Bonum Certa Men Certa

Bristol Council Claims it Chose Microsoft for 'Security'

Bristol coat of arms



Summary: The laughing stock of the security world is said to have been favoured because it bought some expensive certifications

A FEW months ago we wrote about a bizarre dodge from Free software [1, 2], which happened after everything seemed finalised. No proper explanation was given and those involved were questioned about the sudden change of heart (with the suspicion that something nefarious had happened). Only months later, under persistent pressure from the public and from investigative journalists, we finally see this apparent excuse, which goes like this: "It has been considering a number of open source email solutions, but Bristol City Council confirmed to eWEEK Europe UK that none of them have the necessary government security accreditation to enable the council to use them."



Is this the same reasoning which they gave to those companies? Is this an afterthought? An excuse? Being blessed by some expensive process (that carries no liability either) does not actually make the software more secure. It is not as though when Microsoft software gets cracked the certificate plays any role and somehow gives another target to point the finger at. This smells like dishonesty and since the White Houses uses Drupal and GNU/Linux, this claim holds no water, either.

There are many new examples of insecure proprietary software, one of which came last week from Novell on Windows. To quote:

"Unfortunately, a problem has been discovered with this file, which can potentially result in a system crash in certain circumstances.

The problem has been fixed, and the Client software has been re-released as Novell Client 2 SP1 for Windows (IR9a), available at: http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=rSUN_TTVSf0~

Please remove the (IR9) build, and use the (IR9a) version instead. We regret the inconvenience.

Thank you."


How would certification have resolved such an issue? It wouldn't have. In practice, Microsoft software and proprietary software are not secure, they are just more secretive and expensive.

The tale of Bristol has been followed quite closely by Mark Ballard, who writes about excuses such as the above (excluding all Free software in one fell swoop, pretending that Microsoft is the only secure option) in the following text:

Bristol City Council's open source push has suffered another series of set-backs that point a finger of blame at CESG, the cyber security arm of government intelligence unit GCHQ.

Leaders at the local authority claim that the need for CESG security certification of e-mail systems effectively means the council has no choice but to buy Microsoft.

Senior Cabinet Office IT leaders have been asked to help as Bristol's faltering open source strategy, still showing little progress after a year, highlighted problems besetting the coalition government's own open source policy.


What a sham. As many other governments use Free software quite happily, this concern has little or no validity. It is a good excuse though -- like one an employer uses to reject a candidate for reasons that are not technical/skills-related but qualifications-related.

In other news of interest, "U.K. Liberal Democrats urge open source," but given the story of Bristol it seems like lip service. From the article:

The British government should ensure it owns all software code it pays for and should share that code for free within the public sector, says a policy paper adopted Sept. 20 by the Liberal Democrats party, the minority partner of the two-party ruling coalition forming the United Kingdom's government.

In addition, the paper urges the British government to embrace collaborative software development along the lines of models on display at GitHub, an open source software project hosting website.


Someone should tell the Lib Dems that Bristol rejects British firms that offer Free software in favour of proprietary software from a foreign company with criminal history -- software that the British public overpays for and has no control over.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025