Bonum Certa Men Certa

The British Military Gives the United States Back Doors Into All of Its Computers

The British "army/navy/RAF have surrendered sovereignty again" --Glyn Moody

Ministry of Defence



Summary: National security of the UK still in the hands of the NSA and other intelligence branches of the United States, new software procurement deals teach us

Microsoft gives the NSA back doors, as we recently learned. Last week we could called that espionage threat, but this week we know it is not just a threat but a reality, as the European Parliament got cracked by the NSA (see our daily links for many reports on this). The former chief of the NSA and the CIA publicly goes on the record admitting this, based on this weekend's reporting.



"MoD signs Microsoft mega licensing deal for 180,000 PCs," says a new headline from Paul Kunert in the Microsoft ads-filled British news site (a police deal too got signed not too long ago). For those who are not familiar with the MoD, we wrote about it some years ago, almost concurring with the time Techrights seemingly got infiltrated by British police. When our government pays almost $10,000 per Windows desktop per year we are left assuming these are inherently corrupt deals. Here is the latest: "The Ministry of Defence renewed a three-year Microsoft Enterprise Agreement late on Friday with Software Box Ltd (SBL) for 180,000 seats in a deal that sources value at roughly €£15m per year.

"SBL has held the Microsoft EA with the MoD for the past nine years and channel folk are not surprised the Large Account Reseller won the latest tender, which had been issued to nine suppliers on Lot 3 of the Commodity IT Hardware & Software framework weeks ago."

It is quite a clever way to subsidise Microsoft at taxpayers' expense, leaving the international surveillance apparatus in place. And "so the army/navy/RAF have surrendered sovereignty again," writes Glyn Moody in Twitter.

The incestuous relationship between the US war machine and that of the British, including surveillance at the wire level, e.g. on Germany and other EU members, sure is troubling. Given the 'special' Anglo-Saxon relationship, this is not shocking though. A lot of people knew about it for years and now we have many documents to show this.

For those who still think that security spin in The H can somehow suggest that Microsoft cares about security, it is important to explain that to Microsoft security means national (US) security, not security for computer users. With proprietary software this is easy to attain. The H shows how Opera (proprietary) became a security compromise only in Windows (proprietary). To quote: "Windows users seem to have been hit the hardest, since not all Windows versions check the certificate. Wilton-Jones tries to reassure users saying the malware did not affect the Opera installation itself; the autoupdate delivered trojan was installed directly onto the operating system." Here is the word from Opera.

For those who insist that the MoD chose Windows because it's better, well, there is no actual reason for choosing Microsoft, definitely no technical reasons. Vista 8 is an utter disaster and even the same publication as above wrote some days ago that "Microsoft partners seriously underwhelmed by Windows 8.1", providing the following as backing for what can be seen as generalisation:

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer promised a flood of touch-enabled devices to fill the market as he previewed Windows 8.1, but is the technology channel raring to snap them up? Not really, it seems.

Redmond's very own bald eagle last night said the "rapid release" upgrade - which comes with a revolutionary Start button - will blend "desktop and modern computing experiences", and the market should expect "literally an outpouring" of touch devices.


Major changes are expected amid Microsoft's market decline and ZDNet, another Microsoft-friendly site, says that Windows is broken:

When the ecosystem is broken, you gotta blame the platform



[...]

This is another aspect of the broken Windows ecosystem. Microsoft makes a big splash with consumers building up the availability of Windows 8.1 and enticing mainstream customers to install it. The warning above was buried in a blog post and nowhere near the promotional material pushing customers to install the pre-release version.

Microsoft apparently knew that hardware partners might not be ready to handle the new Windows, but released it anyway. There's no telling what will happen to owners of the devices listed above who install the new version, and I'm not going to find out, given the warning.

"Buyer beware" is always appropriate, but if you can't trust the platform maker, then who can you trust to watch your back?

