Microsoft chief Satya drops an S bomb in Windows 10, cloud talk Microsoft claims it really does care about privacy and securing the cloud and Windows 10, promising to build cybersecurity teams and investing in the area. A new Cyber Defense Operations Center will bring together security response experts from across the technology giant in a new “state-of-the-art” facility. The unit will be …
Maybe he should have spoken about how all of your data is encrypted by your own password before it hits MS' servers, and they don't have any access to it as a result.
Oh wait, that was a pipe dream resulting from me drinking too much port in a storm.
....and speaking of "trust" I bet at least half of the up-voters have a gmail spyware account and an android malware phone.
What is it with you guys, do you think google / apple / facebook et al are any better?
@tombo - no -it's just that MS's single redeeming feature in the eyes of folk like me (who loathe MS),and one of their redeeming features in others eyes was exactly that, that they didn't gratuitiously slurp data. And not only have they lost that teeny bit of moral high ground now, they did so in a particularly offensive manner. What makes you think we think any better of Facebook, Google or Apple?
"What is it with you guys, do you think google / apple / facebook et al are any better?"
Google, Apple, Facebook et al are NOT your OS provider. You can use alternative search engines, email etc and replace Google completely quite easily. Same is true of Apple products and services. Facebook is entirely optional and there are plenty of other social media outlets. You can actually run all of the above in such a way as to prevent any real information going their way.
With an OS your choice is far less, and quite probably is locked in.
Another comparison is that your OS functionality is being overstepped by MS here. People generally may want the free goodies, but not at the price being asked, if they were to be asked.
Google's, Apple's and Facebook's products are not mandatory, alternatives are available, and methods exist to deny them the very information they attempt to slurp. Not true with W10.
The Git hums the following ditty:
There's no use in me a-cryin'
I've done everything
And now I'm sick of trying
I've thrown away my nights
Wasted all my days over you
Now you go your way baby and I'll go mine
Now and forever 'till the end of time
And I've found somebody new and baby
We'll say we're through
And you won't matter any more
For the same reasons that through the ages various religions have mouthed pieties whilst engaging in the unspeakable: they want not only money, but power and, through the exercise of that power, control.
Unlike governments, Microsoft has been unable to obtain power through fear. It thus needs to obtain power through devotion. So it will say whatever needs be said to obtain that devotion, but do not under any circumstances expect it to practice what it preaches.
Both fear and devotion have a rich history of causing people to forget the past. Since Microsoft has failed at using fear, why not try for devotion? It has worked for other tech companies.
Usually devotion needs some sort of special dream, fantasy, or belief that out-weighs common sense. Given that MS is the dancing-dad of technology, and that few end users or sysadmins ever get up in the morning looking forward to engaging with MS' software, its going to be a long and tough sell...
I don't know, from an end user side, you're probably correct. From an administrative side, however...their vision of hybrid cloud computing is actually quite compelling. Many of the technologies they've developed are quite good and they have provided perhaps the most complete and relevant offering in the space.
The problem is that their execution is entirely one sided and utterly lacking in trust. To be blunt: they got all the hard stuff (the technology) right and all the easy stuff (privacy, data sovereignty) wrong. They say one thing out one side of their mouth but do something different in practice. They break the faith as a matter of course.
For me, at least, that's what's so damned frustrating. I can make a convincing argument for why Microsoft have the best vision for the future of tech, the best technology on the table today and the best roadmap to get from today to a pretty kickass future. Unfortunately, taking advantage of this neato stuff means trusting absolutely in a company that has proven they aren't worthy of it and have zero interest in being worthy of it in the future. That's a huge problem.
I could see myself being devoted to the Redmondian vision. It's a really cool vision. In fact, it's so cool that I find myself wanting to believe in it, despite everything Microsoft has done. When you really learn how all the bits go together it's amazingly compelling.
But there are big huge problems in execution and in trust that shouldn't have to be there. They are there because Microsoft made a choice, and that choice was to pretend that privacy and data sovereignty simply didn't matter. Even users having control over their own systems didn't matter. (Let along users being able to license their systems in perpetuity, which Microsoft has become very against of late!)
