Microsoft Denies Paying Nigerians $400K To Ditch Linux 148
Da Massive writes "Microsoft has denied paying a Nigerian contractor $400,000 in a bid to retard Linux's movement into the government sector. Media reports alleged that Microsoft had proposed paying that sum to a government contractor under a joint marketing agreement last year, in order to persuade the contractor to replace Linux OS with Windows on thousands of school laptops. Although a joint marketing agreement was drafted to document the best practices for using technology in education, it was never executed, said a Microsoft regional manager for Africa. It became clear, he added, that one customer wanted a Linux OS."
REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:5, Funny)
REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
Hello Partner,
My name is Thomas Hansen and I am a regional manager for Microsoft West, a prominent software company that does business with the Government of Nigeria. In strictest confidence I am writing to you about the matter of a great magnitude of money.
Last year, my company was involved in negotiations with your government in the drawing up of a joint marketing agreement for business. During the last military regime of Nigeria, some government officials set up a fund and awarded themselves contracts for the purchase of software. The present civilian government has set up a contract review panel, and has identified ours as one that can be replaced with no cost to your government. Without further review, these contracts could amount to USD$40,000,000 (forty million U.S. dollars) or more.
I am authorized to offer you 1% of the value of these contracts, USD$400,000, in exchange for the erasure of the competing offer. Please note this transaction is 100% safe and legal. I will commence the transferring of the funds within 72 business hours upon receipt of your bank account number. Please fax your account and driver's license to 1-419-419-4190 to continue with this transaction.
I am looking forward to doing business with you and solicit your confidential reply to this transaction.
Faithfully yours,
Thomas Hansen
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:1, Funny)
Oh, mod parent funny... +5
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:5, Funny)
Your post advocates a
( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) spam-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting Micorsoft. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work.
(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may
have other flaws which used to vary from sovereign nation to sovereign nation before a bad UN law was passed.)
(X) Nigerians can easily use it to harvest dollars
( ) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected
(X) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks
(X) It will stop Microsoft for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
( ) Users of email will not put up with it
(X) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(X) Requires too much cooperation from Spammers
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Microsoft cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential
employers
( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists
(X) Anyone could anonymously destroy Microsoft's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
( ) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email
( ) Open relays in foreign countries
( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses
(X) Asshats
(X) Jurisdictional problems
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(X) Nigerian reluctance to accept weird new forms of money
( ) Huge existing software investment in SMTP
( ) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack
( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email
( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
(X) Extreme profitability of Microsoft
( ) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(X) Technically illiterate politicians
(X) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
(X) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering
( ) Outlook
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation
( ) Blacklists suck
( ) Whitelists suck
( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
( ) Sending email should be free
( ) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
( ) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome
( ) I don't want the government reading my email
(X) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
Oops (Score:5, Funny)
I know self-replies are bad form. I also know that I wrote Microsoft some places where 'Linux' would've been more appropriate. Sorry for the confusion.
This post advocates a
(X) common sense ( ) spell-checker ( ) semantic verifier
-based approach to reading my above post.
Realized they were being scammed? (Score:1, Funny)
No wonder they were skeptical, a 400k cashier's check...
Holy Shit (Score:3, Funny)
Nigerians have computers?
Dear Mr Ballmer (Score:5, Funny)
Good day and compliments. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dr. (Mrs.) Mariam Abacha. I can tell by the way jump about you are very intelligent man. In order secure the windows market in Africa you know what to do.
Your faithfully,
Dr (Mrs.) Mariam Abacha (M.O.N)
Is vista really that bad? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:5, Funny)
scammm (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Dear Mr Ballmer (Score:4, Funny)
I'm so glad I read this. I was about to make a redundant post.
So sorry to hear about the death of your husband . . . glad you have found a good revenue stream.
Age-Old Adage (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Is vista really that bad? (Score:4, Funny)
It's probably XP, as school laptops are involved. They're not likely to be vista capable.
I detect an oxymoron in this sentence, I just can't put my finger on it though...
Re:Holy Shit (Score:5, Funny)
They actually have modified See n' Say units, you pull the string and they spit out a new scam form letter ready to go. Its more of an instructional tool at this point:
"The NIGERIAN says......."
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it wouldn't surprise me to see...
REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
Hello Partner,
DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!
Sincerely,
Steve Ballmer
Re:Holy Shit (Score:5, Funny)
Nigerians have computers?
They have computers. I get email from them about once a week for assistance with some financial transaction or other. What they lack is good banks. The checks they send seem to always have problems. I now insist they send money using Western Union from now on.
Re:Holy Shit (Score:3, Funny)
Holy crap! You mean I've been living in Nigeria this whole blasted time! I've been had! No more of these free meals for my family every last Thursday in November.
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, it wouldn't surprise me to see...
REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
Hello Partner,
DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS!
Snake! Snake!
What, why's everybody staring? Did I just fuck up another meme?
Re:Realized they were being scammed? (Score:5, Funny)
$400K should be enough for everybody.
Re:Corruption is normal in Nigeria (Score:3, Funny)
Persecuted? Is bribery now a form of heresy?
Re:hmmm... interesting bribe? (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, I can confirm this. I am currently in the process of helping Abacha's widow, Miriam, extricate the sum of $12,000,000 from Nigeria for a $1M cut. And get this - all I had to do is wire her $2,000 for legal expenses! Bwahahahah!
I am her special friend in god, I am.
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:3, Funny)
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft didn't pay the Nigerians (Score:2, Funny)
Microsoft didn't pay the Nigerians to ditch Linux, Ballmer just fell for one of the scams
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:5, Funny)
What, why's everybody staring? Did I just fuck up another meme?
It was on Slashdot this mroing. A poster in ar who had killed three memes. They are taking the articles back to CmdrTaco, too karma to post. My thoughts are with the submitter, who lost his atricle. I am truely sorry for your lots.
Re:Corruption is normal in Nigeria (Score:1, Funny)
I heard that in some countries, you are even expected to give waiters and waitresses additional money not on the bill, to get the service they are paid to perform! And this corruption goes up to the highest levels, where presidential candidates are allowed to accept large sums of money from donors, for their election campaigns. Fortunately this doesn't happen in non-corrupt countries (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, Japan) but apparently it is widespread in other places.
Re:REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP (Score:1, Funny)
How is meme formed?
How meme get poplar?