Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

[bpalone]

WPA2 wireless security cracked

The entire article can be read here: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-wpa2-wireless.html#jCp

Not quite as easy breaking into a WEP system, but it appears that it isn't all that hard for a determined party to breach. Wouldn't want to point any fingers, but I think we can all think of several alphabet agencies of various governments that would fall into that category.

Didn't mean to ruin everyone's weekend.

bpalone

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Phewwww. I just finally got caught up on all these posts ...

Here's a critique of W8.1U1 by a "brighter" Brit:

Windows 8.1 Update is the final nail in the coffin

No mincing words here:

Microsoft: Time to bury live tiles

ZDNet's James Kendrick destroys a proposal to make Apple's iOS more like Windows 8 (!!):

Not even Steve Jobs could sell live tiles on iOS 8

The disconnect with Windows 8.1: Hiding the utility

Great ones : I somehow missed all of them.

To lighten things up a bit....

1 in 10 Americans think HTML is an STD, study finds

27% identified "gigabyte" as an insect commonly found in South America.

42% said they believed a "motherboard" was "the deck of a cruise ship."

23% thought an "MP3" was a "Star Wars" robot.

12% said "USB" is the acronym for a European country.

The entire article can be read here: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-1-10-americans-html-std-study-finds-20140304,0,1188415.story#axzz2v1PZtzMZ

I think I now understand how some people really think that Windows 8/8.1 is so great. But, to be fair, every industry has its inside acronyms that if you are not aware of them are nothing but Greek to you.

Just thought everyone might enjoy a chuckle.

Oh man! Humanity is doomed. Take off. Nuke from orbit. It's the only way to be sure

Speaking of monitoring:

and

Even more on there site (click on "explore data")

http://www.skyboximaging.com/

Well these folks are sure missing a golden opportunity with that missing plane.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

The Windows XP FUDpocalypse continues! ...

Microsoft Store offers $50 gift card with select new PCs to help ditch Windows XP ( NeoWin 2014-03-14 )

In a new promotion on the Microsoft Store website, the company is offering people a free $50 gift card with the purchase of a new Windows 8.1 PC or a tablet from a pre-selected group of products. Some of the devices are already on sale, such as the 32GB Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet for just $229 and the Asus VivoBook X200CA-9BCT touchscreen notebook for $279.

In addition to the $50 Microsoft Store gift card, anyone who purchases one of these PCs will get 90 days of free phone, chat and sales support. The site also has a link to the previously announced free file transfer tool to move any Windows XP content to a new Windows 8.1 product.

NOTE: misleading title by a sneaky author who is trying to drum up hits ( yes, that's how they get paid ) using the term "Windows XP" since it works on NeoKids pretty much the same way pouring bleach on a dirty basement floor causing all manner of slithering critters to come out of hiding. In truth, this offer does NOT have any tie-in to Windows XP at all, it is merely another example of a Windows 8 Crazy Eddie firesale. ... But hold on now .... That didn't last long at all! ... One week later ...

Microsoft sweetens XP upgrade offers as support deadline nears ( TechSpot 2014-03-21 )

Microsoft Store now offers $100 off new PCs for trading in a Windows XP machine ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

Microsoft is sweetening the pot in hopes of getting holdouts to switch from their dated Windows XP machine to something a bit more modern. Last week, the Redmond-based company offered a $50 gift card to those purchasing a Windows 8.1 computer but theyve since improved that offer in more ways than one.

From now through June 15, XP users looking to move to a new system are eligible for a $100 discount on a qualifying machine priced at $599 or higher. A Microsoft rep said the deal will only show up for those who visit the Microsoft Store via a Windows XP machine in a clear nod to make sure that only XP users receive the savings.

I wonder how many of the NeoKids will figure they can do the same buy firing up an old computer or running XP in VM ( and how much you wanna bet some of them will scam their beloved Microsoft by doing exactly this ). For everyone else, this is still no deal at all. Knocking $100 off the price of any modern piece of crap just brings the total closer to where the number used to be before this train wreck operating system was released in the fall of 2012. As predicted, crappier computers costing more money than they did two years ago ( quite a feat, almost unprecedented in the entire computer age ), running an operating system that drives people batsh!t crazy.


