Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Free/Libre Software Should be Promoted Using Privacy Arguments, Too

Sign for privacy



Summary: An opportunity for Free software advocacy in an age of privacy concerns, policy incompatibility with warrantless surveillance, and increased Microsoft distrust due to collusion with the NSA

Ethical rather than purely practical reasons have been used to promote software freedom, referencing examples of malicious features like DRM and privacy violations, including back doors (which are not just privacy-infringing). As the Web grows and more data gets accumulated, it is increasingly being realised that privacy does matter to a lot of people. They start to demand that software and services no longer spy on them.



With the NSA leaks, we now have concrete proof of the lack of privacy everywhere. E-mails are now the digital equivalent of postcards, where the mailman can read everything and many other people in between can inspect the contents without leaving traces, even tampering with the content (as some people reported in the case of E-mail). Datacentres offer no real security from warrantless surveillance, either. To make matters worse, whatever Web browser and network setup we use, the ISP helps spy on us and the sites we visit spy on us too, then sell data about us. There was also spying on diplomats in G8 summits, showing that nobody is immune to it. Data, unless stored locally (and preferably encrypted), is hardly safe anymore, certainly not when it's stored remotely and passed over the wires (repositioning and shifting of the data between datacentres helps change the laws, too). With reliable and ubiquitous encryption this would mostly be a solved problem, but mathematicians at the NSA always try to stay a step ahead and break encryption, storing indefinitely encrypted traffic.

Microsoft is not just another company when it comes to surveillance. Based on recent leaks, we now have it confirmed that a lot of software including Microsoft Skype is simply spyware, as we shall document soon in our Microsoft and the NSA wiki page (overview of privacy issues). Bill Gates has been spying on children recently [1, 2] and also funded crowd control/police state for profit. Regarding the latest revelations about the NSA-Microsoft collusion we have this article which slams Microsoft's biggest investor and co-founder:

Establishment Hero Bill Gates Sold You Out to the NSA, But That's Not All...



Bill Gates gets heaped with praise from the establishment for his business prowess and his so-called philanthropy. In turn, society seems to elevate him to near godlike status for his generosity and "humanitarian work". He's been the poster child for the "see, not all big corporations are evil" argument. Well, not anymore.

Recent revelations that his company Microsoft has, for decades, built backdoors for government spying may put a few chinks in Gates' shining public armor.

And if one dares look any closer at Gates' other endeavors, they may discover that their intentions are not nearly as benevolent as general public perception leads us to believe.

First, let me try to outline just how completely Microsoft sold you out to spy agencies. After NSA whistleblower Snowden outed Microsoft as complicit in the PRISM information sharing program, it has come to light that NSA has a backdoor to Microsoft-owned Skype, Windows operating system updates contain bypasses for the NSA, the encryption for Outlook is unlocked for the NSA prior to launches, and Internet Explorer is likely the most compromised.

In short, this means the NSA has nearly full access to roughly 92% of the commercial computers in the world.

[...]

Bill Gates is an admitted advocate of population reduction. He's admitted that the goal of his immunization aid to third world countries is to reduce population. Don't believe me? See here, here, and here. Also, through his foundation he owns 500,000 shares of Monsanto's stock and he is a public salesman GMO crops around the world. And this is just the scratching the surface of who the real Bill Gates is.

Gates is a monopoly-man sell-out who now has nearly unlimited resources to dedicate to eradicating the plague he calls humanity from the earth.

Hopefully, this Microsoft spying story will cause more people to question Gates' true intentions and those of an establishment that would deceive us into thinking he's somehow a knight in shining armor. Nothing could be further from the truth.


The bottom line is, now more than before we can show people compelling reasons not to trust Microsoft and to use Free software wherever possible. Proprietary software serves plutocrats.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Links 23/01/2025: More Overt Constitutional Violations and "TikTok Executive Order" (White Flag to CCP)
Links for the day
"The AI Bubble is Popping", Now It's Bailout Time
The hype will quietly fizzle, just like "blockchains"
[Meme] Reliable Sources
Sooner or later LLMs swallow up their own lies (that they generated), which means that over time those things will only deteriorate further, exacerbating an already-large misinformation pandemic
 
