Now you see him...

Now you don't.

Summary: Dell repeats the mistakes of history by harbouring censorship and fearing to pass judgment about Microsoft

YESTERDAY I had a face-to-face conversation with a friend who thought that Bill Gates had invented computers. This was a reminder of the fact that PR agencies are in the awesome position of subconsciously programming people's minds, lying to them even without making explicit lies (just insinuations and illusions).

“Microsoft didn't even accept the Internet (thinking it was a passing fad) until long after others had embraced it.”One mythology that Microsoft has been trying to spread for a long time is that Windows is secure (note omissions) and that Windows was designed with security in mind, despite clear evidence that this was not the case (Microsoft edits Wikipedia). Microsoft didn't even accept the Internet (thinking it was a passing fad) until long after others had embraced it.

Yesterday we posted a second update on a post about Dell. Several people who decided to insult the messengers (myself included) refused to believe that Dell changed its pitch about GNU/Linux security. There is more evidence and corroboration now. Here is the before/after screenshot:

Revisionism is what the VAR Guy calls it. It is him who originally brought up the subject that ended up in hundreds if not thousands of blogs.

The VAR Guy saw this coming. On June 10, The VAR Guy was first to report Dell considered Ubuntu Linux safer than Windows. But now, Dell has apparently updated its web site to remove/alter that statement. Linux conspiracy theorists think Microsoft pressured Dell to make the change. Is that really the case?

Frankly, The VAR Guy doesn’t know for sure. Our resident blogger has requests for comment out to Dell, Microsoft and Canonical — promoter of Ubuntu Linux.

Dell pretends that it no longer knows what is more secure and the company says: “it is not Dell’s intention to recommend one OS over another”.

That's a funny thing to say because Dell accepts a form of bribe from Microsoft to pretend that it recommends Vista 7 . Dell puts this fake endorsement is loads of pages in order to hypnotise the public and receive kickbacks.

Speaking of Windows security, a Google engineer revealed a serious flaw in Windows shortly after Google had dumped Windows for security reasons. Google apparently knows better than Dell, which actually stated the same thing before Microsoft may have implicitly threatened to retaliate again. The flaw which was found by this Google engineer has just put Windows XP users under digital artillery.

Five days after being disclosed publicly by a Google engineer, a zero-day security vulnerability affecting Microsoft Windows XP has come under attack. The controversial bug, which remains unpatched, gave rise to a new round of debate about responsible disclosure.

If Dell maintains its spineless approach and refuses to speak out its mind because it depends on Microsoft's bribes/incentives, what does that say about Dell? And what does that say about truth? ⬆

Update: Here is another take on the reversal from Dell. The company ought to be challenged.

Update #2: And another.