back to article Microsoft security tools questioned for treating employees as threats

Software designed to address legitimate business concerns about cyber security and compliance treats employees as threats, normalizing intrusive surveillance in the workplace, according to a report by Cracked Labs. The report, titled "Employees as Risks" - released today by the Vienna-based non-profit - explores software from …

  1. Bitsminer Silver badge

    Limited scope...

    from detecting "profanity," "offensive language," and "inappropriate text" to corporate sabotage, data leaks, bribery, money laundering, insider trading, conflicts of interest and "workplace collusion."

    They forgot littering.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: Limited scope...

      "They forgot littering."

      Ok, I admit it. I put that envelope with my name on it under that big pile of trash.

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Limited scope...

        (All together now, in 4 part harmony)

        "You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant (excepting Alice),

        Jut walk right in, its around the back,

        Just a half mile from the railroad track

        ..."*

        Thanks for reminding me of this classic song.

        *Alice's Restaurant, by Arlo Guthrie

        1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
          Happy

          Re: Limited scope...

          Link

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaKIX6oaSLs

    2. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

      Re: Limited scope...

      ...and creating a nuisance.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Limited scope...

        "...and creating a nuisance."

        With me, that's a given.

        I'm glad the reference wasn't too dated for this crowd. One of the bad things with getting old is some of my best ripostes don't work if somebody doesn't understand where it comes from. Thank goodness that anything Monty or Douglas isn't going to baffle anybody here or I'd be out of material right quick.

    3. Zarno
      Joke

      Re: Limited scope...

      And "Forgetting to return the compostable communal bamboo spoon to the canteen within the allotted time limit."

    4. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Re: Limited scope...

      ... sittin' there on the Group W bench, talkin' 'bout all sortsa groovy things ...

      1. Eclectic Man Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Limited scope...

        Hey!

        Those pencils are Government Property, stop playing with them.

    5. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Limited scope...

      But lunch thieving is acceptable.

      1. parlei

        Re: Limited scope...

        Waiting for the version that detects wage theft...

      2. 0laf Silver badge

        Re: Limited scope...

        That's a theft fropm you the individual so cost the company nothing. If it got more work out of you the company would probably encourage it.

        In the banks it's probably corporate policy to encourage theft

  2. xyz Silver badge

    Mmmmm...

    This is so similar to high level security clearance except... I agreed to the intrusion and knew what it all meant. Now, it appears everyone has to have it whether they like it or not. I'd be pissed.

    1. Eclectic Man Silver badge

      Re: Mmmmm...

      A friend of mine had a top level security clearance - where they read your bank statements, assess your living conditions etc. He was asked where he was living, who with "Fiona". "Are you married?" - "No". Interviewer sighs - "They're all doing that these days." Friend passed, as 'living in sin' was so common it was completely accepted.

      1. Rich 11

        Re: Mmmmm...

        About forty years ago I had a friend who worked at GCHQ, around the time that the Thatcher government was having a stab at unionised workers there going on strike by claiming that some of them should have their security clearances revoked simply for being left-wing. It sparked a wider conversation about security and modernisation, and my friend mentioned a gay co-worker who was so flagrantly camp that at his annual interview the security people ignored the old 1950s rules about the risk that homosexuals could be blackmailed by the Russians because this bloke was completely unembarrassable. The joke went that if a Soviet honeytrap had caught him in flagrante delicto, he'd joyfully have passed the incriminating photos around the office himself!

        1. Kane
          Big Brother

          Re: Mmmmm...

          "About forty years ago..."

          So, around 1984 then...

      2. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

        Re: Mmmmm...

        Back in my day, they asked me about my predilection for frequenting adult cabarets (strip clubs). "What would you do if someone had photos of you with a stripper sitting in your lap?"

        "Ask for some copies so I could send them out as Christmas cards," I replied.

        It turns out that Sukarno (first president of independant Indonesia) gave a similar reply to KGB blackmailers when they confronted him with photographic evidence of his trysts.

        1. BlueCollarCritic

          Re: Mmmmm...

          Smart man. Once you cave to blackmail you're forever a victim of more of it.

  3. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge

    Don't fret people

    This will be added to Windows very soon (at a $99.99/month per user fee naturally) where it isn't illegal.

