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02.19.10

Patents Roundup: America, Europe and Asia Share a Problem with Software Patents

Posted in America, Asia, Europe, Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Patents at 6:27 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

THIS is another quick summary of news about patents, which are harming the field of software.

What is IP?

Well, this new post about Apple’s iPad [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] gives a decent answer to the question, “what is intellectual property (IP)?”

Slaveware companies go even further and use the word IP to confuse users. IP is a stupid bundle of Trademark, Copyright, Patent and much more. You can’t put patents and Trademark in the same basket, especially in the case of software or products which are in the software format. In a lot of countries software patents are not valid, but with the usage of the word IP these companies try to bring software under that umbrella of protection.

This is partly inspired by the FSF/GNU explanation. “IP” is considered a term to avoid because it’s a perception changer that gets embedded in our language.

United States

Is embargo the new innovation? Sometimes it seems so:

US ITC to investigate Apple and RIM

THE US International Trade Commission (ITC) will launch an investigation into technology from Apple and Research In Motion (RIM) that seems to bear close resemblance to an invention claimed by Kodak.

US agency to investigate Blackberry and iPhone makers

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) has said it will investigate the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over technology used in their handsets.

Masnick adds:

Pretty much all smartphones are made outside of the US, so they can all be barred by the ITC, and with the technology in your average smartphone being covered by hundreds of patents, it’s almost certain that every smartphone infringes on a slew of patents.

Also from Masnick:

Firefox Guys Admit That Competition Is What Drives Innovation

[...]

Imagine if instead of thinking that way, the concept of a browser had been patented way back when? Does anyone honestly think that we’d have as innovative a web world as we do today?

Patents are a fence. Fences do not drive progress; it would be counter intuitive to grasp, too. So who benefits other than huge corporations and their lawyers? As this new document [PDF] exemplifies it, “ADC is a patent holding company founded by a patent attorney”

So the patent system serves lawyers pretty well, at the expense of scientists of course. It’s the “solicitor tax” applied to areas of science and those who exploit loopholes benefit the most.

Europe

Software patents might end up in Europe if lobbyists of companies like Microsoft get their way. The president of the FFII points to this comment which says: “The creation by CreditSuisse and Deutsche Bank of “patent funds” to purchase unused patents also indicates that money is entering the European market to finance litigation.”

He also links to this new analysis of the United Patent Litigation System (UPLS), stating that it’s about “European Patent Law [getting] outsourced outside of the EU.”

The idea of creating a single patent court for Europe in order to improve legal certainty as well as to reduce costs is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creating a unitary trans-national patent which has the same legal effect all over Europe and which goes well beyond the European bundle patent of our days. Without such new substantive patent law, any attempt to bundle the procedural aspects of litigation and nullity matters will surely be futile. When assessing the chances for a unification of patent courts in Europe we will have to look at the history and prospects of both ideas. If there is no unitary substantial patent law in Europe there will also be no European patent court.

And who would that be good for? Lawyers seeking maximal damages? This is similar to the notion of extradition, which means that people receive no protection from unjust or corrupt jurisdictions. How are increased penalties and punishments improving society/science in general? They aren’t, they don’t.

India

In India too there are attempts to formally legalise software patents and patent lawyers in the country already lick their lips.

He explained that he also expected changes in regulations that would soon permit software patent filing without independent of hardware patents, which would be a large growth area.

Software patents are a travesty. They are wanted by patent trolls/lawyers and software monopolies that want to shield their dominant position (i.e. prevent free market competition). Stallman explained the problem one year ago in Germany.

Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures Could be Biggest Racketeering Operation in the United States and Beyond

Posted in Apple, Bill Gates, Microsoft, Patents at 3:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Nathan Myhrvold

Summary: Patent thug Nathan Myhrvold turns out to have over 1,000 patent proxies with which to potentially attack and extort those who do not pay “protection money”; he also spent over $1 million lobbying his government

THE New York Times has published this report about Microsoft's patent troll Nathan Myhrvold, who is backed by his colleague Bill Gates, his former employer Microsoft, and even Apple. He already terrorises the industry using patents that it spent literally billions of dollars acquiring (not actually working to invent anything of substance).

