May the twelfth twenty seventeen overnight a dangerous computer virus spread around the globe one a crime was the name cyber criminals gave to the trojan which they used to blackmail their victims and encrypt their Computer Data the ransom between three hundred and six hundred dollars to be paid into an anonymous bitcoin account more than two hundred thousand computers on all continents were affected by this attack from the German Railway to the ministry of the interior and russia and the japanese car manufacturer a honda. In britain some hospitals even had to implement their emergency plan how could a single piece of malware similar taney asli Cripple Companies hospitals and even Intelligence Services all over the wild the answer involves microsoft all the victims. Used the same software they were all vulnerable in the same way and they all relied on a Single Company namely microsoft the same applies to every state administration in europe. Whats the impact of this dependence journalist Howard Schumann and colleagues from investigate europe wanted to find out the results are alarming. The dial emma affects the data belonging to all of us and out of pendants on microsoft goes far deeper than just our use of word or excel software almost every governmental and public or farting in the e. U. From city halls to vehicle registration offices and tax office is software that was specially designed for that work. These many thousands of special programs were designed for the windows operating system and the more complex Information Technology becomes the more our Public Institutions become dependent on the microsoft monopoly. Its a problem that Martin Charbel the former german director general for Information Technology knows well. And the fact the german off orators are de facto dependent on microsoft because with very few exceptions microsoft products are used in every Government Office and. That means its not easy to use different software. All documents exist in microsoft format. Which employees are all trained to use microsoft programs because bonding servers also run with Microsoft Software so of course theres also results in economic dependence to hide things thats what will happen if this continues for another ten or twenty years its already for the my personal concern is that the dependency of various manufacturers of the. And the virtualization of our entire i. T. System meaning the relocation of i. T. Systems into the cloud into some distance. The servers that could be anywhere which would mean our governments ability to control and manage its own i. T. Is constantly diminishing. In that sense our public agencies are no longer able to determine how secure their id is now secure the data of its citizens it can say how long it will take to implement new functions how expensive the right is how much they could save and so forth will be less and less able to provide this information. Dependency is the result of a Business Model with which the Major Software manufacturers and in particular microsoft have created monopolies a world wide keeping the source code the secret. Modern software is written in programming languages the source code is the recipe for each Software Program or operating system. Every i. T. Specialist can understand this source code but the computers dont understand source code it has to be transformed into binary machine code which only computers can read and understand. This is the source code for the command display hello world one of the first things you might learn in your first programming class. And this is what the command looks like translated into machine code. Microsoft only makes the machine code available to its customers but we cant decipher it ourselves microsoft keeps its source code a secret and to protect itself from copycats. This is whats called the proprietary Business Model only the manufacturer is able to change improve correct and fix security gaps in the software for better or worse the users are completely at the mercy of the manufacturer. The data belonging to every citizen from tax returns to parking fines flows through the enormous data centers maintained by our governments. We pay a visit to one of the high security server farms in hamburg were not permitted to reveal its location let alone film it from the outside but all its security arrangements offer little protection against microsofts vulnerabilities. So this is just one of several data point Data Center Facilities data port is a Public Corporation owned by the state. We belong to the northern German Federal states including lower saxony and its municipalities we only handle Public Sector data on our show you one of our cooling rooms where the computers are camped. You can see them working away on both sides and theres enclosed spaces cant go. Through this at the door what role does microsoft play. Both proprietary and open Source Software in some areas proprietary software is used almost exclusively that includes as a pay for example also proprietary software but of course microsoft has used a lot of people used to working with it and it has an almost day facto monopoly position. We know that we have to reduce our dependency and use various strategies to minimize this dependency on a case by case basis but its a balancing act. Which hasnt been working out with microsoft over the past ten years the German Government has doubled its outlay for microsoft licenses. Microsoft microsoft is indeed a real challenge its not only public agencies that use microsoft products but also industry and the private sector universities and so on. You could say weve created a culture that accepts this mechanism so its a real challenge to create alternatives. I do not even. Alternatives to microsoft have been around for