From: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 1998 02:10:03 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: In God We Antitrust, from the Netly News
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.95.980109121508.5169B-100000@vorlon.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <v03102800b0dc148aaea5@[207.167.93.63]>
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At 9:15 AM -0800 1/9/98, Declan McCullagh wrote:

>In God We Antitrust
>by Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com)
>
>        Bill Gates likes to portray himself as a businessman hounded by
>   hordes of boorish bureaucrats who resent his success. "It's absolutely
>   clear that our competitors are spending an enormous amount of time and
>   money trying to whip up anti-Microsoft sentiment in Washington, D.C.,"
>   says spokesman Mark Murray. "For the past year, Netscape, Sun and
>   other competitors have been crawling all over Washington, D.C., trying
>   to use the government as a weapon against Microsoft -- rather than
>   competing head-to-head in the marketplace."
>
>        Of course, that's what you'd expect a PR flack to say, whether
>   it's true or not. But maybe, just maybe, Microsoft has a point.

Of course they have a point. CNN reported yesterday that "popular
sentiment" is shifting *against* Microsoft, that they are losing the war of
words with Our Friend, The Government.

The sheeple believe what the Government media machine spews.

The "ganging up" on MS is the ganging up on anyone who is too successful
and who doesn't play the game properly.

(Some of us have already commented on how Microsoft's failure to tithe
enough to the political machines may have something to do with their
problems. Ironically, many companies have been indicte *bribery* charges
(e.g., Lockheed, others) for doing what the political machines in Amerika
expect to be done...only we call the bribes "voluntary" donations...sort of
a political campaign version of "mandatory voluntary.")

The next such battle will be about Intel, which, if anything, has even more
of a commanding presence in the market than MS has. Besides
"investigations" (a DC codeword meaning: "donate money to the ruling
party"), the antitrust buzz is that the Intel-DEC deal may be scotched.

Intel's failed competitors (Cyrix, AMD, Motorola, Sun, SGI/MIPS,
Intergraph) can be counted on to run crying to Mother Government, crying
that Intel is too successful.

A truly fucked up country. We need to cut the head off the beast.

--Tim May


The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."