    When will a major company call time on Windows and move to MacOS or Linux? It can't come soon enough.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't fret people

      When will a major company call time on Windows and move to MacOS or Linux?

      I know several, including ones where I worked, that tried to go from Windows to Linux. They always folded under staff pressure and went back.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't fret people

        Perhaps if management says : we spend k$ / yr on Windows licensing, if we switch to Linux/BSD (and you get training as needed), half of those savings will be bonuses for staff.

        1. Kane
          Joke

          Re: Don't fret people

          "we spend k$ / yr on Windows licensing, if we switch to Linux/BSD (and you get training as needed), half all of those savings will be bonuses for staff manglement."

          There, FTFY.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't fret people

        "I know several, including ones where I worked, that tried to go from Windows to Linux. They always folded under staff pressure and went back."

        Sounds like they did it wrong then. Several of our medium and larger clients moved from Windows to ChromeOS which is essentially Linux, and so far staff has been happy and the overall support costs dropped by >50%.

        We also have several clients who went the Mac route, and they made a similar experience.

        Which isn't really surprising. There is no platform which is more difficult to deploy, manage, support and operate than Microsoft Windows.

    2. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: Don't fret people

      "When will a major company call time on Windows and move to MacOS or Linux? It can't come soon enough."

      Why would a company that is paying to implement this, move to an OS where they can't do this? That makes no sense.

      1. Wzrd1 Silver badge

        Re: Don't fret people

        "Why would a company that is paying to implement this, move to an OS where they can't do this? That makes no sense."

        What makes you think this would be impossible under another OS? Having monitored other vendors security monitoring software, I was quite capable of reproducing an entire screen, terminal and buffer session, both from the console itself and via packet monitoring.

        In one case, a binary was buffered and pasted into a binary capable text editor, saved, had another software tool tag it as executable and then ran it to compromise crypto keys. Suffice it to say, the matter was related to an APT's actions and law enforcement was extremely interested in the copy of the updated tools the stinker was utilizing.

        Related to that APT's actions, suffice it to say that recovering from a golden ticket compromise is a royal PIA for a large enterprise.

        1. mistersaxon

          Re: Don't fret people

          "had another software tool tag it as executable" is your problem here. Run your critical software on an OS with strong object typing, built-in auditing, a solid security model for data including row and column access control, etc.... Obviously this won't be a desktop OS but it *will* prevent this sort of nonsense. And yet I see more and more linux-based OSes in everything and they offer none of this.

          1. Dimmer Silver badge

            Re: Don't fret people

            In a past life, I had a user the constantly complained about the security and protections on his pc.

            I asked him why he went to the sites that triggered the protections and he said:

            “I can’t do this at home. If I do it here and it breaks, it is you have to fix it. I do it at home, it is MY problem. “

            1. Kane
              Boffin

              Re: Don't fret people

              "I can’t do this at home. If I do it here and it breaks, it is you have to fix it. I do it at home, it is MY problem."

              I mean, you can't fault the thinking.

      2. Sudosu Bronze badge

        Re: Don't fret people

        Microsoft Sentinel has a agent for Linux as well, so there is no escape on that front.

        The only thing that limits how much of this is rolled out is the extreme consumption expense.

        The more you monitor the more it costs (at least for Sentinel).

        If you are using the 365 office suite, all the tracking is built in, no matter what OS you use it from.

        Check out Viva Insights if you want an inkling of what is tracked in the background.

    3. 0laf Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Don't fret people

      I believe a German state went to Linux wholesale for a decade or so, but eventually even they returned to MS....

      Edit - I went to check my facts on this and couldn't confirm what I remembered but what I did find is that the German state of Schleswig-Holstein is moving from Microsoft to Linux right now.

      I think (in my humble defence) in Germany this swing from MS to 'Nix and back might have happened a few times. But there are few organisations as complex as local government so if they can do this sucessfully then it's pretty decent evidence that anyone can.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't fret people

        > I believe a German state went to Linux wholesale for a decade or so, but eventually even they returned to MS....

        That wasn't a state, it was a city (Munich), which went to Linux (custom distribution), but due to a series of project management mistakes and a constant barrage of political meddling this project was plagued by problems. And after a new major was elected and some Microsoft intervention the project was canned and the city went back to Windows.