a long time theyre based on a fundamentally different principle called open source. In contrast to the proprietary software sold by microsoft and other Companies OpenSource Software uses a source code thats publicly available. Thats why hundreds of thousands of programmers around the world can improve it expand on it and fix bugs. The collective work carried out by this swarm of programmers identifies and closes security gaps and efficiently produces state of the art Software Including the worlds most widely used operating systems linux and android unlike microsoft linux is available free of charge. Any organization or administration can customize it for its own purposes without asking a corporation for permission but most government i. T. Managers believe that there is no alternative to microsoft in Public Administration even though open Source Software has become a profitable industry. I know that its no longer true that alternatives dont exist that may be true twenty years ago when you had to install the software on your windows p. C. So why arent european states making the switch to free themselves from this dependency. It reminds me of the Renewable Energy debate people said solar power was impossible it didnt work it was too expensive look at what we have no on some days germany produces nearly one hundred percent of its electricity from renewables so how did that change come about because they made it easier provided incentives then all of a sudden people realized hey it does work its the same with software. Why such resistance from the authorities. If i get a microsoft monopoly arose thirty five years ago when an entire industry has developed around it and many people are. Vested in maintaining it many are sitting in government and Public Agency i. T. Departments they dont want things to change because they know it will cut into their business as the. Modern open Source Programs can compete with microsoft products as the company open exchange demonstrates. These are so can this software replace the entire office package. In this office to think you can do everything with this software that you can do with microsoft its Pretty Simple heres the email program and then we have an address book thats of course you can manage appointments tasks to do lists and keep track of all your files schools thats the human. Mind is the software also allows you to edit text text create spreadsheets and of course create presentations on your own so there has to be a. What do you deal with all the documents from other people that public agencies constantly have multiple people working on a single document then the boss has decided theres a lengthy workload you cant handle that can you. Show your carrier you make it sound like using Office Software from the cloud instead of having it installed on your computer is completely normal but most people have never heard of it. You dont realize youre already using it if youre a one plus one or Telecom Vodafone arc or France Telecom customer and use their mail program or calendar youre already using our system you know what about your profit that we earn a living by offering professional support services to keep the systems up and running you know we only get paid by about one in every ten thousand users along the line but theyre very big and we earn enough from them that we can provide our services to the other ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of free of charge which are. Not a Good Business it is yes we are growing forty five percent per year for the last night. Open Source Software has long been standard in private corporations the global giants of the Digital Economy such as facebook Amazon Google pay pal only use open source they would never give their competitor microsoft access to their Information Technology. But european governments continue to submit to the old monopoly signing one contract after the next. Contract stipulate the terms and conditions for the Government Agencies use of microsoft programs the German Ministry of the interior is legally obligated to allow inspection of such contracts but the ministry has blackened out all the key elements such as prices conditions and security requirements they say the reason is that microsoft is in forcing trade secrets in other words the corporation is permitted to decide what the public may learn about its dealings with taxpayers money. With this framework contract the German Government permits all state institutions from local authorities to parliament to obtain software directly from microsoft resellers. Its a business worth billions of euros. But its legally questionable because agreements of this sort override European Union law it says that public authorities are prohibited from buying products and services exceeding the value of one hundred thirty five thousand euros from a single supplier without first issuing a public invitation to tender. That doesnt seem to worry peter bart whos head of the German Interior Ministry how does he justify circumventing e. U. Public procurement law. In the call for tender does take place microsoft doesnt sell its products directly and uses intermediaries who put in bids and compete with one another. This is what would be like if it were to straighten it buying new cars for its fleet and only inviting v. W. Dealers to put in a bid excluding all other manufacturers thats not competition. The tenders are initially open to everyone but the clear majority of the german Public Sector decides in favor of the Industry Standard rather than an open Source Solution which they regard as an experiment. Meant for. The units of pilot every state administration puts out a call for tender in accordance with the framework contract we need new microsoft licenses who can give