Many banks paying Microsoft big bucks to support Windows XP-based ATMs ( NeoWin 2014-03-14 )

It's becoming clear that even though Microsoft warned support for XP would be ending for years, many large businesses did not heed the alerts and will now have to pay a lot more money due to their procrastination.

Same author, again using "Windows XP" as fly bait to get page hits ( that's how they get paid ), incorrectly using ATMs in the context of Windows XP end-of-support Armageddon. These things are not even a part of the "usage" stats, there is no way they even show up on browser statistics. Anyone that attempts to associate Windows XP lack-of-support for placebo security fixes is either retarded or criminal. To think that every patch Tuesday all the ATMs get their biweekly fix of Microsoft benevolence is insanity.


10 percent of U.S. government PCs will still use Windows XP after support ends ( NeoWin 2014-03-17 )

The Washington Post reports that even at 10 percent, that still means hundreds of thousands of government PCs will be using XP. That includes computers that are connected to classified military and diplomatic networks.

Same author, once again using "Windows XP" as lure to drum up page hits ( that's how they get paid ). That last bolded part is meant to elicit an "Oh no! How irresponsibly dangerous!" response from the NeoKids and other special people. I'm starting to think that they actually believe that once a computer is fired up with Windows that even if the thing has no Wi-Fi/Cell hardware and is completely physically unplugged from the network it still magically can get compromised through thoughtwaves. Seriously, I believe education has descended this far. They also believe without the comforting feeling of an assurance of "support" from Microsoft that the world will collapse around them. No AppleTard was ever this retarded.


Avast Warns of Widespread Security Issues Once Microsoft Abandons XP ( Maximum PC 2014-03-17 )

AVAST: Cutting off Windows XP support is a "big mistake" ( NeoWin 2014-03-19 )

Even as Microsoft tries to get Windows XP owners to upgrade before the product becomes end-of-life on April 8th, the third party anti-virus company AVAST is calling the decision to stop all XP patches and updates a "big mistake".

In a blog post, AVAST claims that the elimination of patches for XP "will create severe security issues". It says that 23.6 percent of its 211 million customers are still using XP on their PCs and seemed to suggest that many of them could not afford to upgrade to a more recent version of Windows. AVAST stated, "Abandoning Windows XP is a big mistake, especially since Microsoft has not been very successful in transitioning XP users to newer systems."

To help deal with the upcoming threats, Avast says it's committed to supporting XP for at least the next three years. Avast will also create protection modules and detections specifically designed for XP.

And another one! The same author, again using "Windows XP" as bait to hook some SheepleFish to drum up page hits ( did I mention that's how they get paid ). Shameless.

That's pretty pathetic already, but what do we make of this example of Idiocracy ...

It's not just home users who are at risk, either. According to Vlcek, more than 9 out of 10 ATMs still run XP, as do many medical offices that store confidential patient information and stores that retain customer details, such as credit card numbers.

Wait wut!?! The MPC author constructed that painful sentence with "users who are at risk" and then concatenating in the separate topic of ATMs and doctor offices. While it is certainly possible to connect one of these latter things to the Internet and Windows Update, this would NOT be a normal circumstance. Therefore, the author must be intentionally misleading or terminally stupid, quite like tabloid newspapers or sportswriters. Either that, or we have indeed reached end-of-days where the people around us have grown so dumb that society and the world has very little time left.


EDITORIAL: Windows XP: What will likely happen on April 9th ( NeoWin 2014-03-19 )

Not to be left in the dust, the infamous Brad Sams jumps onto the Windows XP FUDpocalypse bandwagon ...

After April 8th,if you are running Windows XP, your machine will no longer receive support from Microsoft. What this means is that if new exploits are found within the OS, the company will not release patches to fill in those holes. In short, your machine will be exposed to outside threats that could cripple your machine and cause you to lose all of your data.

