Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft to Spy on Indians, Bank Accounts, Health Records (and Conduct Profiling of Customers)

“Privacy protects us from abuses by those in power, even if we're doing nothing wrong at the time of surveillance.”

--Bruce Schneier



Summary: Microsoft is gaining access to systems it must not be allowed into due to misuse of power and a criminal background

Microsoft loves to accuse Google of privacy issues and other perceived issues (Bill Gates is apparently doing a special media tour about it) while praying that people will not realise that Microsoft is far, far worse. Microsoft even tracks people on their own desktops and it gets worse and worse in every new version of Windows (soon to be in Ubuntu too, unless they walk away from that tactless Yahoo! deal which has new GNU/Linux installations 'phone home' to Microsoft). We explained the dangers of this last month.



Last year we shed light on how Microsoft was trying to take control of Indian people through corruptible bodies such as NASSCOM [1, 2, 3, 4]. Will they let a convicted monopolist from abroad manage the population? Well, they just have.

India to roll out Microsoft ID system in August



The Indian government is set to roll out the first phase of its ambitious ID scheme as early as this year, it has emerged. And it will be helped by Microsoft.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) project will see more involvement from private IT giants. Ex-Infosys boss, Nandan Nilekani, is heading this huge project of providing unique identification to more than a billion people. Microsoft Research will take an active part in executing the project.


Ah! Infosys again. Microsoft's biggest shill in India [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15].

This is a disastrous decision that comes amid other current attempts by Microsoft to derail India's policy in order to illegalise/marginalise Free software [1, 2, 3]. The many aggressive moves from Microsoft in India (especially recently) indicate that India has a bright future, but Microsoft is trying to control this future and thus make it grimmer. Microsoft is just trying to possess the nation's ICT for lock-in -- not technical merit -- that secures some future revenue. Red Hat should vigourously protest against this decision and explain to the government how lock-in works (Red Hat is probably in the best position to do so). It sometimes pays off to dump or to even bribe to acquire lock-in and that might be Microsoft's strategy here. Microsoft has 'pulled an EDGI' several times in India.

Microsoft also wants to control people's medical profiles, which are very private and sensitive. Microsoft is now creating events that resemble AstroTurf (as opposes to grassroots) to advance this agenda. From a new press release:

Steve Aylward, GM of Microsoft Health and Life Sciences, Announced as ShareFEST Keynote Speaker



ShareFEST announced today that Steve Aylward, general manager, U.S. Health & Life Sciences, Microsoft Corporation will be the keynote speaker at ShareFEST 2010, the conference focused exclusively on the use of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server in the life sciences industry.


Steve Ballmer is already going on a tour to promote this agenda as well. From the news:

Nashville health leaders to meet with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer this week



[...]

Ballmer's trip — part of a multi-city tour — comes as Microsoft tries to focus more on crafting tech solutions for specific industries such as health care, financial services and retail, said Katherine R. Egbert, a Jefferies & Co. stock analyst in San Francisco.


Yes, it says "financial services and retail". The investment vehicle called "Gates Foundation" is also investing in massive chains of retailers (JJB is just one example). It's all about profit and control.

“More control means more leverage.”The British health services at the NHS are already a victim of Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], but patient data from the NHS is not stored on Microsoft's own servers. Microsoft would love to change that. More control means more leverage.

We previously wrote about bankers and Microsoft's relationship with them (examples from recent months can be found in [1, 2, 3, 4]). We also wrote about Microsoft and Citigroup, later to mention them again in a separate context. Microsoft is still collaborating with big banks (including those responsible for robbing the US and global economy) and a new bundle is coming from Citigroup and Microsoft. But what's more curious is this new dangerous step where Microsoft is trying to store records of people's bank accounts too (and having access to people's bank details). It's getting together with its competition.

Sometime-rivals Intuit and Microsoft are now partners in an effort to encourage software developers to use technology from the two companies to create Web-based applications for small businesses that run QuickBooks.


Web-based QuickBooks would means that financial data is stored on the server. Hello, Microsoft? We already know that Microsoft engages in McCarthyism.

The scariest part through is not mere access that Microsoft is gaining to all sorts of personal details; Microsoft and Intel are now joining forces and profiling users. This is a privacy hazard:

Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) have created technology that will allow signs in stores to detect a customer’s gender and which products a shopper looks at.


It gets worse. They are learning people's habits and together with ID information, bank accounts, and even health records, what can't Microsoft do? This abuse of power is done with the company that helped Microsoft fight against OLPC (because it used GNU/Linux and AMD chips).

"Gates looks at everything as something that should be his. He acts in any way he can to make it his. It can be an idea, market share, or a contract. There is not an ounce of conscientiousness or compassion in him. The notion of fairness means nothing to him. The only thing he understands is leverage."

--Philippe Kahn, Founder and former CEO of Borland

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Macho Patent Office
At the EPO there's always room for women in top roles
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: "Bream Gives Me Hiccups", Making Chinese Tea, and More
Links for the day
This is Why Codeberg Issues an Apology Today
This response was clear and relatively swift
Destruction and Distortion of Information, Including Facts About Linux (Bonus: This is Destroying the Planet)
All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
Google Seems to Have Just Killed All Instances of Invidious
YouTube is rapidly becoming just "another Neflix"
 
