12.21.14

The New Age of Games for UNIX/Linux But Not for Windows, Microsoft is Openwashing Windows-Only Games

Posted in GNU/Linux, Microsoft, Windows at 6:35 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The world is moving to GNU- and Linux-powered platforms, so Microsoft withdraws GNU/Linux support from games it buys and starts openwashing its Windows-only games

GNU/Linux sure is a growing force in the world of gaming. The embrace by Steam helped a lot, but it did not single-handedly change things. Other companies foresaw the demise of Windows. Microsoft knows what’s going on as its domination slipped away and gamers are now able to move to GNU/Linux by the millions while games get ported to GNU/Linux by the hundreds (if not thousands). This includes some very high-profile games.

According to this new article from Sam Machkovech, “Bluetooth on Windows is a mess.”

The article from Machkovech is titled “Microsoft tells J.S. Joust devs their game is “NOT possible” on Windows” and our reader said: “Development on Windows is hard to the point of being impractical if not impossible. The mono-culture for years kept that flaw hidden. People realize that as they are now getting back into cross-platform development.”

So here we have a game for GNU/Linux that won’t be available on Windows. That’s quite a twist of fate. Windows is now the neglected platform. Developers find it hard to work with.

Microsoft recently found itself buying a company that makes cross-platform games, killing the GNU/Linux versions. So Minecraft drops the platform which Microsoft publicly claims to ‘love’ (it’s a lie) after Microsoft takes over, based on this report: “Minecraft: Story Mode is a brand new adventure being created around Minecraft, but sadly Linux has been left out in the cold it seems.

“Minecraft: Story mode will be a narrative-driven video game created by Telltale Games. It will be about Minecraft. Telltale have made some pretty highly rated games, so for general gamers this will probably be exciting news.”

Microsoft, which lies about “loving” Linux, sure is not showing any love.

On the contrary, as the Windows monopoly is eroding, largely thanks to Android, which uses Linux, Microsoft is now openwashing its Windows-only games, misusing the “open source” label. IDG appears to have just hired one of Microsoft’s most fanboyish person as ‘reporter’ to do this openwashing and there were plenty of Microsoft puff pieces after that, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4]. What Microsoft calls “open source” here is the server side (not desktop side) of a Windows-only proprietary game. Compare that to truly Free software games or games for GNU/Linux (not just through Steam) and Android. Microsoft’s PR fooled a lot of its moles inside the media, including apologists like Adrian Bridgwater, but it should be clear that this is fake “open source” (just like .NET). It is about deceiving the public and changing perceptions. █

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12.20.14

Microsoft Essentially Sends Malware to Windows and Bricks It

Posted in Microsoft, Windows at 12:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The cost of cheap and/or underqualified staff?

Summary: Microsoft is once again bricking Vista 7, demonstrating lack of reliability or very low quality programming

Jason Evangelho said that “New Windows 7 Patch Is Effectively Malware”. This is how he put it in the headline at Forbes, showing just how “professional” Microsoft has become. It is so “people-ready” that it bricks computers. A Microsoft booster told the story like this: “Microsoft withdraws bad Windows 7 update that broke future Windows 7 updates”. Actually, it’s not just about future updates. It’s a a lot worse than that. Vista 7 becomes like a brick, unable to change. The full details are found further down in smaller fonts:

One of this week’s Patch Tuesday updates for Windows 7 has been withdrawn after some users discovered that it blocked installation of software containing digital signatures, including first- and third-party software, and even other Windows updates.

[...]

With Windows Update so important to keeping Windows users secure, a loss of confidence would be very bad news. But if this kind of problem continues, that seems like an inevitable outcome. While IT departments might be able to test updates in a lab before deploying them, providing some protection against faulty fixes, home users have no such luxury. Users have to have confidence that installing an update won’t break their machine. Broken, withdrawn updates shake that confidence.

Years ago (more than half a decade back) we warned that Vista 7 was basically just a lump of hype, perceptions distortion, and shameless lies. Now we see more evidence of this.