us the best deal. That may often be the case yes but not necessarily in every case. Its not that simple e. U. Law doesnt allow Public Tenders to give preference to a specific company it also prohibits the specification of brand names and calls to tender but when it comes to microsoft states appear to be flat. At the university of groningen in the netherlands pumps a lawyer specializing in i. T. And public procurement has studied this practice so to Framework Agreements with microsoft violate e. U. Law. Yet. Theres very clear it violates european law and when you ask organizations you know why are you doing this the people responsible for attending they usually notice that file its european law but they will say well even the European Commission itself is doing its. Best to tom petty you will far exceed breaking its own rules my colleague maria majority from the investigator europe Journalist Team has been a long time correspondent in brussels and knows who to ask. Ok who are we going to meet now and now we are going to need a leg. Im thinking type of event but michel i was already told they are going to advance a new contract with michael for next year so good luck to you to the. Next. Microsoft and i you or i be negotiating a new contract the plan is to go for negotiating procedure with microsoft for the best top layer. And for call for tender with a reseller. For microsoft doesnt the practice to negotiate this framework contract violate the rules of procurement which demand open competition not that are there are different procedures foreseen by the picture and rules and of course the data for that procedure is called for tender but then the negotiated procedure is a procedure that exists in the rules and its fully legal and the conditions are that there is only one provider that can provide this particular solution the technical solution so there is no other possibility and what weve seen is that we if we did do call for tender in open court for tender for provision we would land with microsoft anyway and it would be much more expensive because what theyre doing now is negotiating a price list together with microsoft directly which gives a huge discount well it sounds very reasonable but this actually means that they have a problem within their organization. Because they are obviously locked in. They are in a optimal situation because they are so dependent on working with microsoft that they are even thinking that they cant function without the Microsoft Software it says more about their own organization then. The topic of law because it basically means that they have internal problem that they have to fix but it doesnt mean that there cant be this regard for human what does the procurement law exactly say of the procurement law describes. Social situations in which you can ask for a brand name being locked in is not an excuse to disregard the procurement rules. There are alternatives. Back in two thousand and four a social democratic mayor of munich. Decided the City Administration would switch from Microsoft Windows to the open source Linux Operating System the project called the mocks was considered a Great Success and was also copied in other european cities. In twenty twelve details writer who was the citys Economic Advisor at the time negotiated an agreement with microsoft to relocate its german headquarters to munich. In twenty fourteen i took a munichs mayor and since then the social democratic mayor has joined forces with the conservatives on the city council to bring the munich administration back into the microsoft fold. Because many of us in the c. S. U. Were against the decision back then. It was a decision based purely on. Cost far more than one hundred million a monopolist always wants to make sure it gets all the follow up contract. Its a huge waste of money please reconsider those thank you. But the mayor rejected these Data Security and anti monopoly arguments in his closing statement he also gave another reason to abandon linux. Weve tried to create workarounds but what weve been able to achieve doesnt compare to what ive seen in my private business dealings these past ten or fifteen years that is why i personally believe it would make sense to switch so can i call for the votes against the motion to. The greens the liberals the left and other opposition parties vote against the majority decide in favor thank you. Its to look at is the return to microsoft as payback for the company relocating its german headquarters to munich which you negotiate a few years ago. No it certainly is not what i initiated and what we have voted for todays to improve our i. T. Modernize it and make it more effective and reliable for users in the administration and for our citizens. However a report showed that a large majority of City Employees were happy with the limo system the report did find fault with munichs i. T. Administration but the problem was not with the Linux Software the problem was that the city gave i. T. Administrators in the various departments too much leeway to chart their own course according to the former head of munichs i. T. Department it was this lack of uniformity that was the problem not the underlying linux system City Employees were not permitted to grant us an interview but an expert from the city i. T. Department was willing to speak with us anonymously so is there some truth to the claim that the open source system in the munich City Government didnt work properly and others in were all very disappointed weve always try to make sure it all works smoothly and weve been quite successful in that in our training courses people are saying why should the system be changed it works when to hit a harness. Thousand forms were adapted to work with open Source Software what will