03.01.21
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, FUD, Microsoft, Security at 5:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Summary: The Golang programming language seems to be the target of intense FUD campaigns from sites connected to Microsoft, so it’s likely a bit of a Nemesis/endgame to Microsoft monoculture (unlike Rust, which Microsoft has already pocketed and is actively besieging to promote Microsoft monopoly and hardware monoculture)
THE Microsoft FUD machine known as ZDNet is at it again. “ZD” stands for Zero & Dreck.
Anyway, this Microsoft propaganda site is constantly spreading FUD against Golang just because more and more people, both developers and non-developers, use it. It has enjoyed fast adoption/growth, unlike the failing frameworks from Microsoft (which are barely adopted after decades out there). It’s envy. It’s fear. It’s FUD. The core of the FUD has (more so lately) been something like this: people can write malware using Golang. So that means Golang itself is “malware” or “for malware” or “helps malware” (something along those lines; anything to tarnish Golang’s name by association).
“Fake reporting and fake security are a growing problem online.”Shame on Brittany Day for amplifying all this ZDNet trash and FUD. It’s not the first time LinuxSecurity.com does this; the site not always anti-Linux, but too often it relays anti-Linux pieces without some basic “Sanity Check” or fact-checking. So the FUD gets added to the mix and perpetuated for anti-Linux elements’ benefit.
The latest FUD says: “There’s been a 2,000% increase of new malware written in Go over the past few years. Many of these malware families are botnets targeting Linux and IoT devices to either install crypto miners or enroll the infected machine into DDoS botnets.”
We would rather not link to either site and send traffic in this stuff’s direction/way. But for those who are interested the video gives enough of a starting point (such as headline or URL).
Fake reporting and fake security are a growing problem online. Faking stuff is the business model. █
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02.28.21
Posted in Google, Microsoft at 3:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
That’s just what those people do…
“The Internet? We are not interested in it.”
–Bill Gates, a famous criminal, back in 1993 (a few years before he would Embrace, Extend, and try to Extinguish the Web by monopolising it with ActiveX and other proprietary ‘extensions’)
Summary: Monopolists and sociopaths won’t be clapping and cheering for whatever stands a chance of replacing the Web (or Big Banks); if they ever embrace those replacements, it’ll be to dominate and in turn undermine these
THIS year has been a productive one (thus far). In spite of serious ISP issues last month (they issued compensation last week), we’ve managed to produce quite a lot. Since the 14th of December we’ve uploaded 225 video files weighing at 21.3 GB (22,894,785,563). That’s almost 10 GB per month and about 100 videos.
“This is the sort of thing that doomed the Web (Adobe Flash, Microsoft ActiveX, or more recently DRM/EME to name a few) and we don’t want to be pushed around by “big players” with their “big money”.”Weeks ago we transitioned ever so slowly to Gemini, which we don’t expect to replace the Web site but become complementary. In the past day (weekend) 69 unique hosts connected to our capsule and that number grows each week (now that we are indexed in Gemini search engines it is getting easier to find our stories).
As a sort of word of caution, we must certainly not expect monopolies and Web giants to sit idly and ignore the alternatives forever, especially if those alternatives gain serious traction and become potential ‘advertising revenue source’ (or even worse and more malicious things).
There’s already some heated discussion in Gemini mailing lists, for instance, about the threat of a browser ‘near monopoly’ or (de facto) standards being ‘extended’ ad hoc e.g. Favicons in Amfora). This is the sort of thing that doomed the Web (Adobe Flash, Microsoft ActiveX, DRM/EME to name a few) and we don’t want to be pushed around by “big players” with their “big money”. They too often get their way at the end (hiring key people, ousting strong and charismatic leaders, bribing institutions and so on).
Being “embraced” or “accepted” by Google or Microsoft (e.g. Chrome/Chromium or GitHub, where sadly a lot of Gemini-related code has been outsourced to) may seem like a sign of “success”, but it is certainly also a sign of danger. It’s important to prepare to this. █
“Linux infestations are being uncovered in many of our large accounts as part of the escalation engagements.”