Links 12/02/2025: Crytek Layoffs, Security Holes, and Giving Ukraine to Russia
Links for the day
Relaying GAFAM Talking Points and Lies Using GAFAM LLMs, or Slop Pasted in by Brittany Day
linuxsecurity.com is relaying slop, i.e. misinformation
Photos From This Evening's Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman in Torino, Maybe a Video Soon
The talk that Dr. Richard Stallman gave today (a few hours ago) was recorded and streamed
IlSoftware.it Covers Richard Stallman's Visit to Give Talks in Italy
The publication is in Italian, the talk was in English
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
The Register Studies (to Affirm) Reports of IBM Layoffs "at the Finance and Operations business unit"
something about that specific unit
Links 12/02/2025: SSL FUD, DEI Phase-out, Felonies Committed by MElon (Data Breaches)
Links for the day
Italian Media Covers Richard Stallman's English Talk Ahead of Tonight's Public Appearance
article in La Stampa
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
Microsoft axing more services/features may mean that now they scrape the bottom of the barrel and Skype will simply die, discontinuing service (like ICQ) in a matter of years
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: Depression, Gabbro, WikiTok, and More
Links for the day
Links 12/02/2025: Health, Security, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol is Increasingly Important to the Net
Gemini Protocol will turn 6 this summer
Former EPO Manager Warns That the Illegal 'Court' for "Unitary Patents" Enables “Law Shopping”
Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Links 11/02/2025: Current state of the Internet and Smallnet Information Services (SIS)
Links for the day
Conservative Estimate: Over 10,000 IBM Workers to Be Laid Off in the Next Two Waves
The morale is low and layoffs are expected soon, with mass layoffs likely happening next month and then again later
Links 11/02/2025: Trade Wars and "Crisis for American Universities"
Links for the day
Parasitic LLM Slop Sites Destroy the Ability to Find "Linux" News in Google News
Remember that Google News laid off lots of its workers
Richard Stallman's English Talk in Italy Less Than 24 Hours Away (Torino) and Then Another Talk in Italy Scheduled (University of Bozen-Bolzano)
He's active and he travels a lot in spite of his medical condition
IBM Layoff Rumours, Large-Scale Implementations Weeks Ahead (in March 2025)
There are some people corroborating
Links 11/02/2025: Nutritional Poverty, Closure of USAID, More Fictional 'Valuations' Around Buzzwords
Links for the day
Perl Programming Leftovers
recently in perl.org
Microsoft in Africa: From 98% to Less Than 10% in Just 16 Years
Microsoft being on less than 1 in 10 Web-connected devices in Africa is a very big deal
Almost as If MElon Reads Techrights
The joke we started appears to be spreading
Microsoft Blasted for Adding Insult to Injury: Workers Laid Off Without Prior Notice, Without Severance Payment and Basic Coverage (Like Health), Then Stigmatised as Bad Performers So They Cannot Find a Job Elsewhere
Such stereotypes end entire careers
Gemini Links 11/02/2025: NeoVim and Deploying Other People's Code
Links for the day
BetaNews is Still Publishing LLM Slop/SPAM About "Linux"
Assuming it is indeed LLM slop, it seems clear BetaNews has no intention of improving or is simply unable/unwilling to improve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, February 10, 2025
Scheduled Maintenance Tomorrow and on Valentines
If the site (or Gemini capsule) is offline for a bit, the maintenance windows are likely the root cause
If Matthias Kirschner Loves Free Software, He'll Change the Name of the Microsoft-Sponsored Organisation He Governs (in Order to Avoid Confusion)
The FSF-EEE does not really like Software Freedom, it just loves money (including Microsoft's)
Soylent News Lessens the Scope of Discussion Due to Persistent Trolling and Online Abuse
if they make it a lot harder for new people to participate, then they limit the "general appeal" and reach
EPO's Local Occupational Health, Safety and Ergonomics Committee (LOHSEC) in The Hague: Workers Are Getting Sicker, Conditions in Which to Assess Patent Applications Deteriorate
"According to the Office statistics the total number of days of absence has gone up from 12.4 to 13.1 total number of sick days per Full Time Equivalent (FTE) from 2023 to 2024."
The Standard Needs to Improve Its Standards for Fact-Checking, Aaron Swartz Had Nothing to Do With Reddit and He Detested the Company That Created It
The Web is already bad enough as it is
When the Livestream of Richard Stallman is Apparently Bury-Brigaded Offline You Finally Learn to Avoid Google/YouTube for Streaming
Please, people, stop uploading to Google/YouTube
New Paper From the EPO Highlights Large-Scale Discrimination at the Office, Where People Are Rewarded for Granting More and More Illegal Patents
Even the Kremlin is probably more competent than this
Links 10/02/2025: Ban on D.E.I. Language, Listeria Risk/Outbreak
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Announcing "Stringless" and Mental Health Improvement
Links for the day
Links 10/02/2025: Facebook Mass Layoffs, "Meta" Did What Aaron Swartz Had Done But to the Tune of 81.7 Terabytes
Links for the day
Microsoft Tarnishing the Brand of Arch
Of course Arch can do whatever it wants, but being associated with Microsoft is a badge of shame
The Ultimate and Inevitable Fall of OpenAI (Even Brave is 'Bigger' Now)
"When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be."
Adding Slop to Your Blog Only Makes One Assume All the Text is LLM Slop
Simon Coter from Oracle has turned to slop
Macao is Leaving Microsoft Behind
Windows is falling to new all-time lows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 09, 2025
Microsoft's WSL (LSW) Shows That It Can Never Love Linux, Only Windows
that's just how Microsoft rolls
Activism in Times of War and a Coup
'Linux' Foundation works for fascism
What the Silencing of Neatnik Tells Us About Linus Torvalds Inside a Microsoft-Dominated 'Linux' Foundation
Is Linus Torvalds free to express his mind as he wishes about every topic, even just any technical topic?
Windows Down to 11.35% in Senegal, as Measured by statCounter
Another all-time low (Windows was at 99% in 2009)
"Latest Technology News" in BetaNews is LLM Slop Promoting OOXML and Proprietary Software at the Expense of LibreOffice and OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Remember that "open-source" and Open Source aren't the same; the former is fake