Previously in this series:

1. Microsoft Kills: An Introduction
2. Microsoft Killed Far More Patients Than COVID-19 Killed
3. Microsoft Kills: Hospitals Taken Over by Windows Crackers and Hospital Staff Threatened Not to Talk About It
4. Very Bad Reporting or Deliberately Shallow Media Coverage After Microsoft Windows Hands Hospitals Over to Crackers
5. Microsoft Cult-Like Tactics Destroy Hospitals by Ripping Apart Everything Microsoft (and the NSA) Cannot Control
6. Stories From the Battleground (Hospitals Where Windows Killed More Patients Than COVID-19 Has Killed)
7. Nothing to See Here, People, Please Move Along. The “System is Down...”
8. With Microsoft Windows on Key Systems Many Hospitals Become Remotely Controlled and Nonoperational
9. The Difficulty of Blowing the Whistle on Hospitals Brought Down by Microsoft Windows
10. When the Response to Hospitals Being Systematically Cracked Through Microsoft Products Like Windows is... Blocking the Competition of Microsoft
11. Trust Microsoft With Everything Including Your Life
12. Removing Free/Libre Software as an Inadequate Response to Microsoft Windows (With Back Doors) Getting Compromised, Killing People
13. Hostility and Aggression Towards Staff That Does Not Use Windows After Windows Takes Entire Hospital Down
14. Allegations That Microsoft Will Ruin Besieged Clinics and Hospitals to Retaliate Against Those Who Name the Culprit

Summary: With lives on the line one might expect hospitals to choose what's most secure and generally works best; but in practice there seems to be a leaning towards what bribes best

AS part of my job I keep machines patched and fully up to date in medical research environments. There are no back doors. If there are any, go ahead and show them. GNU/Linux has the full source code publicly available...

I am, however, familiar with the experience of clueless managers at work and outside work. What sources of ours describe is a very common problem. They're not alone. The technical matters aren't the sole factor at hand/play; Especially when Microsoft employees and partners offer kickbacks (bribes), take people out for lunch/dinner, and make promises/offers we can't quite find out about...

"So, just to recap, a hospital got cracked because of Windows and instead of banning Microsoft they decided to ban everything but Microsoft."Microsoft is like a cult and it turns technical matters into 'politics'... then they have the audacity to accuse Free software of being a political stunt.

"This was a shock to me," a source once told him after a GNU/Linux machine had been banned (not confiscated), thereafter prevented from entering the workplace. And when? After a Windows incident -- not a GNU/Linux incident -- caused a massive security breach. Shouldn't Windows be banned? Nope. Not when it's down to Microsoft politics. "I'm a scientist working for a scientist," the source told us. "The closed-minded bigotry demonstrated was mind-blowing. I've met clueless management before, and my boss has shown some of it before, but this latest outburst was amazingly bad."

So, just to recap, a hospital got cracked because of Windows and instead of banning Microsoft they decided to ban everything but Microsoft.

"So after a massive security breach already killed some patients (this is inevitable) staff that has long relied on a GNU/Linux workflow is being slowed down even further, limiting the capacity to treat patients."Amazing, isn't it?

Gotta be seen (to believe it). We saw enough evidence...

"Losing my [GNU/Linux] [redacted] at work makes me look bad," the source told us. "It takes me three times as long to do anything and my note-taking has fallen back to scribbles on the back of a paper patient schedule. Staff and the doctors still expect me to use my magical [redacted] hacker skills to do things like copy disks for them and to be able to display [redacted] files on disks with missing or defective readers, but I have to pull the magic out of a hiding place and they wonder why I can't do the same with Windows like they imagine everyone else does."

So after a massive security breach already killed some patients (this is inevitable) staff that has long relied on a GNU/Linux workflow is being slowed down even further, limiting the capacity to treat patients. And all this because of a Windows incident...

"Why are the alternatives to the "Microsoft way" being banned after the "Microsoft way" caused the loss of lives?""What's worse is that I'm forced to advocate shit I hate," the source continued. "I can't, of course, tell people what I think because that would be undermining my boss while he's in a weak position and none of them have a clue to begin with. The contract depends on making the utterly [redacted] Medical Systems electronic records work using really backward techniques like pasting screenshots of pdfs into Word Documents. I had worked out a nice way of making reports with LibreOffice, pdf prints from the [redacted] software, and [redacted], that load quickly but my boss insisted I use the [redacted] raster image methods because Word pulls from the [redacted] database. Word documents take seconds to load and this will greatly annoy the doctor who is expected to click open each for approval. I have to hide my methods from the doctor and tell him that better documents are on the way. I'm his [redacted] on site, so I have to push all of this shit."

The anger is very much evident from the use of expletives. Imagine being forced to not use something that works a lot better and a lot more securely after that inferior method was in fact the cause of a deadly breach. Why are the alternatives to the "Microsoft way" being banned after the "Microsoft way" caused the loss of lives? Well, we suppose it's all down to the the "Microsoft way" politics...

The next part of the series will look at additional aspects and conclude. The above-mentioned patterns may be familiar to many; this isn't a unique case, not an isolated story, so it needs to be told and shared widely. ⬆