Eve is here. As many of my readers know, I strongly prefer devices with as few features as possible to reduce the spy attack surface and prevent feature bloat. For example, my laser printer doesn’t have a control/readout panel. It has an on-off button and an on-off light. perfection! When it comes to Windows, if you use a Mac, you can purchase the Office suite instead of obtaining a license. It’s definitely difficult, but I had to get the new version a little over a year ago with a new laptop. If usage is simple, you can easily run an unupdated version for 5 years (IIRC the last version I used was fine for 10 years, but I don’t think I can live like that now)
I dread the day when I have to move to Linux. There is no one here to support you. I would rather run out of the bathroom than do computer housekeeping. When it comes to toilets, it takes only a short amount of time to complete the task, and it takes only a short amount of time to get the entire bathroom clean. Computers have no such certainty.
Written by Thomas Neuberger. Originally published on God’s Spies
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“We are constantly recording and reporting everything that is happening, so citizens will be on their best behavior.”
—Larry Ellison, billionaire visionary and Oracle CEO
“This is a story about power.”
-Sincerely
This is part 2 of a series on the licensing revolution. The licensing revolution is a movement by manufacturers to sell things that users have no control over. Ownership becomes a license and control remains with them. In the first part, I wrote:
Two of the most innovative inventions ever made by mankind were created in the 20th century. One was at the beginning of the 20th century and the other near the end. Both offered the same innovation: quantum advances in personal freedom and power.
Of course, I’m talking about cars, personal vehicles, and PCs, your own computer.
Neither is yours now. The fate of the car is explained in the link above. Here is the fate of what was once a personal computer.
Personal and “personal” computers: Rent and return what you own.
This is a story about power.
Before the advent of the PC and its business equivalent, the UNIX-based Sun workstation, access to computing power was through IBM-style mainframes and minicomputers, such as those made by DEC. None of these can be considered “personal.” They were too expensive and could accommodate multiple users on a terminal, but the computing itself was central and owned by the company. While you were sitting in front of your device, a company-controlled processor was doing the processing. Nothing was yours.
Once the personal computer was created and available, the power source was in a box, which you personally owned and controlled. Check out the headline and first sentence of the ad below.
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But today, thanks to Windows 11, that’s all reversed. That machine no longer belongs to you. You just paid for it. This writer says:
The operating system is the most personal part of a “personal” computer, and while it used to be that as a Windows user you didn’t feel like you were renting a computer from Microsoft, that feeling has largely disappeared in recent years.
It’s not just the sense of ownership that has evaporated. That’s also true.
Windows owns your machine
Windows owns your machine in every sense except receipts and cash placement. And it’s only going to get worse.
Let’s start by practicing Windows Update. Operating systems update automatically, which can sometimes break your machine, and each update can reset your settings. Sidney Butler again, as quoted above,
I can’t remember how many times I’ve left a perfectly working Windows computer at the end of a workday, only to come back the next morning to a completely broken computer that wouldn’t boot. How-To Geek has many articles on how to stop Windows updates. The mere fact that readers are looking for this information should tell you something.
Forced automatic Windows updates now seem inevitable, but every workaround people can come up with is closing the loophole. Updates may be delayed, but cannot be postponed. Resistance is futile.
But that’s not all. There are certain built-in advertisements. Forced login to Microsoft account. AI that can’t be stopped anywhere. The “features” that the AI is monitoring you for (called recalls). Move your data to the Microsoft cloud. And, as we’ll discuss in more detail in a later article, we open the door to the zero-privacy hell that the world of Davos loves so much about the dangerous TPM chip that seems to be included in every modern computer.
Rob Blacksman says this in this video (emphasis mine):
[1:17] Microsoft is quietly ending the era of personal computers as we know them. and [Microsoft CEO] Satya Nadella is outspoken, but not understood by the average consumer.
So what people see as tangible problems is just fluff. Although they are perceived as important, they are actually just small building blocks, like Lego pieces, to a larger overall project.
Windows is becoming something completely different. It becomes a system that is always being monitored, always connected to AI, and dependent on the cloud, and even though you paid for it, the machine is no longer completely yours.
And I plan to continue paying monthly for the privilege of using this AI control, only to realize later that this is no longer an improvement from Windows XP. An ordinary person does not really understand this, but feels the big picture. Something is a foot.
If you own a machine running Windows 11 on hardware with a TPM chip, that’s you. I could go on forever.
Recall and TPM
Before it gets too long, here are some highlights. I may explain these in more detail later.
Microsoft Recall uses AI to “take an image of your active screen every few seconds.” Learn more about Ars Technica.
Microsoft claims (for now) that this feature protects your privacy. But is it really true? What would you do if the government made a Patriot Act-style phone call? And is that always true? Don’t count on it. (If Recall is on, here are instructions to turn it off.)
TPM chips — Braxman said in the video. [3:19]”TPM security chip” [creates] I verified the identity of my Microsoft account using hardware monitoring. ”
The TPM does more, but yes, it creates a unique ID, which is stored on a hardware chip and can be accessed whenever requested by an authorized entity.
So can you imagine a world in which every computer has its identity built into the hardware itself, available at the request of any “authorized” entity? Larry Ellison can do it.
If age verification is required, even at the Anodyne site, a TPM chip is used. And digital ID opens that door forever.
Davos man Larry Ellison talks about the world
The billionaire CEO of Oracle, whose son currently owns CBS, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Plus, is looking forward to a world of total surveillance. Chris Hedges:
Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, a business associate of Elon Musk, and a longtime Trump donor, recently announced a $500 billion AI infrastructure plan with Trump, calling on countries to move all their data into a “single unified data platform” so it can be “consumed and used” by AI models. Ellison previously said the AI-based surveillance system “ensures that citizens are on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on.”