–Microsoft Confidential (before Microsoft ‘joined’ this “infestation”)
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Posted in Bill Gates, Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 10:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Summary: A word of caution about The Register, a British publisher that nowadays does a lot of reputation laundering for Microsoft and Bill Gates (instead of news about actual technology, as opposed to clown computing, big brands, and oligarchs)
THE symptom of the decline of The Register, I think, is the hiring of Microsoft Tim, as well as his assignment to cover “Open Source” affairs (while boosting Microsoft at the same time, in spite of Microsoft’s attacks on software freedom).
“This sort of abuse (or domination by Microsoft) of the media is a rampant epidemic far more deadly than COVID-19 considering what Windows does in (or to) hospitals.”We’ve written a great deal about Microsoft Tim over the years and we prefer not to link to his latest ‘work’ (PR); instead, let’s just remind readers of his relationship with Microsoft and advancement of Microsoft's takeover of the Linux Foundation and kernel.
The video above is hopefully polite enough to get the point across. It mentions in passing Gavin C. and Simon S. It’s definitely factual as far as I am aware. Younger people may not remember this (I’m almost 40 already), but The Register used to be a notable source of Microsoft criticism. It really used to shed light on Microsoft’s crimes. Then, after some obscure (unspecified) Microsoft deal things changed and ever since then the publisher has not really covered Free software and GNU/Linux fairly. This sort of abuse (or domination by Microsoft) of the media is a rampant epidemic far more deadly than COVID-19 considering what Windows does in (or to) hospitals. Who’s left to frankly speak about these serious and urgent issues here in the UK? The sole person who used to cover EPO scandals at The Register, Kieren McCarthy, has not even touched this subject for years (or about a year). Being a Microsoft megaphone (for hypocrites and liars) isn’t proper journalism. █
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02.26.21
Posted in Microsoft, Servers at 1:09 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Summary: In several categories or criteria Microsoft is no longer even listed by Netcraft; the share has become rather minuscule during the pandemic, which convinced more companies to explore expense-cutting moves
THE (almost) one-hour video above discusses the latest Web server report, which was released some hours ago. “Microsoft’s server software market share remains in decline,” it says, “Microsoft’s figures took a significant drop in 2020 in favour of OpenResty, and Microsoft now only has 6.5% (-1.0pp) of the site market and 6.0% (-0.3pp) of domains as of February 2021. OpenResty also looks set to overtake Microsoft as the third largest vendor in terms of sites and active sites.”
“Microsoft can see the writings on the wall, so it’s misreporting numbers and laying off Azure staff (quietly).”When looking at the measures that truly matter and are difficult to game (e.g. top one million sites) Microsoft is somewhere near 5% if not less. It’s a huge decline compared to one decade ago. As we keep arguing each time we bring this up, it’s only a matter of time before Microsoft abandons IIS for purely financial reasons. Then, migrations away from Microsoft will follow. Microsoft can see the writings on the wall, so it’s misreporting numbers and laying off Azure staff (quietly). After more than half a decade with billions spent on advertising it’s going almost nowhere, regardless of the number of acquisitions, incentives, and takeovers of institution (such as the Linux Foundation). █
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02.22.21
Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 4:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Not a new strategy
Summary: As it turns out, just about everyone looking to recruit for a Microsoft-connected project/company (working on Raspberry Pi, Ubuntu etc.) near Microsoft is ‘former’ Microsoft, but people who are being approached aren’t being told so, at least not upfront; those are very familiar and old tactics, which merit a word of caution to all
THIS is the last part of this series (see the first part, second part, and third part for some background and context). It concerns what people from Microsoft, who really dislike GNU/Linux, are working on while trying to enlist people who actually do like Linux. It is reminiscent of what Microsoft did to rivals which were companies rather than a community (the latter is harder to squash as if it was a cockroach). The language of ‘pest control’ is used by Microsoft itself:
“Linux infestations are being uncovered in many of our large accounts as part of the escalation engagements.”
–Microsoft Confidential
In Part III we showed some correspondence between a bunch of Microsoft people and a prominent developer, whom we won’t name. 2 days later the Microsoft contact said: “So, what’s the best number to reach you? Phone interviews are going on today. I’d like you to speak with the Hiring Mgr.”
