Background: Donald Trump Thinks He Can Call Bill Gates To Shut Down The Internet

Reference: Super Rich Hide $21 Trillion Offshore, Study Says

Summary: How Bill Gates shifts sides when it suits his financial agenda, this time with President-elect Trump

According to CNBC, Gates recently spoke with Trump, supposedly talking about innovation. Gates then claimed that Trump is a big supporter of innovation, saying that Trump would revolutionize America and get rid of regulatory barriers. He claimed that Trump likes to point out weaknesses in the American system and that he wants to improve on them.

Maybe he will even start an opportunistic partnership with Trump. Interesting Gates should claim this, when in June 2016 he said “Donald hasn’t been known for his philanthropy. He’s been known for other things.” Furthermore, Gates also implied that Trump was behind the other candidates.

He even portrayed Trump as unscientific, stating “Science in general, whether it’s GMOs or vaccines, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t give science the benefit of the doubt”. “In terms of experience, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have more experience on global health.”

Bill Gates has been innovative like many billionaires: he has created a charitable foundation and still manages to profit in the billions every year, and Microsoft as a whole profits from monopolizing software. █

Summary: A parade of misinformation as seen in Indian (but English-speaking) press this week as questions about patentability of software resurface

FOREIGN giants which operate in India (companies like IBM and Microsoft) just can’t help trying to repeatedly introduce software patents in India, aided by front groups and lawyers of theirs. Why on Earth is NASSCOM, which is connected to Bill Gates [1, 2, 3], participating in a debate in India regarding software patents or even just software? “NEW rules designed to boost India’s software industry will open for public consultation in a matter of days, say sources close to the matter,” said one new article among several this week (e.g. [1, 2). These mentioned software patents as well and some correctly noted that “this opens them [software companies] to patent trolls. Dealing with patent trolls here as India doesn’t have software patents.” The English here is problematic and then it says this: “So the conundrum for startups is whether to stay in India or not.”

“India is constantly being lobbied by big businesses that are not even Indian.”No, startups would be wasting their time pursuing patents on software. In practice, heavy-pocketed corporations from abroad want software patents. Indian startups do not. But don’t count on corporate media like the above to accurately represent the desires and needs of ordinary Indians. Neither should anyone trust NASSCOM, one among several Indian agencies that act like outposts and brought India nothing but EDGI.

India is constantly being lobbied by big businesses that are not even Indian. Watch what Microsoft has done to the Modi government earlier this year and last year. It shot down a Free/Open Source software policy. █

Article as ODF

Publicado en America, Bill Gates, Microsoft, Patents at 3:57 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Sumario: El más grande troll de patentes, compuesto literalmente de miles de conchas habiéndo sido creadas por Microsoft con ayuda significante de Bill Gates, está ampliando su alcanze hacia el apoyados por Google Yieldify y TiVo (a través de Rovi)

Nadie niega la realidad de que Intellectual Ventures (IV) es un troll de patentes, por definción del término, así como el más grande del mundo. Cercanamente conectada a Microsoft y Bill Gates (a nivel personal/capacidad), así que prestamos atención de cerca a ello. Reciéntemente criticámos a IAM por acicalar a IV y ahora, basado en una rara actualización de fin de semana, IV habla a IAM (de amo a sirviénte). Como el editor lo puso: “Subsequentemente a la publicación del artículo, el co-fundador de IV Peter Detkin se comunicó conmigo y Kent Richardson para comentar en algo de lo que dije; Kent entonces respondió. Ambos me diéron permiso para publicar su correspondencia (noten que esto ha sido editado al puro estilo de IAM – así que, por ejemplo, originales deletreos de los EE.UU han sido traducidos al British English – pero no otros cambios substanciales se hicieron).”

Entendemos el por qué IAM entretiene comercialización de los trolles de patentes ‘. IAM esta, después de todo, financiado en parte por ellos, para los que organiza eventos de lavado de reputación. Por lo tanto, no es difícil ver por qué IV mire a IAM como un aliado en lugar de un enemigo sospechoso o crítico. Hay una especie de respaldo frotando allí. IAM nunca va a enojar al que le da la mamadera.
Google fue atacado hace unos días porque una empresa que ha respaldado se conectó con IV. El Register, especialista en trolles, que habitualmente comenta en IP Kat desde hace semanas, dijo que esto (bajo las palabras “¿Um, Google … pensé que odiabas los trolls de patentes?”):

Yieldify, la compañía startup apoyada por Google acusada de robar código de la compañíá Británica Bounce Exchange, ha estado haciendo amigos raros.

Yieldify ha adquirido una antigua patente de la web de III Holdings que fue primeor llenada el 2007. III Holdings es más conocida dentro de Intellectual Ventures, co-fundada por el nefasto Nathan Myhrvold. Apodada “la compañíá más odiada en tecnologíá” y “el más grande troll de patentes del mundo.”

IV es una “NPE” (entidad no practicante), que apila patentes y busca incrementar su valor a traves de venta on licensiamienteo de IP. Apoyado por litigación, como contra Samsung, un recipiente de los ataques de III.

En una presentación ante la corte realizado la semana pasada, Yieldify hizo una petición de sentencia declarativa en su caso en curso contra la despedida de Exchange, citando la patente IIV. Esta es una solicitud para que el caso sea expulsado. La queja también utiliza la patente en cuestión de presentar una demanda por infracción contra Bounce Exchange.

Aquí hay otro reporte acerca de esto, que correctamente nota:

La patente no era originalmente de Yieldify, sin embargo. Yieldify ha comprado la patente de Intellectual Ventures con el fin de abrir un nuevo frente en su batalla contra Bounce Exchange. Se presentó por primera vez a la aprobación de la Oficina de Patentes y Marcas de los Estados Unidos en 2005 por Intellectual Ventures (IV), una organización que CNET vez describió como “la compañía más odiado de tecnología.”

Hay un poco más de IV en la mezcla y directamente impacta a Linux porque el propónente de DRM y problemático Linux Kernel (TiVo) se enlista con un amigo de los trolles de patentes como Intellectual Ventures. Como un sitio maximalista de patentes lo puso el otro díá: “Si Rovi utiliza ese fondo de guerra para atacar a la competencia (que se convierte en más difícil o más fácil a medida que el péndulo patente anti-software sigue oscilando), o para refinar aún más las propias guías de medios de pernos y de Rovi o ambos – la adquisición seríá positiva para ambas compañías y sus grupos de interés.”
Debemos recordar que alguna proximidad/vínculo entre IV y Linux puede ayudar a Microsoft a atacar a Linux a través de impuestos patentes de miles de direcciones diferentes (IV tiene literalmente miles de conchas o satélites). Una gran cantidad de trolls de patentes atacan a empresas legítimas en Texas y es difícil decir para quién trabajan.
Vice tiene esta nueva suerte de ‘expose’ acerca Rodney Gilstrap, quién fué mencionado aquí antes, e.g. en [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Es el mejor amigo de los trolles de patente en la Corte y citamos porciónes de este condenable reportaje:

El juez de una pequeña ciudad que ve a un cuarto de los casos de patentes de la Nación

[...]

La primera cosa que le informe sobre el juez Rodney Gilstrap es que él no es de Marshall. En la pequeña ciudad de Texas (población 24.000) al este de Dallas, donde él preside como juez de distrito de Estados Unidos, de donde eres materia, y la de 59 años de edad Gilstrap en realidad nació en Pensacola, Florida. Pero debido a que obtuvo tanto su licenciatura y su título de abogado en la Universidad de Baylor (tres horas de distancia en Waco, Texas), ha practicado la ley en Marshall desde los años 80, y se casó con una chica local, cuya familia es propietaria de la funeraria local, la mayoría de la gente perdona Gilstrap esta plaga.

[...]

Desde que asumió la posta el 2011 se mueve literalmente al otro lado de la calle de su oficina de abogado en el distrito juzgado-Gilstrap se ha convertido en uno de los jueces de litigios de patentes más influyentes en el país. En 2015, hubo 5.819 nuevos casos de patentes presentadas en los EE.UU.; 1.686 de los que terminaron por delante del juez Gilstrap. Eso es más de un cuarto de todos los casos en el país; el doble que el siguiente juez de patentes más activos.

Los trolles de patentes son realmente una epidemia, se basan en las patentes de software y tribunales corruptos (o estados que albergan los trolls de patentes con fines de lucro, al igual que los paraísos fiscales que dan la bienvenida a los evasores de impuestos). Lo que también es fundamental para todo el mundo recuerde es que muchos trolls de patentes trabajan, a instancias de una corporación que acecha en la sombra, obligando a la competencia elevar sus precios o sacar a la competencia fuera del mercado. Intellectual Ventures ya ataca a Linux en diversas formas (desde muchas direcciones), como hemos demostrado aquí antes.