happen to them now. The new template system will have to be created from Microsoft Office that will be expensive every single template will need to be converted or every department will have to manually create their own templates the way they used to do will have an explosion of days which will become unmanageable at some point this isnt about technology its about politics linux was just a bargaining chip. Of course politics plays a role munich was ruled by the social democrats and greens for twenty four years and lee mocks was their project in twenty fourteen a new coalition came into power a grand coalition the Christian Social Union the conservatives have always opposed the limits projects and open Source Software and favored microsoft and now we have a new maam the former american favorite the linux system during the election dieter ita outed himself as a microsoft fan all of a sudden linux became the scapegoat when the new district heads had trouble using their cell phones they blamed it on linux unix had nothing to do with it but it was a convenient scapegoat of the incident. Which in back again is going to be very expensive for munich a preliminary calculation estimated that the return to microsoft will cost nineteen Million Euros by twenty twenty not counting license fees. Meanwhile the city of rome wants to move from microsoft to open source. Even the italian army has begun to break away from microsoft its already replaced Microsoft Office some thirty thousand computers with the open Source Program libra affluence. We saw that leave the office and Microsoft Office were both equivalent for our purposes. We carried out a case study. We analyzed how people used Microsoft Office and realized that labor office was just as good. When we compare the two programs we found no loss of productivity. That. This is a document in right or that one is in work but this is the. Its the same. As always this is a medium term project which will take from twenty sixteen to twenty twenty to complete changing from word to labor offices saving us twenty eight Million Euros thats a considerable saving. The French National gendarmerie has gone a step further its switched Office Software and like the city of munich it switched from the windows to Linux Operating System resulting in some twenty Million Euros in savings over eighty years but the National Gendarmerie is now coming under massive pressure our Investigative Team was shown an order from the French Interior ministry instructing the giant armory to return to microsoft. So who is really behind this demand is the Microsoft Corporation wielding behind the scenes influence. From the french n. G. O. S which advocates for open Source Software has been observing this struggle for some time. Two or three years ago bill gates the founder of microsoft came to france with his foundation and was received by the president of france a few months later we found out about a partnership with the ministry of education. They definitely have Privileged Access for example lobbyists from microsoft have email addresses ending with introduction to the same domain ending used by government ministries. So the employees there regard them as calling this. Microsoft microsoft employees how email address is in the ministries not only do they have access to the buildings they also have email addresses ending with intraday f. R. Theres no separation between the two. You give an example the top lobbyist for microsoft even worked for a while as a Parliamentary Assistant so there are many Revolving Doors as they call it when someone has a parliamentary position or a ministry job and starts working for microsoft or the other way round theyre very networked. No one in the French Ministry of defense was willing to provide us any information about the cooperation with microsoft. But our Investigative Team has found an i. T. Expert from the french government who is prepared to speak with us we have an appointment in a neutral location the i. T. Expert wants to remain anonymous so that he wont risk his job. Paris colleague let me know know has also found documents that show how closely the french government cooperates with microsoft. Ok. You work for the french government we have a document here that shows an employee using a ministry of defense email address. But this other document shows that the very same person is also a microsoft employee. How is this possible that microsoft understood this. Unfortunately theyre exploiting a carelessness of administrators who often Register Service providers with an email address of the administration they work for. Thats a huge advantage for a technician or project leader who is tasked with circulating microsoft technology. That they can pretend theyre an employee of a government agency. When theyre actually just a service provider. It appears that the French Ministry of defense has had a secret agreement with microsoft for the past ten years even the French Parliament wasnt informed of the agreement or its content. Its the contract between the French Ministry of defense and microsoft and we have no doubt that amount of money or. It was all black if you can see the black and what is important in this country is the amount of money. Spent on that and its all black in the amount of money and it was not even here in front of the senate because. I thought i was directed to the minister of defense we should definitely because she just though the person its a man of commission of inquiry. Yet another redacted contract once again a private corporation has prohibited a government from fulfilling its legal obligation to inform the public the French Parliament has resolved to investigate how much the state actually pays microsoft in licensing fees some sources believe its