Really Brad, even computers that are offline? You must have meant to say "In short, your Internet connected machine" right? But even that is not true. What about those behind hardware firewalls and those not using MSIE? Or those not owned by short bus retards? Is Windows XP really the significant characteristic among security issues, or is it these other things? Don't bother trying to answer that though, the linchpin for your entire worldview will become detached and it will all cave in.

Well, for one thing, Windows 7 and 8 have modern architectures and can make better use out of your hardware so if nothing else, by upgrading your machine will see a performance boost.

Ah, so that's how it works, eh? No Is it not possible Brad for a later version to be more feature-rich and more bloated? Of course it is That is the norm whether it is Office or whatever. When Win9x was cohabitating the world with WinXP this nonsense argument began. WinXP was slower than a three-legged turtle compared to Win9x on the same hardware, and it was because it did more, MUCH more. Just the file indexing alone blows the performance right off the charts, and has been in every succeeding version. All anyone needs to do today is run ProcMon and see for themselves the CPU hit in later versions of Windows which now have almost innumerable transactions per second from countless tasks and services. But why let a few facts get in the way of simpleton logic. They actually believe there is a performance boost from using more bloated software because it somehow magically creates performance the same way others believe in over-unity energy or perpetual motion machines. I guess this is simple proof that there will always be a place for scammers in the world, there are so many suckers born every minute.

More so, you will get enhanced security protection directly from Microsoft that will help to keep your personal assets safe.

Yeah well, that's a load of crap. This lie wouldn't even exist if all those daily hacks into stores, banks and websites were forced to specify the operating systems involved ( and also the security software providers ). Guess what those disclosures would point to. Yep, Windows 7, the most used operating system. But by all means Brad, stay comfortable in your meme.

But really, here is the scenario that you should be most worried about.

Put yourself in the mind of someone who writes ransome-ware. If you find an exploit in Windows XP and you know that Microsoft will stop patching holes after April 8th, why would you release the exploit now as opposed to waiting? The answer: You wouldn't.

April 9th will likely see a wave of Windows XP exploits released and the more they are known about within the ransome-ware community, the more likely they will make their way out into the wild in volume. Its because of this scenario that makes running Windows XP post April 8th so risky.

I guess it would hurt his brain to find out that all the ransomware I have cleaned has been on, wait for it, Windows 7. But carry on Brad, spreading FUD, lies and hype. It really is notable that it has only taken 14 years for Y2K media abuse to already have been flushed down the memory hole. ( DIGRESSION: Y2K *was* indeed a serious issue and was successfully mitigated, but the world was far less connected at the time and would be far worse today, however I am only talking here about the media abuse with sensationalism aspect of the press who can always be counted on to screw it all up. The real lesson from Y2K is as a statement about how stupid we humans really are. Apparently no-one used Y2K as an educational opportunity to learn to use 4-digit year dates, or to specify them most significant digit first, and now we are right back where we started. I recall sorting the medication of a family member in 2001 and could not make heads or tails from the dates, and it also happens with food, and chemicals and everything else EVEN TODAY. ) Brad Sams, too young to know anything.

By not upgrading, you are opening yourself up to unnecessary threats by running a piece of software that was released in 2001.

2001 you say? Well riddle me this Batman, how old is Skype? For a real mind bender tell me the ages of these three: Vista SP1, Windows 2008, Windows XP SP3. But you have your meme. Keep comparing Windows XP RTM with the latest crap that Microsoft poops out.

We know that running Windows XP will become a serious risk after April 8th and as a point of reference, 6.6% of Neowin's traffic for the month of February came from users running XP.

We "know" no such thing. However, we do know that "Windows" itself is a risk since it is at the core of something like 92% of all virus incidents. We also know that the sheeple themselves are a risk and I would say they account for 99% of all incidents. Furthermore, if only 6.6% of NeoWin hits are from Windows XP users then I can say one more thing as well - NeoWin itself has a problem. It looks like they can not even match the 30%+ average that Windows XP sustains in general internet usage browser stats, meaning that NeoWin is not taken seriously by most people on the Internet, especially experts and veterans and is now a niche website catering to sheeple and 'Tards. That low percentage should be a warning to Steven, but he is apparently comfortable in his little sandbox full of NeoKids.

