Posts by skiew

When old Microsoft codenames crop up in curious places

Interesting article, thanks!

This is the kind of story that is published in the blog Old New Things from Raymond Chen: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/

Microsoft won't let customers opt out of passkey push

Re: There is no security.

You have to suppose nothing is entirely secure and everything is compromised (including people, but that's the weakest link in all systems)...

This is zero trust.

In practice, many ways exist to make something really secure. Another security measure is that people like me and us all probably aren't going to be targeted by state-sponsored hackers, etc.

So we have fairly secured mechanisms.

The idea that security is about control... tin foil hat, etc. I don't discuss that part.

Re: Passkeys are a bad idea, or at least badly implemented

Using a password manager with strong authentication to access it (like on my PCs or phone; anytime I need the password manager, I have to authenticate with Windows Hello or Samsung's solutions, which is quick and secure).

So I never even see those random passwords...

The only problem is that the password manager is ultimately protected with 2FA including a password, which is only needed before adding biometric authentication, for instance.

Instead of this, they could allow unlocking from zero with my Microsoft Account, the only thing not relying on the password manager...

So this is not for people with the password CatName123 but for everyone.

Passwordless has existed for a long time at MS, and it is for the user's benefit. And this is not related to Windows Hello, which was one of the many ways to authenticate and also a branding for a set of methods. 2FA can use, and sometimes for almost 20, fingerprints, SMS, OTP, and PIN, hardware security keys, and it seems this is the topic, FIDO "passkeys" (which are not replacing 2FA, in the sense you have to unlock them, or that may still be asked for another auth even with magic passkeys), which were supported already, but generation and storage, if I may, were provided by 3rd parties, and for a long time, now they can be stored by Microsoft.

Any provider can generate a passkey for Microsoft... And this can be used with Windows Hello or Samsung Knox-backed authentication...

None of my passkeys are stored in Microsoft Auth, even for Microsoft accounts, and I have not been "nagged" nor harassed by Microsoft on the topic.

Microsoft is the first by far to have offered true passwordless authentication, for instance, and unified tech like Windows Hello (and probably support for fingerprint scanners; they existed before Touch ID, before anyone asks).

I don't really understand what the issue is here. You can add many ways to authenticate. If the issue is that you have to use a passkey (from any provider), a secure authentication method, and not the same password you use everywhere since 2003... this is another debate.

Microsoft hijacks keyboard shortcut to bring Copilot to your attention

Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

This is an amazing place; people, I suppose, are interested in technology and computing-related news and visit sites where articles are of very low factuality. People with no proper education, close to no knowledge, criticize and bash Microsoft when they did not do anything wrong, but because some articles invent, make up, and disseminate very negative and fake stories (I do not see this behavior for any other company). Meet on Reddit; there are thousands and thousands of like-minded users. And tech news will go back to being news... freed from having to satisfy an audience not interested in news.

Microsoft is not doing any of what I can read every day, hijacking shortcuts, spying, and dozens of other evil plots. Clearly, like on other topics, no one investigates; it's so extremely complicated to go to the MS website and find the answers. No one does that... except on really well-known non-tech-news-only outlets, where journalists are.

I'm curious; please remind us of what they were accused of and also about the time it took to initiate this whole imaginary antitrust procedure. in months.

Procedure that implies some decisions were taken with some evil agenda.

Obviously, the trial proved how accommodating and lenient justice and administration, and any form of public authority, are with Microsoft.

Other companies, like Google or Apple, parasitic and dishonest, are happily racketeering devs and users and damaging the economy. They've been enjoying huge profits, not a single issue with authorities, and they do know they can do anything. And they do. So you're entirely out of place.

This is a company from the start and still today, where people are passionate and have technical knowledge and skills, leading to creative solutions and constant innovation (you can see that by yourself, not here, and not on tech news...on a real source of truth).

