Microsoft Backs Away From CISPA Support, Citing Privacy 132
suraj.sun writes "CISPA, the hotly-contested cybersecurity bill making its way through Congress, has been supported by Microsoft since it was introduced. However, the company now tells CNET that any such legislation must 'honor the privacy and security promises we make to our customers,' while also 'protecting consumer privacy.' As you may recall, the U.S. House passed CISPA on Thursday. The Obama administration has threatened to veto the bill. Quoting CNET: 'That's a noticeable change — albeit not a complete reversal — from Microsoft's position when CISPA was introduced in November 2011. To be sure, Microsoft's initial reaction to CISPA came before many of the privacy concerns had been raised. An anti-CISPA coalition letter (PDF) wasn't sent out until April 16, and a petition that garnered nearly 800,000 signatures wasn't set up until April 5. What makes CISPA so controversial is a section saying that, "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information with Homeland Security, the IRS, the NSA, or other agencies. By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA's drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing federal and state laws, including ones dealing with wiretaps, educational records, medical privacy, and more.'"
a first time for everything. (Score:1, Insightful)
This is a first for Microsoft, protecting users' privacy.
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Exactly! Microsoft never been accused of anything of the sort.
Why pêople hate microsoft is because of they excessive pricing scheme, you pay for a computer with WINDOWS license, then buy a server WITH A WINDOWS license AND WTF DO YOU KNOW NEXT, you have to fucking poay for a licence to ALLOW the computer to connect to the server.
Re:a first time for everything. (Score:5, Informative)
Microsoft and Law Enforcement Agencies (Score:5, Informative)
Note that this is exclusively for law enforcement -- law abiding citizens would presumably have difficult obtaining technical information or copies of this product (I doubt that criminals will have much trouble). The last line on that page is telling:
If it's vital to government, it's mission critical to Microsoft.
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Re:Microsoft and Law Enforcement Agencies (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft did show an iota of backbone when it came to the clipper chip, but times have changed. Now Microsoft wants to cultivate a friendly relationship with the government. Perhaps the OP was a little strong with calling this a "first" for Microsoft, but it is not exactly something that we should expect either.
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Re:Microsoft and Law Enforcement Agencies (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is giving away technology at no cost to help law enforcement gather data from computers? So is open source. Get over your bad self.
OSS forensics tools are available to everyone, and provided by people who generally believe in giving away their code. COFFEE is available only to law enforcement, and provided by a company which generally makes money from selling closed-source, proprietary software. Please don't try to pretend that the two situations are even remotely comparable.
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I want you to go home, turn off any thing on your network that might be sending broadcast traffic, fire up a computer running a freshly installed copy of a Windows that was legally obtained and theoretically shouldn't contain any rootkits or backdoors.
Then fire up a frame capture and watch all the odd traffic flowing from the box, even after you turned off things like automatic updates and netBIOS to ensure you aren't picking up legitimate services.
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If you can't pin down every data stream spewing from a "pure" install of your operating system, can you be sure it doesn't have private information? A system that obfuscates it's operation is a system that doesn't protect end user privacy, just the privacy of anyone with a backdoor installed on it.
Heck, I can search the registry to see what websites you've visited, remotely if I wanted too, even after you clear your browser history and temporary data. Maybe Microsoft itself isn't violating your privacy but
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If you can't pin down every data stream spewing from a "pure" install of your operating system, can you be sure it doesn't have private information?
Well good thing you read the link. I was starting to think I would have to explain it for you.
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I'm on a mobile device right now but can you point me on examples of such type of analysis that you'd consider credible?
Comment removed (Score:4)
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Define "odd traffic".
I certainly thought it strange t
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He uses the term "odd traffic" because he is too stupid to analyze and actually understand the traffic contents or purpose.
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But how could anyone prove what you ask? You know where your info is while it's on your box. You don't know where it is once somebody else has a copy, by definition. How can anyone prove or disprove that something is or isn't being done by some other party who has surruptitiously gained a copy of the information without knowledge of the original owner? I can't prove what somebody who stole my car did with it afterwards, just as I can't prove what somebody who legally bought my car did with it afterwards.
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Erh.... you might want to read this [securityspace.com].
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Or a token move.
How much they care for privacy is seen in the way they implement their OS and apps. I don't judge them in that regard, BIT before you judge, try to see how other players in the field, esp. Debian, tackle the problem of broadcasting the OS, the updates, and get optional feedback (popcon).
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This is a first for Microsoft, protecting users' security.
FTFY
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I worked at Microsoft until recently, and although in general I don't have many good things to say about the company, I do think they care about privacy. In general at Microsoft they are very concerned about the letter of the law, and about public opinion. They don't necessarily care about these things out of idealism or very deep beliefs, but there is a great fear of overstepping legal bounds.
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BE GLAD OF IT THEN... apk (Score:2)
I am, it's actually GOOD to see they have enough character to 1st support something, then to see that users DO NOT WANT IT, & to back clear away from it too.
* See subject-line, if that's what you really feel is a "1st" from them then...
APK
P.S.=> You've got to understand that BIG & POWERFUL as M$ is (& I am definitely a 'fanboy' of theirs + everyone around here knows that much), that YES, they too, have been "hassled" by government & know what THAT's about, & turning THE REPUBLICANS ht [house.gov]
What is wrong with you americans? (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously? What is wrong with you guys? How in the fuck did you even come up with a system where non related shit can be tacked on to a bill? Is it bullshit that got added on later or were your vaunted founding fathers slightly retarded?
Re:What is wrong with you americans? (Score:5, Interesting)
A democracy only works when the public isn't mainly comprised of morons. I blame shitty public education.
Re:What is wrong with you americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
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But I feel this can still come back to poor public education.
I was only required to take one "Civics" class really didn't have anything coherent to say.
It stead of forcing us to memorize the Bill of Rights they should have actually explained what they did for citizens. We didn't even break down the Constitution and discuss what powers are given to the Federal government and are reserved for State governments. ect. ect.
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So because you had a single class that didn't explore things that would help you out later in life, you think that all public education is bad?
Public education is awful because of the mentalities that rote memorization and teaching to the test are effective forms of learning. They're not, even if there is no other solution (but other solutions have been proposed).
Honestly, it isn't difficult to figure out why so many people don't find "learning" (really, it's "schooling") fun.
for the same cost
How lazy and short-sighted. Not even willing to consider an alternative that might drastically improve the public education system just because it costs more? No wonder no on
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The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time.
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The only problem I have with that is that it will be watered using the wrong fluid.
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The quote doesn't say *whose* blood.
--
BMO
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... with Brawndo. Cuz it's got electrolytes.
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The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time.
With Brawndo! - It's what Plants Crave!
(It's got Electro-lights)
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I blame the fact that most Americans have no idea why their rights are important, or what life would be like without those rights. We are already starting to get our feet wet with this, but people need to be tossed in head first before they really understand the issues.
I remember a political text I read years ago in which the author was of the opinion that every democracy should experience a few years (or decades, as is wont to happen) of fascism to both fully appreciate the value of what's been lost as well as to learn what stupid mistakes to avoid next time around...
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I remember a political text I read years ago in which the author was of the opinion that every democracy should experience a few years (or decades, as is wont to happen) of fascism to both fully appreciate the value of what's been lost as well as to learn what stupid mistakes to avoid next time around...
Right. Because the US Civil war was such a wonderful experience and improved 'democracy' for all citizens.
Sorry, it's just a bit more complex than that. You just don't hit CTL-ALT-DELETE and reboot a society.
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No generation of people, once their freedom has been lost, has ever recovered that freedom during that generation. The only hope at that point is to pass to the next generation a love and desire for freedom
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We are already starting to get our feet wet with this
- starting? The only obvious difference between what's been going on for about 100 years in USA now and what's been happening since 9/11 is that before the transgressions against individual rights only hit minorities (employers and investors mostly but also other individual property owners), while what's happening now is hitting the majority (everybody else).
The rights of individuals were been compromised in USA for a long time now and when I say that I include the right to pursuit of happiness, as in - g
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The only obvious difference between what's been going on for about 100 years in USA now and what's been happening since 9/11 is that before the transgressions against individual rights only hit minorities (employers and investors mostly but also other individual property owners)
Because when I look at the history of the United States, and I consider the minorities that have at various times had their individual rights trampled, business owners and venture capitalists are the first on my list.
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as they are not hurting other individuals in the process
Employes say work all 7 days or your fired. Unions step in and protect the workers. the unions need protection too.
printing currency/income tax: how else are you going to build the infrastructure to run the country.
Minimum wages,SS and medicare stop people from being forced to work for low pay in bad jobs
Wars I probably would agree with you on.
property/ownership , I am not sure which regulations you have in mind. .
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I'm not exactly fond of my memories in public school, but having met a number of homeschooled kids, I'm so very, very thankful I was not among them.
You hit it right on the head with the religious indoctrination. Most of these kids aren't taught by parents who, let's face it, are even LESS qualified than normal, public teachers. And they're not taught at home because public schools teach to the test, don't give all the resources and attention to students in trouble, or because of the lack of proper coverage
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Having met "homeschool parents" (I was homeschooled for a bit, growing up) I can honestly say that no matter how shitty the schools are, they are far and away better than most homeschoolers.
Hey look!
I can wave my hands around on Slashdot and make unsubstantiated and broad generalizations based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence that may or may not even be true.
But hey, if it fits the political group-think...
Strat
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It can be done well and with those people I have no complaint, but, in my experience,
As a college educated individual in a STEM discipline, I'd feel perfectly confident with homeschooling in science or math courses. Have me try to teach a history class and the results would be comical at best. The idea that John Q. Public, with nothing more than a textbook for the class, can be as effective at education as someone with Masters (required in my state, YMMV) is indicative of the dismissive attitude we tend to
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As a college educated individual in a STEM discipline, I'd feel perfectly confident with homeschooling in science or math courses. Have me try to teach a history class and the results would be comical at best.
So, because you find it too difficult to do the work to put together a competent lesson plan in History, nobody else can?
he idea that John Q. Public, with nothing more than a textbook for the class,...
In what world is "John Q. Public" limited to only "a textbook for the class"? There are tons of sources for course material, lesson plans, etc etc in nearly every conceivable subject and at nearly every level, many if not most done by those with Masters and PhD's.
Some notable stats: among homeschooling fathers, ~32% have "Some College/No Degree" or less. Mothers do slightly worse with ~33% having the same education level. If we include through BA/BS (which is unlikely to be in something relevant to teaching) the numbers are even more stark. At a time when we are demanding more of our teachers, are we also going to say that a few classes at the community college is sufficient to teach high school calculus?
Source [ed.gov]
Never mind the stats you quote are from the Federal Dept. of Education, and with the government's track-record of "massaging" d
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Fuck it, it's a free country and we can choose to believe what we want, right or wrong.
Hello, that's precisely the point! Thank you!
The government wants to take away the freedom (that "free country" bit) to choose to not send your kids to a public school, to believe that yourself or someone of your own choosing can do a better job than the local public school with gangs and drugs and mediocre teachers.
The politicians get campaign contributions and other re-election assistance in exchange for highly union-friendly teacher's union contracts the public at large who pays for it would never agree
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Teachers & Professors could easily be replaced by Youtube... Online discussion forums could replace classrooms -- We have the technology. Sadly, the bottom line is: People that want to learn will. People that don't won't... (...shouldn't have to?) It's kind of strange to me -- Do kids in other countries make fun of you for making good grades? I mean, making bad grades and being feared as a "hardcore thug", having a "fat roll" of money and many "bitches and hoes" for sexual parters was actually pre
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they are far and away better than most homeschoolers.
[citation needed]
It can be done well and with those people I have no complaint, but, in my experience, those parents are less concerned with quality education that with isolating children from "corrupting influences" or more thoroughly impressing religious doctrine in the guise of education.
Honestly? With the focus on rote memorization and teaching to the test so prevalent in public schools, just about anything is better.
