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Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

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Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#71

Post by rcarmo »

pavon wrote: post #59
rcarmo wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Automatically show me design ideas" is a pretty visible option in Preferences (looking at my Mac here, can check Windows later, but I remember turning that off on my new laptop since I just never _use_ the suggestions and they came up when I was traveling and on slow Wi-Fi). I also believe it can be managed by policy. MS FTE here, I have no direct awareness of how the feature works and am not affiiliated with Office…

If that is the feature in question, neither the app itself, nor the online help shown when clicking "About PowerPoint Designer" give any indication that your slide contents data will be sent to MS.

Have you actually used the thing? Again, I'm an MS FTE and not privy to the internals, but it gives you _layouts_ with your local text filled in. It's a visual template suggestion engine, it doesn't _need_ your text to work.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#72

Post by cultofmetatron »

Semaphor wrote: post #63
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #35

I've raised this point repeatedly in different orgs. It's met with some combination of indifference and lack of understanding and not-my-responsibility-ism, but I'm sure that this will eventually blow up hard in some company's face - like 9-digit settlement for breach of contract, or worse things like breach of export control laws. Enterprise data security on the "MS Office level" at this point is like driving 60 mph…

> is like driving 60 mph on a road with no lane dividers That’s somewhat funny, because a Landesstraße in Germany has no lane dividers and the speed limit is 100 km/h (about 60 mp/h). Unless I’m misunderstanding and lane dividers mean the printed lines.

the bar to drive in Germany is significantly higher than in the united states. Requirements for getting a drivers license in America is ridiculously lenient because the American lifestyle is completely car centric. taking someone's license away is tantamount to sentencing someone to poverty.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#74

Post by real_dogbert »

bnt wrote: post #14
beckingz wrote: post #5

I look forward to the day when PowerPoint is banned due to enterprise security concerns.

How about Grammarly? Or G-suite? They have access to most of the companies out there. I find it terrifying people use Grammarly and it has access to every piece of confidential word written.

G-Suite is a super interesting case in that you literally cannot use the product without handing over your data to Google. It certainly seems like companies would hate that, particularly those with data protection obligations. Google does theoretically require a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) if your use case is subject to HIPAA and you intend to store or transmit PHI using their services, but I don't know how they detect or enforce that. [1]

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[1]: https://support.google.com/a/answer/3407054?hl=en

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#75

Post by teekert »

I guess since we all use MS mostly for business purposes we don't care so much about privacy. It's something our managers sign off on, in the name of security, features and really nice value for money. But oh boy, do they know a lot about us and our businesses. I mean, my office apps have "LinkedIn services" on by default [0], so they are linking all the things to all the things.

[0]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/linkedin-in-micro...

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#76

Post by throwaway0x7E6 »

dhruvdh wrote: post #9

PowerPoint has a feature where it uses machine learning to suggest layout and design changes for your content. This feature most likely can be turned off, but of course it needs some data on what's on your slide to suggest changes. I hope this submission is flagged and removed. Just because you don't like Microsoft doesn't mean such misrepresentation is okay.

No post body was provided.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#78

Post by roody15 »

The future of personal computing is really dark these days. I just attended an apple event for education and government. The amount of data tracking and the standardization/normalization of this behavior is dystopian.

What happened to computers being just fun and a source of exploration and freedom?

Microsoft, Gooogle, Apple all constantly push their cloud based accounts … where everything is tracked.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#79

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

Is there any way to tell if your company has opted in? Mine makes a huge show of classifying Office documents and barking about the policies of what can be shown to outside people. It would be hilarious to find out that they've done this, and are letting Microsoft slurp up all the stuff that would get us fired if we sent it to an outside email address.
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