New Microsoft Dirty Tricks Revealed

Conrad Mazian writes "Robert X. Cringely has an article on the Technology Evangelist web site where he claims that Microsoft destroyed evidence in the Burst vs Microsoft case. Specifically Burst's lawyers had asked for certain emails, Microsoft claimed that they couldn't find the backup tapes the emails would be on, and while this was happening the tapes were in a vault at Microsoft — until they mysteriously disappeared. It's a fascinating story, and even names one person at Microsoft."

Oh, NO!

[WED Fan]

Oh, No! A corporation wrangles, delays, misplaces, obfuscates in the face of a lawsuit. Heaven's, what is the world coming to?

Microsoft must be the very first to EVER do this.

Re:Oh, NO!

[eno2001]

It's not like the story is looking at this wide-eyed and saying that this is the first time it's ever happened. We all know it happens all the time. The main point, is what can be done to stop this sort of thing from happening short of killing all business owners who resort to this type of evil behavior. There is nothing noble about it, therefore it shouldn't be defended nor should it be ignored or allowed to continue. This type of behavior should be brought out in the open, the perpetrators brought to justice and the business made to pay for it's crimes. Frankly, I'd love to see them all lined up and shot, but that's just me. I'm in this business purely for technical interests and could give a rats ass about anyone making a buck.

Re:

[jd]

I don't agree. Bullets have feelings too and we should not subject them to such a fate.

Re:

[B3ryllium]

X-Files said it best:

Deceive. Inveigle. Obfuscate.

Coincidentally, this is also Sony's tactic. :)

Re:Oh, NO!

[TommydCat]

Wasn't that
"Schlemiel, Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!" [wikipedia.org] ??

I swear I had no choice to hide the tapes!

[alexandreracine]

Ballmer duck tape me to the wall, and told me "I'LL f**king kill you!" and threaten to throw a chair at me!

Re:

[h2g2bob]

You mean,

"I'm going to f-ing bury that email, I have done it before and will do it again... I'm going to f-ing bury that email."
*throws chair*

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, no! Some guy goes out and kills his workmates in a rage. Clearly, he must be the first to do it.

Oh, no! Your SO is cheating on you. How terrible! Must be the first time...

Oh, no! A country gets attacked, some thousand lives are lost, rage prevails and two countries are invaded, hundreds of thousands killed, civil wars started to further break the lives of millions. Must be the first in history!

Oh, no... People drink and drive under influence and kill innocent ones. Heck, I bet this never happened before

Re:

[killjoe]

Destroying evidence is illegal even if you are not the first one to do it.

Honestly your defense of MS consists of "everybody else does it". Isn't it amazing what the defenders of MS have been reduced to.

Not every business breaks the law. Some do, but many don't. Please don't defame the entire business community and capitalism itself by saying that every business breaks the law.

Re:

[Paradise Pete]

Microsoft must be the very first to EVER do this.

A fine counter-argument. I'm surprised it isn't used more often.
"Come on, Your Honor, it's not like I'm the first to EVER commit this crime!"

Re:Oh, NO!

[CHacker]

How exactly is this pandering to the Anti-Microsoft element on slashdot?

It is a story about a company that when faced with legal action regarding their behavior deliberately destroyed/hid evidence that showed they as corporate entity were perfectly aware that their behavior was wrong in the legal sense.

The fact that corporations routinely do this is completely irrelevant. All this story is exposing is a pattern of behavior on the part of Microsoft with regards to compliance with the law, or in this case a complete disregard for the law. While it may be redundant as the case against Microsoft has been made time and time again it isn't pandering to the anti-Microsoft zealots. It may be embarrassing to the pro-Microsoft evangelists, but we all know they are nuts ;-).

If Apple, Red Hat or Novell had done something similar they would be called on it. However, none of those corporate entities have done anything like that to my knowledge. But Microsoft has. And considering that Microsoft products are on ~85% of the PCs out there makes it relevant to the slashdot community.