Microsoft have a narrow vision of the world based on echo chamber use cases. They view the world only through the lens of USian large enterprises who are immune to data sovereignty concerns, can easily obtain insurance or legal indemnity against privacy concerns and are completely immune to boom-and-bust economics.
On the one hand, USian large enterprises are a huge revenue source. On the other hand, the majority of businesses in the world are SMBs and the majority of those are located in (and subject to) boom and bust economies. Microsoft made it's choice. It chose a niche to cater to and that niche isn't "the majority".
That is enough to keep a large company going. It isn't enough to see growth for that company. To see growth, they need to start at least paying lip service to those niches they wrote off as irrelevant years ago.
The question is: will the denizens of those niches fall in line? Or will they say "hold, enough"?
The vision is compelling. Unfortunately, it might also be fatal for those who choose to believe in it.
"When you really learn how all the bits go together it's amazing compelling."
Are we looking at the same bits? I don't find their offering amazingly compelling at all. It's fine & adequate, but they're only just now catching up. They certainly haven't raced ahead.
But I agree with you. Microsoft has never been a company you can trust, and the way they've been responding to criticisms of Windows 10 clearly demonstrates that the leopard's spots haven't changed at all.
Even if a company produces the best security tech ever seen by man, if you can't trust the company then you can't trust the tech.
Maybe we aren't. Everyone has different things that matter to them. Microsoft is catching up in some areas (containers, for example) but is at par in most places and completely wrecking the competition in others (hybrid on premises/hosted/public self service virtualization a.k.a "hybrid cloud").
Let me be perfectly clear here: while Microsoft may be behind on individual features with individual products very few companies have the hybrid infrastructure, automation and orchestration capabilities of Microsoft. Fewer still make those capabilities as easy to use.
Openstack is possibly more comprehensive than Microsoft's stack, but is harder to use. (Which, given how horrible System Center is, is saying something.) ZeroStack is a startup that removes a lot of the installation and configuration headaches for Openstack and provides a decent user experience, but they do so through a SaaS management plane riddled with data soverignty concerns that they don't seem to care to acknowledge, let alone address. There are a handful of other Openstack offerings that might be useful one day, but aren't quite there yet.
Yottabyte has a hybrid cloud that isn't as feature rich as Microsoft's yet (they're missing the app store) but is otherwise fucking spectacular to use. Sadly, they're too small to be a real threat quite yet.
VMware has all the pieces of the puzzle, but they cost a mint, are crazy hard to install and even harder still to use in concert. (How the hell do you make something more miserable than System Center, I ask you?) VMware does the basic virtualization quite well. They even do basic hybrid cloud in an almost usable way. But they are completely worthless at automation and orchestration. Which is why they only have a handful of customers for those software layers.
Cisco has a complete-ish offering based on Openstack, but they are still putting the pieces together into something cohesive. They'll be a threat in a few months, if they don't flub it.
IBM's Softlayer can be pretty awesome, but nobody can afford it.
LOL, HP.
Beyond this I could start putting together stacks of software and they'd amount to what Microsoft has, but they'd be almost a dozen vendors. Almost all of which are startups that may or may not be there in two years.
So, for my money, Microsoft have some great technology that is better than most of what is on offer elsewhere. At least on the infrastructure side. Unfortunately, they're liars and scoundrels. Even more unfortunately, they're terrible at UIs and don't even know it. They measure themselves only against other large software vendors, all of whom are also terrible at UIs. But there are a whole bunch of startups out there who are great at UIs, and they have some compelling offerings on the table.
The next few years will be interesting, but for Microsoft I think it will mostly be with them serving as an example of how to get everything so close to right but not quite get the cigar.
Amid the predictable anti-MS rants, it's nice to see a bit of reason. If you are deploying a best in breed solution, MS may not find it's way into that many software segments but Linus help you when you try to integrate it into a functioning whole. For an end-to end solution, MS is the most viable option.
As to trust, anyone who trusts any vendor to put their users ahead of their stockholders is living in a dream world. I'm willing to wait and see whether MS can offer security value at an acceptable privacy cost.
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is devotion. The willingness to honestly and earnestly believe that trust doesn't matter. The ability to convince one's self that anything which gets in the way of belief is simply irrelevant.
