Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Fine Art of Media Obfuscation to Discredit Critics

A hospital bed



Summary: Recollection of what I and others have witnessed over the years in hospitals and various facilities that help save lives; the common theme seems to be Microsoft failing in catastrophic ways, causing systems to completely perish and collapse, thus costing many people their lives (a topic that media rarely even touches; it is too busy trying to poke fun or misrepresent critics of the status quo)

RECENTLY we published a number of key articles about how media had been misplacing blame after severe and sometimes complete (meaning full stack, comprehensive and wide-ranging -- from back end to front end) Microsoft Windows cracks in hospitals. It's nothing that a reboot can fix (systems down, data like medical records copied by rogue actors, typically with data loss too; the last element makes it akin to actual theft because the originals too were gone or locked out of reach for days if not weeks). This is no laughing matter; many people die due to that every day (several aspects to it; it can be broken down into pertinent but overlapping categories of harm). Based on media reports, some of which we collated before, this happens quite routinely. Even setting aside only the publicly-reported incidents (a subset of the whole and limited to one language), we're probably dealing here with thousands of hospitals. Thousands. Many millions of patients. Actual lives at stake. Families, friends...



Hospitals typically belittle the impact in their face-saving, damage-limiting moves and carefully-crafted statements, assisted by PR-esque operatives in local media. Things are, we're often told, far worse than media leads people to believe. The press coverage, in that regard, does more harm than good. It's misinforming the public. Moreover, the real culprits aren't being held accountable. They're painted as ignorant victims. In the same way a Microsoft co-founder, a longtime 'class bully', closely associating with known sexual predators is just a "mistake" and "I'm really, really sorry..." (or regret)

"We recently noticed a growing number of wacky claims about Bill Gates."The media sure knows how to use particular words, Googlebomb the Web, and avoid the mention of particular words. This is their art, the fine art of what they sometimes call "professional journalism" but is actually spin for media owners and barons who 'rent' such media space. It's one of many rogue elements in the media and it's quite likely why Richard Stallman is no longer at MIT and the FSF (we wrote a lot about that last year). It certainly helped distract from what Bill Gates had done at MIT -- as revealed just days prior to the "War on Stallman" (based on misrepresentation of things he had said... not even privately). Some people have called it "Free software 9/11"; that's not to say that Stallman is above criticism; but he certainly -- like almost everyone out there -- has something that can be massively condemned to cause a Web storm, blackmail organisations into kicking him out and so on. People who believe they're robust to such media frenzies are deluding themselves. Libel too can be made up to suit objectives; only to be admitted as such after the "mission" was "accomplished"... (too late for justice, retraction and redemption)

But this article isn't about Stallman. It's mostly about the media. It's about how media deals -- if at all -- with the impact of Windows on people's health and well-being. We have a lot left to say in future parts, which we work on meticulously to ensure accuracy. We have supporting evidence.

We recently noticed a growing number of wacky claims about Bill Gates. We don't want to reproduce them here. Yesterday someone even linked to Techrights in Twitter, claiming that Bill Gates was female.

"Then there's all that "QAnon" nonsense, which we responded to several times lately."Some rather baseless and usually nutty claims aren't a new thing; it's not limited to Gates either. There are many people online who also claim that Lady Gaga and Michelle Obama are secretly male. That doesn't mean it merits any attention. We'd rather write nothing about Bill Gates than deal with utter nonsense; we prefer to focus on the real issues rather than write anything which later turns out to be less than accurate, including some of the Coronavirus "conspiracy theories". We don't have time for that. The old articles which we published are read a lot these days. These are actually accurate, but they're often misinterpreted by those with an agenda, looking to sell their "conspiracy theories" (e.g. so-called "plandemic").

Then there's all that "QAnon" nonsense, which we responded to several times lately. These people do a lot of damage by false association. They serve to make 'caricatures' of legitimate critics and good, facts-based research with hard evidence. Some people have joked that those idiots exist for a purpose and that purpose is to distract and discredit.

There are protests around the world at the moment against Bill Gates (links omitted; journalism about this has been shoddy and patronising). The media obviously mischaracterises these or uses these to collectively mischaracterise critics of Gates. They're spun as reckless people who are a hazard to public health and safety. That's not at all what they are however... and there's an element of partisanship to it ("either you're with Bill or with anti-vaccination people").

"...some 'genius' decided to replace GNU/Linux on our supercomputers with some experimental and rapidly-failing Windows thing (which Microsoft advertised heavily at the time).""Reassuring" is what an associate of ours called the protests, but he worries about how media frames these, sometimes collectively (we saw people who attend these; they're no "k00ks"). "Note the parallels in tactics used to promote 5G these days. The debate has been ignored and the media's attention has shifted to the chaos created by disinformation and crackpottery spread via Facebook by groups paid for by various interests. One example there is that the impact on weather radar is abandoned in favor of how stupid it is to think that radio waves cause virus outbreaks. That's some serious propaganda kung fu there. Bill's team has been using saturate, diffuse, and confuse tactics against all media, not just what they bribe, for many years now. Lately it is many orders of magnitude worse though. I am concerned that there's a reason for that, otherwise they would not spend the money. tldr; they make heavy use of this fallacy..."

This takes us back to the role of Windows in hospitals -- often a fatal/lethal role. The media is happy to speak about a great number of COVID-19 casualties to push particular agenda of particular companies (there are some who profit from online shopping). Where were those journalists when people with cancer had scans and critical operations canceled due to Windows issues? Or when thousands of people per day, in one single hospital, could not receive treatment because their medical records could not be retrieved? Or, as I've seen at work, research into medical symptoms was interrupted by Microsoft vandalism...

A long time ago, more than 15 years ago, I volunteered to do some MRI scans for a colleague's research. I was sent home after the machine had 'crashed' (Windows); suffice to say, that machine was out of service for the rest of that day. My understanding is that these machines have since then been switched to Linux. I saw a lot of things and heard a lot of things as a student in a medical faculty. And since I'm no longer there I can safely speak about some of these things though I lack paper/digital notes of those things.

"We were forced by a crazy, Microsoft-connected journalist turned failed store owner, turned medical administrator for the clinic," told me a person once upon a time, to move to "everything Microsoft". The person "brought in some real assholes who installed performance-killing spyware on FDA approved systems against the vendor's recommendation. Their sloppiness and refusal to remove the spyware got them kicked out, and ultimately doomed the administrator, but not before [the administrator] fired my wonderful Free software-aware IT person and caused an insurmountable rift between the doctors that nearly ruined the practice."

"The IT successors," continued this person, "chosen by the crazy administrator, eliminated our Free software infrastructure and put everything on Microsoft IIS. They claimed it was required by the medical records system they put in place, but they could have set up a dummy server for that crap."

I'll always remember how, way back around 2005 when I was a doctoral student, some 'genius' decided to replace GNU/Linux on our supercomputers with some experimental and rapidly-failing Windows thing (which Microsoft advertised heavily at the time). It caused an uproar, resignations, and was technically a failure, of course. I personally raised concerns too (which is risky when you're merely a student), wrote about it in my personal blog at the time (it predates this site), and saw it bringing medical research we were doing to a standstill.

Microsoft just wanted to use us as an experiment; "marketing..."

I don't suppose the press ever told the world that catastrophic story. Nobody would pay for such a story to be written; neither the Gates Foundation nor Microsoft...

Recent Techrights' Posts

Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections
What we are expected to see, tentatively
The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste)
The higher they go the harder they fall
We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
And prone to breakage
Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
things continue to deteriorate
They Say That People Are Afraid of or Worried About "Hey Hi", But the Worriers Should be the Fools Who Invested in It
At the end of the day nobody should worry more than those who invested their money in this bubble
 
Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You)
it doesn't put you in control
Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital
Links for the day
The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us
Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too
Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
Welcome to 2025
New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
One might say digital "security theatre"
Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Xubuntu Site Compromised
Let's hope it is not a security breach
Links 10/09/2025: Retaliation at Facebook and Microsoft Reveals Almost 100 Security Holes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Annihilation of Self, The Future Eaters, and Leaving Academia
Links for the day
Harassment evidence: franceinfo's Clara Lainé report on Ubisoft prosecution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 10/09/2025: Microsoft Layoffs in "RTO" Clothing and Windows TCO, GitHub TCO
Links for the day
Blaming Everything on China
TikTok works for China. GAFAM works for fascists.
People Get Tired of "Hey Hi" (AI), Unlike the Subservient Money-Obsessed Media That Gets Paid to Pretend This Bubble Still Matters
"crash will be way bigger than dot.com burst in 90s. and that was Internet, actually transformative technology, not this expensive AI toy with direct dependency on the energy input which is not scalable"
Brett Wilson LLP Accepts That the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Filed a Case That Also Implicates My Wife (Everything is Connected)
They used to pretend that there were two separate cases
10 Reasons to Disable (or Enable) UEFI Secure Boot
Tomorrow the "trusted corporation" Microsoft will see a certificate expire
Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Hospital and Large Feeds
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 09, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 09, 2025
The Bluewashing of Red Hat is Being Completed, Many Staff Understand They'll be Made Redundant
Jim AllowHurst (Whitehurst) is meanwhile promoting Microsoft's agenda from within other companies
Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
Mozilla is not leftist
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Exceeding 10% in Bulgaria This Month
What can Microsoft still do to stop GNU/Linux?
Dark Patterns
Microsoft saying "security" is like a Convicted Felon in the White House saying "law and order".
It's Almost Fall (Autumn)
To "Facebook prison" you are bound
Bruce Schneier About "Secure Boot"
Bruce Schneier isn't a fan of "Secure Boot"
Links 09/09/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again and "RTO" (Timed Like It Serves as a Distraction From the Mass Layoffs)
Links for the day
RMS Told Microsoft to Stop 'Secure Boot' (He Even Went There to Say That), But They Didn't Listen
Dr. Stallman (RMS) assumed that speaking to sociopaths would work
What Richard Stallman Told Me About 'Secure' Boot in 2012
"if the user doesn't control the keys, then it's a kind of shackle"
Those Who Helped Microsoft Weaponise "Secure Boot" Against GNU/Linux and BSDs Are Fleeing
Microsofters doing what they do best: they evade accountability
Simple is Better, Simplicity is Power
That is "the advantage of having commodity GNU/Linux systems," an associate notes
Much Ado About Nonsense
Microsoft Lunduke is still all dramatisation and sensationalism
Current Events in France
It needs to dump Microsoft and other GAFAM (US) giants, move to Free software
Further Media Cut-downs
media reporting about the media being cut
Links 09/09/2025: US-Korea Tensions and Meta Whistleblowers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: Moon Eclipse and ROOPHLOCH Reports
Links for the day
Links 09/09/2025: “Torrents of Hate” and Political Crisis in France
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/09/2025: "Dedigitizing" and Forgejo on FreeBSD
Links for the day
Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images)
That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs
There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing)
The company is all about sound bites
Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It
"Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot'
Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai
The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech
The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail)
We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge
Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching)
The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure
A very large third one expected next week
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions)
the "upgrade treadmill"