Re:

[Belial6]

Not Apple, Red Hat or Novell, but I believe the whole Reiser incident was pretty well covered on Slashdot, and that had less to do with tech than this did.

Re:

[Yvanhoe]

Seriously, I know Microsoft is supposed to be evil and all, but even Disney does this.

Since when did Disney become a goody corporation ?

Re:

[magixman]

Seriously, I know Microsoft is supposed to be evil and all, but even Disney does this. Just about every one, corporate, individual, government, does this type of thing when faced with a lawsuit. I'm not saying its right, but I think the only reason this one made Slashdot was because it was Microsoft and there is, admittedly, a hefty anti-Microsoft Knee-Jerk element here.

It doesn't make it right. But people get away with it. Remember a guy named Frank Quattrone. Sent around a mail to his employess asking

Re:

[pete6677]

Childish simplicity and idealism are the cornerstones of Slashdot.

Re:

[grcumb]

Childish simplicity and idealism are the cornerstones of Slashdot.

You made a typo there. Let me fix it for you:

Childish simplicity and idealism are the cornerstones of our society.

Ever since the rise of the great French philosophers - Rousseau, Voltaire and co. - an idea has existed that there is such a thing as a higher good. Rousseau depicted it as a Social Contract [wikipedia.org], while Voltaire depicted it as an accommodation between the selfish venality of human nature and the coincidence of our interests.

I

Re:

[earthbound kid]

Because if the dude is serious at all, he knows, "Just hold out until Saturday at 7pm, and boom! All glory to Cobra Commander!" In a ticking time bomb situation, a terrorist who has the balls to murder a million people won't just pussy out because we pull out his fingernails or whatever. If we're asking him where the bomb will go off, he knows it hasn't gone off yet, so he just needs to send you off on a wild goose chase from now until it does.

Meanwhile, how do we know for sure that the military pulled the

Re:

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Applying it to the innocent is bad, but even applying it to the guilty isn't that great -- So you cause so much pain that a guy will tell you anything to make you stop. That doesn't mean he'll tell you the truth. Kinda like bullying a kid until he says what you tell him to say. Doesn't mean he actually means it, or isn't just lying to get you to stop.

Re:So that makes it OK?

[rtb61]

Your complete ignorance of justice is appalling. What jurisprudence would be required for someone to substantiate the truth of the situation. One person (a sexual deviant in a uniform) claims another innocent (by law until proven guilty in a duly appointed court) person confessed about a bomb (did they confess, before or after the torture commenced ?).

Courts of law are not about punishing the guilty they are about protecting the public from the government and from thugs in uniform. A terrorist suspect is only a suspect because some one 'thinks' or 'decides' they should be one, there is no proof, if there was, that person would be arrested and sent to the courts where the validity of the evidence could be tested and to ensure some incompetent ass wipe didn't falsify the evidence or just outright lied to get promotion or even to hide their own incompetence (if you can't catch the guilty then convicting an innocent can still get you re-elected).

Consider the long term ramifications. Through out history, torturers where isolated from the rest of the community because any individual they can achieve job satisfaction and a personal sense of accomplishment from the infliction of pain, suffering and degradation upon others, is a dangerously deranged psychopathic individual and a threat to the community. Honestly, would you want a US military approved torturer living next door to you and having access to your family (a thug that listened to the agonised screams of human beings 8 hours a day with out a qualm whilst eating undisturbed meals, sleeping peacefully and collecting what they considered to be their well deserved pay check).

How many thousands of CIA trained torturers will the US government be releasing upon an unsuspecting public, torturers who no longer have the legal means by which to fulfil those urges they have became accustomed too. Check with any real law enforcement authority and they will tell you exactly what kind of long term threat those individuals who voluntarily participated in that kind of abhorrent behaviour really are.

Uh, because it doesn't work?

