Talk:Peter Gutmann (computer scientist)

'other Peter Gutmann' section
This section does not belong here. It should be either in italics at the head of the artcile to assist those here by mistake, or there whould be formal diambiguation page. I'll try to remember to come back and hange thisgs around, but the editor inculded this section might want to act before my memory actually works. ww 21:06, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Done, converted into a disambiguation. -- intgr 23:59, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

extended addition of material on data remanence
Extensive additions to the article in recent days are interesting, and perhaps useful to WP. But not in this article. Perhaps better in the data remanence article? As well, this material seriously needs a very thorough copyedit for spelling, phrasing, and such matters as verb tense and article use. As in the note earlier, I will attempt to remember to return in the near future and do this, if the original editor(s) do not themselves do so. ww 09:00, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, most of the material added by Mercurish is a straight copy from Gutmann's "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" paper at http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html.


 * As such, these sections need to be heavily edited and/or block quoted and/or rewritten. Earthsound 15:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I have removed the copyrighted material and inserted a copyvio tag so that the admins can straighten it out.


 * There is a new version without the infringing material at Talk:Peter_Gutmann_%28computer_scientist%29/Temp


 * Hopefully, someone will take the time to incorporate some of the information, and possibly the wikitable, that was removed into data remanence.Earthsound 16:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm the author of the original article - I don't mind excerpts being used, I haven't seen the text in question because it's been removed from the Wikipedia page but I've been told it consisted of somewhat haphazard chunks from the original text. I'd prefer if it was cleaned up a bit, but as long as the original source is cited it's fine to use excerpts.  The original article was under a CC attribution license, but due to a screwup with backups on the web server hosting it it was replaced with an older version that doesn't mention this.
 * ^ the comment immediately above this line was added 23:04, 8 August 2007 by someone at IP address 64.80.90.218. Earthsound 19:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is OK to use excerpts, if they are cited, but none of the material that was removed was cited. The original article does mention that it is under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. However, that is irrelevant if small portions are quoted and cited.
 * You should be able to see past versions of an article by viewing its history. Earthsound 19:37, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

contentious content
Recent edits have added extensive discussion of a claim by Ou that Gutmann was in error regarding one of his evaluations of Vista. The edit is unencyclopedic in that it is written in such as was as to be one side of a dispute. WP should not engage in debates in articles. If the material is suitable for inclusion at all, it should be on the talk page. If I remember to do so, I will come back in a couple of days and move the material here to the talk page. ww 05:38, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

The edits did not claim Gutmann was in "error". It merely stated that Ou, Bott, Fisher disputed his claims with actual data while Gutmann admittedly never used Vista which meant he never tested his theories. His statements reported by PCWorld were also linked to. Why is Gutmann's paper posted as encyclopedic fact when he admittedly never used Vista and therefore performed zero testing? Why are the critics challenging Gutmann’s unproven assertions using widely proven and repeatable data declared “unencyclopedic”? Censoring proven information over unproven assertions is the worst form of intellectual tyranny. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.125.48.163 (talk)


 * I can see no problem with this addition; it is written neutrally and professionally &mdash; it reports facts about the criticism without undue bias, and thus contributes to the neutrality of this article. ww, in case you are not aware of Wikipedia's NPOV policy, the general guideline is to cover all significant and viewpoints factually. The cited websites are not ran by some teenage blogger, they are professional reporters. And believe me when I say that I absolutely despise DRM, and wish that this criticism was invalid. ;) -- intgr #%@! 08:18, 31 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, I cleaned up the links from the new section (and lifted it around a bit), and figured that the rebuttal currently has undue weight in this article; however, I don't think trimming/removing content is the solution, since the paper and his speech has fueled very wide public discussion; the part about Gutmann's point of view could really use expansion; right now it's limited to a very brief summary. And there are many arguments that aren't being refuted. -- intgr #%@! 09:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Gutmann has a response to the ZDNet stuff up on his home page which documents some downright bizarre behavior by the ZDNet bloggers (see the ref in the article), can someone else have a look at this as well? Looking at the tone of some of Ou"s rants in his blog and other actions like the private emails and complaints to Gutmann's uni, it casts serious doubts on both the quality and hte actual motivation for the ZDNet criticism. Did these guys do any fact-checking at all for their blog articles? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookiesanytime (talk • contribs) 14:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It's fine to link to Gutmann's comments but we should not include baseless accusations about George Ou sending obscene emails especially when Gutmann never explicitly states that "George Ou sent me obscene emails". Peter Gutmann only implied obscene emails were sent to him but George Ou maintains he never sent any obscene emails to Peter Gutmann. Ou also maintains that he never criticized the USENIX slides making any discussion of them a red herring and that he only criticized what Peter Gutmann admitted to have said at the USENIX conference and what Peter Gutmann posted on his website.