“Yes, Intellectual Ventures uses “attack dogs” to fight its battles and this way it gets to pretend that it is not a patent aggressor.”According to the new report, “Intellectual Ventures spent more than $1 million on lobbying last year,” says the president of the FFII. That’s a lot of money to be spent changing the law in favour of a patent troll. Moreover, says the same person, “Up to 1,110 shell companies (ProxyTrolls) and affiliated entities appear to be linked to Intellectual Ventures.”

Yes, Intellectual Ventures uses “attack dogs” to fight its battles and this way it gets to pretend that it is not a patent aggressor. Microsoft uses similar strategies when it sues Google and even GNU/Linux vendors.

Here is what TechDirt had to say about the report from the New York Times:

Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures Using Over 1,000 Shell Companies To Hide Patent Shakedown

It’s no secret that we think Nathan Myhrvold’s Intellectual Ventures is a dangerous, innovation harming monstrosity. The company used a bait and switch scheme to get a bunch of big tech companies to fund it, not realizing that they were then going to be targets of his shakedown system. Basically, IV buys up (or in some cases, applies for) tons of patents, and then demands huge cash outlays from those same companies (often hundreds of millions of dollars) for a combined promise not to sue over those patents and (here’s the sneaky bit) a bit of a pyramid scheme, where those in early supposedly get a cut of later deals. Of course, to just talk to IV requires strict NDAs, so the details of these deals are kept under wraps and only leaked out anonymously. But the hundreds of millions of dollars going towards this sort of trolling behavior, rather than any actual innovation in the marketplace can be seen on various financial filings (you can’t hide hundreds of millions of dollars in payments that easily).

As a reader of ours pointed out some days ago, people like Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold are exploiting the press for self glorification. They are what’s sometimes known as “attention whores” (Myhrvold talks about cooking/cuisine and Gates pretends to save the world that he loots). BoingBoing is falling for the PR charade just as before, so it is essentially joining national propaganda. It defends people who in reality deserve to be sent to prison, just like Rick Berman with his fake charities routine. Those who do not know Berman ought to read that post before they read anything about the Gates Foundation, which is a classic example akin to those pseudo-charities that Berman sets up. Here is Berman’s latest attack on society, which he disguises under an Orwellian name like HumaneWatch.org.

Front group man extraordinaire Rick Berman and his attack group, the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF), have launched a new Web site, HumaneWatch.org, to harass the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the country’s largest animal welfare organization. In pursuing its mission of stopping animal cruelty, HSUS has apparently run afoul of some large, wealthy business interests, and now it is getting some major pushback.

Microsoft uses the same strategy by urging its front groups to create fake movements and Web sites that claim to represent small businesses or citizens’ interests. It’s all about creating proxies, just like Intellectual Ventures which has many ‘satellites’ (like the mafia).

Speaking of patent harvesters, there is another new one called RPX. Microsoft is a member and Intel has just joined too.

Intel is diving into a patent pool in hopes of avoiding future troll attacks.

The chip maker has signed on with RPX, a patent aggregation startup whose members pay steep annual fees to help shield themselves from royalty demands and litigation costs of patent trolls.

That’s nonsense. Patent trolls have no products, so RPX offers no defense against them. It’s just another pool of huge companies which create a sort of cartel or coalition that transitions patent law into multi-player protectionism. Why is it again that the mainstream media is casting the biggest and most treasonous patent trolls as national heroes?

“In the fall of 1982, Pam Edstrom [of Waggener Edstrom], a diminutive woman with piercing blue eyes, was recruited by Microsoft. [...] In modern-day business, flacks were responsible not only for avoiding bad press, but for spinning the good. [...] Hanson and Edstrom would spin a whole new image for Gates himself. They would tap the best and worst of Chairman Bill, changing his clothes, his voice, and his allegiances, driving him to become not just the boss, but, essentially, the company mascot—a sort of high-technology Colonel Sanders.”

