[humorix] Operation Killer Penguin

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

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Warning:  humorous content ahead.
To prevent overdosage for the sensitive readers, please
take your discussions to humorix-l@nl.linux.org...
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Operation Killer Penguin
February 10, 2001
Nicholas Curran, nicholas35pulsar@linuxmail.org

Recently, Humorix reported that Microsoft had declared war
against Linux by launching a Denial Of Service Attack aimed
at Linus Torvalds[1].  The next week, Microsoft's website
was hit by a Denial Of Service Attack, denying millions of
Hotmail users from accessing their spam.

Coincidence?  Of course not.  Operation "Killer Penguin" is
in full swing.

On the morning of the Anti-Linux Patch Attack, Linus sent
the following strongly worded message to Microsoft: "Stop
your DOS attack or ELSE!"

The response?  "Or ELSE what? You'll attack us with an army
of killer penguins?  Ha!  I'd like to see that!  Signed,
Steve Baller."

Unfortunately, Linus didn't have any killer penguins on
hand, although Tux Penguin has promised to recruit a small
army from Antarctica within the next month.  Instead, Linus
retaliated with his own Denial Of Service Attack.  

"We decided to first hit Microsoft's soft underbelly: their
marketing department," explained one participant in "Killer
Penguin".  He continued, "If Microsoft can't spew marketing
hype, then Pointy Haired Bosses around the globe will
emerge from their brainwashed state and realize just how
crappy Microsoft shoveware really is."

The plan, while a paragon of brilliant military strategy,
hit a small setback early on: it was discovered that
Microsoft's PR department relies heavily on Linux servers.

"No matter how many spoofed packets and spam emails we hit
them with, those Linux servers just kept on chugging.  And
then the obvious dawned on us: since these servers were
administered by PR flacks, they wouldn't have any recent
(or even ancient) security patches applied.  Alan Cox and
his band of hackers -- the 'Sneaky Bastards' -- were able
to gain root access within minutes, and the PR department
was toast."

Reports from our Vast Spy Network(tm) indicate that
Microsoft's vast PR department has not fully recovered from
the attack.  Humorix reported that the crash of Microsoft's
website was not the end of the world[2] -- and while that's
still true, it may just have been the end of the
Microsoft's extreme profits and hopes of dominating the
world.

Or maybe not.  These are the same people that recovered
from the disastrous release of Microsoft Bob, so these
people can recover from anything.  They've already launched
a counter-FUD attack (albeit weak), calling Linux a "crummy
operating system". We'll just have to wait and see.


[1]
http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/jan01.shtml#Microsoft-Patches
[2] http://i-want-a-website.com/about-linux/jan01.shtml#MS-Outage
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