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Ironically, one large reason we have public education here in the U.S. is to make voters competent to vote and self-govern. [earlyamerica.com]
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I'm not sure this is a case of unrelated crap being tacked onto a bill (not that this doesn't happen all too often). This is a bill that deals with information sharing between law enforcement and private businesses. It's scope may prove to be much wider that what its authors claim. But its more a matter of unintended consequences of the legislation rather than some extra language being slipped in.
Re:What is wrong with you americans? (Score:5, Insightful)
It happened because the public is too involved making sure their party gets elected, right or wrong, to give a fuck about what their party is actually doing. This kind of thinking has all the trappings of a high school football game. The sooner that people abandon their party the sooner we get back to being where we need to be. The current division in American trust is split along party lines and even when both "sides" agree they refuse to come to terms because they see it as taking on the banner of the enemy.
People planet wide will suffer for what has happened for decades to come.
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The current division in American trust is split along party lines and even when both "sides" agree they refuse to come to terms because they see it as taking on the banner of the enemy.
I see. So, it's quite clear... What we need is a common enemy. One who will unite the nation as one against the undefeatable diabolical foe....
-- Don't you see the Terrorists are TRYING to help?!
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Seriously? What is wrong with you guys? How in the fuck did you even come up with a system where non related shit can be tacked on to a bill? Is it bullshit that got added on later or were your vaunted founding fathers slightly retarded?
We don't care that our government has been stripping away our rights and privacy for years because we are too concerned with stupid shit that happened on tv last night. I could go on but you all know the story.
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Newsflash: the Chinese now have most of the gold.
(in case you missed it, the last UK Government under Gordon Brown sold the 310 tons of gold in reserve to the Chinese at the 1925 Bullion Standard, which is £3s20d10.5/oz (or when he did it, a hair under £4). Nobody seems to know where that money has gone. I wonder if either the US preceded with a similar act or followed soon after?).
Microsoft can capitalize on this. (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'm starting to believe the Mayans about what's supposed to happen in December.
Completely offtopic, but you actually wouldn't believe the Mayans, because no single Mayan ever claimed that the world would come to an end, if a Long Period ends. This is just made up by some guys in other countries wanting to make a quick buck by selling "old myths of the navite people" books which predict dire doom to everyone.
If anything, the Mayan Calendar Doom is just intellectual colonialism - stealing some cultural artefacts and reselling them out of context to others.
On the other hand, Microsoft pl
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On the other hand, Microsoft plans to sell their Cloud Services to Europeans too, and if they want to do that they have to make sure that their services follow European Law, and that means that they can't at the same time follow CISPA
They could just operate one data center in the USA and one in Europe, and serve both markets with the same software. In the early 90s, Microsoft was worried about Europeans not buying their products because the NSA was pushing for back doors; this time around, Microsoft only needs to separate their customers by region. They might not even need two data centers; just one, with a region column in each table that dictates which laws and privacy rights need to be respected.
Re:Microsoft can capitalize on this. (Score:4, Insightful)
No. CISPA requires (in its current reincarnation), that a U.S. company allows access to all its servers on a request based on CISPA, may they be domestic or overseas.
As such, CISPA collides with european requirements.
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still have an unwrapped copy of XP in case the world ends.
OK, I'll bite. I know a number of doomers / survivalists and they hoard all manner of odd things. But an unwrapped copy of XP?
Do Zombies really go apesehit over the buffer overflows? Will we need the unpatched security holes to traverse the now-radioactive Internet? Can you eat the packaging?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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>No, I like Windows 7 and still have an unwrapped copy of XP in case the world ends.
I don't see how the wrapping will help... there aren't many world-end scenarios where anybody will be enforcing copyright licenses anymore... well unless you take yours from the more extreme corporate-rule cyberpunk stories of the 80's - but those don't exactly count as "world ended" in my book, they are just "world radically changed for the worse".
Either way they didn't happen and probably won't. They were based on a pre
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They can capitalize on this, if they try; they haven't tried yet. What they've said now isn't a reversal at all, just a clarification at best. They probably already think CESSPOOL^WCISPA "helps to tackle the real threat of cybercrime while protecting consumer privacy", or can be massaged a bit to do so--especially if it helps make them look tough on "piracy" of their software.
How does MS cap on this, to regain whatever goodwill they bled from their customers and not look like they'll happily whore themsel
the real sign that Mayans where is the cubs wining (Score:2)
the real sign that Mayans where is the cubs wining but that does not look like it will happen this year.
But windows 8 is fast becoming windows ME 2. ME sucked so bad that people wanted 98se over it.
I do hope that some of the new under the hood stuff get's back ported or shows up in a Unofficial Service Pack like how the Unofficial Windows 98 SE Service Pack adds some of new stuff that was in windows ME.
This is the same old pattern (Score:4, Insightful)
What someone should be doing is introducing legislation that enumerates, codifies, and protects specific rights and expectations of privacy that citizens have, and then work the anti-terrorist/copying/IP laws around that framework. (I know, we shouldn't need to do this, but it's our system apparently.) This is bass-ackwards.
Re:This is the same old pattern (Score:5, Insightful)
What someone should be doing is introducing legislation that enumerates, codifies, and protects specific rights and expectations of privacy that citizens have
You would have to amend the constitution for that. Here is how I would word such an amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Of course, there is no way anyone would dare to include such language in our constitution, at a time when we are surrounded by enemies who are hell-bent on destroying our nation. We could be attacked at any time; how can we even think of codifying such a right in our constitution?
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The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
For those of you who didn't get the reference, that is the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution, proposed in 1789, and enacted in 1791.
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Evidently, the gov't is incapable of properly crafting laws (or, more likely, intentionally leaving loopholes through which they can do anything they want).
http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/04/27/1529239/who-needs-cispa-fbi-has-a-non-profit-workaround [slashdot.org]
If it's this simple to 'get around' laws preventing the transfer of certain types information from business to government (by sending it through a third-party), or route internet traffic through Canada so the FBI can process everything (where they can't do it in
Ok If no one knows (Score:4, Informative)
So in other words MS was perfectly willing to allow the US government access to all it's customers data and machines without a warrant or any kind of reasonable probable cause as long as it was on the down low. But when it is publicized, they decide it is not such a s good idea. This situation leads credence that MS might already supply customer data on demand to the US government [judiciaryreport.com], so this is really SNAFU.
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do you even know what terrorism even is? or do you just use scary words to get sheeple to your jackass blog? btw nice porn ad right in the middle of your article
New Motto? (Score:1)
Don't be evil all the time [geekculture.com]
Superceding all other laws (Score:4, Interesting)
This bill supercedes the US constitution. Its a blank cheque to the content industries. For Americans wanting anything left of their civil liberties, they should fight this. Americans send missiles, guns, ships, and bombs to other countries to protect their interests. Why is no one sending these materials to the content industries that have effectively enslaved them? The content industries can commit capital crimes (murder, slavery, torture, anything they like) because of this bill. They crossed the line. Its a disgrace to all those who fought in any war in the US. The gutless legislators who supported this sold the farm. They don't deserve citizenship. The US can no longer be called a democracy, because it isn't.
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*sigh*
You've never heard of the spirit of the constitution, have you? ...
The first amendment is not interpreted literally. Otherwise, we wouldn't have laws on slander, libel, or any speech whatsoever. Why should the rest of it be interpreted literally?
Why? Well, since you asked: It's due to the one party system. You see, the Federalist party supported the spirit of the law, while the Democratic-Republican part (yes singular, "party") wanted the laws interpreted quite literally. Since the only major opposition to the Democratic-Republican party is gone, only the the literal interpretation party remains, and it happens to have a virtual monopoly on votes, so there's no way to vote them out. (They removed the hyphen so it wouldn't seem like a 1 party s
um, what? (Score:2)
Microsoft pro privacy? Last I looked their mainstay platform was vulnerable to keyloggers, backdoors (some installed during development at the behest of the US GOVERNMENT), over a quarter million malware strains... with those kind of numbers I don't think it was sloppy coding that did it, I think it was done deliberately. If they were concerned about security and privacy we wouldn't have an anti-malware industry that sucks in more money than the SOHO industry because it'll've been done right at RTM and ther
This is the #1 problem in America right now (Score:2)
Forget the 1% vs 99% debate.
Forget the economic debates.
Forget the debates over healthcare, abortion, contraception, the environment, climate change, trade, copyright, patents or anything else.
The #1 issue in the United States of America is that there is a government and congress in Washington that continues to pass laws and carry out acts that violate the civil liberties and constitutionally protected rights of ordinary Americans, rights that George Washington and 100s of Americans fought to preserve.
And t
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Microsoft Backs Away From CISPA Support (Score:1)
"CISPA, the hotly-contested cybersecurity bill making its way through Congress, has been supported by Microsoft since it was introduced..."
Ok, I will admit that I am a Windows user and I don't find Microsoft the worst company on the planet though something seems weird with this. Just because they have stopped supporting it now citing "privacy", we are meant to applaud them? They initially supported it so while it might seem like a good move now, the didn't have this problem a week ago.
It might be an attempt
Consequences for Anti-Public bill (Score:1)
Re:Microsoft has always been pro-privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Please - the only reason Microsoft is backing away from it now is because they were caught supporting it. Look for them to happily support the next anti-consumer bill to come down the pike if the bill benefits them... and just like this time, and SOPA before it, they'll quietly hope that this time, nobody notices.
Re:Microsoft has always been pro-privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
Please - the only reason Microsoft is backing away from it now is because they were caught supporting it.
They haven't backed away from it. It's only one of their reputation managers in MSM adding some positive spin.
To quote a Reddit poster:
Ugh, this is the same pattern as SOPA. Microsoft supported SOPA (which is the house version of the PROTECT IP act, which they still support) for a month until it started to get bad press. Then they changed their position to "it needs more work". They never said they opposed it.
The person who interpreted that as "opposition" was... Declan McCullagh of CNet! The very same guy who is now trying to give the impression that Microsoft no longer supports CISPA.
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/swdtn/microsoft_backs_away_from_cispa_support_citing/c4hl9xe [reddit.com]
Re:Microsoft has always been pro-privacy (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Microsoft happily supported it because at the time no one outside of Congress and a few tech giants knew what it actually was. Once its evils were divulged and the tech world at large began ringing the alarms, Microsoft scuttled back. I doubt you'll find those PR release in support of CISPA now, at least not without resorting to archive.org
2) Google actually took no position on CISPA. Their quote [cnet.com] is as follows:
"We think this is an important issue and we're watching the process closely but we haven't taken a formal position on any specific legislation."
(The author of the CNET article posted that above-linked quote. Read the story for context).
In other words, Google is sitting back and not taking any position. Nice attempt to shill on your part, though.
Re:Microsoft has always been pro-privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsofts business is to sell software
They also have a substantial and growing online services division, and they are still in a precarious position when it comes to antitrust laws. Microsoft does not want to endanger its relationship with the government -- a relationship that basically resulted in the punishment for their previous antitrust case being completely ignored. They also sell technology to law enforcement agencies that helps in the gathering of computer evidence.
A business built on privacy violations? No, nobody can accuse Microsoft of that, at least not without some real evidence to back it up. A friendly and valuable relationship with the government, that has allowed them to continue to dominate various markets? Absolutely, and that is why they supported CISPA -- it basically gave them a free pass to cultivate that relationship.
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A Microsoft executive recently pointed out that they keep far less personal information than Google. So it seems that MS sees this as a handy hammer to smack Google with.
I don't think MS wants Google's business model (which is probably why they were looking to offload Bing to Facebook or another partner).
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no, they wanted rid of Bing because it is a money pit.
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Windows was a money pit for several years. But they saw a future for themselves there.
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I can't believe this comment hasn't been judged as either flame-bait or trolling. Even if Microsoft wasn't interested early on in collecting data, since they began focusing on the Web, they've made every effort to facilitate the efforts of their customers (not end users) to do so.
Aside from this, what is Bing! if not another attempt to pigeonhole every end user by their habits, preferences and communications.
Pro-privacy... give me a break.
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do you have a linked-in account?
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So it's quasi-evil? It's the margarine of evil?
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So it's quasi-evil? It's the margarine of evil?
You're a little behind. Margarine is now known to be full-on Pure Evil [tophealthrisks.com].