Summary: Richard Stallman gave this talk some years ago; meanwhile, a leading technical university got cracked due to Microsoft* and it won't dare mention the culprit
So Microsoft has dragged this university's computing environment down from world class to that of a year 2021 "Hillsdale College". To be sure, Oracle and Cisco also have their fingers in that pie and a role in the demise of the institution's role as one of the world leaders in computing. See "Our Attorney's Response To Microsoft" (posted by Roblimo) and this last article which brings up a very important point -- that Microsoft regards its contracts as trade secrets so even someone resourceful and tenacious would be unlikely to succeed in a FOIA request regarding the publicly-funded university's support contracts. Microsoft tried to censor information while crushing standards. Those institutions late in weaning themselves from Microsoft Windows can look at Samba 4 as an alternative.
Setting up several reliable copies of the data, plus several off-site backups (this data is nowhere as sensitive as medical data), should only cost a few grand
If someone (or someones) calls you paranoid for taking about "beacon"-like functionality, there will be no lack of authoritative citations (e.g. Web links) they can be provided to prove them wrong
There's no "anti-AI" (it's not even AI), there's opposition to fraud, to plagiarism, and to companies that profit more when there's global warning (caused in part by their business activities)