Slashdot Mirror
Planning the Future of Privacy at Microsoft
Tony writes "Peter Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy strategist, found himself in the front line in the wake of the software giant's recent antipiracy controversy. He talks about his role at the company, and what's in store for the future." From the interview: "Cullen, Microsoft's chief privacy strategist, has been very involved with the issue and readily admits that the software maker dropped the ball on WGA Notifications. The flap puts him on the front line, rather than his usual role behind the scenes. For the most part, Cullen, who joined Microsoft three years ago from the Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto, is happy with his role at the software giant. He works on things such as guidelines for developers and privacy policies."
I thought I had read Planning the future of piracy at Microsoft..
geek page at KY speaks
They have the finest coders in the world, surely they can spy on users and invade their systems without being caught so easily. Why, they look like amateurs when Zone Alarm finks them off on the first try.
we will end no whine before its time
I feel so safe now - I'm getting all wet and squishy.
"You could make an argument that, for the good of the user and even the good of the ecosystem, Automatic Updates should be turned on by default. People should have patched machines. But that would be contrary to our belief about user control; users need to have a choice."
"In other words," continued Peter Cullen, "freedom is the right of all sentient beings."
It's not like we're going to see, any time soon, Steve Ballmer, or some other sedate Microsoft exec, dancing around the stage, shouting at the top of their lungs
"Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! Privacy! "
but stranger things have happened.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Come on, Microsoft and privacy DO NOT belong in the same sentence. Just like NSA and phone.
All your privacy are belong to us!
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
I think a story title, "Planning the future of Piracy at Microsoft" would be far more interesting. Don't we all want to know how many illegal MP3's Ballmer has on his IPOD.
Because getting a detailed error report for most users is scarier than the fact that an error occured at all. Hence the spinning beachball of doom on Mac OSX :).
10:00am - Alarm goes off, hit snooze a few times.
10:40am - Wake up with a start. Shit! Call the office to let them know that I'm going to be slightly delayed this morning due to an ongoing alien attack. I tell them I'm as keen as hell to be safeguarding users' privacy and all that, but they cut me off at this point and say that I shouldn't worry, take my time getting in, maybe take the day off until the invasion's been repelled? It's really tempting, but there's been too many days like that just lately. I tell them I'll be sure to lock the car doors, keep the windows wound up and take the back routes. "Whatever" they reply...
11:30am - Arrive at the office. Still haven't got a working network socket in my office and no phone either. Last week I tracked down a comms tech and told him about the network socket, he said he had special instructions about my connection and he just hit the wall socket with a big hammer and left. The phone guy saw me approaching and I swear he sprinted into a building and when I tried to follow , my swipecard wouldn't work for that area. How the hell am I supposed to get anything done. Not much point starting anything just yet - it's almost time for lunch.
11:45 - Damn! How was that supposed to be a mine, I mean right there?
12:30 - Lunch. I do hate eating alone, but to date I've attended precisely zero meetings, met my immediate report only once (on the day I arrived) and thus far I haven't met a single other person in the area I work. Every time I step out of my office and wander the halls, all the office doors are closed, usually with a "Do Not Disturb" sign too. There must be a mighty crunch under way.
14:00 - Return to the office. I'm still slightly worried by the lack of direction I'm being given regarding my role and responsibilities. I know MS have some offbeat management practises, so maybe they're creating a situation where I've got to define the role myself. A sort of initiative test, if you will?
15:00 - I've only got a black and white monitor, so how am I supposed to know that I was trying to put a red queen on a black king for half an hour?
15:15 - A guy from maintenance shows up and tells me that my office needs to be treated for cockroaches with some sort of bug-bomb. Apparently it's harmful to humans, so I'm to work from home for the next two weeks while the residues evaporate. Sweet!
16:00 - Home sweet home, and a couple of weeks where I can kick back a little and give some really hard thought about a strategy to safeguard user's privacy. Check the fridge and as usual the two cases of beer have been delivered courtesy of MS. I tell you it's not the easiest company to work for, but the perks are phenomenal! All this booze is ok for me, as my role is agile and flexible, but I sometimes wonder how all the programming dudes manage to stay on track with all this free beer? Pop, fizz, ahhhhh!
16:30 - "What do we mean by *privacy*?" Pop, fizz.
17:15 - "There must be a strategy.." pop, fizz.
19:00 - Damn, I'm tired.
22:00 - My God! The room is spinning, whirling, lurching from side to side! I told you it was a goddam mistake to stand, but would you listen?
22:07 - Bed. Better keep that bucket there again.
i couldn't resist...
Funny that that isn't routinely cited as an acronym yet. Windows has BSODs, OS X has SBODs.