Bonum Certa Men Certa

Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 29, 2024,
updated Mar 29, 2024

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast

Manchester City checkout/site

YESTERDAY I noticed technical issues in the site of the local football team, Manchester City FC. It turned out to be worse than I had imagined.

"That URL goes to a web app not a Web site," I'm told by someone who blocks JavaScript by default, and it runs "Windows Server" apparently (it says "Windows Server 2008" in March 2024 over at Netcraft).

Microsoft Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 has been "End of Life" (EOL) for over a decade already!

The site has historically had many severe issues, which is truly an embarrassing thing to, according to UEFA, the world's number one football club. "Club coefficient" is now 146,000, or 7,000 higher than Bayern Munich at second. Money isn't the issue here; Microsoft is more expensive and the oil sheiks at U.A.E. are funneling or pumping money to Bill Gates, both needlessly and at the cost of fans' security.

They waste their money on Microsoft, probably because they have got some Microsofter/s on the payroll, working for Microsoft from inside the club (in other words, working for Microsoft on someone else's payroll).

Manchester City crest

It's even worse. "Running on Microsoft Azure behind clownflare," as I was told, it is now behind "Malicious Clowns" (I did notice many ClownFlare gatekeeping episodes, presenting me with riddles to solve instead of pages... despite me using a mainstream browser without a VPN or Tor or anything like that). Azure has long been a failure despite what the media tells (for Microsoft as a sponsor). The "results" are faked (fraud), so Microsoft has moved on from harping about "clown computing" to "AI" (Hey Hype).

So someone out there (across the road from where I type this) needs to be sacked. This is not a new problem and I wrote about it before, both in my blog and elsewhere. It is worth noting that other football clubs are not this bad (they use GNU/Linux and Free software for their sites).

"I wonder how much money they lose directly by overpaying Microsoft and clownflare," I was told, "in addition to a large number of lost ticket sales."

It's almost impossible to book anything online. When Adobe Flash was dead or about to be dead they still used Flash. Technical incompetence all over this...

For the world's top-ranked or most prestigious club this is an embarrassment. They often cannot sell all the seats, so they leave money on the table and their digital assets in Microsoft's hands. Who's responsible for this shambles and, given new reports of mass compromise (security breaches), who will be held accountable when they formally announce security breaches? Since they use Azure, and Microsoft recently admitted that Azure had been cracked (belatedly and with blame-shifting), they did in fact suffer a security breach last year. Where does the responsibility lie for this? They just lie and lie like Sainsbury's and Gregg, having outsourced to Microsoft until essential systems broke down. People were unable to order good.

Of course Microsoft boasts about those companies as "clients" (in fancy "case studies") and hides/runs away when there are blunders and technical failures. Then Microsoft prefers not to be named at all.

Microsoft "keeps its contracts confidential," an associate reminds me, "and considers them as trade secrets even with government institutions like councils and universities."

"That secrecy is another thing to get out into the air..."

It is very difficult. I spent a lot of time over the telephone with Sainsbury's last week (4 different people) and they're stonewalling, calling it an "accident".

Anyway, with Microsoft we cannot expect real accountability. We already saw how the government let them get away with an Azure-wide security breach. The media has "moved on" and governments continue (secretly) paying Microsoft for breached systems, making problems and causing frustration for people who just want food, not a pew in some football stadium. Microsoft lowers standards for systems and for security.

Why does our tax money sponsor this?

Apropos security, "Google reports a significant surge in zero-day vulnerabilities in 2023," this Microsoft-sponsored 'news' site said on Wednesday, but "unlike other articles on the topic, this one avoids calling out Windows," the associate notes. The Register said "this included 17 Windows vulnerabilities, 11 in Safari, nine affecting both iOS and Android, and eight in Chrome."

A security-centric news site said: "Despite a surge in zero-day attacks, data shows that security investments into OS and software exploit mitigations are forcing attackers to find new attack surfaces and bug patterns."

But Microsoft is merely hiding known flaws [1, 2] until they are exploited by anyone other than the NSA et al. In other words, until it is too late and damage is already being done...

In a functioning industry, those who act like this would be detained and prosecuted.

Windows TCO is a considerable toll on all of society, even when they do not call out Windows.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete