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Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

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Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#261

Post by parasubvert »

mc32 wrote: post #237
parasubvert wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emails aren’t thoughtcrimes. This is nonsense. Everything in corporate email has always been subject to read by others, there is no expectation of privacy. As we’ve seen from countless court cases, they range from boring nothingburgers, to evidence of actual crimes.

There is a difference between an investigation under subpoena for example and An automated process that alerts whomever is chosen as overseers to all possible missteps and misdeeds. One is a very targeted and conscious effort the other is automated and pervasive everywhere all the time.

Building and selling AI software to do this is also a targeted and conscious effort.

My view is this kind of thing is inevitable and pervasive because there’s a lot of internal risks that companies and governments are worried about. The only solution is to be so valuable that it doesn’t matter.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#262

Post by parasubvert »

throwaway290 wrote: post #189
parasubvert wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emails aren’t thoughtcrimes. This is nonsense. Everything in corporate email has always been subject to read by others, there is no expectation of privacy. As we’ve seen from countless court cases, they range from boring nothingburgers, to evidence of actual crimes.

I think it's that you can be considered effectively guilty (there's grounds to fire you or take disciplinary action against you) for tripping an ML routine without further evidence or proof, and that it seems more important to have "clean" corporate communication rather than actually act in good faith (as long as bad stuff happens on off channels, no one cares). Hopefully it doesn't make it outside of the corporate w…

It already has left the corporate world in China.

Technology, like advanced weapons, doesn’t solve political problems for long, as the other side eventually gets their hands on it.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#263

Post by parasubvert »

GauntletWizard wrote: post #171
parasubvert wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emails aren’t thoughtcrimes. This is nonsense. Everything in corporate email has always been subject to read by others, there is no expectation of privacy. As we’ve seen from countless court cases, they range from boring nothingburgers, to evidence of actual crimes.

Right, and this functionality is to punish you for nothingburgers as much as actual crimes. "Leaver" detection is something that is entirely sane for corporations to do but will be abused by the usual suspects in HR to instill fear and to retribute.

Of course it is. But this is how it has always been even without this technology. The cost is lowering because the demand for is pervasive.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#264

Post by bufferoverflow »

dijit wrote: post #221
bufferoverflow wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These are extremely unconvincing and rather shallow refutations. That's not a refutation of my counterarguments at all. It just shows you're frustrated and talked yourself into a corner. We both know you don't audit your OS code, your drivers code, your hardware. All of them can be leaking your secret messages. > Extremely dismissive, almost to the point of insulting. Another non-refutation, another frustration, be…

Oh dear, you definitely chose the wrong person to accuse of not auditing their code. I'm typing this from my OpenBSD laptop, which, I assure you, I have audited extensively; but that's hardly relevant to this topic.. I just think it's funny that you would assume this of me. I'm also big on system-transparency[0] and micro systems like Oasis Linux[1] which attempt to limit things being able to hide. Granted, nothing i…

> which, I assure you, I have audited extensively;

For which I call BS.

Did you audit your OS code, drivers code and your laptop's hardware? We both know you didn't. Why do you make such an obvious lie?

If it's magically not a lie, how exactly did you do it and how long did it take?

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#265

Post by totetsu »

fartcannon wrote: post #125
totetsu wrote: post #24

I'm already not wanting to have personal conversations on teams. My tech savvy colleagues and the ones who can be convinced are on signal, where we talk about job offers and relationships. A few others do Instagram, and get to see my art photography. And occasionally I'll bump into someone when we're both in the office and be able to say whatever not looked over by AI. There's a real chilling effect on getting to kno…

Signal and WhatsApp aren't 100% trust worthy though. Why not pick something you can host yourself?

- I don't have enough disposable income and disposable time to self host and then keep up to date some flavour of messaging protocol server.

- Everyone's understanding of this issue is different. It's hard enough to convince technical people to use matrix/element vs signal, vs what ever they already have installed. Non-Technical people will either just ignore you or trust you entirely, I'm not sure which is worse.

- When something goes wrong I have to fix it myself. now I'm 24/7 on call.