Microsoft Peter’s praises of Vista 7 and other Microsoft spyware continue nonetheless. Even when there is a serious problem he is belittling the problem rather than giving Microsoft a hard time. That is the role of Microsoft boosters. “Botched KB 3004394 triggers error messages, but no response from Microsoft” said the heading from IDG, showing that Microsoft is silent on such a serious matter. They’re speechless! Years ago we warned that a lot of key Windows developers were leaving and then often being replaced by cheap or poorly qualified staff. We said this would harm the quality of patches, not just of future versions of Windows. We were right.

Perhaps it is time to switch off Microsoft boosters like Microsoft Peter. Over the years he has done little more than mock Microsoft’s critics, including regulators (he still publishes revisionism about Microsoft’s browser abuses), so if we ever pursue the truth, we need to steer away from Microsoft’s media moles. █

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Microsoft Lays Off Staff, Cheapens Labour as More Companies Are Dumping Microsoft’s Lock-in, NSA-Friendly Services, and Windows

Posted in Microsoft at 11:56 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A look at some of Microsoft’s latest woes, including an appeal for cheaper labour amid decrease in business

MICROSOFT HAS not been having a good year, irrespective of what its shareholders wish to believe. The NSA leaks have not done this monopolistic informant any good and Ballmer was pushed out. So was a lot of the workforce, as Microsoft had announced massive layoffs, even bigger than in prior years. It’s a company that is shrinking, based on several parameters.

Putting aside the publicity stunt ‘lawsuit’ from Microsoft (over data in Ireland, not just a tax haven to Microsoft), the company is fading away. Microsoft fails to make the news as much as it used to (we used to observe the company very closely) and when it makes the news it’s not often rosy. Microsoft is a proprietary software company that uses software to spy on the entire world. If information (or knowledge is power), then a lot of information facilitates domination of one group over another. That’s what NSA is about. Microsoft is basically an apparatus of imperialism and a lot of nations, including China and Russia, seem to be getting it, whereupon they migrate to GNU/Linux. Microsoft is now paying the price of sucking up to its government.

On the subject of Microsoft layoffs, their true extent has been impacted by a strategy from around 5 years ago. Microsoft hides the scale of layoffs by hiring cheap/temporary staff without worker protections/privileges (pension, compensation etc.) and sometimes by recruiting overseas (countries with lower salaries) while laying off ‘expensive’ — albeit usually more skilled — staff. Here is a new report’s summary: “The federal government has granted an exemption to Microsoft Canada that will allow the company to bring in an unspecified number of temporary foreign workers to British Columbia as trainees without first looking for Canadians to fill the jobs.

“A notice posted on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website says foreign workers will receive specialized training in a new human resources development centre in the province. The tech giant will not have to perform a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) — a rigorous process that would include a search for Canadians who could fill the positions.”

As we showed here several years ago, Microsoft uses British Columbia to bypass visa restrictions in the United States (where Gates does plenty of lobbying on visa issues so as to enrich himself further at the expense of the middle class). People who will be working in British Columbia will be mostly immigrants if history is anything to judge by. Also notice that the report says “foreign workers” and “foreign trainees”. It’s a race to the bottom. It’s a race game – a game of globalists who deprive workers and take away their rights.

“Perhaps Canadian citizens are too smart or honest to qualify,” wrote one of our readers.

Regarding Microsoft’s influence, it is rapidly diminishing. Binstock’s site will finally stop advertising Microsoft under the guise of ‘news’. “Killed by sucking up to Microsoft” said a reader of ours about this news regarding the death of Dr. Dobb’s, whose Web site is not to be confused with the paper publication. The Web site basically became a Microsoft mouthpiece in recent years, after a Microsoft booster, Andrew Binstock (editor), drove it to the ground along with its credibility (we gave many examples), just like Elop did at Nokia. The death of the site was mourned by a Microsoft booster, Tim Anderson, who labelled it “specialist programming site” although in recent years it was run almost single-handedly by a Microsoft booster. It is actually not too shocking that Dr. Dobb’s put a Microsoft booster in charge; its new owner, a partner of Microsoft (UBM), put a Microsoft advertiser in charge perhaps in order to attract more advertising money. UBM merely committed suicide or shot the site at the back of the head when it chose bias over news, but either way, it’s all over now.

