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2005-12-05 Fifth Column

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Posted by Bobby 2005-12-05 07:54|| || Front Page|| [6 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Great article, I found myself agreeing with all said until his last sentence. I get his point but "the blood of soldiers in voluntary service" sounds like one death for our nation is more sacred than another. Old Max needs to take that sentence out.

Posted by 49 pan">49 pan 2005-12-05 09:07|| 2005-12-05 09:07|| Front Page Top

#2 FUD - pure and simple.

Posted by 3dc 2005-12-05 09:23|| 2005-12-05 09:23|| Front Page Top

#3 FUD - Defined quite well at this link

Fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) is a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative but vague or inaccurate information on a competitor's product. The term originated to describe misinformation tactics in the computer software industry and has since been used more broadly.

FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products." [1]

As Eric S. Raymond writes:

"The idea, of course, was to persuade buyers to go with safe IBM gear rather than with competitors' equipment. This implicit coercion was traditionally accomplished by promising that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or software. After 1991 the term has become generalized to refer to any kind of disinformation used as a competitive weapon." [2]

Opponents of certain large computer corporations state that the spreading of fear, uncertainty, and doubt is an unethical marketing technique that these corporations consciously employ.

By spreading questionable information about the drawbacks of less well-known products, an established company can discourage decision-makers from choosing those products over its wares, regardless of the relative technical merits. This is a recognized phenomenon, epitomized by the traditional axiom of purchasing agents that "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" equipment. The result is that many companies' IT departments buy software which they know to be technically inferior because upper management is more likely to recognize the brand.
Although once it was usually attributed to IBM, in the 1990s and later the term became most often associated with industry giant Microsoft. The Halloween documents (leaked internal Microsoft documents whose authenticity was verified by the company) use the term FUD to describe a potential tactic, as in "OSS is long-term credible â¦ [therefore] FUD tactics can not be used to combat it." [3] More recently, Microsoft has issued statements about the "viral nature" of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which Open Source proponents purport to be FUD. Microsoft's statements are often directed at the GNU/Linux community in particular, to discourage widespread Linux adoption, which could hurt Microsoft's marketshare. In a 2004 interview on the growing prominence of Linux, Steve Ballmer's FUD-based ideas had racist undertones, when he commented, "Are you going to trust some guy in China?"

The SCO Group's 2003 lawsuit against IBM, claiming intellectual property infringements by the open source community, is also regarded by some as being an attempt at spreading FUD, especially about Linux. IBM directly alleged in its counterclaim to SCO's suit that SCO is spreading FUD. [4]

Similarly, the claims made by some members of the GPL community about the dangers and threats to freedom of software from non-GPL sources, such as commercial software vendors or BSD- or X11-style licenses, are regarded by many to be FUD.

Free software advocates now often apply FUD as a label to the people who they feel are trying to make the FUD smears against Linux or other open source projects like Mozilla Firefox. (FUD against closed source products exist also, but not to the same extent.) In doing so, FUD takes on somewhat of a double meaning, as it is insinuated that those trying to spread the fear, uncertainty, and doubt are fuddy duddies who are too backward and set in their ways to acknowledge the value of something new and innovative. Sometimes this is written out as "FUDdy-duddy." [5]

FUD can be used to offhandedly "smear" criticism or legitimate debate, even in cases where the allegations are without merit or are merely implied; this tactic is often used in cases where the initial publicity surrounding claims of FUD is likely to vastly overshadow any subsequent retraction. Such an arbitrary usage is a general type of logical fallacy known as ad hominem circumstantial.

At the same time, those being smeared can dismiss criticism as simply being FUD tactics, for example when usability defects in OSS are commented on by marketing directors of competing companies. This is aggravated by the aggressive and sometimes rabid anti Microsoft stance many advocates of Free software take, most frequently seen on the website Slashdot.

Non-computer uses

FUD is now often used in non-computer contexts with the same meaning. For example, in politics the tactic is often used to attempt to alter public opinion on a particular issue or on an opposing group. Often, one group will accuse another group of utilizing FUD. Many critics of George W. Bush accused him of using a FUD-based campaign in the 2004 U.S. presidential election [6]. Bush supporters also accused their opponents of using FUD by spreading rumors about a possible military draft should Bush be re-elected [7]. Ironically, accusations of use of FUD can sometimes themselves become a FUD tactic to discredit the opposing side. Who actually utilizes FUD is a question that leads to difficulties with distinguishing objective and subjective truth.

Posted by 3dc 2005-12-05 09:26|| 2005-12-05 09:26|| Front Page Top

#4 kinda like, "you've already lost the war, go home" (Propaganda broadcast into the ready rooms in the movie 12:00 High)

This article rocks! Bravo.

Posted by 2b 2005-12-05 13:02|| 2005-12-05 13:02|| Front Page Top

#5 In a 2004 interview on the growing prominence of Linux, Steve Ballmer's FUD-based ideas had racist undertones, when he commented, "Are you going to trust some guy in China?"

"Racist undertones"? Boy, talk about taking something totally out of context and manipulating it for your own purposes.

I'm sure Steve Ballmer wasn't even considering the fact that China is a communist country with a highly active intelligence agency that would just *love* to see the US DoD use an O/S they could manipulate and fill with backdoors allowing them access to military secrets and the capability of crashing the system in a strategic strike.

Oops--now I'm being racist too!

Posted by Dar">Dar 2005-12-05 15:54|| 2005-12-05 15:54|| Front Page Top

#6 Thats the beauty of Linux - you can't hide back doors in it - its entirely transparent since the source code is freely available.

I would hope that the DOD is examing each and every line of source code for applications which it is using in critical situations - including Linux, Windows, Office, etc....

Does anyone know if they are?

Posted by CrazyFool 2005-12-05 16:20|| 2005-12-05 16:20|| Front Page Top

#7 I don't know about the DOD but the CIA's linux kernel is "Secure Linux" (with lots of extra stuff added). They have a complete secure distro.
Never bothered looking at it. Each file has so many forms of security I could not figure out (without a lot of effort) how you would bring it up with functioning programs and services.

Posted by 3dc 2005-12-05 21:29|| 2005-12-05 21:29|| Front Page Top

#8 I'd say this article is my FAR - Fuckin'-A-Right. Nails it perfectly along with the Dem perfidy in attempting to lose the war so Pelosi can be House Leader and Reid Senate leader. Disgusting, and time to call the media for their part

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2005-12-05 22:14|| 2005-12-05 22:14|| Front Page Top

00:00 Aris Katsaris
23:56 DMFD
23:14 LC FOTSGreg
23:01 mojo
22:56 Zhang Fei
22:46 wrinkleneck_trout
22:42 Jomong Slolump1324
22:19 2b
22:18 Frank G
22:18 Eric Jablow
22:15 Frank G
22:14 Frank G
22:07 Shineling Hupaque8028
22:01 Bobby
21:59 Frank G
21:57 Frank G
21:54 Bobby
21:48 jules 2
21:44 Bomb-a-rama
21:37 Eric Jablow
21:36 Bobby
21:29 3dc
21:24 Bobby
21:23 3dc