        >> I think (in my humble defence) in Germany this swing from MS to 'Nix and back might have happened a few times. But there are few organisations as complex as local government so if they can do this sucessfully then it's pretty decent evidence that anyone can.

        Ask the French. Their Police and the military uses Linux and has been for quite a while.

  4. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

    Public Danger

    The danger-to-the-public of data collection is twofold:

    1. Secrecy - frequently the public (here, the subset,"employees") don't know what's being collected on them, how it's being evaluated, or given effective recourse to dispute inaccurate 'data' about them.

    2. Wrongful judgements about people are being made on the basis of data stripped from its original context.

    (Also) 3. Lazy managers want push-the-button, zero-thinking-required evaluation systems. "No job for you because computer says, 'No'."

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Public Danger

      Or how about this: the data is -- as would seem inevitable -- leaked and/or stolen, and then used to help create convincing simula of the employee, for fraudulent purposes.

      \hat{tinfoil}

    2. Wzrd1 Silver badge

      Re: Public Danger

      Or even, via their data mining externally, plus trend data at work, "voting for the wrong candidate" becoming an issue...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Microsoft cyber security and compliance®

    Microsoft cyber security and compliance: is neither secure or compliant to what :o

  6. Alien Doctor 1.1
    Black Helicopters

    f**k me sideways with a banana

    I am so glad I retired a couple of years ago, unless anyone wants my COBOL and Fortran77 skills (at a price, of course.)

    1. Rich 11

      Re: f**k me sideways with a banana

      I expect my Fortran IV skills would today earn me about £1.40 an hour, that being very close to what they first earned me in 1984.

  7. sedregj Bronze badge
    Thumb Up

    Wolfie Christl

    Cool name

  8. MachDiamond Silver badge

    The Easy button

    Facial recognition can work, but it's only one small tool when you are trying to build a house. If a store's facial recognition system mis-identifies somebody, that's ok as long as it's not a sole source thing that causes an issue. Do they watch that person more closely, sure. If that's done with CCTV and not a hulking great person obviously following them around, who's to know? Even a "loss prevention officer" isn't going to remember everybody accurately and can follow somebody they think they recognize. The alternative is for the store to go to the Soviet model where everything is kept behind the counter and you pay for it before you get it or the store closes so the company has the funds to open a store someplace else that isn't watching its inventory going out of the front door in case lots unpaid.

    The member based stores do better since they can screen people going in, have a much better look at purchases no matter how it's paid and can check carts against receipts as customers leave. Costco in the US has stated they will be more stringent about the sharing of credentials so one person can't lend their membership card out to friends and family. It's easy to see how that can skew any data analysis and it also means that they don't know who the person is in the store.

  9. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Big Brother

    That spyware is never switched off

    But think of it from the CEO's perspective

    "With all the evil s**t I do of course people hate me"-->given half a chance any of my employees would turn against me (if they haven't already) -->They must be watched constantly to ensure my security.

    Of course if the CEO weren't such a colossal Ahole they might have a working environment where they felt comfortable enough to not spy on their staff so much

    Yeah right.

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: That spyware is never switched off

      "Of course if the CEO weren't such a colossal Ahole they might have a working environment where they felt comfortable enough to not spy on their staff so much"

      As much blame as CEO's can get, a lot of what goes on is better attributed to middle mangers. These are the sheep scared that they are going to lose their well paying job if they make a mistake and it's easier to clamp down on everybody below them so those people aren't in a position to make a mistake that will get the manager fired.

  10. EricB123 Silver badge

    State's Rights are an Important Part of the USA tructure, but...

    So now I've got to research the state laws as related to snooping on me, while hoping that they are actually enforced in that state. While, as the post title suggests, state rights are important, it is becoming a free for all in the past few decades. States are afraid to do the right thing (California AI safety bill getting watered down as an example) to do anything that a corporation might consider "business unfriendly" and move to another state.

    I guess we are being forced to enacting laws to protect what should be basic human decency. So, despite my fear of adding to an already bloated government, perhaps a Federal employee bill of rights is needed.You know, to make sure an employee is innocent until proven guilty. Hey, wait, I've heard that stated somewhere before.

  11. clintos

    Cyber time

    Cybersec will break everything, then rebuild it, their way!

