Gentoo rsync server compromised [LWN.net]

Gentoo rsync server compromised

Posted Dec 3, 2003 20:58 UTC (Wed) by piman (subscriber, #8957)
In reply to: Gentoo rsync server compromised by einstein
Parent article: Gentoo rsync server compromised

Microsoft loves dirty, barely legal (or sometimes, depending on the judge, barely illegal) tricks. These are blatently illegal. I don't know of any point in MS's history where they've hired black hats, rather than marketers, to take down competition.

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M$ and illegal or unethical behavior

Posted Dec 3, 2003 21:08 UTC (Wed) by newren (subscriber, #5160) [Link]

>I don't know of any point in MS's history where they've hired black hats, rather than marketers, to take down competition.

Yes, but the question remains of whether M$ hasn't done any such thing or whether it simply means that they didn't get caught. While they have been caught for an astoundingly large number of dirty tricks, it makes one wonder what they've also gotten away with.

M$ and illegal or unethical behavior

Posted Dec 3, 2003 21:44 UTC (Wed) by freethinker (guest, #4397) [Link]

Plausible deniability. Strictly limited to a few high ranking executives. Work hired anonymously. Could be done, with enough money. Might even be a private project of one executive, without corporate knowledge.

Or, of course, it might just be one guy doing it for fun, or to give us all a wake-up call. Who knows?

I doubt it is Microsoft, actually. They aren't desperate enough, yet. They still think they can win with FUD and marketing and SCO.

M$ and illegal or unethical behavior

Posted Dec 3, 2003 22:05 UTC (Wed) by freethinker (guest, #4397) [Link]

Hmm, on second thought, I retract that. The person or people doing the work could be caught, and even if they didn't know who hired them, just their assertion that they had been hired would be enough to raise an unholy stink.

M$ and illegal or unethical behavior

Posted Dec 4, 2003 7:52 UTC (Thu) by jtc (subscriber, #6246) [Link]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but it seems to me that these attacks did not do a great deal of harm (besides temporarily wasting some people's time and resources). Even if MS was slimey enough to do this, I doubt whether they would regard the reward vs the risk worthwhile.