Microsoft
Hidden Costs of Microsoft Windows
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 22nd of March 2020 12:32:06 PM Filed under

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Freight forwarding firm Henning Harders hit by Windows ransomware
Australian freight forwarding and logistics firm Henning Harders has been hit by Windows ransomware, with the company saying that customer data may have been accessed, but that there was no evidence to show such data had been misused.
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Security News This Week: Ransomware Groups Promise Not to Hit Hospitals Amid Pandemic [iophk: Windows TCO]
Well, this is... nice? It's definitely something. BleepingComputer reached out to the operators of multiple strains of ransomware, asking if they had plans to stop hitting hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic. Two of them actually wrote back to say yes, absolutely, they'll take it easy on the health care industry (except pharmaceutical companies) until the Covid-19 situation improves. Please take this with gigantic boulders of salt, especially given that ransomware attackers historically love to go after hospitals. And even if the proprietors of DoppelPaymer and Maze—the two who responded to BleepingComputer–do keep to their word, lots of prolific ransomware remains in play. In fact, hackers hit a Czech hospital earlier this week.
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Microsoft's Attack on the Free Software Supply Chain
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 21st of March 2020 12:02:46 PM Filed under

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GitHub nabs JavaScript packaging vendor npm [Ed: Reminder that Open Source is under attack and we know the attackers are 100% proprietary with reckless history of crime and ICE contracts]
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Microsoft's GitHub absorbs NPM into its code-hosting empire: JavaScript library vault used by 12 million devs now under Redmond's roof [Ed: Now you get your code and binaries from the NSA's foremost partner, which puts back doors in everything and then receives Pentagon bailout (contract)]
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GitHub acquires npm to strengthen its open-source community presence [Ed: In this case "presence" means censorship and surveillance etc. i.e. control]
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Microsoft and GitHub Strengthen Their Hold on Open Source [Ed: This headline tells you what Microsoft is after. It's all about control, not freedom.]
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GitHub Buying JavaScript Company npm Inc. [Ed: How a Microsoft publisher covered the hijacking of JS developers by Microsoft. A Microsoft executive has already hijacked another major consortium of JS, elevating oneself to top post in 'Linux' Foundation management. Open Source is not "Winning". Open Source and by extension Free software is under attack and those who claim it is winning receive their salaries from the attackers.]
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Closed source? Pull the other one... We love open source, but not enough to share code for our own app, says GitHub [Ed: Microsoft Github is very malicious proprietary software and a trap. Even Microsoft Tim writes to that effect.]
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Why Microsoft's GitHub Is Buying Npm [Ed: Waffle, fluff and shameless propaganda from Microsoft. This is all about spying on, censoring and controlling one's competition. Antitrust law seems not to exist in age of Trump.]
Microsoft subsidiary GitHub announced it is buying Npm, which is a company that distributes packages of open-source software in JavaScript. Plus Npm also offers software that companies use for proprietary code, according to CNBC. The terms of the deal were undisclosed.
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Github acquires npm to aid JavaScript developers [Ed: No, IDG. Not to "aid" but to hijack, subjugate and control (e.g. spy on, censor) those developers.]
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Meet the Chinese operating system that’s trying to shift the country off Windows
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Wednesday 18th of March 2020 04:13:26 AM Filed under


China’s homegrown operating systems haven’t made much of a dent on the global stage. Now there’s a Linux-based system that’s aimed at weaning the country off Windows.
UOS, or Unified Operating System, hit a new milestone after its first stable release in January: Union Tech’s OS can now boot in 30 seconds on China-made chips.
[...]
The “current international climate” has made it imperative for China to have its own foundational software to avoid being cut off by the US, said the general manager of Union Tech, Liu Wenhan. While Chinese operating systems currently account for less than 1% of the market, Liu said he expects them to grow to 20% to 30% in the future.
Integrating homegrown Chinese chips could be the biggest accomplishment of UOS if it pans out. Although Chinese computer chips still don’t approach the sophistication of those created by US-based companies, Union Tech said that it is actively working with Chinese chipmakers like Loongson and Sunway to facilitate the gradual replacement of American technology in the Chinese government and pillar industries. In December, Beijing ordered all government offices and public institutions to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years, according to the Financial Times.
UOS is based on the Deepin operating system, China’s most successful Linux distribution. Union Tech actually started as a joint venture between state-run corporations and Wuhan Deepin Technology. It eventually acquired Deepin, and Deepin founder Liu Wenhan became Union Tech’s general manager.
Liu has experience with building operating systems. Since launching in 2011, the OS has amassed an active community of users.
Deepin appeals to many Linux enthusiasts because of a user interface that copies liberally from other operating systems. It has a dock, launchpad and file browser that are similar to those in macOS. It also has Android-style notifications and control panels. And it includes a Windows-style start button.
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The NSA's Leading Ally Taking Control of the Supply Chain
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 17th of March 2020 11:10:26 AM Filed under

