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Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

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Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#21

Post by ozi »

johnchristopher wrote: post #5
KirinDave wrote: post #3

Microsoft has an interesting stance here. As EU entities are major customers for both Windows and Azure, they're working quite hard to make sure to assure these parties that the US Government doesn't have undue influence over them. They're adding secure links and solutions they cannot eavesdrop on to Azure, and getting pretty aggressive with pushing back against US surveillance. The US benefits from EU privacy laws e…

I agree with your analysis but what happens when China or a country like NK is the new economic powerhouse to please over EU ? Will US companies lobby the US the other way then ? It's the Stallman argument again: don't defend privacy (free software) because it's convenient (hey, it's free and high tech enough), defend privacy because it's a principle that aligns with your ethics, not your economic interests.

Yeah, by definition capitalism is amoral. Their obligated to increase shareholder value and that's it. If telling the US Intelligence apparatus to fuck off serves that purpose, then it's a course of action Microsoft must take.

"Doing the right thing" is not what Microsoft cares about on a macro level. It just so happens that in this instance its actions align with the interests of most people.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#22

Post by m_mueller »

ozi wrote: post #21
johnchristopher wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your analysis but what happens when China or a country like NK is the new economic powerhouse to please over EU ? Will US companies lobby the US the other way then ? It's the Stallman argument again: don't defend privacy (free software) because it's convenient (hey, it's free and high tech enough), defend privacy because it's a principle that aligns with your ethics, not your economic interests.

Yeah, by definition capitalism is amoral. Their obligated to increase shareholder value and that's it. If telling the US Intelligence apparatus to fuck off serves that purpose, then it's a course of action Microsoft must take. "Doing the right thing" is not what Microsoft cares about on a macro level. It just so happens that in this instance its actions align with the interests of most people.

It's multiple levels of indirection here, but the interests of most people are supposed to be reflected in law and governance in a democracy. It's arguable that the interest of most EU citizens at least are reflected in Microsoft's actions here.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#23

Post by Retric »

cmiles74 wrote: post #17
johnchristopher wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your analysis but what happens when China or a country like NK is the new economic powerhouse to please over EU ? Will US companies lobby the US the other way then ? It's the Stallman argument again: don't defend privacy (free software) because it's convenient (hey, it's free and high tech enough), defend privacy because it's a principle that aligns with your ethics, not your economic interests.

I don't believe corporations can really have ethics in any meaningful way. For sure there are people who work there, often with a good amount of control, who may be ethical. On the whole, however, they report to boards or committees. In my opinion, it's much easier for a group of people to talk themselves out of acting ethically. Having economic interests line up with corporate interests sounds as good as it gets, to…

Companies often act ethical when the rules support this. If you tax pollution or other externalities then company's take them into account. And people generally prefer working with ethical companies which is a bonus. However when you don't tax pollution companies that act unethically have a huge advantage and win driving more unethical behavior.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#25

Post by KirinDave »

thr0waway1239 wrote: post #18
milesrout wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other way to look at it is this: Doing good things for bad reasons is better than doing bad things for bad reasons, even if it's not as good as doing good things for good reasons.

>> Doing good things for bad reasons is better than doing bad things for bad reasons The other comment mentions the problem with this stance. But it is worthwhile to point out that this is pretty much par for the course for Microsoft, seeing as they are suddenly embracing open source with a vengeance despite being the single biggest factor in its suppression for 15+ of the last 20 years. I remember seeing someone com…

> The other comment mentions the problem with this stance. But it is worthwhile to point out that this is pretty much par for the course for Microsoft, seeing as they are suddenly embracing open source with a vengeance despite being the single biggest factor in its suppression for 15+ of the last 20 years.

Not really? Open Source took off when the corporate world around Microsoft embraced it as a way to get more unbilled hours from employees and restructure how they do tech sharing with other companies to make it cheaper.

Microsoft has sued individual vendors for patent litigation, which is obviously bullshit but not something special for linux vendors (every vendor enters into this system and until said system is changed, a risk for it exists).

> I remember seeing someone commenting how they are impressed with the new Microsoft. To which I thought "Really? Did they actually have any other choice?"

