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.

When did something innocent turn from benign (e.g. Charlie Chaplin) to malicious or “warning sign”?

believe I purchased my first (maybe only) bowtie in 2001 (possibly 2000) at a shop called Manchester Wippell (of Manchester). Or maybe “J Wippell & Co. Manchester”; some people I know call them “Wippells” (with an S) . There’s a very long history to these folks. It moreover seems that they still exist and operate in the same address (9-21 Princess St, Greater, Manchester M2 4DN). They’ve survived a lot. The name and reputation matter. I also got a silk handkerchief there once.

I recently wrote about James Bottomley, the Microsofter who helps Microsoft inject back doors and kill switches into Linux.

Bottomley became “known” for wearing bowties; it’s like he attempted to make these garments of clothing/apparel his “signature”, I honestly don’t know why (the bizarre logic of it).

Like “normal” ties, they serve no practical function, they only ever get in the way (e.g. inside some food), but those are class or hierarchy symbols (worn at the expense of one’s comfort).

I dress casually every day. I don’t try to project “value” using cotton and leather.

Like many of his background, Bottomley seems pretentious and uncarting about Software Freedom, he’s just chasing money. Money, money, money.

Because of this man (Bottomley), I nowadays associate bowties (in the context of software) with bad people. I think I’ve now worn a bowtie for well over a decades.

Even when Bottomley was at IBM/Red Hat/Novell I already didn’t like and didn’t trust him. I had good reasons to feel that way.

The old pool

think today’s weather qualifies as summer. Maybe it’s one last chance to sunbathe. I took advantage.

We got some good news this afternoon. GNU/Linux replaces Windows and Microsoft is in general perishing while lying to shareholders about the potential of slop.

At this point in time it seems like Microsoft’s decline is truly irreversible.

Silent layoffs

here are LOTS of Microsoft layoffs right now. Insiders know it, but they cannot speak about it (too risky). Media does not report these. It’ll conveniently – in an arse-covering fashion – dismiss that as “rumours” and say, no WARN notices. But Microsoft bypasses the law. It says, “we’ll fire you unless you agree to this ‘voluntary exit’ agreement, then sign an NDA to keep quiet and outwardly happy about it.”

Same for PIPs and LITE.

IBM and Microsoft have TENS OF THOUSANDS of layoffs this year. Unlike Oracle, they hide these.

Below are articles from 2026:

This makes no sense.

reat! So statCounter altered what it is measuring and thus, overnight, it puts Windows like 10-15% higher than days ago. Maybe it’s time to rely on Clownflare’s data more. At least it’s more consistent over time.

Or maybe… wait a few more days for statCounter to sort out the data and make things more consistent.

Windows is perishing, so…

ROWING up in the 1980s, Microsoft was mostly irrelevant, but by the 90s it was everywhere. Now it’s going away gradually. It tries to hide the mass layoffs; it’s fashionable now…

Silent layoffs are still layoffs.

his morning I wrote about “voluntary” (NOT!) layoffs at Microsoft.

I said: “They can’t catch a break, can they?”

I was using wordplay because it is summer’s break.

A friend asked, “why should shoddy, subpar, proprietary software be given any preferential treatment by groups which don’t have access to the backdoors / bugdoors built into the product(s)?”

He said that “can’t catch a break” looks too much like sympathising with Microsoft.

“It’s good news that the world is giving Microsoft,” the friend said, as well as “its products, and services the
heave ho. What remains, especially in Europe, is how to deal with the leftover microsofters which have displaced as good as all IT departments.”

“Even the idea of a team to support workers to use ICT to their advantage has become foreign due to the persistent pervasiveness of microsoftianism over the IT departments it has displaced.”

Another friend said “it will take a lot of time and effort to get rid of them and to properly train IT people on real technologies again you could talk about a lost generation or two. I’m just glad I started using GNU/Linux in 1997 and abandoned Microsoft in 2002, long before the current move towards GNU/Linux and free software…”