[ILUG] The response to yesterday's mail to Mr. Campbell

[NW Dublin]

More comments inline! Having written this is sat on my screen for hours 
while I pondered whether or not to just leave this alone... then 
Christain van den Bosch gave you all something to read this morning 
anyway so ...

than in confusion I sent it to the committee ... and didn't realise for 
quite a while!   Better late than never!

Irish Linux Users Group Committee wrote:

 >The following is the response from Mr. Campbell regarding our mail
 >from yesterday. We have decided that Mr. Campbell is not interested
 >in pursuing an amicable discussion on this topic. We will issue a
 >press release later explaining that we are done discussing this with
 >Mr. Campbell, that we appreciate RTE's clarification and that we consider
 >the matter closed.
 >
 >Thanks,
 >
 >The Committee
 >
 >----------
 >
 >Hi Thomas
 >
 >Two problems. One, legally, you can't libel a group (see
 >http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2003/debian-legal-200308/msg0064 7.h
 >tml), so I'm not sure who your 'legal people' are. That said, I have no
 >intention of offending anyone or any group.
 >
 >Secondly, it is easy to pull selective quotes from a spoken context and
 >re-interpret the meaning. It is clear from the interview that I was not
 >suggesting that the entire group of people were responsible for the
 >virus, and I don't believe that.
 >
 >
 >

It is easy to pull selective quotes from any context and re-interpret
the meaning. You are selectively deciding to address one particular
issue raised about your piece (the implication that the ENTIRE GROUP
were responsible) rather than addressing the fact that you implicated a
group (whatever percentage of it) based on no evidence, made incorrect
statements and provided poor guidance with respect to protection.You
chose to make your radio appearance regarding MyDoom a piece about Open
Source and you connected the Open Source community to virus authors.
In contrast I heard a repeat of a piece from Newstalk 106 last night
(originally aired in the morning around 7:30am) where the emphasis
beyond basic information about the threat was (at the interviewers
questioning) if anyone was questioning possible connections between the
anti-virus companies and the virus writers.

Let me ask you this, if I went on air and said "the people who are
behind this virus I would suspect are people who are promoting what is
called computer training" would you be happy? What is the argument
for this position? It is a visually simple email, with a small array
of payloads which fully demonstrates the power of social engineering,
make the user open the attachment and you have the result (gather data,
send email, open back door, set to reload, launch dos). This virus
only benefits the anti-virus companies so much, but the real money will
lie in the people employed to tell people how to avoid these sorts of
things.

Which reason is more valid, your reason which simply bases everything on
the fact SCO was attacked by the first variant, or my reason which
addresses the virus as a whole without trying to account for SCO?
Neither probably, and while discussing the possible motivations and
reasonings is the sort of thing ilug may partake in frequently, it is
hardly the normal dinner conversation around the country or the sort of
topics usually investigated on the national broadcasters general
programming.

 >What I said (inarticulately) is that I suspected that the creator was a
 >supporter of open source. Clearly many open source people think so, when
 >they urge other open source supporters "not to cheer" the virus - why
 >would they say that otherwise?
 >
 >
 >

They encourage them not to cheer as it would suggest an endorsement.
As I stated before the entire *n[iu]x community has good reason to feel
anthipathy towards SCO, but antipathy is a long way from criminal
activity. If a government had asked it's citizens not to cheer 911
would that have implied the government was responsible, or that they had
some dignity and taste?

 >Other people have suggested other explanations, and people can make
 >their own mind up.
 >
 >If you believe I have libelled someone (who?) they have a remedy in law.
 >
 >
 >
IANAL, I don't know if you libelled anyone. You certainly made
factually incorrect statements and misleading statements while
professing to be an expert on a national broadcast. I suspect Sun
would be the most likely candidate for having a case against you for
implying that the worm was let loose because you can download a free
copy of openoffice.org!

 >I'm not interested in the opinions of your contributors, who can post
 >what they like; however you may not publish libellous comments on your
 >website, regardless of their source.
 >
 >Not a single post could refute what I actually said, so they made up
 >quotes instead. The posts that I object to contain psuedo-quotes
 >attributed to me which are totally inaccurate, and draw inferences from
 >them that I am less than professional. Publishing such falsehoods is
 >libellous. For example:
 >
 >
 >

I belive I refuted numerous things said by WC in my post
(http://www.linux.ie/pipermail/ilug/2004-February/010916.html) including:

"he is attributing the effects of two different (though derived) virii
with distrinct authors to one virus, this is factually incorrect." I
also discuss this further later on when he suggests the worm is an
expression of hatred for Microsoft!