- Even If I have knowledge enough to run the infrastructure myself, to compile clients and servers myself, to register domains etc.. I cant understand the source code to identify every possible un-trust worthy thing. even if I could, system security is not just about the code.. what is a trusted architecture to run it on?

It just isn't in any way, by any stretch of the imagination, feasible to self host any messaging service myself, that I want to use with the aim of talking to a wide range of people, from all parts of my life.. When I just want to chat with my work colleagues and arrange to go to drinks, or about their break up, or some other company or whatever..

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#266

Post by technion »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #240
parasubvert wrote: post #177

This is nothing new: corporations have scanned instant messages, emails and even recorded phone calls for decades, and will fire you based on that evidence for violations of corporate policy. And will sue you or call the cops if they detect potential crimes. I’m kind of surprised so many people are shocked by this. I know of one company where dozens of people were fired because their email was scanned for external jo…

> I’m kind of surprised so many people are shocked by this. I know of one company where dozens of people were fired because their email was scanned for external job interviews and the CIO had a report, which he used to prematurely cut staff when he needed to save budget. On a related note, if you were a Microsoft employee, how comfortable would you be talking with recruiters on LinkedIn?

I don't think you need to work at Microsoft to be nervous about that. I've had recruiters offer to sell me information on who here is communicating with them on LinkedIn, without even being in a management or hiring position myself.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#267

Post by mc32 »

parasubvert wrote: post #261
mc32 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between an investigation under subpoena for example and An automated process that alerts whomever is chosen as overseers to all possible missteps and misdeeds. One is a very targeted and conscious effort the other is automated and pervasive everywhere all the time.

Building and selling AI software to do this is also a targeted and conscious effort. My view is this kind of thing is inevitable and pervasive because there’s a lot of internal risks that companies and governments are worried about. The only solution is to be so valuable that it doesn’t matter.

Ok but on the one hand one choice is blanket pre-approved for all time for everyone with no time expenditure.

The other one is instigated and deliberate at the official request of legal and can take a lot of time.

It’s very different. It instills a climate of untrust. Everyone is “guilty”. In the other scenario everyone is innocent till a specific and circumscribed “matter” is started.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#268

Post by XorNot »

parasubvert wrote: post #177

This is nothing new: corporations have scanned instant messages, emails and even recorded phone calls for decades, and will fire you based on that evidence for violations of corporate policy. And will sue you or call the cops if they detect potential crimes. I’m kind of surprised so many people are shocked by this. I know of one company where dozens of people were fired because their email was scanned for external jo…

The difference here is that "find a new job" might be accomplished by LinkedIn...which is also owned by Microsoft.

So Microsoft's cloud ecosystem generally owns your work email, and the site you use to find a job.

Honestly: I don't care what they say (because it'll be "we datamined LinkedIn, but don't worry we did it with only the public APIs and just bypassed rate limiting so technically...to add data to our "employee leaving" filter...) - Microsoft and LinkedIn, specifically, need to be forcibly broken up with this sort of control over the full employee lifecycle.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#269

Post by california2077 »

totetsu wrote: post #24

I'm already not wanting to have personal conversations on teams. My tech savvy colleagues and the ones who can be convinced are on signal, where we talk about job offers and relationships. A few others do Instagram, and get to see my art photography. And occasionally I'll bump into someone when we're both in the office and be able to say whatever not looked over by AI. There's a real chilling effect on getting to kno…

Your employer is not obliged to maintain a communication system so that you "get to know people". If you consider how much these tools cost to maintain, it's completely understandable that companies want to have 100% content control.

Re: Microsoft Purview: Additional classifiers for Communication Compliance (preview)

#270

Post by california2077 »

narrator wrote: post #43

It seems maybe not the intent, but the practical result is to use the private sector to implement CCP like social credit scores isn't it? By doing everything in the private sector they get around all those pesky constitutional protections.

Most large companies had "social credit scores" for decades. They're called performance reviews. Nothing new here. You just had unreasonable and naïve expectations. You now know MS Teams is monitored. You are free to seek employment in companies that don't use MS Teams if you dislike this so much.
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