[FatSean]

The guy planted a bomb...all he has to do is send the torturers on a wild goose chase until the bomb goes off. You assume that the person values his own life over that of the cause. I submit that he values the cause over his own life. Just like a soldier willingly rushes into harm's way in the name of his government, believing what he is doing is right.

Jesus Christ!

[His name cannot be s]

This is *real* journalism:

  - Nth hand unverified, information (My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. )

  - this is about stuff along time ago. ... the headline here said somehting about Microsoft's "NEW" dirty tricks? WTF?

  - There is a lot suspect in what's being claimed in the article as well.

Well, as the tagline says:

Re:Jesus Christ!

[stubear]

I agree but did you read the comments? A user named Bob Cringley claims to have corraborating evidence and while he names the source as anonymous, they are not anonymous to him. WTF?!? If he had corraborating evidence he should have mentioned it in the article don't you think? What can you expect when it's a story about Microsoft allegedly doing something bad though?

Re:Jesus Christ!

[Joebert]

What can you expect when it's a story about Microsoft allegedly doing something bad though?

The corraborating evidence comes up missing ?

Re:

[kestasjk]

I heard, from a second hand but reliable source, that evidence destruction goes all the way up to Steve Ballmer.

He's mostly just in charge of the destruction of chair evidence though.

Re:

[multisync]

- Nth hand unverified, information (My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious. )

According to Cringley:

The former Microsoft contract employee who contacted me on this issue did not do so anonymously, by the way. I know his name and how to reach him. We have talked on the phone more than once. He did not hesitate to name names.

You are welcome to quest

And your point?

[nurb432]

These days when you are as large as microsoft is, it doesnt really matter if you break the law.

If you do, and actually get caught, you get some token fine and you chalk it up as a cost of doing business and move on.

Re:And your point?

[truthsearch]

Which is why Enron is still around...

Re:And your point?

[Coryoth]

Which is why Enron is still around...

Enron is not gone because they broke the law and got obliterated for it, Enron is gone because the reality that they actually had no money overtook their fiction and they collapsed into overnight bankruptcy. Legal recourse against Enron only really began after it was long gone, and was against the company's directors.

Re:

[truthsearch]

That's exactly my point. There are sometimes consequences, whether by the market or the government. Once their questionable activities were realized by investors they all ran and the stock collapsed.

To blindly say there are never any consequences is wrong. There are rare legal and often economic consequences.

Re:

[gnasher719]

'' Once their questionable activities were realized by investors they all ran and the stock collapsed. ''

But not because of their questionable activities. Enron didn't collapse because they were lying about their financial situation, they collapsed because their financial situation was bad in the first place.

It's sad...

[Xenographic]

The only way to kill an evil company appears to be to bankrupt it.
What on earth does it take to revoke a corporate charter these days?

Re:

[khallow]

So you want to destroy a business, corporation or not? Seize their assets. That's why a business isn't as powerful as a government.

Re:

[Xenographic]

> Seize their assets. That's why a business isn't as powerful as a government.

Oh, that can destroy a government, too. If I live long enough, with the US Federal Deficit as deep as it is and climbing like it is, I might even see it happen.

Re:

[sumdumass]

lol.. Nope. You will never see it happening to the US government. Congress passes the laws determining how a deficit is paid and what action can be taken to collect it. They won't allow it to happen. Also, in times of an emergency, the feds can sieze property for their own use. If selling this property to pay the deficit bills is what they see as usable, nothing would stop them short of a revolution. But the left has succesfully taken guns away from law abiding citizens so this won't likley happen and you c

Re:

[cyber-vandal]

Just as a matter of interest did the citizens of the Confederacy have the right to bear arms? And if they did how did they, going by gun owners' logic, ever lose the war?

Re:

[sumdumass]

Are you talking about the confederate states of america that was around right before we became the united states of america or the confederates of the civil war time? Cause yes, one did and one didn't.

