Counterpoint

Someone just alerted me to an interesting read. Actually, two.

You may or may not have seen this - in it, the world and its uncle are accused of a grand Microsoft world domination takeover, with me at the helm. No doubt dressed in black robes and swinging a lightsaber. Well, you probably already saw my response to John C Dvorak, but what you might not have seen are some of the pieces springing up in direct contrast to what he wrote.

The first - Wayne Porter of XBlock systems. If I die young, I want "The Zaphod Beeblebrox of spyware fighting" stamped across my gravestone. Of course, I'll need 24/7 protection to ensure my remains aren't dug up and hung from a tree with a "BT Pwns jo0 sucka!!112" sticker pasted to my forehead.

The second - Steven J Vaughan-Williams, a fittingly musical surname to my vaguely witty title. In it, he calmly and rationally asserts why there is indeed no "grand conspiracy" against Bittorrent - only against the kind of marketing campaign we saw launched into it's relatively infestation-free world. You may remember the original article on EWeek - in it, a perfectly reasonable discussion about the MMG bundles that were filling up numerous sites in Bittorrent land was twisted into something that had no similarity to the original piece. A definite case of Rise, Lord Vader if ever there was one. Immediately, people started screaming for blood and, without actually checking the facts regarding what was actually going on (it seems), rafts of people jumped on the bandwagon, outraged that someone said Bittorrent itself was full of spyware.

The sad part was, nobody did. What we said was that a company called MMG was spreading a pile of installers across Bittorrent sites (not inside the client itself) that were not all they appeared to be. This represented the first major foray into Bittorrent land for the big players of Adware. Unfortunately for them, they didn't do their homework and (before you could blink), they were embroiled in questions regarding both the content MMG were providing, and the rather out of date licence agreements they were pushing. Companies that were desperately trying to prove they were "legit" were now watching any hard work done unravel at the speed of light, as more and more dubious stories emerged regarding the mediafiles - culminating in this.

With a handful of weblog articles, I managed to get a number of companies to actually say, Holy shit, this is actually getting worse by the second, and drop all connections with MMG. I'd like to think this was something of an achievement. Perhaps the Adware companies involved will look back and actually appreciate how hard I was on them, in retrospect of what was eventually found by Dave Methvin in one of the bundles. Talk about in the nick of time, eh? I wonder what would have happened if anyone had come out in MMG's defence before that (rather large) revelation.

However - then the bad winds blew. Like Yoda clambering through some air vents, I was forced to stand my ground in a blast of stupidly over the top hatred, from people who just didn't understand what this was all about. I don't know why this happens every time my site breaks a story, but I shouldn't have to expend a portion of research energy on "the flame wars". But if that's what it takes, so be it. I'm still here, and I don't give a rat's ass.

The emails, forum abuse, hundreds of spam flames which didn't make any sense - and this article, which simply prompted a deluge of hatred, detracting attention from a distribution campaign that now has a suggestion of totally illegal pornography to boot. What's even stupider is some of the journalists involved getting heaped with abuse too. I'm fairly certain none of those guys work for RIAA, or have teleconferences with Metallica.

My name was dragged through the mud, my knowledge, experience and previous work questioned, and I was held up to be ridiculed as an example of "the world's greatest Microsoft stooge". I wonder if you can get a mug with that on.

The craziest part was the phonecalls I recieved - some creepy, some utterly deranged. Honestly, I didn't realise some people got such a boner over shouting at people. I had my own little way of dealing with that, though. The best encounter was the guy who yelled when he connected, only to be totally and utterly confused when I pretended to be a sex line. "Village Chat", for men who like to be men. He'd hung up before I even told him it was £5.00 a minute.

Then the counterpoint started to thread it's way across the airwaves - more and more people from the antispyware industry not only confirmed what I had been saying all along, but added to the overall piece with new insights and revelations about MMG. Still, nobody listened and the flames continued. Then Eweek's Vaughan-Williams posted his view of the situation, and it does seem to suggest something has gone seriously wrong when a fellow Ziff Davis site feels the need to present an "alternate view" (read: asskick). I wonder if they all work in the same office and have bunfights across the desks.

End result? The arguments are still raging, but will likely die away as people get bored and move on to something else. The original body of evidence still stands, and I will likely post one more article on this entire fiasco if MMG ever manage to resurface and answer the questions we all want to hit them with. In particular, how they managed to have what looks like an affiliate of theirs screw up so royally, and how no stringent QC checks were in place.

It's bad enough that the Adware guys don't seem to be able to police their own networks, but when the guys charged with actually distributing the stuff can't keep their own house in order, everyone involved is just asking for a big plate of trouble, with a side order of whupass to go.