09.21.21
Posted in Formats, Microsoft, Office Suites, Open XML, OpenDocument, Patents at 8:30 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Related (USPTO angle): USPTO Rewards Microsoft for Corruption at ISO by Teaching People Proprietary OOXML and Promoting Its Use | USPTO Craziness: Changing Rules to Punish PTAB Petitioners and Reward Microsoft for Corruption at ISO | Conflict of Interest: Microsoft and IBM Controlling the USPTO and Leaving GNU/Linux Users Shut Out (in the Cold) | Why Wouldn’t an Office That Grants Monopolies Support Microsoft Monopoly? | USPTO Promotes Microsoft Monopoly and Proprietary Software (Updatedx2) | David Kappos (IBM/Microsoft Lobbyist) Reported for Misuse of Authority and Conflict of Interest
The corrupt typically attracts the corrupt and protects the corrupt
Summary: The World Intellectual Property [sic] Organization — like the EPO (where António Campinos outsourced IT systems to Microsoft) — is choosing the most notorious/corrupt ‘tech’ ‘company’ (cult) instead of open standards and, as the links above show, this is nowadays done inside the United States and outside the United States as well, raising legal questions/ire
OVER a decade ago we wrote many hundreds of posts about corruption of Microsoft in the document formats dispute. Instead of accepting and adopting open standards Microsoft decided and insisted on openwashing its proprietary formats, which basically correspond just to Microsoft’s proprietary Office. The specifications contained not only Microsoft’s product name but also many versions of it. Retrofitting something proprietary — with binary enclosures! — into XML and then calling it “open” was an early example of the Open Source brand rotting to death. To quote Microsoft’s Jason Matusow, an integral part of the ‘Open’ XML corruption (further background in [1, 2, 3]): “More Open Than Open [...] I am constantly amazed at the flexibility of this single word.”
Yes, it had already become almost meaningless when he wrote this (around the time we coined the term “openwashing”).
Anyway, here we are more than a decade later and the corruption of Microsoft paid off. Agencies around the world shamelessly promote Microsoft’s proprietary formats as a de facto standard, as a default, and moreover financially penalise people who refuse to (or cannot) use Microsoft’s proprietary formats.
“…here we are more than a decade later and the corruption of Microsoft paid off.”Bar complaints against David Kappos notwithstanding (links above, still ongoing), we recently learned that WIPO is also rotten in the sense that it promotes Microsoft and discriminates against Microsoft’s rivals. “The USPTO has been bombarding me with E-mails about DOCX,” a reader has told us. “Just got one from the WIPO.” (It says “ePCT-Filing in Docx”)
To quote:
Dear ePCT user,
You are invited to join our next ePCT webinars on ePCT-Filing in Docx.
In these sessions you will discover the advantages of using Docx and you will be guided through the different steps on how to create a Docx specification to be uploaded in ePCT for receiving Offices accepting Docx.
Two sessions with the same topic and content will be provided to cover different time zones and are free of charge.
-Tuesday 05 October 2021: 09-10:30 am Geneva Time (CET) for Asia, Europe time zones, etc.
Registration link: https://wipo-int.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-7j8UAt7QGiD7MHavzxwCg
-Thursday 07 October 2021: 4:30-6:00 pm Geneva Time (CET) for North and South America time zones, etc.
Registration link: https://wipo-int.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KH8E-RyYTOGtIl1sVzhUpw
The PowerPoint slides are already available for download at https://www.wipo.int/pct/en/seminar/webinars/index.html under ePCT-Filing in Docx.
The two webinars will be recorded and made available on the PCT Webinars web page https://www.wipo.int/pct/en/seminar/webinars/index.html.
If you require further details, please contact pct.eservices@wipo.int
Best regards,
PCT Operations Customer Support Section
So are they trying to train people for Microsoft? Is this even legal? Well, WIPO is immune and cannot be sued. It’s like the EPO. It would be interesting to know who exactly was behind this decision and what was behind it. As we’ve seen countless times before, Microsoft does not play by the rules — it bribes, cheats, infiltrates, blackmails, and worse. █
“Really, I’m not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.”
–Linus Torvalds
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09.20.21
Posted in Europe, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 9:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 34375ac0e1a14e8e260e346f3b8a0b91
Summary: Bribed and blackmailed media isn’t covering EPOnia‘s corruption anymore; somebody should, but that’s not as easy as it may seem on the surface (not even for a distant outsider)
THE direction the Web has taken, combined with social control media (at the expense of actual news sites and RSS feeds), is disconcerting. It’s good for censors. They get more control over what people can and cannot see, owing largely to centralisation and information conglomerates (media consolidation online). How many people heard anything about Wikileaks publications since the arrest of Julian Assange?
“They’re acting like gangsters and they do not tolerate criticism from anybody.”As noted and shown in the video above, the latest publication from Wikileaks (“The Intolerance Network”) has receive virtually no media coverage although it contained 17,000 documents. As we recently noted, both Google (YouTube) and Twitter certainly suppress particular voices/viewpoints and we only see this getting worse over time, as money buys messaging.
The video focuses on our EPO publications; both Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos are blocking this Web site. France is notorious for its policy of overzealous net censorship and these two Frenchmae are consistent with the stance of Battistelli’s handler, Sarkozy, who is now sentenced to prison along with Battistelli's bodyboard. They’ve used intimidation tactics against mere blogs, not only us. They’re acting like gangsters and they do not tolerate criticism from anybody. Those who dare dissent a little quickly self-censor.
As the lighting conditions serve to indicate, this was recorded around midday, but due to the length this monologue about SLAPP takes a long time to process. It’s all automated, but it takes a lot of processing power. It’s so long that can take about 3-5 hours to re-encode and upload (even if parallelised), but I had a lot to say and it needs to be on the public record (the last 15 minutes in particular; those are more personal anecdotes). █
“Sarkozy and his family have been vacationing at a lakefront estate in Wolfeboro owned by former Microsoft Corp. executive Michael Appe.”
–MSNBC, 2007
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09.19.21
Posted in Deception, Europe, Microsoft, Patents at 5:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 8ba68be0bc49f72049d0d1edbb9a3d61
Summary: Facing a barrage of scrutiny for outsourcing the EPO’s systems to Microsoft, the EPO has just arranged yet another expensive PR stunt, looking to somehow ‘normalise’ the unacceptable and the likely illegal
Earlier this year we published a long series about the EPO’s biggest privacy violation. See the last part with that series' index (“EPO Administrative Council Still Asleep at the Wheel”); this was hardly the first privacy scandal at the EPO because we’ve covered such scandals for years. The EPO is aware of a perceptual problem, so it keeps name-dropping ‘privacy’ and ‘data protection’ just like oil companies keep mentioning words like sustainable and renewable (greenwashing).
“We’ve currently aware of potential legal action over this matter; some greenwashing and buzzwords as headlines won’t weaken such lawsuits, but they can help change the media’s (or public) perception of any imppending/ongoing lawsuits.”Towards the end of last week the EPO reaffirmed its concern about the perception of privacy. It did a PR stunt, as explained in the video above.
We’re currently aware of potential legal action over this matter; some greenwashing and buzzwords (even as headlines!) won’t weaken such lawsuits, but they can help change the media’s (or public) perception of any imppending/ongoing lawsuits.
“They keep writing press releases about it and the supposed ‘media’ sometimes reprints every single word.”All this cloudwashing (outsourcing disguised as advancement) won’t impress privacy professionals, who look at underlying facts rather than pseudo-technical jargon. The EPO managers asking their provider on the subject is akin to a government accused of war crimes interviewing a bunch of mercenaries; the fact that the EPO is inviting other patent offices to this brainwash/marketing session is rather telling, especially considering the timing.
Days ago we wrote about Azure back/bug doors, which aren't a new problem. It’s part of the design. It was never about security but US national security (remote access, espionage); the EPO adding lots of Microsoft links to sidebars, not to mention some acronyms and legalese, is akin to proactive legal defence. They keep writing press releases about it and the supposed ‘media’ sometimes reprints every single word. Fact-checking? None. Astoundingly enough, JUVE‘s Amy Sandys is still lying for EPO management like she keeps lying for Team UPC. She seems to be under the impression that copy-pasting press releases from thugs who hijacked the EPO is “journalism”… with the same being done for Team UPC. It comes to show what happened to so-called ‘journalism’ about patents (where conflict of interest is so prevalent and supposed ‘experts’ cheer for ‘Hey Hi’ patents or patents for bots, as if patents for pets and insects are next, calling spiders “inventors” with patents on their webs and web-weaving).