NOBODY denies the fact that Intellectual Ventures (IV) is a patent troll, as per the definition of the term, and also the world’s largest one. It’s closely connected both to Microsoft and to Bill Gates (at a personal level/capacity), so we pay careful attention to it. We recently criticised IAM for grooming IV and now, based on a rare weekend update, IV speaks to IAM. As the editor put it: “Subsequent to the article’s publication, IV co-founder Peter Detkin got in touch with myself and Kent Richardson to comment on some of what it said; Kent then responded. Both have given me permission to publish their correspondence (note that this has been edited into IAM house style – so, for example, original US spellings have been turned into British English – but there no substantive changes were made).”

We understand why IAM entertains patent trolls’ marketing. IAM is, after all, partly funded by patent trolls, for whom it organises reputation-laundering events. It’s thus not hard to see why IV might view IAM as an ally rather than a suspicious or critical foe. There’s a sort of back-rubbing there.

Google came under fire some days ago because a company it backed has hooked up with IV. The Register‘s most trollish pundit, who habitually comments in IP Kat since weeks ago, said this (under the words “Um, Google… I thought you hated patent trolls?”):

Yieldify, the Google-backed startup accused of stealing code from British adtech company Bounce Exchange, has been making some unusual friends.

Yieldify has acquired an ancient web patent from III Holdings which was first filed in 2007. III Holdings is better known as Inside Intellectual Ventures, co-founded by Nathan Myhrvold. It has been dubbed “the most hated company in tech” and “the world’s biggest patent troll.”

IIV is a “NPE” (non-practicising entity), which gathers up patents and seeks to unlock their value through selling on or licensing the IP. This has been backed up by litigation, such as Samsung, a recipient of one of III’s sueballs.

In a court filing made last week, Yieldify made a request for declaratory judgement in its ongoing case versus Bounce Exchange, citing the IIV patent. This is a request for the case to be thrown out. The complaint also uses the patent in question to lodge an infringement claim against Bounce Exchange.

Here is another report about this, which correctly notes:

The patent wasn’t originally Yieldify’s, though. Yieldify has purchased the patent from Intellectual Ventures in order to open up a new front in its battle with Bounce Exchange. It was first submitted for approval to the US Patent and Trademark Office back in 2005 by Intellectual Ventures (IV), an organisation that CNET once described as “the most hated company in tech.”

There is a little more IV in the mix and it directly impacts Linux because DRM proponent and Linux kernel troublemaker (TiVo) reportedly gets together with a friend of patent trolls like Intellectual Ventures. As a patent maximalist’s site put it the other day: “Whether Rovi uses that war chest to attack competition (which becomes harder or easier as the anti-software patent pendulum continues to swing), or to further refine the Bolt and Rovi’s own media guides or both – the acquisition does spell positive for both companies and their stakeholders.”

One must remember that any proximity/link between IV and Linux can help Microsoft tax Linux using patents from thousands of different directions (IV has literally thousands of shells or satellites). A lot of patent trolls attack legitimate companies down in Texas and it’s hard to tell who they work on behalf of.

Vice has this new sort of ‘expose’ about Rodney Gilstrap, who was mentioned here before, e.g. in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. He is the patent trolls’ best friend at the court and to quote portions of this rather damning report:

The Small Town Judge Who Sees a Quarter of the Nation’s Patent Cases

[...]

The first thing people tell you about Judge Rodney Gilstrap is that he’s not from Marshall. In the small Texas city (population 24,000) east of Dallas where he presides as a US district court judge, where you’re from matters, and the 59-year-old Gilstrap was actually born in Pensacola, Florida. But because he earned both his BA and his law degree at Baylor University (three hours away in Waco, Texas), has practiced law in Marshall since the 80s, and married a local girl whose family owns the town funeral home, most folks forgive Gilstrap this blight.

[...]

Since taking the bench in 2011—moving literally across the street from his law office into the district courthouse—Gilstrap has become one of the most influential patent litigation judges in the country. In 2015, there were 5,819 new patent cases filed in the US; 1,686 of those ended up in front of Judge Gilstrap. That’s more than a quarter of all cases in the country; twice as many as the next most active patent judge.

Patent trolls are truly an epidemic, but they rely on software patents and corrupt courts (or states that harbour patent trolls for profit, much like tax havens that welcome tax evaders). What’s also crucial for everyone to remember is that many patent trolls work at the behest of some corporation lurking in the shadow, targeting its competition to drive prices higher or drive the competition out of the market. Intellectual Ventures already attacks Linux in various ways (from many directions), as we showed here before. █

Summary: A timely and imperative remark, reactionary in the sense that it responds to a new article, about the misconception that patent trolls are lone wolves and often small entities rather than conglomerates in disguise

A FEW days ago we stumbled upon an article by Joe Mullin, wherein he calls eDekka “Biggest patent troll of 2014,” even though Intellectual Ventures (a Microsoft proxy in some sense) is far bigger and still very active (it has a few thousands of satellites). “Biggest patent troll” by what criterion? Number of lawsuits by one single entity (not a proxy)?

“”Biggest patent troll” by what criterion?”The article from Mullin (otherwise a fantastic journalist by the way) says:

In 2014, no company filed more patent lawsuits than eDekka LLC, a Texas-based company with just one asset—US Patent No. 6,266,674. Fully 168 patent lawsuits came to a sudden halt in October, when US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap stopped the litigation campaign in its tracks.

eDekka’s patent, which had been used to sue a wide array of online retailers, described nothing more than “the abstract idea of storing and labeling information,” Gilstrap found. Those were “routine tasks that could be performed by a human” and didn’t meet the standard for getting a patent. Gilstrap ruled the patent invalid.

eDekka was covered here many times before, even as recently as 2.5 months ago.

“Look at the patent syndicates of billionaires who now even pay the media to paint themselves as “charitable” individuals — something that better known trolls cannot afford to do (to Gates, for instance, spendings on the media cost approximately $300,000,000 per year).”IAM, which is literally receiving money from patent trolls (we wrote about this before), recently — in fact as recently as last week — wrote about the world’s biggest patent troll (also Microsoft-connected troll) and said that: “Fifth-ranked Searete LLC – well-documented as an Intellectual Ventures affiliate – made most of its assignments to the patent firm’s Innovation Science Fund.”

Searete is a part of it. Searete (see our Wiki) and Intellectual Ventures are both are connected to Bill Gates (even financially). Bill Gates, a pseudo philanthropist who uses his foundation for tax-exempt investment in patents, has created an ever-growing large network of patent trolls whose activity increases his personal wealth (this network also attacks Microsoft’s rivals). Don’t get distracted by eDekka and other massively smaller patent trolls. Focus on the big issue. Look at the patent syndicates of billionaires who now even pay the media to paint themselves as “charitable” individuals — something that better known trolls cannot afford to do (to Gates, for instance, spendings on the media alone cost approximately $300,000,000 per year). █

“Intellectual property is the next software.”

–Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft patent troll

Publicado en Bill Gates, Microsoft at 7:06 am por Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Parte de un ampli esquema implicado a Microsoft en CORRUPCIÓN SISTEMÁTICA, transformando escuelas y universidades en puestos de Microsoft a cuesta de los contribuyentes

Sumario: La universidad de elección de Gates sobre la cuál todavía saca ventaja, se vuelve una agencia personal de Microsoft para INDOCTRINAR, convirtiéndose parte de su asistida por el gobierno conquista de la educación de Ciencias de la Computacion en los Estados Unidos.

BILL GATES nunca se graduó de Harvard (grados honorarios en realidad no cuentán para nada, virtualmente están a la venta). Abandonó su educación. Sin embargo Gates tomó control de Harvard así como otras universidades en los Estados Unidos (y en un menor grado en el extranjero también). Al ´donar´ dinero bajo falsas pretensiones SECUESTRÓ la agenda/curricula de su Ciencias de la Computación (echándola a su favor) e incluso nombró instalaciones como a sí mismo. Algo realmente anti-academico de hacer. Es lo anti-ético a la noción de educación.

