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Boston Herald MARKET RESEARCH Enter company symbol below: Complete Market Summary Critique of Microsoft eyed in firing: Ex-tech officer claims report cost his job By Jay Fitzgerald Saturday, September 27, 2003 The ex-chief technology officer for AtStake Inc. in Cambridge said yesterday he was forced out after co-authoring a critical report about Microsoft Corp. - an AtStake client - and is weighing his legal options. Dan Geer's study, made public Wednesday, warned Microsoft's dominance of desktop computer operating systems poses a national security threat. Microsoft opponents said what happened to Geer shows the giant software company was once again throwing its weight around against critics. Sean Sundwall, a Microsoft spokesman, said the Redmond, Wash., company had nothing to do with Geer's departure. But he said AtStake ``contacted us late Tuesday night expressing their disappointment in the report and saying that Dan Geer's opinion did not reflect the position of (the company).'' Lona Therrien, the AtStake spokeswoman, said she didn't ``know anything about'' AtStake contacting Microsoft on Tuesday. Geer said he was told Wednesday he no longer had a job at the company. ``I was forced out,'' he said. ``It was a surprise.'' ``I expected to have a long and never-ending career at the company,'' Geer said. The exact reasons - and timing - of Geer's departure from AtStake was the source of intense controversy yesterday. The report from Geer and six other computer-security experts argued the complexity and dominance of Microsoft's Windows operating system in federal agencies made the government prone to cyber attack - a national security threat. Though the authors said they weren't paid by anyone to produce the report, it was distributed by the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a harsh critic of Microsoft backed by rivals of the software giant. On Thursday, AtStake issued a brief statement saying Geer's views did not reflect those of the company and that Geer had left its employ Tuesday - a day before the report was released. A spokeswoman for AtStake, a three-year-old computer security firm, said she would not comment on ``personnel matters.'' Describing himself as a founding AtStake employee, Geer said he is in contact with a lawyer and is ``disappointed'' with the way he lost his job. Geer also blasted academic researchers whom he said fear Microsoft and won't criticize it publicly. He said academics often fear losing Microsoft research money. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]