Bonum Certa Men Certa

Cablegate: Gates and Microsoft 'Love' Children in America

Girl in Antigua, Guatemala



“They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.”

--Bill Gates



Summary: Diplomatic cables help show how Microsoft along with the Gates Foundation is distorting publicly-funded education systems and other taxpayers' institutions (public services) for its own selfish benefit, typically under the guise of "protecting" children

WIKILEAKS has brought us Cablegate, which in turn brought us a lot of facts from privileged sources. Techrights has done some research based on the latest 10,000 or so cables, concentrating specifically on America (the continent of course, not any nation in particular). As Eduardo Landaveri from the Spanish portal of Techrights can tell us, Microsoft loves exploiting south America just like many other countries and companies. The difference is, Microsoft uses taxpayers' money to indoctrinate the kids so that they become paying clients of Microsoft. It is a very serious abuse that almost no politician pays attention to. The Gates Foundation too intervenes in this corruption of the education systems whenever Microsoft alone cannot ensure that severe lock-in remains for future generations to cope with. How cruel is that lobbying tag-team act? They turn many children into to-be 'pirates' with debt to Gates and Microsoft.



Rather than dwell in diplomatic cables, let is be said that Microsoft adopts the "think about the children" attitude, which is part of the PR campaign. Rather than the predator that it is, Microsoft wishes to be perceived as a friend of children at schools. The "think about the children" line is used to pass all sorts of outrageous laws and justify extreme actions, too. Be careful any time it's seen or heard.

So anyway, in this cable we see that "Child Exploitation Tracking System(CETS) program developed by Microsoft at the behest of the Toronto Police," verifying a sort of collusion between Microsoft and authorities. Should Microsoft be involved in such a project given its violations of the law? There is something too awkward about it. Yes, Microsoft works with Toronto's police whilst asking everyone to install unauditable binaries on their PCs (the police has back doors into Windows). How about this cable which says:

--Proximity and relative strength of the U.S. market: the CVCA confirmed that of Canada's best ideas migrate to the U.S. where venture funding is more readily available. As a result, Canada faces the "perverse" situation that its publicly funded university system acts as a great incubator for innovative ideas that are then developed commercially south of the border (ref (B)). A good example is the University of Waterloo, a leading Canadian math and high-tech engineering university, which supplies over 50 percent of its graduating classes to Microsoft Corp. (NOTE: Bill Gates has taken a personal interest in this university, often slipping in quietly to meet with Waterloo students, as he did on October 7. END NOTE)


Gates Foundation and Microsoft working together, as they usually do e.g. in Vietnam. In this cable we see yet more interesting stuff:

IDRC partnered with Microsoft and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation to support information technology and communication development in the Middle East and North Africa through social investment in grassroots "telecenters."


AstroTurfing much?

Further south we discover Microsoft's involvement in Costa Rica: "In December 2005, PANI implemented a national information campaign in conjunction with Microsoft to help school children navigate safely on the Internet."

The context is all sorts of documents from Costa Rica where Microsoft is shown to be making public services a Microsoft-dependent mess. Terrible stuff. In some other new cables we see references to Microsoft software by names and sometimes the requirement of presentations in "Microsoft PowerPoint". This type of mentality comes from schools, which Gates and Microsoft are feeding with their proprietary products, using teachers as their own private trainers who are funded by taxpayers to essentially be Microsoft's unavoidable marketers (schools are obligatory). Watch this cable from Peru. It states: "As of February 2009, FIU has been under the leadership of Ramon Enrique Saldivar Bocangel. Most recently having served as advisor to the President of the Supreme Court, he has also been the head of the Prime Minister's National Office of Electronic Government and Information. Prior to these positions, Saldivar worked in the private sector, including five years with MICROSOFT. He holds multiple degrees from the best universities in Lima in Economics and Business Administration and has attended the Microsoft Latin American Executive Training Program in Bogota."

Cronyism much? Revolving doors?

Here is Microsoft using the Ricky Martin Foundation for "a joint project with Microsoft to protect children" (yes, somebody think of the children!).

With similar involvements in Bogota and elsewhere it sure is evident that Wikileaks provides an important view on how Microsoft abuses its power and exploits children (who are obviously too young to stand up and resist). Microsoft's greedy executives should mind their own children's business before they decide to impose on everyone's children all around the world what they should and should not do.

"My children - in many dimensions they're as poorly behaved as many other children, but at least on this dimension I've got my kids brainwashed: You don't use Google, and you don't use an iPod."

--Steve Ballmer (on CNN)



"Children are often taught "computer skills" that are really "Microsoft Windows skills" – how to use Microsoft's operating system and its Office suite (its two monopolies) – rather than the possibilities of making computers do what you want. As such, children are being equipped to be uncreative office workers, just as those at the end of the 19th century were equipped for the routine of adding up huge lists of numbers in the accounts departments of big companies."

--The Guardian

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October