Guess who…
“The Hiring Mgr is Aubrey Edwards. Please look at his LinkedIn so you have an idea of who you’ll be chatting with…”
No response. Notice how pushy…
Same contact, but later that day: “Hi! Just trying to reach you as interviews are going on today. Hiring Mgr is avail 5pst or 6pst…”
The developer belatedly responded: “Hi. I do want to know more about the job but I was thinking about having to work with msft ppl… and I don’t know. I may not be the best fit…”
Same developer later: “Here’s the thing….if they want to customize Ubuntu…they need to either license or have different repos. So… it’s a little challenging license wise…”
Then the contact gave away that he or she had already/also worked for Microsoft: “Haha! There are many fab ppl at Msft! It’s like most companies… some ppl rock and others are … I’m an ex-Msft ee that left a long time ago. They were great to me tbh!”
Well, paid salaries. How “great”…
Sabotaging companies by breaking the law can be “great”… if all one cares about is money.
The contact persisted: “I’m not clear on the tech specifics. I’d think it would be worthwhile to chat with Aubrey. He can tell you a bit more about the team working on this particular project. Your choice! He’s open tonight and then prolly making a hiring decision since this project is an ASAP fill.”
Who’s Aubrey? Let’s see…
The developer thus responded with “thanks… But I don’t want anything to do with Aubrey.”
It says “Microsoft posts a page denigrating the growing operating system. Critics call it business as usual.”
Aubrey is even mentioned by name.
“Thanks anyways,” said the developer. How many more such developer were targeted by this same group? Hard to tell…
Even the contact acted all surprised, stating: “Whoa! Interesting. Very interesting.”
To summarise, what we have here is a bunch of ‘former’ Microsoft people (still working near Microsoft and also with Microsoft) using a person to contact GNU/Linux developers without disclosing the Microsoft connections. This contact too used to work for Microsoft and says “I’m an ex-Msft ee that left a long time ago. They were great to me tbh!”
Watch out. These people have plans. They still work for Microsoft, but they aren’t saying so. █
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 4:02 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The ongoing series which we started yesterday and still publish today (about Microsoft recruiters [1, 2, 3]) shows that Microsoft has rather toxic ambitions and the general idea is to infect everything with Microsoft, even the things that compete against Microsoft
THE “Microsoft loves Linux” lie (or misleading slogan, a truly cheap and lousy attempt at revisionism) is another attempt to entice prey into the trap, including GitHub. Microsoft has been trying this for decades. Never forget the Halloween Documents; they’re not old news.
“At some point it needs to be universally recognised that the only reason Microsoft pretends to have changed is that it wants to attract more fodder into its cave, urging us to simply ignore all the corpses that surround that cave’s entrance.”Free software is not a company; Microsoft knows how to crush and destroy companies (it has had lots of experience doing just that, even if it was later dragged into courts and settled), but hacker culture or software freedom are another kind of challenge to this cult. They try to spy on the users and then bribe those high up (see EDGI for instance). It should be a focal point of the Raspberry Pi scandal; Canonical seems to be going down a similar path, giving Microsoft inventories of users/customers.
The scandal at hand isn’t over. It’s work in progress. It's a coup.
At some point it needs to be universally recognised that the only reason Microsoft pretends to have changed is that it wants to attract more fodder into its cave, urging us to simply ignore all the corpses that surround that cave’s entrance.
In Microsoft's very own words: “Linux infestations are being uncovered in many of our large accounts as part of the escalation engagements.”
We’ll post the 4th and final part of the series shortly. We’ve been trying to cope with massive DDOS attacks over the past 2 hours or so. █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 2:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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Summary: The high-profile fan-made reverse-engineering efforts are being proactively censored by Microsoft on behalf of another company (without as much as due process), reaffirming the problematic nature of GitHub, a monopoly that represses Free software developers
THE level of media attention enjoyed by YouTube-DL when it was taken down by Microsoft caused or led to ‘special treatment’; but not all projects to suddenly be vanished from GitHub enjoy such support from the media. As we’ve been showing in recent months, many are silently assassinated without anybody in the media paying attention.
