Documents Unsealed in Microsoft/Caldera Case 79
Mirele writes "The Salt Lake Tribune reports in an article today that a lot of formerly secret documents that Microsoft had submitted in the now-settled Caldera case have been unsealed. These documents include a deposition by a former Microsoftie that indicated she had destroyed e-mail correspondence when urged to do so by her boss. They also show Microsoft's inclination to overdesignate documents as secret. The judge unsealed all but about 30 documents. "
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:1)
Back when I had points, I could have sworn that a post I marked as being ``Overrated'' ended up being marked as ``Troll''. Maybe those on-topic posts aren't marked as ``Troll'', but someone thinks that that it isn't worth the score it has.
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:1)
This would be sorta like the "employee's picks" section at video rental places.
Maybe I want to trust a group of "M$ hAterZ" picks and preferences more than the standard. You wouldn't need M2 for these postings. Give anyone in the goup unlimited group moderation points (which would not affect the real moderation scheme). Ideally, let anyone view the moderation history of a group.
This way comunities could form within a comunity. I could chose to read slashdot with a anti M$ view. You could even have a "Natalie Portman Hot grits petrified spargle MEEPT first post" group with any such post moderated up to 5...
Maybe I am on crack. Yeah, that's the ticket.
Re:I've got a secret minature document (Score:1)
Re:Will the internet change companies? (Score:1)
Uh, I don't think eToys's stock is low because of the etoy.com thing. Rather, eToys reported a high loss for Q4 of 99. (Losing 38 cents per share) (see http://q uote.fool.com/Snapshot/financials.asp?symbols=ETYS &currticker=ETYS [fool.com])
Re:Bills secret? (Score:1)
Microsoft Follows Open Source Model (Score:2)
1. Settle Early
2 Settle Quick
MRM
Re:A' Troll'? (Score:1)
I'm not so sure this is all past tense...
Is MS behind it somehow? Nahhh, I don't think so. If word got out that they were ordering employees to post on Slashdot, it would be more embarassment that they really don't want right now.
Would it be more or less embarassing than being caught commiting purjury?
Personally I doubt Microsoft would care about lowering their status amongst a group of people who don't have the highest opinion of them in the first place.
Re:Oversealing is a steganographic strategy (Score:2)
For instance, for where you are forbidden to hide something in the first place. Like these court documents. What was MS going to do, encrypt them with their key, and then place them into evidence? Talk about pissing off a judge. So the only way to use any kind of security was by hiding it out in the open, which is what stenography is.
Just spouting "Security by Obscurity" as the sole reason for something being a bad idea is quite simplistic.
Policy of sealing documents... (Score:1)
If they don't.. then how is it they get off sealing so many documents? If they seal them, who gets to see them? Only the company that owns them? If that's the case... then.. how does anything get accomplished? (Obviously, there has to be some sort of limit to this, or either the stipulations surrounding sealing documents has to be such that it's too much of a hassle unless you have as much paperwork as Microsoft.)
I guess what I'm saying is that, me not being a lawyer and all (or very familiar with legalities and such), I'm just wondering about the whole "sealing" stuff.
Thankie.
Re:JudgePagLIVR (Score:3)
I guess the answer could be so wartered down to this: If what is in those files shows the company/person is taking part in illegal activities then it should be 'okay'...
But then, in the fun of humanity, that brings up another question. Will the law enforcement actually stick to that? Will they just say "Oh, well, we thought there might be something on there damaging, guess we were wrong, sorry about the HD, you'll never see it again."
On the other hand, I'm not too sure if I would want the officals to have (or not have) the ability to take data on probable cause. That's just too sticky of a situation, and maybe can only be figured out on a per-situation basis.
Re:I've got a secret minature document (Score:1)
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:5)
I alwayd find posts like these funny. Being someone who likes MS (no, I don't agree with everything they've done, but I also don't think they are evil and the spawn of satan) and someone who has tried Linux and thinks it could be good given time to mature and if companies port software to it, I guess I am an MS FUD spreader. People seem to think the point of
Re:OK, turf the damn ACs! (Score:1)
Not all AC's suck. The ones that *DO* suck just happen to be exceptionally vocal. And as for IP banning, god no. I'm behind a transparent caching proxy, and if it's IP gets banned, I'm hosed. Despite me not being a Troll. And what about Dynamic IP's? Gonna ban an ISP for one Troll? Lets not go getting facist now.
Anyway.. Just browse at 1. Then again, most logged in users don't have anything to say either.. And browsing at 2 just gives you Karma Whores.. So the solution?
Don't worry so much about
solution (Score:1)
[ c h a d o k e r e ] [iastate.edu]
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:1)
However, I am a long-time participant in a mailing list that shares certain characteristics with this forum. The population of that forum is at least slightly above the norm in technical experience and is quite diverse in terms of the platforms used.
In that forum, I find that there's an informal cadre of MS defenders. Some, I believe, do argue from their perspective of the truth. That might be true of all of these people, in fact. But there is certainly an air of self-interest at play. When you ask an MSCE, expect to hear positive comments about MS products and environments.
This isn't universally true, thankfully. There is at least one MSCE in that forum that is as critical of MS products as others. In fact, his insights often prove quite interesting, given the "inside information" (at least, from the perspective of one such as myself that avoids MS products {8^) he can cite.
But remember that there are a lot of people that depend upon the universal acceptance of MS products for their financial well being. That may very well be behind the pro-MS postings read here.
Re:Oversealing is a steganographic strategy (Score:1)
I think the above poster was simply referring to legal maneuvering. The only alternative would be to have no security at all.
[ c h a d o k e r e ] [iastate.edu]
Re:Brokenwindows.net, a letter to Bob Rivers of KI (Score:1)
Intel is also part of techinal dark ages. I don't think they've screwed over as much people as Microsoft has, but still. I'm still wondering about the fast devlopment of the asus athlon mainboards. They went from not devloping a mainboard to shipping it in less than 24 hours. I've also heard stories about intel products not ariving on time to distributors who sell AMD products. Very strange... Brandon
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
"News for Nerds" has to be understood in context. Like it or not, there is an editorial bent to Slashdot. Articles are already posted by a non-secret cabal of people who are predominantly Open Source supporters who dislike and distrust Microsoft. These people clearly don't define people who have bought-in to the Microsoft Mindset as being Nerds. If you like and support Microsoft, in the minds of those who originally wrote "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." you are not a Geek, you're mainstream. There really is (or has been) a counter-culture element to Slashdot.
Actually, there's is pro-MS sentiment among the traditional Slashdot denizen, where MS supports Open Source or Open Standards. Even Bruce Perens supported MS in the recent AIM controversy. And, even a closed minded fanatic like me supports MS [slashdot.org] in their serious adoption of the Open XML Standard.
Unlike most other Media, Slashdot has an "Open Editorial Policy" that includes Moderators. These people also tend (although clearly less and less so) to be Open Source supporters who dislike and distrust Microsoft. This situation is not unfair. These people just have an opinion and a world-view. "Bias" is the perjorative term for people with a certain world-view.
One could just as easily accuse the Moderator who gave the 'Troll' Moderation originally as having a bias. After all, the humorous post that someone felt was a troll wasn't actually met with the flames you'd expect from a troll. That post was light humor that even the most rabid MS supporter would not take seriously. I think the Moderator just didn't like it and wanted to mark it down. If one wanted to put labels on opinions one might call that bias.
And the secret cabal wouldn't miss you at all, I'm sure. Hey, take heart, there's always comp.os.advocacy.windows!
Well, first of all, as I said, there already is in place a cabal of editors who support a certain Open Source/Anti-MS bent to articles. Every media has some editorial policy.
Now, let me say that I have to agree with others who've pointed out the problems with my half-baked idea of allowing a "secret cabal of Open Source Supporters as Moderators", but, once upon a time, the Moderators effectively were a small group of Open Source/Anti-MS people, yet dissent was fostered. Fostered enough that Moderators of opinions that went against the prevailing opinions were even eventually allowed.
There is a real potential problem here. MS supporters in the population at large greatly outnumber Open Source supporters, and they have more resources. As these MS supporters continue to find and colonize Slashdot, there is the possibility that Slashdot will lose it's distinctiveness and become just another ZDNet Talkback Forum.
