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Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

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Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#251

Post by aleph_minus_one »

jimbob45 wrote: post #163
ChrisArchitect wrote: post #108

Nobody thinks this is a weird reaction to an OS update that's been out for years at this point and barely makes a difference over the previous version? There's no 'Recall'. Co-pilot isn't all over in your face so removing it isn't really a priority. Edge isn't forced on you, it's just part of the bundled software just like a bunch of other items as in every Windows for decades. Not saying it doesn't get hairy if you'…

Every other OS from MS is garbage. XP good, Vista bad, 7 good, 8 so bad no one remembers it, 10 goodish, 11 horrific. The hate is hardly unprecedented and indeed well-deserved. MS has shown in the past that they’ll respond to poor OS reception with attempts to win back customers and that’s what I’m hoping for in this case.

> Every other OS from MS is garbage. XP good, Vista bad, 7 good, 8 so bad no one remembers it, 10 goodish, 11 horrific.

Rather:

2000: good

XP: decent (after a long series of patches)

Vista: bad

7: good

8: horrific

10: bad (basically all the people hated it because of the surveillance stuff)

11: horrific

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#252

Post by spragl »

heavyset_go wrote: post #72
repiret wrote: post #41

I agree with all of the articles points except for the first one: TPM and Secure Boot do not reduce user choice or promote state or corporate surveillance. If you want to be able to prevent root kits you need secure boot, and if you want to store secrets that don't need a user password to unlock and can't be stolen by taking apart the computer, you need a TPM; or you need substantially similar alternatives. I would s…

> I would say that specifically with Secure Boot, Microsoft actually promoted user choice: A Windows Logo compliant PC needs to have Microsoft's root of trust installed by default. Microsoft could have stopped there, but they didn't. This was not the case with the initial rollout of Secure Boot, it was combined with locked BIOS to lock PCs so that they could only boot Windows 8 on some devices. This was the case on W…

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation.

Remote attestation can be misused, yes. But why writing it as TPM is the problem? In cases where remote attestation is used for good, TPM improves the setup, if anything.

I dont see the rationale for what you wrote, and am genuinely curious what it is.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#253

Post by Aardwolf »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #245

The best path forward for home users and small business for non-technical users: Install Fedora with KDE. Install Firefox, Thunderbird and Chrome. Install uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger. Install LibreOffice & bookmark Google Docs. Install multimedia support, h264/h265, VLC/mpv/ffmpeg, enable DRM in browser. Install Steam if applicable. If they have a printer, connect it and show them how to print a page. Configure & t…

I don't have issues with Nvidia drivers in Archlinux (using cinnamon and X) after pacman updates that sometimes update kernel and/or Nvidia drivers, I'm curious what's different in your setup to get these issues

Also, how are the graphics drivers affecting LUKS for you? They are two independent and unrelated things for me, Nvidia drivers aren't doing anything disk or pam related

> If they have a printer, connect it and show them how to print a page.

This however is the thing that doesn't "just work" for me, even with a common hp printer. The one time in a year you need to use the printer, something will have broken about its drivers again in Linux. I just transfer the pdf to the printer with a USB stick now

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#254

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #219
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what happens when they use their physical access to turn off secure boot or just replace the component/device with one that looks the same, prompts for your password and sends it to them?

There is no password. The machine will fail to boot and decrypt you hard drive.

Either you're entering something into the machine to authenticate yourself or they can just copy or modify your files without authenticating to begin with.

If they just want your password they don't need to decrypt your hard drive, they can format it and install a rootkit that steals your password as soon as you try to login.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#255

Post by ItsBob »

erentz wrote: post #180
koyote wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some things that any semi-power user will notice and get angry at: * Needing internet and a microsoft account to install the OS * Start menu now requiring two clicks to get to programs list * Right-click requiring two clicks to get to the options you most likely want to use (e.g. 7z unzip or opening in a specific program) * Task manager being slow and laggy * Random ads asking you to install a game pop up in the noti…

> And then there's little bugs everywhere that just grind away at you on a daily basis: When I create a new folder or file in a directory in explorer it hangs for a bit and doesn’t show up unless I click refresh. Ditto if I save a file to a directory that is open in explorer. Thinking about trying to get a copy of Win 10 IoT LTSC instead at this point.

Go here [0] to get the links to Windows 10 and Windows 11 LTSC.

Also, the script to activate it, go here [1] for that.

