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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."
But people are going to believe it. They don't know any better and they don't care. Most people just want a computer that works and if they have to sell their soul to get it, they will. Especially if Microsoft says it's "for their protection".
If Microsoft has someone with that title then it means that they are already compromizing privacy.
... because you can't fix it. It's closed source, remember?
Doesn't dropping the ball usually imply that it was there to be dropped? The total lack of notifications is more like not bringing the ball to the game, intentionally. Oh, we just forgot to inform you that we're Sure, it's for my own good that you're spying on me and my family and reporting everything to big brother.
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.
When I see stuff like this, I don't know what to think. Come on! A chimp could figure out that someone will eventually discover anything you try to get away with, especially when it involves unauthorized communication with unknown servers. They didn't drop the ball, they tried something stupid and got caught. Fess up.
...a boot, stomping on their customers' rights, forever.
An oh yeah, the vast majority of them will just roll over and take it.
What garbage. Why cant we just jail people who lie like this?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"...but in actual fact, it is about the security and privacy of the users. Some research that we've done finds that the incidence of malware (malicious software) is a lot higher on pirated software, so we really are trying to make sure that users really have the opportunity to protect themselves."
Riiiiiiight. I'm so sure that Microsoft is trying to help protect all the people that it finds stealing from them. If that was the case, then why force authentication of your software on me? If you were really concerned that my pirated copy of Windows has malware installed, why not use your ineptly disquised spyware to install a scanner and remove your crap, as well as everyone elses, so the users system is clean? Since it's not about the revenue, but about protecting ALL users of your software, legit or not, then you shouldn't have a problem helping thieves clean their pirated install of your crappy software, and making sure that everyone has the current updates. Limiting updates to legit users is ridiculous anyway. How many pirates do you think have a workaround, or at the least, a clandestine WUS server setup for their peers? If it was truly about the privacy and security of the user then they'd actually fix the holes in their code instead of trying to prevent lawsuits with bubblegum and bailing wire fixes.
Do not provide us with software/OS that phones home unless the user explicitely opts in during setup.
...
And make it so that the user has to specify what information is shared, for example by clicking on a checkbox next to each description of data sent from their PC.
[ ] IP address?
[ ] GUID?
[ ] MAC?
[ ] Email Address?
[ ] CD Info?
[ ] DVD Info?
[ ] List of installed software?
[ ]
Microsfot is again changing the english language.
they have a guy whose sole job, whose 8-5 is to check up on things like applications phoning home, yet he didn't notice this till recetly? What operating system does he use at home and at his office? Wouldn't an individual in such a position forever have a packet sniffer running, and be running netstat?
Some people say that it doesn't make sense to personify a company and attribute concepts such as 'evil' to it. But I find this diffcult to attribute such lack of sign to simple ignorance.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
"Most people just want a computer that works and if they have to sell their soul to get it, they will."
This is the most often repeated meme on slashdot and it could not be more wrong. If what you say is true then Apple would be ruling the world today not MS. Every year for the last three decades apple products have been better at "just working" then MS products. They have always been easier, they have always been more cohesive. So why is MS ruling supreme and not the mac?
1) People want their computers cheap as possible.
2) People want their computers to run the same software they use at work so they can take work home.
3) People want their computers to be able to worked on by the neigbors kid or the guy across the street.
4) People want to be able their computers on impulse at the local best buy.
5) People want their computers to run the games they like.
That's it. "just works" doesn't come in to it. It never has, it never will. People do and have put up with crappy, unstable, unsecure, crash happy MS operating systems for years because of the five factors I have listed.
Time to put that meme to bed.
evil is as evil does
...but in actual fact, it is about the security and privacy of the users. Some research that we've done finds that the incidence of malware (malicious software) is a lot higher on pirated software, so we really are trying to make sure that users really have the opportunity to protect themselves.
That's the most BS comment I've heard in a while. Is he trying to say that MS is really worried about those people that pirate Windows? If so, then what the hell is Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA). The last I heard was that if WGA detects that your copy of Windows is pirated, it locks you out of the MS download center(or something like that).
- People are familiar with their Windows boxes, and most don't like to stray outside their comfort zone.
- It's a lot easier to get Windows software you want via casual copying/trading, just because there are more opportunities to do so
Every year for the last three decades apple products have been better at "just working" then MS products. They have always been easier, they have always been more cohesive.Somewhat. Apple didn't gain a real edge on user-friendliness until the Mac was introduced in 1984 (I'm pointedly excluding the first-gen Lisa because there just weren't that many sold), and prior to that Microsoft (who hadn't gotten into the OS game until 1981) was a big contributor to Apple's success via their Applesoft interpreter that shipped with the Apple II. Ease-of-use wasn't a big thing for the Apple II or III. For instance, if you wanted to use a floppy disk on an Apple II, you had to perform a "PR#6" command after boot to initialize the controller. Need 80-column text? "PR#3" did the trick, but only if you had an 80-column card or an Apple IIe - not exactly intuitive. ProDOS made things easier, but particularly back in the DOS 3.2/3.3 days, you actually had to know something about your machine if you wanted to get anything done.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
The analogy would be if Google payed off some Microsoft Exec for keeping Windows as insecure and buggy as it is. -- Hey. Where's Allchin going anyway?
