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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

#101

Post by reaperducer »

real_dogbert wrote: post #60
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…

Yeah, I'm surprised every healthcare related business doesn't either ban PowerPoint or block this "feature" somehow. HIPAA is a hell of a drug.

I'm surprised every healthcare related business doesn't either ban PowerPoint or block this "feature" somehow.

I work in healthcare, and the legal department bars me from using Google Analytics for HIPAA reasons.

Meanwhile, IT made Chrome the only browser the employees are allowed to use on every Windows machine in the org.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#102

Post by eastbound »

roody15 wrote: post #78

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.

On the other hand, Atlassian’s stock lost 66% of its value, and it could be because investors notice that converting people to the Cloud is not currently working.

Atlassian should have better bet on their Server solutions, but they really really wanted to be a cloud operator. “For strategic reasons.” Maybe for governmental reasons, who knows.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#103

Post by hef19898 »

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…

+1 for the export control stuff, even if I think it might be worse for MS than for the actual customer. At least I hope...

Edit: As was pointed out elsewhere, the phoning home stuff can be turned off at org level. So MS will not be affected by any fallout of potential export control violations.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#104

Post by aidenn0 »

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.

There are a lot of roads in the US with a 55MPH speed limit and no lane dividers. In many states, all rural roads with no posted speed-limit have an assumed speed limit of 55MPH. People drive 60 on such roads all the time.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#106

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #76
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.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#107

Post by pavon »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #79

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.

When I click "Design Ideas" (rightmost icon in Home ribbon), I get a prompt that says "This experience is unavailable. Your organization's admin has turned off the service required to use this experience."

This is despite both the Privacy -> "Turn on Optional connected experiences" and "Automatically show me design ideas" options being modifiable by me (and give the same results whether enabled or not), so I guess the Group Policy options are more fine grained.

Re: Microsoft is phoning home the content of PowerPoint slides

#108

Post by msla »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #4
deafpolygon wrote: post #2

You did consent to it, in the fine print. Unfortunately.

Which is why GDPR has the concept of "informed consent", which is a fancy way of saying "consent hidden in the fine print doesn't count".

How willing would a government be to prosecute a company its IT infrastructure relies on?

Even if you think Microsoft doesn't have kill switches, it still isn't obligated to do business with them.

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