In this writer's opinion, this is a clear example of Microsoft not putting the customer first and handling things in a way to guarantee a smooth experience. It's another instance of Microsoft releasing an update to its own product, yet not allowing partners to get ready for it so customers have no problems. In a way, this instance is even worse than usual, as it's obvious that given the warning statement above, Microsoft knew that owners of these popular devices should exert caution with the update installation.


To summarise, there is no reason for the British army to commit to Windows for years to come, neither for security-centric reasons nor for technical reasons. This seems like yet another sellout associated with people who reign over society and want to control/dominate. Isn't that, after all, what militaries are about?

No intelligence apparatus should be complacent about working with NSA-controlled software. As the NSA already cracked 'allies' like the European Union, the NSA just cannot be trusted by anyone. Having spoken to some friends about it today, they too agree that the UK should foster its own IT companies and only ever deploy Free software whose integrity is assured domestically.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete
 
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Links 26/10/2025: Microsoft Spies on Gamers, Open Transport Community Conference
Links for the day
Links 26/10/2025: LLM Slop / Plagiarism Programs Continue to Disappoint, CISA Layoffs Threaten Systems
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2025: Gemsync and Joining the Small Web
Links for the day
India.com a Click-baiting, SEO-Spamming, Slopfarming Heap
They do this almost every day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 25, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 25, 2025
Without XBox Consoles, XBox is No More, It's Just a Brand (More Rumours of Microsoft Ending XBox, Then Laying Off Lots of Staff)
All signs indicate that Microsoft wants to "exit" the XBox business (not brand), but it does not want to publicly admit this as it would alarm staff and shareholders
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: Portugal, Midnightpub, and "Tech Right Admins"
Links for the day
Almost 2026 Already (When We Turn Twenty)
In just over a year the site will turn 20
When "Sponsored Feature" in The Register MS Means Ponzi Scheme Promotion From the Communist Party of China (CPC)
the promotion of a financial scam
Week of EPO Leaks: Workers of the EPO Are Getting a Pay Cut While Prices Rise Fast
More to come in the next few days
Microsoft is Finally Giving Up on XBox, The Chief Says the Grapes Are Sour Anyway
Microsoft loses hundreds of dollars on each XBox that it sells
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Various Slopfarms Propped up by Google News
Why can't Google News do better than this?
Links 25/10/2025: Two New Smokescreens for Scam Altman and ‘TikTok USA’ Remains in Limbo
Links for the day
Bad faith: can't change Debian Social Contract (DSC) without unanimous consent of every joint author
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Confirmed: Very Close Friend of Bill Gates and Microsoft's Biggest Patent Troll Nathan Myhrvold Flew the Lolita Express (a Gateway to Pedophilia), According to Bill Gates-Sponsored Seattle Times
There is no speculation or any "conspiracy theories" here;' those are verified facts
Gemini Links 25/10/2025: "The Highest Leader of The Global Civil Society Community", SSL Certificates Causing Bitrot
Links for the day
Links 25/10/2025: Target Layoffs and "Shutdown Sparks 85% Increase in US Government Cyberattacks"
Links for the day
"Big Data" Was a Big Lie
Remember "Big Data"? Remember "Data Scientists"...?
statCounter Has Been Broken for a Long Time
Considering the huge proportion of Web requests that come from LLM bots (more so this past year or two), statCounter may struggle to justify the operating costs
Techrights Anniversary Party on November 7th
Let us know if you need any accommodation-related arrangements
Trends That Must Alarm Microsoft and Mozilla
Expect Firefox to no longer be supported by various sites in the US
Why Microsoft Became the Layoffs Leader
The corporate media is projecting or signalling its own dishonesty when it tells us that Microsoft is a very "valuable" company while the data shows Microsoft is also a "market leader" in layoffs
Speaking for Ourselves and Letting the Facts Speak for Themselves
we've already published over 50,000 pages
For Second Time in a Day The Register MS Takes Money From Private Companies to Sell a Ponzi Scheme
Do not have empathy for those who have zero empathy towards you
IBM is Misleading IBM Shareholders
IBM is still all about vapourware and buzzwords
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 24, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 24, 2025