111–120 of 175 posts
I believe the transparency would be a huge plus.
This happened to Wireguard, Veracrypt, Windscribe, and possibly others. Certainly not isolated and very unnerving.
There are still many unanswered questions...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft's incompetence is certainly reckless at a minimum, and often manifests in ways that come across as misanthropic toward their users. They don't really fit the pattern of mere bumbling fools.
sure! my point was that it wasnt a deliberate conspiracy/attack to fuck over wireguard, which would be an absolutely crazy story if it were true.
But what would have happened if they weren't able to get Microsoft's attention through an outside channel (this site) and had to go through the normal process? I'm glad it was resolved quickly for WireGuard, but I'm concerned the results won't generalize. Also, thanks for WireGuard!
> and had to go through the normal process? There is no normal process. The error message clearly states "There are no appeals available, we have closed your application". If the company makes it impossible for you to communicate with them, the only recourse is to draw public attention to it in order to shame them. This only works if you can gather enough public support and kick up enough of a stink about it. All of…
Legal action works too. You'd be surprised how effective a letter from an attorney can be.
Why do people put so much effort into supporting a hostile platform? I really don't get it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They started it because the drivers people used to use from hardware vendors would routinely blue screen windows, which made MS look like the reason windows would crash. Hardware vendors are notoriously inept at software.
Í think their point was that Wireguard has no physical hardware, so it’s strange as a software project they’d be forced to go through verification for a hardware program.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I understand it's because it's a device driver, but why should a pure software publisher which has no hardware product of any sort be required to go through a "hardware program" gatekeeper of what binaries a person can choose to install and run on their own computer?
They started it because the drivers people used to use from hardware vendors would routinely blue screen windows, which made MS look like the reason windows would crash. Hardware vendors are notoriously inept at software.
But hardware vendors also want Windows licenses to include with their hardware, so it's pretty easy to say "do the hardware program certification if you want the discount" and that's exactly what they did in the early days, and it worked fine. Even the peripherals (which are increasingly rare now anyway) still want to be able to put the Windows logo on their product.
At which point we still have the same question: Why are they harassing the WireGuard developers, who have their own reputation for not being inept at software and therefore shouldn't need a Microsoft certification program to assure their users that their code is trustworthy to install?
Hopefully, this isn't just something Microsoft made them say as part of an agreement to get their account back.
But last time I checked, they are taking money from individuals. Or otherwise encouraging individuals to use their services.
So this lack of respect for individuals by specific large companies, is predicated on their encouraging users to trust them, and depend on them, without taking on any of the implied responsibility to not capriciously ruin someone's day or year. And then hard or soft stone wall them.
As someone who nearly lost everything due to the automated bureaucracy of a financial firm, I cannot stress: We are not safe. And we will not be safe until these companies are legally required to treat customer investment and dependency on their services, as valuable and necessarily recoverable, via prompt recourse and response, in cases where the automated bureaucratic systems fail.
Otherwise, this is going to keep getting worse.
When I hear how Microsoft helps someone who got attention, what I hear is that it takes extraordinary circumstances for Microsoft to care about the significant harm that there systems are causing many other people, today, who did not have the luck of this person.
And that they are very very aware of this.
I think we need to start using the word evil for this. Because it is. It is gross irresponsibility. Gross abuse of a power situation, of a strong dependency, that the company quite knowingly creates.
Individual-level ethics and respect are being dispensed with en masse. The excuse being that these companies operate "at scale". But last time I checked, they are taking money from individuals. Or otherwise encouraging individuals to use their services. So this lack of respect for individuals by specific large companies, is predicated on their encouraging users to trust them, and depend on them, without taking on any…
Big tech shouldn’t be allowed to control the platforms and the ability to distribute / blacklist software and sites. That needs to be legislated against and those companies need to be broken into a thousand pieces each.
How often do they ship new versions?
My understanding is that:
1. Windows drivers are Attested by Microsoft
2. Windows collects driver telemetry
Which means a really good question to ask is:
Why are they canceling driver signing accounts without looking at metrics?