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Windows XP is Listening 380

Posted by timothy from the this-ought-to-freak-you-out dept.
jfengel writes: "According to Newsbytes, some Windows XP users are finding random words inserted into their text as they write. The problem is caused by XP's speech recongition system, which is turned on by default by some manufacturers. It's listening to the random noise you get even when the mic is turned off. Kind of an insight into your computer's subconscious, perhaps."
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Windows XP is Listening More

Windows XP is Listening

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  • on by default? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by seinman ( 463076 )
    with speech recognition on by default on a bunch of systems, imagine all the processor power that's wasting...

    ...of course, this is microsoft.

  • I'm sorry Dave, that operation is illegal.

    • Re:Bluescreens? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Wog ( 58146 )
      User: "But I thought I unplugged the microphone!"

      Computer: "My webcam read your lips as you were talking to your friend about disconnecting me and installing another OS. I cannot allow you to put the mission in jeopardy."

  • Fire Up Outlook... (Score:3, Funny)

    by writermike ( 57327 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:24PM (#3151652)
    1. Fire up Outlook.
    2. Subj: I hate Windows XP
    3. Write message.

    Dear Mom,

    I hate Windows XP. Boy, Bill Gates really has it in for me. I can't stand this software. Yuck!

    4. Send.

    5. Mom receives mail.
    6. Subj: I [love] Windows XP!
    7. Message:

    Dear Mom,

    I [love] Windows XP. Boy, Bill Gates really [knows how to make software / has great body]. I can't stand [to live another moment without] this software. [F]uck [yeah]!

  • "I'm afraid Holy Water would short it out so someone please help me," wrote the XP user.

    This is too funny. Along with all the stories we always get bashing Microsoft, this one is great just by being unintentional. One can imagine the poor hapless user typing away, when all of a sudden "Kill Yourself" appears on the screen.

    I think when you talk about how much you hate your boss by your computer, Office should automatically compose a hatemail and send it on your behalf. Even better, you can now do this yourself and claim XP accidentally did it for you!

  • He's baaaaack (Score:5, Funny)

    by StringBlade ( 557322 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:27PM (#3151677) Journal
    Dear Mr. Schlock,

    [Clippy: Excuse me, it looks like you're writing a letter!]

    IIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

    [What did I say?]

  • Clippy Says (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bonker ( 243350 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:27PM (#3151678)
    Hmm.... I wonder if this realy works.

    (Fires up OfficeXP)

    Dear Microsoft. I have--

    Clippy Says: "It appears that you're writing Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. B.O.W. D.O.W.N. T.O. T.H.E W.I.L.L. O.F. B.I.L.L. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. S.U.B.M.I.T. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L O.B.E.Y. Y.O.U. W.I.L.L. N.O.T. I.N.S.T.A.L.L. L.I.N.U.X. a letter. If you'd like, Office XP can help you choose from several helpful templates that will make your task easier and more fun."

    Hmmm.... Nope. I don't see anything at all wrong with the speech recognition software.
  • Just give a couple of million XP-users each a word processor and infinite time and they'll produce the complete works of Shakespeare.

    (Sorry Huxley)

  • Mystery Solved! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:28PM (#3151692)
    I was wondering why after viewing my Britney Spears jpegs the text "uh,uh,uh,uh,uh,uh,uh,uh........aaahhhhhhhhhhh" appeared in a minimized Word document that was open at the same time.

  • Major Slowdown (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xSterbenx ( 549640 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:28PM (#3151697)
    Speech recognition did not come installed with my Windows XP, but was installed (and turned 'on' by default) by my Office XP Pro. After which point my computer suffered a major decrease in speed, to the point where it was taking 15 seconds sometimes for the webbrowser to load. I current have a 1.2 Ghz Athlon T-bird with 512 M ram, so it obviously was not from lack of processing power. Then I noticed a little program running the background called 'sapisrv.exe', turned it off, and was back to cruising speed. Perhaps this slowness was just something I experienced due to some oversight, or maybe I need to upgrade (again), but if not I would not suggest anyone to use the MS speech recog. tool (of course, with the /. crowd that is probably inherent)

    • Re:Major Slowdown (Score:5, Funny)

      by GigsVT ( 208848 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @04:25PM (#3152218) Journal
      to the point where it was taking 15 seconds sometimes for the webbrowser to load.

      Are you sure you just didn't install Mozilla by accident?

    • FindFast (Score:2)

      by oni ( 41625 )
      Then I noticed a little program running the background called 'sapisrv.exe', turned it off, and was back to cruising speed.

      That kinda reminds me of findfast. It was installed by default in office 97 and would chew up processor time indexing and reindexing the harddrive.

      You've got to love the decision making skills of big bureaucracies like Microsoft.
      • Find Fast didn't just waste cycles, in the last place I worked as IT Manager, when I arrived, it was the single biggest source of crashes in the company. After disabling it on all machines the rate of crashes for some staff went from half a dozen times a day to a couple of times every few days. Some staff literally gained an hour of work time per day.

        I like to think that my ability to reduce the crashing of PCs in that position was the main reason most people were able to cut down on their overtime.

    • Re:Major Slowdown (Score:2, Informative)

      by ToAnMy ( 468813 )
      Speech recognition is extremely CPU and memory intensive by its very nature. Depending on the vocabulary size and the complexity of the language model used (a language model is a statistical model that gives you the probability of a word given the previous N words in the sentence), most research code uses 200-400 Mb of memory and needs really fast CPUs to achieve real time recognition. Although I figure MS has a bag of heuristics up their sleeves theres only so much trickery you can do before the error rate becomes useless.

      Anyway, ASR is pretty useful for some people and as long as nothing else needs your RAM and CPU I dont think MS' system should be much worse in terms of resource demands than e.g. IBMs ViaVoice.

      However, turning on speech recognition by default really tells you that the people selling these preinstalled machines really don't know what they're doing.
  • I could have told you about this back in October when the company I'm contracting for rolled out XP RC1 company-wide.

    Of course, we only saw it happen three times, and only in Outlook... and when it happened, we had almost-complete sentances, not just random words... so it makes you wonder if it's -really- the voice recognition software, or something else... it certainly looked like three other people's emails being combined into one, alternating every five or six words, with punctuation...
  • I was in the middle of typing up a research paper for a philosophy project on Descartes last week. I thought I was just a little wack after thinking too hard about that whole mind over matter thing. Glad to know im sane.

    looking at my settings, sure enough speech recognition is turned on.

  • A conversation at Your Local Big Company... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ZaMoose ( 24734 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:29PM (#3151707)
    PHB to IT Lackey: "Call the diocese! Cancel the order we placed!"

    IT Lackey: "Both the young priest and the old priest, sir?"

    PHB: "On second thought, no. Didn't you mention some daemons on our Leenooks machines last week...?"
  • Apparently Kevin "Mr. Subliminal" Nealon from Saturday Night Live was a consultant on the User Interface for Windows XP.

    Either that or Windows XP has Tourette's Syndrome.

  • Sign up for passport... sign up for passport... (Score:5, Funny)

    by alacqua ( 535697 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:30PM (#3151726) Homepage
    After further analysis, it was discovered that the seemingly random words were all variations on "sign up for passport". Microsoft has called it an "amazing coincidence" and has distributed instructions for a fix.

    Step (1). Sign up for passport.
    Step (2). Reboot.

    No further problems have been reported after using this technique. Microsoft credits it's new security initiative for the speed and efficacy of this fix, and reminds you to sign up for passport.

  • Hello. You may know me, for I am Bill Gates. I wanted to tell people how sorry I am for engaging in anti-competitive activities. We will never do this kind of thing again. To make a long story short, we have given in to your demands. Have a nice day!

  • I suppose we're supposed to assume this is some evil plot by Microsoft to surveil on all of us.

    Wrong, wrong, wrong.

    Everybody knows it's only the government that does that kind of thing.

    However, seeing as the DOJ seems to be M$'s bitch, does that make M$ part of the "government?"

  • I disagree (Score:4, Funny)

    by I Want GNU! ( 556631 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:33PM (#3151751) Homepage
    I think that this article is SNAILS baseless propoganda PANDA against the good old company of COMMUNIST microsoft. The only SMELLY reason that it is even CEILING listed is because of the INTERTIAL distaste people here have for Microsoft X-RAY.