_I'm_ impressed with Nadela and the engineers at Microsoft. I'm impressed that a corporate structure could shift this much. I used to work there in the bad old days and it was an incredibly demoralizing experience. Now, I look and talk to people who are happy and energized.

I also think Microsoft didn't have to approach things the way they did. They absolutely had an option to try and perform a hostile takeover/co-opting of the Linux ecosystem (the way that Oracle is doing via its Java IP).

Microsoft is what it is, for sure. It has a checkered past. But I think we should be encouraging when we see actors in the system do things like write non-enforcement pledges on patents, open source core technology with very permissive licenses so that their techniques and technology are dispersed throughout the ecosystem, and point out their product profile has never been stronger as a result.

We can do this while also remaining cautious and defensive, as we should with every major corporate vendor.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#26

Post by awinter-py »

Their argument that cloud can't survive invasion of privacy is probably right, but ignoring government, cloud operators threaten the privacy of their own users.

G and MSFT both have stories from the early days when their employees went into cloud email accounts to check up on users. In G's case it was a rogue sysadmin stalking some high school kids, for MSFT it was looking at a journalist's hotmail acct to prosecute a leak.

The NSA has their own version of this, LOVEINT, where analysts stalk their significant others (or desireds or exes).

I can't think of any guarantee a company can provide to say this isn't happening, esp on social platforms. Crypto-based platforms might do it (see the danish sugar beet auction, which uses a form of secure multiparty computation) but that's not MSFT's argument here. Also unclear how crypto platforms affect the ability to roll out new features and debug.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#27

Post by tunap »

m_mueller wrote: post #22
ozi wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, by definition capitalism is amoral. Their obligated to increase shareholder value and that's it. If telling the US Intelligence apparatus to fuck off serves that purpose, then it's a course of action Microsoft must take. "Doing the right thing" is not what Microsoft cares about on a macro level. It just so happens that in this instance its actions align with the interests of most people.

It's multiple levels of indirection here, but the interests of most people are supposed to be reflected in law and governance in a democracy. It's arguable that the interest of most EU citizens at least are reflected in Microsoft's actions here.

"interests of most people"(eg. shareholders) is not necessarily the same as"increase shareholder value", which is their legal mandate under corporate law. In this case, I have no doubt, and admittedly no proof, that this is posturing to salvage their perceived respect for privacy in the public eye despite their previous actions and the conflict to their prime directive. They already sell the data to 3rd parties, their beef is they did not get paid in this/these instances.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#28

Post by sergers »

awinter-py wrote: post #26

Their argument that cloud can't survive invasion of privacy is probably right, but ignoring government, cloud operators threaten the privacy of their own users. G and MSFT both have stories from the early days when their employees went into cloud email accounts to check up on users. In G's case it was a rogue sysadmin stalking some high school kids, for MSFT it was looking at a journalist's hotmail acct to prosecute…

Back in summer 2006 between semesters, I worked at a Microsoft call center for Hotmail plus/premium (people/companies who paid premium account, and some ISP rebranded Hotmail accounts).

We had full access to billing, we also had full access to people's accounts. We could look at emails, look at deleted items weeks after del (restore in rare circumstances).

The thing is we didnt mess around. The tools to do this are heavily logged and audited.

There was an incident of guy looking into his gf account.

Within a week the guy was repramanded and let go.

Re: Microsoft Allowed to Sue U.S. Government Over E-mail Surveillance

#29

Post by elastic_church »

cmiles74 wrote: post #17
johnchristopher wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your analysis but what happens when China or a country like NK is the new economic powerhouse to please over EU ? Will US companies lobby the US the other way then ? It's the Stallman argument again: don't defend privacy (free software) because it's convenient (hey, it's free and high tech enough), defend privacy because it's a principle that aligns with your ethics, not your economic interests.

I don't believe corporations can really have ethics in any meaningful way. For sure there are people who work there, often with a good amount of control, who may be ethical. On the whole, however, they report to boards or committees. In my opinion, it's much easier for a group of people to talk themselves out of acting ethically. Having economic interests line up with corporate interests sounds as good as it gets, to…

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