Pam’s daughter

Microsoft’s Mobile Strategy: Block GNU/Linux Using Silver Lie

Posted in GNU/Linux, Mail, Microsoft, Windows at 2:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Bad Silverlight

Summary: Microsoft is looking into serious problems with Hotmail and adding some GNU/Linux-hostile elements to phones

HOTMAIL is up to no good again. A new Hotmail issue that we mentioned the other day is still being “investigated” by Microsoft rather than denied. It involved a breach into people’s account details.

Microsoft investigates Hotmail privacy breach

[...]

In its statement, the software giant said, “Microsoft takes customers’ privacy seriously, and immediately upon learning of these reports, we started an investigation. We will take appropriate action once we have completed the investigation.”

For other important reasons, Hotmail is worth a special mention. It is not only responsible for a lot of the world's SPAM but it was also blocking GNU/Linux users after Microsoft had overhauled it. It was not an isolated incident and other services from Microsoft took the same route [1, 2, 3].

“So once again, Microsoft is ‘competing’ through exclusion and ‘punishment’ of competitors.”Microsoft takes this attitude even further with its rather disastrous mobile phones push. Well, it is not exactly shocking as we saw this coming and then cited hints of it (at least twice before this year, namely from CRN and from a longtime Microsoft booster). Yesterday at The Register, Microsoft booster Gavin Clarke confirmed that Microsoft would spread its anti-web standards weapon (Silver Lie) to boost its already-disappointing Windows Phone 7. So once again, Microsoft is ‘competing’ through exclusion and ‘punishment’ of competitors. Inoculation with proprietary software is never the solution, unless you are Microsoft.

“The entire ambition for the Windows team was to create something “cool” that was also visually stimulating to the eye. Their goal was to create a virtual software layer that would unite the hardware and software marketplace on a single standard—a standard, once again, controlled by Microsoft.”

Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul

No linux allowed

Business Down for Some Large OEMs Despite Vista 7

Posted in Dell, Finance, Hardware, Microsoft, Office Suites, Vista 7, Windows at 2:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Dell monitor logo

Summary: Dell suffers a drop in profits despite the glamorous hype and promises from Microsoft (upon releasing Vista 7)

Microsoft’s financial decline carries on [1, 2, 3, 4] as Vista 7 fails to take a recessional rebound. There are numbers that Microsoft does not want the public to see, Acer says that Windows sales were flat despite Vista 7, and a couple of weeks ago, right after Microsoft’s latest results that are dubious (Microsoft has debt), the Wall Street Journal published a report to say that business was stagnant or down for OEMs/computer makers despite the release of Vista 7.

Our reader Chips B. Malroy told us last night that there is more new evidence that Vista 7 could not have sold much. “The Dell article,” he explains, “shows that people are buying cheaper computers now. That cannot be good for MS. At some point the OEM pain of companies like Dell, will start finding ways to cut the MS profit.”

Dell profit drops despite Windows 7 PC rush

[...]

Its gross margin dropped to a relatively slim 16.6 percent as the holiday-related sales spike pushed it to sell 2 million more computers without as much profit as in the past.

It’s all about margins and it's the fault of GNU/Linux. According to another new report, Microsoft is overcharging (£30 price hike):

Microsoft got its sums wrong on the price tag for the boxed version of Office Professional 2010, forcing it to hike the product by £30.

This is classic Microsoft. Time to "whack" Dell again?

“Bill [Gates] would go to a very senior person at these other OEMs whether it was DEC or Tandy or Compaq or whoever and yell at them or tell them it had to be this way, or if you don’t do this we’ll make sure our software doesn’t run on your box. What do you do if you’re one of these OEM guys? You’re screwed. You can’t have Microsoft not support your hardware so you better do what they say.”

McGregor, Bill Gates’ colleague

“Fake Antivirus which is actual[ly] a malware infection!”

Posted in Microsoft, Security, Windows at 12:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Windows XP malware safe mode

Summary: Windows users like their antivirus software, but there are accompanying risks

I received the following E-mail an hour ago:

Please be aware of the latest security outbreak on campus.

Fake Antivirus which is actual a malware infection!

To all Hornet users there has been a sudden increase across the campus of virus infections by rouge antivirus software application called Antivirus Soft and Paladin Antivirus which display warning pop messages warning your machine has been infection.