Después de sobornar oficiales para asegurarse contratos SOBREVALORADOS (como cubrimos anoche)) Microsoft ahora se apodera de universidades, no sólo escuelas. Como lo puso Slashdot ayer:

¨¿Supo usted que Microsoft ha apoyado a Harvard en crear una nueva versión (de su muy popular CS50 curso) llamado CS50 AP, designado especialmente para educadores de secundaria?¨ preguntó una publicación Aprenda a Blogear Microsoft. Si le gustaría enseñar CS50 AP (y en turno Principios de AP CS) en su salón de clases este año,¨ Harvard informa a posibles profesores, ¨estan cordialmente invitados a unirse a nosotros en uno de nuestros entrenamientos para profesores workshops a llevarse a cabo en varias partes alrededor del país y el mundo!¨ Pero antes de matricularse están requeridos a responder a lo siguiente y Harvard no aceptará un NO como respuesta: ¨Nuestros AMIGOS en Microsoft nos están ayudando a distribuir materiales de apoyo para los profesores para esta versión de CS50 para profesores y estudiantes de educación secundaria. Al chequear la cajita de abajo, ustedes están de acuerdo que podamos ´compartir´ los datos que usted sometió a traves de esta forma como parte del proceso de planificación.¨ Microsoft esta DIRIGIENDO a la educación secundaria estos días – carajo, la Casa Blanca incluso deja al presidente de Microsoft Brad Smith reunir a periodistas y relatarles sus planes de gastar $4 B de impuestos en una nueva CS para toda iniciativa secundaria antes de que el Presidente lo anuncie a los contribuyentes. A propósito, la CS50 AP Wiki contiene una forma de autorización y deslindación por la cual, entre otras cosas, requiere a estudiantes tímidos estar sentados en una zona de ¨no cámaras/film¨ sin protestar si no quieren sus fotos o videos usados por Harvard para promover un curso promovido por Microsoft.¨

Cubrimos la nata acerca de Brad Smith a principios de mes.

Para citar las palabras nauseabundas: ¨Nuestros amigos de Microsoft nos están ´ayudando´ a distribuir los materiales para apoyo del maestro de esta versiond de CS50 para profesores y estudiantes de secundaria. Al chequear la cajita de abajo, ustedes están de acuerdo que podamos ´compartir´ los datos que usted sometió a traves de esta forma como parte del proceso de planificación. [...] Esto es requerido, por favor entre un valor.¨

“Harvard ahora es MIERDA,” nos dijo un lector que solía trabajar para una univesidad grande estadounidense. “Que VERGUENZA para ellos y para los Estados Unidos en general.”

“Esto parece sembrar un montón de preguntas,” una persona me dijo esta mañana en Twitter, “ética, legalmente, y acerca de integridad – en los Estados Unidos, Microsoft, UE, Romania etc.”

Microsoft es todavía un cáncer en la educación. Sobre todo es acerca de convertir a la gente joven DEPENDIENTE (encerrádo dentro) de código secreto con puertas traseras. Harvard debería avergonzarse de sí misma. Ocasionalmente invitaba a un famoso CRIMINAL, Bill Gates, a dar discursos allí, como si esto fuese un ejemplo a seguir por los estudiantes. UCLA también hace lo mismo con el más grande TROLL DE PATENTES [1, 2], quien es amigo personal de la rata Bill Gates. Todo se resume a corrupcción y política podrida. █

Summary: Gates’ university of choice, which he still preys on, becomes a carrier of Microsoft indoctrination and has become a part of Microsoft’s government-assisted takeover of Computer Science education in the US

BILL GATES never graduated from Harvard (honorary degrees don’t really count for anything, they’re virtually for sale). He was a dropout. Nevertheless, Gates took control of Harvard, as well as many other universities in the US (and to a lesser degree abroad too). By passing them some money under false pretenses he hijacked their Computer Science agenda/curriculum (tilted in Microsoft’s favour) and even named facilities after himself. It’s a very un-academic thing to do. It’s antithetical to the notion of education.

After bribing officials to secure overpriced school contracts (as we covered here last night) Microsoft now takes over universities, not just schools. As Slashdot put it yesterday:

Did you know that Microsoft has supported Harvard in creating a new version [of its wildly-popular CS50 course] called CS50 AP, designed specifically for secondary school educators?” asks a Microsoft Born to Learn Blog post. “If you might like to teach CS50 AP (and, in turn, AP CS Principles) in your own classroom this year,” Harvard informs prospective teachers, “you are cordially invited to join us at one of our teacher training workshops to be held in various locations around the country and the world!” But before applications can be successfully submitted, teachers are required to respond to the following statement, and Harvard won’t take ‘No’ for an answer: “Our friends at Microsoft are helping us distribute the teacher support materials for this version of CS50 for secondary school teachers and students. By checking the box below, you acknowledge that we may share the data you submitted through this form with them as part of this planning process.” Microsoft is certainly calling the K-12 CS education shots these days — heck, the White House even let Microsoft President Brad Smith brief reporters about plans to spend $4B in tax dollars on a new CS for All K-12 initiative before the President told taxpayers about it. By the way, the CS50 AP Wiki contains a CS50x/CS50 AP Authorization and Release form which, among other things, requires camera-shy CS50 AP students to agree to “sit in a ‘no-film’ zone” if they do not want photos or videos of themselves used by Harvard to promote the Microsoft-supported course.”

We covered that latter bit about Brad Smith earlier this month.

To quote the nausea-inducing words: “Our friends at Microsoft are helping us distribute the teacher support materials for this version of CS50 for secondary school teachers and students. By checking the box below, you acknowledge that we may share the data you submitted through this form with them as part of this planning process. [...] This field is required. Please enter a value.”

“Harvard is now shit,” told us a reader who used to work for a large US university. “How embarrassing for them and for the US in general.”

“This seems to raise a lot of questions,” one person told me this morning in Twitter, “ethical, legal, integrity – on US, Microsoft, EU, Romania etc.”

Microsoft is still a cancer in education. It’s all about making young people dependent (locked into) secret code with back doors. Harvard should be absolutely ashamed of itself. It occasionally invited a famous criminal, Bill Gates, to give speeches there, as if this is the example they wish to give to students. UCLA also does the same with the world’s largest patent troll [1, 2], who is a close friend of Bill Gates. It all boils down to corruption and rotten politics. █

Summary: Reckoning and accepting the fact that even some in the media now openly speak about Bill Gates’ corrupting influence in everything, including politics

THE Gates Foundation was one subject we focused on a great deal several years ago. It got a little repetitive after a while because the issues were mostly the same but were illuminated by more examples and new incidents. Several years down the line we generally find that the media [1] and various groups [2] speak about these issues more openly. It now seems to be more widely accepted (by the press and some of the public) that there’s more under the surface when it comes to the Gates Foundation and other such foundations, including Zuckerberg’s (also a tax haven in “charity” clothing). Why are some politicians still entrusting elections to Gates' highly abusive company? Watch how close Microsoft has gotten to the US government. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Fighting “corporate control of education”: A millennial education wonk goes to war against neoliberal reform

   When it comes to the world of elite education reform — the land dominated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation; your Arne Duncans and Michelle Rhees — there is no shortage of young and optimistic millennials, eager to explain why the brave new future of standardized testing, pay-for-performance, “grit” and Common Core will help public (and pseudo-public) education fix many of our society and economy’s ills. They’re often called thinkfluencers, or something equivalently silly; and the scene is lousy with ’em.

2. Gated Development – is the Gates Foundation always a force for good?

   Perhaps what is most striking about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is that despite its aggressive corporate strategy and extraordinary influence across governments, academics and the media, there is an absence of critical voices. Global Justice Now is concerned that the foundation’s influence is so pervasive that many actors in international development, which would otherwise critique the policy and practice of the foundation, are unable to speak out independently as a result of its funding and patronage.

Summary: A look at highly expensive lobbying for personal gain by Bill Gates in just one area (among many) and how this relates to EPO lobbying for the UPC, which basically helps make the rich even richer

BASED on the EPO’s spendings of nearly a million dollars for a US company to promote the Unitary Patent in the US, there is definitely something going on and we cannot help thinking of Gates’ promotion of Common Core, which he profits from (we no longer cover this, having written hundreds of articles on the subject). It’s all about Big Business, which is already treated more favourably than others at the EPO.

A few days ago we found this promotional EPO article that says: “Reflecting in statistics, the European Union is the second-largest overseas filer with the SIPO, accounting for 28% of foreign filings in 2014. In the same year, Chinese filers contributed more than 9% filed with EPO, mainly clustering around the sectors of digital communication, computer technology and telecommunications.”

“It’s all about Big Business, which is already treated more favourably than others at the EPO.”Well, actually, many of the filers are big businesses from China (some are government-connected and enjoy a fast lane at the EPO). Battistelli has been visiting China and posing a lot with Chinese officials recently, not because they have so much in common in terms of human rights but because Battistelli serves globalists, not Europeans. He serves the world’s billionaires, people like Bill Gates.

Incidentally, last night as we reorganised some old feeds we found alarming headlines from the past 2 years. In them, Bill Gates’ push of Common Core came under fire. Like the Unitary Patent in Europe, there’s a big PR campaign behind it. See articles (written by teachers) such as “An Audit of Bill Gates’ Common Core Spending” or “Bill Gates: An infographic”.

