Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

ztechtalk.com

231–240 of 312 posts

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#231
post #11

Here's the actual "roadmap" feature (scroll to the bottom where the filtered list is): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?search... The actual feature brief is: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to e…

I guess we need to use some VNC or so, to connect to the machine that runs MS Teams, which sits at the correct workplace. But also need to be able to accept and make calls. I am guessing, even if that data could also be sent via some protocol, the delay might be a lot?

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#232
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I truly don't understand including these researchers on this list. Some of Sweeney's most well-known work in this area is from the LATE 1990s. She was sounding the alarm about problems with anonymized data in medical datasets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latanya_Sweeney#Medical_datase... Her work almost certainly contributed highly to awareness of these risks. More recently she has apparently worked on thin…

I haven't followed what she's been working on recently. But, yeah, at some point in the 90s, Massachusetts decided to release some "anonymized" health records for research purposes (I think just state employees). One was governor William Weld who obviously had a lot of public information widely available. As I recall, Sweeney wrote the governor's office a bit later basically saying "I have your medical records." I us…

See also: AOL's search data release

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#234
AI slop.

> If you connect to a Wi-Fi network that isn't your company's, Teams will simply display the name of that network.

This is hallucinated. The actual change: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?id=488...

IF your 365 admins add a list of WiFi SSIDs to Teams, Teams will (optionally, opt-in by user) toggle your work location. It will not report not-known SSIDs to your manager or display it in Teams (but note your 365 admins have always been able to see this in the first place, in call/connectivity troubleshooting).

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#235
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, if you're using Teams PSTN calling, your location has to be pulled in by Teams for e911 compliance anyways down to the building. It updates automatically already, even!

What happens if you deny location permissions? Why doesn't every other VOIP app require your live location, and instead are fine with a random address you manually entered?

I used to work in healthcare network/telecom and then as a healthcare network/telecom VAR before working at a networking manufacturer currently for the last ~year. The below may be slightly out of date, and I was just the person getting told by the lawyers instead of the one with the real understanding, but it was what I'd run into at the time for the US.

The understanding I always got from legal was "it's continually the company's legal liability under the RAY BAUM's Act whether the address is correct when the user dials 911 on/via the corporate systems, not the user's". Sometimes the conversation sounded like you could potentially have users sign something to transfer that liability, other times legal didn't seem to even want to entertain the idea as valid. Regardless, none of the companies ever ended up wanting to go that route for either concern of general friction/overhead or concern there would be employees pushing back that they don't want to sign it and instead would just want 911 to work (which is also a reasonable position for an employee to want to hold). I.e. implementing automatic VOIP location for some users but not others was either impossible on some systems or just seen as a nightmare to try to track/audit, even if they were willing to try to make every employee perfectly happy about it. A bit of a legally induced quagmire for a good intent (accurate 911 not being something a place could opt out of providing) which had trade offs in reality.

RAY BAUM's compliance requirements for for nomadic endpoints in went active in 2022 but most companies had already started trying to be compliant a little prior to that when fixed endpoints needed it anyways. Some companies of course don't bother, either knowingly or unknowingly assuming that compliance risk. Before that it wasn't really a topic.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#236
post #149
post #11

Here's the actual "roadmap" feature (scroll to the bottom where the filtered list is): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?search... The actual feature brief is: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to e…

Working on the systems/security/infrastructure side, we can already do this. Endpoint management systems already report wifi-ssid, internal-IP, whether you are using a vpn to try and hide info. SASE/ZTNA solutions provide location data, username, device used, connection details. Conditional access policies in the tenant already do checks against all of this anyway. The roadmap just makes the whole thing user-facing s…

mmhmm. Yea if someone really had the desire they could figure out my online presence and possibly even get a rough idea of what I'm actually doing with my time. Always something you could figure out from an IT network, its just about putting the history together.

But I'll agree that Teams is packaging this information into something more digest-able for middle managers, and that's the rub. There are always manager types who have the epiphany that not everyone is working 100% of the time and it bothers them enough to call it out to subordinates, or if they don't like someone enough they might do a deep dive with IT. Teams already has this indicator to show if you're online, on mobile, in a meeting, AFK, or offline entirely. Its not that the information wasn't there, its just much more front-and-center for managers to be annoying about it.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#237
post #99

I truly believe our industry needs to elevate our own anti-awards, like others have (Razzies, Worst Game of the Year, etc.) to shame those responsible for building the regressive tech that corporations and governments push. There's already the Big Brother Awards [0] and EFF's smattering of Worst Government and Worst Data Breach articles each year. [1] But I think we need more. Personally I would love to nominate: - M…

Another thing that I think would help is to start introducing some ethics into our profession as programmers.

Most other professions have you take ethics classes, have ethics boards and even ethics legislation. We're severely lacking in this area as a community. It really shows when every year there's a new company building the Maximum Oppression Orb from the book Dont Build the Maximum Oppression Orb. Its like we're dealing with the moral equivalent of a mentally challenged person all the time

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#238
post #232
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't followed what she's been working on recently. But, yeah, at some point in the 90s, Massachusetts decided to release some "anonymized" health records for research purposes (I think just state employees). One was governor William Weld who obviously had a lot of public information widely available. As I recall, Sweeney wrote the governor's office a bit later basically saying "I have your medical records." I us…

See also: AOL's search data release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_search_log_release

As I somewhat recall there also an issue with correlating IMDB with Netflix ratings at one point.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#239

I work on Teams (I know, I know... please don't hit me, it's not my fault) 1. I don't speak authoritatively and 2. I don't have knowledge of the whole product - there's always a rogue team here and there doing stuff. We've had that feature turned on at MSFT for some time now. It does not allow your manager to see that you're at Starbucks, at home, on the shitter or anything like that. There's a new toggle in the cale…

Thanks for showing up to provide some corrective information. I know it can feel like opening a box of yellowjackets, but one of the best things about the HN community is when someone with first-hand knowledge is willing to share what they know.

Edit: from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46827312, it does sound like the feature isn't really opt-in for end users though?

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#240
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees need to join a union

Personally I wouldn’t even start working for an organisation that uses Microsoft …

unfortunately, my org that used google got acquired by an org that forced MS on us...
Post reply on HN