Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 11, 2025

Cute kitten drinking milk from bowl

"I don't know if this is *worth it* vs just advising people to turn off Secure Boot..." -Adam Williamson, Senior Principal Quality Engineer at Red Hat [1, 2]

Some Red Hat staff seems to be "interfering" with the "lockdown" agenda (related to what Google recently did to Android). In 2023 we published: Google Becoming More Like Apple (User-Hostile Lock-Down, Users' Software of Choice Maligned as 'Sideloading'), Not the Other Way Around

Two years earlier we published: Stallman Was Right About 'Secure' Boot (Matthew Garrett's Work Now Used to Prevent Users Adopting New Ubuntu Releases/Derivatives)

That was 3-4 weeks after Red Hat (IBM) had attempted to blackmail the FSF into ousting Dr. Stallman completely (financial retaliation).

The "lockdown" agenda isn't hard to figure out; it's not hard to understand why companies like IBM, Google and Microsoft would want not only to control users but also all the devices that those users purchase (pay for). Apple is notorious for this.

Of course it is a malicious, sinister agenda!

Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything.

In the coming days we expect Microsoft AstroTurfing in favour of UEFI 'secure boot'. We might see this in LWN and elsewhere (e.g. in sites like Reddit, where Microsoft is a sponsor and moderator/censor) - as before - complemented by gaslighting, victim-blackmailing, and poor-shaming ("buy a new computer already!").

A reader said that "on dual boot, more can be in the [Techrights coverage] about how [Windows] updates break it" and we plan to do this later this week and/or next week.

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