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Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

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Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#181

Post by nickpsecurity »

coding123 wrote: post #163
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m ok with prosecuting software developers individually if we first require them to adhere to a set of standards in a similar fashion to real engineers .

It is interesting, but isn't the software organization, in general, the responsible party? If that software company and the sole developer are the same person (a one man company) then you already have that. There's no software equivalent of a software engineer coming to someone's house to fix the code in an Alexa controlled light bulb - the responsible party is the lightbulb company.

Mostly true. I will note exceptions. There's some companies like Altran Praxis that warranty their high-quality software. Far as visits, folks with AS/400's told me IBM techs would occasinally show up to do maintenance on the systems before they fully broke. I think the managed appliances are the closest thing to your analogy, though.

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#182

Post by austincheney »

The problem isn’t a lack of regulation. Increased regulation could be a partial solution.

The problem is a weak economic model. In the online economy software (products) have little or no value. The value is placed almost entirely upon media and data transactions. Those two are symbiotic but they are neither the same nor codependent. This economic model is what needs to be fixed.

Entrepreneurs out there if you want to do good for the world, make absurd money, and be disruptive then that economic model is what you should disrupt. Go, disrupt the shit out of it.

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#183

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

eropple wrote: post #175
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I dislike how every time we push for the "hot market for programmers" meme that only exists in the SV-like bubbles. Everywhere else around the world, it's just a regular job people do to put food on the table. Should we boycott people who work in the defense industry as well?

I've never lived in Silicon Valley. And I've been fired from jobs before. The longest I was ever unemployed not of my own volition was twelve days. The poor benighted developer--engineers have expectations upon them that participants in this thread are clearly all too willing to abrogate, the term is invalid--will be just fine.

Not to contradict you, but your experience does not a rule make, and as with real estate, it's all about location, so, living in Europe, YMMV.

Sure it's impossible to be unemployed as a developer one could say by the number of search results from the keyword software in the job portals in my area, but after closer inspection, if you've been around the block a few times, you can easily tell that over 90% of those jobs are shitty micromanaged fake scrum-driven burnout meat grinders where you wouldn't last more than a couple of months.

So, the remaining 10% of jobs worth applying for are incredibly picky, and, without a prestigious resume (top companies, top school) you're not getting your foot in the door, even though you might master leet code.

Therefore, it took me 6 months on unemployment to find a quality workplace that would take me in and only because I invested in some certs in that time.

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#184

Post by colejohnson66 »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #110
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #23

If they pass a law requiring platforms to be responsible for content their users post, it'll be easy for big incumbents like Facebook to fall in line. It will be much harder, however, for new platforms with less resources to comply. They may have to shut down instead.

Yea but that would kill Facebook by a 1000 lashes overtime.

So killing any startup’s chance of hosting user created content is ok as long as it kills Facebook?

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#185

Post by colejohnson66 »

whiteflame7000 wrote: post #37
fron wrote: post #2

Says the president of the largest spyware ("telemetry") distributor in the world

Whats interesting is that the DoD only uses windows machines even at the NSA. I think I might know where that telemetry might be going.

While I think the whole “telemetry” thing is overblown, there are enterprise editions of Windows that come with little to no telemetry. And I’m certain there’s custom builds of Windows for the government that have all traces of telemetry (to Microsoft) scrubbed.

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#186

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

Fricken wrote: post #97
equalunique wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too late for what? To change it? The people who have a problem with this are the ones who cling to the consensus reality la-la-land. If their worldview was so fragile, then maybe they don't deserve to be the ones who dictate it for everyone else.

Functional societies are founded on trust, shared beliefs, and shared goals. You can reject the consensus reality la-la land, as a great number of people have in the last decade, but you're just trading in for a non-consensus reality la-la land. We don't really do objective reality well beyond the scope of our own immediate shit. We're like the six blind men and the elephant. We each have our own little fact about th…

The post war consensus seems to have been a very complex thing. Part if it came from the New Deal, part of it was a shared goal to win the cold war. Goals change, i dont know if values also change.

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#187

Post by eropple »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #183
eropple wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never lived in Silicon Valley. And I've been fired from jobs before. The longest I was ever unemployed not of my own volition was twelve days. The poor benighted developer--engineers have expectations upon them that participants in this thread are clearly all too willing to abrogate, the term is invalid--will be just fine.

Not to contradict you, but your experience does not a rule make, and as with real estate, it's all about location, so, living in Europe, YMMV. Sure it's impossible to be unemployed as a developer one could say by the number of search results from the keyword software in the job portals in my area, but after closer inspection, if you've been around the block a few times, you can easily tell that over 90% of those jobs…

That sucks. I empathize. But I don't sympathize. It remains incumbent upon you, me, and every tech worker to prioritize decency of output regardless; our fellow humans shall demand it of us, morally first and legally if morally doesn't work.

The machine stops when we say "no". It's what we must do.

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#188

Post by colejohnson66 »

whiteflame7000 wrote: post #31
Barrin92 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is always repeated within the first ten minutes of these discussions, but I don't really understand why anyone assumes that competition is somehow the panacea to every problem on the planet. I don't want ten unregulated facebooks who all leak my data, I want one facebook that plays by reasonable rules. The dynamics of social networks which don't deliver value if they're fragmented has made the competiti…

Competition is the fundamental of Capitalism. Capitalism becomes cronyism without fair competition. Edit: Downvoters please elucidate?

Meta comment: The rules ask us to please not ask about downvotes; It distracts from the discussion.

As for why you’re being downvoted, it usually means people don’t agree with you (not that you’re wrong). However, we’re not supposed to downvote simply because we disagree here, but it happens.

And seeing you’re a “green” account, it could also just be people who downvote all new users (yes, those exist).

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#189

Post by colejohnson66 »

PorterDuff wrote: post #75
NOGDP wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Organisations mandating use of a specific OS is one thing, but most people would be able to get by fine using Linux personally.

I'll bet that most people would get by fine with an open source version of a Chromebook.

While I know people who could get by with a Chromebook, I personally recommend to them not to use them because their specs are usually on the low end. Celleron processors and the like don’t deserve a place in today’s market IMO (look at how successful the woefully underpowered Atoms were with “netbooks”).

I’ve also yet to see a Chromebook with good specs that couldn’t be matched by a Windows laptop for the same price. Windows laptops can have Linus installed much more easily (I.E. no jailbreaking)

Re: Microsoft President: Democracy Is At Stake. Regulate Big Tech

#190

Post by eropple »

osrec wrote: post #178
skrebbel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop pushing the blame upstairs. If you knowingly build software that hurts people, you share the blame. The job market for programmers has never been better. "My boss told me to do it" is not an excuse. I, for one, hope more engineers involved in fraud (eg VW), privacy breaches (eg Facebook) etc get tried and punished. It might help make programmers realize that yes, your work actually affects real humans and yes, y…

Sometimes you can be checkmated in your job and personal life. It's not that easy to quit a 150k job and find another when you've got a family and a mortgage. In those situations, your only option is to follow orders. In my experience, it really is the managers who often are to blame for a lot of evil practices. To generalise, I'd say 80% of engineers are rarely evil, but 80% of managers are rarely not evil.

> In those situations, your only option is to follow orders.

It is the only option for the morally compromised. The solution is to refuse to be so compromised--and we can do it in this industry.

That's not a "for thee but not for me" judgment; I've left a six-figure deal on the table because the client was scum. It requires some grit but is within (almost) all our grasp--and we would be in a better place as an industry (and as people) were this behavior the norm, not the exception.

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