Summary: Dependence on malicious software from NSA ally Microsoft is highly dependent, at least in Britain, on government secrecy and vain refusal to comply with Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Several nations have already moved away from Microsoft or expressed intent to do so within months if not years. It is not just China anymore but also Russia and amid a spying scandal in Germany it makes sense for Germany to do the same along with much of Europe, for reasons we explained some days ago. Nobody can trust a backstabbing 'ally' and companies which facilitate surveillance at its behalf (Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Oracle and so on).

Vista 8 is a banned by the Chinese government and this new article reminds us that "The German government has always been militant in matters of data protection. In 2013, it warned consumers against using Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system due to perceived security risks, suggesting that it provided a back door for the US National Security Agency (NSA)."

Microsoft's very special relationship with the NSA has cost a lot and layoff are coming to Microsoft (more on that in our next post). Now that the British government tries to get away from Microsoft there is lobbying going on and the government tries to hide it. "in March," wrote Glyn Moody, "I asked about industry lobbying against ODF in UK. I've heard nothing, now asked for formal review FOI".

Moody's request to Cabinet Office was covered here before (Moody must have learned from experience) and the latest can be found here:

Dear Cabinet Office,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request formally an internal review of Cabinet Office's handling of my FOI request 'Open document formats'.

The response to my request is long overdue; by law, under all circumstances, the authority should have responded by now. No official explanation has been offered for this delay.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

Thank you for your help.

Yours faithfully,

Glyn Moody

Why do UK authorities cover up Microsoft lobbying against standards? I warned their staff about such lobbying months ago.

As Moody later pointed out, "my FOI request is nearly 4 months old now..."

How obscene is that? He even wrote a whole new article about it, stating:

So GCHQ is able to to search through the UK's entire Internet stream to find all the vaguely bad things there, but the Cabinet Office is unable to locate a few specific emails on its own servers.

Moody also says "they send PDFs that are *scans* of documents - I had to re-type the excerpts in my post..."

The CIA famously uses this tactic to discourage publication and other forms of dissemination. They're embarrassed, they have something to hide. ⬆