Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Aggression and Deflection (Against Linux)

Video download link | md5sum e6992ceaa55d089f64f07013fd228f56 Microsoft Loves Linux FUD Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Today we wish to take stock of a bunch of misleading, sensationalist coverage about "Linux"; as usual, Microsoft is connected to that, even more directly than one might expect...

THE TECHNICAL sabotage by Microsoft is easily demonstrable, e.g. in Mesa and in Linux (the "contributions" by Microsoft are to Microsoft, not to Linux, and they promote proprietary surveillanceware, not Software Freedom). In the video above I discuss NTFS in Linux (indirect link to bypass sites we boycott).



"Nothing Microsoft does benefits anyone else,"Ryan said moments ago in IRC, "except for a few odd cases that were usually less than 100 lines anyway. Which someone else probably would have done regardless at some point..."

"They try to minimize the usefulness of their "Linux" work to anyone else, because they don't want to make "Linux" work better except in shackles under their Azure crap."

More importantly, however, so far this week I've seen many Linux-hostile headlines, usually in Microsoft-friendly and/or Microsoft-connected sites which have historically been Linux-hostile.

Ignoring deliberate holes in Microsoft products, such sites would have you believe that Linux is the least secure thing on the entire planet!

As we put it in the latest batch of Daily Links, "while CISA admits Microsoft is full of holes that are actively exploited Microsoft and its faithful media operatives try to shift attention to "Linux" [as we demonstrated a few days ago, linking directly to CISA's site]..."

So what on Earth is going on here? "Microsoft concern-trolling Linux while putting NSA back doors in Windows," to quote our editorial comment? Speaking of actively exploited holes, two months after a patch had been made widely available we see this article. "This was patched a very long time ago," we noted this morning, and "meanwhile, there are dozen of zero-day flaws in Windows that are remotely exploitable, not local privilege escalation..."

So it seems like there might be distraction going on. And maybe there's more to it than meets the eye...

Not only is it very hard for a malicious, unknown actor to actually leverage such a bug; it's also hard to prove that Microsoft manipulates the media consciously in this case. We'd need to see leaked communications to actually prove such an assertion.

The net effect is the same and Microsoft staff now feeds the media with anti-Linux talking points. The stories are run by moles of the company, Microsoft-sympathetic 'gurus' who have moreover infiltrated the Linux Foundation (an organisation that nowadays ACTIVELY PARTICIPATES in such anti-Linux campaigns of semi-false talking points).

This keeps happening. We see it once in a few months, and this time it culminates in "old news" being rerun (about a bug properly patched more than 50 days ago [1, 2, 3, 4] and before it was even known to the general public).

The real problem, according to CISA, is Microsoft. But CISA's "blog" almost never mentions "Microsoft". It just maintains a catalogue many Microsoft flaws.

"If there is a problem affecting non-Microsoft systems," an associate told us today, "then that is unusual and therefore news. If there is a remote exploit in the wild being actively exploited against Microsoft systems, that is the normal situation and thus not news."

Towards the end of the video I show this new blog post from Debian's Russell Coker, noting that Microsoft gives the NSA et al direct access to PCs, so no "security" measures from Microsoft should be taken seriously, to quote the latest Daily Links.

To quote Ryan, who is a former Microsoft MVP: "Local Privilege Escalations are bugs, yes, but they are of low concern (and do get fixed). Anyone with direct physical access to a computer can elevate their privileges eventually. And on Windows there's a ton of them which sometimes even bypass the TPM and Bitlocker. There was one in the print spooler, for example, last summer. But it happens all the time on Windows and you don't even see it much in "the news". Any user on the machine could become SYSTEM and read your files, even if they were "protected". So that's Windows for you."

bnchs noted that "in GNU/Linux, you would have to boot to another OS to get root."

Quoting Ryan some more: "Becoming SYSTEM is an even bigger disaster than becoming ADMINISTRATOR, because in Windows, this means that you're...well, part of the system. You can even patch and hook into things that are "secured" and off limits to ADMINISTRATOR. Stuff that normally requires digital signing no longer requires digital signing. So at this point, rootkit? Sure. And all it takes is someone running as a Guest or as a user with no administrator hat to run a file that knows where the vulnerabilities are. Microsoft was in the news (their news) recently for raising the bug bounty. It's still less than Google's, and way less than what those things are worth to nation state attackers, terrorists, and ransomware outfits. By a factor of $10,000:$1 sometimes."

MinceR said it's "still wasted money from their perspective [as] that could be better spent on corruption, ads and lawyers..."

Ryan continued: "Even if you get $40,000 out of Microsoft's bug bounty system somehow, the ransomware gangs can just exploit it and make $20 million or more on one hit. So they'll pay better each time and it's simply up to the conscience of whoever found the problem in Windows as to what they want to do with it at that point. So the bug bounties are a ruse, a smoke screen, and the illusion of responsibility. In Linux, people find and fix bugs all the time. The code isn't hidden. That leads, usually, to inevitable discovery, and quick patching."

"People want to find bugs in Linux and report and fix hundreds of the same type, so they develop tools that can do things like that. Microsoft is annoyed that you reported one. Even over a decade ago before profiling tools were not as robust, not by a long shot, Coverity Scan admitted that "open source software, in general" was less than half as buggy as a comparable proprietary program. The proprietary software is sort of like the worst case situation for your security because they have little incentive to fix it unless there's already malware out there and they just can't hide the bugs any longer."

"It's like General Motors [GM] putting defective ignition switches in millions of cars for a decade after they knew they were shutting off the car unexpectedly and killing people in accidents. GM figured it'll cost $1 a car to fix this problem, then come all of the recalls, and we'll just grind them down with stall tactics and lawyers and stuff if they ever find out, and the settlement will still cost less. So that's what we do."

Update: Since we made the video above a bunch of other Microsoft boosters (with history) joined this FUD campaign. Of course they don't mention what happened to Windows this past week (CISA reports). Left out from the video (3 examples) are:



And about half a dozen more. Screenshot below:

Microsoft- anti-linux FUD

But yes, Microsoft loves Linux...

Microsoft loves Linux FUD.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025