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Techrights
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 19, 2024,
updated Apr 19, 2024
Video download link | md5sum eba6c7b9ebb2b2e10fda19be8564cfecMicrosoft Staff Does Not Speak for Linux Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
TWO days ago we mentioned how Microsoft employees kept speaking as if they were spokespeople for Linux, in effect bashing it on behalf of Microsoft.
Sounds familiar?
At the moment Microsoft has plenty to distract from, especially after CISA published official communications to that effect ("CISA Issues Emergency Directive 24-02: Mitigating the Significant Risk from Nation-State Compromise of Microsoft Corporate Email System", 2024-04-11).
Very shortly later we saw lots of noise which we suspect can be attributed/related to that. Microsoft tries hard to 'hide' reports like these: " US Cyber Agency Says Russian Hackers Used Microsoft Access to Steal Government Emails", 2024-04-11.
An associate spotted this terrible Microsoft puff piece, arguing that it misrepresents Microsoft as an authority on anything other than getting breached (by Russia). They speak about "Russia", but it has nothing to do with the breach, e.g. "Microsoft Finds Russian Influence Operations Targeting U.S. Election Have Begun", 2024-04-17.
There are more instances like these, even in widely-read political sites, that we took note of and additional examples collected yesterday. This serves to distract from the national security danger Microsoft is - the chaos and mayhem of political/industrial espionage, owing to ransomware and worse things (like attacks on the water supply).
There are many more examples of this one and the Linux Foundation joined/chimed in on the same week. About 10 examples were amassed in the sister site, but quantity isn't what's important here. Nor does quality, but I saw close to a dozen blog posts and articles about "Xz" something, even 20 or so days after it was considered news. That's a lot more than I saw about the Russian breach/CISA affair (may be biased by the set of sites I've chosen to follow closely).
In IRC, parsifal told me "the tin clanking continues," basically complaining that the Linux Foundation is at it again.
Shouldn't the Linux Foundation be boasting that GNU/Linux is secure while encouraging its adoption? Well, not when Microsoft employees (still on Microsoft's payroll) claim to be speaking for "Linux". Judging by this report, it's not only the Linux Foundation getting stacked but also the government. As an associate explains, the US government is worsening the Microsoft dependencies rather than ameliorating them and over at the Linux Foundation there are several Microsoft proxies with "Open" in their name, which means that the "Linux" Foundation is now a Microsoft mouthpiece that contributes to articles like "Open source groups fear Xz repeat as suspicious messages fly" (they're just looking for ways to bring up Xz again).
This is a disgusting war of propaganda, which I decided to explain using the video above. The sad thing is that a group of Microsoft employees inside the Linux Foundation (LF) more or less 'spams' the media, googlebombing 'linux' and bringing up 'Xz' again. "Yes," an associate told me, "there is a lot of LF spam now, mostly pushing Microsoft or other openwashing..."
Of course they also love blaming "Linux" any time there is some malware found on some machine, no matter how it got there or whose fault it was (administration mistakes, bad software, misconfiguration, no patching etc).
We can only hope that if we call out this kind of misdirection often enough, then writers will, perhaps in the future, be discouraged from repeating their error, either out of fear of backlash or merely recognition they got their stories wrong.
But that's assuming that those writers are honest people, not just marketing and propaganda agents who get assigned PR/SPAM pieces by the publisher, sponsored by companies such as Microsoft.
Just to be clear, it's not only Microsoft bribing the media and nowadays the LF is yet another way in which Microsoft manipulates the media. If only they remembered who's behind OpenSSF and OpenJS. Inside the Linux Foundation there are Microsoft groups and it is not limited to that. LWN is also run by Linux Foundation people (Jon), so they're amplifying so much of the same messaging. In fact, a lot of sites or news "sources" are financially controlled by very few companies, interests, and sociopathic people like Bill Gates, who also infiltrates the so-called 'Linux' Foundation in several ways already. Then consider how Debian takes GAFAM money via SPI, so they too are unable to criticise the worst offenders, they actually actively suppress and censor people who 'disparage' sponsors (companies that bag hundreds of billions of dollars by spying and much worse).
The really sad thing is that sometimes their censorship succeeds and they point to things like "Code of Conduct" to justify the censorship. People eventually lose sight of the ball. Back doors of Microsoft are presumed good; those who oppose these back doors are "zealots". Suddenly the media alleges that the real "back door" issue is in Linux. If they control the narrative (or buy the narrative), they can do anything. █
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