After the trial, they did what they always did: they kept delivering new products, most now worth billions of revenue per year, and they kept innovating. Many times they were too early, something that happens when passion and technologies are driving a company, not the finance and legal departments, nor 54 divisions of 200 departments and 3654 teams of marketing, like Apple. Now they are more focused and have mastered development at massive scale (for developing vast and powerful platforms, which is possible only when the organization enables but also is a catalyst to achieving even more). No other company does that.

So now, they are unreachable because they have so many lines of business; if one fails, it's not a big deal; iPhone stops selling... Apple stops existing, yeah. So frequently, there are no better alternatives, and nothing like the Microsoft quality and vast ecosystem, which is also integrated with plenty of competitors. You are not forced into purchasing the full package. They have so many products, most very successful... but they are very cautious.

To address even the smallest issue, such as Teams being "bundled" with Office, they have made Teams an optional component, without any questions asked. It is not like Office had (unified) communication software for decades, and Teams is not at all a Slack, by any means. (and for Slack, I'd worry more about Discord...)

You can notice all the things they do or aren't allowed to offer, because since this aberrant trial, not only any company with money problems may try to milk them. They clearly are denied fair and impartial treatment by authorities (or tech news)... One day a company will sue because of the clock in Windows, an outrageous abuse of dominant position... because they recently released software adding a clock to the taskbar, and Microsoft forces everyone to use its clock.

Most importantly, try to be informed about what their activities and products are, what the mentality is, and, most importantly, the history of personal computing. The same for any company you feel like hating for some reason. And not only companies, people too.

But I write a lot; please enlighten us by describing all the crimes they are guilty of today and since the trial.

Re: United States v. Microsoft Corp.

You forgot 2001...

Today it seems really strange; the speed and the actual "issues" did not harm a customer. Netscape was dying for a while, and they never managed to ship v5...

And they were bought for a total final amount of 10B dollars by AOL, money that Microsoft did not really have. A few years later, AOL got $700M from MS as a settlement... so they may continue growing and making great software, and not in useless trials. It's nonsense but old.

Media Player, ahah, never was a business. RealPlayer was already replaced by Flash or even QuickTime and was not going to make a cent anymore (RealPlayer was really not something you wanted to install... paid, heavy...).

And even BeOS, who never had any success and was targeting Apple, managed to get a few million in settlement. How and why?

Slack tried; it does not work anymore.

On the side there is Google, 100s of billions of damages to the economy abusing antitrust laws, stealing data, since 1998... and remember the bundleware Chrome was? before that was the famous Google tool bar, major adware, no, of course, at least there are still articles, etc., to explain it.

Apple, same thing, 27 years before anyone wakes up.

So MS antitrust is strange and about amounts that would even if guilty be nothing, nothing close to the Standard at all, nor Bell AT&T, and today yet trillion companies like Google and Apple... damages are levels of magnitude higher than any other company ever has...

Re: Do they even know what users do or how

You should have your hardware or drivers checked... all the issues people have that have nothing to do with Windows...

Especially when it comes to displays, DPI scaling, GPU drivers, and overall unmatched compatibility and retrocompatibility...

Apps from 94 from NT 3.51 still run; there's nothing to do, perfectly scaled and with today's look and feel... Explorer is called Program Manager, no issue.

Good luck doing that on GNU/Linux... as well, it barely booted then. Or macOS today.

Anyway, fallacies are all over the place here. I'll let you all go on being an adept, believer, or hater; I don't want to know.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/?form=MA13LH <----- For technical people, this explains a few things about the difference between a PWA and this hybrid app, and, you might find it neat; no other OS has this, like so many things. But so many words...

Ah, and Alt+Space is the shortcut to access a window's menu... since Win 3.1, can't remember earlier. Then to access the search field in Win 10 also, or PowerRun, or even for some Quick View app I had, and maybe 1000 other apps, not including when you set it yourself... So a non-event as always, thanks for this amazing piece of investigation...

And it is the default shortcut for the ChatGPT app... and, when the app runs, the shortcut is registered, but once it's closed, the shortcut is freed (this is how it actually works...).