“It’s an information war.”Having essentially bribed the Seattle Times for favourable coverage before [1, 2] (like Adelson does right now in Las Vegas, despite getting caught), Bill Gates is doing it again. To quote some headlines, “Bill Gates funded the Seattle Times “Education Lab””, “Bill Gates funds the media then secretly meets with them” and “Bill Gates funds the media, including the Seattle Times’ Education Lab, then secretly meets with them”. He gives them marching orders like he did in the New York Times with his occasional visits. Gates also pays notable British press like the BBC and The Guardian in exchange for favourable coverage. It’s an information war. He is buying out the media and the front groups, making them incapable of resisting and rendering them just puppets catering for his agenda, masquerading as lots of interest groups of various different stakeholders. Here are some headlines from the aforementioned teachers’ blog:

• Protest the Gates Foundation’s takeover of public schools
• #EducatingGatesRally June 26th
• The Bunkum Awards in Education go to Rhee, Gates, ALEC and more of your edu faves
• Bill Gates bankrolls College and Career Ready programs, aka the Common Core Standards
• So much for Gates funded STEM : Census Bureau Reports Majority of STEM College Graduates Do Not Work in STEM Occupations
• Hold the presses! The Gates Foundation Wants You To Boycott High-Stakes Tests
• Summit High School: The skinny on the Gates-backed charter school set for Seattle, Brad Bernatek (remember him?) and a host of others
• Bill Gates tells us why *his* high school was a great learning environment
• Bill Gates in Washington State: Mayoral Control and Charter Schools
• Bill Gates has spent $305M to push charter schools: Here is the list of recipients
• The Gates owned Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) right here in Seattle
• Bill Gates rewrites history for Seattle students: Testimony on the Ida B. Wells School for Social Justice
• Hillsborough schools to shelve Gates-funded experiment that cost $100M+ to implement

A lot of the above reminds us of Battistelli and his precious Unitary Patents. He has an agenda to sell and obscene amounts of money are now being (mis)used for an unacceptable PR campaign. Who benefits? Certainly not the public.

Don’t believe anything that EPO management says, including whatever it may say about the Unitary Patent. Sadly, the EPO is now poisoning also the media and it sets up events that serve as Unitary Patent propaganda. █

Summary: Microsoft continues its long journey towards ‘Linux tax’ (or Microsoft tax on Linux) as the ‘standard’ while trying very hard to derail Android and prevent nations from moving to Free/libre software

THE bubble of ‘good’ Microsoft is being burst on a daily basis because the company keeps — and sometimes even enhances — its hostile behaviour, having just taken away software from Android [1, 2], engaged in yet more “embrace, extend, extinguish” tactics against Android, and then started recording Android users remotely (always on), as reported by Mary Jo Foley and other Microsoft propagandists (Microsoft’s special relationship with the NSA notwithstanding). Based on this new article from IAM, there is also a monopoly being shielded here, with the prospect of litigation against Google and others (for royalties or product removal). “A new study by technology consulting and litigation support firm iRunway,” says IAM, “has analysed the patent landscape around speech recognition technology, finding that Microsoft and specialist company Nuance lead the way. The report highlights the growth in patent filings over the last 10 years as companies have made significant strides in the development of technology in this area.” Just watch how Apple has been suing Samsung. It is still pursing high royalties through a settlement. It wants “hundreds of millions of dollars”, as an Apple proponent/Android foe put it. Much of that is for software patents and it is the same strategy Microsoft has been sticking to for much longer than Apple.

Make no mistake about it. There is no 'new' Microsoft except a Microsoft that engages in patent racketeering against Linux and Android. There are only faceplate changes, site changes, logo changes, etc. The company is as aggressive as ever before.

“Make no mistake about it. There is no ‘new’ Microsoft except a Microsoft that engages in patent racketeering against Linux and Android.”Several years ago we noted that Microsoft had promoted Horacio Gutierrez, who is now a Microsoft Vice President. Microsoft was emphasising a litigation route, making it abundantly clear that patent extortion against Linux was a growing strategy. Anti-Linux patent men are once again being promoted inside Microsoft as Smith becomes President. Recall all the anti-Linux rhetoric from him and mind the “astroturf in the comments,” as noted by our reader iophk. Smith is an aggressor, so the way we interpret the news is, anti-Linux litigation is only further promoted (not demoted) as the strategy. Watch what Microsoft has been doing with Tuxera, putting and reinforcing patent tax as part of the ‘standard’ inside Linux. Here is a new press release from Tuxera and partners — a statement which says:

iWedia, a leading provider of software solutions for TV devices to service operators and Consumer Electronics manufacturers, today announced that it has integrated its Linux-based Teatro-3.0 Set-Top Box (STB) software solution for IP-connected zappers with the AllConnect streaming technology of Helsinki-based Tuxera, the market leader in embedded file systems, network storage and streaming technologies.

Well, Tuxera is a Microsoft partner and it pays Microsoft. This is the sort of GPL-hostile future Microsoft is after. Microsoft is trying to make Linux its own cash cow. Yes, cash cow! It’s an assault on the very heart of Free software. It impedes distribution rights.

Speaking of underhanded tactics such as these, the Gates Foundation is being used as a Trojan horse by Bill Gates, who is now an integral part of Microsoft’s management and according to this report China’s “President Xi is set to also have a private dinner with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates before leaving Seattle for Washington.”

Another report says “President Xi will also be visiting and meeting with Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, even before he visits Obama in Washington.”

“That makes Xi look very weak,” iopkh wrote to us. It’s not the first time that this happens. The same kind of story was reported here almost decade ago, back in 2007.

“Yes,” iopkh noted, “it’s happened with other presidents of China. It makes them look very foolish, to keep it polite.”

Our worry is that China will lift its ban (in government) on Office and Microsoft Windows, maybe after some ‘sweet’ (behind closed doors) deal with Gates, who is now officially back at Microsoft (in functional terms). At the moment, China is rapidly moving to GNU/Linux at many levels, not just when it comes to mobile devices but also when it comes to servers and desktops. We wrote a lot about it. China not only explored Free software, but also began moving to it en masse. It’s the world’s largest market and trend setter.

Don’t believe for even a moment that Microsoft has changed for the better. It’s just more discreet about its constant attacks on Free software. █

Summary: Microsoft is very desperate to extract money out of Linux (which has won major battles and billions of users), using software patents and royalty stacking with help from patent trolls

ONE MUST be deluded or seriously misinformed to actually believe that Microsoft is doing well, having just laid off many employees, admitted billions in losses, permanently ended many of its products, and then revealed a widely-loathed version of Windows which many people are simply unwilling to adopt. They won’t ‘upgrade’ to it, not even for ‘free’ (a false promise even for those who 'upgrade'). Our confidential sources inside Microsoft say that even Microsoft staff doesn’t like Vista 10.

At the same time that Vista 10 was released Bill Gates, who is officially back to Microsoft’s management team, dumped his Microsoft shares by the millions (see “Warning Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) optimists! William Gates just Unloaded 4,000,000 shares.”)

Useds [sic] of Vista 10 don’t like it, so they use other software and defect away from what Microsoft is offering. Based on silence from Microsoft, not many people even install Vista 10. In the first day, despite it being a ‘free’ upgrade, less than 1% of useds actually moved to it and Microsoft has been tight-lipped since then. Every other number has been unofficial, speculative, and patently false, for reasons that we explained here before.

We now see more hogwash from the trend-setting media. Referring to Microsoft’s losses, the author says this “was only the third loss in its history as a public company.”

Not really, as there is a long history of financial fraud (false reporting of revenue and income). The New York Times trusts Microsoft’s claims far too irresponsibly. It’s just gullible. It also promotes the illusion of Microsoft layoffs not being Microsoft’s fault. Remember that Nokia did much better before Microsoft hijacked the company, initially with a mole. Microsoft layoffs are not just a Nokia thing. See this video from a guy whom Microsoft laid off “after 15 years of service” (to use his own words).

IBTimes, another misleading publication (usually misleads in favour of big businesses), pretends that Microsoft was “third among global smartphones”.

“That’s a low bar,” explained iophk to us. “But the ibtimes lumps several categories together to boost appearances of Microsoft market share.” Yes, they make it seem like Microsoft had nearly 4% of the market. In reality it’s far lower than that. Microsoft will soon head down towards 1% or 0%, considering its abandonment — indefinitely — of Windows Phone/Mobile.

A few days ago many news sites (e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4]) covered Nokia’s sale of HERE Maps for just over 3 billion dollars. Recall old articles such as “Nokia to Pay $8.1 Billion for Navteq”. “Contrast with sale price from a few days ago,” iophk wrote to us. It’s now down to less than half, so Microsoft’s damage to Nokia goes far beyond just the mobile business. German companies are eating Nokia’s remaining business, so Nokia will soon appear (and function) as nothing but a pile of patents, i.e. a patent troll.

Florian Müller, a German lobbyist who has worked for Microsoft, calls the sale of HERE Maps the “next stage of transformation into patent troll”. Remember that Microsoft already instructed Nokia to pass its patents to trolls such as MOSAID, i.e. trolls with a Linux-hostile track record. MOSAID has renamed itself since, but it’s the same evil entity with the same patents at hand. Microsoft armed MOSAID using Nokia’s patents. Sites like Groklaw didn’t miss that because of the huge number of patents involved. MOSAID is now known as “Conversant”, not to be confused with the Conservancy (pro-GPL).