Witness it in it's glory. Simply believing that such a thing as an "acceptable privacy cost" exists is the first step. But to sidestep issues of trust around end user control over their own devices, applications and operating systems as irrelevant? That's devotion.
"But to sidestep issues of trust around end user control over their own devices, applications and operating systems as irrelevant? That's devotion."
Couldn't agree more. The other trust issue is that MS have stolen bandwidth from many of its clients, not the least of them me. Would I ever trust someone who has stolen from me, ever again? I am not insane...
How about understand the real market. Enterprise and governments will spend money often like a drunken sailor and can actually have internal staff to run IT.
SMBs generally have to operate IT on much less resources with some staff doing multiple roles with some outside help. However in many areas they are under the same legal regimes with regard to security and customer/client privacy. Consumers should be concerned about privacy and security but many rely on an informal network of friends and family for IT support. SMBs and users are generally more cost conscious and more apt to keep working kit up. Both groups have money to spend but have to wooed to spend it.
@a_yank_lurker
I do understand the market. Microsoft owns the large enterprise market. Thus, as I said, it is enough to sustain Microsoft, but isn't going to provide them growth. Especially as tomorrow's large enterprises are today's SMBs. Alienating them doesn't build your future.
Shareholders demand growth. Where is it going to come from if not the hoi polloi so readily dismissed by Microsoft and it's devoted acolytes?
This applies to pretty much all companies including Microsoft, but they're very popular, so it's worth bearing in mind. Apple are probably worse, but have less market share and business usage. Phone related operating systems are substantially more execrable.
If you're using relatively standard Win32 and other core technologies, including core parts of .NET, I would not be worried about developing and using a Microsoft solution. They have a solid OS, with underpinnings that generally improve in each release, and an excellent commitment to backwards compatibility.
As soon as anything whatsoever outside the above (i.e. something that is not too big to be changed) is used, the company's vision becomes important. If your way of working or product design doesn't ally with that, then there is a problem.
If the platform supporting your product isn't open source or you have insufficient internal expertise to maintain an open source platform, and your product or way of working is indelibly marked on that platform, you have a splendid 'opportunity' to frantically change your environment.
Need to use Remote Storage Manager? That lasted all the way from Windows 2000 to Vista, and then got dropped. Bits of Exchange have changed radically between 5.5 and 2000, and again between 2003 and 2007. The Microsoft vision for a client OS is for a frequently updated client, with a constant moderate speed Internet connection.
It's even worse if you're using minority technologies, such as with Windows Phone 7, or new technologies that have not proven themselves in the market place. Expect to have the rug pulled from under you.
None of this should be a surprise. The mobile direction of Windows has been happening for years. Telemetry has increased with each Windows release and is generally a good idea. Windows 8 has had a considerable number of patches that changed it, and the Windows Store apps regularly. Automatic updates has defaulted to 'download and apply' for years, so it's clear that Microsoft sees the trade off of patched systems vs a (relative) minority of broken systems as acceptable.
However, it's not going to change unless people pay for it, and by pay I mean 'deliberately go through the cost and manpower to re-implement on a platform that allies with your aims for the foreseeable future'. It's all about the apps, it always was, and always will be. The Internet connected world has considerably increased the amount of activities that are possible solely in a browser, but native apps are still necessary.
It may also - specifically talking about moving off Windows - involve more pain, and paying more for fewer, higher quality features. It also needs a compelling feature for people to move, and I should point out that anything mass market has a similar Internet connected, data/telemetry reporting, automatically updated design to Windows (I do not include any non end user mass market Linux distributions, or stuff like BSD, even if I personally like it)
(I'm tempted to put a VMWare rant in there as well, but the post is already long enough)
I used the word 'telemetry' very specifically, note I didn't say 'data'. I don't believe that Microsoft are deliberately snooping actual user data for malicious intent, in any case.
Telemetry has been around for well over a decade, with crash dumps sent to Microsoft, and then on to third party developers if it was their software that failed. Then MS have added submissions to monitor which help a user uses, and other applications/features of the OS.
This is generally a good idea, as it helps Microsoft target which areas on an OS to improve (the flip side is that if a feature is rarely used, it may be dropped..). It's definitely improved drivers, and helped with applications.
