How Windows is used to suppress activists

Done: Proprietary Software Against Civil Rights

--Schestowitz 09:21, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

We at Techrights have long recommended against Windows use for activists and progressive organizations like Greenpeace. While ideally Windows should be frowned upon by all, it is especially dangerous for this purpose where the activist and/or organization may be a potential target by political/corporate interference. The NSA wants you to drop Windows XP

Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor in New Encryption Standard?

Microsoft Denies Windows 7 Has NSA Backdoor

Proprietary Software Against Civil Rights

Summary:

 T  T

British company, Gamma,

breaking the law just like the BBC  LINK

Russian activists arrested with Windows licensing as an excuse LINK



 There's unrest in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Bahrain and elsewhere in the Arab world.

Two days ago, protesters in Nasr, Egypt took over the Headquarters of the Egyptian State Security.

Inside the HQ, the protesters gained access to loads of confidential state documents.



 A British company offered to sell a program to the Egyptian security services that experts say could infect computers, hack into web-based email and communications tools such as Skype and even take control of other groups' systems remotely, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Two Egyptian human rights activists found the documents amid hundreds of batons and torture equipment when they broke into the headquarters of the regime's State Security Investigations service (SSI) last month.

breaking the law and getting away with it

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<blockquote cite="http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/threads/345163-Legal-Advice-needed-U.K.-company-supplying-spyware-to-Egyptian-State-Security"> This is a direct C&P from my post on the Egypt thread, I'm hoping some of the legal types who frequent Urban may be able to give some insight/advice:

The lastest can of worms to be unearthed from State Security is an apparent purchase of a malware/trojan/spyware suite from a British subsidiary of a German company.

When the BBC accumulated PCs that are part of a botnet and even used taxpayers' money to pay a gangs of cyber-cirminals it showed that it too was against the law, for mysterious reasons.

As one security blog put it</a>, "Documents spilled into public by the political unrest in Egypt in recent months has shone a spotlight on the shadowy world of for-profit, custom malware creation for governments around the world.

"The anti malware firm F-Secure first called attention to documents uncovered by protesting Egyptians back in March. They included a proposal to sell a product dubbed "Finfisher" to the Mubarak regime."

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