Bonum Certa Men Certa

Reader's Article: Love the Criminals

CNN



Summary: The "mainstream" press glorifies the same people who are looting society at large

A FEW months ago we explained that those who speak out against crime are subjected to personal abuse. We live in a society that rewards bystanders. We have covered examples where Microsoft and Bill Gates were seen paying to buy the media and to do reputation laundering, even for crime/criminals. It's not something that's unique to Microsoft though. To borrow a recent example from entertainment, after Chris Brown had been beating up his famous girlfriend he hired a PR firm to spin the incident. That's just how the rich people work; they hire large teams of people whose sole job is to manage the public image of their clients.



"Unethical," you say?

Well, that's just reality. The rich can afford to reshape public opinion, whereas the poor gets to be daemonised by the rich (who have means of power). We know for a fact that Microsoft is doing this with PR agencies since decades ago. This affects various Web sites and overall, this changes how people perceive the company and its co-founder.

"He [Bill Gates] acted like a spoiled kid, which is what he was."

--Ed Roberts, Gates' employer at MITS in the 1970's (Atlanta Journal-Costitution, 04-27-97)



That's not the Bill Gates who the average person knows. This is the same guy who relies on vaccines propaganda from the likes of CNN, who are still treating the man like he is more quote-worthy than professors of economics and energy experts speaking about their own field that they master. This is not a coincidence and it is simple to explain if one looks at the flow of funds in the media. Rich people can acquire a "parent of the world" status, even if it gets assigned to one who committed crime to get where he got, since a very young age in fact. This is to do with concern about what happened to computing.

Anyway, today's post was kindly contributed by a reader who explains how Microsoft's patent troll from Intellectual Ventures (which Bill Gates invested heavily in) is being glorified in the press. He asks: "Are Microsoft astroturfers invading BoingBoing and other popular sites? Why are they promoting Intellectual Ventures and Bill Gates?"

Here is an exploration of these questions:

Microsoft Cranks Up the Astroturf?



Patent troll scores full media spectrum self promotion and ordinarily clueful sites take the bait.



Are Microsoft astroturfers invading BoingBoing and other popular tech sites with material that flies in the face of community belief and philosophy? I was disturbed to see the promotion of Intellectual Ventures and Bill Gates at BoingBoing recently. Several sites that should know better have acted as part of a pro patent propaganda blitz.



Before the specifics, consider the "mind control" advice given by Microsoft's training manual [2]



Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!


People writing stories about anything connected to Microsoft should ask themselves what Wired reporter Fred Vogelstein did, "should I be embarrassed at being co-opted by their spin machine?" With that, here's the news.



Oh no, not that again and now it's everywhere! Remember the working prototype of a not so great idea Dr. Lowell Wood and other Star Wars scientists had for zapping mosquitoes [2]? Well OK, it's a common fantasy many people have had before. Now design of the invention is being credited to patent troll Nathan Myhrvold. The Dorvak article is one of a trio of glorifying reviews in places that are ordinarily more clueful. BoingBoing and Slashdot also took the bait. These follow the usual Microsoft full spectrum news coverage by the New York Times, CNet and other habitual shills. Boingboing has the special distinction of rejecting my comment linking to a google search of Boycott Novell for Intellectual Ventures.



The problem is not that the device is silly, or that so many reporters have been conned into reporting it, it's that a company so detrimental to technology and rule of law is promoted as an innovator. Five minutes of thought is all it takes to dismiss this silly "invention." No machine is smart enough to avoid blinding people by reflections and over the horizon misses. Nor is such an expensive and power hungry cover for a one or two hundred foot range practical mosquito control, especially for developing nations that need electricity for basic things like refrigeration, water purification and hospitals. Boycott Novell has covered Intellectual Ventures, so you would think other reporters could too. Current US patent law is detrimental to all technical endeavors, including medicine, but Intellectual Ventures and Microsoft profit from stagnation and are working to make laws worse around the world.



Incidental or not, the same reporter who fawned over IV at BoingBoing also fawns over Bill Gate's new vacuous talk at TED. Last year Bill Gates, unleashed a jar of live mosquitoes on the audience at TED. He also has a jar this year but the talk was about nuclear power at a clueless 100,000 foot level. It is good that Mr. Gates is talking about the problem of global warming, even if it is in a foolish and self aggrandizing manner, but real scientists have warned about the problem much longer and have more appropriate solutions, like agricultural sequestering. [2]. Regardless of wealth and power, Mr Gates is a convicted felon, anti-trust, and should not be looked to for advice. Clue to reporter, you have been spun, see above for the damage.





Thoughts welcome.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
 
Microsoft-Sponsored Propaganda Site Has Removed False 'Hit Piece' About Dr. Stallman (With Fake and Misrepresented Imagery) But Only After 4 Years
So they only removed that page some time around 2025, i.e. about 4 years after it had been published
Always Check Your Inputs
Garbage in, garbage out. Or wrong assumptions, wrong corollary.
Dan Neidle Said That Tax Evasion Facilitator Mr Zahawi (Working to Silence Bloggers Through Brett Wilson LLP) Targeted Not Only Him (But The Others Kept Quiet)
"Mr Neidle said after repelling Mr Zahawi he was contacted by bloggers and tweeters who had received similar threats. They deleted their work “and in most cases never commented publicly on anything again”."
SLAPP Funding Transparency Urgently Needed in the UK and Elsewhere (in Practice, Not Just in Theory)
Writing about crime - including Microsoft crime - is not a crime
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: Extreme Testing and Golang Documentation in Geminispace
Links for the day
Vice President of the European Patent Office (EPO) Complains That Techrights Gives Visibility to Legal and Technical Issues at the EPO
"Follow-up on enquiries relating to Dir. 1218 and 1001"
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Various Slopfarms That Lie About "Linux" and Are Promoted by Google News
Google does not seem interested in tackling this problem
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025