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Microsoft Biotech

Microsoft Infected by Virus 494

Posted by CowboyNeal from the cough-cough dept.
Vicissidude writes "It appears that a Microsoft worker returning from overseas brought back a case of Measles with them. In fact, they had been back, working, and spreading the disease at Microsoft and other places in Redmond for at least four days prior to being discovered. Somehow I do not think that Microsoft included in their cost-benefit analysis of offshoring the potential wide-spread infection of their company. Perhaps they should include that risk in the future."
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Microsoft Infected by Virus More

Microsoft Infected by Virus

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  • What a ridiculous beatup (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Saven Marek ( 739395 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:19AM (#13405105)
    I hate microsoft with a passion. They suck. I irrationally loathe the company, their products, and everything they stand for.

    and even *I* can see that this is a bullshit article, a beatup of ridiculous proportions. Stupidest. Slashdot. Article. Ever.

  • I hate offshoring as much as the next guy . . . (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) * on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:20AM (#13405110)
    . . . but are we to believe that, if it weren't for offshoring, none of the tens of thousands of microsoft employees working in this country would ever go outside of the country - even overseas - and possibly bring back a flue or a cold or the mumps or something?

    Also, how do you bring back the measles? Aren't we inocculated against measles when you're maybe six years old?
    • I've a solution for this: Offshore all IT operations to India.. so there'll be no travel.. no risk.

  • TFA is a troll. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rylin ( 688457 )
    CowboyNeal: fuck you for posting this shit.
    I'm sure you've got dozens of more newsworthy articles to post - hell, even dupes have more journalistic integrity than this POS.

  • No, blame the terrorists (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:21AM (#13405117) Homepage
    What on earth has off-shoring got to do with this? People travel. People go on holiday. People work overseas. People exchange exotic diseases. It's hardly a feature of modern business practices.

  • Taking a Lesson from Captain Janeway (Score:3, Funny)

    by Quirk ( 36086 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:22AM (#13405119) Homepage Journal
    Could this be a viral attack on the Borg collective?

    And Bill Gates thought OS was viral.

  • Why not me? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kaorimoch ( 858523 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:24AM (#13405139) Journal
    I got a flu from some guy at work yesterday and Slashdot ignored my story submission about it. Not much difference really, is it?

  • Be proud, Vicissidude (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KingPrad ( 518495 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:27AM (#13405157)
    Way to go poster, this is a new low. You're actually gloating because an employee at Microsoft is ill and maybe spread it around. I think you've lost your sense of proportion. When you're laughing at a company because the day-in day-out engineers and accountants and other working folks are ill because you have a grudge against the company, that's fucked up.

    Vicissidude, You're a nut. And so is CowboyNeal for posting this crap.
    • Yup. Slashdot bookmark deleted.
    • Exactly, however evil Microsoft as a corporation is, its workers are still people. Being pleased or finding it amusing that people have gotten infected with a potentially harmful disease is just lame dude.
    • > Way to go poster, this is a new low.

      Actually I find it a very important article.

      Not as it seems to "bash Microsoft" (and then I could not care less) but because it might wake my North American friends up to the fact that there are these things called "diseases" out there in the real world and that "yes, unbelievable or not" Americans can contract them and die from them.

      You think I am joking?

      I remember talking to my family doctor in his 60s, a few years back before he died. We were talking about infecti
      • I had the same thoughts. But Slashdot tonight is full of the most mindless sorts that have chosen to read an otherwise innocuous article as an attack on whatever they seem to be supporting.

      • WTF (Score:3, Insightful)

        by xstonedogx ( 814876 )
        This is one of the shortest articles in /. history and no one seems to be able to read it. You are right that the article is important, but what you've posted has nothing to do with the article. The article is important because it lets people - who may or may not be immunized - know that they may have been exposed to the virus. That's it.

        An outbreak of measles is incredibly rare in the "west". Can someone please explain to me how one of the U.S.A.s most important companies just suffered an outbreak?
      • People are astounded when I mention that I have relatives that have caught Dengue Fever. A (mostly) disease free society makes most people think that diseases are things that only exist somewhere else. You know, like in jungles in third world countries.

        Americans do immunise thier children, it's almost impossible to admit your child to any school without immunization records.

        However, not all people in the US grew up here. I'd wager that there's some HB1 visa workers at Microsoft, as there are in most larg

  • Am I the only one to think (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 2Bits ( 167227 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:31AM (#13405179)
    that ./ has been putting up too much of stuffs that don't matter at all?

    Come on editors, there are too many cool technologies, articles, hacks, etc, submitted but rejected, and then what we see is this kind of junk.

    Gee, jesus died for us and all we got is this lousy FA.

    • Re:Am I the only one to think (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jaruzel ( 804522 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:01AM (#13405317) Homepage Journal
      Y'know, it's all our fault.

      No matter how low and crummy /. articles become, we will still flock here, several times a day, to read said crummy and low articles. Then we will all bitch about it in the comments for several days afterwards.