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Microsoft's GitHub agrees to buy code-distribution start-up Npm
Microsoft's GitHub subsidiary on Monday said it has agreed to buy Npm, a company that operates an online service for distributing packages of open-source software written in the popular JavaScript programming language and offers software that companies can use for their proprietary code as well.
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With npm Acquisition, Microsoft is Set to Own the Largest Software Registry in the World [Ed: Microsoft is trying to buy the competition and having bribed all the groups that represent it (OSI, LF etc.) they won’t say a thing to stop this]
Microsoft has been betting big on open source for past few years. Apart from open sourcing a few things here and there, Microsoft is contributing a lot to Linux kernel (for its Azure cloud platform).
To further strengthen its position in the open source world, Microsoft acquired the popular open source code hosting platform GitHub for $7.5 billion.
Now Microsoft owned GitHub has acquired npm ( short for Node Package Manager). npm is the world’s largest software registry with more than 1.3 million packages that have 75 billion downloads a month.
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Microsoft Teams goes down — just as everyone starts working from home
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Telstra Ventures leads $65m investment in 'new Linux'
The physical world might be near lockdown, but Telstra Ventures remains bullish on the virtual, leading a $US40 million ($65 million) investment in a company which helps enterprises manage software applications.
The $900 million venture capital manager, which is part-owned by Telstra, but run independently, invested in Rancher Labs after the telco became a customer of the Californian scale-up's service, which manages exposure to a platform called Kubernetes.
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Rancher Labs was launched in the same year as Kubernetes after its co-founder, Sheng Liang, recognised the potential of its container-orchestration capabilities, as well as the help most enterprises would need in managing them.
"Just as Linux became the standard computing platform for the data centre, cloud and devices in the 2000s, we fundamentally believe Kubernetes is fast becoming the ubiquitous enterprise computing platform for multi-cloud, heterogenous IT environments in the 2020s,” Mr Liang said.
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Windows 10 sucks – can Linux save us all?
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 14th of March 2020 05:00:53 PM Filed under


So, what happened? Why is Windows 10 now such a mess? Recently, Microsoft has released update after update that appear to break more things than they fix. Then, when Microsoft scrambles to release a fix for those new problems, it seems like it introduces even more.
Many of those new problems even result in the notorious Blue Screen of Death. This error screen was once so widespread in earlier versions of Windows, it became iconic. Thought you’d finally seen the last of it with Windows 10? Well, it’s back. With a vengeance.
Now, Windows 10 has such a big install base, that even with plenty of reports of problems, for the majority of users, Windows 10 still works fine. And that’s a lot of people.
However, even if you’ve not been affected by a dodgy Windows 10 update, the steady stream of news about people who have been affected, and are now staring despondently at a blue screen, can’t help but lessen your confidence in Windows 10. Sure, it works for you now. But is it just a matter of time before Microsoft breaks your PC?
[...]
One of the easiest ways to ditch Windows 10 is to get a new MacBook or Mac, which runs macOS, or a Chromebook, which runs Chrome OS.
That, of course, is a pricey option. However, if you want to keep your exciting PC or laptop and move away from Windows, then it’s time to seriously consider Linux.
Linux is an open-source operating system, and it’s incredibly popular. It’s free to download and install (apart from some versions that are for enterprise users) and it runs on any PC that can run Windows 10. In fact, due to it being more lightweight than Windows 10, you should find it runs better than Windows 10.
Perhaps best of all, Linux comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Called distributions, or distros, these different spins of Linux are aimed at different people. There are hardcore distros for Linux experts, as well as beginner distros, and ones that are built for running on old and underpowered hardware.
If you’re new to Linux, then Ubuntu and Mint are the distros to check out, as they are extremely easy to use. Mint in particular is good for Windows migrants as it has a user interface that’s very similar to Windows 10, so you’ll feel right at home.
Thanks to the popularity of Linux, many programs (and an increasing number of games) you use in Windows 10 will have Linux versions. And if not, there are plenty of excellent alternatives. While Microsoft Office doesn’t run on Linux, LibreOffice is a great (free) alternative, for example.
There’s also projects like WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) which let you run Windows 10 apps within Linux.https://www.techradar.com/news/windows-10-sucks-can-linux-save-us-all
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Op-Ed: Windows 7 users ignoring Win 10 upgrade, Linux strikes back
Submitted by Rianne Schestowitz on Monday 9th of March 2020 05:11:17 AM Filed under