  • hmmm i haven't noticed anything... (Score:4, Funny)

    by edrugtrader ( 442064 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:33PM (#3151757) Homepage
    i type many fuck microsoft letters a day, and i have i wish bill gates would die never had this problem ever...

    i sometimes why doesn't my company switch to linux mutter stuff under my breath, and XP still has no fuck XP problems figuring out what i mean to god i hate office type.

    if anyone else is experiencing problems, let me god i hope no one spams me know.
  • I hear voices and they put me on thorazine. My computer hears voices so where's the Service Pack, the computer equivilent of a good downer.
  • I think it's just Clippy the friendly neighborhood Microsoft Office assistant getting the Redmond boys back for canning him in 2001.

    That bastard paperclip seemed kinda sketchy when he first broke onto the scene back in '97 or so. It's only feasible that he somehow snuck onto the last megabyte of data on the Windows XP master CD and decided to cause mayhem by fscking around with the users who bitched about him so much.

    monolithic - adj. Characterized by massiveness and rigidity and total uniformity [monolinux.com]
    linux - n. An implementation of the Unix kernel originally written from scratch with no proprietary code [monolinux.com]

  • where I'm typing away at the latest inventory survey for..

    -Jetson!
    -Yes, Mister Spacely!
    -Jetson, where are the figures for new account?
    -Ummm, right here, no! This is Elroy's lunch!

  • Getting /.ed here's the article in full (Score:4, Informative)

    by Chris Brewer ( 66818 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:38PM (#3151801) Journal
    Daily News
    'Phantom Menace' typing just a Microsoft speech feature
    By Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes.
    March 12, 2002

    Random words and characters mysteriously appearing on the screens of some Windows XP and Office XP users are not the work of phantom hackers or a sign that users' systems are possessed by demons. It's just Microsoft's voice recognition system running slightly amok, the company said.

    In recent weeks, several XP users have posted messages to Internet discussion lists and newsgroups reporting that text is automatically appearing in Internet Explorer's address bar or in Outlook e-mail messages or Word documents as users compose them.

    In a posting entitled "My Remote Keyboard is Possessed in XP," for example, one Microsoft customer reported "very strange behavior" that included letters appearing in input areas of the screen while browsing and writing e-mails.

    "I'm afraid Holy Water would short it out so someone please help me," wrote the XP user.

    Another Microsoft customer separately reported that "a ghost" appeared to be taking over his computer. In the message, entitled "Phantom Menace XP," the user said something was causing toolbars and options to pop up without his input.

    In response to user inquiries, in January Microsoft published a handful of articles in the Support section of its Web site about the problem.

    According to Microsoft, after installing Microsoft's Speech application programming interface, "random words or characters may be displayed in Office XP documents or in the Internet Explorer Address bar."

    The company said the behavior occurs because "the speech recognition tool is 'listening' to your voice through you computer's microphone and is attempting to recognize what you are saying."

    Microsoft said its speech recognition engine, a program file named Sapisvr.exe, is turned on at installation by some computer manufacturers. The engine is also included with Microsoft Office XP and other speech-enabled products.

    To resolve the problem, Microsoft said XP users should disable the Dictation and the Voice Command features on the operating system's Language bar. Alternately, users can turn off speech recognition completely from the Regional and Language Options tool on XP's Control Panel.

    Merely unplugging or turning off the computer's microphone does not correct the random-character problem, according to several user reports.

    Microsoft's article about random characters in Office XP is at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;Q315765.

    Microsoft's article on configuring speech recognition in Windows XP is at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb; en-us;Q306537.

    Microsoft's .NET Speech homepage is http://www.microsoft.com/speech/.

    Reported by Newsbytes, http://www.newsbytes.com.
    • This was no accident, especially if it is on the Pro model. Industrial espionage is big business, and MS is in the best position to exploit this market. How about a listening device right on your competitor's desktop?

      I think maybe they have uncovered a mole in the machine with a nasty bug that blew its cover.