 * Gutmann's page now contains samples of the email Ou claimed he never sent. The problem with relying on Ou as a source that he changes his story whenever it suits him, not just in realtion to this story but for much of his blog content. Thats what makes him so entertaining, particularly teh protracted flamewars he gets into in his own blog comments with his readers. Hes simply not a credible source of information because every time hes chalenged on something he just claims not to have said it and comes up with a new and different set of "facts" to support his argument. An example of this was the Apple/Maynor fiasco (he seems to have a particular dislike of Apple and Apple users) when after being shown to be wrong again and again he eventualy resorted to claiming he'd been given secret information he couldn't show anyone from a confidential source he couldn't name but if anyone else saw it they'd completely agree with him and so he was right and everyone else was wrong and that was the end of the story. This is a standard debate tactic he uses, adopt a position, create whatever facts you need to support it, if challenged change your story again and again, and most of all, never, ever, ever let something go. He's going to keep pursuing this one forever. You can already see here the Ou effect that occurs on every blog he gets involved with, eventualy the whole thing turns into an endless flamewar about Ou with him providing most of the flames. Its already getting to the point where you could remove the "Peter Gutmann" title on the page and replace it with "George Ou" because more of the content is about Ou than Gutmann. And its just going to get worse.

The section about Peter Gutmann admitting to not using Vista and later removing his admission from his website should not have been removed from this wikipedia. This information under "criticisms" should not be censored especially when those changes to Gutmann's website are fully documented. The George Ou story about Peter Gutmann relying on web forums for proof should not have been removed from wikipedia because it was well documented and Gutmann does not dispute any of this.


 * Gutmann has also never disputed killing Jimmy Hoffa or being the third gunman but I don't think the FBI is coming for him just yet. Ou's "doesn't run Vista" claim is just another exampel of his typical creative interpretation of teh facts that his blog readers are familiar with. In order to make this claim he had to explicitly hunt round for an old version of the writeup containing text that acording to Wayback was written before Vista had been released. Of course Gutmann wasn't running Vista before it was released! However only Ou would then turn this into a conspiracy theory/coverup by comparing it to teh current post-Vista-release version on Gutmanns web page, walking straight past the obvious explanation, and instead declaring a coverup (Ou really likes his conspiarcy theories and has invented some great ones in the past particularly when Apple are involved).

Here's a radical idea, why doesn't somebody actually email the dude and ask him for a copy of teh emails? And whether he actually runs Vista, and various other bits of random speculation here? He's alleging that Ou and Bott did zero fact-checking for their writeups, but now it looks like Wikipedia is doing exactly teh same thing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cookiesanytime (talk • contribs) 13:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

trying to get hold of these messages as the abouve comment suggests would be original research, correct? Is that a good enough reason not to bother for the purposes of wikipedia? 210.8.218.110 (talk) 01:52, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * If Wikipedia is going to repeat claims from a suorce as unreliable as Ou there should at least be an attempt at independant verifications. As any Apple user is well aware you can never take anything Ou says at face value because he'll make any claim necessary in order to support his argument. You can't even refute him because as soon as hes challenged he'll immedaitely claim to have said something else and start the whole cycle again.
 * This criticism section looks very very WP:OR to me, plus it is nearly impossible to understand to anyone who was not involved in the writing of this article (which is my case). It is ridiculous that this section (which is NOT informative) is taking the better part of the article. Stating that there have been some critics on his analysis, that questioned its accuracy, is valuable information and should be in wikipedia, discussing in depth every allegation of everyone who once criticized Gutmann, even going so far to dig rotting copies of deleted PDF documents, and answers to answers to answers of USENIX threads is not information, pardon me: it is just ridiculous to me. Just a sample: ...Ou sending him obscenity-laced private email and complaining to his university administration about him(...)Gutmann responded by posting samples of the emails that Ou said he'd never sen. Hey, it's an encyclopedia, not The Sun ;-) Hervegirod (talk) 00:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticism section
I've removed the criticism section, let me explain why. On this as on any biography of a living person we have to adhere to the highest standard of sourcing and neutrality, and this precludes citing strong criticism to a series of blogs and partisan websites. Gutmann is a professional computer scientist, and his publications are on a professional level - all criticism of his work and positions should come from undisputably reliable sources, preferably professional in nature. We simply can't host or risk hosting inaccurate smears from rivals on blogs.