The end of support for Windows 7 has had almost no effect at all on users. Win 10’s many issues and the constant, baffling, problems with updates have effectively killed all interest. Meanwhile, Linux has come up with a cure-all, maybe, possibly.
More surprising is that Win 7, like XP, is still core tech for many people. Almost nobody moved from Win 7, less than 1% of users. Some people did upgrade prior to the January 14, 2020 cut-off date, but not much movement has been seen since.
Seems the new operating systems don’t appeal to people for various reasons. It’s understandable that businesses, in particular, wouldn’t be too keen on upgrading whole networks of office computers. It’s expensive, it’s time-consuming, and there can be IT issues with related business software.
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Microsoft and Apple Leftovers
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Tuesday 3rd of March 2020 06:00:48 AM Filed under

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Running Azure IoT Edge on Yocto Linux | Internet of Things Show [Ed: Microsoft turning "Linux" into Microsoft surveillance tool]
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DH2i DxEnterprise for SDP-Enhanced Microsoft SQL Server Availability Groups (AGs) on Linux Now Available in AWS Marketplace [Ed: You look for "Linux" news and get Microsoft proprietary software instead ]
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Microsoft Defender ATP is Coming to Linux [Ed: Just googlebombing the "Linux" brand with Microsoft's proprietary software]
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Apple agrees to $500 million settlement for throttling older iPhones
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OpenSUSE News Outsourced to Microsoft, Dominique Leuenberger's Report on Tumbleweed
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Saturday 29th of February 2020 05:18:10 AM Filed under