“Remember that Microsoft already instructed Nokia to pass its patents to trolls such as MOSAID, i.e. trolls with a Linux-hostile track record.”Müller, incidentally, also wrote about Corel suing Microsoft using patents, perpetuating an unverified myth that “Microsoft has numerous patent cross-license agreements in place (including with dozens of smartphone, tablet and netbook manufacturers who pay Microsoft considerable amounts of royalties on devices powered by Google’s Android and Chrome operating systems)” (we do not know if Microsoft gets anything from these, except FUD and leverage). Remember that Microsoft’s goal is not to make Android its own cash cow but to make it uneconomic (not competitive in terms of price) because of many small royalties, aggregated/combined from many non-producing directions/vectors, to ultimately become huge numbers (patent stacking with help from Microsoft-leaning trolls, of which there can be thousands). Consider Intellectual Ventures, which was pretty much the creation of Microsoft and Bill Gates. It already has thousands of proxies (to litigate from) and 2 days ago this bizarre piece was grooming it (“Built By Industry Leading Companies” even though it is undeniably Microsoft connected). This revisionism and grooming of the world’s largest patent troll ought to worry everyone because in recent months Intellectual Ventures repeatedly used software patents to attack Android (we covered this at the time).

Putting aside the unverified claims from Müller (he has pro-Microsoft history and paychecks from Microsoft too), it is interesting to see Corel, which Microsoft destroyed like it later destroyed Novell and Nokia, taking Microsoft to court after all this time.

Another legal battle that made the news last week was to do with Motorola, a steward of Android (under Google) which Microsoft was extorting using patents. Google bought part of Motorola after Microsoft and other Android foes created CPTN and Rockstar, using patents from large companies that they bought. Those same Android foes wanted to buy Motorola’s patents (based on credible reports), so Google had to act fast and prevent that by bidding defensively, even overpaying by a huge margin. If Android foes tried to buy Motorola’s patents to weaponise them as well, having already used patents from companies like Novell and Nortel offensively, who can blame Google for buying Motorola’s patents? And watch what Microsoft is already doing with Nokia’s patents.

“Don’t think that a dying company like Microsoft will just drop dead without a last fight.”The Microsoft-Motorola situation quickly become a Microsoft-Google feud and some days ago Google lost this battle. To quote corporate media (Fortune): “The patent-fueled litigation frenzy among tech companies has finally subsided but, even as firms make nice with each other, there’s a lot of mopping up to do from the earlier fights that peaked around 2012. Take, for example, that time when Google GOOG bought Motorola and its patents in order to fight rivals, including Microsoft MSFT and Apple AAPL , who had ganged up to attack its Android devices.”

There is a lot more coverage in legal sites, legal chronicles, and legal blogs, not to mention Microsoft-friendly sites, pro-Microsoft sites (by design) [1, 2], and much of the corporate media [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9], even some smaller news sites [1, 2, 3], some of which focus on law [1, 2]. These all serve to remind us that Microsoft is still attacking Android (and by extension Linux) using software patents. Don’t think that a dying company like Microsoft will just drop dead without a last fight. Secrecy has been Microsoft’s strongest weapon here; it’s a shame that many Linux-leaning sites have been ignoring or overlooking this. █

Summary: A reminder of where we stand on the issue of patent ‘reform’ in the US and who is controlling or shaping it

REMEMBER when Nokia was giving patents to Android-hostile trolls like MOSAID (with Microsoft’s confirmed involvement in the transaction)? Well, Florian Müller (funded by Microsoft) entirely omits Microsoft’s role. Some trolls are serving the agenda of much larger companies (they act as proxies), so clearly enough (to a prudent observer), it’s not only trolls who are the problem. It’s an institutional problem.

Nevertheless, the PATENT Act which we wrote about before is still hailed by legal and corporate media as the solution, despite its inability to deal with or tackle big trolls (like Microsoft). Some GOP-leaning sites even protect the small trolls (see “Small inventors step up fight to block patent overhaul law”) although it’s correctly stated that the “legislation only helps big companies”.

They are now trying the “startup” angle to shoot down the PATENT Act and its sibling, the Innovation Act. One article from David Pridham (posted also in The Hill) says: “The proposed Innovation Act (HR 9) is supposed to target only patent trolls. But as the National Venture Capital Association and 144 major universities warn, the bill’s poorly drafted provisions actually will undermine the startups and small businesses responsible for nearly all breakthrough innovation and job growth in the United States.”

“It is not true that startups would be hurt, unless they built their business on a house of cards (or patent applications).”It’s true that these changes “target only patent trolls.” It is not true that startups would be hurt, unless they built their business on a house of cards (or patent applications).

lawyers from IAM used the same kind of angle to discredit any reform, claiming that the system is “stacked [...] against the small inventor” (or stacked in favour of large corporation).

See the article “A devastating blow to Wisconsin’s innovators”. It’s that same talking point again.

“Most notably,” it says, “the law will install extensive new documentation requirements for patent lawsuits. Lawmakers want to increase the burden of bringing a case to court in order to discourage frivolous suits. But the law won’t only raise the difficulty of filing an unfounded suit, it also will make it harder for legitimate patent holders to protect their intellectual property in court. Inventors will be required to file hundreds of pages of technical paperwork just to start a lawsuit.”

“It was reported some years ago that Gates and his mate Nathan Myhrvold (the world’s biggest patent troll) had both been lobbying the government regarding patent law.”That’s just overrated. Small companies (except trolls) cannot use patents against large companies because they simply don’t have enough patents; they can be sued in retaliation by the large companies. When we saw the words “Partying for Innovation” in this new press release about “Happy Patent Day” we were reminder of this old myth that patents are supposed to help the “small guy” or the “poor inventor”. It ought to be evident by now that the real goal of today’s patents (and the law which accompanies them) is to protect large corporations, including those which use trolls as their assault drones/attack dogs. Why is law being tilted so profoundly in favour of large corporations? Look no further than prominent politicians like the Clintons. As Timothy B. Lee showed the other day, “Both sides of the patent reform debate have been showering Hillary Clinton with cash” (because they can afford to bribe politicians).

“On Friday night,” wrote Lee, “Hillary Clinton revealed the names of the various companies and trade groups that have collectively given her millions of dollars in speaking fees since the beginning of 2014. Looking through the list, one thing that stood out to me was how many of the payments came from companies with a strong interest in the patent reform debate.”

The corrupt patent system is a result of a corruptible political system. It’s not pleasant to hear, but anyone still believing that arguments will be judged based on merit rather than based on payments is clearly not paying attention. Bill Gates himself is exceptionally close to the Clintons — to the extent of having staff intersections at the highest of levels. Profits are paramount, no matter the means. A book about Microsoft’s genesis (Barbarians Led by Bill Gates, a book composed by the daughter of Microsoft’s PR mogul) explained that Bill Gates “had told Eller on a number of occasions that he longed to do a deal with the Russians because they were well educated and their labor was cheap.” That was before Gates lobbied the government (where he has enormous influence/control) for cheaper labour to come from abroad. It was reported some years ago that Gates and his mate Nathan Myhrvold (the world’s biggest patent troll) had both been lobbying the government regarding patent law. Millions were spent. Gates himself makes a huge fortune out of patents. It’s not speculation but a fact we habitually cover.

“It’s much ‘safer’ to blame the “trolls”, using them as a scapegoat that distracts patent debates from much bigger culprits.”Plutocrats’ control of politics is key here and as the plutocrats’ paper, Forbes (regular glorifier of Gates), told us the other day: “Of great concern is the issue of patent trolls. Every year, companies that don’t actually make or sell any products bring frivolous lawsuits against companies ranging from Google and Pfizer to the smallest of startups—alleging patent infringement. Despite the fact that these cases are nearly always dismissed when the patent holders fight back, defending against them can be prohibitively expensive. And as a result, they also distract from innovation.”

Actually, of even greater concern are large corporations and the plutocrats who run them, but don’t expect Forbes to speak negatively about them. Corporate media doesn’t view itself as ‘authorised’ to do that. It’s much ‘safer’ to blame the “trolls”, using them as a scapegoat that distracts patent debates from much bigger culprits. █

Photo from NASSCOM’s Web site

Summary: Some of the latest arguments against Free/libre software turn out to be arriving from couriers of Microsoft and its agenda

LAST NIGHT’S article about Microsoft's lobbying in India sure made a lot of a splash. It had impact. It has been widely circulated by now, even by former Microsoft managers who had grown tired of the company’s abuses. Upon further research we found out the role of NASSCOM.

