've been using for years.

Because I get the distinct impression that the URLs like "http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdHome?sp4ts.oid=3988164&ac.admitted=1410546638124.876444892.492883150" are caused by HP not really knowing how to do it.

Seriously, what the heck is h20565.www2????

Either this is a technology failure, or HP has been trying very hard to ensure that nobody could possibly find their documentation.

There's a strong chance these people are staffing a call centre that is hired by the true scammers and are following a script

Have you heard these calls before? Have you seen transcripts?

There is no conceivable way you could be doing that scam without knowing you're lying. They're asking for access to your computer, and showing you stuff they'd be able to see on their own computer. If any of these people believe they're doing magical cold-call tech support, they're so incredibly stupid as to deserve contempt.

There are some things, like the idiots I get calling to clean my ducts, who could possibly not know it's purely a scam ... but I still have no sympathy for them. I don't have sympathy for so called "legitimate" cold callers either -- because I've had several charities who despite being told to stop calling simply call back the next day.

For the people doing this specific computer tech support scam, by the time someone has taught you how to do it, you can't not know it's a scam.

Call me a cynic, but wouldn't nature of done

Call me a cynic, but shouldn't you have learned the difference between "of" and "have" by now?

The contraction " 've" (should've) is not the same as "of", and never has been.

*sigh* My grade school English teacher would be laughing at me right now. Now get off my damned lawn!!

OK, fair enough ... it's not charity though, and it's not an investment.

It's, what ... a no-strings attached one time gift with no expectation of return other than you'd like to see the idea come to fruition?

It has to be something more than "give me some free money". Yes, you may not make an ROI on it. But there has to be some controls on it.

Because other wise it would become a cesspool of people with stupid ideas they'll never implement to see if some idiot will throw money their way.

Because if you didn't have to show you'd done anything, people would just say "give me a zillion dollars to make something awesome", and then simply not make anything.

It's not charity, it's an investment. And if you have nothing to invest in, you get no money.

Is the expectation people should just get free money from Kick Starter because they can craft a couple of good paragraphs? Because, if so, I know where I'd be heading.

Having a prototype at least (in theory) demonstrates you've actually got something real and the ability to deliver on it.

So, yeah, no prototype == no money sounds reasonable, unless you want to have a separate section for things which are entirely vaporware but otherwise sound cool.

But who the hell is going to hand over huge sums of money to someone who hasn't yet done anything?

You're using a western mindset.

He's some impoverished guy in India desperate to make a few rupees from someone who, in his eyes, is very wealthy.

Well, that's NMFP ... he knows damned well that what he's doing is illegal, and would have no sympathy for me if I fell victim. He is certainly aware of the fact that he's not offering me a useful service. You couldn't possibly train someone to do that scam without explaining it to them.

So, he may well have convinced himself that there's no harm if he scams us a little.

But, I don't actually give a crap about his feelings.

If what he's doing is so noble and justified, call someone in India, see if they are interested.

From me, he gets a big "fuck off".

If he's expecting me to say "oh, gee, the poor cute little Indian is just trying to make a buck", he's sadly mistaken, and should expect the kind of animosity he gets.

I'm not sure. https://www.donotcall.gov/ [donotcall.gov] (620)867-5309

Well played.

I'm always surprised by how people can be scared into using this service.

Sadly, not everybody has a good working knowledge of computers, and don't have enough street-smarts to spot the clues of a scam.

Lots of older people who really don't know much about their computer, and are completely unaware this is an ongoing scam fall prey to it. They just think it's a nice person offering to solve a problem for them.

It's like any other form of spam or scam ... you only need a very small percentage of people to fall for it to be profitable. Especially since when you answer the phone it takes a few seconds for the auto-dialer to connect you with the guy on the other end. Because they're not calling you, a computer calls a zillion numbers, and then connects people who answer to the next available scammer.

So, if you know some older people who have computers, sit down with them and explain that the world (including the internet and the telephone) is full of lying, greedy bastards who are out to get you. It's like "stranger danger", but for adults.

Not everybody is as cynical and paranoid as people who work in IT. But you need to get them enough of both to not be victims.

I am continuously grateful that when my parents decided to get a computer I sat them down and had "the talk" (*) ... because they subsequently became people who could spot a scam on the phone from a mile away, and learned the kinds of things not to do on their computer.

(*) OK, I had to discretely have a separate talk with my father lest the lure of b00b1es caused him additional computer/wife problems. ;-)

Finally told him I had to go pick up my daughter and that I'd been screwing with him. He called me a "miserable son of a bitch" and hung up.

You know, the amazing thing is they feel they have a right to be angry.

Dude, you called me with the express intent of scamming me ... you seriously expect me to treat you like a human being?

I don't think so.

THEM: Hi this is Microsoft and...
US: hang up

And, if you're lucky enough to have a telephone which lets you block callers, you can do that.

Setting our home phone to drop calls from "Unknown" and "Private" callers killed a lot of this, and being able to block specific callers also helps. If you're calling me from a Private number, I'm not interested.

Of course, they just keep adding new fake numbers, so it's a losing battle.

I would say 95% of all of our incoming calls are crap ... it's gotten to the point if we don't know the number we don't bother answering.

I wish they'd prevent the ability to spoof caller id, because I get more scams calling with a fake caller ID, and I don't really care if a 'legitimate' business needs to do it ... because they represent such a small fraction of calls I get that I'm not prepared to accommodate them.

Look up the "clean hands doctrine". There's a reason that you don't see street gangs suing a drug supplier over a missing shipment....

Because they have guns and don't bother with the courts?

Crap, the Preview button is separated from the Submit, but I'm still an idiot. :-P