And if your talking about losing the ware, your probably talking about the american civil war. And they lost because a general gave up in Appomattox Virginia. But that wasn't the end of the war, It was just the official folding of the south back into the united states. The gun owners of the south continued to

Re:

[cyber-vandal]

Actually yes I was, since gun owners on here and other places think the government will never be able to beat them as long as they're armed. I was wondering how the Union beat the Confederacy in that case if the Confederate citizens all had guns.

Don't think that I'm anti-gun ownership as such; I think it's a complete load of shit that banning gun ownership will turn the world into some sort of utopia. However I dispute that gun ownership automatically prevents totalitarianism.

Re:

[khallow]

For an extreme counterexample, consider the regime of Pol Pot in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. He supposedly killed off an eighth of the population, emptied the cities, and otherwise was working to completedly destroy the country. The only reason he stopped was because Vietnam invaded. If he had played his diplomatic cards competently, that wouldn't have happened either (since his troops were harrassing the Vietmanese). Who knows how far he'd have gone? But to summarize, it's an example of a government that w

Re:

[khallow]

Pol Pot goes in a class by himself. If he had been in charge of the Soviet Union and had done proportionally the same thing that he did in Cambodia (ie, kill off a quarter of the population), there'd be 30-60 million dead Soviets - in 4 years. If he'd been in charge of China, the death toll would have been around 150-200 million. In any case, it does demonstrate that a government can last a lot longer on less than a business can.

Re:

[khallow]

My bad, Pol Pot had been exiling people from their towns and villages for several years prior to 1975. While most of the people died in the 1975-1979 period, he actually started the genocide back in 1972.

Re:And your point, redux?

[runningduck]

Enron is not gone because the reality that they actually had no money overtook their fiction, Enron is gone because they changed their name to CrossCountry Energy Corp. While most of their business activities stopped they were too well connected to just disappear.

http://www.enron.com/corp/pressroom/releases/2003/ ene/062503release.html [enron.com]
http://www.igorinternational.com/press/bloomberg-c orporate-business-name.php [igorinternational.com] - read down a bit.
http://money.cnn.com/2002/02/22/news/enron_roundup /index.htm? [cnn.com]

Re:

[petermgreen]

didn't the enron guys only get in real (criminal) trouble after the buisness had already collapsed because they could no longer keep up the illusion of profitability?

Re:

[eyegone]

s/Enron/Arthur Andersen/

Re:

[Hooya]

Andersen Consulting spun off most of it's viable business into Accenture. So with a nice shell game, there are no *real* legal consequences for Arthur Andersen.

Re:

[cyber-vandal]

Microsoft do actually have something to sell unlike Enron.
I notice Ford is still around despite some evil behaviour (although they seem to be in some financial shit finally) as are IBM (they weathered their financial shit) and no doubt dozens if not hundreds of evildoer corporations which haven't been destroyed for their crimes. The all-powerful market doesn't punish criminal corporations only unprofitable ones and most corporate crime convictions don't really affect profits.

Re:

[truthsearch]

IBM and Microsoft (and maybe Ford, I don't know) have adjusted their accounting practices in the wake of Enron. Microsoft stock was affected (and hasn't grown much since). IBM still has a great balance sheet after adjustments and so their stock is still high. Ford's stock is in the toilet.

So there have been consequences. You're correct that none have gone out of business, but that certainly doesn't mean they didn't pay some price.

Re:

[cyber-vandal]

Microsoft have never been punished by the market for their illegal behaviour, IBM were punished at the beginning of the 90s and are a much more pleasant company and Ford are in the crapper right now but their bad behaviour was a very long time ago and the market is punishing them for not having as good products as the competition pure and simple. The market, like I said, punishes poor financial performance and has no interest in whether that financial performance was earned within the law or not. The conseq

Re:

[RAMMS+EIN]

``you get some token fine and you chalk it up as a cost of doing business and move on.''

It's always like that. The only thing that matters is whether the rewards and "cost of doing business" do or don't exceed the rewards and cost of working within the law.

Not just any illegality

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

This particular offense, not producing evidence on request, is just the thing to make a judge go ballistic. Courts see it as a direct attack against their authority. Lawyers will stall discovery, bury evidence in piles of other material, or fight discovery, but it's near unthinkable in their world to destroy evidence and the penalties are severe.

Re:

[inviolet]

These days when you are as large as microsoft is, it doesnt really matter if you break the law.

If you do, and actually get caught, you get some token fine and you chalk it up as a cost of doing business and move on.

Sad but true. And I think I finally know why it happens...

Microsoft is so large, so widespread, and so universally relied upon, that it is very hard to punish Microsoft the corporation without also significantly hurting the rest of the country. For example, if we force them to reveal their s

Re:

[drsmithy]

These days when you are as large as microsoft is, it doesnt really matter if you break the law.

On the flipside, when you're as large as Microsoft, it doesn't really matter if you don't break the law - you'll still get sued by gold-diggers.

Not completely right...

[physicsboy500]

Microsoft didn't loose the tapes, it's just that the backup server was being run by Vista!

Re:Not completely right...

[RAMMS+EIN]

``it's just that the backup server was being run by Vista!''

And the DRM wouldn't let them access the content?

New?

[NoTheory]

As far as i am aware these aren't new allegations, i remember hearing about this back as far as 2 years ago at least. Some casual googling [google.com] turns up documents from that time period.

names

[gEvil (beta)]

It's a fascinating story, and even names one person at Microsoft.

Oooh! It names someone at Microsoft. I'll tell you, but you gotta keep it a secret, okay? Bill Gates. Shhhh, don't tell anyone I told you...

Re:

[Firehed]

I could name another one, but I don't want a chair thrown at me...

the irony

[troll -1]

Microsoft was saying that it couldn't find the tapes and that it would take millions of man-hours to search for them ...

And Microsoft wants to be number one in search?

Re:

[truthsearch]

Do you have a longer-lasting cost effective backup solution for truely massive amounts of information? Just the migration from a system that's been in place for decades would cost millions.

Huge cost effective backup

[symbolset]

I believe what you're looking for is called "Archive.org"

How large is the Wayback Machine?

The Internet Archive Wayback Machine contains almost 2 petabytes of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month. This eclipses the amount of text contained in the world's largest libraries, including the Library of Congress.

Re:

[dbIII]

What do you recommend to back up a few terabytes that you want to read in twenty years time? Tape is still the best solution to a few problems.

Re:

[owlstead]

It's more the problem that they are backing up things, but aren't able to find things in the backup libraries that worries me. What's the use of backups if you cannot find anything in them? Shame about all those KM (sorry, this is slashdot, miles) of tapes.

Actually, that is also basically the problem with my backups on a smaller scale. Then again, I'm not a company and non-finding backups usually means I have to reprogram that small Java application in 5% of the time it took me originally :)

Here's the second part

[SEMW]

Cringely posted the story in two parts, but the summary only links to the first. Second part here [technologyevangelist.com].

Microsoft's M.O.

[walterbyrd]

"Burst lawyers caught a pattern of apparent destruction of e-mail evidence on the part of Microsoft."

The same repeating pattern: msft destroy's evidence, then msft accuses others of destroying evidence. Msft steals code, then accuses others of stealing code. Msft abuses the public by controlling the standards, then msft has a screaming hissy-fit accusing others of trying to control the standard. Msft lies to the public with astro-turfing, and hiring others to front for msft etc., then msft screams and crys

Re:Microsoft's M.O.

[Duhavid]

"They generate a large fraction of the US GNP, "

    They do? And assuming they do, is that a get out of jail free card?
    If so, why?

"they make the software that has made computers cheap and ubiquitous for everybody on the planet,"

    There were many others in that game too, till they were crushed.
    And they have made a very pretty penny from it.
    And it is not like it would not have happened anyway ( there is nothing all that special about Microsoft
        in that regard )

"and Bill Gates personally funds one of the largest charities in the world."

