Slashback: Net Neutrality, Bugged Coins, and Pawns

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."

whew

MS evangelist apologizes for "pawns" comment.

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

Re:whew

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

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.

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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

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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

Re:

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

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See the great-GP post.

I kid, I kid... ;-)

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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 com

Re:

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

Re:

Why didn't he use the term "foot soldiers" instead?

If he did we'd be claiming that MS has a Hitler complex.

Pieces in a Games

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

Yay!

All will be well with TBP...until the Ninjas come, and they will come [drmcninja.com].

Arr mateys.

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Ninjas are only a match for pirates if they can cut the pirates off from their rum first.

-Eric

Plamondon corrected his "pawns" statement

...by saying "Actually, more like those little horsies that move in an 'L' shape."

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OMG Ponies!!!!11 [flickr.com]

Sorry man, had to do it. ;) No hard feelings.

$13,714?

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

Re:

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

Re:$13,714?

Or you could just buy all the movies, music, and software you wanted...

Sealand's sovereignty isn't even recognized...

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 ple

Re:

The price tag for Sealand is reported in the $1 billion range

They'll probably take an IOU and $20 cold hard cash.

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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.

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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 a

Now is that ever a silly idea!

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.

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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

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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 sh

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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.

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

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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?

That's enough to pay for a boat rental, some shotguns, and a coup.

Re:

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

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Consider that it is called the pirate bay.

Fr1st 1337 post?

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.

2 things about sealand.

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?> w

Oh, my!

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

Too bad about those coins...

I was kinda happy when I heard the original story...at least, with bugs in them, the Canadian dollar would be good for something.

Unless you have an IQ below ten

"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.

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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.

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Or, you know, just talk about the tubes instead.

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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 prefe

The 'new' Yoo article

/. 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.

Re:

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

Bugged Coins

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?

Re:

Considering where most men do most of their thinking, I would say that it is appropriate... :)

Besides the "pawns" comments...

...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...

"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 ?

Not buuged my foot

THat's what the Canadian Secret Service wants you to believe.

Why Buy?

Surely there are enough Pirates in Pirate Bay to raise the Jolly Roger over Sealand!

Re:slashback, but what about backslash?

Why doesn't the BSD section get recognition?

Netcraft confirms the BSD section on Slashdot is dying.

Re:

It comes from kopimi [kopimi.com] (copyme).

Re:

Making up words hoping to get them into common usage is actually VERY kopimistic.

yo.