I don't think this is a huge deal with Windows 10 - it's similar to what happened with Ubuntu. The larger issue is Microsoft's unrelenting push to get people on to a rolling release operating system. Obviously they think the trade off in dis-satisfied users is acceptable with pushing out Windows 10.
"I don't believe that Microsoft are deliberately snooping actual user data for malicious intent, in any case."
Assuming that to be true then why are their T&Cs written in such a way as to grant themselves the right to all the user's log-in credentials and transactions? It would have been quite easy to specify that it was only the user's credentials and transactions with Microsoft. Are we simply looking at sloppy drafting here? Or are they covering themselves against bugs that wouldn't be able to discriminate between what they need to see and what they don't?
It looks like Microsoft have updated their T&Cs to be somewhat more specific.
Is it something off this :https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/
or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-10/windows-privacy-faq
or http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/feedback-diagnostics-privacy-faq
The latter contains
'Full data includes all Basic and Enhanced data, and also turns on advanced diagnostic features that collect additional data from your device, which helps us further troubleshoot and fix problems. When devices experience problems that are difficult to diagnose or replicate with Microsoft’s internal testing, Microsoft will randomly select a small number of devices, from those opted into this level and exhibiting the problem, from which to gather all of the data needed to diagnose and fix the problem (including user content that may have triggered the issue). If an error report contains personal data, we won’t use that information to identify, contact, or target advertising to you. This is the recommended option for the best Windows experience and the most effective troubleshooting.'
Which seems to address the user log on credentials you might be specifying. Other items specify that dumps 'may' contain user data - this has been true for years, it's just now it's more obvious. It's the same under every operating system - if a process dumps core, it may well have user data in it.
So, yes, I'd anticipate it's for analysing issues. When a process falls over, there's no time to sanitise data.
Whether or not telemetry is a big deal depends on who you're talking to. For many, it's a huge deal. The big problem isn't the existence of telemetry, it's that Microsoft won't let you turn it off. As with their vision of Windows as a service, that stance amounts to Microsoft telling users "fuck you".
This was made fairly explicit in Belfiore's statement on the issue where he repeatedly underlined that Windows was theirs so they can do what they want. It is a hostile stance that tells the world that they no longer have the right to control what is happening on their computers.
That's the real problem.
sorry, I can't help myself, this calls for a quote (actually applies to the world and everything - corporations, governments... just take your pick)
"Our chief weapon is surprise...surprise and fear...fear and surprise.... Our two weapons are fear and surprise...and ruthless efficiency.... Our *three* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as fear, surprise.... I'll come in again."
"Trust and Microsoft are not two words that we often see in the same sentence..."
Well that depends.
Trevor gets remarkably close to what lots of people should define it as: "end user control over their own devices, applications and operating systems " (assuming data is implicitly in there somewhere).
But MS main customers aren't end users. The main customers are not even the shrinking army of certified Microsoft Dependent business partners.
In terms of trust, MS customers are largely two groups of people: the IT departments, and the "content rights owners". And to a lesser extent the PC builders (Dell HP etc), but their reasons for staying onboard are commercial and largely unrelated to "trust".
You've seen the IT departments and/or their representatives in this thread already: "For an end-to end solution, MS is the most viable option." where "viable" = "trustworthy" in terms of making it nearly work, or at least appear to work, some of the time. But in terms of data privacy, or data integrity/robustness?
The major content rights owners were another group who MS managed to convince of their trustworthiness (see e.g. MS Mediaroom (?)). MS were allegedly trustworthy in terms of protecting high value content all the way from the content owners to the content consumption device. Vista was the first big attempt at that, as was BT Vision's MS-based set top box. Where are Vista and the MS-based set top box now? Irrelevant.
End users are also largely irrelevant in the MS world.
All well and good, but there is a fifth pillar that is necessary : respect for the customer.
Microsoft have thoroughly pulverised that pillar with their deceitful and malicious push to get previous customers to move from Windows 7/8.1 to Windows 10 whether they want to or not.
When I see an unambiguous and complete apology for this previous behaviour, a statement that the new-year push to sucker more into Windows 10 by fiddling Windows Update has been cancelled, and a change to Windows 10 such that the user can turn off all telemetry - then I will consider that the fifth pillar might exist.
Until then - there is no reason to trust Microsoft. No Sale.
SO WHY ISN'T aka.ms/msa RESCINDED??? Well, because its Paragraph 3 by contract allows MSFT to slurp all your PRIVATE OFFLINE DATA to its servers, in the name of POLICING whether you are obeying a CODE OF CONDUCT which no one anywhere in the history of software or services, imposes on its customers!!!!
But oh, MSFT cares about my privacy? Really? So when someone accuses me to MSFT of having nudie pictures (Paragraph 3a.iv. of aka.ms/msa, go look it up) -- and then MSFT slurps all my private offline data only to find out I have NO such pictures -- not that it was any of MSFT's business whether I did or no -- then all the THIRD PARTY CONFIDENTIAL DATA MSFT HAD NO RIGHT TO VIEW is now in its servers, too. So now those third parties can sue me, and I will become bankrupt. Because, THEY did not consent to MSFT's slurping, but if I'm dumb enough to use Win10.. I did.
So tell me: how is Nadella gonna pay me for his lying about protecting my privacy, when BY CONTRACT HE APPROVED, MSFT SLURPS ALL MY PRIVATE OFFLINE DATA IF I'M DUMB ENOUGH TO USE ANYTHING MSFT PANDERS????!!!!!
Read it yourself, aka.ms/msa which is incorporated by reference in Win10 Eula Paragraph 14. Longer list of all the relevant MSFT links are here, plus legal ramifications summarized: http://brainout.net/frankforum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=59
I have been using Windows since 3.11 came out and I've been using MS-DOS since Tandy still made computers and I've been using Office since you called Office XP. I've used your product for years, but I am thinking about throwing in the towel. Your constant hard kicks to the groin of my privacy is what did it. Sure there are other things too, but the last straw was how you treated my privacy. I was willing to put up with those other things, but I am not willing to suffer your abhorrence for my privacy. But it is not too late, you can win my trust back. Here is how.
First, respect my privacy. Bing and Windows shouldn't be integrated. You should be selling an operating system; not selling a cloud platform or renting an OS. If you want to see a near perfect design, look at Windows 7. Now take Windows 7, improve it, and for the love of God do not disable F8. If you made a better Windows 7 I can promise you people would people lining up to buy it. All you made was a worse Windows 8 with a slightly better GUI. But I would be willing to buy Windows 10 if it respected my privacy. Now you couldn't pay me to take it. Well, maybe you can pay me to take, but you don't have enough money to make me keep it. All because of the lack of privacy.
Second, you are Microsoft. You are not cool and you never will be cool. Whenever I see you in a T-shirt that looks like it came from the church charity bin it just shows me you just don't get it. The way you dress tells me you want to be hip, but you will never ever be hip. Ever. Stop trying to be hip. I am not a hipster so I care more about my device working well and nothing about how cool it is.
Third, try listening. Like when I said in testing Windows 10 to respect my privacy, return Aero, and return F8. Three things that are not optional, three things left out of Windows 10. I realize some people do not like Aero, but Windows 7 and earlier gave us a choice. Why do you hate giving us choices? Do you think we are so stupid we don't know what is best for us? Or are you just a pompous douchebag who thinks he knows best? Either way, everybody likes choices and by not giving it to us, you are once again adding to your foibles.
Finally, preaching security is all well and good. But what good is it to have to most secure house in the neighborhood if no one wants it? You are angering all the wrong people with your cloud first, mobile first, privacy last, customer last approach. What good is a secure OS with few customers? Keep this up and you will be the most secure OS because your marketshare is so small no hacker will care.
er, I'm afraid people are missing "preaching security and privacy" with "meaning security and privacy". What he said was what's trendy these days. The "security" and "privacy" are trendy, so hey, MS tick the box. If shitting through your bellybutton were trendy, they'd try to excel (and claim to be better than google and facebook) in the bellybutton world shitting competition. The message is beamed at the millions of "users" who have no idea and care nothing about security, but these two words have, through repetition, penetrated through their "I don't give a shit") shell.
More accurately M$ plans massive PR campaign to cover over the all the security holes in Windows anal probe 10. Well, colour me surprised, NOT.
Here's betting M$ will be looking for a new chief executive shortly as a cultural import used to treating the majority of people as peasant to be used and abused, screws over ends users and the end users protest at the privacy being routinely penetrated, over and over and over again and just one more infinite number of times.
"Nadella spoke about trust as both at the core and central to Microsoft's mission ... we will ensure your data is private and under your control"
Mr. Nadella must think Windows users are a bunch of idiots because that is how he is treating them. With no way to turn off telemetry, mandatory feature updates and spyware on by default, Windows 10 puts Microsoft in control of user data.
That's a bit harsh.
M$ has upped its disrespect towards users by about a factor of 50. I don't think they could be any more disrespectful if they tried (maybe they could).
Linux Mint is looking good for a private secure OS and I've got 11 windows systems that will never see windows 10. M$ will loose a lot of its customer base.
"Spyware on by default".
Microsoft says that there is no way you can stop the information leaving your computer. There is no 'off switch' for the data they want (except an external firewall) and turning off updates.
Any 'off switch' they provide is just to make the user feel like they have control. Good joke on the user.
<begin curmudgeon> Speaking of user desktops: where is the native, enforced kernel isolation? Where are the automatic application isolation VMs? Where is anonymization-by-default? Where are firewalled, sandboxed filesystems?
On Whonix. On Qubes. On MirageOS. On OpenBSD.
I don't know of anybody who thinks system attacks are going to decrease, or become LESS sophisticated. WTF, Nadella! You offer Cortana and integrated cloud. But you're not innovating in security. Or privacy. Get orf, ya mouthpiece. </curmudgeon>
A previous poster made excellent points about hybrid cloud integration tools. True dat. For enterprise users, MS still hits the G-spot. But for many users, MS is a security risk that is rapidly becoming a risk not worth taking.
Unfortunately it's theirs not yours.
Once Microsoft has uploaded every byte you've created (aka 'telemetry') they don't want just anyone getting hold of it: only those that pay handsomely will be allowed to peek into your life for financial gain. And Microsoft certainly don't want you to know what they're up to, because you might be tempted to run software where you still have a modicum of choice and control - say Linux.
Ah, you mean to ensure me that any judge will have access to all my data because biometric data is "out in the open" ?
And that is supposed to enhance my privacy how again ?
Actually, color me impressed. In just one year, Nadella has convinced me that he is just as much a jerk as Ballmer was.
I do not seem to be able to understand his use of the words "privacy" and "trust", given the way Windows 10 works
I am consequently looking hard for replacements for those few programs I still have to run under Windows (8.1, 10 will not be installed). I have used both Windows and Linux for a long time, and never liked the "OS wars" because I just want an OS that works, and I can trust. It seems I am now forced to make a choice for just one OS.
"I am consequently looking hard for replacements for those few programs I still have to run under Windows (8.1, 10 will not be installed)"
Care to share what they are ?. I understand they might be specialized programs for your line of work. My department had to run for years with two desktops each , one for the specialized Unix then Linux scientific software and one for the corporate guff (email and IE only websites on our intranet)
What part of "I dont want to hear about your research into hackers being kept outside your corporate headquarters data cantre" but i DO want "Microsoft inbuilt and external snoopware keeping OUT of MY computer" do you not grasp.
Its a fairly simple concept.
That, dear MS$, is exactley why windows 7 (possibly 8) will be my last MS OS.
Now TH2 BROKE Self-Encrypting BitLocker mechanism of SED SSDs.
I am using Samsung 850 EVO with E-Drive enabled, which enables BitLocker to encrypt the drive within seconds, i.e. only slave keys are changed which can be done within seconds.
I rechecked if its a drive issue but BitLocker worked perfectly in newly installed 10240 version.
In 10586, they introduced XTS-AES by default, I even tried by changing it to AES CBC then also unsuccessfull. I also checked doing it before installing the update which makes it from 10586.0 to 10586.3, IRST driver 14.0 and other notebook drivers.
edit: the error is "The parameter is incorrect"
I am using GPT, so no active partition is required ofcourse
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