  12. Dan 55 Silver badge

    MS: "using technology to track employees is both counterproductive and wrong"

    But please don't let that dissuade you from paying for a recurring subscription for our tracking software.

  13. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
    Joke

    I would think the BOFH fully agrees ...

    that all employees are a risk, and I am sure he happily agrees he and the PFY are a grave risk as well (grave as in "shallow")

  14. Eclectic Man Silver badge

    Bosses and 'mangle-ment'

    Forcepoint even mentions "internal activists" and those who had a "huge fight with the boss" as risks.

    OK, so there are ample posts on the Register regarding idiotic bosses, but 'having a huge fight with the boss' might, just might be related to 'the boss' being 'wrong'. (hard to imagine or believe, but it has happened, Herodotus has a few gruesome examples in his Histories). I'd say, that if you have a huge fight with your boss, then the boss is inadequate - at least in person management as the boss should be calm, reduce tension and sort things out, not engage in 'huge fights'.

    The more subtle implication from the quote is that the 'workers' are monitored but the bosses are not. I bet that none of the board of directors would be covered by this level of surveillance and judgement. I recall one presentation by an American colleague about a product called 'Red Owl'. This purported to use all information about staff, their emails, HR records, communications on instant messaging productivity etc. to identify risky employees. I did point out that this was totally illegal under the UK's then (pre-Brexit) data protection legislation, so it was shelved.

    I also find the aggressive nature of the expected response to surveillance, that 'these people are security risks' problematic. Now I may be jumping to an unjustified assumption here, but where is the duty of care an employer has towards their employees in helping them? I do not know of any company that actually trains their lower level (or any level) managers to manage people with mental health issues, such as even mild depression. Yes, there are ways of managing people with Asperger's, Autism, blindness, deafness, wheelchair users, and probably Tourette's, and there are, at least in the UK, laws about not discriminating against people because of race, sex, sexuality, political affiliation etc. But this seems to be very much a 'Them and Us' sort of technology. But managing someone with PTSD or depression - no idea.

    And productivity is not always measured in amount, far better to measure quality. One famous author (I forget his name, but you would know it if I could remember it) did a journalism course. The assignment was to write 1000 words on a specific topic. His response was 500 words, but he passed because the marker had to admit that 'every word is a gem'.

    Just glad that I retired a few years ago.

    1. Diogenes8080

      Re: Bosses and 'mangle-ment'

      I'm on my fifth proxy technology and have never been asked to exempt any tier of management from the governance applied to other staff. Some might have more access rights, but the logging is the same. On average, we spend more time worrying about senior management and sysadmins because there is scope for worse trouble if they are breached or go rogue.

    2. BlueCollarCritic

      Re: Bosses and 'mangle-ment'

      A lot of that has to do with the size of the business and, as an anonymous user mentioned, if those in upper management worked their way into those positions or if they were hired into them often right out of some ivy league school. If they started from below then they usually have the respect of others and are not as arrogant as those hired directly into these positions. What kills me is that most businesses don't want unions anywhere near the place and yet they do things that foster the necessary environment for unions to start. I've worked at everything form a 1 man operation (I was the only staff) to an international company with 10's of thousands of employees and the best place I worked at was one where the owner knew everyone's name. He treated all with respect and didn't try to play cheapskate when it came to salary or bonuses. If we had a tough year he also didn't lay off a few just so he could keep his own salary or that of his executive staff. %99 of the employees that worked for him would have gone the extra mile and often did because they respected the man whop treated them with respect.

      A great saying I read is that businesses seem to forget that for most of human history, employees survived without employers as most were effectively independent laborer or trades/craftsmen. Unless your business is a 1 person operation you can't exist without employees so it's really in the best interest of a business owner to treat their staff the way they want the staff to treat them and not as if they are potential thieves. If it weren't for how our system of governance has allowed crony Capitalism to replace the true free market, real Capitalism, these kinds of companies would have been replaced with better competitors. Since with enough $$ a large company can buy regulations and or legislation to protect them from competition they are allowed to grow in an inorganic way and the upper mgt can treat employees with disregard.