“As noted in the video above, there are good reasons to suspect the issue might trickle out to what’s left of the media.”That the EPO is defensive of its Microsoft outsourcing deal isn’t surprising. They’re colluding with them in the abuse; only the EPO is legally immune from prosecution, but Microsoft bribes officials to look the other way and focus on other companies (mostly Google).
As noted in the video above, there are good reasons to suspect the issue might trickle out to what’s left of the media. The media that’s not already bribed by the EPO for puff pieces or silence…
We are going to write a lot more about that separately as it merits more attention. Maybe this coming week… █
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Microsoft, Patents at 9:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The ever-so-docile EPO will gladly oblige when companies like Microsoft lie about the legality of their industrial espionage operations, masked as “clown” computing (and other buzzwords)
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09.16.21
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Security, Servers at 5:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 6998bd1e8c92ab9d3acfe358c787c62a
Summary: A quick and spontaneous video about this morning's post regarding a major new revelation that reaffirms a longstanding trend; Microsoft conflates national security (back doors) with security
THE subject isn’t new to us. We’ve been writing about this for well over a decade and when Ed Snowden released a stash of leaked documents our worst fears or concerns were largely confirmed. Not that the corporate media pays attention to these any longer (those are presumed “old news” even though nothing was done or said to suggest a policy change).
“The latest news will only further curtail that latter agenda, assuming corporate media will bother reporting it like it constantly badmouths “Linux”.”Microsoft is really struggling in the server space. Windows Server is being rapidly abandoned, so Microsoft is trying to swallow the GNU/Linux servers market (without success). The latest news will only further curtail that latter agenda, assuming corporate media will bother reporting it like it constantly badmouths “Linux”. Even when Microsoft is at fault…
As Ryan has just put it (in IRC): “Microsoft plummeted down to nothing in the server market in the past year. Everyone took advantage of the downtime, I guess, to migrate to somehing else. It had probably been a long time coming, but when you’re in the thick of things, it can be hard to abandon something that’s plodding along and working just okay enough to get you by. The COVID mess probably did to Microsoft in a year what would have happened in five or six anyway.”
“They’ll try to avoid talking about that, which means that we should. Everyone is trying to get away and will the first chance that they get. It’s like women who were being controlled by their husband to the point that he puts their paychecks in his bank account to make sure they don’t have enough money to start over. Microsoft tries to keep its customers by playing dirty and implying they’ll be helpless if they leave.” █
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Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Security at 2:46 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me,” goes the old saying…
2016: Microsoft update servers left all Azure RHEL instances hackable
5 years later: OMIGOD: Azure users running Linux VMs need to update now
Critical Flaws Discovered in Azure App That Microsoft Secretly Installs on Linux VMs
I’ve asked an associate whether it’s worth covering this latest “incident” and dub that a “back door”, based on what is generally known about Microsoft’s policy on security (the real policy, not what they tell the public or say in hearings about “security”).
“I think so,” the associate responded, “if it is done in the right way.”
“This post [from Christian Imhorst] frames it right,” he said, as “bug doors / back doors, it’s all the same [because] sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, and vice versa. Azure is there to ensure that gullible users don’t escape the surveillance of the Microsoft products.”
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09.13.21
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft at 8:35 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 7029e9635158e447f2f31d72eca1474d
Summary: The media coverage about “Linux 5.15-rc1″ says a lot about the general agenda of many publications, such as The Register with Microsoft operatives inside it
TWELVE hours after Linus Torvalds had announced the closing of the merge windows (page will be updated with more news picks as they arrive) we began to see the typical slant from Linux-hostile people. It’s not a new habit and it is done consistently, not merely as clickbait because underlying facts too get distorted (previously, after Torvalds protested the matter the headline was modified/corrected as well).
“Too much marketing, obligatory (paid-for) puff pieces, and sponsored fluff.”The above is a rant about the sort of ‘news’ coverage we nowadays find about Linux; sometimes it’s not about Linux at all and oftentimes it’s just misusing the brand to say something negative about things that aren’t Linux. If the media perishes and if “professional” (paid) journalism dies, maybe it is well deserved. We’re struggling to find anything that can be labeled journalism in today’s “tech” press. Too much marketing, obligatory (paid-for) puff pieces, and sponsored fluff. █
“Mind Control: To control mental output you have to control mental input. Take control of the channels by which developers receive information, then they can only think about the things you tell them. Thus, you control mindshare!”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
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