I dunno. As I said, Slashdot was once run for, by and about Open Source Advocates. There was plenty of good technical discussion, lots of heated debate and less hot grits down the pants. You hear a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of Slashdot. I guess I'd be sad if I saw that Slashdot was becoming dominated by people who wanted to discuss fashion at the Emmy's or some other nonsense.
I'm sad now that I see so many flames that get moderated up whenever a Slashdot article poster states an honest and well-founded, but anti-MS opinion in the articles. Gee Microsoftheads, you've got just about every other Technical media locked down, must you have this one too?
-Jordan Henderson
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
I'm constantly seeing people saying "I'll probably be moderated into oblivion, but..." before a post supporting Microsoft, and yet I constantly see posts like the one above being moderated up! It's not like you can browse at a moderation level of 2 or 3 and not see anything but anti-ms FUD, people. The pro-MS voice *is* being heard on Slashdot.
Re:Chairman Bill's secret? (Score:1)
Re:OK, turf the damn ACs! (Score:1)
Anyone can get a free ISP account which assigns IP addresses dynamically. Their IP address would be different each time they logged in. Banning the IP address would be useless.
Re:Brokenwindows.net, a letter to Bob Rivers of KI (Score:1)
Re:Brokenwindows.net, a letter to Bob Rivers of KI (Score:2)
No offense to the poster, but if you don't want your posts to look like the one I'm replying to, learn some basic HTML formatting (or at least hit <ENTER>). Oh, and preview your posts.
To start a paragraph, use <p> and when it's done, use </p> (just a formality, really).
If you would like to emphasise a point, use <em> to start the emphatic part and end it with </em>. Do we see a pattern emerging?
<strong> is used to start a section of powerful text (couldn't think of a better word) and, of course, it is ended with </strong>.
Note: intelligent parsers and some search engines use the <em> and <strong> tags to find important words. The simple <b> (bold) and <i> (italic) tags don't have this effect. That, and a browser may decide to render emphatic or strong text with different techniques, depending on country, etc. (ie underline).
If you make a list of items, start each one with the <li> (list item) tag.
Sample HTML:
<P>This paragraph is <em>just a sample</em> of what you would type. The results are shown below.</P>
<strong>Note:</strong>
<li>How much nicer it is to read.
Results in:
This paragrah is just a sample of what you would type. The results are shown below.
Note:How much nicer it is to read.
Chairman Bill's secret? (Score:3)
Reichel had a personal relationship with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
If that's not disturbing, I don't know what is.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Re:What's the big secret? (Score:1)
What's the big secret? (Score:2)
I've got a secret minature document (Score:5)
hopefully this will shed a little light on the state of affairs . . .
Re:What's the big secret? (Score:1)
That's sthe secret: women, insects, and Chinese golf courses. I think you can all draw your own conclusions.
~~~~~~~~~
auntfloyd
Bills secret? (Score:1)
Remember, at the last Comdex he brought a microsoft staffer to dance with him instead of his wife. (!?) She must be at home 'with the kids'.
Theres some insight for ya.
A Theory (Score:4)
Other confidential evidence includes precicely what the woman in the photo was doing with the insect, and why "Customer Base" was etched on one wing.
It is, however, completely untrue that Microsoft was intending to file 2.5 solar masses of blank paper as confidential, which would have sucked the Caldera legal team into an artificial black hole. That was intended for the DOJ team.
From the article . . (Score:2)
"We want to be perfectly frank about it, Microsoft would have liked to have tried this case in secret because there's no question what's going to happen now, the sharks are circling out there, and this isn't going to be the only antitrust action that's going to be filed against Microsoft, at least if [media reports] are correct, there are just a lot of potential litigants out there waiting to pounce," he said.
That's interesting. After knowing of MSs behavior for years and years, it's good to see other people opening their eyes to what they've been up to.
What does it say of a company and it's buisness practises when "the sharks are circling" and, "[there are] a lot of potential litigants out there waiting to pounce."?
Some of you might blame the sharks who are circling, but where there's smoke, there's fire. MS wouldn't be atracting so many sharks if it wouldn't have left the water so bloody with destroyed companies.