What happened at Dr. Dobb’s is not the exception. Many pro-Microsoft sites died or went silent. Remember Microsoft Watch, which was Microsoft advertising disguised as “watching”? Not only the sites died; their authors too went away or turned to other areas. Quite a few Microsoft boosters, including major ones like Joe Wilcox and Ian Fried (no typo), have left the scene or turned to other areas. Microsoft media proxy is quickly eroding. Other memorable examples include Microsoft Emil, Microsoft Nick, and Microsoft Jack, who is not very active anymore and sometimes covers Google or Linux these days (not necessarily bashing them, either).

This does not mean that Microsoft has run out of moles in the media. Here for instance we have Microsoft .NET advertisements and openwashing. This was published a few days ago in a Microsoft-funded British news site and it was authored by the Microsoft-bribed Tim Anderson (the same guy who mourns the loss of yet another Microsoft propaganda site, as noted above). This “Exclusive Interview” from Anderson is basically giving Microsoft a platform and dubbing it ‘news’. Complete nonsense. Please also note that Microsoft’s proxy in the UK (Accenture) wants to keep bamboozling managers under the guise of “advice” because it’s a very lucrative market in financial terms. One of Microsoft’s many moles at CBS reminded us that it’s all about Microsoft. The timing seems right because a lot of the British public sector and exploring and even moving to Free software, more standards (such as ODF), and greater technological autonomy.

“The timing seems right because a lot of the British public sector and exploring and even moving to Free software, more standards (such as ODF), and greater technological autonomy.”Not just the public sector moves away from Microsoft. Some of the biggest companies in the private sector are increasingly doing the same thing. Earlier this year we wrote about Ford dumping Microsoft after Ford had been Microsoft’s close ally for years. “Good news,” called it a reader, “except for the fact that it is inflicting “infotainment” systems on buyers.”

As asked: “Is QNX still hybrid?” Well, it is not Free software like Linux, but alas, the main problem is that BlackBerry is becoming a patent troll and this is where Ford is heading. As Simon Sharwood put it the other day:

As foreshadowed in February, Ford has announced a new in-car entertainment and communications system that will run on BlackBerry’s QNX real-time operating system, not Windows as is the case for the company’s current efforts.

Ford Sync 3 will offer touch-screen and voice recognition controls. The latter will allow drivers to command both their vehicle and apps on their phone. Siri control is another feature.

The auto-maker’s offered a touch-screen system for some time now, but it’s widely regarded as one of its weak points. A complete refresh on a new operating system therefore looks like a good move.

It’s certainly one BlackBerry will appreciate, as broader uptake of QNX is one of its hoped-for exit routes from the mucky world of smartphones. A few million highly-visible QNX machines shipped each year will therefore be most appreciated.

Just because Ford left Microsoft doesn’t mean it made the right choice. It just chose a lesser evil.

We were gratified to learn that Facebook, which uses GNU/Linux in its servers, rid itself of Microsoft as well. Microsoft is so yesterday that even Facebook dumps it. As the media in California put it, “Facebook confirmed that it’s no longer including search results from Bing on its site. The Bing deal began around the time Microsoft bought its Facebook stake, and was renewed in 2010.

“The move will hurt Bing’s search market share, which was already ailing after a recent redesign of Microsoft’s consumer web site, MSN.”

Will Microsoft shares in Facebook also be returned (forcibly)? They cannot be turned into private ownership, sadly enough, which harms self determination at Facebook. Microsoft has held Facebook hostage for many years. Either way, traffic in Facebook very rapidly declines these days (that’s a story for another day), so we don’t expect the company to be around for much longer. Incidentally, Mac Asay, writing in the Microsoft-centric media, calls Facebook “largest open-source company”, which is utter nonsense. Mac Asay also dubs people he does not agree with “jerks”, but that’s quite typical of him (he is the only person in Twitter whom I know blocked me). Mr. Asay — it is worth reminding readers — had applied for a job at Microsoft before he worked for Novell.

The bottom line is, Microsoft is rotting and we are hoping that it will go down the same path in years to come. Its once-large empire is now just a fort begging for survival and sacrificing its own staff. █

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12.19.14

Links 19/12/2014: Robolinux 7.7.1 LXDE, Red Hat Thriving

Posted in News Roundup at 12:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Another Microsoft Partner Markets Linux FUD Using Logo, Name, and Lies

Posted in FUD, Microsoft, Red Hat, Security at 12:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The great power of lies and gullible journalists

Summary: Microsoft’s partner Alert Logic is trying to label a feature of Linux a security flaw and even makes marketing buzz for it

IF A reporter or two can be bamboozled into printing a lie (digitally distributing it), this can lend some credibility/legitimacy to the lie and then it is possible that the lie will spread and be echoed in other reports. Hence the importance of this matter.