CDN Giant: Microsoft Bing and Skype Collapsed Since the LLM Hype, Same as Other Metrics Show
No wonder Microsoft managers suffer anxiety and there are several waves of layoffs even on the same month
Gemini Links 23/01/2025: Experience With Outer Wilds and Gifting a Site
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake 'Articles' About Linux by Brian Fagioli and by Brittany Day in BetaNews and linuxsecurity.com (LLM Slop Sites That Are Online Leeches or SEO Operations Working Against Free Software Journalism)
Two new examples for today
Status of New Year's Resolutions
3 weeks later
[Meme] When the Government of the Netherlands Participates in Your Crimes It Lacks an Incentive to Hold You Accountable for Crimes
the EPO's corrupt management boasted (on television) that it would ignore rulings against it even if issued by the highest Dutch court
Links 23/01/2025: US Constitution Already Besieged (Impeachable Offences Pile Up), Arrest Warrant for Assad
Links for the day
Microsoft's Head of Business Development Quits (Days After Two Large Waves of Mass Layoffs)
We recently learned that people close to the management are very stressed this month
BetaNews Plagiarising Work in the Linux Space
The originals won't even be listed
Gemini Links 23/01/2025: US Politics and DevOps Career
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 22, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Links 22/01/2025: Jeju Air Blame-Shifting (Talk to the Wall), Copyright Maximalism Rebounds
Links for the day
[Meme] The 'Garbage in, Garbage Out' Patent Office
"law of the buzzword"
Clueless and Nontechnical EPO Management Uses the 'Great Scam' (Hey Hi Hype) to Justify Automation Where It's Both Detrimental and Illegal
The EPC has been practically set aflame; thus, the EPO has no legitimacy or reason to exist anymore
Links 22/01/2025: Democratising Tech Initiative and "Bye Bye Meta"
Links for the day
The Japanese translation of the term "free software"
by Akira Urushibata
Links 22/01/2025: "The AI Bubble Is Bursting" and Microsoft's Scam Altman is Already Looking for De Facto Bailout From the Insurrectionist
Links for the day
Dr. Andy Farnell's Latest Article About Software Freedom and Richard Stallman
why Dr. Stallman is being picked on
Geminispace (Gemini Protocol) Offers an Escape From Social Control Networks Owned by Oligarchs and Governments
Gemini capsules that promote fascism and retreat to feudalism are rare and scarce
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Formally Added an Outreach and Communications Coordinator
Maybe the addition happened last year (we mentioned it in passing), but now it's in the "rota"
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Fighting 'for the Poor and Powerless' While Taking Home $336,000 in Annual Salary
nowadays works for or serves not the interests of the masses
Of Note: The Misguided, Infiltrated, Weakened Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Now Operating at a Loss of Over a Million Dollars
Worst since the COVID-19 lockdowns
Free Software Foundation's Miriam Bastian: We Surpassed Our Year-end Goal of $400,000 USD Thanks to You!
Miriam Bastian: We surpassed our year-end goal of $400,000 USD!
[Meme] Omit Microsoft When It's a Scandal or a Breach, Whereupon It Becomes Just an 'IT Company'
Microsoft is like a cult. Members of this cult promote the opposite of security, expecting to be financially rewarded for it.
Calling Out Windows (TCO) is Apparently Impermissible in Some News Sites
The online news sites are failing us (and corporate sponsors play a role)
Richard Stallman's Remarks on His Pain
Published two days ago
Focusing on the Issues
we'll do our best to find the news and not talk about "Mr. T"
Only About 3.6% of Web Users in Pakistan Use Vista 11, According to statCounter
It's not hard to see why so far in 2025 Microsoft has already had several waves of mass layoffs - more than any other company
Rumour: In IBM, Impending "25% Reduction in Finance Roles"
25% to be laid off?
[Meme] Fake Articles From linuxsecurity.com (Just Googlebombing "Linux" With LLM Slop)
Google should really just entirely delist that site
RedHat.com Written by Microsoft Staff, Promoting Microsoft' Proprietary Software That Does Not Even Run on Linux!
This is RedHat.com this week...
Links 22/01/2025: Mass Layoffs at Stripe, Microsoft's Illegal Accounting Practices Under Scrutiny
Links for the day
Fake 'Article' by Brittany Day (Guardian Digital, Inc) About Linux Mint 22.1 'Xia'
Apparently they've convinced themselves that this is OK
Red Hat Dumps "Inclusive Language", Puts "Master" In Official Communications and Headlines
Red Hat: you CANNOT say "master" (because it is racist). Also Red Hat: we put in it our headlines.
Red Hat Offers DRM, TPM, and Backed Doored 'Confidential' Containers (CoCo) for Microsoft (Proprietary Spyware)
No kidding!
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 21, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Gemini Links 21/01/2025: Media Provocations and Nazis Not Tolerated
Links for the day
[Meme] Plagiarism Does Not Eliminate Jobs by Replacing Humans, It Replaces Human Knowledge With False Cruft
We need to boycott sites that fake their output
Slopwatch: BetaNews Plagiarism and LLM Slop by UNIXMen
"state-of-the-art" plagiarism
What Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Debian Elections Teach Us About the State of Weak (or Fake) Communities
They show a total lack of trust in these communities
[Meme] Doing Dog's Job (Not God's Job)
The FSF did not advertise the talk by RMS (its founder), who spoke in France almost exactly 23 hours ago
Links 21/01/2025: Mass Layoffs in "Security" at Microsoft (Despite Microsoft Promising It Would Improve After Many Megabreaches), Skype is Dead (Quietly)
Links for the day
Alternate Version of Daniel Pocock's 2024 Talk, "Technology in European Parliament Election Campaign"
There's loud ovation at the end of the talk
Gemini Links 21/01/2025: London Library, Kobo Sage, and Beyerdynamic DT 48 E
Links for the day
The January 20 Public Talk by Richard Stallman (Around Midday ET), Livestream 'Assassinated' by Google's YouTube
our guess is that the 'cancel mob' sabotaged it, possibly by making a lot of false reports to YouTube
[Meme] Free Software and Socially-Engineered Groupthink (to Serve Big Sponsors Like Google and Microsoft)
They do this to RMS all the time
[Video] Daniel Pocock's Public Talk About Free Software Politics, Social Engineering, Debian Deaths and Suicides, Coercion and Exploitation of Women
took many months to get
BetaNews Cannot Survive If Its Fake Articles Are Just SPAM for Companies Like AOHi and Aren't Even Composed by Humans
This is what domains or former "news" sites do when they die and look very desperately for "another way"
Pocock shot in the face, shot in the back, shot on Hitler's birthday saving France, Belgium and FOSDEM
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Dr Richard Stallman in Montpellier, Robert Edward Ernest Pocock in France
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 20, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, January 20, 2025