Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 151 posts

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#51

Post by kingrazor »

orangepurple wrote: post #42
Zelphyr wrote: post #32

I hate to go negative. I really do because, usually it doesn't improve the discourse whatsoever. However, I feel like it needs to be said: Microsoft makes bad products[1]! They're overpriced, insecure, slow (it's astounding to me how slow their web properties are), and hard to use. Easily some of the worst UI I've ever seen and, what's worse, they've been like that my entire career. They keep slapping lipstick on the…

Linux on the desktop is here. Go all-in on KDE. Everything is seamless and just works.

My experiences with Linux have been anything but seamless.

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#53

Post by naikrovek »

jtbayly wrote: post #31

This headline does a good job of pointing out why we shouldn't allow backdoors in encryption.

no one said it was a backdoor, though. you have to have a key to encrypt stuff, and it was that key which got leaked, somehow. a backdoor is a way around the use of a key to see secret messages, or an alternate key which allows you to view messages without compromising the key which encrypts messages in normal operation.

could have been a backdoor, sure, could have been something else. could have been carelessness. could have been blackmail. could have been a rogue employee. could have been malware, spear fishing, or any one of a hundred other things.

did I miss something or are you premature in blaming this on a backdoor?

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#54

Post by ElectricalUnion »

orangepurple wrote: post #42
Zelphyr wrote: post #32

I hate to go negative. I really do because, usually it doesn't improve the discourse whatsoever. However, I feel like it needs to be said: Microsoft makes bad products[1]! They're overpriced, insecure, slow (it's astounding to me how slow their web properties are), and hard to use. Easily some of the worst UI I've ever seen and, what's worse, they've been like that my entire career. They keep slapping lipstick on the…

Linux on the desktop is here. Go all-in on KDE. Everything is seamless and just works.

The only Linux desktop environment that I found that looks and feels integrated and polished is Gnome, but that is because it's a slow as molasses, corporate focused and dumbed down copycat of the other mainstream OSes.

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#55

Post by mikrotikker »

naikrovek wrote: post #46
orangepurple wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux on the desktop is here. Go all-in on KDE. Everything is seamless and just works.

> Everything is seamless and just works. I have zero confidence in that testimonial, given my own experience with open source desktop environments, and KDE. zero confidence whatsoever.

I'm 12 years into Linux on the desktop. It's amazing. Converted my non computer friend to it. My partner freaked when windows 10 tried to install itself years ago, and she switched. I play triple A games on it via steam. Our TV PC runs it.

The experience is so much better I really don't get this mentality.

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#56

Post by dgoodell »

I work for NASA. Our budget is like $25B. We’re definitely inefficient and wasteful, but we still do a lot of new things. Just not nearly as much as we could.

Microsoft’s operating budget was like $123B last year. There are bugs in office products that have been there for years

What exactly are they doing with all that money?

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#57

Post by mikrotikker »

naikrovek wrote: post #53
jtbayly wrote: post #31

This headline does a good job of pointing out why we shouldn't allow backdoors in encryption.

no one said it was a backdoor, though. you have to have a key to encrypt stuff, and it was that key which got leaked, somehow . a backdoor is a way around the use of a key to see secret messages, or an alternate key which allows you to view messages without compromising the key which encrypts messages in normal operation. could have been a backdoor, sure, could have been something else. could have been carelessness.…

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#58

Post by traceroute66 »

Zelphyr wrote: post #40
mozman wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have always believed that MS products are designed in a way to maximize the value of commercial support, certificates, etc. It's walled garden for lack of a better time and solving problems easily and quickly dilutes the value of MSCE and the army of paid consultants that exist. It is a completely different universe from Linux

I've had to get their certifications. They're just as much garbage as the rest of their offerings. The courses they provide are nothing but marketing material. They don't improve your understanding of the products at all. I found out later that they use their certs as filters for resellers to help Microsoft identify which ones are serious players. What a waste of time and money.

> I found out later that they use their certs as filters for resellers to help Microsoft identify which ones are serious players.

If I understand what you are saying correctly, this is not exactly true.

The IT industry is a box-shifting industry, and therefore Microsoft, like all other vendors, differentiate their resellers primarily on dollar-volume.

So the REAL reason a Microsoft reseller is Gold is primarily because they have shifted more product than other resellers on lower tiers.

Sure, to actually get the Gold badge, you need to have X sales-reps who've passed the course and Y technicians who've passed that course. But bodies-with-certs are by comparison a very minor secondary criteria.

The key criteria is always that your company has sold $big_number per year. Your entire organisation can be hiring exclusively Microsoft certified people, but you ain't getting the badge unless you're shifting the product no matter how many certified people you have on staff.

And that is why Gold certified is meaningless. Because all it tells me as a customer is you've got good sales-reps on team.

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#59

Post by mikrotikker »

Incipient wrote: post #41

What's with all this fairly overt state sponsored hacking and everyone going "aww shucks" and moving on quietly?

War with China already started in the cyber space. In fact its probably the pre war intelligence gathering and backdoor installations

Re: Microsoft lost its keys, and the government got hacked

#60

Post by whynotkeithberg »

MrDresden wrote: post #37
Zelphyr wrote: post #32

I hate to go negative. I really do because, usually it doesn't improve the discourse whatsoever. However, I feel like it needs to be said: Microsoft makes bad products[1]! They're overpriced, insecure, slow (it's astounding to me how slow their web properties are), and hard to use. Easily some of the worst UI I've ever seen and, what's worse, they've been like that my entire career. They keep slapping lipstick on the…

After spending 5 years of corporate work having to wrestle with Azure (in a ci/cd capacity) I would never recommend Microsoft's cloud offerings to anyone. Problem is that there is no other provider I would rather recommend. They are all bad in one way or another.

I like the Azure bash cli... That's about the only thing I like from Azure.
Post reply on HN