Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft is Going Into the Anti-Whistleblowing Business, Dodges Criticism Over 19-Year Bug Door in Windows

Edward Snowden



Summary: With Aorato acquisition Microsoft helps protect the criminals (from whistleblowers) and with lies about .NET Microsoft distracts from a bug that has facilitated remote access into Windows (by those in the know) for nearly two decades

MICROSOFT IS A company of liars, centred around media manipulation. This is why not enough people know about the company's sheer levels of malice, crimes, and disregard for people.



Microsoft keeps throwing money around for favourable publicity, so not enough criticism is published where it's well overdue. Today we'll tackle several stories that deserve more attention from an appropriate angle, not a promotional (marketing) angle.

A few days ago Microsoft decided to buy a military-connected (IDF/Israel) anti-whistleblowing 'software' company. What a lot of shallow coverage failed to mention was the real purpose of the software (not often marketed as such). To quote one report: '“Snowden reportedly used colleagues’ passwords to access sensitive docs,” he told me. “Even if the user activity seems legitimate, the same account would actually present suspicious or abnormal behavior behind the scenes which Aorato would detect.”'

Actually, to keep the facts in tact, the NSA leaks were made possible by GNU WGet on the leakers' side (same as Bradley/Chelsea Manning) and that horrible Microsoft SharePoint on the leaked side (NSA). It means that Microsoft itself was the problem which it claims to be trying to solve. We mentioned the role of SharePoint several times before. The acquisition by Microsoft seems to be geared towards stopping whistleblowing and hence defending corruption (so that Microsoft, for instance, can defend the NSA). How ethical a move, eh? So much for a 'champion' of privacy as it purports to be.

Anyway, there is a 19-year bug door in Microsoft Windows (almost no version is exempted from remotely-invoked full capture), but the press hardly covers it. We must give some credit to the BBC for covering it (for a change) and "calling out Windows". Other British press covered other inherent issues in Windows (compromising Tor) [1] and it looks like Dan Goodin is finally covering some security problems in proprietary software [2] rather than always picking on FOSS, then hyping it up with ugly imagery and exaggeration.

A reader of ours suspects that the .NET announcement was designed to distract from horrible security-related news. The .NET announcement is nonsense because it's false (we wrote two posts about the .NET PR nonsense) and it also predicts future events like Visual Studio going cross-platform although the latest version of Visual Studio (proprietary) already runs under GNU/Linux using Wine, i.e. the Windows build works under GNU/Linux as it's fully compatible anyway, for those foolish enough to want it. This is not news and the same goes for Office and other well-known Microsoft software. Xamarin staff keeps trying hard to infect GNU/Linux with .NET (that's what they do) and as this very stupid article about .NET shows, the .NET nonsense did indeed help bury the news about the bug door. This disgusting article even gives credit to Microsoft for having fixed massive 19-year-old bug (only after IBM had found it). When bash or openssl have a bug, then FOSS is all bad, apparently. When Microsoft has a bug door for 19 years, the media says well done to Microsoft (for fixing it after another company forced it to). One has to wonder if this flaw (voluntary or involuntary) is part of Microsoft's collaboration with the NSA, which made Stuxnet and has made yet another piece of Windows malware together with Israel. Here is a new article from The Intercept:

The Digital Hunt for Duqu, a Dangerous and Cunning U.S.-Israeli Spy Virus



Boldizsár Bencsáth took a bite from his sandwich and stared at his computer screen. The software he was trying to install on his machine was taking forever to load, and he still had a dozen things to do before the Fall 2011 semester began at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, where he taught computer science. Despite the long to-do list, however, he was feeling happy and relaxed. It was the first day of September and was one of those perfect, late-summer afternoons when the warm air and clear skies made you forget that cold autumn weather was lurking around the corner.

Bencsáth, known to his friends as Boldi, was sitting at his desk in the university’s Laboratory of Cryptography and System Security, a.k.a. CrySyS Lab, when the telephone interrupted his lunch. It was Jóska Bartos, CEO of a company for which the lab sometimes did consulting work (“Jóska Bartos” is a pseudonym).

“Boldi, do you have time to do something for us?” Bartos asked.

“Is this related to what we talked about before?” Bencsáth said, referring to a previous discussion they’d had about testing new services the company planned to offer customers.

“No, something else,” Bartos said. “Can you come now? It’s important. But don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”

Bencsáth wolfed down the rest of his lunch and told his colleagues in the lab that he had a “red alert” and had to go. “Don’t ask,” he said as he ran out the door.

A while later, he was at Bartos’ office, where a triage team had been assembled to address the problem they wanted to discuss. “We think we’ve been hacked,” Bartos said.

They found a suspicious file on a developer’s machine that had been created late at night when no one was working. The file was encrypted and compressed so they had no idea what was inside, but they suspected it was data the attackers had copied from the machine and planned to retrieve later. A search of the company’s network found a few more machines that had been infected as well. The triage team felt confident they had contained the attack but wanted Bencsáth’s help determining how the intruders had broken in and what they were after. The company had all the right protections in place—firewalls, antivirus, intrusion-detection and -prevention systems—and still the attackers got in.


The ability to keep people's rights away and keep the population down depends on passivity and conformity, including the use of Windows. Avoiding Microsoft Windows is imperative for those not wishing to be controlled remotely. As Microsoft's collaborations with the NSA serve to show, mass surveillance on the whole world is practically contingent upon not just innovation but sabotage and social engineering with corporate buddies. Eradication of Microsoft software isn't about competition only; it's about justice.

Related/contextual items from the news:


  1. Advanced persistent threats found in the TOR network
    There are suggestions that the malware code has been around for a while, and has predecessors, and F-Secure warned internet users, anonymous or otherwise, to tread carefully when they download.

    "However, it would seem that the OnionDuke family is much older, based on older compilation timestamps and on the fact that some of the embedded configuration data makes reference to an apparent version number of four, suggesting that at least three earlier versions of the family exist," the firm added.

    "In any case, although much is still shrouded in mystery and speculation, one thing is certain: while using Tor may help you stay anonymous, it does at the same time paint a huge target on your back.

    "It's never a good idea to download binaries via Tor (or anything else) without encryption."


  2. For a year, gang operating rogue Tor node infected Windows executables
    Three weeks ago, a security researcher uncovered a Tor exit node that added malware to uncompressed Windows executables passing through it. Officials with the privacy service promptly shut down the Russia-based node, but according to new research, the group behind the node had likely been infecting files for more than a year by that time, causing careless users to install a backdoor that gave attackers full control of their systems.




Recent Techrights' Posts

PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
 
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day