[humorix] It's All A Conspiracy

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

It's All A Conspiracy
May 15, 2000

NEW HAVEN, CT -- Today is the last day of the First Annual
Connecticut Conspiracy Convention, the largest gathering of
paranoid conspiracy theorists this side of Roswell. I'm
reporting from the Humorix Booth on the showroom floor,
where we've been recruiting Vast Spy Network(tm) members.
However, the big news of the day is the speculation
surrounding the Microsoft vs. Slashdot showdown.

The chairman of the Connecticut Conspiracy Club and
organizer of the ConConCon, Bob Notmyrealname, said during
his keynote speech earlier today, "Microsoft's actions
against Slashdot indicate a sinister Redmond-based
conspiracy. Microsoft obviously hired some Anonymous
Cowards to post the comments containing the copyrighted
Kerberos documentation just to give Microsoft lawyers a
pretense to sue."

After the speech the general consensus among conspiracy
theorists was that a Microsoft was engaged in a conspiracy.
"Congress only passed the DMCA in exchange for Microsoft's
secret Windows 98 version that doesn't crash. This whole
Kerberos thing has been concocted from the very beginning
by Microsoft's Linux Focus Group. There's all kinds of
clues planted in the Halloween Documents."

Not everybody agrees, though. One person commented, "This
is a GNUist plot! The only reason Microsoft was able to
embrace-extend-and-smother MIT's Kerberos was because it's
covered by the BSD license and not GPL. This is just an
elaborate meta-meta-conspiracy concocted by Richard
Stallman and the GNU Project to get the last word in the
BSD vs. GPL flamefest."

One convention attendee shouted, "You are all idiots! 
There's no Microsoft conspiracy.  Get a life!"  He was
greeted by shouts of "He's a government agent!" and "It's a
Microserf! Get 'em!"  He was chased out of the Offramp
Motel and told to never come back. 

Another hot topic of discussion besides Microsoft is the
ILOVEYOU virus, which we covered last time. More than one
person has speculated that an alliance between the RIAA and
Unisys are behind the Outlook email virus. ILOVEYOU
overwrites MP3 and GIF files, which leads many people to
wonder whether the music and file compression conglomerates
weren't behind the whole ordeal in an effort to "protect
their intellectual property".

All in all, the ConConCon was an overwhelming success,
except for the rumors that all attendees now have an FBI,
CIA, and NSA criminal file if they didn't before. We've
recruited twenty-five new spies for our Humorix Branch
Offices in Helsinki, Redmond, and Washington, D.C. Plus,
several people expressed interest in buying access to
Humorix's Spy Satellite Number #2, the only spy satellite
available to the general public.  

If you're in the area, stop by before the end of the
convention today at 8:00pm. The Humorix Booth is on the
first floor of the Offramp Motel, just about 15 feet (or
4.5 meters, but we all know Metric is a French conspiracy)
to the left of the lead-shielded wiretap-proof phone booths
in the back.
-
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