Video download link | md5sum 39cf4b2e4c48595eba70964bdba9dc34 FUD Attacks Which Mostly Distract Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Fear-mongering/dramatisation (or FUD) tactics have been used a lot so far this month, mostly in an effort to associate Linux with illegal activity, unethical users, untold risk, and great liability/ies

THE video above covers a subject I've been wanting to comment on all week long but lacked time to (until the weekend). Now that the dust has mostly settled and the fear campaigns run out of Steam (pun intended) I want to comment on VMware's attacks on "Linux", as noted in passing 4 days ago.

"Generally speaking, VMware and Microsoft are close and they're both prolific GPL violators that hate Linux."It all started about a fortnight ago (and about Fortnite) when Epic Games Store among other things indicated a shift towards GNU/Linux for gamers. At the same time there were quite a few headlines about VMware security blunders, so VMware probably wanted to shift blame/culpability to "Linux". Generally speaking, VMware and Microsoft are close and they're both prolific GPL violators that hate Linux. It's not unthinkable that there's some degree of coordination between them in these latest FUD attacks. We leave readers/viewers to decide based on the available evidence.

To those who dispute our assertion that this is FUD, please pay careful attention to editorial comments in Daily Links and in the links above. The short rebuttal is, malware that targets VMware is mostly the fault of negligible administrators or administrators that actively install malware (not "Linux"), which can in turn curtail VMware/ESXi (that in itself is a security risk and huge attack surface). As for ransomware, that's mostly a Windows issue, barely a Linux issue, according to statistics. Regarding Steam and Epic, DRM never belonged in Linux and demanding rootkits ("anti-cheat") is a whole new level of compromise; then again, Epic competes against Steam, mostly ignores Steam Store (where it mostly shuns Windows users, not GNU/Linux users), and a bunch of random "tweets" -- or tweet-mining -- doesn't make good journalism. It looks like Microsoft is trying to 'crash' the launch of Steam Deck, seeing that it threatens the last remaining reason often given for staying with Windows. ⬆