“They are trying to change perceptions around Free software security.”Several journalists have already rebutted something that I debunked some days ago when I first saw some nonsense about “Grinch” with a suitable “marketing” image. Here is one rebuttal among a few:

The Grinch flaw was reported by Stephen Cody, chief security evangelist at Alert Logic. Cody alleges that the Grinch flaw enables users on a local machine to escalate privileges. Leading Linux vendor Red Hat, however, disagrees that the Grinch issue is even a bug and instead notes in a Red Hat knowledge base article that the Grinch report “incorrectly classifies expected behavior as a security issue.”

The original security researcher that reported the Grinch found that if a user logs into a Linux system as the local administrator, the user could run a certain command that would enable the user to install a package, explained Josh Bressers, lead of the Red Hat Product Security Team.

“Local administrators are trusted users,” Bressers told eWEEK. “This isn’t something you hand out to everybody.”

We believe it was Joab Jackson (IDG) who first gave a platform to the Microsoft partner (Alert Logic) that used marketing buzz and a lie against Linux, soon to be rebutted by Red Hat. I had contacted Mr. Jackson, who later told me that he posted a follow-up (or correction).

Jackson’s correction may have come too late as we saw the lie spreading to a few other news sites later on (thankfully not too many sites). Here is one example of garbage ‘reporting’ (FUD and lies), generated by the FUD firm with with a catchy name, sort of logo etc. (generated by a Microsoft partner we might add). Apart from Jackson’s piece we saw at least 3 more such articles (which came afterwards). How many are going to post a correction? How many articles will be withdrawn? How many follow-ups will be published? Tumbleweed. Silence.

It is usually Windows that has zero-days during Christmas, not GNU or Linux. There was recently other nonsense with a name, claiming to be a flaw when it was actually some other malware (potentially developed by the Russian government) that users actually have to install (not from repositories) to be infected by. It was akin to a phishing attack, but it was widely used in the press (even in IDG, Jackson’s employer) to characterise GNU/Linux as insecure.

Remember what the Microsoft-connected firm did with "Heartbleed" (the name it made up with a promotional logo). It’s all about marketing and hype. They are trying to change perceptions around Free software security. What matters is what people remember, not the truth. This is all about discouraging users or buyers.

A reader has alerted us about this article from Armenia . “Note the job title of the ‘softer,” he said. Here is the relevant portion:

Armenia’s Minister of Defense Seyran Ohanyan received Microsoft Corporation’s Regional Director for Public Safety/National Security/Defense Robert Kosla.

Joke or real? It sounds like a joke, but they are definitely not joking. Armenia talks to the NSA’s biggest partner and back doors-loving company about ‘security’, so seeing the job title from Microsoft is truly hilarious! Microsoft is good at insecurity and lies, not security. █

“Our products just aren’t engineered for security.”

–Brian Valentine, Microsoft executive

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Redmonk is Spreading Black Duck’s Anti-GPL Talking Points After Payments From Black Duck, Microsoft

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, FUD, GPL, Microsoft at 11:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

CBS pleases Microsoft

Summary: CBS’ ZDNet spreads the GNU-hostile narrative which comes from Redmonk, funded by Microsoft and Black Duck, citing Black Duck, which also comes from Microsoft and is a partner of Microsoft

Redmonk has been the subject of both praises and criticism over the years. We often agree with what Redmonk shows, but sometimes the impact of money, e.g. money from Microsoft, seems to be playing a role in analyses. It is difficult to dismiss the role of financial dependence; casting it irrelevant would be rather naïve. Whenever a company says something positive about a paying customer it’s rarely just a coincidence. The company is aware of its sources of income and develops a sort of “sixth sense” in the same way that politicians learn to love and defend their funders, not speaking out about them or voting against these funders’ interests. The Koch brothers, for example, sure have an impact on climate policies through various groups they pay. That it why money is handed out in the first place. Bill Gates does a lot of this too, e.g. bribing news sites, news channels, analysts, politicians, decision-makers etc. What we have commended Redmonk for in the past is the policy of full disclosure (well, not entirely full as proportionate contributions are never mentioned).

