Anonymous Might Not Be So Anonymous; Member Pleads Guilty To Scientology DoS

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

While I can sympathize with the concerns that some folks have over Scientology, it did seem like the massive denial of service (DoS) attack against the group put on by "Anonymous" (basically a group of griefers from some online message boards) seemed to go a bit too far (and, yes, I recognize that many griefers think that their whole reason for being is to "go too far"). Now it appears that one of the kids involved in the denial of service attack has been arrested and agreed to plead guilty for the attack, meaning that at least some members of "Anonymous" aren't quite as anonymous as they believed. In the end, the whole thing seems to have done nothing much. It was a nuisance for Scientology, but allowed the group to portray itself as a victim, and certainly didn't do much of anything to slow the organization down.

Filed Under: anonymous, denial of service, dos, scientology

Saying The DOS Microsoft Originally Used Was A Rip-Off Isn't Libel

from the talk-about-sore-winners dept

Back in 2005, we wrote about the case of Tim Paterson, the creator of QDOS (which was eventually sold to Microsoft and became the basis of Microsoft DOS -- and, with it, the Microsoft empire). Paterson was pissed off at author Harold Evans for claiming in a book that Paterson had ripped off Gary Kildall's CP/M. It really isn't disputed that QDOS was modeled on CP/M -- or that Microsoft (and Paterson) eventually won out in the marketplace. So it's hard to see what the beef is here, and as Slashdot points out, it appears the judge agreed. The judge tossed out the suit saying that there didn't appear to be any libel in what was said. Most of the statements were opinions, so they can't be shown to be provably false. Also, they found no evidence of malicious intent, which would also be needed in this case. In the end, though, this certainly seems like the case of a sore winner. Paterson's software was the one that went on to greatness, whether or not it was a rip-off over Kildall's stuff.

Filed Under: dos, libel
Companies: microsoft