EDIT: typo

Edited March 23, 2014 by CharlotteTheHarlot

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Microsoft Controversy of the Week ( mentioned by MagicAndre1981 ) ...

Ex-Microsoft programmer arrested and charged with leaking Windows 8 code ( NeoWin 2014-03-19 )

Ex-Microsoft employee arrested for stealing and leaking copies of Windows 8 ( TechSpot 2014-03-20 )

Former Microsoft Employee in Hot Water for Allegedly Leaking Windows 8 Trade Secrets ( Maximum PC 2014-03-20 )

Alleged Windows 8 leaker suspended from his current job ( NeoWin 2014-03-20 )

An ex-Microsoft employee was arrested yesterday in Seattle by the FBI for leaking early copies of Windows 8. Alex Kibkalo, a former senior architect at Microsoft, is accused of stealing and leaking company trade secrets while working for the software giant. He worked at Microsoft for seven years, and most recently served as a Director of Product Management in 5nine Software, according to his LinkedIn profile.

FBI? Oh great. Now you see what lobbying buys them - a personal police force that is not available to the other 99.99% of companies, at their disposal to help keep Microsoft employees in line. This is not why we have a federal government and Constitution. Friggin ridiculous! Trade secrets once again treated as a federal offense, yet offshoring jobs isn't? Monopolistic tactics isn't? OEM backroom deals isn't? Well what do you expect from our corrupt DoJ who also waste time and money going after baseball players. On a lighter note, shouldn't Microsoft be giving the guy some kind of award for releasing Windows 8 and somehow finding recipients who were actually interested enough to accept it? I suppose now someone will blame the "leaker" for the whole 10% adoption fiasco rather than blaming themselves for producing it in the first place. ... Oh wait, here's a variation on that idea already, as posted by an actual Softie ...

The impact such things can have is substantial. As someone who was working on the product at the time, things like that were incredibly frustrating. Things like this mean you can't trust other employees at the company. At least he wasn't in Windows or a real engineer. But this is exactly the sort of thing that leads to teams not being able to share plans or code with other teams out of fear they'll leak ####. I'm glad they caught this guy and hope other would-be leakers take notice and think twice before ####ing with their hardworking colleagues.

There's a rancid stink of rationalization all over this comment. So that's the reason why teams at Microsoft cannot work together? The secret leaker is the cause of it? Has nothing to do with the insanity of backstabbing and buttkissing and stack ranking quotas. Okay got it. Now wonder this company is screwed, they employ sheeple. Well I guess his comment kinda makes in one twisted way: After the voluntary exodus of all the actual intelligent employees, followed by the quota terminations of those not willing to buttkiss, it follows that all that remains would be the hive mind in all its glory.

Was 'Canouna' the unnamed blogger involved in the Windows 8 leak probe? ( NeoWin 2014-03-20 )

Microsoft snooped through blogger's email to find source of Windows 8 leaks ( NeoWin 2014-03-20 )

Of course, Microsoft snooping through the email account of the blogger does raise a few questions about privacy but at this point, when using a companys service, its hard not to anticipate that they have the ability to read all of your emails/messages no matter the vendor. Especially when it comes to their own IP being leaked, you can bet that they will go to any measure to make sure their code is protected.

Here's the actual quote from the Microsoft document admitting their spying ...

After confirmation that the data was Microsoft's proprietary trade secret, on September 7, 2012 Microsoft's Office of Legal Compliance (OLC) approved content pulls of the blogger's Hotmail account.

Proving that Microsoft can screw up anything, they have now managed to expose themselves as breaking into a non-employee email account. The thread starts off with this exchange ( Dot MetroTard in red ) ...

Why is that troubling? Why would an internal investigation need one?

Based on the article it seems that MS and not the FBI pulled the emails, big difference.

Right, but this occurred using Microsoft's own services, while he was employed there.

Check the article: MS pulled the blogger's emails not its employee one and, if I remember correctly the blogger lives in France.

Ahh, I see it now. It still doesn't sound like they're doing anything wrong. I would assume if the blogger was using an outside service - say GMail - they then would have had to take extra steps to procure those emails.