Antivirus soft is a rogue anti-spyware and ransomware program from the same family as Antivirus Live. These infections are installed on to your computer through the use of malware that installs the program onto your computer without your permission or knowledge.

Antivirus Soft

Antivirus Soft will be configured to start automatically when Windows starts. Once running it will scan your computer and display numerous infections, but will state it will not remove them until you purchase the program. In reality, the infected files it detects are all fake and do not actually exist on your computer.

This program also uses aggressive techniques to protect itself from being removed by anti-malware programs. When the Antivirus Soft process is running it will close almost any running program while falsely stating that they are infected. Antivirus Soft will also change the Proxy settings in Internet Explorer so that you cannot browse to any web site other than the site for Antivirus Soft so that you can purchase the program. It does this so that you cannot browse the web to find removal guides or download software that will help you remove the infection. Using these two methods, the program essentially ransoms the normal use of your computer until you purchase the program or use this guide to remove the infection.

Paladin Antivirus

Paladin Antivirus is a rogue anti-spyware program from the same family as Malware Defense. This rogue is installed and promoted through the use of Trojans that will install it on to your computer without your permission.

Once installed, it will scan through the list of programs installed on your computer, and if it finds certain legitimate anti-malware programs, will prompt you to uninstall them. Some of the programs that it will attempt to remove are:

F-Secure
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware
NOD32
Agnitum Outpost Security Suite
Avira AntiVir
avast!
AntiVir
AVG8
Norton Internet Security

When installed, Paladin Antivirus will be configured to start automatically when your computer loads. Once started, it will scan your computer and detect numerous infections. These infections, though, are all fake or legitimate programs that should not be deleted.

Therefore, please do not act upon any of the scan results that this program may show and follow the guide for removing the software as per the Hornet official website.

Please remember antivirus software is available to download from the Hornet site please only use these approved and tested software

A month ago there was a "Virus Outbreak". No wonder network administrators dislike Windows. I worked in this area for 6 years. An online friend who is still working in that field has just published “Does Open Source really hate windows?”

Excerpt:

While on the face of that previous statement it seems that microsoft is no different than any other business it is they way they operate which Open Source people find detestable. I always say that people are defined by their actions and not by what they say. The actions shown by microsoft are that they are ruthless, without business and personal ethics and treat their customers with less trust and respect than you would treat the homeless person on the street corner.

Truth be told, there is no hatred (there are some borderline lies and fabrications being spread about me today). There is yearning for the days when computers just worked.

Quote of the Day: Steve Wood About Microsoft

Posted in Microsoft, Quote at 12:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Microsoft's Steve Wood

Summary: Quotes from one of the first Microsoft developers, who quit Microsoft in 1980

“I don’t want to work for a toy computer company [Microsoft], I’ve got real iron here at Yale. [...at Microsoft] We don’t have a manager who cares about what we’re doing [...] We don’t really have a clue as to what we’re doing from a strategic standpoint. [...] This is shitty. If you guys want to do something with a windowing package like Vision’s, then you need somebody running the group who knows about it.”

Steve Wood, early Microsoft developer

Bill Gates Slammed for Global Warming Debate Aversion, Conspiracy to Defraud Taxpayers

Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, Finance, Microsoft at 12:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Gates Foundation logo

“Gates has created a huge blood-buying operation that only cares about money, not about people.”

AIDS organisation manager, December 2009 (New York Times)

Summary: Undoing some Orwellian deception from the mainstream media and spokespeople of the Gates family/foundation

THE MEDIA is so full of spin that it can really be sickening sometimes. It’s the usual glorification of the rich, pretending that they only cater for the poor and that they save our planet. It is a soothing illusion that keeps society ticking along, but just because something keeps us ticking along does not make it true; one could, for example, believe in fridge-sized diamonds being buried in one’s back yard, but just because it makes that someone feel happy doesn’t make it improper to burst the bubble and call it “nonsense”.

ClimateProgress.org is openly critical about the latest PR charade from Gates (at TED).”We previously wrote quite a lot about the Gates influence in governments (mostly Bill Gates with his father). We provided a lot of external references, including those which explain how the Gates family uses the foundation to escape taxation, just like Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9].