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Moving to the new News [Ed: News outsourced to Microsoft then]
In an effort to make contributing to openSUSE easier, openSUSE News has moved from being a Wordpress application to a Jekyll static site developed directly on Github. Now you too can write an article, or a series of articles, by sending pull requests to the openSUSE/news-o-o repository.
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Dominique Leuenberger: openSUSE Tumbleweed – Review of the week 2020/09
During this week we released 4 snapshots (0220, 0222, 0224 and 0226) – an average week from that perspective, yet there have been some interesting and well-awaited updates in these snapshots:
zsh 5.8
Mesa 19.3.4 & Mesa 20.0
libcap 2.32
GNOME 3.34.4
KDE Plasma 5.18.1
LLVM 6 has been removed from the repository
ncurses 6.2
Linux kernel 5.5.5
Mozilla Firefox 73.0.1: it will now launch in Wayland mode inside a Wayland session
MariaDB 10.4.12
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Openwashing and the Latest Microsoft Fakes
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Sunday 23rd of February 2020 05:08:50 PM Filed under
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Can Janne Kyttanen Change the World through Open Source Construction?
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Time for open minds on open source platforms [Ed: Any sort of collaboration on something is now framed as "open source"]
Big open source transparent value-adding collaborative projects are already proven in other industries. Where is ours? Why don’t we have this?
Imagine if we could all see which fuel filter manufacturer provided the best bang for our buck. How much would we reduce our waste by not going through cheap fuel filters? Imagine if we could see which lube oil provider had the best life cycle of lube oil provision; how much could we reduce our scope three emissions? What about collaborating and sharing on infrastructure projects within the countries and the ports that we operate on? How quickly can we address the issue of not having power and a shore base. I think the days of holding on to data and trying to work in silos is absolutely behind us.
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Databricks CEO: Managing open source in the cloud is hard [Ed: ComputerWeekly bases its articles about “Open Source” on a proprietary software company, Microsoft, with its own claims (about its competition)]
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Microsoft's coding for noobs hits 1.0, decompiling to C# in Visual Studio, and Windows 10X makes its debut... on Mac [Ed: This is classic openwashing of frameworks that actually make one heavily dependent on proprietary frameworks/systems with back doors and EULA mazes]
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Microsoft's GitHub to open offices in Bengaluru, Hyderabad [Ed: Salaries of GitHub staff decreasing]
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Microsoft's ION Is an Open-Source Bet on Bitcoin [Ed: There's a FOSS project called ION. Guess what Microsoft did. The usual, hijacking other people's brands, causing confusion.]
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Microsoft’s ION Is an Open-Source Bet on Bitcoin
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This could be Microsoft's most important product in 2020. If it works [Ed: CBS -- the parent company of CNET/ZDNet -- disguises marketing and openwashing and Microsoft spam as 'article'. CBS is aware that a proprietary OS, Windows, has back doors, right? They covered that in relation to Snowden. Amnesia now? News sites are becoming "glorified" PR agencies with a different price list and the art of disguising spam as "substance".]
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Microsoft tests an open source electronic voting machine to guard against hacks [Ed: The usual openwashing of NSA back doors on a proprietary OS, Windows.]
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Microsoft Open-Sources Project Petridish for Deep-Learning Optimization [Ed: It has become ever so fashionable to openwash one's surveillance code (i.e. slapping it on proprietary GitHub) to make to make it seem "ethical", "transparent" etc.]
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Baidu open sources AI to identify people without face masks
ith the growing scare of the deadly coronavirus, companies in China are pushing hard to limit its spread. In one such effort, the country’s leading search engine Baidu has open-sourced an AI model to detect people not wearing face masks.
As coronavirus can spread through close contact with an infected person via their coughs, sneezes, or respiratory droplets, China has made it mandatory to wear face masks in several regions. People are instructed to wear masks in public places such as restaurants, shopping malls, and public transport.
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Malicious Proprietary Software From Microsoft and Google
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 21st of February 2020 07:53:33 PM Filed under

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Microsoft rolls out a new update for Surface Duo SDK Preview
The new update is available for Mac, Windows and Ubuntu....
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Microsoft Brings Its Windows 10 Antivirus Arsenal to Linux [Ed: Wow. Softpedia's "LINUX" section (Popa) is now an arm of Microsoft proprietary software marketing. Sure missing Marius Nester there. Whose arsenal is this? NSA's?]
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Microsoft: Linux Defender antivirus now in public preview, iOS and Android are next [Ed: Of course Microsoft's sponsored propaganda network also promotes Microsoft proprietary software in the “LINUX” section. It does this all the time. The site has also just put "GitHub: We won't take down any of your content unless we really have to" under the "LINUX" section because proprietary software (GitHub) is somehow "LINUX"?!]
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Chrome deploys deep-linking tech in latest browser build despite privacy concerns
Google has implemented a browser capability in Chrome called ScrollToTextFragment that enables deep links to web documents, but it has done so despite unresolved privacy concerns and lack of support from other browser makers.
Via Twitter on Tuesday, Peter Snyder, privacy researcher at privacy-focused browser maker Brave Software, observed that ScrollToTextFragment shipped earlier this month in Chrome 80 unflagged, meaning it's active, despite privacy issues that have been raised.
"Imposing privacy and security leaks to existing sites (many of which will never be updated) REALLY should be a 'don't break the web,' never-cross redline," he wrote. "This spec does that."
The debate over the feature percolated last year on mailing lists and in GitHub issues posts and picked up in October when the team working on Chrome's Blink engine declared their intent to implement the specification. The feature rollout serves to illustrate that the consensus-based web standards process doesn't do much to constrain the technology Google deploys.
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New Mexico Sues Google Over Collection of Children's Data
New Mexico’s attorney general sued Google Thursday over allegations the tech company is illegally collecting personal data generated by children in violation of federal and state laws.
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