You see how even after his denseness is penetrated he still rationalizes away the computer crime that Microsoft perpetrated. And that's just the beginning. The comments eventually switch over to a chorus line of fascist cheerleading as the sheeple goosestep into line. This 'Tard pretty much sums it up in a single sentence ...

MSFT doesn't need a warrant to look into your email buddy. you agreed to the TOS giving them permission to do as they wish. sorry.

One commenter reminds them of a good point in light of the infamous Scroogle campaign hypocrisy ...

There was a quite lengthy and technical post some time ago by thenetavenger explaining how all your data was encrypted on Microsoft servers with absolutely no way to be read by anyone other than you.

I guess it's safe to assume now that it was a load of bull.

And one of the real dead-ender contender sheeple adds this ...

Notice this required a massive 'escalation', just like if Microsoft had to response to an external warrant; which is why it had to go all the way through Microsoft legal to issue the security encryption keys.

This is not a story about Microsoft going through a random user's email.

Ah, so which is it then? Is it or isn't it encrypted? And does Microsoft have access to encryption keys *or* can they somehow brute force crack *or* utilize a back door? The non-employee recipient whose email was hacked by Microsoft apparently resides in France which gives another angle to this story.

It didn't take long for the crap to hit the fan ...

Microsoft Software Leak Inquiry Raises Privacy Issues ( New York Times 2014-03-20 )

SEATTLE Technology companies have spent months denying they know anything about broad government spying on people who use their Internet services.

But a legal case filed this week against a former Microsoft employee shows the power these companies themselves have to snoop on their customers whenever they want to.

[...]

While Microsofts actions appear to have been legal and within the scope of its own policies, its reading of the private online accounts of a customer without a court order was highly unusual and raises questions about its protections for customer data, privacy lawyers say.

What blogger will use that service now? said Jennifer Granick, an attorney and director of civil liberties at the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

Ms. Granick said it appeared that Microsofts actions were within the boundaries of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which allows service providers to read and disclose customers communications if it is necessary to protect the rights or property of the service provider. Still, she called the move by Microsoft stupid and said it should raise concerns among bloggers and journalists about using Microsoft Internet services to communicate with their sources.

[...]

Microsoft said it had done nothing wrong, but seemed to acknowledge the unusual nature of its actions as well as a brewing outcry over its methods of investigating the former employee by saying it would take several new steps to reassure customers that their communications will be private.

In a statement, John E. Frank, a Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel, said that in the future, if the company had evidence of a crime against Microsoft, it would submit that evidence to an outside lawyer who is a former judge, and that it would conduct a search of private communications only if the judge concluded there was enough evidence to meet the standards for a court order. Companies do not need to obtain court orders to search their own services, Mr. Frank said.

( much more at the article )

Oh really Mr. Vice President ( of a software company )? You'll defer to an outside lawyer, an ex-judge in your hip pocket? Wow, that ought to impress everybody. This is at the minimum an egregious escalation of bad precedent. In fact they just admitted something substantial that we already suspected all along. The whole government spook thing with court orders is a complete farce, if the spooks only need to ask Microsoft to do it instead. Now the whole PRISM thing makes perfect sense. The reality is that whatever concept of privacy that anyone used to hold is now officially dead and buried. No amount of sleight of hand of issuing totals of "law enforcement requests" or similar phony concerns mean squat. Betting the whole company on the cloud may yet prove to be the most fatal calculation they have made, that is if the sheeple ever wake up to these facts and leave them high and dry.

And the story has grown legs long enough to officially say that Microsoft could miss the side of a barn shooting from the inside ( they would hit their feet first, and then their head ) ...

Microsoft admits snooping on blogger's Hotmail account to find Windows 8 leak ( TechSpot 2014-03-21 )

Microsoft Alters Outlook and Hotmail Policy After Snooping a Blogger's Inbox ( Maximum PC 2014-03-21 )

Microsoft to add new policies that will limit internal Hotmail-Outlook.com searches ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

Just a couple of days after an ex-Microsoft employee was arrested by the FBI for stealing and leaking copies of Windows 8, the software giant is caught up in a privacy storm after it admitted that it searched through an unknown French bloggers Hotmail/Outlook inbox to crack the identity of the perpetrators.