two hundred euros per workstation per year if the same applied to the anti e. U. That would amount to ten billion euros a year and thats money that could go a long way to underwriting an e. U. Wide open Source Solution will frances parliamentarians succeed in breaking this conspiracy of silence. And. This seemed to me absolutely. I asked for this committee of inquiry because we didnt have to size figures it was the right and duty of a member of parliament to know how much a contract costs especially such an important one. Parent me there was no tendering procedure the experts were against this program and there are other solutions for example. He has decided not to use microsoft and to subscribe to a specific contract with free Linux Software for economic and other reasons and this example was not followed by the ministry of defense. There was the leagues someone who said it was at least one hundred thirty Million Euros but we fear that the figure is much higher. So theres been some pressure from the ministry of defense to ensure that there is no Investigative Commission so its evident there was a form of lobbying excuse the ugly word which came from microsoft. Closest. To the entire french army uses microsoft programs what does this mean for National Security and the sovereignty of france and from coast to think. Thats very serious because a potential attack on microsoft in the network of the ministry of defense erected in danger our soldiers and a whole series of military actions abroad. The. Microsoft systems are also a Security Risk overly complex and vulnerable and only the experts at microsoft know the source code its something that the Chaos Computer Club europes largest association of hackers has long been criticizing they have factors can. Have saved. Had Microsoft Office is far more vulnerable than the open source libra office the Italian Military looked into this and its also easy to demonstrate. Every Text Processing Program stores a document in the form of lines of code that the user normally never sees in libra office this sentence weve typed generates ten lines of code data. That very same sentence in microsoft word generates more than one hundred lines of code data. So microsoft generates much more data that viruses can used to infiltrate a computer. Thats confirmed by the German Office for Information Security or b. S. I. They say that the microsoft format offers a cyber attack of far more opportunity for attack. Gap exploited by the wanna cry malware demonstrates the extent of the risk either microsoft Security Experts failed to notice the error for ten years even as it borrowed its way into a decades worth of operating systems or they were aware of the vulnerabilities but kept it a secret for us National Security agency or n. S. A. Had already discovered the vulnerability and used it to develop its own espionage tool which it used until it was apparently leaked to cyber criminals so given this risk shouldnt the German Government insist on the disclosure of the source code for all its software. After having read snowdens revelations over the past four years about how vulnerable we are and what methods the u. S. Secret service is use an essential part of snowdens publications is about the close elaboration between the corporations and the secret services and the fact that the corporations also blige to work with secret services they should have drawn the necessary conclusions from this. Data security expert your highness caspar is also concerned about the risk from the u. S. Intelligence services. The german constitution says the state must protect the data of its citizens. There is a fundamental right to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of Information Technology systems. That are subject to american law. You have the consequences yes the implications are of course a very far reaching. We know that under the Prism Program the major american Internet Company is granted access to their data. Of. Microsoft part of this program. Yes among others. This shows of course how risky it is to enter into a dependency that you cant just suddenly get towns on. The last call. We wanted to speak with microsoft about our investigation including questions related to Data Security and u. S. Intelligence services but over four months they didnt grant us an interview our written inquiries also remained unanswered. My colleague elissa semantic came across a secret document from the German Office for Information Security the b. S. I. According to the documents its experts are also suspicious of microsoft as early as twenty fourteen before the current contract with microsoft was concluded they issued forty six requests for the company to fix security gaps in its software and to compel the company to meet its obligations to German Governmental and public agencies. But wait till you see whats written on page twenty inquiries from the site of microsoft we asked the ministry of the interior about this in the beer size catalogue of demands it says inquiries from the b. S. I. To microsoft sometimes go unanswered or are answered only with significant delay an increase in this behavior has been observed especially regarding questions that microsoft presumably finds uncomfortable with those questions are usually ignored. That this sounds like a large American Corporation is giving the german Data Security or thirty the runaround. No thats not what is happening its understandable that the b. S. I. Would employ Strong Language in order to strengthen its own negotiating position for Microsoft Might not necessarily want to provide information about problems and vulnerabilities when they may not believe there exist or when they think they can fix them very quickly for. The requirements fulfilled is all