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Microsoft became incompetent in IT

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Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#111

Post by herbst »

drum-computer wrote: post #104

I once had to go through a very similar process when I wanted to disallow my kid to play Minecraft online. I can't even tell you how much wtf's I've experienced along the way. It literally took me more than 40 minutes and I had to create two accounts, keep in mind I'm a software developer, so I'm a tech savvy person. Then after couple of month we tried to play together on the local lan and after spending another 40 m…

As Linux "gamer" it's almost always just the launchers that make(/made) issues rarely the game itself.

More often than not did a proper crack that was a custom launcher basically fix "the whole game" for me.

Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#114

Post by aucisson_masque »

kazinator wrote: post #71

`Tis ironic he was locked out trying to interact with LibreOffice. I had a good interaction with the LibreOffice project. I reported something about LibreOffice Writer. Not even a bug, but just a user experience thing in some paragraph cohesion control UI. My report was taken seriously, discussed and fixed, in a way that was fairly aligned with my suggestions, and it all happened on not a very long time scale, about…

I once reported an obvious bug on open source project (windows preview was misaligned on Linux mint desktop) and told it’s working as intended, case closed.

Open source support vary a lot, you can’t compare it to a business that is actually receiving money for service and take things seriously.

Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#115

Post by rstuart4133 »

mkesper wrote: post #78
esulteric wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google wiped all my codes from their authenticator app It really drove home that trusting my identity and online presence to these entities that do not care or even know how to be responsible about it is a very bad idea.

Always use an open source OTP app for something like that.

Nowhere near paranoid enough.

Always take the "manual" OTP option, take a backup copy of the code you copy and pasted. I use my password manager

Then, always export the contents of you entire password manager database, encrypt it with the same password you use for you password manager with the pdkf2 rounds set to an absurdly high number and place it in a public place on the internet. Lots of places will host it for free.

Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#116

Post by crocowhile »

ttiurani wrote: post #92
crocowhile wrote: post #73

It gets much worse than this if you think about what they decided to do with Minecraft. They obliged millions of kids - literally, kids - to have a microsoft account to play a game that has nothing to do with any other microsoft products. They apply sub-standard and child-unfriendly security measures and when armies of kids get hacked (mostly phished) every day the only thing they do is to close down their account an…

As a bonus, you can can get completely stuck if you made the mistake of creating a MS family when signing into Minecraft. In the forums there are hundreds of problems like mine where the family becomes completely uneditable and Minecraft offline-only. But I should've never attempted anything that complicated with MS. They can barely manage simple cases, groups of users is way too hard.

Just going through that myself. My son's Microsoft account was hacked, we contactes customer service and all they did was acknowledge the account was compromised, close it indefinitely asking us to buy the game again, and locked my account as the family manager. Fortunately I am a Linux guy and the last Microsoft thing I've touched was windows xp some 20 years ago. But imagine thinking this is acceptable?!

I guess they still suffer from monopoly syndrome. The EU should get them again.

Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#117

Post by rstuart4133 »

danlitt wrote: post #88
waste_monk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is true that google's (lack of) customer support is awful. >it’s well-documented that sometimes, even if you don’t have 2FA turned on and you know your password, they simply won’t let you log in without some sort of additional verification However, this isn't quite fair on google - it's not arbitrary "sometimes", it's that accounts get locked if there's been unusual or suspicious activity that may indicate an atte…

I think this is quite fair criticism of google. The idea of the account being locked and requiring MFA to verify is something they made up without consulting the user. If they're going to do this "suspicious account" locking, they must make MFA mandatory beforehand. If they haven't got MFA from the user, they must trust the password. If that means my account gets compromised, that's my problem. Note that there is no…

> The idea of the account being locked and requiring MFA to verify is something they made up without consulting the user.

I'd be surprised if that was true. They don't just consult me about MFA, they downright pester me about it.

Besides if you wait long enough Google unlock the account anyway (if it's due to suspicious logins). I know, because it happened to me. I don't know how long it took, all I know is when I happen to check a few months after I thought I had lost access to the account, I could login again.

Finally, it's not like they have a choice. They have to protect the reputation of their domains and servers. It may seem unfair that you cop it if there are security issues, but you got the account for free and you refused to use the numerous MFA options the provide. If someone nerfarious takes over an accout to distribute spam or malware there is a mess that costs time and money to clean up.

There is a real point to be made about how Google / Microsoft and friends message accounts. But it's hard to sympathise with complaints about free ones. Paid for ones, where they promised a certain level of service and then withdraw service without warning and without the ability to recover your data (as I think happened to to the ICC) is a different matter.

Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#118

Post by tarsinge »

random3 wrote: post #52
chrismorgan wrote: post #20

This kind of issue is absurdly common. I’ve seen basically the same thing with Microsoft, Amazon and Google—personally and with others. With Google, it’s well-documented that sometimes, even if you don’t have 2FA turned on and you know your password, they simply won’t let you log in without some sort of additional verification… which may not be possible. This hit me once while overseas, I think I managed to get in by…

Exactly! The OP’s surprisal is surprising, given that 95% of all support interactions across the board are exactly like this. In fact, the internal support - i.e. the support for employees is just as bad and nonsensical. It goes pretty much like this. If your problem needs “reasoning” that entails more than matching a direct solution, you’re getting the default answer that’s the closest match to the solution. The onl…

Bureaucracy didn’t emerge in the 21th, contrary to lack of customer support for big companies. Bureaucracy is a symptom part of the enshittification, the root cause is Monopoly (direct or through organized shareholders across an industry). You don’t need support or good service when customers don’t have the choice to go elsewhere.

Re: Microsoft became incompetent in IT

#119

Post by rich_sasha »

I'm not sure incompetence is the right word. More like, deliberately cutting corners?

I have a feeling that they know how to write good software, and when pressed, they do. Every now and then they produce something good.

But they also know that they can get away with releasing mediocre, cheaply-made software that works fine for 60% of people, 35% of users hate it but use it anyway, and 5% get locked out/run away to OSX and Linux.

I'm not splitting hairs here. There is a difference between "I can't" and "I can't be bothered".

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