    3. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

      Huge Fight with Your Boss

      My manager is a pretty good guy to work for: he's rational, he'll listen to you, will help you solve problems, either directly, or, indirectly (along the lines of, "Go talk to Kim and have her get that shit ordered. In the mean time, use that [old] workstation over there."). He sometimes does arbitrary and annoying-to-me things, yet without speaking to him about it, I understand why he did those things, and the priorities that so motivated him.

      Nobody working for him will ever have "a huge fight" with him. I once overheard him say, "You tell me 'no', and that's the last thing you'll tell me." -- clearly, it's his way, or the highway. His attitude is about 25% due to, "I'm in charge here", and 75% due to not having time to waste on stupid stuff.

      1. MachDiamond Silver badge

        Re: Huge Fight with Your Boss

        "I once overheard him say, "You tell me 'no', and that's the last thing you'll tell me." -- clearly, it's his way, or the highway."

        That's not a good attitude. I would agree that if you have to disagree with the boss, you do it in private with supporting material/arguments. If they are telling you to do something you know is wrong, it would be malicious compliance to do it anyway. You could get the sack for that too so 'damned if you do, damned if you don't', but at least you could go out with a giant "I told you so".

        It's been a long long time since I had a job as a peon. I'm self-employed now, but for many years where I wasn't the top boss, I was hired to think and know things. If the person I reported to knew everything I knew about the job, I'd be redundant and effectively a peon that should do what I'm told. Good luck with that. It was also incumbent on me to be looking out for the well being of the company if I wanted to stay employed and get raises. If that meant saying "no", I have to say no. It's just a more serious sin to do that in a way that causes the boss to lose face.

  15. bghote

    What a load of rubbish. Employees have no expectation of privacy in the workplace when it comes to their use of employer provided technology. GDPR and any other regulation that pretend otherwise are drunken foolishness.

    1. Diogenes8080

      Balancing act

      No, the resolution of the conflict between privacy and employer interest is well established. The automatics do the checking for you, and if they say there is something wrong then you have due cause to go checking for yourself. If you can see that there is definitely something bad, that gets referred to management / HR.

      1. BlueCollarCritic

        Re: Balancing act

        HR (Human Resources) is NOT there for the employees but the employer. That doesn't mean HR won't be of assistance to an employee but only when it's in teh interest of the employer.

    2. O'Reg Inalsin

      Is it a privacy issue only?

      What about an environment of fear of speaking out that drives employees towards mediocrity?

      Recent news about NVidia - At times, the pressure even led to yelling fights during meetings, the former employee said. In the marketing department, another former employee who left in 2022 said fighting and shouting was also common in the 30-plus-person meetings she attended seven to 10 times per day.

      It might be a violation of AI-rights to force it to read those NVidia internal emails leading to hi-AI stress and confused AIllucinations.

      Of course AI is just a tool and it depends how those wielding it use it. But apparently "fighting" is included as a criterion - does AI have the nuanced ability to distinguish between destructive fighting and constructive disagreement? I doubt it. Put in the hands of someone who is under orders to just "get results" it could cause more damage than benefit.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    OK, everybody!

    nothing to see here, let's look at China instead. We're not that evil, are we ?

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Sadly this is too common/expected with larger entities that have executive level employees who didn't earn their way up the company ladder but were hired into C-Suite positions often form Ivy league schools and or because of family connections. These are the types who see themselves as above the rest of the companies employees and often have little to no respect for said employees so they have no issue with treating staff like potential thieves. Genuine security issues aside (as those companies have valid concerns with regards to trade secrets and proprietary software) what this kind of treatment producers are employees who end up doing the absolute minimum to get paid and have zero incentive to try and do more or better. I had a family member work at IMB for 30+ years ending around the late 980's (retiring) and like many large IVY league executive run companies they made a number of foolish mistakes that drove down employee satisfaction which in turn only hurt the companies business. IBM had this rewards program where if an employee found a way to save teh company $X the employee would receive as percentage of $X as a thank you or a reward. My family member got a few of these during their time there until some genius in the C-Suite of IBM decided this is something employee should be doing freely even though none were hired to be effecionancy experts. The exec said it was a waste of valuable money so he nixed the program and guess what happened? Employee suggestions all but stopped.

