Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft and Bill Gates the Most Zealous Surveillance Proponents in the Software World

Summary: A look at some of the latest privacy-washing of Microsoft (the worst privacy offender in the software world) and the parallel actions of Bill Gates and fellow plutocrats

Surveillance is a hot subject these days. People finally oppose mass surveillance because they know a lot better just how bad it is, owing for the most part to leaks.



Virtually no software company has been worse than Microsoft when it comes to surveillance, not even Google or Facebook, which is a monstrous surveillance machine that's partly owned by Microsoft. We were rather disgusted to see the role that GigaOM, the network of Om Malik, played in providing Microsoft with a "propaganda platform" (to use a now-comical term from the US State Department). How much did Microsoft pay Malik in 2006 (or thereabouts) when he embedded Microsoft propaganda inside his articles (Microsoft still does such things)? Nobody knows how much, but there were payments involved. This criminal company, Microsoft, paid for AstroTurfing of this kind and now it pushes the preposterous idea of opening 'transparency centres', owing to Malik's hosting. Microsoft admits it is hurt by the public's understanding that it's in bed with the NSA [1], so it lies to the public using Malik's platform. Here is more of that, also from HP.

The situation has gotten so serious that even British banks are now worried about Fog Computing [2], especially if it involves NSA/PRISM companies like Microsoft (the #1 company in PRISM).

Speaking of surveillance, Bill Gates, who is a famous proponent of the NSA, uses taxpayers-funded Establishments, such as schools and public media (e.g. PBS and NPR), for surveillance. These are common targets for Bill Gates bribes. It's a perception game. You bribe the right people to get the agenda rectified. He also invests in surveillance companies such as G4S and InBloom (along with Rupert Murdoch). The other day we found this good article on this topic, titled "PARCC Security Breaches Revealed; Microsoft, InBloom, News Corp. Implicated".

The article says: "When LouisianaVoice broke the story about the stealth agreement between the Louisiana Department of Education (DOE) and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. whereby DOE would provide News Corp. with personal information on Louisiana’s public school students for use by a company affiliated with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the resulting firestorm resulted in cancellation of the agreement.

"Or did it?

"Remember, too, that it was Murdoch who, in 2010, speaking of the enormous business opportunity in public education awaiting corporate America, said, “When it comes to K through 12 education, we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S.”

"In June of 2012, Erin Bendily, assistant deputy superintendent for departmental support and former education policy adviser to Gov. Bobby Jindal emailed Louisiana Superintendent of Education John White:

"“I think we need to start with a very strong introduction and embed more CCSS (Common Core State Standards) alignment/integration throughout. This sounds harsh, but we should show that our current/old educator evaluation system is crap and the new system is stellar.”"

We covered Common Core before. It's all about turning schools into indoctrination centres (of the rich) and Professor Diane Ravitch, a vocal opponent of Gates (who calls for Federal action against him), has this new article about "Making Schools Poor" (so that they can be bought out). To quote: "It pretends that great teachers will magically appear after principals gain the power to fire teachers without the necessity of hearings. But inner-city schools already have high teacher turnover and difficulty attracting well-qualified teachers. What’s needed most in schools that serve the poorest children is adequate resources, a full curriculum, and a stable, experienced staff. The Vergara decision will do nothing to improve working conditions, to attract better qualified teachers, or to increase the resources available to the neediest children."

The talking point which belittles teachers and accuses them of being inadequate has been famously pushed forth by Gates, who seeks to replace teachers with surveillance gadgets (bracelets) and centralised surveillance systems to monitor (profile) both teachers and students. No doubt Gates is a big champion of surveillance and everyone should make no mistake about Microsoft's privacy policy (note Gates' current role in the company's strategy). Microsoft would even read people's personal E-mails to get them jailed and deported (nothing to do with national security or even three-letter agencies).

Related/contextual items from the news:
  1. Microsoft: Customers trust us much less since NSA scandal
    Microsoft admitted that, since the scandal broke, it has seen concrete evidence that trust in its services is plummeting.


  2. Cloud opens up UK firms' data to CIA spies, warns Bank of England CIO


Recent Techrights' Posts

Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part V - Strongest Strike Under António Campinos
SUEPO Munich is also reminding people of the threat of PIPs
GNU/Linux May Have Grown to 7% in Equatorial Guinea
Has there been some kind of mass migration there or is this just noise in the data?
 