    Again, is this a get out of jail free card? Why do you bring it up?
    Is it OK to destroy evidence because you donate money to a charity?

"Now, if I can only get one of their salespeople to call me back about a large new installation I'm getting ready to do..."

    Good luck on that.

Re:

[sumdumass]

I think he was shilling for a discount in the costs of his large install. I found his post most humorous. I didn't think he was serious.

Re:

[Duhavid]

Well, you are probably right, in which case, he got me good.

Re:

[jd]

I'm more amused that Bill Gates' charity is mentioned at all. He has more money than the rest of the top ten richest people combined, but Warren Beaty gets the credit for donating the most, and Bill's donations are coming under scrutiny (his investments tend to be in industries that create the harm his donations only partially cure, so he often ends up doing bugger all other than turn a profit off the tax credits).

Re:

[dabraun]

"They generate a large fraction of the US GNP, "

They do? And assuming they do, is that a get out of jail free card?
If so, why?

Because, if that's true, then making Microsoft dissapear off the face of the earth would have a significant effect on the economy of the United States. That is, like it or not, more important to the US government than applying absolute justice to Microsoft is.

That doesn't mean the government can't levy huge fines, etc. They

Re:

[Duhavid]

"Because, if that's true, then making Microsoft dissapear off the face of the earth would have a significant effect on the economy of the United States."

There would be some minor turbulence for a short while, but I
cant see a "significant effect". Enron "disappeared", what
was the result? Nothing, really. People's computers would
continue to run. Also, who said anything about the company
disappearing? You cant really punish a company, excepting maybe
taking money from it, or cutting it up. Were it to "disa

Sounds like old robber barrons to me

[walterbyrd]

Much of the same could be said of the old robber barrons, especially standard oil. They created a lot of jobs, provided a valuable product, and gave a lot of money to charities.

I suppose we should let those guys off the hook as well?

Corporate Records Retention Law

[Detritus]

I think we need a corporate records retention law to help avoid these sorts of situations. Besides intentional destruction of evidence, many corporations intentionally destroy email as quickly as possible, to make it difficult for anyone to find any evidence of wrongdoing in future civil or criminal litigation.

Re:

[killjoe]

Destroying evidence is already against the law. The problem is that MS is above the law. They can commit any crime they want and they know that the govt will never hold them accountable.

It's a criminal organization that is completely above the law. Passing more laws isn't going to curb it.

Re:

[killjoe]

I am pretty sure destroying evidence is a criminal offense. Same with obstruction of justice, witness tampering and evidence tampering.

Re:

[drsmithy]

I think we need a corporate records retention law to help avoid these sorts of situations.

Good point. Accurate and long-term recording of, say, username <-> timestamp <-> IP mappings would be great for some lawsuits...

One small problem

[Wolfraider]

Any one noticed one big problem in this post. All of Microsoft's email is stored in pst files? Wouldn't they be using a email system like Microsoft Exchange that stores all emails on the server? It does not make sense from a company standpoint to download all email to your desktop at work and not have it available anywhere.

Re:One small problem

[zappepcs]

Exactly. If this one company can't archive emails successfully, what does that say for the likely success of sarbanes-oxley compliance in the US business world?

I'm kind of confused why this story is being treated as it is in the comments. MS is supposed to be helping other businesses avoid the possibility of losing data... hmmmmm MS wants to be the preferred supplier of software to government agencies and this is a bad mark on them if you ask me. Sure, they might have lost tapes which is not part of their software per se' but they are supposed to be designing software / systems that provide REALLY good backup processes in mind. If you can't demonstrate that you know how backup processes should work, perhaps your software shouldn't be used by anyone with legal requirements to backup data?

The end of Robocop 2

[Weaselmancer]

What if this was the work of one individual?
A person who had her own agenda, wasn't in sync with the goals of our company?
Well, that usually works.

Use computers

[lancejjj]

Microsoft was saying that it couldn't find the tapes and that it would take millions of man-hours to search for them ...

Yes, it is best if they have a person search through the tape backup database to see where the tape is physically stored. It would take millions of hours. A computer could perform the database search in a couple seconds, but the query keeps crashing SQL Server ever since the Vista upgrade.

It Wasn't Microsoft's Fault.

[darkonc]

Everybody knows that PJ took the tapes, and she's attempting to index them right now.

That's why Burst won the courtcase

[gnasher719]

If I remember correctly, Burst started a court case against Microsoft for patent infringement a few years ago (one of those that we all love on Slashdot), and Microsoft paid them about $60 million in settlements. The court case looked very bad for Microsoft, not because there was any evidence of any wrongdoing, but because Microsoft had "lost" emails exactly for a critical time period, but not others just before or just after that time period. These are exactly the emails that this article is about.

To the courts, it doesn't make much difference whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails by accident" and say the truth, or you say "we destroyed these emails, take that!" and say the truth or not, or whether you say "sorry, we lost these emails" and are in fact hiding them. In each case, the emails are not there, and the courts will assume that whatever they might have contained was not good for you. So whether Microsoft really lost these emails or was just hiding them, it doesn't matter.

Similar, if you are taken to court because someone claims you downloaded music illegally, and you just happen to format your harddisk by accident, you are in deep shit. And it doesn't matter whether there was evidence on that harddisk or not.

Evidence no longer necessary?

[Namarrgon]

Cool, so I can wait until that annoying git in the office down the hall formats his hard drive, then accuse him of downloading music illegally, and he's screwed :-)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Stupidity trumps malice here

[Myria]

Regardless of your opinion about Microsoft, it seems like this is a case of stupidity of either Microsoft IT or their contractor, not malice. The last thing you want to do when you're being sued is destroy the documents subpoenaed during discovery. Having a corporate policy of deleting all emails regularly is one thing; expressing deleting a document that you know will be subpoenaed is quite another.

Microsoft's lawyers aren't stupid, though other parts of the company may be. If Microsoft were deleting incriminating documents that are subpoenaed, how does my signature exist? How could these documents be any more damaging than the others that did get released?

I'm not convinced..

[cheros]

You could use that same argument for Arthur Andersen during the Enron case.

The key question is very simple: what makes them KNOWINGLY risk this, or (put another way) what are they hiding that would be worse when discovered knowingly and willingly destroying potential evidence?

In both cases (Enron and Microsoft) I had a real problem with accepting things of this magnitude as 'accidents'. Too convenient, and too much a feeling of even more skeletons present in the mass burial closet than were discovered. In

What is the liability of the sysadmins?

[plopez]

Something to think about very carefully if you are a sysape and you are asked to 'lose' evidence. Especially if you know of an ongoing legal action.

Could you be sued? Thrown into jail for obstruction? Probably.

If anyone asks you to do this, or help out, just say 'no'. Then look for another employer because the one you are working for is both evil and stupid.

Re:

[Teresita]

An even bigger issue is how Microsoft has lifted man kind...The PC would not exist without them...

Nonsense, if Micro$oft never bought the CPM rip-off 86-DOS and renamed it "PC-DOS 1.0" Gary Kildall at Digital Research would have just marked CPM directly to IBM and today we'd all be running GEM XP [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[psbrogna]

... or one of /.'s favored Posix o/s's that have gained popularity in the last decade or so.

Re:

[drsmithy]

Nonsense, if Micro$oft never bought the CPM rip-off 86-DOS and renamed it "PC-DOS 1.0" Gary Kildall at Digital Research would have just marked CPM directly to IBM and today we'd all be running GEM XP.

He did. IBM would sell you a PC with CP/M if you wanted it.