The revelation has left Microsoft red-faced because it has condemned Google for the same reasons in the past. The company last year launched a Scroogled campaign that mocked Gmail's privacy. Microsoft, however, says that the examination was legal because the companys privacy policy gives it the right to access private information stored on its communication services, to protect the property of the company or its customers.

Oh, and here is a infamous quote to remember the next time Microsoft runs a Scroogle ad ...

Microsoft goes on to state that courts do not issue orders authorizing someone to search themselves. Therefore if Microsoft believes it has probable cause, there's no court process to follow to search through information on servers located on its own premises.

Thank you for saying that clearly! It would make a fine tee-shirt or better yet, public service infographics. Funny thing how that excuse from Microsoft about 'not needing a warrant to search their own servers' is suddenly the excuse du jour at NeoWin. Nobody over there was using that a few days ago when they were marching in no-questions-asked lockstep approval of the spying. Microsoft gets on the defensive and suddenly so do the NeoChildren.

But you know what no-one is really saying? Why didn't Microsoft hand it over to the FBI and not check the mail until the FBI got a warrant? Huh? They clearly acted above the law that stands in place for you or I, or the FBI ironically.

One MPC Commenter sums it up rather nicely ..."Good to know, I'm going to go down to my properties I own and start looking through my tenant's belongings so I can kick them out if i find anything in there I don't like. My property after all, they have no expectation of privacy." Naturally a MicroZealot disagrees and says that's not comparable because Hotmail is "free" ( where do these people come from? ) as if rent/subscription vs loan/favors mark the difference between rights and no rights.

And it continues! ...

Here's what Microsoft charges the FBI to access customer data ( TechSpot 2014-03-21 )

Leaked emails show amount of money Microsoft gets from government info requests ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

A collection of e-mails and invoices obtained by the Syrian Electronic Army claims to show how much Microsoft charges a secret division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation to legally collect and view information about its customers.

The Daily Dot reports that they received the documents from the SEA, which include emails and invoices from Microsoft to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specifically the agency's Digital Intercept Technology Unit (DITU.) For example, the documents show that Microsoft charged the DITU $352,200 in August 2013, at $200 per information request.

Wow! Sounds like a very profitable business, almost exactly like Google selling customer data to advertisers. Well that's ironic. And for double the taxpayer pleasure we must remember it is us who are paying for this NOT the FBI. NeoWin and Microsoft seem to not understand this concept when they say "charges the FBI". Of course the cheerleaders can't begin to figure any of this out, most are saying "reasonable admin fee" and the like. One wonders what it will take! Here is the hands down winner of the Cognitive Dissonance Award ...

D*mn straight they should be charging, hells yeah, stick it da man!

Am I p*ssed some of my tax dollars are going to MS because of my government? Of course, but that's another discussion.

Seriously?! The human race is screwed for sure. Depending on this kid's gender, I have two suggestions: Vasectomy or Tubal ligation. Do your part for humanity please before its too late.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Meanwhile, in the Executive Lounge ...

Seagate CEO Stephen J. Luczo departs Microsoft's board of directors ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

With Luczo's departure, Microsoft once again has 10 members on its board, including Nadella, co-founder Bill Gates and former CEO Steve Ballmer. John W. Thompson remains as chairman of the board. The company made no indications it plans to increase its size back to 11 members again.

Nothing to see here, move along. Or, then again.

Microsoft's Chief Product Officer of Xbox Marc Whitten departs company ( NeoWin 2014-03-18 )

Xbox executive Marc Whitten heading to Sonos after 14 years with Microsoft ( TechSpot 2014-03-18 )

Microsoft is losing one of its key Xbox executives who has been with the division since before the launch of the first version of the company's game console. Marc Whitten, Microsoft's Chief Product Officer of Xbox, will depart the company after 17 years to fill the same role at the audio hardware company Sonos.

Microsofts Chief Product Officer of Xbox, Marc Whitten, will be leaving the company to fill the role of Chief Product Officer for Sonos. The remainder of the Xbox team will remain intact with Whittens team now reporting directly to Terry Myerson, executive vice president that oversees the teams building the software platform and experiences for Windows, Windows Phone and Xbox.