When used, maybe shit + alt + space might work... or the very old Alt+Hyphen... who knows... and maybe there will be an option? anyway

And for those working in an actual company with lot of data in endless mail chains, or crazy Slack channels, or even Discord, maybe not NetMeeting...

Being able to ask questions on some network device configuration when there are so many different brands, OZ, but on a few dozen sites, small things, you gain hours week.....

Copilot with the rest of MS365 Business... it's an amazing tool... with platforms that are all more impressive than the previous. Defender, for instance...

Anyway, don't forget, with BitLocker, Microsoft can read your data during the night, and TPM is used as a way to generate some electromagnetic invisibility cloak. in case you'd be watching

Then, telemetry is on almost all apps and OS, all websites... it's part o modern software and pretty useful, but Microsogy, id only intterested in you and your fascinating data. I suggest using Chrome or some Apple "human rights" closed-and-flawed-by-design OS... They're lucky people can't read anymore or have any technology knowledge anymore... otherwise, no one would believe in anything Apple says. And recently, I heard Microsoft could delete all of GitHub anytime...

Microsoft pushing, pushing, pushing Edge in Defender slammed as a 'dark pattern'

Read the stats, Windows now, has way fewer and very complex and elaborates threats and vulnerabilities. Apple last week had 102 CVEs, usually numbers arent that meaningful, but this ten times more than the next one. Which is the linux kernel... but they admit it and communicate, this normal, Apple never, they are the most secure... but you have to reverse the rankings for that.

While MacOS has (more or less) half the the number of lines of code as the Nvidia driver... It's a piece of joke, that can't do anything more than not much. An design and build critical systems, systemic, because if they fail, no one can pay in Belgium... didn't happen in ten years, but the last riots happened. And I know what I am talking about, can prove it or explain... I use Linux a lot, Windows a lot, and I have a Mac, I am passionate about computing, so even a Mac may have interest,, it's there with dust, because there is nothing to do with it...

Re: Azure Arc Setup in Server 2022

Yeah I heard this one too, Windows server is the place for ads... it known.

Re: I use Defender and Advanced Defender and SHUN EDGE..

Chrome secure and private too ? pfffff it's madness and is clearly a problem of having no education, nor personal thinking, or you lived in a cave the last 25 years... and do not know that Google sellls ads, and that's it, 232 billion last year, and Chrome is one way of pumping your data. It's common knowledge, but most people ignore it on purpose or not, it's ignorance in both cases.

I LOVE IT.

Have you ever used Edge? no, could you provide any proof or element about your smart, highly educated and visionary statements?? No need, they are true because you're so biased and brainwashed and you deeply believe what you say. Bias, believe, I've heard, raise concerns... you're living in in a world of maybe or rumor has... you, and you're not alone, in a reality that is so wrong.

And nobody knows where this comes from... because Microsoft had never been into tracking people, never, and of all the things they were accused of are alike, because check articles 20 years ago the same bullshits were said, Microsoft presented a security platform and some academics or supposedly experts explained how encrypting data was some way to control you and your computer, and probably they entered the house by the chimneys in red outfits (I hope they lost any credit and live under a bridge... you cannot be a scientist - or a Jounalist by the way, and so vocally spread entirely made up things, which is illegal too, and this is psychosis, so I am sorry for the person, mental health issues are hard to handle. And reading that 20 years later, when most of those technologies have been implemented for everyone and every OS, and never tracked anyone, could let you think people were very stupid back then, like we imagine the middle-age people were (they weren't but had no education and where living in a world where all they knew was believing,) an at the time, some people had balls, and critical thinking still was around, and realize the craziness that situation was: and said that "attacking the latest Microsoft monster is an international blood sport" and that "even if Microsoft had a new technology capable of ending Third World hunger and First World obesity, digital seers would still lambaste it because they view Bill Gates as a grey incarnation of Satan." and this wasn't new, (because Steve Jobs started it with "MS copied us", they did not, at all, and Jobs sued quite a few times companies that copied him, all clearly one of his obsessions, and tried again in the 90s when Microsoft was so innovative, like today, they made some genius things, any honest technical person must agree to that, performances, that repeats quite often) Apple, no one knows what they did at the time, and Jobs had been fired anyway. Satan Bill Gates, who will be remembered as some genius technically and for hi so many strategic decisions that he got right, just like Microsoft will be recognized for it's huge impact on computing... Microsoft Reasearch is the biggest institution in computing, but not only. They are famous for that, when you are or have been trained as a scientist.. Just read a book by Gates, or listen to a podcast, he's passionate, spontaneous, likeable, so smart because he can speak of biology or sociology and anything, and still interesting, and never exaggerate, and clearly is a nice guy, he spoke of his daughter, like any good dad would, ha was so proud of her, because she was a good engineer now, you cannot fake that, and he has no reason to anyway...

