Did the NYT disable the cypherpunks/cypherpunks login?

I went there and it didn't require me to login.

I never read articals from NY-time just because I have to register and remember my password and user name etc.

over 1000 News Services out there does not require to sign up.

I guess the one on NYT is better? If you don't want to go there there's an article that I think is on that same thing. It's not very long, though.

http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,40477,00.html

I guess MS's strategy all along has been, "If you can't win, sabotage!"

Its not bad enough that they're essentially hacking into AOL's system, and waging war over a peice of programming that, essentially, anyone with a bit of TCP/IP knowledge and a server-side database could write.

They start bad mouthing AOL's code as having some "security flaw" that the "superior" MS code doesn't possess.

And this whole "open standard for IM" is complete crap. How long after the standard is agreed apon, do you think it will take for MS to "improve & inovate" a broken implementation of it.

It just amazes me how much the idea of users staring at a Non-MS interface (and ANY Non-MS interface, no matter how inconsiquential) realy irks them.

Both MS and AOL are acting pathetic. I can't wait until we have an instant messaging standard. Then I will dump all proprietary stuff and use an Open Source variant.

I think what microsoft is doing is more than wrong. I'm sure AOL didn't mean to keep it's IM service, which most AOL users love, open to other users, and I can understand if they are mad as hell. But microsoft won't stop until sued, and even then they won't stop. The best thing AOL can do is keep blocking microsoft and get the message out that IM isn't meant to be "open", and that through it's IM it makes it's money. And even then there will be naysayers who agree with microsoft on keeping IM open.

The rest of the civilized world will go on IRC.

When stuff like this happens you have to wonder how many times Microsoft's been SUCCESSFUL at masquerading as someone else and planting false dissent & FUD?

Mozilla, for example, has had some very strange media backlashes, negative spin & bizzare headlines that don't make too much sense to me.

We've all seen people on slashdot posting ridiculous pro-microsoft stuff. Usually people joke "what, do you work for microsoft or something?" Now I wonder.

Think about it. There are governments poorer than microsoft that use all kinds of secret departments to maintain power.

Paranoid Guy

Paranoid Guy,

You can't tell me there isn't some major MS-backed FUD out there.

I used to participate egularly in a MS-related discussion at the SJ Mercury site, until one or two M$Apologists came to dominate the forum. They kept up kept up their torrent of FUD until all the posters with any intelligence abandoned it. Most of them went to the New York Times discussion on the same topic -- within a couple of weeks, the Randroids had followed us there and began all over again... Most of us (not all rabidly anti-Microsft by any stretch of the imagination) have given up on that discussion as well.

Do a search some time on the name "Steve Barkto". This "unkown employee playing the mole" crap-ola is NOTHING new, I assure you.

Zontar The Mindless.

Am I mistaken, or is Microsoft actually calling for AOL to open the AIM protocol in spite of the fact that the protocol for Microsoft's own instant messenger is still closed. Is this really true? That would be the height of hyprocrisy.

Shouldn't MS be displaying AOL's logo and ads whenever the software is connected to AOL's system?

I just read the NYT article. So Microsoft thinks it can tell AOL off for having crackable security holes when its trying to parasitically glom onto AOL's ad revenue, userbase etc? That's just funny..

By the many arms of Vishnu, I hope that MS dies. Reading the NYT article (I live in NY, it was front page on the business section) just makes me want to strangle them. Such childish behavior should be expected from MS though, seeing that Bill Gates can't even keep his hair straight. Pointing fingers at AOL should be pointed back. Over all these years, all arguments that MS has made accusing others of wrongdoing can be pointed right back at MS. "Government is bad for software"...so is MS. "Open IM standards"...I don't see MS letting the public know its methods for hacking into AOL's systems. "AOL's software isn't secure"...last time I checked, hacking Windows is easier than taking candy from a baby. AOL really should sue, or at least get an injunction. Are Sun and Apple the only large companies that are willing to sue MS? Oh wait, Apple "settled" like a crippled zebra to a lion.

here, Make a standard, complete standard with everything they want, and make it completely open for anyone to use expand upon or whatever, and is it grows userbase, companies will WANT to join to give users ability to communicate with the rest of the internet witghout haveing 5 IM prgrams, you see? make aol want to be compatible witrh the standard, thatst he trick.

oh and i dont blame AOL i wouldnt want to give all the revenues in profits away and give microsoft access to the huge userbase they have worked so hard to get just so that microsoft can be more competitive with aol and try and steal their users, in my opinion its a onesided deal only MS wins and still the program is ugly, loses the cool AIM formatting, and has majour handicaps like no buddy grouping and allways displaying offline buddys, the program sucks, simply that... if they made it better i would use it.

I've read a few things on how Bill Gates is immature for his age because he started Microsoft before he got out of college, therefore never having a boss. Like a child, he sees something he wants and he takes it.

look here http://photo.net/philg/humor/bill-gates.html

Great, no more open source aim clients:

http://aim.aol.com/ and http://aim.aol.com/tnt

I have the emacs client for aim - I wonder if I use it I'll get kicked off...

[Quote from the News article]:"Mozilla was Netscape's too little-too late response to IE," said Ira Machevsky, analyst with Odeon Capital. "Not a heck of a lot ever came of that endeavor."

I'm really sick of journalists polling glib and totally clueless financial analysts. Well, at least we know not to go anywhere near Odeon Capital for accuarate financial information!

This company doesn't know shame ! they are doing the same thing again and again ! this reminds me the phony lettres of suposedly M$ satisfied users to the DOJ. This compagny will never ever change it's practices.

Am I to read this right, Microsoft is actually trying to accuse another company of having vulnerable security holes?

Does this sound like a case of "Do as we say, not as we do" to anybody else? Microsoft, the biggest threat to internet security since it's inception, accusing somebody else of having security holes.

It's laughable.

-- Mark "I guess I should get a MozillaZine account.." Waterous.

Project Linux - http://www.projectlinux.org

This whole thing is puerile (sp??) and childish. AOL have published the protocol, now MS are using it, they go sick. These people saying they are hacking are full of s**t. It's like me making Dan's Mozilla, then Netscape suing me, or Dan's Linux.

AOL and MS are just as bad as each other - screw the users, let's just make Billy G or Stevie C and shareholders rich kiddies

Personally, I think these IM things are overrated, I'll stick to IRC and good old email. But newbies like them. The world needs an OPEN SOURCE protocol for this, and leve it open, like IRC and email.

Why is MS being made out to be the baddy in this latest war? After all, MS are trying to make a *proprietary* messaging format open. It is AOL who are behaving like spoilt children, adding blockers to prevent the Yahoo! and MS clients from working.

Sure, Microsoft's motives are selfish but at the end of the day why does that matter? If a standard is open to all then users can use any client that works with it. That could be AOL, MS, Mozilla or anything else.

Folks, it is practically the mission statement for Mozilla that it only adopts open standards. Therefore, if AOL doesn't want others (whether they are competitors or not) to use their protocol, we should tell them where they can stick it. I don't care if Netscape is owned by AOL. The same goes for Microsoft, Yahoo! and ICQ if they decide the same way.