Microsoft pays Black Duck, which pays analysts who repeat its claims at face value on the face of it. Black Duck has in fact been paying lots of sources to help legitimise its talking points. Even the Linux Foundation is paid by Black Duck (hard to say how much, but probably enough to buy silence on criticism and free publicity at times). Redmonk has been paid by Black Duck too.

“Open Hub is just a new name for a company created by people from Microsoft.”There was a long discussion about this in Twitter (here is just a portion) in light of an article from ZDNet that relayed Black Duck’s talking points using two data points both owned by Black Duck, including its hires from Microsoft. It should be noted that Black Duck is not the only Microsoft-connected proprietary ‘think tank’ trying to tell us that the GPL is declining (in relative terms, not absolute, wherein lies a bias and spin opportunity). OpenLogic, headed by a man from Microsoft, does it too and we have named other such entities. It’s ugly out there. Analysts sell agenda, not information.

To spare readers the misinformation, the short story is that several days ago Redmonk was spreading Black Duck’s anti-GPL talking points and now it turns out Black Duck had paid Redmonk. As noted in this article, “Black Duck, the parent company of Open Hub, has been a RedMonk customer but is not currently.”

Open Hub is just a new name for a company created by people from Microsoft. Companies tend to change names to evade negative perception/publicity. Some patent trolls and mercenaries do that a lot. Behind closed doors Redmonk is not advising companies that copyleft is dying, not disclosing that its figured are biased by a Microsoft deal from 2009. It also impacts what news sites are reporting, creating a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy/bias against the GPL. Here is what ZDNet wrote the other day, not even spelling Ohloh correctly (so we can assume there’s no understanding that this company came from Microsoft). SJVN wrote: “Berkholz learned, using data from Ohlol, an open-source code research project now known as Open Hub, that “Since 2010, this trend has reached a point where permissive is more likely than copyleft [GPL] for a new open-source project.””

Remember where this entity called Open Hub came from. It’s a bunch of people from Microsoft.

Now see the bottom of ZDNet’s posts, which unlike Redmonk does not disclose the Black Duck and Microsoft connection (financial connection to both). That’s how Microsoft’s propaganda makes it into ZDNet.

ZDNet remains one of the world’s crappiest tech tabloids, especially now that it is owned by CBS. It still employs a lot of Microsoft staff (past and present) to publicly smear, bash, and insult Linux/Android. Here is a new example where a Microsoft employee writes about (bashes and belittles) Android in this very trashy tabloid (that pays him to do this). This is part of a pattern and it’s amazing that ZDNet pretends to be a news site. Under CBS’ wing it just serves sponsors. Watch the disclosure a the bottom: “Jason is currently a Partner Technology Strategist with Microsoft Corp. His expressed views do not necessarily represent those of his employer.”

Yeah, right!

There is a lot more, including links, in the Twitter discussions. Even Redmonk staff weighed in, but has not responded to the rebuttals. Bruce Perens warned that Black Duck's claims about the GPL are "B.S.". There is too much B.S. in today’s news, emanating from people who pretend to be journalists and analysts but are actually agents of propaganda or marketing. Be sceptical and go back to the sources to assess the facts. █

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‘Good’ Software Patents From EA Show Cases Where DRM is a Patent Infringement

Posted in DRM, Patents at 11:12 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Where two evils collide the public benefits, or how some software patents discourage the use of DRM

SOFTWARE patents are a horrible thing because in a world where almost everything is now controlled by computers with general-purpose or specialised software nearly every action/process can potentially become a monopoly, or a milking cow of someone (usually a large corporation) who had little to do with invention, just opportunism. It puts tremendous pressure on ‘small’ software developers and offers protectionism to software conglomerates such as IBM. Software patents are in injustice for many reasons including their undeniable impediment to innovation, which makes them the antithesis of patents (where publication in exchange for temporary monopoly was supposed to encourage dissemination of knowledge and thus innovation). Abstract ideas rather than utility were never supposed to be patentable. Likewise, copyright law has been extended to cover all sort of ridiculous things (like a story/plot, based on vague similarities, APIs, etc.) even to the point of encouraging no innovation or creativity (e.g. lasting well beyond the death of the original creator). The latter is often enforced upon the public using some ugly software hacks like DRM (turning computers against their users), so the relationship is deep and inherent.