Here is the last known photo of the Xbox dude and Terry Myerson seen together on the Redmond campus ...

Don't tell me your innocent Marc. Admit what you did with Xbone ...

Bill Gates: The Rolling Stone Interview ( Rolling Stone 2014-03-13 )

Bill Gates: 'Microsoft would have been willing to buy' WhatsApp ( NeoWin 2014-03-14 )

Warning, make sure you have insulin ready when you read this sweetness and light puff piece from the incalculably useless Rolling Stone magazine. It reminds me of some of the stuff written in the early 1980's by equally star-struck phony journalists.

You mentioned Mark Zuckerberg. When you look at what he's done, do you see some of yourself in him?

Oh, sure. We're both Harvard dropouts, we both had strong, stubborn views of what software could do. I give him more credit for shaping the user interface of his product. He's more of a product manager than I was. I'm more of a coder, down in the bowels and the architecture, than he is. But, you know, that's not that major of a difference. I start with architecture, and Mark starts with products, and Steve Jobs started with aesthetics.

When is the last time you even touched any code Bill? You've been riding that alleged BASIC coding feat for decades, all the while allowing all manner of crap code to make it into products. And 'aesthetics' is the last thing you should be scoffing at anybody over. The only time Microsoft software actually looks good is totally by accident.

Thanks to Edward Snowden, who has leaked tens of thousands of NSA documents, we are. Do you consider him a hero or a traitor?

I think he broke the law, so I certainly wouldn't characterize him as a hero. If he wanted to raise the issues and stay in the country and engage in civil disobedience or something of that kind, or if he had been careful in terms of what he had released, then it would fit more of the model of "OK, I'm really trying to improve things." You won't find much admiration from me.

Pathetic on so many levels. Staying in the country would be a fatal mistake, literally. But what is most offensive is that he says Snowden should do civil disobedience, which is the very last thing that billg himself would ever do. The coward will never stand up against the onslaught of attacks on the citizens yet who on Earth is in a better position than him to at least try? Did he refuse PRISM? No, he jumped in to become the first and primary partner. Need a backdoor into Windows, sure, no problem! Has Gates so much as even raised a concern about all the revelations since? Of course not. The revelations are exposing him and there are more to come, this is why he hates the guy. Mostly he is merely posturing to remain a favored public servant, but at the core of people like him is an aristocratic self-image status and a belief in keeping the uppity serfs under control. Cowards will never risk a thing for someone else, in billg's case it is simpler and easier to buy a fresh reputation by creating a tax sheltering foundation and tossing some money around. Lord knows there's plenty of dummies around to buy it.

Let's talk about income inequality, which economist Paul Krugman and others have written a lot about. As a person who's at the very top of the one percent, do you see this as one of the great issues of our time?

Well, now you're getting into sort of complicated issues. In general, on taxation-type things, you'd think of me as a Democrat. That is, when tax rates are below, say, 50 percent, I believe there often is room for additional taxation. And I've been very upfront on the need to increase estate taxes. Particularly given the medical obligations that the state is taking on and the costs that those have over time. You can't have a rigid view that all new taxes are evil. Yes, they have negative effects, but I'm like Krugman in that if you expect the state to do these things, they are going to cost money.

The thin air at the top of the world has killed many of his brain cells. I take this comment very seriously. Middle class people like myself wish we only paid 50% ( which in itself is halfway to the literal definition of slavery already ), but after 25%-35% Fed, 15% SS, 9% State, all of which are calculated from the gross and taken off the top - you already net that 50% that Gates speaks of. Then the hits come from property and school and sales and city/local out of the remainder. And all this before get to worry about heating/power/utility, insurance, mortgage/rent, food. Cap that off with the incalculable upcoming medical tax and it's pretty much game over for everyone except this dirtbag Bill Gates who is fine with it all since he can afford it. And finally, should any of us manage to save anything until the end, Gates says sure, let the government come in and take yet another bite in estate taxes. I hope he burns in hell.