    The best executives are the ones who started from the bottom or somewhere towards it and worked their way yup gaining respect from co-workers. That's NOT to say every exec hired on as one doesn't deserve the job only that they are the minority. Companies seem to forget that when it comes down to brass tacks, employees can live without companies; we did it for far more of our history then not as independent laborer's and providers of products and services. Unless your company is a 1 man operation, a company/business can not exist without employees. If you treat them with respect and pay them fairly you'll do better on the long run.

    1. BlueCollarCritic

      In todays world I find it humorous that The Register would label as a coward someone wiling to speak this honestly about the problem. Is it a wonder they might want to be anonymous to avoid backlash from companies that engage in these kinds of unethical acts on their employees?

      The only part the original commenter left out is how this kind of treatment of employees is what creates or leads to unions and from what I can tell in my lifetime working with a number of differently sized companies is that most don't want unions to get a foot hold and yet they do things like what this article discusses which help create the necessary environment for unions to start.

    2. O'Reg Inalsin

      The best ...

      There are more than a few examples of rising up through business/marketing, embracing the shareholder mantra, and forgetting all about general employee talent as a vital resource, product quality, customer satisfaction, and long term investment in all of those.

  18. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

    ms

    They already treat their customers as thieves. if your computer is off-line at the right time and for long enough, windows comes up in limp mode because it's an unauthorized copy.

  19. Grunchy Silver badge

    I got issued a company phone

    It’s an iPhone 12 and locked down pretty hard. Ostensibly it’s an email appliance, but really it’s a surveillance device (must be, because they terminated my contract but left me the surveillance device). My working theory: they think I might be dumb enough to carry it around and possibly bring it to a competitor’s facility? It’s still 100% activated. Maybe they are surveilling my kitchen cabinet. Mystery!

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Apart from the panopticon like privacy breach, don't expect this data to remain with one employer. Next it will be an employee-score that follows you to next jobs.

  21. Tron Silver badge

    Governments are doing this on a much wider scale.

    They will just add the workplace stuff as another source.

    Why do you think they are supporting the move to digital in retail, travel, banking? Because everything digital can be databased and analysed.

    Western governments are pursuing the same dream as the Stasi did on paper. And the same one they condemn the Chinese for doing. They want to know everything about everybody 24/7/365.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All comments on here are recorded

    By using this page you accept our absolute right to monitor you at all times in perpetuity.

    Small print.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not putting too fine a point on it, employees probably are your business biggest threat. Toxic management? Decisions made for wrong reasons? Silo mentality? Poor security controls? Tech specs written for good reasons ignored/bypassed?

    And the good old classic of human error.

    'Spying' is hardly a solution though.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "It can monitor their behavior and flag them for further scrutiny by their bosses."

    If this is only seen by bosses only those that are bosses benefit from this, and the most boss-est boss get the most advantage. These bosses are going to evaluate results in terms of how it affects themself(the boss). The employees of the boss could be also put down as boss of their boss and be given a copy flags given with their boss.

  25. xyz123 Silver badge

    Wait til you see Recall 2.0.

    This time it runs 24/7 in the background. It can't be fully switched off unless you boot into safe mode and overwrite it's files with fake dummy versions.

    It lies about having an 'off' switch, which does nothing. The data is STILL in an already-compromised encryption system and STILL has the ability/code to siphon that data off to microsoft's ready-built Recall Storage facility, which they've spend 100s of millions constructing and don't want it "going to waste"......a purpose built datacentre so they can have oodles of blackmail material "just in case" someone gets elected / a position of power in a rival company.

  26. steviebuk Silver badge

    blame the admins and managers

    As well. Way back in 2008 at the NHS they also had bullshit censorship in emails. Swear in an email, even in a joking way to another engineer and it was auto reported to the department manager. I emailed a user about their PC once, "Its dead". The cockend reported the subject title and I got a bollocking for that "Its in bad taste". Oh fuck off.

    More reason to not work in NHS IT. It had a culture of Jobs for the Boys. Corruption in IT taking bribes from large suppliers. Ignored engineer advice that actually came from users regarding usability so I told user just to report it directly as only then action was taken. Engineers that were grifting and shouldn't of been in their role. Under paying. Too many pointless managers. Only being accepted if you agreed with management and went along with their corruption.

  27. Potemkine! Silver badge

    Saas: Stasi As A Service.

    Those software violate so many laws of my socialist hellhole that I am protected from this Inquisition for now. Even if nobody expects it, of course.

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