requirements were fulfilled not under the contract itself. Yes thats correct not all demands were met and we did indeed have to renegotiate. Your welcome to speak to colleagues from the b. S. I. About the modahl it is they agreed on. A persons. We try to do just that but the German Office for Information Security replied unfortunately we are not currently available for an on camera interview but you are welcome to send us your questions in writing. We did that too but no reply was forthcoming. The European Parliament has drawn its own conclusions from the snowden affair and has taken a tough stand government i. T. Systems need to end their reliance on the americans. We need the commission we need the parliament to urge clearly on the Member States to deliver rules and standards for nearly ten years young philip was an advocate for strong Data Protection laws in the European Parliament. So if we ask europeans can break free of the closed source codes that microsoft and others insist on and switch to our own open source code were taking a risk of chords the European Union and the European Market could just become a kind of colony for these companies so of course we wont be able to control what happens to our data. In the youre going to get routed in the start of the e. U. Commission disagrees. With microsoft its alternative on the market that. Works. Im sorry but thats a flat out lie of course its feasible to switch to open Source Software to process the files and danger of government organizations like the European Commission those alternatives exist of open Source Software and. No there arent enough suppliers and bitter is good does that and the providers the suppliers do exist they just arent competitive thats the only difference to solve this problem the European Union just needs to say in Public Tenders we want to open source to be the basic standard if we genuinely want to create an alternative it should be worth our while to fully invest in the european model of open stand its a kind of project for digitalisation made in europe. Something. In twenty thirty in the e. U. Commission adopted a program that would enable european institutions and Member States to liberate them. From that dependence on a handful of us software companies. Why have the commissioners abandon this policy. I dont think we abundances this police but the only solution is to invest more to catch the critic is that by using this microsoft monoculture in public i t systems these public systems are being held very vulnerable lets say change our operating systems and then and no Cyber Threats anymore so my boss said everybody is a big difference in proprietary software you dont know the source code isnt that such a Security Risk when you have a black box operating the public id whats a solution not to use microsoft youre think microsoft is like a black box this window is full of enemies and lets proceed to use it of Microsoft Software early in the interview you want to impose a further storage and came from the European Parliament itself to make the public source code a precondition in procurement for software called public eye t. V. The old political European Commission has failed to respond despite the calls made by people like john called younker and uncle americal who have gone on record to urge the e. U. To achieve digital sovereignty but we see no moves in this direction. Not misperceived was the parliament completely wrong. I dont think so. Were using procurement systems to buy your software its an open competition for sorry for Desktop Software for Office Automation and for mail there is no competition i dont think its so simple that we just prohibits the usage of some kind of software and no problems anywhere no Cyber Attacks and no Cyber Incidents anything oh no we will be happy although you sorry sorry sorry the nobody nobody has. Claimed this and not now not ever not even really i would like to say youre saying that this no no those are the only problem we have in the european new order there are a lot of other problems but the microsoft issue is the elephant in the room which nobody wants to talk about and that is the reason why we do this film i dont think we have we have to intervene going to. Economically shows so we have to invest more if we make open source a credit and public procurement of software for the public Information Technology systems this would create exactly this kind of alternative youre looking for and this would overcome this one up early to make open source the try to resume would be a big ben for the European Software industry in the short period of time we would have Great Solutions for the public eye independent of the united states. Thats will. Take time for europe as a whole to move in a different model promising direction in which there. Is a call for trustworthy and open standards interoperability sustainability and maximum security and a reduction of the dependence on monopoly structures in hardware and software this was a parliamentary resolution whats being done to meet those demands before the helm these demands didnt just spring up overnight. Be another discussion for a while the principles weve always followed for the. New framework contract is currently under negotiation with microsoft. Of course but what else can we do and. Ok cost lives we take football personally. All these world cup preview. This time its groups. With a clear favorite friends. And Top Competitors to. Thirty minutes on d w. Every journey begins with the first step and every language but the first word published in. Rico is in germany to learn german and why not learn to tell a simple online on your mobile and free. W z learning course nico speak german meeting c. 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