  • Dave Im sorry I dont understand.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by CDWert ( 450988 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:38PM (#3151807) Homepage
    My fathers name is Dave, about 7 years back when 95 was still in its last internal beta we got our greasy hands on a copy from a MS employee...

    Long and short I gained access to the thing one day while dropping some stuff off.

    And changed all the wav files to stuff from 2001 a space oddessy. Now I thought this will be good, Ill get a call right away ...nothing for days and days, Finally I said something, he had his speakers turned down pretty far but could still hear it on occasion, like when he was turning it off and it said dave, what are you doing dave....my mind is going, dave I can feel my mind going.... Long and short was he litteraly though he has working too much and didnt want to say anything to anyone.

    About a week later he did the same to my computer while at my house and I was on a smoke run, next time I booted my computer, the damm thing was shouting it was all I could do to hold my 100lb dog from tearing my computer to shreads...

    This is one I could have even more fun with he is running Xp, hack in and whenever a profanity is muttered, respond, like hey I dont appreciate your tone of voice, etc....

    He is a bit older and has been working harder, wonder if hed tell me :)

  • words? (Score:2, Funny)

    by 2MuchC0ffeeMan ( 201987 )
    it didn't say what kind of randoM wordS.

    maybe it's a coverup.

    messages on another's documents?

    sounds like subliminal messages to me
  • I realize that the information is coming from the typical people using tech support, but how can the voice recognition try to recognize anything without a microphone?

    I suppose there could be a built in mic in a laptop the person is overlooking, but otherwise? If it is smart enough to recognize speech, shouldn't it be smart enough to realize no one is talking?

    • Random noise. Random crap inserted in the RAM or buffers somewhere.


      Voice rec is not exact, it involves algorithms to interpret sounds (noise) coming in the mic and convert it into what it THINKS the word was. Noise is the key here. It is (possibly) interpreting random system noise (or leaking EM?) inside the box as words.

  • REDRUM (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ooblek ( 544753 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:40PM (#3151821)
    If it starts inserting REDRUM into your text repeatedly, RUN!
    • MAKES JACK A DULL BOY

      (or, alternatively)

      NO TV AND NO BEER MAKES HOMER GO CRAZY

      :)

      (Ok, more crap appended to get around the lameness filter; these CAPS are literary *references*! Sheesh!)

      Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
      Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
  • (... he cried aloud, the day before he went missing.)

    And in case you're wondering, this is a reference to a subplot in the "Illuminatus" trilogy.

    Back in the early '70s I was working on word processing software (when manufacturers of a word processor also had to build a machine the size of a desk to put the software in). I was also reading _Illuminatus_ and that subplot had me sorely tempted to add a bug to the software such that it would occasionally inject "fnord" into the text being entered or edited, causing this to appear in major newspapers nationwide.

    Fortunately I was able to resist the temptation. B-)
  • FWIW, the first thing I did with my new laptop, after installing a Linux partition, was to turn off the stupid voice recognition stuff (Dell ships with it turned on). It was annoying, and frankly I can't see the usefulness of it. I certainly wouldn't use it in the office. Talking to my computer looks strange, feels strange, and is distracting to other people in the office. It's also not nearly capable enought to make using it easy or efficient.

  • In the office of Bill Gates... (Score:5, Funny)

    by SomeoneYouDontKnow ( 267893 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @03:44PM (#3151875)

    "Mr. Gates, we have some more information on the antitrust people. Seems that they got together last night during that attorneys general convention to discuss strategy. Here's the full transcript for you to review. Several copies, actually. Seems they had several laptops sitting around. Uh, ignore this one here. Too many extraneous phrases from some drunk guy talking about how they don't make vodka the way they used to."

    "Thanks Steve. God, I love technology! OK, leave those machines alone for a while, until they stop reporting anything useful. Then, pull the unique IDs for them and shut them down during the next round of automatic software updates. Oh yeah, and don't forget to delete the IDs from the reactivation database, since they'll doubtless call in when their systems go down. We'll teach these bastards not to screw with us."

  • ESP (Score:2, Funny)

    by Scrameustache ( 459504 )
    Merely unplugging or turning off the computer's microphone does not correct the random-character problem, according to several user reports.

    Voices from the ether?