What MS forgot is: In a growth market, a rising tide floats all boats.
_________________________
Re:Historical Information (Score:3)
But the question remains, what historical archive is there out there? Where can I find MS and NS press releases from 1996? Where does one go to find company histories?
What's interesting is, most of the time, the companies are the ones maintaining there own historical archive. Doesn't this make them their own historian? Wouldn't companies be free to exploit revisionist practices on their own actions? (perhaps a more informed (/.er) can point to me a resource I'm not aware of).
_________________________
A 'Troll'? (Score:1)
Now, you can look at it as a Troll if you squint just right, but it's still hard to fathom that something poking fun at Microsoft could be so moderated here.
It's not abuse, but it is disturbing. It looks like this place is changing. There is at least one frequent poster who posts with impunity from microsoft.com and is frequently, and usually validly IMO, moderated up. Now, there's really nothing evil or wrong about this. It's just that things are clearly changing.
Is it impossible that there's a coordinated PR offensive against Slashdot (and possibly other Open Source advocacy sites) by MS sympathizers? After the Holloween Memos, where the author openly fretted about what to do about Linux and Open Source, I wouldn't put anything past 'em.
Obligatory on-topic comment: With this story clearly showing that MS will do everything in their power to hide their true intentions, it's just not hard to believe that there is a coordinated PR attack going on.
Perhaps Moderation (and even Meta-Moderation) should be limited to a secret cabal who actually have demonstrated Open Source credentials rather than just posers (like me!). A lot of people would scream that this is unfair, but I don't see anything wrong with assuring that this place's editorial policy stays consistent over time.
Like it or not, Moderators do serve editorial functions and any media has a right to choose it's editors.
Of course, if this, admittedly drastic, step were taken I'm not sure that Meta Moderation would be needed at all.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
The problem is, that'd do the opposite.
Right now, there's a very large pool of moderators, and bad ones are drowned out in a sea of meta-moderation. (And if you meta-moderate, you will have noticed that it went from 90% bad moderation to 90+% good moderation over a few short months).
If your plan were implemented, you'd go to a much smaller pool of moderators, and many of them would be people who have demonstrated that they're much better at writing good code than they are at being impartial moderators.
Some of 'em engage in flames in every online discussion in which they participate, and some of 'em are over-responders, engaging in protracted threads in which they respond to every post made on a subject, abusing +1 bonuses the whole way (if they have them).
Do you want those guys being a significant fraction of the moderators? I can think of one Open Source coding god who can barely keep positive karma. I've moderated him down a time or two myself.
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:1)
Oh, poor baby. I'm sorry that you cannot stand to have your opinion challenged by someone with a different one.
The fact of the matter is, Slashdot is 99% Linux and Opensource positive. The 1% of the posts that disagree and even talk about positive things coming from Microsoft is hardly a "flood".
Any discussion, no matter how serious or important can only be improved by dissention. What's the point of a discussion if it's one-sided?
Some of us play devil's advocate. While I wouldn't call it a troll, these are most definately *NOT* black and white issues. There are shades of gray.
Microsoft is not 100% wrong or 100% evil. They do good things, and I for one don't believe that those good things should be washed away in the typical anti-MS propoganda.
+1 bonuses (Score:1)
My general rule is that if what I'm making a top-level comment on the story, and I think my Comment is not just a joke, or maybe not a real funny joke (why do I do it at all in this case?), I go ahead and take the +1 bonus. If I'm responding to something 2 or above, I leave the +1 Bonus in place. Otherwise, I remove the +1 bonus. Sometimes I forget to check 'No +1 Score Bonus' when I should by these criteria..
It is annoying when someone responds to a posting rated at 0 with a rating of 2 so that I (I assume that most people, like me, browse at 1 or above) see the response but not the original. Then, if I want the context I have to go check the below threshold Comments.
I often wish that 'No Score +1 Bonus' were the default.
I somewhat hope that this gets marked down as 'Offtopic'. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be many articles involving Moderation and Meta-Moderation lately so that we can vent these issues out. It seems like it sure is time for such an article with all the Moderator abuse I've seen lately. For example, the other day on the Mozilla M13 story there was a post that gave a link to the mirrors and someone marked it as 'Offtopic' (!?).