      Now I _know_ I'm going to get flamed for this, but the /. editors are now running /. as if it were Microsoft; fobbing us off with sub-standard products and expecting us to be grateful, time and time again.

      Henceforth I now declare /. to be known as MSSlashdot. Expect an increase in factually incorrect badly typed articles to be posted before they are finished, only to be 'hotfixed' several days later when nobody really cares anymore.

      And to show that I'm kidding (but only slightly)...

      "I for one welcome our new http://slashdot.microsoft.com/ [microsoft.com] overlords."

      -Jar
  • Aren't people supposed to have had measels as kids and be done with it?

    Or was that virus spreading among the developers of their next OS: Bob [toastytech.com] II, which is to follow Vista?
    • Not since the MMR jab started floating around. With the majority taking the jab, there is no longer a pool of infection in schools, etc. There is a minority who don't have the jab and rely on there being no infection pools any more.

      There may not be in the US, but go somewhere else in the world (such as our favourite offshore centres) and the virus is running wild. If your wern't immunised or already had it, then adult onset measles is nasty.

    • Your thinking of Chicken Pox [wikipedia.org], measels [wikipedia.org] can cause a bit of havok.

  • Coming VERY soon... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS ( 313647 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:33AM (#13405191) Homepage
    Measles.A

  • Borg picture (Score:5, Funny)

    by LesDawson ( 751477 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:37AM (#13405214)
    I'm disappointed the /. editors didn't change the usual borg picture for one with nice red spots on it ...

  • more fun inside!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by KingPrad ( 518495 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:39AM (#13405228)
    ...and HAHAHAHAH remember when that Enron janitor died of AIDS? oh my god and back in the 80s two engineers at IBM had the whooping cough! they DIED!! HAHAHAH god it's so great and just!! Can't wait to find out another chinese guy died of bird flu! And if we wait a few more seconds we can laugh about some more children starving to death in North Korea! MY GOD THE HILARITY NEVER ENDS!!!??!1111 lol dudez. Okay back to being serious: can we do a mini-poll on whether the poster and editor are high, drunk, or just natural assholes?

  • For those who live/work in Redmond, (Score:3, Informative)

    by HungWeiLo ( 250320 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:42AM (#13405245)
    The measles were possibly spread to 2 local restaurants - tried them both before and they're both overpriced and not very good - Thai Ginger in Redmond Town Center and Malay Satay Hut on 24th.

  • A new low for Slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrseigen ( 518390 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:53AM (#13405278) Homepage Journal
    I'm no fan of Microsoft or outshoring myself, but this is quite possibly the worst and most insulting article I've ever seen posted to Slashdot.

    Editor and the OP need to have their heads examined, and possibly find something new to do with their time.

  • Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by atari2600 ( 545988 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @02:56AM (#13405291)
    Can someone mod down the idiots who thought this was funny and posted "funny" stuff about Windows service packs and Outlook so that they can get some karma. Kids, please grow up. Mod me troll or whatever but this article is very much in bad taste. As for the morons, who thought this funny or saw this as a chance for karma-whoring, i feel sorry for your pathetic lives.

  • Slashdot hits a new low - with idiot posters (Score:3, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) * on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:05AM (#13405332)
    Well everyone seems to either think the post sucks because it's attacking Microsoft or offshoring.

    So when did all the geeks leave? The ones who actually might have thought the aspect of sending more technical workers overseas leading to increased risks of more interesting diseases was sort of an interesting exercise in risk analysis? I guess they are all dead or off playing Halo.

    I didn't think the article was particularly against either Microsoft or offshoring. Just making an observation about a slightly unexpected repercussion for us technical folk (and by us of course I mean me since there are no others left).

    If you're all dead, can I have your gadgets?
    • And the ones that laugh at an obvious exercise in humor through parody and sarcasm? Where did they go? I'm disappointed in you all.

  • Why is this even significant? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by James Youngman ( 3732 ) <jay&gnu,org> on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:11AM (#13405356) Homepage
    WTF? Microsoft employess catches infectious disease. Wow. Amazing.

    Anyway, how is this a significant risk? Surely the staff have already been immunised against measles. In the UK, the NHS has been providing a measles vaccine since 1960. The uptake rate for the current vaccine (MMR) is between 75% and 95% (it varies across the UK). The remainder includes children who have the vaccination separately as well as those who go unvaccinated. So unless the US employees of Microsoft just didn't get vaccinated against measles as kids, what is the problem?

    • Ok, wait a sec.

      You say: In the UK, the NHS has been providing a measles vaccine since 1960.

      This guy says [slashdot.org]: Although that brings another matter to the focus: Vaccinate before you travel! (yeah i know, none for measles yet... our lab is working on it right now)

      Anyone care to tell which one is true then?

  • daily ms bashing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by eqkivaro ( 721746 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:12AM (#13405365)

    i have to admit that the biggest reason i visit /. is to read the MS bashing. i personally don't have anything against MS, but it's fun to read MS bashing comments.

    that said, i'm really disappointed that this article was posted.