Telemetry's is spying, Copilot is spying, TPM2 was spying but today isn't THE secure chip, newer there are in phones, MS has one, in Xbox, and the Surface... yet requiring it for Win 11 (it's from 2006-7 so not novelty) is unacceptable, so people whine about the cause, the solution and invent the problems, and for the exact opposite reason they where whining 20 years ago. So Sos much for the stupid middle age people, this is worse.

Edge is a good case, it is known to be very privacy focused by honest people, and has many strong features implemented, and many cool an useful ones on the side, and is probably the best at the moment. And sync is instant, which is very useful, if you don't suffer from paranoid illness... and have a Microsoft account like almost all the 1.6 billion users of Windows. So many things, but security breaks websites, not compliant, but the other browsers are also on the same path, except Google of course, so when something doesn't work use Chrome, it was designed to pump as much of your data like all other Google services... It seems like it's a secret, because people rant about Microsoft while happily using pure tracking apps done by google, which once again, is a ridiculous situation.

And telemetry so evil, and of course, spying, people should be period in more imaginative ways. A little effort please. But what isn't known, yet no one is hiding it, is that telemetry is very useful, statistics, and tracking no one, but and this is where you should all feel a little stupid, is in al OS, iOS, the Mac "OS", let's not mention android, even big Linux distro, and most apps, even Proton's and this website too. And house appliances too. But this afternoon I saw yet another script, for Visual Studio Code, so pure FOSS, that is the most used programming editor in the world, because it is very good, and is funded by Microsoft, but not only, yet he had made a script to block even extensions update checks. And was quite proud, limit pretentious. He just forgot one little detail... extensions have telemetry, and so he blocked updates, while having 50 extensions doing telemetry... which is nothing wrong, and is always described, and help make apps better. But mainly, made the guy a fool, and clearly clueless, because he would check his network, or read the extension page, he'd know. But people don't read, this might jeopardize their beliefs. We are vastly stupider than we were in the middle age. Because we have access to so much science and knowledge, and information, and also this is so naive and so not plausible, yet this kind of tales and legends, are so widespread...

And this already way too long but is only one thing out of thousands of others... please, believe the earth is flat, that God made us, not evolution, and leave Microsoft alone, or learn they have so much to offer Unlike experts like the author of the previous message, geniuses that hate them, because they believe. Read, think, inform yourself on honest news outlets, in Europe they are common, in the US, read the big papers, because they speak about apple practices, and make articles about Micrsoft being world leader in security, and thech news, maks upo tales. I don't know what to say. It's up to you believe in senseless lies, or know, using much simpler explanations; Occam's razor works much Beter than made up plots by an evil spying company, which in fact does so much for the people and communities. Also, they probably do it because we are all so important, this is bit the idea behind all this too. It's really not that hard to investigate and realkize and know who does what. You'll feeel a bit of shame when you'll realize, but after, you'll be informed correctly, and not on verge of a psychotic break...

And in 20 someone will read this and will say they were stupid, at the time, and I bet nothing will be different. Wea re regressing, weel, not all of use, but we are.