But read the fine print. He didn't say MS is sorry for sniffing around your computers, or spying on you and installing a spy tool on your PC. All he says is that you should've been told that there's gonna be a spyware tool from MS on your machine.
Makes sense. If you knew there is, there would be no grounds for a lawsuit now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If I was wary of Microsoft's actions and intentions before, after the WGA Notifications fiasco, I am doubly so now. In fact, I have lost all faith that Microsoft will do anything to protect the privacy of its customers. I am now treating updates from Microsoft as if they were *all* malware! About the only thing I have not done to date is to firewall the entire Microsoft domain, which I still might do, depending on their future actions. It was bad enough to put a privacy/security risk like WGA Notifications on my machine under false pretenses (it was not, and shall never be a critical update), without sufficient warning or permission, but to put an experimental/pre-release version of that software on my machine is inexcusable!
To put it bluntly, Microsoft no longer has my trust! They have become worse than the pirates they are fighting.
To put it even more bluntly: I will not upgrade Microsoft Office, because I do not trust it. I will not upgrade Internet Explorer to version 7, because I do not trust it. I will not upgrade to Vista because I do not trust it. If this later decision means I can't play the latest and greatest video games, then so be it.
I also refuse to change the way I work because of this, however. A lot of what I do is not handled by Linux to my satisfaction, so I need Windows. That means I will continue to run Windows 2000 or Windows XP, but in a virtual machine in Linux, cut off from the internet. That should protect me from the malware writers -- including the ones at Microsoft!
Microsoft needs to learn that a company's most valuable asset is the goodwill of its customers. Well, they just lost mine.
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
"A: The dilemmas -- think of Windows Automatic Updates, as one. 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."
Fine - yesss - lots of folks want it automatic - they wouldn't know enough to evaluate what they are being offered and they DO need to be protected (and continually encouraged to update anti-virus and use a firewall).
However, there are a significant number of us who DO know something and take the time and effort to dig through your updates to be informed. These are your best friends. They help you correct what your staff has missed.
So it is no dilemma. It is a duality. One which Microsoft should value highly. Providing extensive information and being open to useful feedback may have a cost - but it certainly has value.
Lost in space at an early age. Survived the vacuum. Now rebuilding castle in air.
WGN is like being frisked every time you leave the store. Once Microsoft does this then every single software vendor will do it. Expect to see 15-30 different notification programs running on your computer checking back with their servers.
If I was frisked yesterday and found to be legit and frisked two weeks ago and found to be legit, why do I need to be frisked again? My system doesn't change that much daily, weekly, or monthly. This is a given, it is no brainer. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand this. 90% of us have legit licenses. 100% of us will be frisked even though 90% of us have already proven our reputation.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen stole computer time from Harvard to write an emulator for the processor used in the MITS Altair computer. Then they stole more time to write the basic programming language for the processor. They then licensed it to MITS and used that to fund the growth of Microsoft. Bill Gates openly wrote a nasty letter to the computer club accusing them of stealing their software. Bill Gates flaunted his willingess to violate the laws by speeding, and getting caught so many times he was hauled in and arrested.
When I was found legit yesterday, last week, two weeks ago, etc., there's no reason to believe that I am not going to remain legit. Any attempt to monitor me is an invasion of my privacy at that point. Any continued monitoring is an accusation that I will give my code to others to use and hence am aiding them in their theft, thus making me a theif.
Bottom line, this form of monitoring is akin to calling me a thief even though I have been proven to not be a thief. To put this software on my computers when I do not wish it is bad. To monitor me without my consent is bad. To do is is to become a malware program.
A decade ago we told Microsoft and the others that we did NOT want this stuff on our computers. If anything they are certainly persistent.
Vista has this built into it. But XP is allegedly going out and Vista coming in. Why so much effort in protecting XP when it is allegedly to die in a couple of years? The reason is that Vista is XP with a different interface and heirarchy. Underlying it is the same OS as XP with that change and some security that prompts you upon every change to your system. Oddly enough this is how Linux and OSX do it. Because they are basically the same OS there's really NO need to update to Vista.
Off topic: if you look at the trash can in Vista you'll note that the icon is taken almost directly from the linux community. Pretty sad.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Warning: anecdotal evidence.
I worked as an admin for my university's camupus-wide computer lab system. While I was there, the art department bought about 40 G4 Powermacs and built their own lab. Unfortunately, they didn't hire anyone to actually maintain their lab. It quickly deteriorated to the point where only about 5 of those machines would even *boot*, let alone work well enough to do anything useful. Our Windows labs with a combined total of over 700 computers had a better than 95% uptime -- and nearly all of the downtime was caused by hardware failure.
Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux flavors all work pretty well, in the hands of a knowledgeable user. They all fail spectacularly when drooling idiots use them. If/when we see Apple take over 25% of the desktop market, we'll start seeing just as many infected and poorly maintained OSX installations as there are in the Windows world.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal