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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

#31

Post by awinter-py »

sergers wrote: post #28
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 h…

what did he do with his girlfriend's information, and how was it discovered that he looked?

Do you know if she was ever told? If yes, what was her reaction?

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

#32

Post by striking »

awinter-py wrote: post #31
sergers wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

what did he do with his girlfriend's information, and how was it discovered that he looked? Do you know if she was ever told? If yes, what was her reaction?

> > The tools to do this are heavily logged and audited.

> how was it discovered that he looked?

That's how they figured it out. Because someone who wasn't fulfilling a support ticket accessed an email account.

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

#33

Post by m_mueller »

tunap wrote: post #27
m_mueller wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, thei…

My point is that it's perfectly fine for corporations to just maximize shareholder value, as long as it's within a legal framework provided by democratically elected governments. That's precisely the purpose of governments, to guide society into a direction that's beneficial for the public as a whole, and they are elected based on their promises in this regard.

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

#35

Post by endgame »

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…

I think the best you can do as a company is set up as a B Corp or something and try to build "do good" into the corp's reason for existing.

This is a stronger step than "don't be evil".

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

#36

Post by tracker1 »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #12
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.

>> new economic powerhouse to please over EU If your point point is, for example, China being more important to MS and demanding weaker privacy I don't think it matter that they are more powerful. I think MS would have to respect the laws of whichever nation has the highest privacy expectations. Or spread data out among countries it's created in and apply different privacy rules to different servers.

I think that last part is the direction we may be heading in.

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

#37

Post by tracker1 »

criddell wrote: post #20
37 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the time of fake news and alternative facts , it is quite difficult to discern who is telling the truth and who isn't. After the revelations of programs like PRISM and XKeyscore it has become undeniable. I think the general population is beginning to realize this. Obviously it takes time for people to understand things, but this information is years old at this point. The question now is, "what do we do about it?"

> what do we do about it Which we are you asking about? Since this is HN, I'm guessing you are asking about technologists and founders. I would say they should end surveillance on their users. Stop using ad-tech and analytics that tracks users. Log as little as you possibly can. Stop with the excessive rights grabs over your user's data. But HN is also a lot of people like me - typical users. To them I would say use…

re: windows 10... for most people it was a free major OS upgrade, increased security, modern browser with more frequent updates. I feel it was worth it as a free (as in direct monetary cost to me) upgrade.

I've got mixed feelings about the amount of telemetry data they collect.. I don't use cortana, and have disabled most of the options I can disable regarding this. That said, I mostly like the new UI/UX, and would prefer to have friends and family on a version of windows that is clearly better supported moving forward.

I wouldn't say that is nothing ... I also run a mac laptop, and my most used home PC, is the htpc connected to my tv running Ubuntu. Android phone and tablet... I'm not only using windows, but can appreciate what it does offer in trade for that privacy concern.

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

#38

Post by criddell »

tracker1 wrote: post #37
criddell wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what do we do about it Which we are you asking about? Since this is HN, I'm guessing you are asking about technologists and founders. I would say they should end surveillance on their users. Stop using ad-tech and analytics that tracks users. Log as little as you possibly can. Stop with the excessive rights grabs over your user's data. But HN is also a lot of people like me - typical users. To them I would say use…

re: windows 10... for most people it was a free major OS upgrade, increased security, modern browser with more frequent updates. I feel it was worth it as a free (as in direct monetary cost to me) upgrade. I've got mixed feelings about the amount of telemetry data they collect.. I don't use cortana, and have disabled most of the options I can disable regarding this. That said, I mostly like the new UI/UX, and would p…

I too like Windows 10. I just wish Microsoft would charge what they need to charge and make sharing optional. At first the enterprise edition had switches to turn off the data sharing but as I understand it, even enterprise edition users have to let Microsoft watch them work now.

You're right though - lots of people did get it as a free upgrade. I'm not sure I'd like Microsoft off the hook though since a significant number were tricked into it. Plus I think my point applies even more aptly to users that didn't upgrade to W10. Microsoft added the data sharing features into Windows 7 and 8. So they literally were essentially forced into sharing private data with Microsoft for nothing in return.

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