I'm happy to see a criticism section restored - but it should hold to the relevant policies, and not introduce unsubstantiated criticism from sources that don't meet the standards in WP:V. Avruch  T 13:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Gutmann criticism of vista infrastructure is not a professional work per se. It was a personal opinion posted on his blog and that led to communication to audience not formed of professional of his field of study. This entry should be removed al well as the criticism of this view. But since Gutman criticism of vista was the sole reason for this article, the whole article should be removed also. Here is the problem... --Dwarfpower (talk) 13:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Dwarfpower. The Gutman stories on vista drm are the main reason for this entry on Wikipedia and it was a terrible job of scientific research. There was not a single piece on information in the article that was validated with actual scientific researched evidence and shortly after his publications a lot of real world evidence was shown to be in direct opposition to his paper on which he never reacted. Gutman is actually gone on record in his presentations to state that drm in Vista would be responsible for global warming without ever having shown any researched evidence to that affect. If that kind of criticism is not allowed in than this article should better be scrapped altogether. hAl (talk) 15:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Hey, I'm sorry to follow you here, but I'm watching this article too ;-) Basically this is not for us wikipedian editors to judge, else we fall in the evil world of WP:POV. Hervegirod (talk) 20:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with Dwarfpower. This article should be removed. 05:08, 21 September 2011 (UTC)


 * Whether or not we agree with his criticism of Vista is irrelevant even though some reporters and industry insiders claimed personal authority to dispute it. His criticism is a notable and encyclopedic event in itself and his professional career is more than enough justification for a wiki page. They are all self-published sources (even if some have better access to the press) and since none of them fall below the standards we consider valid here we may as well publish everything available and let them stand as we found them. If any fail, let it be by their own doing and not by our choices on who to cite and who to doubt.


 * Those who claimed to know more than him about Vista not only lacked his qualifications and reputation but had conflicting interests of their own which showed up in a strong lack of neutrality and questionable behaviour when challenged.  The few who tried arguing in public resorted to trying to poke irrelevant holes of their own choosing, calling their unscientific "tests" more valid than his points instead of getting competent help to face Gutmann at his own level.  It is worth noting that after that series of exchanges all of them quit and relied on their influence to justify themselves, proving that manipulating public opinion for their chief employer or one of their largest advertisers was the only active intention.  They declared victory and retreated rather than face Gutmann at his level on terms they couldn't control, knowing that to follow through properly would be more likely to attract attention to Vista's shortcomings instead of help them defend it.


 * Complaints that Dr. Gutmann didn't actually test Vista fall apart in light of the twin facts that only Microsoft insiders had access to the relevant code at the time and that Gutmann is one of only a handful of people capable of designing or making a fair assessment of complex cryptological systems of that sort or level of complexity. He was likely better qualified for this than any individual Microsoft employee at that time and is probably still at the top of this field.


 * The fact that Microsoft didn't even activate that DRM system until several years later also invalidates early tests claimed to support either side of the argument so they provide no relevant facts at all. It is also quite likely that they took his concerns into account in the intervening years and worked hard to avoid the worst of the technical pitfalls because they certainly gave themselves plenty of time and hurried to get Windows 7 ready to replace Vista before then.  Even so, you can't get into the PC hardware market anymore without permission and if any of your hardware or software could possibly involve protected content you wouldn't be able to start without major financial backing so the DRM plan has already accomplished it's main goal.


 * The only reason anybody would want to censor this article or Dr. Gutmann's opinion is that their own point of view is not neutral. It is easier to delete content which one dislikes rather than leave it alone and in this case is far easier than to match Gutmann's competence or make a fair and balanced assessment of his criticism without resorting to nitpicking individual items to avoid facing the whole issue fairly.


 * That's my point of view, and it is as irrelevant as anyone else's. The whole thing happened five years ago and none of the original actors in that famous little drama has seen fit to dredge it up again because nobody looks good and there's no profit in going back to the days when anybody could develop new PC hardware and potentially upset a shrinking, highly litigious  market.  It is now a part of recent history and as such all we can do is write it up properly and try not to push our own POV as we do so.  Since we cannot separate the issue from his career, as both are highly notable, this article belongs here and so does his famed opinion on Vista's DRM. By doing both properly we won't need a criticism section because reporting that old controversy fully should have all the facts in relevant order and a reader will be able to see the opinions of everybody involved with none of ours getting in the way.


 * Fortunately there's not a whole lot to do this time because the sources are well-known and still available. Aaron Walkhouse (talk) 00:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)