Bonum Certa Men Certa

Reporting the European Patent Office and Microsoft for Gross GDPR Violations

Video download link



Summary: The violation of privacy by Europe's second-largest institution is certainly a big scandal (even if the mainstream or patent-connected media won't talk about it); this is being disguised using lies, including lies about encryption

THE fifth part of our latest EPO series was published this morning. It was about the GDPR and there's more to follow. Including all the videos there will be about 30 parts in total.



"We continue to urge readers across Europe to report this to their local politicians (e.g. MPs) and European level politicians (MEPs)."António Campinos allowed an illegal deal to carry on, so just like Benoît Battistelli he is breaking privacy laws while exploiting diplomatic immunity. We continue to urge readers across Europe to report this to their local politicians (e.g. MPs) and European level politicians (MEPs). There's definitely merit to such reports or complaints. No diplomatic immunity can excuse violations of the law, at least not for long...

As the video explains, the EPO now promotes 'fake encryption' (probably while allowing European software patents on encryption). A technical associate of ours explains that "in summary," based on documents we have, "it will be a challenge because all logic and facts go out the window once the string "Microsoft" comes up in any debate online. You can get people to agree to criteria, principles, and other ways for evaluating software and services. If the Microsoft products and services are described but not named, then they will be evaluated as unsatisfactory or worse."

A passwordMicrosoft works for the NSA, not for the EPO. Their loyalties are with whoever pays more money (and right now that's the US government and military).

It would be nice to envision the EPO admitting the mistake and maybe some managers resigning ("stepping down") over this latest blunder. "However," the associate says, "the same team will do a 180 and fight tooth and nail to promote those same unsatisfactory products and services once the string "Microsoft" is associated with them. This has been going for decades in such a manner."

SuccessThe problem isn't just Microsoft; had the EPO outsourced all its communications to Facebook, for example, then too there would be outrage (revolt from inside and outside the EPO, over what's perceived to be an "Uncle Sam within...") and the whole thing is basically illegal, so it doesn't boil down to mere sentiments but law.

"Speaking of unsatisfactory," our associate notes, "I would look into that last document and the recommendation of using the built-in encryption from Microsoft Office. It used to be easily broken. It would be important to know the current state of that claimed functionality."

This was mentioned in Part II. Steve Rowan isn't a technical person, so maybe he doesn't understand how real encryption works. Moreover, he fails to see that sending decryption passwords/passphrases/tokens over the same company that deals with communication and storage is farcical at best. This protocol is a joke! It's designed to fail.

Illustration of public-key encryption being used to protect a file sent across an open channel



Image credit: Johannes Landin, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence. [via]

Recent Techrights' Posts

SLAPP Censorship - Part 26 Out of 200: Asking for Documents and Information You Already Have, Even Letters and E-mails That You Yourself Sent!
barristers are expensive
Links 27/03/2026: Studying Whale Births, Apple is Cancelling Products, Cambodia Arrests Journalists Over Photographs
Links for the day
 