-Jordan Henderson
He who controls the past... (Score:2)
He who controls the past controls the future.
Re:Oversealing is a steganographic strategy (Score:2)
Also, a court seal isn't automatic. The judge has a right to ask how public disclosure of the information will harm the company, and he can't be overwhelmed by thousands of irrelevant claims. If he feels that the lawyers are trying to pull a fast one, he can start focusing their attention on the task by threatening sanctions against the lawyers individually or their client. (An example of the latter is a flat assertion that he'll only seal 100 documents, so the client should choose wisely.)
Judges are (wisely) hesitant to invoke these sanctions without overwhelming need, but they can consider a company's previous actions. If a company has had 80+% of its classified papers opened in previous cases, many judges will be hesitant to rubberstamp subsequent requests.
A 'Funny'! (Score:1)
Yes, my Comment does look pretty Funny in retrospect. Didn't mean it that way when I wrote it. It's pretty paranoid, all in all.
I never saw this use of a +1 Moderation to actually criticize a Comment before. Put me right in my place.
Sheesh, I seriously need to think about getting a life.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
I really don't think that
/. is becoming more mainstream and therefore less selective. People are posting that have no clue about Unix (a traditional nerd essential). They sometimes don't have the capacity to deal with a command line. Some have made poor decisions to go with the MS solution and must be pro-MS or they get burned.
Old school
MS flamewars are not what we need ( Although the "old school"
Just wanted to say
ed
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
Yes, Slashdot does seem to cater to Linux and Opensource stuff the most. However, it is first and foremost "news for nerds"... That's why we see stories about Processors, Satelites, Planets, and anything else.
Why should it be suprising that finally there's a less biased moderator out there who can mark someone as a troll for bashing microsoft? I personally dislike seeing posts marked up simply bcause the take a swipe at MSFT or say something good about Linux, regardless as to whether or not it's actually true or not.
The day that moderation falls into the hands of a "secret cabal with opensource credentials" is the day i never come back here again. Right now, this place is fun simply for the fact that there's a wide range of opinions and ideas. It would suffer horribly if people realized there was no point in disagreeing with anybody because the "secret cabal of moderators" would mark them down to -1, effectively out of sight.
Personally, when I moderate, I always look for the more intellegent comments coming from views that aren't the normal slashdot norm. the higher they're scored, the more people see them, and it generally starts a good discussion.
I've learned a lot here either from my replies to my comments and/or other discussions i didn't take place in, because two smart people with different views will post a string of comments poking holes in one anothers arguments. That's good. If it were the way you described it, it'd be simply a site dedicated to patting the backs of open source developers. How much fun would that be?
Re:OK, turf the damn ACs! (off-topic) (Score:1)
My personal settings are: browse at 1, show full comment at 2, no hard thresholds -- that way, if I find a reparented comment at 2, I can figure out why it's there.
Not all AC's suck. The ones that *DO* suck just happen to be exceptionally vocal.
And show no signs of stopping, sadly.
And as for IP banning, god no. I'm behind a transparent caching proxy, and if it's IP gets banned, I'm hosed. Despite me not being a Troll. And what about Dynamic IP's? Gonna ban an ISP for one Troll? Lets not go getting facist now.
I agree. The moderation and meta-moderation are supposed to be the community's way of policing itself. If you have a problem with a post, keep your "willing to moderate" option checked and maybe it'll come up. If you think a post was scored unfairly, make a habit of meta-moderating.
Anyway.. Just browse at 1. Then again, most logged in users don't have anything to say either.. And browsing at 2 just gives you Karma Whores.. So the solution?
I'm not a karma whore, and I suspect there are a lot fewer than the trolls might think. I just post what I post, and occasionally my stuff gets moderated. I've been moderated up, I've been moderated down; unlike the trolls, I don't waste a lot of time figuring out what to say to please / piss off "the Slashdot community".
Don't worry so much about
Best bet for trolls; if you're not a moderator, ignore them. They're not going anywhere, especially if people keep lavishing attention on them.
