Bonum Certa Men Certa

The ISO Delusion: Sirius Open Wash Ltd. and Medical Data/Projects at Risk/Peril

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certification process means almost nothing. It's just a glorified brand. Deep inside many people and organisations know it.

Dilbert on ISO
Dilbert on ISO 9000 Certification in 1996 (there are also 21 for ISO 9001)



Summary: Sirius 'Open Source' was good at gloating about "ISO" as in ISO certification (see our ISO wiki to understand what ISO truly is; ISO certification needs to be more widely condemned and exposed) while signing all sorts of dodgy deals and lying to clients (some, like the Gates Foundation, were never mentioned because of a mysterious NDA); security and privacy were systematically neglected and some qualified as criminal negligence (with fines/penalties likely an applicable liability if caught/reported)

THE past few days were spent explaining ISO certification in relation to Sirius. The next few days will be spent giving an example or a sub-set of examples of how Sirius handled sensitive data. It probably hasn't improved at all since I left last month.



For some essential background, Sirius Open Source Inc. (not SIRIUS CORPORATION LIMITED) was grabbing Gates Foundation money back in 2019 -- all this while registering in the US for this "first US client", letting Windows users who adore surveillance get involved in decision-making while outsourcing more and more of what's left of the company to dubious companies with NSA connections.

"While I'm not going to report this as a former insider, I do wish to explain what's at stake here, at least as a cautionary tale."The problem here is that Sirius had British clients with their clients' data on the systems. Some was medical data. What does the law say about access from another country and why was Google (American company) getting/drowning in legal hot waters for involvement in the NHS?

What's more, it's not clear if ISO 9001 certifiation allows personal computers at home, purchased and maintained by staff along with many other uses and applications, to be used as work machines (deemed "Secure"? Really???). Remember that, as we noted repeatedly in the past, the managers never bothered supplying the staff with anything; the company does not even provide a chair and a desk, as already explained in length here (mostly back in December). Did that pass muster at ISO's cash register (ISO just wants the money)?

"ISO doesn't care; it has no quality control of its own; its workers are like corporate staff and they might not even care anyway; they got the money, and that's what's important to ISO."Well, maybe in the ISO forms the company can pretend that those computers were supplied by the company to staff when in fact the staff receives almost nothing from the company except a very old phone (Cisco-branded, Ethernet only; maybe 2 decades old).

While I'm not going to report this as a former insider, I do wish to explain what's at stake here, at least as a cautionary tale. ISO doesn't care; it has no quality control of its own; its workers are like corporate staff and they might not even care anyway; they got the money, and that's what's important to ISO. Many questions remain, e.g. which actual shell was the certification for? Do they realise they deal with a hydra or a polymorphous entity here (some of its shells are based in another continent, without actual boundaries within the company)? Even the pension schemes seem to be struggling to keep track and they need to be lectured on how the company splits and then illegally compels staff to sign papers without legal advice (nor proper understanding), as we noted here before. It was covered a lot roughly one week ago.

"To be clear, NHS was not a client, except indirectly (contractors)."And sure, many lessons are to be learned outside the company, too. If regulators could find E-mails, they would not struggle to see incriminating stuff (we plan to add examples to the wiki), including NHS medical data "oopsies" (admission on the record, too), even for people do not consent to data sharing. ISO probably doesn't care. As we said several times already, ISO only cares about money. With 'anonymisation' not working, accidents aside, there's a big scandal brewing under the surface, but then again the privatisation of the NHS would likely misplace the blame. The media has several examples of known incidents and it's a very big deal because the NHS has been pushing towards it, moreover offering to send some of this data abroad.

To be clear, NHS was not a client, except indirectly (contractors). But if someone wishes to find some major scandal/blunder, we welcome further investigation, i.e. people can do what ISO 'cannot' do because it would discredit ISO.

"There are 2 problems to track," an associate noted, "one is the scam of the ISO 9000 certification. The other is the destruction of ISO as an organisation by Microsoft."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
 
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: Intangible Stuff and Slop Issues
Links for the day
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part I: Complaints to IRS or USDOJ Needed
If enough people do it, this will be more effective, more so if people who are based in the US do it
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbying and the OSI's Status at Stake
At the end we plan to summarise all the issues in one very long article
Breaking Into Other People's Devices Without Authorisation Isn't "Funny" or "Research"
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
The Issue Isn't the Internet, the Issue is How People Are Taught to Use or Misuse It
The Web is circling down the drain. The Internet is not.
A Healed Reputation of a Movement's Leader and His Robust Message
The more aggressively you push against resistors, the more credibility they will gain
Links 26/05/2025: Deletions from Microsoft's GitHub, Telegram Blocked in Vietnam
Links for the day
Linux Released Last Night and There's Already LLM Slop With Slop Images
BetaNoise does not seem to mind this anymore
Links 26/05/2025: Walmart Layoffs and DRM Dumpster Fire ('Old' Fire TV Devices Lose Netflix Access)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: USB Camera Viewer and Fantasy Life
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 25, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 25, 2025