10th February 2012

Rant: That Is Not an Apology CertGuard. You Have to Say Sorry!

So after Bred Reese got on the phone to Robert Williams at Certguard and told them what to do, they have contacted Ethan Banks. Ethan has returned to the web and indicates that all is well.

I am not so forgiving.

Lets look at the statement of regret posted at Network World:

“Network World and the authors have decided to remove this blog post and the discussion that followed. While the original post was intended to highlight how the issue of braindumps is a pervasive one, we regret having singled out anyone in particular and apologize for any accusations of cheating.”

  1. Not a single ‘sorry’ in sight. It is NOT AN APOLOGY. An apology means saying sorry. No amount of weaseling can change that.
  2. No mention of CertGuard or Robert Williams here. I suggest that Network World regrets having let this go on for so long. Its my opinion that Robert Williams probably didn’t write this.
  3. If Robert Williams and Certguard are not sorry, then they will do it again. I am very concerned.

Who else will suffer ?

If Robert Williams gets away with false accusations, then he is likely to do it again. If the next person is not so public, who will protect them ?

If CertGuard are to gain our support, they must do the following:

  1. Issue a full and complete apology. With the word sorry. Acceptance is the first step in recovery.
  2. Robert Williams needs to make a personal apology to us, the Cisco community, for being unreasonable.
  3. CertGuard needs to announce a code of ethics to remind themselves how to act like grownups.
  4. CertGuard must publicly state their position on publicly accusing people in the future.

Have I missed anything ?

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About Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus

  • http://packetfault.org pello

    Certguard is a piece of shit.

    Thank you Ethan, Greg and others
    Life is hard, deal with it

  • http://www.blindhog.net Josh Horton

    Greg,

    I agree.

    Sadly, I think they had better results than they ever set out to achieve. Before this thing with Ethan, myself and many others didn’t even know Robert Williams or Certguard existed. My thoughts were … “Who are you and who cares what you think?” (I still feel that way)

    Now, he and Certguard definitely have more name recognition, better SEO (link bait) and with a half-hearted apology …. they are probably being perceived by many as an honest Company with good intentions that made a mistake.

    Its unfortunate.

  • http://www.sunpenguin.net CCIE Journey

    Agreed, they need to feel the pressure of what they did.