For those who cannot recall the historic role of NASSCOM, here is a quick summary of posts of ours, covering NASSCOM:

• Something Rotten at NASSCOM and Microsoft (Again)
• More Proof That NASSCOM Should be Dismantled
• What Bill Gates Did in India: Business as Usual
• Microsoft Leverages Indian Commerce and Government to Increase Dependency
• Microsoft May Have Bribed India for OOXML Pressure
• Wipro, Infosys and TCS Under Fire for Blind, Self-serving Endorsement of Monopolisation
• Since When is Bill Gates an Indian Official?

NASSCOM is now pushing against the Indian government’s Free software-friendly policy. Techrights is unusually popular in India (based on various Web metrics like Alexa) and our Indian readers have often been cynical about the integrity of their officials/politicians. They probably recognise Microsoft’s influence in the Indian government and right now Microsoft appears to be doing its lobbying (against FOSS) in India using a group that is tied to Bill Gates (not just Microsoft) and masquerades as non-commercial. This is gross distortion of justice, even corruption.

“NASSCOM is now pushing against the Indian government’s Free software-friendly policy.”Another Bill Gates-backed (and Bill Gates-funded) group, the Gartner Group, recently spread a lot of FUD against FOSS and advertised Windows using lies (some Gartner staff came from Microsoft). One very recent piece of FUD against FOSS (there is some against containers, using ‘security’) says that there is a lack of skills. Gartner recently injected these claims into a lot of Web sites, assisted by gullible writers. Mike Olson, speaking to the media, shoots down Gartner’s latest FUD, noting that Gartner cites a non-existent dilemma. And to use his own words: “The reason I think Gartner’s report is off base, enterprises don’t need to build deep data science skills if they can buy solutions and applications that run on top of the platform that allows them to solve business problems.”

The problem with Microsoft is that it is well connected and a lot of the talking points against Free software come from buddies, partners, former staff and mouthpieces of Microsoft. This cannot be conveniently ignored and refuting the lies isn’t a case of shooting the messenger, just showing who the messenger works for/with. █

Summary: Microsoft’s strategy against Android mirrors the company’s evil strategy that derailed MeeGo and Nokia

THERE remains a small crowd in the Free software world that is easily fooled by Microsoft’s claims that it’s warming up to Free software (though Microsoft won’t use the “F” word, it just wants to kill Freedom). It’s a harmful façade which facilitates infiltration and today we are going to remind readers of what Microsoft is really up to. It’s a moles strategy.

“Patent extortion is not “pro-competitive”, it is anti-competitive, but that’s just what happens when Microsoft lobbyists speak out.”Microsoft's attack on Android through Cyanogen is easy for all to see. Cyanogen hates freedom; it hardly makes any pretenses about it. It’s not about choice, it’s not about privacy, and it is definitely not about freedom. It’s likely to become all about Microsoft. But not only Cyanogen is part of this subversive strategy. Samsung too seems to have been pressured into it. Florian Müller, who was paid by Microsoft (specifically the patent exotortion part of the company), wrote this ludicrous thing the other day: “Congratulations to @MicrosoftIP and @Samsung on settling their Android patent royalty dispute. This is good news bc it’s pro-competitive.”

Patent extortion is not “pro-competitive”, it is anti-competitive, but that’s just what happens when Microsoft lobbyists speak out. Well, perhaps that’s Microsoft’s money talking. Müller openly admitted to me last month that Microsoft had paid him more than once.

Well, the upcoming S series (Galaxy) is not infested with Microsoft apps based on reports we have posted in recent days in our daily links. Perhaps this is only the “embrace” stage, not yet the “extend”. Microsoft’s criminal track record and series of dead products (including Windows Mobile) ought to serve as a warning here. Nokia is pretty much dead to the bone and almost exactly one year ago Motley Fool (Microsoft-affiliated) published some ugly revisionism about it, flattering Microsoft and hailing it as some kind of rescuer rather than a killer/assassin of Nokia, which had only begun seriously adopting Linux, quickly becoming one of the top contributors to Linux.

What Microsoft did to Nokia was an utter failure, but not according to a Microsoft spinner who wrote:

Nokia’s 2011 decision to collaborate with Microsoft by swapping out Symbian with Windows Phone was a good one, but by the time it was made, the sun was already setting.

This is completely untrue as a lot of evidence suggests. Nokia had released devices with MeeGo and they did quite well despite the fact that Microsoft quickly buried them. Windows was always a dud and people did not want another Windows/Office on their phone. This whole idea was rejected by the market, whereas Android as an option for Nokia would have worked quite well (many apps, virtually no security issues, low cost). Motley Fool, which is associated with MSN (Microsoft), did at least conclude correctly:

So no, these latest results aren’t quite the final chapter for Microsoft/Nokia phones…but that unit’s best days are clearly far behind it, and it doesn’t look like it has much of a future to speak of.

Don’t let the Android leaders (like Samsung) become another Nokia. There is already a lot of distortion of history, exploiting people’s short memory span. We are being assaulted by media ownership and control, as exercised by Bill Gates under disguise of ‘charity’ in order for him to hoard more money while the media keeps people dumb about it (thinking he is giving money). Vis-a-vis Gates, Microsoft executives are lobbying China to adopt Microsoft’s back doors that the NSA uses for espionage purposes (with Microsoft’s help). As China bans Microsoft software (rightly so for security reasons) Bill Gates reportedly goes lobbying China’s technology minister. China has by far the biggest mobile market. How insidious an opportunist Gates has become. How many companies does he need to kill before the world wakes up and takes defensive/reactionary steps? █

Summary: The story of Caspar Bowden retold in the media, noting that he lost his job after he had warned the abusive company about the NSA

Caspar Bowden recommends GNU/Linux. He wasn’t always like that however. He worked for Microsoft, but right now he works hard explaining to people that Microsoft is a sham when it comes to privacy. He should know. He was the company’s Chief Privacy Officer. He warned about Microsoft’s NSA situation almost 4 years ago.

“Caspar Bowden recommends GNU/Linux.”This new article, originally titled “Ex MS privacy head had warned of cloud spying, but lost his job”, shows how the Microsoft cult treats people with morals. The article has been retitled “Former Microsoft privacy head had warned of cloud spying” (no explanation for the headline change) and there is another article like it, concurring with the former article and saying that he was fired. To quote this latter article:

In 2013, when Edward Snowden began leaking information about the massive surveillance program known as PRISM, much of the world was shocked.

But for dozens of high level Microsoft employees, the news may have been old hat.

According to Microsoft’s then-Chief Privacy Advisor, Caspar Bowden, he warned dozens of colleagues in 2011, two full years before Snowden’s National Security Agency disclosures became worldwide news. Specifically, he says, he told dozens of colleagues that increasingly gutted American privacy laws, thanks to the 2008 FISA Amendment Act, meant the NSA could conduct “unlimited surveillance” on cloud computing data sold to foreign countries.

So here we see someone who did care about privacy. What did Microsoft do about him? It fired him. It says a lot about Microsoft.

As we showed numerous times last year, Bill Gates supports the NSA and disregards Edward Snowden. It has been like that since the nineties at the very least. Unlike Richard Stallman, whose interviews with us are being re-encoded right now, Gates openly supports surveillance, bribes newspapers to fool the public about him (glorifying tax exemption loopholes), and based on one of our readers, “Wired continues shilling for Bill”, essentially whitewashing criminals with a new PR piece.

It is sad that people who obey the law and wish to compel a company to obey the law lose their job, whereas the criminals become very affluent and seemingly admired by the journalists whom they bribe for it. In some ways, Caspar Bowden is like John Kiriakou, except he only lost his job rather than go to jail for nearly 3 years (for exposing illegal torture).█

Summary: Piketty is approached by Bill Gates, who bemoans the idea that the plutocrats too should pay tax like the rest of us

BEST-SELLING author Piketty reveals some interesting details about the mindset of Bill Gates, the man who created — using criminal activity — software monopolies and is now preoccupied with monopolies in education (public sector), a GMO monopoly, etc.

“This relates to the whole “job creator” myth — a myth more harmful that that of the “free market”.”As mentioned the other day, Gates is increasing his personal wealth very quickly. He is not giving away or back, except in the form of media distortion and spin (he bribes a lot of publications and channels for this distortion and spin). The money he acquires is not earned through hard work; some of it is essentially stolen from taxpayers (through bamboozled politicians), taken by force from poor and exploited people, and on top of this Gates evades tax using the Gates Foundation.

A reader sent us this article about two of the most famous people for supposed ‘charity’ (actually investing tax-free in large corporations that exceptionally harm society and the planet). The article says that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett became $21.1 billion richer in just one year (last year). To quote: “The fact that wealth begets more wealth was illustrated once again last year by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, currently the two richest people on Earth. According to Bloomberg, the pair finished 2014 a combined $21.1 billion richer than when the year began. (Gates’ fortune rose $8.1 billion to a total of $86.6 billion. Buffett’s rose $13 billion; he’s now worth $73.8 billion.)”