However, a bigger problem with your argument is that the underlying logic dictates you can't give anyone/anything credit for any achievement, since "if they hadn't done it, someone else would have".

Re:

[toddestan]

Mostly because back then, Dos was a lightweight enough operating system to run on a typical home/business computer of the era. Sure, it wasn't as advanced as other platforms, but when you have 640k of ram and a 4.77Mhz processor it's not like you're going to be running a full Unix system with X11.

Re:

[jfclavette]

Lots of companies have e-mail retention policies. You shouldn't keep e-mail that is not important to current business since it can prove disastrous when someone is able to subpoena it. There's simply no good reason to do it, and it can hurt your case when you face legal action even if you tought at the time that what you were doing was perfectly legal.

Re:

[sumdumass]

On the down side, IF your asked to produce certain comunications and you cannot your case can be damaged equaly as well. And if there is reasons to belive a lawsuite will come about, then your in deeper problems if you don't retain those emails after you came to this beleif. (in other words, If i said i was going to sure you, and you deleted everything after i said that but before the case was filed, you still destroyed evidence in most situations.

And if your in a certain businesses that is regulated like s

Re:

[jfclavette]

"On the down side, IF your asked to produce certain comunications and you cannot your case can be damaged equaly as well. And if there is reasons to belive a lawsuite will come about, then your in deeper problems if you don't retain those emails after you came to this beleif."

I doubt it. Deleting old e-mails is perfectly reasonnable. I don't need it, I don't keep it. Do you keep all letters or or tape all phone calls made by employees ?

"In other words, If i said i was going to sure you, and you deleted e

Re:

[sumdumass]

I doubt it. Deleting old e-mails is perfectly reasonnable. I don't need it, I don't keep it. Do you keep all letters or or tape all phone calls made by employees ?

If they are just hat, old irelevent emails then no problems at all. And yes, I do keep a copy of every email and a record of every phone call made to potential customers and clients. I also do the same with creditors and people offering services to me. Why, Because you never know when someone will make a claim contray to what has actualy transp

Re:

[sumdumass]

Plausible deniability doesn't present you with evidence that the negotiated price was X when someone is claiming Y. If I know you don't keep the records I could change an email and make almost ay claim i wanted.

I guess mabe a better limit mihgt be beyound a common statute of liability or whatever it is called when a person has a certain amount of time to file a lawsuite if they claim they were wronged. But even then you have to look out for items that get discovered after that time and are grandfthered in.

Re:

[sumdumass]

lol.. Any time any contract or changes in them are negotiated by email or whatever, it comes into play. It isn't that the other repositories aren't being used, it is that they can be inacurate and the cause of a dispute.

And yes, real legaly run companies use email and the telephone to discuss contracts and sales and much more. On more then one occasion something has gotten lost or misrepresented. And they have come back to bite them.

Go ahead and not worry about it. If it ever bites you or your company in th

Re:

[Timesprout]

The patents are generic and Burst pulled the same shit with Apple, claiming they infringed them as well.

Re:How convenient

[sumdumass]

I had a dog eat my home work once. Actualy is was more then once but i finaly figured out the problem. We used to put peanut butter in the dogs chew toys as a reward for doing something good like not tearing anything up when we left him along or comming when called.

Well, long story short, When I would eat a peanut butter sandwich while doing my homework the dog would seem interested in my backpack that night. When I left the zipper open or worse yet, it broke fro shoving too much stuff in it, the dog went in and ate the papers I was working on while eating the peanut butter sandwich.

Re:

[user no. 590291]

I'm sure it was cheaper to pay the contractor to take that fall than to settle in the face of the damning evidence that was on those "lost" tapes.

Of course they are.

[noamsml]

They're also white and shiny. I want one!

Who here is letting Apple off the hook?

[walterbyrd]

Fan-boy strawman arguement, I guess. This particular article has to do with msft. Nobody is letting apple off the hook, this article has nothing to do with apple, so we are discussing apple here.