Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
They're adding secure links and solutions they cannot eavesdrop on to Azure, and getting pretty aggressive with pushing back against US surveillance.
The US benefits from EU privacy laws even without being there.
It's the Stallman argument again: don't defend privacy (free software) because it's convenient (hey, it's free and high tech enough), defend privacy because it's a principle that aligns with your ethics, not your economic interests.
Having economic interests line up with corporate interests sounds as good as it gets, to me.
This is a stronger step than "don't be evil".
Doing good things for bad reasons is better than doing bad things for bad reasons, even if it's not as good as doing good things for good reasons.
The other comment mentions the problem with this stance. But it is worthwhile to point out that this is pretty much par for the course for Microsoft, seeing as they are suddenly embracing open source with a vengeance despite being the single biggest factor in its suppression for 15+ of the last 20 years.
I remember seeing someone commenting how they are impressed with the new Microsoft. To which I thought "Really? Did they actually have any other choice?"
To be sure, I will also add my view that I don't view any of the tech giants as having a moral high ground over MSFT in any way, shape or form.
Not really? Open Source took off when the corporate world around Microsoft embraced it as a way to get more unbilled hours from employees and restructure how they do tech sharing with other companies to make it cheaper.
Microsoft has sued individual vendors for patent litigation, which is obviously bullshit but not something special for linux vendors (every vendor enters into this system and until said system is changed, a risk for it exists).
> I remember seeing someone commenting how they are impressed with the new Microsoft. To which I thought "Really? Did they actually have any other choice?"
_I'm_ impressed with Nadela and the engineers at Microsoft. I'm impressed that a corporate structure could shift this much. I used to work there in the bad old days and it was an incredibly demoralizing experience. Now, I look and talk to people who are happy and energized.
I also think Microsoft didn't have to approach things the way they did. They absolutely had an option to try and perform a hostile takeover/co-opting of the Linux ecosystem (the way that Oracle is doing via its Java IP).
Microsoft is what it is, for sure. It has a checkered past. But I think we should be encouraging when we see actors in the system do things like write non-enforcement pledges on patents, open source core technology with very permissive licenses so that their techniques and technology are dispersed throughout the ecosystem, and point out their product profile has never been stronger as a result.
We can do this while also remaining cautious and defensive, as we should with every major corporate vendor.
To use ancient metaphor, doing good things for bad reasons is like building a house on the sand: fine for a while.
"And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."
"Doing the right thing" is not what Microsoft cares about on a macro level. It just so happens that in this instance its actions align with the interests of most people.
If your point point is, for example, China being more important to MS and demanding weaker privacy I don't think it matter that they are more powerful. I think MS would have to respect the laws of whichever nation has the highest privacy expectations. Or spread data out among countries it's created in and apply different privacy rules to different servers.
G and MSFT both have stories from the early days when their employees went into cloud email accounts to check up on users. In G's case it was a rogue sysadmin stalking some high school kids, for MSFT it was looking at a journalist's hotmail acct to prosecute a leak.
The NSA has their own version of this, LOVEINT, where analysts stalk their significant others (or desireds or exes).
I can't think of any guarantee a company can provide to say this isn't happening, esp on social platforms. Crypto-based platforms might do it (see the danish sugar beet auction, which uses a form of secure multiparty computation) but that's not MSFT's argument here. Also unclear how crypto platforms affect the ability to roll out new features and debug.
We had full access to billing, we also had full access to people's accounts. We could look at emails, look at deleted items weeks after del (restore in rare circumstances).
The thing is we didnt mess around. The tools to do this are heavily logged and audited.
There was an incident of guy looking into his gf account.
Within a week the guy was repramanded and let go.
Do you know if she was ever told? If yes, what was her reaction?
> how was it discovered that he looked?
That's how they figured it out. Because someone who wasn't fulfilling a support ticket accessed an email account.
Robart rejected the tech giant’s argument that the so-called sneak-and-peek searches amount to an unlawful search and seizure of property. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch had argued that federal law allows the Justice Department to obtain electronic communications without disclosure of a specific warrant if it would endanger an individual or an investigation.
Aren't the lower courts subject to the interpretations of the higher courts?
http://money.howstuffworks.com/10-overturned-supreme-court-c...
Is what we're seeing here a ruling, or merely a dismissal of a claim before the trial starts?
"We've changed, honest!"
I think the general population is beginning to realize this. Obviously it takes time for people to understand things, but this information is years old at this point.
The question now is, "what do we do about it?"
Which we are you asking about?
Since this is HN, I'm guessing you are asking about technologists and founders. I would say they should end surveillance on their users. Stop using ad-tech and analytics that tracks users. Log as little as you possibly can. Stop with the excessive rights grabs over your user's data.
But HN is also a lot of people like me - typical users. To them I would say use ad-blockers every where. Use HTTPS everywhere. When you are asked to give up privacy, consider what you are getting in return. For me, I'm comfortable with using Google services because it feels like I'm getting a lot. But with Windows 10, I'm giving up a lot of privacy for nothing in return.
I have no idea what to say about people like my parents. They have no problem with universal surveillance. Privacy is important only for protecting themselves from fraud. Same goes for my kids. They care even less about privacy than my parents.
I've got mixed feelings about the amount of telemetry data they collect.. I don't use cortana, and have disabled most of the options I can disable regarding this. That said, I mostly like the new UI/UX, and would prefer to have friends and family on a version of windows that is clearly better supported moving forward.
I wouldn't say that is nothing ... I also run a mac laptop, and my most used home PC, is the htpc connected to my tv running Ubuntu. Android phone and tablet... I'm not only using windows, but can appreciate what it does offer in trade for that privacy concern.
You're right though - lots of people did get it as a free upgrade. I'm not sure I'd like Microsoft off the hook though since a significant number were tricked into it. Plus I think my point applies even more aptly to users that didn't upgrade to W10. Microsoft added the data sharing features into Windows 7 and 8. So they literally were essentially forced into sharing private data with Microsoft for nothing in return.