Links 28/03/2026: More Worldwide Bans on Social Control Media (Harms to Adolescents), Protests in US Against Dictatorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/03/2026: Echo Delay and 0x0.st
Links for the day
Rumours of More IBM Mass Layoffs at Beginning of April
IBM is not doing well
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 27, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 27, 2026
"Headcount" as Distraction From Mass Layoffs and Salary Reductions
Things aren't looking well when one considers revenue is acquired, not earned
"Linux" Slop Turning Rarer, New York Times Nowadays Contaminated With LLM Slop
Another day has passed without much slop about "linux"
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: GTD, Gopher Catchup, Gemini Crawlers, and "Slop Everywhere"
Links for the day
Mozilla Was Ruined Like Sirius Open Source Was Ruined - From the Top Down
Mozilla will never return to its Free software roots
Nokia Could Never Recover From Microsoft
It's very important to remember what really happened
Why Techrights and Many Other Sites Stopped Doing April Fools’ Day Articles
Well before slop (made by LLMs) it was "bad optics" to have satire or humour in a site, irrespective of the day of the year
President Not-Cocaine Campinos Notified of Historic EPO Strikes (Thousands of Workers Not Coming Back to the Office)
Please do pay attention to how the media treats these strikes in Europe's second-largest institution
Slides From the Presentation Discussing EPO Strikes Until End of June or Until End of 2026 (Maybe Next Year Too)
More to come soon (later today)
IBM Cuts Are Everywhere (Global), the Aim is to Lower the Pay
Because the revenues keep falling (IBM buys other companies' revenues using borrowed money)
Perpetual Strikes to Begin at European Patent Office (EPO), Large Majority Votes for Strikes Any Day of the Week
Approved industrial actions [...] Notice how none of the media or even so-called 'IP' blogs write about it
Mozilla is Not a Privacy Company, Mozilla is Run by GAFAM Executives and Managers Who Came From American Surveillance Companies
Would you trust a VPN they claim to be "free"?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 25 Out of 200: That Time Matthew J. Garrett Got Temporarily Banned/Suspended From Twitter
That he gets banned from large social control media platform is hardly surprising given his combative communications
Ubuntu Started as Free With ShipIt, Now It Becomes Payware That Exploits Debian Volunteers (Slaves)
"Ubuntu" the distro now replaces the GNU components inherited from Debian with a bunch of Microsoft GitHub (proprietary) things that reject reciprocal licences
Last Night The Register MS Published a Fake Article. It Mentioned "AI" 27 Times.
Paid-for nonsense! [...] What's left of once-respectable news sites actively harms society
Links 27/03/2026: Google Executive (GAFAM, US, Surveillance) "Named the New BBC Head", Prominent Climate Scientist Resigns From NASA
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: "Being Busy" and "Posting Again"
Links for the day
GNOME Has No "Real" Executive Director, Only an IBM (Perma)'Interim' One With No Openings in Sight
GNOME is having financial problems
Microsoft Experiencing "Leadership Exodus"
Microsoft's current position is no better than Meta's (Facebook)
GNU/Linux Distros Should Reject "Age Verification" and Uphold Software Freedom for Users
It's not about protecting children
Slop Plunge
we can already "smell the blood" of the so-called 'AI industry'
IBM Media Puff Pieces While Layoffs Go On and On
Has the PR industry absorbed the press?
Media Says Microsoft Hiring Freezes, But There Are Already Microsoft Layoffs
They want the public to talk about Microsoft as if it's just not hiring when it is actually firing
Richard Stallman lynchings: Sruthi Chandran splitting Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 26, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 26, 2026
Links 26/03/2026: Tor Relay at National Taiwan Normal University, Copyright Hammers Fall
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: "The War of the Worlds" and "sometimes science is just the dumbest thing"
Links for the day
The World Wide Bots
The shape of the Web is so bad that bots exceed humans in some places
Links 26/03/2026: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Closes 101 Law Firms in 2 Years, "Please Compensate the Work You Appreciate"
Links for the day
Regaining Software Freedom Means Regaining Control Over Programs That Run on Our Devices
Richard Stallman will speak in Italy
Microsoft Secure Boot Removes Users' Choice
Has Greenland banned Microsoft and 'secure' boot yet?
IBM Pushes Workers Out, It Does Not Count Them as "Layoffs"
The number of IBM layoffs can be as large as tens of thousands per year
Hard to Find a Job After Working for Microsoft (Back Doors Giant, Bribery Hub)
It generally looks like people who chose to serve Microsoft's agenda don't end up too well
Microsoft Lost 31% Of Its Alleged "Value" in Five Months, Then It Got Downgraded
In 2026 Microsoft focuses on keeping the layoffs silent
Altering Perceived Reality to Make It Seem Like Microsoft is Thriving, Not Failing
pretend XBox did not die
SLAPP Censorship - Part 24 Out of 200: The Failed Effort by Brett Wilson LLP to Strike Out My Lawsuit and My Wife's Lawsuit Against Garrett (the Master Allowed Our Lawsuits to Proceed)
This is lawfare
Official New Figures Show That Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Sees Rise in Dishonesty Among Law Firms Forcibly Shut Down ('Euthanised' Due to Misconduct)
It's rather if in our little country as many as 16 law firms were found to be so dishonest that they needed to be shut down
Back to Normalcy
In our datacentre at least
IBM is "Increasing Its Temporary and Part-time Headcount" While Net Headcount Falls (Despite Buying Many Companies and Their Workforce)
Headcount is a rather superficial yardstick.
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Off Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
EPO Union Decides to Continue Industrial Actions, Next Strike in Four Days
The latest strike had the highest participation rate
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 25, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Microsoft's "Silent Layoffs" in Slop Clothing
"AI-powered transformation" is just a euphemism for mass layoffs
Where and How to Spot LLM Slop
Many people correctly perceive LLMs as a site's downfall, a step towards the abyss
Public Talk by Richard Stallman in Half a Day "at the Engineering and Architecture Campus of Cesena of the University of Bologna"
He'll probably attract a fairly large crowd
Gemini Links 26/03/2026: Buying a House, Stargazing, OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
Links for the day