Clownhole
DQ reader Shane Courtrille sent me a link to this story(http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/31/starforce_threatens_.html):
...Yesterday, I posted about StarForce, a harmful technology used by game companies to restrict their customers' freedom. StarForce attempts to stop game customers from copying their property, but it has the side-effects of destabilizing and crashing the computers on which it is installed.
Someone identifying himself as "Dennis Zhidkov, PR-manager, StarForce Inc." contacted me this morning and threatened to sue me, and told me that he had contacted the FBI to complain about my "harassment."
Here's an excerpt from the actual letter sent to him by Starforce "PR Manager" Dennis Zhidkov:
Dear Sir, calling StarForce "Anti-copying malware" is a good enough cause to press charges and that is what our corporate lawyer is busy doing right now...Your article violates approximately 11 international laws. Our US lawyer will contact you shortly. I have also contacted the FBI , because what you are doing is harassment.
Here's a new word: clownhole. That describes Mr. Zhidkov very well--an asshole who is also a clown, so at the same time you're annoyed, you're laughing at his incompetence. Jack Thompson fits into that category as well, as does the Sony executive who said that most people didn't even know what rootkits were so why would they care?
I was thinking about this today, and I realized that one of the ways in which the Internet has irrevocably changed our world is that it has made it much harder for clownholes to hide. Ten years ago, a bullying, pathetic letter like this would have passed through unnoticed. Today, it's on a hundred different sites in less than a day.
Now I can't comment on whether Starforce is malware, because I honestly don't know. I've personally never had a problem with it. But I do know that sending a scatter-brained, threatening e-mail that sounds like it was written by an angry ten-year old is not the way to stop negative publicity.
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