21–30 of 310 posts
It's practically been the operative description of Microsoft for decades that they're interested in profits (and potential profits in certain circles disjoint from the end users), not the privacy or security of their users.
> "With that said, do you really want to buy a Microsoft product? Do you want to buy anything that gives easy access to snoops poking around at their leisure? If you'd think twice about this, then why would a foreign government rely on Microsoft Office with any confidence? Personally, if I were any foreign government or corporation, I'd stop using all Microsoft products immediately for fear of America spying on me. N…
You know... Up until this whole NSA/PRISM thing got uncovered, Microsoft had actually rather successfully started to rebuild the perception and image of its cloud-service Azure.
It had shown the world that in less than a year, it was well on its way to catch up with Amazon Web Services. It was going from an experiment to serious business. Something the company invested in. Even more so than the traditional parts of the business.
As someone who once looked at Azure and laughed it off, I was coming around, actually considering it. I don't have any inside info on this, but I would guess/assume Azure was just about to take off. All those investments, finally about to pay off.
Then the whole NSA/PRISM thing came about. Now there's no chance in hell I'm going there. Not that I expect AWS to be any better in that regard either. I'm currently pulling out my data from Google. I trust them even less.
Hell, at this point, the only viable option privacy-vice seems to be open-source software, deployed by me, to an account I control, hosted on a service-provider outside the US's reach.
It may not be immune to unauthorized, illegal snooping, but it will be off the main grid, take a bit more effort and it wont be done automatically 24/7.
If I become paranoid enough to put in the effort, I'll just get a VPS instead and encrypt the shit out of it.
(Disclaimer: Not a US citizen.)
This is a financial disaster waiting to happen. Microsoft is oblivious if it is not doing something to divorce itself from the NSA. Apple, on the other hand, could have come out smelling like a rose, but following the death of Steve Jobs, who apparently refused to play ball with the NSA, it stupidly jumped on board to join the PRISM club. According to the Prism slides, it really looks so: "Dates when Prism collection…
> "With that said, do you really want to buy a Microsoft product? Do you want to buy anything that gives easy access to snoops poking around at their leisure? If you'd think twice about this, then why would a foreign government rely on Microsoft Office with any confidence? Personally, if I were any foreign government or corporation, I'd stop using all Microsoft products immediately for fear of America spying on me. N…
> "With that said, do you really want to buy a Microsoft product? Do you want to buy anything that gives easy access to snoops poking around at their leisure? You know... Up until this whole NSA/PRISM thing got uncovered, Microsoft had actually rather successfully started to rebuild the perception and image of its cloud-service Azure. It had shown the world that in less than a year, it was well on its way to catch up…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That reminds me of Putin a little bit. Even if you think some leader is an asshole, sometimes you need an asshole to stand up to an even bigger bully. I just imagine someone like former president Medvedev (and with no Putin in sight) would've offered Snowden to US government on a silver platter, just like France, Spain, Portugal and Italy tried to do (fortunately unsuccessfully). I remember I was very much against Pu…
Medvedev was and is Putin's pawn, he acts the way Putin tells him.
A couple of years ago at a Linux conference in Germany I had a discussion with a Microsoft employee at their booth. At that time I was a 'hardcore' linux user with no trust in Microsoft at all. The discussion with the employee went like this: Me: "Hello. Could you tell me what Microsoft is doing at this Linux conference? I honestly want to know that." Him: "We are here to show how our products can work well together…
LOL. Who was dumb enough to have ever trusted them?
Dvorak's article is a regurgitation of previous HN discussions on this topic. I have said in the previous HN post and I will say it again here: don't pile on Microsoft alone. These spying policies make every US-based services company untrustworthy to whomever privacy is important. Come to think of it, I'm not sure whether you can rely on European services either because it seems that gov't surveillance is widespread.…
Yea, remember that PRISM is designed to target foreign communications, so if you are an American, you might be actually safer.