

Microsoft confirms IE's role in attack, says it's staying in China - cwan
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/01/microsoft_confirms_ies_role_in_attack_says_its_staying_in_china.html

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mikedouglas
Microsoft deeply needs a change at the top.

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BrentRitterbeck
Really? This is like saying that a company that makes guns is responsible when
someone takes a life with one of them. When have you ever produced perfect
software?

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joubert
It is quite different when you sell your tech to a government that oppresses
people, don't you think?

Or do you think that sanctions as a political tool should no longer be used?

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BrentRitterbeck
You want to single Microsoft out on this one? There are millions of companies,
both private and public that do business with the Chinese government.

As for your comments about sanctions, my comment was actually not about China
at all but rather the Microsoft bashing that was taking place. I have no
further comments on sanctions or China.

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joubert
No, I'm not attacking MS (that was my first comment in this thread). I am just
pointing that giving a tool to someone you KNOW oppresses others is very
different from selling to a neutral buyer.

I've had conversations about this kind of thing with a friend of mine has a
software business in SA. We had a debate about whether selling software to the
Zimbabwean govt. is moral. I think in doing so, you enable the systemic
oppression of people which is clearly not the right thing to do.

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BrentRitterbeck
_I am just pointing that giving a tool to someone you KNOW oppresses others is
very different from selling to a neutral buyer._

If you want to make it about politics, then so be it. How about we discuss the
practices of the U.S. government? Need I point out that we originally brought
the Taliban to power? Need I point out that we originally brought Saddam
Hussein to power? Need I point out that millions of Cubans suffer everyday
because we have decided to punish an entire country because we are upset with
a couple hundred members of their government? If you want to talk about
oppression, look at the huge amount of oppression created by the United States
government.

To get back to my point though, what Microsoft is doing is business. The
Chinese market is huge. They would be foolish not to do business in China.
Furthermore, the very fact that you feel Microsoft should withhold things from
the Chinese people is hypocritical to begin with. Think about the improvements
the technology brings to the people. In the case of Internet Explorer, I can't
think of anything more oppressive than denying a people the right to
technology, with the ability to open doors to the world, that is being given
away freely in other parts of the world.

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joubert
Neither did I defend anybody (not any company, not any government) nor did I
attack any company in particular.

Your responses remind me of Sarah Palin. When posed with a statement or
question, dodging it an go off on a tangent.

I'm merely saying that it is (universally) wrong to supply someone who you
know oppresses others, with the tools to do so.

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BrentRitterbeck
I responded to your statement with a very valid argument.

(1) It's business in a huge market that American companies are not forbidden
to do business with.

(2) You are implying that Microsoft should not do business with China, and I
believe that would be more detrimental than doing business with the country.

I believe you are falling into the fallacy of punishing an entire nation for
the actions of its government somehow makes that country better off. Turning
it back to Google, I have friends from China who are pissed that Google is
threatening to leave. You're not seeing the bigger picture. Google's threat to
leave doesn't help China. It hurts the country, all 1.2 billion people. You
decided to bring politics into this, so now politics have been brought into
this.

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cabalamat
Maybe their motto is "Do be evil".

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rbanffy
Their motto is more on the line of "turn a profit, whatever it takes".

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CalmQuiet
That would be a corollary of "do be evil".

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rbanffy
Not really. If not being evil were more profitable, they would be saints. They
just don't care.

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cookiecaper
That attitude almost always gives rise to evil, though, because it's much
easier to make a lot of money off of dishonesty and run like hell when you're
found out than it is to do otherwise.

"the love of money is the root of all evil" - 1 Tim. 6:10.

EDIT: Can someone justify these downvotes? I was hoping HN hadn't caught the
reddit disease where any time religious texts are quoted or even mentioned
downvotes fall bountifully.

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rbanffy
"Can someone justify these downvotes?"

It seems some folks here are overly sensitive to anything that vaguely
resembles criticism of Microsoft and their products.

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jm4
I wonder if any of the developers have given thought to their mistakes being
used by a government to hunt down its own citizens. That's got to be at least
a little bit unsettling. Most of us make mistakes, fix them and never have to
deal with serious consequences.

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b-man
Microsoft, being microsoft.

Heck, what a bunch of chinese HR activists worth anyway? It's not like there
is not a billion and a half.

\sarcasm

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pwmanagerdied
Choice quote: _Ballmer reiterated the statement in an interview with Reuters.
"We're attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody
else is too. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary," he told the news
service. "There are attacks every day. I don't think there was anything
unusual, so I don't understand"_

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barnaby
Right, because there's nothing unusual in governments hacking the accounts of
their political dissidents.

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callahad
It's an attempt to spin the discourse to one of "Google's can't handle the
standard operating environment" rather than "Google took a principled stand."
Nothing more, nothing less.

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rbanffy
"Microsoft" and "principled" on the same paragraph. That must be a first.

