Microsoft Needs to be Banned From Contracts, Including Government Contracts, Not Just for Security Failings But for Criminal Negligence, Corruption, and Fatal Cover-ups
How many deaths will it take for Microsoft to face real, effective scrutiny rather than kid gloves treatment?
Microsoft is not an ordinary company dealing with software. It is a criminal enterprise that leverages political connections, including nepotism and bribes, to generate some revenue and then funnel that revenue back to stock buybacks (embezzlement) and bribes that come back in the form of bailouts, i.e. taxpayers subsidising Microsoft against their will. Overt corruption is the hallmark of Microsoft, even if they euphemise that as "lobbying" and "shrewd" business strategy. I ought to know because I saw that firsthand. Microsoft does not attract brilliant workers; it just buys many companies, in defiance of antitrust/competition laws, and then bundles things so that people are manipulated into using some things against their will/choice.
An associate of ours said that "Congress [was] lined up to suck off Microsoft" in this long-awaited 'grilling' that Bill Gates-bribed publishers wrote about, along with Microsoft-sponsored ones. This associate asserted that "divestment from Microsoft is the only way out", citing the report "'Cascade of avoidable errors': Microsoft faces heat from US Congress over cybersecurity" (10 more here, under "Microsoft Grilled for Letting China and Russia Crack US Government Systems").
"Microsoft is spinning the situation as being orchestrated by competitors," the associate explained, having curated a bunch of links and reports about it.
Citing this other article, the associate asked, "could that be applied to software?" Basically, at this point, Microsoft kills many patients in hospitals. Why is nobody held criminally accountable? Or accountable in any other way?
It seems like the wrong people have been put in decision-making positions and they cause tremendous damage. As an example of this also consider this EHR story. "SQL is the wrong technology for this data," our associate insisted. "A key-value db is more appropriate. Shoehorning the data into tables serves no other purpose than to enable cost overruns."
For those who claim that Microsoft cannot be held criminally accountable because it's all just an unfortunate accident and mistakes do happen, consider the report "Microsoft Refused to Fix Flaw Years Before SolarWinds Hack". It says:
Former employee says software giant dismissed his warnings about a critical flaw because it feared losing government business. Russian hackers later used the weakness to breach the National Nuclear Security Administration, among others.
That right there shows that there are people who need to be prosecuted. But at the same time Microsoft resorts to dirty politics and it has just enlisted the former NSA director for its proxy, "Open" "AI". As Microsoft- and Gates-controlled published put it yesterday:
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Former NSA Director Paul Nakasone joins OpenAI board
Nakasone stepped down as NSA director earlier this year after becoming head under the Trump administration. He also served as leader of the U.S. Cyber Command and was chief of the Central Security Service.
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Former head of NSA joins OpenAI board
OpenAI has appointed Paul M. Nakasone, a retired general of the US Army and a former head of the National Security Agency (NSA), to its board of directors, the company announced on Thursday.
Nakasone, who was nominated to lead the NSA by former President Donald Trump, directed the agency from 2018 until February of this year. Before Nakasone left the NSA, he wrote an op-ed supporting the renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the surveillance program that was ultimately reauthorized by Congress in April.
So, in summary, Microsoft does illegal things, it causes government systems to be compromised, and then it pays off the officials to ensure nobody gets punished and even the press coverage is sponsored by Microsoft and Gates, i.e. it is shallow nonsense and stenography, nothing analytical or hard-hitting.
They say Russia is corrupt and China is corrupt; how about the company that lets China and Russia take over the systems of the US government? How long will the US government compel American taxpayers to bail out Microsoft? █