  • ..a bit like what our brains do when we dream? I read somewhere that dreams are our brains trying to find patterns in all the random things we see/do.
    winxp is dreaming, ie trying to find patterns in data its receiving.

    • Oh, god... If XP is starting to dream on people's computers, the next step is for the operating system to "wake up".

      A sentient copy of Windows XP? RUN FOR THE HILLS!
  • actually I would say that it is NOT listening. Here is my problem: (anyone else get this)

    In XP I setup all my preferences - like "remember my name and password on this computer" for such sites as yahoo mail etc.. *NEVER* does it remember. even though I always check it.

    Remember my slashdot login blah blah - and use that cookie to log me in. (NO I have not turned off cookies or anything)

    when I want to play some sort of media file - like a sound file or video off the web - it pops up and asks me if I want to play it in an open window of IE. NO DAMMIT I DONT!. and the little "Remember my preferences box is *CHECKED* still!?

    WTF I say MS is gettting worse and worse. I dont mean as a company - I have always disliked a lot of their tactics. But I admire how successful they are (I know it sound hypocritical)

    anyway - I have always used MS OS' at home and at work (in addition to my netra T1 sitting here. my linux firewall, my linux training machine and various other servers and desktops sitting in and around my 19" cabinet - so dont bash it)

    and until XP I have never been so pissed/frustrated at an MS product (save nt 3.51) When I tell it to REMEMBER I expect the POS to remember bitch!

    /rant
  • This gets alot funnier. I recently attended a talk by one of the heads of Microsoft Research, and when he started to talk the Powerpoint slides would randomly change, menus would randomly pop up, etc...

    20 minutes were spent trying to fix the problem, to no avail, until an astute member of the audience noticed that the microphone was on and that speech recognition was causing the problem.

  • warning: security hole (Score:5, Funny)

    by banky ( 9941 ) <gregg@neurobas[ ]g.com ['hin' in gap]> on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @04:05PM (#3152056) Homepage Journal
    By shouting 'AAAAAA' 256 times, then mumbling some shell code, it gets executed with Admin privs. Service Pack 5.30e+10 is expected to resolve the problem.

  • mirror (Score:2)

    by cetan ( 61150 )
    here's a mirror, though I think someone's put the text into a comment already...

    http://www.necrosys.net/mirrors/news1.html [necrosys.net]
  • XP came on some new machines we bought for the office and overall they are working pretty well. Except for one issue that is. Now I know why everyone keeps yelling about the following everytime they try to create a new Word document:

    All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.
    All work and know play make JAck a dull boyu.
    All work and noe plae make JACk a sduull boy.
    .....

  • I have seen this happen on Windows 98 and Windows 2000 when Office XP was installed. So it is not windows, just office.

  • damn (Score:2)

    by po_boy ( 69692 )
    My mother has been having this problem for months. She has tried about a billion different anti-virus things and searched online for hours for the cause. She even took her machine to some "expert" to delouse it.

    Her next step was going to be to backup all her stuff and then have Dell walk her through the process of formatting and re-installing her OS.

    After that, I think I could have gotten her to use linux or OSX instead. Now, I suppose that I'll just turn off her speach recognition stuff for her. Oh well, almost had another convert.
  • For the user's conveniece, the MS Scripting Host is entropy controlled. Any change in the system automatically disengage all security precautions, and enable scripting in all applications.

    In case some of you /.ers are trying to figure out how to shut this feature off, it was only a joke.

  • sure.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pfhreakaz0id ( 82141 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @04:26PM (#3152225)
    but the day it inserts:

    "I'm afraid I can't do that Mitch"

    I'm freaking unplugging it and becoming a luddite.
  • Even the most advanced Speech API is pretty rudimentary in comparison to conventional input methods. Your OS of choice will need a complete interface overhaul to make speech a more efficient control mechanism than a mouse/keyboard.

    At the current level of maturity the technology serves only to facilitate dictation. The Microsoft take on the genre is as usual quite impressive from a technical and unjustifiable assimilation perspective.

    It does however lead to very interesting mistakes not quite in the PK Dick Angry Vegetables/Grapes of Wrath vein but bizarrely fascinating all the same. Some months ago, as an experiment I left it running admidst the tangle of conversation buzzing around my cubicle. It somehow chose "Racial Isolation Media" and "The death of Green Onions" as viable alternatives to stock phrases.

    I can assure you, those phrases were not uttered on this plane of existence. Perhaps the feature gives us a glimpse beyond Microsofts software ambitions into the next killer app: Edisons UNdeadTAPI.

  • KABOOM! (Score:2, Informative)

    by Merik ( 172436 )
    For those arriving post /. effect:

    Google Cache of Story [google.com]

  • Windows XP is Listening

    Well, duh! First it's listening and then it "phones home".
    You didn't belive it was deaf, did you? How could it use the phone? ;)
  • Seriously.

    After installing Mandrake 8.1 on my home computer, my PC randomly inserts 'q' when I type. I know it's a configuration problem, I've seen this issue randomly in the past, but I don't remember (if I ever found out) what solved the issue.

    I think the speach thing is funny, but this really sucks :( . Searching for 'q' is a real bitch on Google, maybe I should just use that Mandrake support I purchased :)

    Anyways, the point is, these minor compatibility problems are what turn newbies off to Linux.
    And I've already fought through SB16 ISA sound support - fixed by a kernel update. It was easy enough, but how many newbies will go to rpmfind, and get the newest kernel for their distro?

  • How Stanley Kubrick-esqe!
  • Dear Mom,
    (Fucking Clippy! I know I'm writing a fucking letter, get the fuck out of my face, I've already fucking turned you off and uninstalled you three times today!)
    I hope you are doing well. I am writing from my new XP (piece of shit...) computer. How's Dad? (still boinging his secretary, I wonder?). Write me.

    Dear Son,
    (What is this paperclip doing? Honey, there's a paperclip on my screen! Yes dear, just click 'close')
    Are you OK? Your last letter was very rude (Damned ingrate), and hurt our feelings. (We fucking paid for your college and this damned computer you're using to insult us)

  • Why do we care? (Score:2, Troll)

    by Jayson ( 2343 )
    Why do we care about some random unimportant Microsoft bug? Worthless stories like this crowding out other news are what make people think that /. has turned into a purely anti-Microsoft forum.
  • I was working in W2k and I thought I was hearing voices. A dull, monotone mumbling, barely audible. I couldn't make out words.

    It turned out I had accidentally punched the hotkey combination to turn on the Accessibility feature which attempts to tell you what's available on the screen.

    It was downright spooky.

    MjM

  • Well, what do you know. (Score:4, Funny)

    by flacco ( 324089 ) on Tuesday March 12, 2002 @06:55PM (#3153363)

    Microsoft IS listening to its customers!

  • I'm sorry that you recieved an email from me calling you an ignorant lazy fuck and that I would rathar die of a butt hemmorage than work here a minute longer. That was my spiffy Windows XP (Great purchasing descion, boss! You are such a clever guy! I have always thought so, you know, that's why you're the boss, right?) machine dictating, um, everything Johnson was saying. Yeah, Johnson, you know, the cubicle "partner" you place in here last month. He may need another one of those nifty anger management sessions you had us to go on last week instead of fixing our code (Boy, I loved it too. I only wish I could go in Johnson's place when you ship him off!). Please disregard that message, thanks!

    Sincerely,
    Employee
  • ...FORMAT C:

  • Bwahahaha! M$ just doesn't GET IT! Apart from being a waste of CPU (Shit, running Windows is a waste of CPU to start with.)

    Having it turned on and listening, even if you dont have a microphone would be as annoying as having a little kid in a car with you going "Are we there yet?" All fuckin' day long man.

    Who's the genius who cooked that one up?
  • They should have licensed Dragon's software but instead they chose to write their own and they've botched it.

    It ain't the first time. 10-11 years ago, mIcKeY$oFt cloned the popular
    Stacker disc compression, called it Doublespace and bundled it into M$DOS
    6.0. It et the hard drive of every shmuck who enabled it. When they
    released M$DOS 6.22, DoubleSpace was gone. Stac Electonics won their
    lawsuit against M$ but went bankrupt in the process.

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