A lot of gullible people think that Gates is feeding the world with wealth rather than hoarding at the world’s expense (this money comes or is generated by other people’s labour), so to them the idea of Gates dodging tax may seem appealing. This relates to the whole “job creator” myth — a myth more harmful that that of the “free market”. Gates and Buffett happily let their bribed papers tell us they are “givers” and the Wall Street press (Bloomberg), owned itself by a plutocratic billionaire, reveals what Gates thinks about paying tax:

“I had this discussion with Bill Gates a couple of weeks ago,” Piketty, the author of “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” said today at an economics conference in Boston. “He told me, ‘I love everything that’s in your book, but I don’t want to pay more tax.” A tax on wealth is one of Piketty’s key recommendations for addressing inequality.

The famous thief Bill Gates literally tells Piketty: “I don’t want to pay more tax”. what a ‘generous’ guy, eh?

“Minor Gates apology going on there,” wrote to us a reader, “and emphasized in articles based on the Bloomberg post.”

Never expect balanced coverage of Gates from Wall Street papers that are themselves owned by famous billionaires. This includes the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. These newspapers exist to serve power and depreciate privileges of all except the super-rich. █

Summary: Bill Gates continues to engage in class war by creating a penal system that maximises detention while giving poor people dependence on giant food monopolies, both of which he profits from

THE Gates Foundation‘s destructive path is not news. A lot who are sceptical of corporate media have been paying attention to how the Gates Foundation bribes a lot of writers (even bloggers) to bamboozle those without critical skills, so we live in a world where a lot of people think that GMO is about ending hunger and that Bill Gates is a charitable man (they don’t know he invests in GMO, which is essentially a patent monopoly on nature).

“He just keeps getting richer at a pace of about 10% per year”Bill Gates has been working with PR magnates for well over three decades, so he knows how to play this game. He would pose for photos to appear in newspapers, usually with black kids or poor kids (ultimate PR hit in local/national media), but won’t even paint a bridge [1, 2] or associate himself with tasks he never did (he grew up in a super-affluent family with many helpers). He would fly a private jet to very poor areas, contributing little more than carbon and a dangerous impression that the world’s plutocrats are those who will save it (famous mythology that serves power). Let’s look at some recent figures. The super rich people are getting richer and richer ($92 billion richer in the past year for the richest 0.000000006% – yes, that’s in 2014 alone!) while using their corporate press (bribed or subsidised) to fool or scam the public. Here is how much money Gates has made last year:

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft Corp., was up $9.1 billion during the year.

Wow, what a giver! He just keeps getting richer at a pace of about 10% per year. Last year was more than 10%. Is this a cause for celebration? This wealth came from somewhere, he wasn’t created in a vacuum. Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire himself, helps glorify the looting in his publication:

The world’s 400 richest people added some $92 billion to their collective wealth in 2014, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. As of Dec. 29, they were all worth a combined $4.1 trillion.

The reasons we have hunger in the world include the fact that just 80 people or so have the same combined wealth as 3,500,000,000 people (the poorer people). It is a wealth distribution issue. The 400 richest people probably have as much in combined wealth as the poorest 5,000,000,000 or so people (the latter figure is a conjecture, the former is established). Watch another billionaire, Rupert Murdoch, using his Wall Street-centric media to once again whitewash the name-shifting “Bill Gates Investments” (basically a Gates Foundation extension that does not need to pretend not to be after money). That what happens when you have much to dodge. Gates invests in big polluters and even worse companies than that. The Gates Foundation wishes not to be seen as an investment vehicle, but the decoupling is merely cosmetic. Gates supports private prisons (to control the poor) by investments in G4S and reportedly in GEO. Here is last month’s article from Mother Jones:

Is the Gates Foundation Still Investing in Private Prisons?

[...]

In recent years, the GEO Group has faced accusations of detainee abuse and substandard care in multiple states. In 2012, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Detention Oversight reported that GEO Group’s Adelanto facility near Los Angeles had committed “several egregious errors” in administering medical care to detainees. (GEO Group has repeatedly dismissed allegations of mistreatment.) More recently, a group of former immigrant detainees in Colorado sued the company for making them work around the prison for minimal pay, sometimes under the threat of solitary confinement. (The GEO Group said detainees were working under a “volunteer work program” and that its $1-per-day wages met federal standards.) The Gates Foundation Trust did not respond to requests for comment directed through a foundation spokesperson.

According to the Gates Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates—the only members of the trust’s board—have defined areas that the trust will not invest in, “such as companies whose profit model is centrally tied to corporate activity that [Bill and Melinda Gates] find egregious.” Tobacco companies fall into that category.

The trust’s last reported investment in the GEO Group took the form of a $2,148,790 bank loan. (The Gates Foundation Trust did not issue the loan itself. The term “bank loan” refers to a type of corporate debt that companies with low credit ratings occasionally sell through a conventional bank to get extra cash.) The asset was reported in a tax form filed with the Internal Revenue Service this October, but is accurate only through October 2013.

Bank loans can yield higher returns for investors than stocks or bonds, but their ownership is harder to trace independently.

In April, after demanding Gates divest from the GEO Group, supporters of a coalition of immigrant, Native American, and Latino rights groups rallied outside the foundation’s Seattle headquarters. The foundation eventually accepted more than 10,000 petitions from the activists and promised to submit their grievances to the trust.

“Bill Gates needs to be transparent about whether they’re still investing in GEO Group,” says Mariana Ruiz Firmat, managing director for Presente, which organized that protest. “It’s really problematic for the foundation, which claims to invest in communities of color. By investing in GEO Group now or in the past, that goes against communities of color.”

It’s not just prisons that Gates makes the news for. There is also the GMO venture he profits from, causing health issues (pesticides and mutations of genes) just so that he can secure a profitable monopoly on food. As one site put it last month:

At least 124 food and outreach organizations, as well as 26 individual scientists, have signed onto a letter sent to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation protesting ongoing human trials of genetically modified (GM), beta-carotene-enriched bananas intended for Africa.

The GM bananas, which never underwent animal trials, are currently being administered to 12 students attending Iowa State University (ISU), presumably without full disclosure as to the many unknown risks involved.

According to the letter, the trials are taking place under the guidance of Dr. Wendy White, an associate professor of food science and human nutrition. Funding for the trials came from a grant issued by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

“We, the undersigned, representing diverse constituencies from across Africa and the world, working towards food sovereignty, are strongly opposed to the human feeding trials taking place at the Iowa State University involving the so called genetically modified (GM) ‘super banana,’” reads the letter.

Here is how The Ecologist put it: “Among the controversial projects funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the development and testing of a biofortified GMO banana developed to boost its iron, Vitamin E and pro-Vitamin A content.

“To this end the Foundation, via its Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, has so far given $15 million to Queensland University of Technology for the program run by Professor Dr James Dale, with a latest tranche of $10 million handed over this year.”

Here again we see what Gates makes money from. Quite a good doer, eh? He seems to be following the footsteps of his father, who himself seems to be a businessman masquerading as good doer until his nineties. “Bill Gates Sr.,” says a Gates-connected site, “the 89-year-old father of the Microsoft co-founder, has resigned voluntarily from his position on the Costco Wholesale Corp. board, according to a regulatory filing from the Issaquah, Wash.-based company.”

If Bill Gates junior has another 30 or so years to harm the world for profit, then we are really in serious trouble. █

Summary: The latest reports about Gates’ attempt to buy the hearts and minds of the young generation by taking over the schools system in the US

THE Gates Foundation has been Bill Gates’ private front group for advancing his for-profit interests under the guise of goodwill or charity. Gates is not the only plutocrat who uses such mechanisms to camouflage his agenda, but he is probably the biggest among them. A lot of charities are basically a sham (self-feeding money vacuums that call for public input or taxpayers' money) and explaining to the public why this is so is not harming charity but defending the integrity or real charities. They have gotten a bad reputation because of people who exploit them, not just for tax-exempt status.

“The thing that motivates Gates to get involved is that he profits from it.”The other day there was a widely published report about Gates’ intervention in a taxpayers-funded system that he seeks to privatise for profit (we wrote many articles about Gates’ abduction of the US education/schools policy). It is probably the biggest and most lucrative such system except the US Army (trillions in money flow, excepting black budget). “When he took the stage,” said the article, “Bill Gates used the word “naive” — four times — to describe himself and his charitable foundation.”

Well, apparently he is not willfully ignorant. He knows damn well what he is doing. Valerie Strauss, a respected critic of Gates, recently wrote about Bill Gates buying agenda in the US public sector, primarily education. Her piece in an American journal of record stated: “In terms of dollars spent, Gates is the leading billionaire/millionaire who has poured money into school “reform” in recent years. Such philanthropy has raised questions about whether American democracy is well-served by wealthy people who pour so much money into their pet projects — regardless of whether they are known to be useful in education — that public policy and public funding follow in their wake.”

