Bonum Certa Men Certa

Very Bad Reporting or Deliberately Shallow Media Coverage After Microsoft Windows Hands Hospitals Over to Crackers

Many people die while media plays a face-saving PR-like role (not acting like a fact-finding investigator)

What media tells you about besieged hospitals; What actually happens



Summary: Microsoft and its proprietary software (including Windows) kill a lot of people in hospitals and the media does more 'damage control' (misdirecting blame for Microsoft) than actual journalism and fact-finding

THE previous part and the introductory one spoke about how Microsoft quite likely killed more people than COVID-19 has killed so far. The media rarely reported on these things after they had happened; and when it did mention incidents, it typically said nothing about the role of Microsoft software, notably Windows. There's a cover-up. That's a problem. It prevents medical facilities, especially hospitals, from exploring better choice of tools, including software tools.



"I found the federal reporting website," one source told us, "which I think I told you about, and looked into a dozen cases."

“I decided to write about the things that most shocked me, both as an employee and as a patient.”
      --Anonymous
It's about known incidents being reported. "Ultimately," the source argued, "I decided to write about the things that most shocked me, both as an employee and as a patient."

The source spoke of "shuttered emergency room, the maternity ward, doctors sent home, the Trump-like lockdown with threats against anyone who dared talk, the staff panic..."

There are gagging efforts. Nobody is allowed to speak to anybody. There are threats.

Also, "what little actually leaked out," the source told us, "and the fortune teller-like experience given to patients to try to cover the fact that the hospital lost everything. The response was to lock out Microsoft competitors."

Having studied some press coverage about this, the source said the articles "target the patient experience and create some false impressions. It implies that hospitals have an effective records system and that hackers don't have patient information."

“A records blackout is a disaster - the doctor has to depend on the patient's memory and records.”
      --Anonymous
Citing one particular article (we try not to give clues about sources, e.g. locations), the person said "the main false impression is that the hospitals have some sort of backup system that works, which is complete bullshit. The article implies that the cut-off is limited to patient scheduling systems, that what the patient experiences on the phone or in person at the hospital does not mean the doctor has no way of looking up your prescriptions or medical history."

And it gets worse...

"That's designed to hide the main life-threatening implications of these attacks" on Windows, we were told. "Electronic medical records systems promised "meaningful use," timely access to information that improves patient care. A records blackout is a disaster - the doctor has to depend on the patient's memory and records. There are no paper records and there's no way to get electronic records from "the cloud" when the network is completely shut down as it is. Nothing works and the backups and replacement servers are destroyed as soon as they go live until the criminals are paid off, because all of it uses the same crappy software and the ransomware takes over every Windows desktop on the network."

The attacks go even further, we're told, having been presented with some supportive evidence.

"The second false impression [from media coverage] is that the hackers don't have copies of patient records."

“Any reasonable person would look at the situation and assume the criminals have copies of the records and have added them to the thriving privacy violation and blackmail market dominated by banks, government, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and other PRISM partners.”
      --Anonymous
There's one particular article that shows this. "This article hits the key phrases I've seen in lots of articles," the source said, "[such as] "no evidence" of exfiltration. In reality the ransomware people have complete control of the hospital records and probably have them weeks or months before they start demanding ransom money. This is a lie with a purpose. In the US at least, incident reporting is required when records are improperly accessed. The law is generous as it is, giving the business months to respond, but it requires individual patient notification and posting to a public, federal list of shame."

Then there's this analogy. "It reminds me of Chernobyl operators insisting that radiation levels after the accident were no higher than their pegged indicators because they did not know the actual level," we were told, "so had no evidence of anything higher. Any reasonable person would look at the situation and assume the criminals have copies of the records and have added them to the thriving privacy violation and blackmail market dominated by banks, government, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and other PRISM partners."

In the next part we'll provide some more details about responses, cover-ups, misreporting, victim-blaming and so on.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
 
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually
Participation in Cancel Culture Detrimental to One's Career
A cautionary tale
Passion Wins
we've increased the number of birds we feed to 100+
How Solderpunk and Sean Conner Started Gemini Protocol (and, Collectively, Geminispace) Back in 2019
Based on the "official" history
Arduino is Now a Patent Bully (Qualcomm)
Qualcomm has just bought Arduino
Many Years of Microsoft Cancellations and Faked (Acquired) Revenue "Growth"
XBox is basically the "next Skype"
The Comment TheLayoff.com Has Just Censored for Criticising a Ridiculous Puff Piece of IBM Management
If comments get censored for their "style" rather than their substance, then society will be worse off
The Power of Writing Down Facts
The more we write and publish, the more people will know what happened
Microsoft's Non-Denying Denial About XBox's Death is Already Being Shattered to Pieces
Like Microsoft's 'open' 'hey hi', heralding meaningless non-committing agreements with AMD is little more than vapourware
Slopwatch: UbuntuPIT Joins the Slopfarms Club
Slopfarms gonna slop
Links 07/10/2025: Privacy at Risk, GAFAM Remains Off the Hook
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Modern Retro Console Idea and Batch vs Bash
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: International Criminal Court (ICC) Convicts Ali Kushayb; Moroccan Imprisoned for 'Offensive' Shirt
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2025: EU' Chat Control is Back, US Cracks Down on Democracy
Links for the day
Techrights Pursues Justice and Truth Because, Without Those, Society Descends Into Chaos
most people reject dogma and pseudoscience
Upcoming Talks by Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Göteborg, and Rome
Join with him and share the software
Something Bad is Happening in the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
The latest OSI blog post is from a Microsoft operative and a few weeks ago the Executive Director left
TLS 1.3 Dominates Geminispace (99% of Known Capsules)
it's nowadays safe to assume almost every capsule can handle TLS 1.3
Why soylentnews.org Has Been Having Technical Difficulties Lately
The network has been going up and down quite a lot this past week
A Statement Against Violence
The facts are on our side
They've Run Out of Things to Rebrand or Label as "AI"
The next few years will be interesting because if Microsoft lays off tens of thousands of workers each year, there won't be much left except mountains of debt and dying brands
The Register MS is Still Being Paid to Participate in the "AI" Ponzi Scheme Which Will Crash the Economy
The Register MS is hoping to get lucky by tricking people into a scam
Richard Stallman Confirms His Talk in Göteborg This Coming Friday
"The hosts say that the list will not be given to the state"
Most of the "Linux" Results This Morning in Google News Are LLM Slop From the Same Slopfarm, Plagiarising Phoronix
The main question is, does Google even care at this point?
Gemini Links 07/10/2025: Civil War and "Goodbye Web"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 06, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 06, 2025