“Why are people still willing to let a company so hostile towards software freedom (and towards reverse-engineering too; they’re in bed with the copyright maximalists) have this much control over their projects and community of developers?”As it turns out, it has just happened again, but it’s covered nowhere but a copyrights-centric site. A site that focuses on games for GNU/Linux (sometimes Free/libre ones, if possible) made a brief mention, barely even naming the culprit. “They’ve now given it the DMCA treatment, with the main repository and all known forks at the time to be taken offline on GitHub.” (Microsoft)
Why are people still willing to let a company so hostile towards software freedom (and towards reverse-engineering too; they’re in bed with the copyright maximalists) have this much control over their projects and community of developers? Is this a case of Stockholm Syndrome? This isn’t free hosting and it’s suicidal to put one’s eggs in this basket. GitHub is for corporate openwashing (large corporations get their own subdomain there), not for software freedom. █
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Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Microsoft at 8:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The attempts to poach high-profile Free software and GNU/Linux developers aren’t succeeding, especially once it turns out who’s really behind those attempts (they don’t give it away upfront)
IN the first part, which was introductory, we explained the problem at hand. The second part contained more of the ‘meat’ of the issue, demonstrated using something which had happened a week or two before Raspberry Pi devices had Microsoft covertly inserted into them (keys and repository for proprietary software and telemetry). What is going on?
Well, some readers have kindly contacted us, shedding light on observations and communications they became privy to.
“The person persisted and persisted, unable to understand what’s wrong with GitHub…”One contact, who approached a GNU/Linux developer (probably quite a lot of them in that process), was mentioned in Part II. The contact said “Thank you for this info!!” after learning that Canonical makes Ubuntu. Why would people connected to Microsoft, who try to hire GNU/Linux developers, not know this?
“I’ll get back to you with an answer to your question,” said the contact, “am asking right now” (asking Microsoft associates, albeit without identifying them as such).
“Hi again,” the contact later said. “Below is the answer to proprietary software or open source…”
“The tools/software needed are currently available on GitHub and we expect that to continue to be the case,” the contact said. Why would that be managed in proprietary software frameworks of Microsoft?
The developer responded: “Yeah so GitHub is a Microsoft thing and your really good Linux people are not going to use it… But I’ll ask around…”
The contact responded: “Great to know! I’ll pass that info along for sure!! Thx for sharing this opportunity around your network. I’m open to feedback wrt any details about this role.”
“LinkedIn links were all over the place, suggestive of a connection to its owners.”The person persisted and persisted, unable to understand what's wrong with GitHub: “Can you give me insight wrt why strong Linux ppl won’t like the idea of using GitHub? Hiring team wants more feedback… I don’t want to assume I know why …”
The developer finally responded (after much insistent chasing by the contact): “We don’t want to use GitHub… Some Microsoft platform. Oddly enough some will use LinkedIn, another Microsoft platform haha.”
LinkedIn links were all over the place, suggestive of a connection to its owners.
“There’s a difference in our community between free software and open source,” the developer continued. “Your more experienced and more capable Gnu Linux developers are free software…”
“For those who’ve missed it, Ubuntu now spies on users through Microsoft.”“So basically if you are looking for someone like this unicorn you would most likely be looking in the free software realm which you would probably never find this person because they won’t even touch Ubuntu…”
For those who’ve missed it, Ubuntu now spies on users through Microsoft.
“I think your best bet would to be find a medium level intermediate,” the developer said. “Proprietary person who will work with Microsoft people and use GitHub…”
“So maybe one of those open source people is your best bet…”
The developer (continued):
It’s like this: why don’t you have your own git?
That’s what I would go back to them and say.
You’re using Ubuntu
So really elite people won’t use those things
The contact accepted this point: “I’m thinking you’re spot on. I will share this feedback.”
Later following up with: “Any idea where this mid-lvl person might exist that has the technical knowledge? I’m thinking they may not be deep enough in their knowledge base to run without SME input…”
“In the next part we’ll say more about who that contact is and on whose behalf this contact was working all along.”“It’s a really difficult situation,” the developer replies. “We want to work with companies…. Of course we want to have money and jobs but we also have our culture. I’ve seen companies make the mistake of hiring Microsoft developers to do work with Linux and that’s a big mistake so don’t do that :)”
The contact responded with: “Exactly my predicament;)”
In the next part we’ll say more about who that contact is and on whose behalf this contact was working all along. █
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