In exchange for these favours (concessions), Gates needs to show the world that he offers something in return, even if it is something imaginary such as access to patents that he invests billions of dollars in. It’s business as usual. Here is Gates hiring another man to whom he will pay more than President Obama is paid. There are already criticisms of it:

At least a quarter of a million to half a million Africans could be provided health care with what is spent on that single salary.

But the stronger criticism comes from those who speak about Gates' suggestion that we should do nothing about global warming for the time being. Who wouldn’t love the idea of just doing nothing and carrying on with lavish lifestyles of consumerism and spendings? Well, ClimateProgress.org is openly critical about the latest PR charade from Gates (at TED). “Bill Gates is wrong about “energy miracles”,” says the headline.

Yes, Bill Gates keeps diminishing the value of aggressive action now, which is just plain suicidal. We need both massive technology deployment now and much more innovation. But the former is the sine qua non for having any chance to preserve a livable climate. Ironically, the former is also the key to the latter, something Gates himself used to argue. Strangely, Gates strongly praises Gore’s book even though its main thrust is directly at odds with Gates’.

So for all those who were led to believe (possibly by the mainstream media) that Gates works towards curbing global warming, more careful attention should be paid to the actual voices that are being suppressed. This is not the first time that we see Gates slammed for his approach to climate change and a few hours ago we posted daily links that include the following:

  • Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers

    An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.

    The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

    Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

  • Oil Money Funds Climate Deniers and Attacks on Climate Scientists

    The multinational energy company ExxonMobil has given hundreds of thousands of British pounds in grants to free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks to wage a coordinated, orchestrated campaign against climate change science, and undermine public acceptance of the idea that global warming has a man-made component.

  • Oil-Funded Gov Joins with Oil-Funded Front Group to Appeal Greenhouse Gas Regs

    Although it seems a bit like a dog-bites-man story, the New York Times reported that Texas Governor and 2012 presidential aspirant Rick Perry (R-TX) has joined with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. As the Center for Media and Democracy has documented on our SourceWatch site, CEI has been well-funded by Exxon and other oil companies, and is one of the main U.S. corporate front groups fighting efforts to address global warming and regulate the industry that feeds it funding. But, the courts are now stacked in Perry’s favor, as noted below.

  • The “AB 32 Implementation Group”: A Wolf in Green Clothing

    Since then, a coalition with the helpful-sounding name the “AB 32 Implementation Group” has appeared, claiming to represent green businesses and a broad section of California interests focused on global warming regulations. The Implementation Group’s Web site features photos of white clouds and flowers, and the organization is being managed by a big public relations firm, Woodward & McDowell. In truth, the Group actually represents 22 of California’s biggest carbon polluters (as ranked by the California Air Resources Board), and, according to environmentalists and lawmakers, is engaged in a steady campaign to undermine the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.

  • Business group loses ‘green’ members in global-warming fight

    An organization representing some of California’s biggest carbon polluters is working to alter the state’s global warming law, while claiming to represent several “green” environmental companies that have since left the coalition after learning of its recent actions.

    The coalition, calling itself the AB 32 Implementation Group, says it represents a broad section of California interests focused on global warming regulations. The group, which is being managed by a large public relations firm, Woodward & McDowell, features photographs of white clouds and a field of flowers on its Web site.

As the above shows (collected for this one day alone), there is a lot of AstroTurfing going on to deny the obvious.

Question of Tax (Not Carbon Tax)

Now, returning to the issue of tax (which the Gates family mostly evades using its co-called ‘charitable foundation’), a former employee of Bill Gates has just accused Gates of being behind the representative who is willing to give Microsoft a $100 million annual tax cut. He also sort of accuses the Seattle Times of a conspiracy of silence (the Seattle Times constantly glorifies the Gates Foundation and says nothing about tax evasion).

In the midst of Washington State’s brief biennial legislative session to address the state’s pending insolvency from a $2.8 billion budget deficit, you might think that an estimated $1.27 billion tax dodge by Microsoft, the state’s most profitable company, and a proposed bill by Bill Gates’ own representative which would grant Microsoft a $100 million annual tax cut and likely amnesty from it’s unpaid taxes would warrant coverage in the state’s most successful newspaper, The Seattle Times.

