Microsoft Training May Have Helped Tunisian Regime To Spy On Citizens

An anonymous reader writes "A document released in the recent Cablegate leak reveals that Microsoft provided training to the Tunisian Ministries of Justice and the Interior in exchange for exemption from the country's open software policy. These Ministries would soon put the training to use by phishing for the social networking credentials of bloggers, reporters, political activists and protesters. Microsoft's assistance resulted in the sale of 12,000 software licenses to the Tunisian government." The cable itself details the effort Microsoft put into negotiating a deal. Their clear intent was simply expanding into a new market, but the author of the cable was skeptical of the Tunisian government's adherence to its stated goals. Quoting: "In theory, increasing GOT law enforcement capability through IT training is positive, but given heavy-handed GOT interference in the internet, Post questions whether this will expand GOT capacity to monitor its own citizens."

Comments

Re:Wow

[bonch]

I mentioned this earlier. Most reasonable posters left Slashdot for Reddit, Hacker News, and even Digg, leaving behind the really hardcore posters who visit Slashdot solely to find reasons to hate Microsoft, the RIAA, Apple, etc. That is the majority of the readership now. Slashdot today caters to a lowest common denominator demographic, similar to what TechCrunch tries to do, where sensationalism and page views are what's most important.

Look at this submission from a week ago, Only Idiots Don't Give Back To Free Software. Not only was the summary worded to make it look like Jim Zemlin was referring to end-users and not downstream organizations, but the submission itself is from the author of the article being linked--Julie Bort at Network World. So the person who knew exactly what their own article was actually about intentionally phrased the summary in a way that would lead to a different conclusion in order to inflame Slashdot readers and drive page views.

Now, we have a story with a "may" headline. These are as bad as question headlines ("Could So-And-So Be Dangerous To Your Health?"), where something is implied, but because an outright claim isn't being made in the headline, the author believes they're technically not lying.

Seriously, all Microsoft knew was giving them computer training. What about we start writing news on how school chemistry classes allow people to make bombs? Or god forbid, cooking tv shows teach you how to use a knife!

Hell, the Chinese government uses its own Linux distribution. That must mean open source is helping China oppress its citizens!