Here is an article about this original report from Strauss:

Gates has been credited by some and blamed by others for the spread of Common Core, which was initially adopted by 44 states and the District of Columbia. Since then, several states have repealed Common Core altogether, while others are making changes to the testing or are reviewing the standards.

The thing that motivates Gates to get involved is that he profits from it. It has nothing to do with sharing, it is about power. Moreover, based on this other new report, Gates is now giving cheques to the White House, possible in order to promote Windows in computer science:

The White House also announced $20 million in private donations to train 25,000 computer science teachers by 2016. Donations came from companies like Google and Microsoft and individuals like Bill Gates, Napster founder Sean Parker, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and others.

Notice how both Microsoft and Bill Gates put money in there. Microsoft is not a charity, so we can safely assume that the monetary gift has been justified as serving Microsoft’s bottom line. █

–Bill Gates

Summary: Bill Gates finds himself under scrutiny as people who are very close to him turn out to be making money from pedophilia

MR. GATES AND THE Gates Foundation are not going to comment on this incident. The ‘brand’ would be hurt. Distancing itself would be wise, but to dissociate from the crime would not be trivial.

“The amusing thing — not that child abuse is in any way amusing — is that he actually uses Google (not Microsoft) at Gates’ home.”We already wrote many articles about how Bill Gates gets children addicted to malware (like a drug dealer), but his staff goes further by trading pedophilia out of Gates’ own home. The amusing thing — not that child abuse is in any way amusing — is that he actually uses Google (not Microsoft) at Gates’ home. The British press has this to say:

An engineer employed at the home of Bill and Melinda Gates has been charged with possession of child porn after he was discovered to have more than 6,000 images depicting rape and sexual abuse.

Rick Allen Jones, 51, of Seattle, allegedly had thousands of images stashed on his home computer, according to court documents this week.

Here is what the press in Seattle (close and in some ways connected to Gates) wrote about this incident. The American press speaks of this interesting bit:

Jones has not been jailed, but he is ordered to stay away from all children.

Get this.

No jail after trading thousands of photos of child rape. If it was legal, Gates’ Corbis would probably have monetised that too. Perhaps — just perhaps — being close to Gates contributed to this (knowing politicians and having secret access to the system helps). Gates never ends up in jail, no matter how many crimes and how severe the crime he commits (there are many examples like this photography business, not just driving violations). Gates himself got arrested in the past, but he was rich enough to pay his way out of jail. Moreover, this is not the first time that Gates employs criminals (at a very high level even) who go to prison or even kill people. Examples were given here before. █

Summary: Intellectual Ventures founder leaves after an exceptionally large round of layoffs, despite recent subsidies from Sony and Microsoft

As noted in the previous post, software patents are gradually going away (if trends are to be judged). Not too long ago we showed how Intellectual Ventures laid off much of its staff after the Alice ruling (amid other ongoing issues). The layoffs were widely reported on and now we learn that Detkin is leaving while saying that “market is tough right now”. It is hilarious because he refers to extortion as a “market”. The news about his departure is excellent news, but he probably won’t go to prison for extortion and a pyramid scheme.

Here is the word from the site which targets trolls but not patent scope:

Here’s some schadenfreude for your Monday: seems that Peter Detkin is leaving Intellectual Ventures. As I noted about a year ago, IV has been having a tough time, although it’s not clear why Detkin is stepping down.

It is worth noting that Sony and Microsoft recently paid more money to Intellectual Ventures in order to keep it afloat. It is also worth noting that Microsoft and Sony share investments in other massive patent trolls and they also share a role in crimes, outlined in part by [1,2,3] (below) and revelations about Sony threatening journalists while launching DDOS attacks. As Will Hill put it the other day:

Inside the Perception Management and Censorship Machine: The Sony Crack Yields Evidence of More Sony Criminal Conduct

Techdirt reports political corruption and bribery against Google by all the major movie studios, all missed by the incompetence or malice of The Verge, a Microsoft mouthpiece. Big publishers are insatiable censors interested only in maintaining their dominant position as determiners of world culture. Google’s efforts to please them only served evil.

The Microsoft press also focuses on Hollywood celebrities and personalized trivia. While it’s nice to learn that Sony executives are racist pigs with a 0.01% sense of privilege and power, hundreds of articles like this will pollute the name space and make it difficult to find real news later.

email exchanges also included racially insensitive remarks about President Obama and derisive comments about Hollywood heavyweights like Kevin Hart and Adam Sandler.

Microsoft often pollutes name spaces and is probably coming to the rescue of their big publisher pals. Microsoft is also persistent censorship threat. They are the biggest issuer of DMCA take down requests, a prolific briber of public officials, university professors, and they created an entire search engine by spying on Windows users to know what results scrape from Google. If you want to know just how dishonest a company they are read their training manuals about subverting the press [2]

Sony themselves are using every botnet and cracking tool at their disposal to stop people from sharing their leaked emails. Amazon Web Services is also being used to censor the files. It’s not about movies, it’s about the embarrassment of power.

The company is using hundreds of computers in Asia to execute what’s known as a denial of service attack on sites where its pilfered data is available … Sony is using Amazon Web Services, the Internet retailer’s cloud computing unit, which operates data centers in Tokyo and Singapore, to carry out the counterattack … individuals who attempted to access the torrent file encountered bogus “seeds” — or computers — that sapped the resources of their software …

There’s a great deal of fear mongering and BS going on. While the attack was typical Windows malware, the FBI is reported to say it’s really sophisticated and that 90% of businesses and governments are open to similar attacks. If you don’t use Windows, you don’t have to worry about this one. The FBI also says there is no connection to North Korea, but that’s being brought up about as often as Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Sony is a criminal company as has been obvious since their nasty music CD root kit fiasco. Not only did they root millions of computers, which must have included sensitive “protected” military, government and health care systems, they committed criminal copyright infringement by using GNU software to make it. As Richard Stallman noted at the time,

Sony didn’t comply with all that [the GPL]. That’s commercial copyright infringement, which is a felony. They’re both felonies, but Sony wasn’t prosecuted because the government understands that the purpose of the government and the law is to maintain the power of those companies over us, not to help defend our freedom in any way.

If you did not believe him then, Snowden and other brave people are providing you with plenty of proof.

One more area where Sony and Microsoft intersect is patent attacks on Google, among other attacks of other types. See the new report titled “Leaked Emails Reveal MPAA Plans To Pay Elected Officials To Attack Google”. A lot of companies, including Facebook which uses the same lobbyists as Microsoft, pressure politicians to harm Google, a steward or guardian of some important FOSS projects, including Linux-based operating systems.

In other news from the above site (the original is unfortunately behind a paywall), there is a new breed of troll which Matt Levy explains as follows:

Here’s the scenario: a patent troll files a suit (or suits) and wins a big judgment. Another company then files an inter partes review petition with the PTAB against the patent troll’s patent and demands a payoff from the patent troll in exchange for withdrawing the petition. If the troll doesn’t pay, it risks losing its patent in the IPR.

I would be more upset about this if I could stop laughing, although it’s hardly a positive development. It can’t be good to have more trolls, even if their victims are patent trolls. Unless of course this new twist helps spotlight dysfunctionality in the patent system for the new Congress.

It’s like extortion against extortion and it is not going to work (blackmail is inherently a problem). It’s like trying to extinguish terrorism using terrorism. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Sony Leak: The Secret Meetings That Set Hollywood’s Anti-Piracy War Plan

   Every year, legal representatives from seven of the biggest movie studios in the country gather in Sherman Oaks, California to talk about all things anti-piracy. Which isn’t surprising; it’s their livelihood, after all. But what does leaves a sour taste in your mouth is their plan to spread the DMCA-dispensing gospel: With shadowy back room dealings and skewed facts.

   According to an email in the leaked inbox of Sony Pictures General Counsel Leah Weil, the meeting is facilitated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as a way for the top lawyers at Sony, Time Warner, Viacom, Paramount, Disney, NBC Universal, and Fox to put their heads together and talk global strategy.

2. Sony Hackers Threaten to Release a Huge ‘Christmas Gift’ of Secrets

   As leaks from the recent Sony hack continue to make headlines and company executives apologize for insensitive comments made in exposed emails, we still don’t know how the hack occurred or the exact nature of the demands made by the attackers. But we’ve learned a bit about Sony’s security practices. And we’ve learned that the attackers may have tried to extort Sony before releasing its secrets. We’ve also learned that attempts by Sony to rally public support from rival studios has failed.

3. News Agencies Are Within Their Rights to Report on the Leaked Sony Data

   On Sunday, a lawyer from Sony Pictures Entertainment sent a strongly-worded letter to news organizations, including The New York Times and Hollywood Reporter, demanding that they not report on the vast quantity of data in the Sony leak.