Following is what I surmise is happening in COLA. - HPT

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Cyber War: Microsoft a weak link in national security
Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:09:53 -0600
Message-ID:<hv3og9$5c4$1@news.albasani.net>

Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>   nessuno on Sunday:
>>   High Plains Thumper wrote:
>>>   The Big Ticket wrote:
>>>>   High Plains Thumper wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>   IMHO, it seems also that the same has saved a bundle by
>>>>>   employing such low quality trolls in this newsgroup.
>>>>>   (Hadron, DFS, Ezekiel, RayLopez99, flatfish&   oodles of nyms,
>>>>>   etc. to name a few)
>>>>
>>>>   You sick fuck, your diaper is not clean by any means I have
>>>>   seen. You're right there in the troll game, responding. If
>>>>   anyone is getting paid around here, it's your daddy Roy.
>>>
>>>   User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.24 (Windows/20100228)
>>>   Message-ID:<9tOdnewW4KkQ94_RnZ2dnUVZ_jKdn...@earthlink.com>
>>>   X-Usenet-Provider:http://www.giganews.com
>>>   NNTP-Posting-Host: 69.171.171.133
>>>
>>>   The luser is back, Duane Arnold.
>>>
>>>   From: "level3.net Troll's Nick-list Keeper"
>>>   <i.m.nonnym...@gmail.com>
>>>   Date: Sat, 1 Nov 2008 17:41:39 -0700 (PDT)
>>>   Subject: Update: level3.net troll's nicks
>>>
>>>   [quote]
>>>   He posts either via earthlink.net or level3.net (preferred)
>>>   His IP address will ALWAYS be:
>>>   4.224.xxx.xxx or 4.225.xxx.xxx
>>>   He posts using: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Windows/20080914)
>>>
>>>   Most recent list:
>>>   Terry's Web Server
>>>   Paragon Falcon (he can't spell "Peregrine")
>>>   COLA Gone Wild
>>>   Terry Porter (spoof of real poster)
>>>   Sorry Linux Pimps
>>>   [snip long lists]
>>>   [/quote]
>>>
>>>   http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/21de910944eeacf5
>>
>>   Notice how the wintrolls respond when confronted with facts.  If the BT
>>   is not flatfish, he certainly behaves like him.
>>
>>   Lesson #1 in Microsoft evangelist school is to attack the messenger,
>>   whenever the message cannot otherwise be discredited. In this case,
>>   Richard Clarke carries a great deal of credibility, and even if you
>>   don't agree with his opinions, he is certainly telling the truth about
>>   how Microsoft threatened to stop cooperating with the US government if
>>   they started to use Linux.
>
>   This also shifts the debate (goalposts), not only discrediting the
>   messenger.

I surmise it was reasons as such that the contributors to the 2002
official COLA FAQ included Chapter 7, "Anti-Linux Propagandists and
Trolls".  This was written before the Comes vs Microsoft documents were
available, to include the Microsoft Evangelism document:

[quote]
In the Mopping Up phase, Evangelism's goal is to put the final nail into
the competing technology's coffin, and bury it in the burning depths of
the earth.  Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated
with mental deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter
Bunny, and OS/2."

Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever.
make the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the
mythology of the computer industry.

We want to place selection pressure on the companies and individuals
that show a genetic weakness for competitor's technologies, to make the
industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.
[/quote]

PDF page 55
Microsoft Evangelism
Comes vs. Microsoft court case

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf

The following from the same evangelism document seems to support what
these trolls are doing.  One must read this with a grain of salt:

[quote]
Our weapons are psychological, economic, and political - not military.
No one is forced to adopt our standards at the barrel of a gun. We can
only convince, not compel. Those who adopt our standards do so as a
rational decision to serve their own ends, whatever those may be. It is
our job to ensure that those choosing an operating system are presented
with an overwhelming abundance of evidence and reasoned argument in
favor of our standards - so overwhelming that the choice of our
standards seems obvious, or (ideally) that the developer is not even
aware that a decision was faced, and a choice made.

We do this by understanding the barriers that might otherwise prevent
the developer from adopting our standards, and removing them; by
understanding the inducements that might facilitate the developer's
adoption of our standards, and providing them; by understanding the
arguments of our competition, and countering them.
[/quote]

>   From "Evangelism is War" section on PDF page 3.

You notice that the trolls keep pushing the point that advocates and
those who purchase Linux computers and use Linux have mental
deficiencies, are sexually deviant, following the lines of "he believes
in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2".

DFS keeps posting Googled or Bing'd information on Ubuntu, to make it
appear as it is a totally unsuitable and experimental operating system,
incapable of supporting the desktop.

Flatfish (Moshe and variant nyms, total nymshifts such as "singer")
tries to discredit Linux capability as a real time music audio editor,
sequencer and playback for professional recording use.

Nymshift as Charles Griggs:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/a7f3caafd6608675

Nymshift as Singer:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/ae8052251a67da62

My reply to Singer (flatfish):

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/f8ff83eaf9d28393

Trolls are FUD'ing other Usenet groups such as rec.audio.pro to
discredit Linux and Linux applications.  This is because as the
evangelism document reveals, is to prevent developers from considering
supporting other operating systems.

Flatfish nymshifts as sock clogwog and Dutch nyms, with the assistance
of another Dutch speaking individual, Ezekiel, RayLopez99, Duane Arnold
"The Bee" and nyms attack individual posters with offensive lies,
insults, to discourage those who remain posting Linux advocacy, so they
can have this newsgroup to themselves.

FUD artists such as Erik Funkenbusch, Tim Smith, amicus_curious (BillWG)
introduce subtle lies and ad hominems, to derail discussions.

All these work together to help render Linux advocacy useless.

Then add on top of that the marketing subtle lies as statistics,
discrediting authors such as Richard Clarke, discrediting competing
products and support through negative astroturf comments toward
competing applications, hardware, etc.

IMHO, this Microsoft organisation is one monstrous propaganda machine
that rivals political propaganda machines of the cold war era.  Using
acts of monopoly maintenance, undersells other operating systems such as
Linux by severely dropping their price and twisting OEMS to support
their cause as stated by the evangelism document.

This is all done to prevent Linux from gaining a foothold.  We have seen
how that the netbooks have grown in requirement to the point they are no
longer netbooks, extension of an obsolete operating system "Windows XP"
to keep Microsoft applications flowing.

There is only one way to stop this machine, and it will have to be at
the behest of the worldwide governments, to continue their legal actions
to make things right.  The other way is it fails from within, collapses
as we have seen a number of key officer turnovers and resignations.
Perhaps the two will bring it down.

-- 
HPT