US government’s reliance on Microsoft means the company gets a free pass

Here&#x27;s a radical idea:<p>One government worker sending a document to another government worker should not involve a proprietary, for-profit data format.<p>With a hardcopy paper document this would obviously be unacceptable, but since digitization and software eating the world, we pay our fees to Microsoft and go about our merry way.<p>I&#x27;m middle-aged and tired, I&#x27;m not going to fight this fight anymore. Maybe some day legislators will grow fangs and start giving a shit about strategic interoperability. Probably not.

It is a sad state of affairs that the most technologically advanced government in history is incapable of rolling its own in-house tech. Taxpayers deserve better.

&gt; &quot;We are committed to adapting to the evolving threat landscape and partnering across industry and government to defend against these growing and sophisticated global threats&quot;<p>&gt; “committed to secure by design and secure by default.”<p>&gt; “As an industry leader we must be accountable for the security of our products and services.”<p>Wow, that sure is a lot of commitment and accountability! I&#x27;m not seeing much in the way of consequences for failing to meet those commitments though, and obviously there is absolutely no accountability. What&#x27;s the value of a commitment that you can just fail to meet with impunity again?<p>This almost reads like all those tech company CEOs taking full responsibility for layoffs last year.

Until we sort out the whole idea that it is OK for the US intelligence communitity to use Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Apple, N-other big tech companies to act as their data collection services. They will all continue to basically do whatever they want including jeopardizing our national security with their plainly stated profit motives.<p>It isn&#x27;t that Microsoft does not care at all about security it is just that they see it as some business that they can&#x2F;must make 40-50% margin on like the rest of their operations.[aka outsource it all to countries where folks have fake credentials]

Journalists have value to society and get “free passes”.<p>Isn’t that how it works? Not saying it <i>should</i> but that it does.<p>A whole lot of the economy is given a “free pass” because it keeps people from investigating government agents behavior and demanding change<p>The elders are trying to keep what they know alive as that as enriched them. This is just a generational Ponzi scheme. It’s all a bunch of 70+ year old racists and poorly educated post war, Cold War paranoids who huffed leaded gas fumes know; run hustles, cons, and protection rackets.

I&#x27;m surprised other countries put up with microsoft for basic things like email&#x2F;word rather than a &quot;must be built within country for security reasons&quot;

Related:<p><i>On Microsoft, the U.S. Government Must Embrace the Stick</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39801670">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=39801670</a>

And they can charge what they want

Of course if another country does it, USA cries foul and tries to ban them from operating in USA.<p>It is government directed capitalism, just like other global superpowers like China.