[...]

I don’t understand why the paper won’t cover the issue though the Times has had a history of taking stances on the estate tax at odds with our community’s traditional centrist values. In 2000, the paper endorsed George Bush for President. This week, the paper complained that the Legislature’s proposed sales tax increase was enough to push the author to evade the sales tax by driving south to Oregon.

I know Seattle journalism is under strain. The failure of the print edition of the PI recently has hurt the city. But, it’s up to journalists to make their work relevant to readers. In choosing so far not to cover this issue, the Seattle Times is failing all of us. If you don’t cover issues that materially affect events in our region, then perhaps your business deserves to struggle financially.

Gates and Microsoft do not seem to care if their home state goes bankrupt, as long as they get to keep their own money and power.

As long as Washington State doesn’t go broke before 2017, we’ll eventually catch up to the damage done by HB3176. But, HB3176 may throw away a lot of cash (Microsoft’s tax debt) up front that the state could benefit from today.

Following up on yesterday’s post on Microsoft’s $100 million tax cut and potential tax amnesty, I’ve done a brief analysis of the impact of HB3176′s proposed changes to the royalty tax. Based on this analysis, the current royalty tax alone will generate more revenue for the state until 2017 when the combined increased revenue sources from HB3176 will catch up with the loss of the domicile-based royalty tax.

When even employees of Microsoft turn into its very worst enemies (as in the case of Reifman, who calls for the prosecution of Gates, Ballmer and others), then it’s clear that something is wrong. But Microsoft employees are not allowed to talk about it, sometimes even after they leave.

“In Hanson and Edstrom’s view of the world, Gates should be Microsoft’s spokesman. Microsoft’s cofounder, Paul Allen, had resigned in 1983 after battling Hodgkin’s disease, and Gates fit the consummate developer image. Hanson sent around a gag order—no talking to the media. This was, to say the least, not a popular decision with Microsoft’s developers.”

Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed
by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul

Patients at Middlesex University Hospital Punished for NHS-Microsoft Affairs

Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 11:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: In a mission-critical arena which was made dependent on Windows there is a considerable downtime due to malware that hijacks the systems

SINCE the NHS has insisted on being stuck with Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], yet another British hospital (there are many others) has just been taken offline, so to speak. How many people will die this time around, mostly as a result of Microsoft Windows being so defective? A few years ago I gave lectures on security at a local hospital. The staff there suffered from Windows viruses and associated data loss.

Here is the only report we could find about this latest major incident (these issues and the culprits tend to be discreet for obvious reasons):

Computer systems at the West Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust were infected by the worm last Friday, leaving hospital staff unable to book appointments via computer. The outbreak has been contained but some hospital IT systems remain unavailable, resulting in ongoing delays to patients and affecting the smooth running of the medical facility.

A hospital spokeswoman told El Reg that the malware infection, identified as the Conficker-A, struck on Friday afternoon. “Most of the computers had to be cleaned, so we’ve had to rely on a pen and paper system to book appointments. Technicians worked over the weekend to clean up systems. Priority systems are running but the clean-up is likely to last until the end of the week.”

[...]

The hospital has 400 beds and employs 1,900 staff to serve the needs of 400,000 residents in the London boroughs of Hounslow and Richmond-upon-Thames.

Wonderful, right? We have written dozens of other posts that show hospitals becoming victims of Windows vulnerabilities. Some notable posts on the subject are:

In the spirit of iraqbodycount.org, should someone set up windowsbodycount.org and start counting hospitals whose operations are suspended due to Microsoft’s shoddy software? This is not a technical issue as much as it is a political issue. As long as Microsoft controls the governments (in all sorts of ways which we won’t discuss here today), inferior software solutions will sneak their way into places where they never belonged. LSE is another recent example from the UK [1, 2].

“Few relationships are as critical to the business enterprise itself as the relationship to government. The manager has responsibility for this relationship as part of his responsibility to the enterprise itself. To a large extent the relationship to government results from what businesses do or fail to do.”

Peter Drucker

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