Jay (=
Re:+1 bonuses (Score:1)
Not that I know the "correct" answer but my impression is that taking the bonus is like awarding yourself an upward moderation. In other words, it should be used for posts that you think ought to be a +2 and moderators should knock it down if they disagree. I think the FAQ supports [slashdot.org] this view.
I often wish that 'No Score +1 Bonus' were the default.
I agree.
Brokenwindows.net, a letter to Bob Rivers of KISW (Score:3)
This says it all (Score:1)
IOW, Microsoft wants a legal shield to prevent its customers from realizing how shafted they got. Typical.
Re:Bills secret? (Score:1)
Will the internet change companies? (Score:5)
All of these companies have performed action that worked well in the file and forget media of the past. The actions of any of these companies would be forgotten a year from now if they were reported on TV, radio, newspapers, or even Time.
But that doesn't happen anymore. Now the articles tend to remain. Older article's can be stored in search engines, links to them persist. In the case of eToys, the personal "boycott eToys" web pages will probably be around for awhile.
I predict that the days companies can afford to overreact are limited. These actions by Microsoft will be remembered. Doubleclick's "please pull your article" blunder only increases the unfavorable press about them. DeCSS is now easier to find than Linux installation instructions.
The internet is different from conventional media in three ways: the target audience is larger, the speed of communication is faster, and the memory is more persistant.
Companies that want to survive in the long term will have to take this into account in the future. At $16 1/16 per share (down from $65, IPO @ $20), the lesson of eToys will need to be learned by everyone else. I expect to see "ads not provided by DoubleClick" messages under adspaces soon, especially with links pointed to news articles or /. stories. (not a bad idea for Andover)
And that kind of damage can last a long time.
-----
Oversealing is a steganographic strategy (Score:5)
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
Is MS behind it somehow? Nahhh, I don't think so. If word got out that they were ordering employees to post on Slashdot, it would be more embarassment that they really don't want right now.
It seems to me these are just people who genuinely like Microsoft/Windows, and feel much like missionaries among the Heathen Open-Source savages here on Slashdot.
Moderation? I've seen a lot of on-topic posts recently marked "Troll" or "Flamebait", which tells me we are getting some really bad moderators. Hopefully, M2 will weed some of them out.
JudgePagLIVR (Score:3)
So the question, again, becomes this: when does privacy end and obstruction of justice begin? We balk at governments for seizing peoples' laptops and webservers, yet we have a good laugh as we watch Microsoft scramble to burn all their documents. Is there really a difference?
Re:Bills secret? (Score:2)
Security through obscurity ? (Score:1)
This is an interesting legal move to help prevent leeking, but what it did for micros~1 is gave the prosocuter a stick to beat them with.
Like a boy crying wolf, MSs crys for help in keeping things secret go unheard when most the documents are just noise. I can't help but notice the simularity between this and the security through obscurity point made in the DeCSS story.
_________________________
Re:I've got a secret minature document (Score:2)
20. Preventing the Government from Intercepting Emails for Dummies
21. Why Bad Hair Cuts Make You Look Innocent in Court
22. Bug = Feature: A Technical Support Manual
23. Alpha = Final Release: Good for Business
24. Which Countries to Buy First
25. Why Inventing Stuff is Harder than "Borrowing" Others' Inventions
26. A Design for a Virus Which Replaces Linux with Windows and Bills for it Automatically
Re:Oversealing is a steganographic strategy (Score:1)
I thought we had already debunked this.
OK, turf the damn ACs! (Score:4)
I'm fed up with this kind of KRAP. Maybe heavy abusers should get their IP addresses published on the 'I fucked with slashdot' list. They might be a little less interested in wasting my time and everyone else's who wants to legitimately read other people's opinions on slashdot.
Other thought: I want an option to ignore all posts by ACs.
That's all.
Re:A 'Troll'? (Score:2)
Embarassment didn't seem to stop them here:
Microsoft Admits to Secretly Paying for Independent Ads [slashdot.org]
Remember they have billions and billions, so why not have a few stooges post online to help keep their stock prices up? Seems like a good idea to me, if I were in their shoes.