08.13.15
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Peter Writes About Malicious Microsoft Antifeatures, Tries to Blame Lenovo and Succeeds
Photo courtesy/source: Twitter profile
Summary: Malice from Microsoft is being framed as malice from Lenovo, owing to some shrewd spin from a longtime Microsoft booster
Peter is a brave man. Despite his love for Microsoft, he has been hanging out in our main IRC channel for a number of years. He probably joined after we had criticised many of his articles and pointed out the gross bias, which sometimes got a lot more severe and clearly upset a lot of readers, even employees of companies like Opera. Factual inaccuracies, outright errors, semi-truths, spin etc. are a standard routine.
Today we wish to discuss this article because it helps raise awareness of malicious things that Microsoft has been doing. What Microsoft Peter calls “anti-theft feature” is neither “anti-theft” nor a feature but an antifeature. It is part of Wintel’s attack on general-purpose computers or home PCs, tying these to Microsoft software at the hardware level (like OS signatures to be accepted or rejected at the motherboard level).
Microsoft Peter uses a cleverly-crafted argument of diversion; “Lenovo used Windows anti-theft feature to install persistent crapware” is the headline, but it might as well have said that Microsoft had turned many computers against their users and Lenovo merely borrowed this facility from Microsoft.
“The criticism is going to Lenovo for using this when it should be going to Microsoft for even allowing it.”
–Ryan Farmer
In our IRC channel, Ryan Farmer, a former Microsoft MVP (albeit no longer loyal to them), wrote: “Turns out there’s a Windows 8/10 “feature” that runs Windows programs that OEMs can put in the EFI firmware. But it works in Windows 7 as well because of a Microsoft extension to ACPI that lets the firmware pass Windows executables to Windows, which it executes even if they’re not related to power management. Seems like the last version of Windows that wouldn’t do this was maybe Vista. The criticism is going to Lenovo for using this when it should be going to Microsoft for even allowing it. In theory, it’s there to make it impossible for laptop thieves to remove anti-theft software, but since there’s no limitation on how it can be used…”
This article is debated right now by people without an understanding of the technical details. It’s talked about in some other sites and forums, even corporate media like Time. Microsoft Peter managed to get people angry at Lenovo rather than Microsoft (the culprit). Cory Doctorow fell for it and everyone else is directing the anger only at Lenovo (just take a glimpse at those headlines while they last in Google’s index, there at least two dozen of them at the moment).
We wish to remind readers to properly research before buying a PC without GNU/Linux already installed. Microsoft has been setting up artificial obstacles, culminating in Vista 10 with the latest/newest dual-boot complications, set aside UEFI ‘secure’ boot barriers (Microsoft now allows for no “off” switch to be present). Yesterday, a site specialising in this area reported =”GRUB-Install errors while attempting to dual-boot Windows 10 and Linux distributions” (check out the screenshots). █
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