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Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

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Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#251
post #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…

Programmers are not really decision makers there.

The requirements for this sort of stuff come from top down. Do you expect C-Level and and the top layers of sycophants beneath them to be ethical?

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#252

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…

So it only lets Microsoft know people's exact location -- how close is Microsoft to the Trump regime? Nadella has apparently gifted Trump millions?

Why in the f does Word need my location (access to location services) for me to write a document? Pops up every time.

Teams already has a location setting, if you wanted to automate that a more correct way would seem to be adding the feature and offering users the opportunity to turn it on. Microsoft hasn't really changed since the IE days it seems.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#254
post #222
post #19

This article is like 300 words. Would it have killed them to not generate it using AI?

I'm so embarrassed to say that I read it and didn't notice. But now that you pointed it out, I reread it and you are so right. It is clearly generated. I have flagged this article on principle. Idk if it it's in the spirit of HN to do that or not, but the button's there, and I'm going to use it.

This actually seem quite flag-worthy to me. Look at the rest of the site, it's not at all trustworthy. The first post says it's by some random 16 year old (if we can actually believe that) and only has a few posts. One of them is a comparison of smart watches which says they tested them in the subheading on the article listing, but then doesn't show anything more than a surface level comparison from AI.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#256

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 chiming in!

This is how I expected the feature to work once I read the real product brief, so that's a plus at least. You might want to tell your product people to ask whoever deals with this stuff at Microsoft anymore if they can, like, talk to the press about it? Various outlets have been running stories for almost a year now about how Teams is going to start sending your WiFi data to your boss.

The wording on the product page also makes it sound like tenant administrators will get to decide how opt-in works (ie - that they could select which options the end-user is allowed to pick, and at Microsoft they happened to give you the freedom of choice); this makes sense from my experience in enterprise software management but also makes the feature seem like it will be incredibly yucky/annoying. Is that just a case of poor wording?

This still seems like a super weird feature to push through in terms of "yuck" to "value," but I also know how that goes.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#257

FTA > Remember when you could text Dave from the office to turn your PC on because you were stuck in traffic? I honestly don't. This was a thing? Why? > So if you decide to take a "working lunch" and connect to "Starbucks_Guest_WiFi", your boss sees it instantly. I would have a lot of fun with "creative" names for my Wi-fi network.

Seriously, this is not a thing. It doesn't even begin to make sense. It's made up. If you work in a factory with time cards that need to be punched in, and you punch in a buddy's who is late, that's a thing -- a very risky thing if you get caught, since it's fraud. But the idea that you'll give a coworker your password so they can boot up and log in and somehow make it look like you're online...? Not a thing. And doe…

This was a thing. I worked in an office of 4 within a larger facility back when booting up took some time and we had staggered morning arrivals. The first arrival would power on everyone's computers so they were ready. If someone came in, they'd see a computer on without someone there. Where are they? I don't know, maybe in the bathroom, getting coffee, or running down an issue in another department.

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great. Can you share how exactly someone's location is being derived?

> ...what building they're in... Given that not every device has built in GPS, it sounds like the Network Team is going to have to provide the locations of APs for that to work. Curious how Teams will resolve that. If you're on your phone using a VPN back to your home network will it know or show you as at home? What happens if you have multiple APs at home?

There are public databases of APs. Google reportedly used their Android users to sniff APs (?), and used StreetView vehicles to wardrive. MS can surely pin many APs to user's PII and locations just on the data they already have?

Re: Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?

#260

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…

As an aside the zoom admin panel offers great information for troubleshooting but it also offers lots of information about users’ connections.
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