Microslop is Slop, Slop is Considered "Quality"
no wonder Microsoft's stuff breaks down so often
thelayoff.com Deletes On-Topic Discussions (Layoffs) While Leaving in Tact Pro-Corporate Trolling Made by LLMs (Slop)
Who at thelayoff.com deems spam made by LLMs (slop) to be on-topic and unworthy of zapping, whereas actually on-topic and authentic threads get routinely deleted?
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part IV - Machos in Charge of the House (and System), Even If the Faces Are Female (Optics)
basically a Windows/Microsoft (US) shop
Gemini Links 09/02/2026: Great Salt Lake Ecological Observatory and Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2026: Mass Plagiarism and Pollution/FakeCoin Company Nvidia Contacted Anna’s Archives, Narges Mohammadi Gets Second Prison Sentence
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2026: Russia Intentionally Killing Civilians, Jimmy Lai Effectively Sentenced for Life for Publishing News
Links for the day
Microsoft Competitions, Addictions, and Popularity Contests Are Not Going to Help Perl, They'll Waste Everybody's Time and Give Microsoft More Control Over Its Competition
Microsoft does not like Perl
A Can of WORMS - Part IV - They Would Even Attack RMS for Criticising Autocrats (Saying This is "Politics")
Conforming to society's perceived expectations isn't how effective activism can ever be done or was ever done in the recent past
Gemini Links 09/02/2026: The Exploration Myth and Making JavaScript Fun
Links for the day
EPO Outrage and Maintaining the Pressure
A vending machine does not fall over after a first push
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 08, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, February 08, 2026
"Low Performer" and "Underperformer" as Harmful Misnomers That Damage a Company's Reputation
Misnomers need to be avoided or called out
Expensive errors: Forbes Gold price, $44 billion Bitcoin given away by Bithumb, South Korea
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 08/02/2026: Microsoft OSI (Openwashing Lobby) in Europe, Raised Against Social Control Media Provocateurs in EU
Links for the day
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbies for Microsoft in the EU, Promoting Proprietary Lock-in
OSI pushing and selling Microsoft and GitHub. OSI is Microsoft front group.
Getting the European Court of Justice to Annul the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Kangaroo Court (UPC)
We're still working on it
Finland's Dependence on GAFAM (US) Needs to be Lessened, EU Must Follow This Path
It's unwise to make one's entire national infrastructure (computer systems) dependent on a regime which compares its black citizens to monkeys and assassinates nonviolent dissenters
Links 08/02/2026: Microsoft GitHub as Burden on Developers and "The Chomsky Epstein Files"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2026: "Doing Not Much Tweaking" and "Reclaiming Digital Agency"
Links for the day
Forbes: BitCoin, Cryptocurrency pages removed from investment database, links stop working
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin warning followed immediately by network outage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Money Funneled to Protection of Software Freedom, But Nothing Really Lost
Crossposted from personal site
They Tell Us Slop Replaces Workers, But the Reality Is, US Debt Has Surged 2,300 Billion Dollars in Six Months (the Economy is Collapsing)
Oligarchy already entertains the option of running away to (or colonising) some other planet without pitchforks and "unwashed masses"
Mozilla Firefox Sinks to Just 1.5% in the United States
According to analytics.usa.gov
We're Still Fast
The site is even faster than the BBC's despite being on shoestring budget with only a small technical team
Gemini Protocol is Not a Waste of Time of Effort
We see more and more GNU/Linux- or BSD-focused bloggers turning to Gemini
Our Gemini Protocol Support Turns 5 Today
today is a rare anniversary for us
In Today's World, One Must be Tough and Principled to Get Ahead Morally
But not financially (sellouts)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 07, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, February 07, 2026
The Right Wing in the United States Does Not Support Free Speech, It Supports Its Own Speech
Free speech is often opposed by those who also oppose Free software
IRC is a Lot Better Than Social Control Media (They're Not the Same at All)
A good social analogy for IRC is, there are many buildings with a party in each building
Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' is 'Dead Meat'
Or 0xDEADBEEF as some geeks might call it
When Identifying "Low Performers" and "PIPs" Aren't About Improving Performance But Reinforcing a Clique in Your Company/Organisation
It's very troubling to see once-respectable brands like IBM and institutions like the EPO resorting to this
Slop and Flop (IBM), Slopfarms and Hybrids (Linuxiac)
Did Bobby Borisov assume he would never get caught?
Crowdfunding vs Bitcoins: donations are better investment than digital tulip mania
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 07/02/2026: Misinformation by Slop, Overrated Slop Causes Stock Market Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: Diode Function Generators and Panic Over Buzzwords and Slop
Links for the day
A Can of WORMS - Part III - Envying the Influence and Accomplishments of RMS, Socially Deleterious Attacks on Popular Movements
the actions are deliberate and coordinated, not some 'organic' or grassroots behaviour
Crisis teams assembled as financial regulators anticipate Bitcoin implosion
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reddit as a Hive of Trolls, Social Control Media Curated (Many Voices Censored and Banned) by Marketing Firm of GAFAM
Typical Reddit
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part III - Women Failing Women to Help Violent Americans From Microsoft
Summed up, SRA will gladly prioritise the "legal industry" over women strangled, raped etc
The World Gets Smaller, as Does Its Real Economy ('Human Resources') and So-called 'Natural Resources' (What Humans Call the Planet)
Don't talk about "AI"
Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
transcoded version of the video
Links 07/02/2026: More White House Racism, "Europe Accuses TikTok of Addictive Design"
Links for the day
Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
Layoffs by another approach
Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
Canonical selling Microsoft
Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
Links for the day
Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
Does Microsoft create jobs?
Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
Who will be held accountable for all this?
In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
American workers out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Keep pushing
Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
it's a race to the bottom, basically
Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
LLM slop is a nuisance
Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
Links for the day