

Ask HN: What if Microsoft held the country's pcs for ransom? - xauronx

This is slightly &quot;silly&quot; but I was thinking today about how much of the country runs on Microsoft products, including the government. How much power could they leverage from that? For instance, if Bill Gates made a public announcement &quot;Stop monitoring our shit, or we deactivate all copies of Windows in the country.&quot; I know, I know, there are plenty of issues with this, but I wanted to share my thought experiment with you all and see if anyone had any insights&#x2F;thoughts.
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kjs3
Extortion is a crime, for one thing. And it's a pretty hypocritical threat
considering Microsoft has been _more_ than willing to put hooks in it's
products to enable law enforcement/intelligence surveillance.

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vermasque
Sounds like a TODO for a desparate Steve Ballmer