[0] - https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

[1] - https://massgrave.dev/

I'm using Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC to write this and using Massgrave(l) it's activated to 2038 or something now. The only thing I wanted that LTSC didn't have out of the box was the Microsoft Store but you install that from PowerShell with the command "wsreset -i" and wait for 30s or so :)

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#256

Post by cl3misch »

iamtedd wrote: post #221
edg5000 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally nobody should exchange Office docs anyway, I find it much more professional to exchange PDFs. I use MS arial so my PDFs made with LibreOffice look immaculate on any device. I think people are really shit for being so attached to their stupid office. I could not sell my dad on LibreOffice though. He'd rather pay 100 EUR/yr than learn to use new software.

*immaculate on any device that has Arial, unless your PDF conforms to PDF/A. Linux machines don't normally include Arial due to the license, and only PDF/A includes the fonts used in the document.

nit: normal PDFs may embed fonts, but PDF/A must embed them, and PDF/A is not the default in most programs.

In practice however most programs seem to include fonts in exported PDFs?

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#257

Post by Ekaros »

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #242
AlotOfReading wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine trying to replace MS word with libreoffice for businesses. I respect the project and the complexity of the task, but it's just not there for even light professional use. As an example, I recently submitted a manuscript following standard format [0] with libreoffice. Nothing difficult, just basic professional functionality. The only way to do it involved editing global default page styles (because cust…

> I can't imagine trying to replace MS word with libreoffice for businesses. I respect the project and the complexity of the task, but it's just not there for even light professional use. Exactly. Just work in the finance or insurance industry for a year, and you will see how it is part of the daily workflow to use very obscure, advanced Excel feature combined with VBA. If a proposed Microsoft Office alternative cann…

Or something like Google sheets. Attempted very basic thing:

1. Got barcode reader and scanned some barcodes from books

2. Looked up these from online API

3. Wrote result in ISBN;Name;Year to output

4. Tried to copy result to Google Sheets

5. No import from custom CSV? (Excel has very good tooling)

6. Actually to split I had to use =SPLIT() and then copy paste results in weird way to actually be able to use first column...

Is this really better? Or good enough...

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#258

Post by mschuster91 »

spragl wrote: post #252
heavyset_go wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would say that specifically with Secure Boot, Microsoft actually promoted user choice: A Windows Logo compliant PC needs to have Microsoft's root of trust installed by default. Microsoft could have stopped there, but they didn't. This was not the case with the initial rollout of Secure Boot, it was combined with locked BIOS to lock PCs so that they could only boot Windows 8 on some devices. This was the case on W…

> There is also a real potential for abusing TPMs or cryptographic co-processors to enforce remote attestation. Remote attestation can be misused, yes. But why writing it as TPM is the problem? In cases where remote attestation is used for good, TPM improves the setup, if anything. I dont see the rationale for what you wrote, and am genuinely curious what it is.

Because that's what has been going on in the Android world for years and for the iPhone was the case from the start.

Root your phone, even if it is just for the ability to make full backups (because that is, to this day, not a thing on Android)? Say goodbye to banking, most games, even the proposed new EU "digital identity" government wallet was supposed to enforce attestation.

And everyone with a phone on the "bad vendor" list that either doesn't get Google certification from the start or gets it revoked due to sanctions? Same.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#259

Post by encom »

kjellsbells wrote: post #161
somenameforme wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the arguments for Office at the small business or individual level, as opposed to Libre Office? For most users, they'll be able to reacclimate in a matter of hours to near 100% competence. And they now are in an ecosystem that won't constantly try to squeeze you for rent. I think this is even more true in the era of LLMs, because on the rare difference somebody might get hung up on - there's no longer real n…

Sadly in small business Microsoft have a lock because no SMB wants to be the awkward outlier whose IT makes them hard to do business with. For example, to be that supplier that whose documents never quite look quite right or who always struggles with the docusign /PDF /email /spreadsheet /whatever whatever. For an SMB, fitting in with the de facto IT herd that is represented by your customers and partners is essentia…

Sounds like a load of FUD from a Microsoft salesman.

Re: Retiring Windows 10 and Microsoft's move towards a surveillance state

#260

Post by huflungdung »

BatteryMountain wrote: post #245

The best path forward for home users and small business for non-technical users: Install Fedora with KDE. Install Firefox, Thunderbird and Chrome. Install uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger. Install LibreOffice & bookmark Google Docs. Install multimedia support, h264/h265, VLC/mpv/ffmpeg, enable DRM in browser. Install Steam if applicable. If they have a printer, connect it and show them how to print a page. Configure & t…

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