“So here we have two evils fighting against one another. “It is rather ironic when software patents do something good by discouraging the use of DRM as DRM itself becomes a patent monopoly. Such was the case in this legal case. “Between the company’s general disposition and the incredible failure of the SimCity launch,” says an article, “Electronic Arts is becoming a name associated directly with digital rights management. The most infamous DRM platform the company has used is probably SecuROM, which was noteworthy for being equal parts mega-annoying to paying customers, as well as being so massively ineffective that games employing SecuROM later became amongst the most pirated video games of all time. But, results aside, EA would tell you that it needed to use DRM to protect the company from piracy. Even if SecuROM failed, the company had to at least try, or else the freeloaders that live the highlife getting around intellectual property laws would win. Violating IP laws is wrong, damn it, and EA was going to do everything in its power to right that wrong.”

So here we have two evils fighting against one another. It is not easy to pick a side. On the one hand we have monopolies on software and on the other we have monopolies on access to data. Both are detrimental to the common good. █

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Richard Stallman: What Does It Mean for Your Computer to Be Loyal?

Posted in Free/Libre Software, FSF at 4:17 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: New article from Richard Stallman

We say that running free software on your computer means that its operation is under your control. Implicitly this presupposes that your computer will do what your programs tell it to do, and no more. In other words, that your computer will be loyal to you.

In 1990 we took that for granted; nowadays, many computers are designed to be disloyal to their users. It has become necessary to spell out what it means for your computer to be a loyal platform that obeys your decisions, which you express by telling it to run certain programs.

Our tentative definition consists of these principles.

Neutrality towards software

The computer will run, without prejudice, whatever software you install in it, and let that software do whatever its code says to do.

A feature to check for signatures on the programs that run is compatible with this principle provided the signature checking is fully under the user’s control. When that is so, the feature helps implement the user’s decision about which programs to run, rather than thwarting the user’s decisions. By contrast, signature checking that is not fully under the user’s control violates this principle.

Neutrality towards protocols

The computer will communicate, without prejudice, through whatever protocol your installed software implements, with whatever users and whatever other networked computers you direct it to communicate with.

This means that computer does not impose one particular service rather than another, or one protocol rather than another. It does not require the user to get anyone else’s permission to communicate via a certain protocol.

Neutrality towards implementations

When the computer communicates using any given protocol, it will support doing so, without prejudice, via whatever code you choose (assuming the code implements the intended protocol), and it will do nothing to help any other part of the Internet to distinguish which code you are using or what changes you may have made in it, or to discriminate based on your choice.

This entails that the computer rejects remote attestation, that is, that it does not permit other computers to determine over the network whether your computer is running one particular software load. Remote attestation gives web sites the power to compel you to connect to them only through an application with DRM that you can’t break, denying you effective control over the software you use to communicate with them. Netflix is a notorious example of this.

We can comprehend remote attestation as a general scheme to allow any web site to impose tivoization or “lockdown” on the local software you connect to it with. Simple tivoization of a program bars modified versions from functioning properly; that makes the program nonfree. Remote attestation by web sites bars modified versions from working with those sites that use it, which makes the program effectively nonfree when using those sites. If a computer allows web sites to bar you from using a modified program with them, it is loyal to them, not to you.

Neutrality towards data communicated

When the computer receives data using whatever protocol, it will not limit what the program can do with the data received through that communication.

Any hardware-level DRM violates this principle. For instance, the hardware must not deliver video streams encrypted such that only the monitor can decrypt them.

Debugability

The computer always permits you to analyze the operation of a program that is running.

Documentation

The computer comes with full documentation of all the interfaces intended for software to use to control the computer.

Completeness

The principles above apply to all the computer’s software interfaces and all communication the computer does. The computer must not have any disloyal programmable facility or do any disloyal communication.

For instance, the AMT functionality in recent Intel processors runs nonfree software that can talk to Intel remotely. Unless disabled, this makes the system disloyal. █

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