The public and our politicians need to know

wo years ago I said I’d likely spend the next 5 years writing about lawfare. Earlier this year I corrected myself and said a decade or more.

I meant it when I said it the first time, it’s just that there’s more to cover and more material becomes available than I can cover (or things happen more quickly than I can properly cover them).

Sometimes I need to stop and do an “outline”, then assess how long it’ll take to cover it all thoroughly enough.

The order of the coverage matters a lot.

Someone has asked me to “move on” (with “my life”), but he is just projecting. Merely explaining how lawfare works in the UK (it’s bigger than just one firm) is prerequisite for change and I’m in a position to explain what happened.

Transparency is not negotiable.

n some of my recent articles about ‘secure’ (restricted) boot, someone has said “good work” and added that Garrett is attempting to silence me because of the technical things I write, hence I should “remember to keep Restricted Boot tied to him and vice versa” (the person is as bad as the things he promotes). Here are all the latest parts of the latest series:

He also goes back to sex.

Recent: James Bottomley Has Promoted Microsoft-Controlled Restricted (‘Secure’) Boot, His Blog Has Just Been Cracked

oday, or very early in the morning, I published a somewhat chronological explanation regarding things that went on and have gone on for 15 years.

“One goal there is to associate UEFI and restricted boot with other crimes,” a community member told me, “via crazy matt [Garrett] among other connections.”

Some of these connections are full-time Microsoft staff. Some of the assisting actors are ‘former’ Microsoft staff that was arrested for strangling women and had done corrupt things. A further connection said illegal things and committed Hate Crimes against my wife and I (already registered with police for years). Two of them already got arrested.

“I’ll go as far as to say it is strategically (and politically) dangerous to keep omitting mention of Garrett’s connection to Restricted Boot,” the community member remarked. “The omission makes it look exclusively like a personal spat and that REALLY hurts TR and TM in the near term and might damage standing with the courts eventually.”

I disagreed on the basis that the Court needs to also be able to assess the character of the people, as it does not easily understand technical mechanisms such as UEFI.

It’s not outlandish to all (universally), but it would not draw the attention when dealing with lawyers.

The community member pointed to an article which said Garrett had “…many problems. Serious problems. Real problems.”

Yes, interpersonal also. His own spouse accuses him of very serious things and those things are in the UK’s National Archives. Garrett’s solicitors were required by the judge to type down what the spouse had said.

“Above and beyond having boosted code to afflict systems with Restricted Boot on behalf of Microsoft” would be the more accurate or important thing to note about Garrett, but some deaf ears it would fall on do not understand what that technically means and why it’s so important.

It’s a question of what audience it targets or a matter of tailoring one’s message based on one’s knowledge.

“If that “on behalf of” should be included or not,” I was told, “I cannot recall the details,” but they’re all in this together (the law firm as well; it doesn’t understand and never comments on anything technical).

I separately said that the threat the solicitors send my way have “…no actual legal grounds”.

It could be mentioned that the threats are “due to criticism over his helping Microsoft get let off the hook about Restricted Boot.”

But again, the judges would not relate to that aspect without me shifting focus to technical matters. The case is not about technical matters.

“By turning it / presenting it as a personal spat it allows s–tholes like social control media an easy out,” a reader remarked, adding that “social control media is a throwaway and not worth the effort but I remain firm on the above otherwise…”

When I write about these legal disputes I ensure that if read by judges they will get across the key message/s as comprehended by a person without a Computer Science background.

It’s never of any concern what a bunch of trolls say in social control media. What they say does not matter, they’re there to provoke and even make stuff up for “likes” and groupthink/affirmation.

The rest is the cost of exposing things

oday we made some more progress regarding legal matters. We are still eyeing the Court of Appeal for next year. All these processes are slow, but we exercise our legal rights and we do so strictly based on the protocols available.

Reporting regarding the EPO has been successful. It seems like the “monarch” is being stopped. At last.

The reporting is a public service. We always did this pro bono.

Seeking affirmation through conformism and appeasement means being toothless

ournalism requires courage – sometimes stubbornness – and good journalism “pushes boundaries” (or touches them). The notion of “playing it safe” comes from high-risk disciplines like rock-climbing; the risks are different with ropes and high falls.

Moreover, one tactic to discourage particular reporting or reporting about a particular topic is to paint the reporter as “vlogger” or “blogger” or “social media user” etc. It’s not accidental, as the real intention is to rob people of protections offered to reporters, columnists, commentators and journalists.

I’ve seem all those demonisation tactics over the years. I think I know how to tackle or defuse them.

If you always “play safe”, you probably will never expose the most dangerous people and not achieve anything meaningful. Retaliation is proportional to the magnitude of measurable outcomes.

It matters a lot

his coming December I’ll turn 45. I’ve been writing a lot since I was a teenager and I still try to improve. It’s not about grammar, it’s about structuring one’s explanation/s, making the key points easy to identity and clear to everyone (even without any prior knowledge). I was recently receiving some constructive criticism of my latest series. I’ve tried to internalise it.

In my writings about Garrett, for instance, someone asked, “is his connection restricted boot briefly summarized there too?” As “leaving it out allows him to raise lynch mobs among the a-holes in ‘fediverse’ [and] there are many ways to do that, some more formal some less formal…”

Another remark was, “is his connection restricted boot briefly summarized there also?”

I’ve decided to remind people of the Big Picture. Days later I was told this was “nice” and “just, please, please, remember to add a sentence about restricted boot to each and every post which names him” (as it’s about his actions).

The reader said, “that is so *very* important for when that post happens to be the first Techrights post a visitor reads,” for we have had many first-time visitors lately (accordingly more people in IRC as well).

“It’s also *very* important to establish the connection between him and it, and to reinforce that the debate is about computing freedom and not a personal spat even though MULTIPLE sides seem to sometimes work to make it look like a personal spat [...] tldr; keep the eye on the ball…”

It can be tiring to add an intro or background of full context to every article or installment (in a series), but I recognise it’s necessary for effective communication.

Breaks and more

oday Durian stayed here until 6:40PM. It was already dark, but Durian is very young so his instincts are different. He eventually left as I had given him everything he wanted. I managed to curate many links today. I also published many articles and I’ll try do do the same tomorrow. Feeding the birds gives me almost 50 breaks per day. That seems like a good form of exercise, with occasional nags to force me to have recess.

I’m quite pleased to see audience size has grown a lot this month. I can see what sort of topics interest more people and research these more.

Tomorrow I shall publish “Production Freeze at the European Patent Office (Opposing Monarchy, Institutional Maladministration and Corruption)”.

It’s an epic scandal it’s a disgrace that media does not cover it.