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Actually, I wouldn't have, except they made it worth my while to do so. Back in June 2000, I posted a 20-line message on sci.crypt after one of their spamming sessions, saying that I couldn't tell whether their product was any good or not but their behavior was unprofessional and thus I couldn't recommend it. I gave some examples of what I felt were unprofessional behavior: excessive and/or uninformative postings on the newsgroups, animations going on like the Blink Tag From Hell on their web site, and lack of contact information on their web site. I concluded that "if you wish to be considered seriously by security professionals, you must act like a professional". I guess I was hoping that they'd listen to someone with close to 20 years experience in the computer industry, and clean up their act -- their software filled an interesting niche, it was their business practices that seemed a bit shakey. I attributed it to ignorance, rather than malice. I should have known better.
That was the last I thought about them until March 2001, when I Googled myself and found that I was some sort of deep dark spy agent working for the government out to destroy Robin Hood Software. Needless to say I was somewhat surprised. I've been criticizing government officials on my web site since 1997, when I first started it, and the closest I've ever gotten to working for the government was when I sent my resume to LLNL in 1999 when I was looking for a job after the VA Research buyout of Linux Hardware Solutions (the response I got back, 6 months later, basically said "Thanks but no thanks" -- apparently the U.S. government wants me nowhere near them).
Needless to say I was not happy about that. I sent them a cease and desist letter asking them to remove myself from their web site. They refused to respond in any way. So I put up this site at its original address on my home page. Since then, the guys at Robin Hood Software have responded only by ratcheting up the volume on their own site, including reproducing copyrighted materials from my own web site onto their own (in violation of both US and UK copyright laws). They or their affiliates have also attempted to interfere with my employment by calling my employer and accusing me of various things, though that didn't work (when the sales manager asked me who Robin Hood Software was, all I had to say was "They're spammers mad at me because I call them spammers" and he was, like, "Ah. I see. Go get'em", and smiled knowingly -- nobody likes spammers).
Frankly, if they would remove all reference to me from their web site, I wouldn't bother with these pages anymore. I have no desire to have a vendetta against anybody. But Robin Hood Software has decided, for their own sick paranoid advertising reasons, that they need a shill to accuse of "persecuting them", and has gone out of their way to force one to step forward -- me -- via the actions of themselves and their affiliates on their web site and via harassing phone calls and EMAIL's to my employer.
Can Robin Hood Software hurt me? Of course not. Nobody likes spammers. I have a track record of success in the computer industry. I deliver product, good product, in a timely manner -- and that's rare enough in the computer industry. I'm also the maintainer of the standard Linux jukebox device driver (for tape and optical media jukeboxes), with a level of knowledge about the foiables of these things unmatched by anybody else in the Linux world. Not to mention having been an upstanding member of the Linux community since 1996, when I spearheaded the one of the first ports of a major commercial package to Linux. Not to mention being the author of several security-related encryption packages which are publically out there, advertising to the world that here's someone who knows about security and can secure their software. That's rare indeed -- witness the typical witless Microsoft product, which has a security breach every 15 minutes. Microsoft hires some of the best programmers in the world. But there's a difference between being one of the best programmers in the world, and being paranoid enough to secure your program against the best hackers in the world.
Nobody's going to refuse to hire me just because some spammers in the jolly ole UK bad-mouth me on their web site. All Robin Hood Software hurts, by their actions, is themselves. Robin Hood Software, by advertising their foremost critic (myself), drives potential customers and affiliates away from them. They apparently do not care -- they pander to the lowest common denominator, sex fiends and paranoid right-wing militia types, most of whom don't know how to use a search engine anyhow. But they have a product that, with proper marketing, could have far greater sales to the general public -- and they will never have that kind of market acceptance as long as they continue to publically smear reputable members of the Linux and security communities.