"OpenOffice.org is not a company, it is an organisation but it would be
a competitor to Microsoft in the area of Office Suites. StarOffice is
simply a product, built by Sun Microsystems which most certainly is a
company. Linux is the trademarked name of a piece of software, no
company and not even an organisation."

"To say that Microsoft has essentially put all the _commercial_
competition out of business is farcical, ask IBM, Sun, HP, RedHat,
Mandrake, SuSe, Novell or Apple let alone looking further out from the
core PC marketplace and seeing Palm, Sony (Playstation), Tivo, Symbian
and many many more."

"It is disingenuous to say Open Source Software is developed by
volunteers. Any piece of software which is written and subsequently
licensed under an Open Source Licence has been placed under that licence
voluntarily by the author. The author may be a company or an
individual who may or may not receive any payment for the work, but in
fact a lot of work is done by employees within commercial companies (IBM
and Sun to take 2 well known examples). "

Finally I refuted his advice on how to protect yourself as his advice
PROVIDED NO PROTECTION AGAINST MYDOOM! This is the only place in my
post where I could possibly be considered to have inferred that his
professional qualities were less than perfect, and I would stand over it
quite happily. If I was asked to speak on a national broadcast as a
computer expert about a virus and was asked how to protect myself
against the virus I would be sure to actually provide some meaningful
advice realting to the topic at hand. What was mentioned was a part of
the protection in general against virus, but only a part, and not a part
which would help in this case!

I cannnot speak for anyone elses posts, but my post was a commentary on
the transcript so if anyone made up quotes it is the transcribers, but I
have yet to see WC claim the transcription is inaccurate.

 >*********
 >
 >Not only did it show William Campbell to be horrifically
 >
 >
 >
 >>>>ill-informed, but what he did say was downright slanderous of OSS,
 >>>>
 >>>>
 >
 >
 >
 >>>>Linux and OpenOffice.org.
 >>>>
 >>>>
 >
 >
 >
Did it not show you to be ill informed? You failed to address the
means of protection. You suggested openoffice, staroffice and linux
were companies. You made no mention of the dual variants of the
worm. You say OSS is developed by volunteers! Need I continue?

 >*************
 >
 >Perhaps it's a corollary to the old saw that
 >
 >Those who can, do, those who can't, teach.
 >
 >. . . . and those who are completely clueless run training companies.
 >
 >
 >
I think a sense of proportion and a recognition for attempts at humour
are required for this one.

 >***********************
 >
 >"SCO was attacked, ergo it was done by Linux users, ergo Linux is evil."
 >Spot the fallacy.
 > but also,
 >"Someone who sells a Windows related service made some rather foundless
 >claim pointing the finger at open-source, therefore all windows users
 >wouldn't know a clue if it bit them on the A-"NO CARRIER
 >
 >
 >
 >
You never say Linux is evil. You don't explicitly attack Open Source
either. However the couple of lines above those you just quoted
provide the context and they were:

"So, is the point to point out the concept of 'ad-hominem'?

Meaning 'against the man', it characterises an attack on a principle based

on some sub-set of its supporters.

So:"

So they are saying both statements are non sequiters and examples of
ad-hominem. It is certainly clear the second "quote" is completely
made up and I think clear that the first is aswell, though it bears some
resemblence to what you said but extends it to illustrate truly what ad
hominem is!

 >*************
 >
 >He implies that there was some organised effort in the open source
 >community to create MyDoom, but doesn't present any evidence for
 >this. I personally won't believe it until I see the project on
 >sourceforge :)
 >
 >
 >
You did imply that a group from the open source comminity were behind
this and you did not provide any evidence:

"the people who are behind this virus I would suspect are people who,
who, em,
are promoting what is called Open Sof... Open, eh, eh, .... Open System
Software"

Also I think it is safe to say that someone suggesting that they need to
see a project on sourceforge to believe the OSS communnity created a
virus has their tongue firmly in cheek, and the smiley re-inforces that.

 >*************
 >
 >Lastly, I note that the 'do not release' message went straight onto your
 >website.
 >
 >:-)
 >
 >
 >
More accurately I suspect the message when released didn't have its
pre-existing do not release warning removed.

 >William
 >
 >
Niall