  • Of course... (Score:3, Funny)

    by mangus_angus ( 873781 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:18AM (#13405384)
    as soon that Microsoft learned of the virus and the threat it posed, they quickly notified all the necessary people that they would have a patch in place to hand out (for a small fee to anyone caught with Win2K on their computers, the XP users would have to pass the Microsoft Genuine Advantage test, and prove that they did infact work there) to the employees. They said to expect it in about 6-14 months.

  • +5 Interesting? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by bobinabottle ( 819829 )
    Come on, this story is simply begging for some funny comments. I don't see any other reason for the story.

    Yet all the comments so far are modded as Informative and Interesting.

    Slashdot, lift your game.

  • MS Employee? (Score:5, Funny)

    by DavidD_CA ( 750156 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @03:28AM (#13405420) Homepage
    Maybe there's another article, but the one linked in the summary doesn't mention anything about this person being an MS employee. It only says the person was at the MS cafeteria.

    This is anti-Microsoft FUD at its best.

    Counter-headline: "PENGUIN GETS RABIES, INFECTS FIREFOX."
  • Public health officials said the infected person visited the following areas: Malay Satay Hut, 15230 NE 24th St., Redmond, WA 98052 on August 16th 2005, from 12-3 p.m.

    Okay if you ever go to that place STAY AWAY from the durian shake. It smells like ass. Last time a friend of mine had one I made him hold it outside of the car while we were driving away. Seriously, run for your life!
  • Building 40 is (or used to be?) the home of networking and other core groups. No better place to start a Virus infection than in networking, no?
  • Shouldn't this post have been submitted with the
    "Humor" [sic] tag?!

    I have to sympathize a bit though... I've just wasted most of this morning sorting out an errant
    WinXP laptop. Grrrr.

  • ... isn't it allready infected with the virus Bill Gates?

    This virus produces a very nasty havroc on you computer called Windows.

    And its spreading...
  • Using Microsoft's exciting new BorgLite technology, employees will begin automatically downloading the new anti-virus Service Pack 3 to their wetware immediately (note: patchsize may break older models)! Who needs vaccines when you have Automatic Updates? ;)

  • I have Moderator points... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bigmouth_strikes ( 224629 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @04:01AM (#13405570) Journal
    ...and this was the first time I actively looked for a way to mod submitter and posting editor down.

    Worst. Story. Ever.

  • Serves them right for not getting their shots (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nice2Cats ( 557310 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @04:10AM (#13405602)
    Ignoring the whole question if this can even remotely be considered news -- nobody in a rich Western country like the U.S. should get the measles, ever, because they should have gotten their shots. Even if your parents were idiots or religious freaks who didn't do their duty to protect you from a well-known danger with a low-risk procedure, as an adult you are responsible for protecting your health.

    So, to get something good out of this article: Go check if you defenses -- your body's defenses, not your computers -- are up to date. How about tetanus? Polio? At least consider Hepatitis B, even if you are a nerd and don't have sex and faint if you even hear the word blood. These things don't have to happen.

  • The site's slogan is "News for nerds. Stuff that matters." Slashdot is often criticized for intentionally posting story summaries that many find inaccurate, highly biased, and/or inflammatory and that incite heated posting, while ignoring news or commentary on issues which outsiders may consider more serious or important (see Slashdot subculture) - this is mostly acknowledged, and frequently even celebrated by the community itself.


    Now people, don't edit it there.

  • It probably wouldn't make them much better but after they've installed it they'll probably find they can't speak or walk properly anymore and keep falling asleep at random so they'll have forgotten all about the measles.

  • The Ultimate Slashdot Article (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cardinal Biggles ( 6685 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @05:48AM (#13405939)

    Bashing:

    1. Microsoft
    2. offshore outsourcing
    3. places outside the USA in general (you know, those dirty, disease-ridden places where Dubya drops the bombs)

    ...all in one totally irrational article!

    Wow. I stand in awe of the article's author, story submitter and the editor that was so quick to accept it. Amazing work, guys!

  • Getting a measles vaccination or a booster before you leave the US is a very good idea.

    It makes sure you don't come back with something that you can spread to your community. Measles kills and blinds and damages brains.

  • I got measles from Siggraph in 2001 (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dr_leviathan ( 653441 ) on Friday August 26, 2005 @09:19AM (#13407337)
    This is what I can say about measles after I contracted it at Siggraph 2001 (Los Angeles).

    (1) It sucks! The body ache that comes with it really hurts. It also comes with symptoms of a very bad cold.

    (2) Your vaccine can expire. Mine was 15 years old. You're supposed to get a booster vaccine every 10 years. Get your boosters.

    (3) U.S. doctors are not very good at diagnosing measles correctly because they've seen so few real cases. Mine told me I had a "virus from hell", and did not think it was measles even after I suggested it as a possibility.

    (4) Measles hurts more than chicken-pox as an adult (yes, I got that three years later, for the second time in my life), but chicken-pox also sucks a great deal.

    (5) Your resistance to chicken-pox (probably measles too) can fail if you contracted them as a small infant (as in my case with chicken-pox) so get your boosters.

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