The section of the interview on health care gets even creepier ( and yes, further off-topic ) particularly when he questions the wisdom of spending lots of money on elderly people's treatment, exposing his real true beliefs of an cold, calculating and thoroughly immoral future like Soylent Green. Well, for us anyway, but not him and the other aristocrats. The nobility is always exempt from decrees of the state. Gates goes on gleefully demonstrating his classic God complex in other subjects, but I have to mention my personal pet peeve, and the main reason I distrust him so vehemently - Polio. The interviewer gives him multiple opportunities to do so but Gates never manages to give any credit to Salk and others, instead choosing to discuss getting those last few countries to get their acts together so he can get a Nobel or something. Gates is essentially trying to mop up those last few percent that remain after the real pioneers, without computers, did all the hard work.

You know, actually he is doing what Microsoft often does by taking credit for other people's work ( e.g., original DOS ). I don't care how cynical this sounds but I think this was entirely calculated and fits the evidence and matches his track record. When you set up a trust or foundation on this scale you need some wins, and none is as high profile as a 'Gates cures Polio' headline and ticker-tape parade. It kills several birds with one stone - it's easy ( compared to Flu/AIDS/etc ), it makes the foundation look legitimate, it makes you look philanthropic rather than a predatorial monopolist. It is obviously contrived IMHO. I'm not one of those that worships anyone unskeptically, especially when the object of worship can do anything he wants. I have more respect for Paul Allen buying sports teams than those like Gates buying himself a reputation. He is simply following the exact same playbook of many robber barons of the past ( Carnegie/Morgan/Vanderbilt/etc ) and in modern times ( Milken ) who amass incredible wealth, get in trouble, achieve no respect and set about buying that too. In truth, Gates's wealth ( including the 30 billion allegedly given to his foundation ) is really mostly from self-issued shares of stock driven up by years of fast-talking snake oil plus manipulations of the operating systems monopoly. The oil and steel barons at least created something tangible and thoroughly improved lives ( oil/fuel/heat ) and many things that survive to today ( steel/structures/ships ). It is very doubtful that any software will make such a long lasting mark on the human condition, especially considering their current direction of dumbing down the population to chimpanzee levels. (End Rant!)

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

As mentioned first by Jorge ...

Mozilla puts Firefox for Windows 8 on hold indefinitely ( NeoWin 2014-03-14 )

Mozilla Scrubs Firefox for Windows 8 Touch ( Maximum PC 2014-03-15 )

Mozilla kills Metro version of Firefox, says shipping the browser "would be a mistake" ( TechSpot 2014-03-17 )

Mozilla Scraps Firefox Metro Over Flat Adoption Rate ( Tom's Hardware 2014-03-17 )

Mozilla was forced to take this drastic step after the Firefox for Windows 8 Touch Beta, released last month, failed to gain any semblance of momentum. According to Nightingale, the response to the beta was so poor that it never witnessed more than 1000 active daily users. This is in stark contrast to pre-release builds meant for the desktop proper, which tend to attract millions of testers on a daily basis.

This leaves us with a hard choice. We could ship it, but it means doing so without much real-world testing. Thats going to mean lots of bugs discovered in the field, requiring a lot of follow up engineering, design, and QA effort, Nightingale wrote in a blog post. To ship it without doing that follow up work is not an option. If we release a product, we maintain it through end of life. When I talk about the need to pick our battles, this feels like a bad one to pick: significant investment and low impact.

Instead, we pull it.

Just four days before it was due to ship, Mozilla has scrapped the Metro version of Firefox citing low adoption of the Windows 8 Metro interface -- which Microsoft now calls Modern UI. Johnathan Nightingale, Mozilla's Vice President of Firefox, announced the news in a blog post.

In the months since, as the team built and tested and refined the product, weve been watching Metros adoption, Nightingale said, adding that the adoption rate has been "pretty flat". While on any given day, millions of people test pre-release versions of Firefox desktop, less than 1,000 used the Metro version, he said.

In the end, Mozilla feels that to ship a largely untested (and therefore buggy) product requiring a ton of follow up work would be to invest in a platform that users show little sign of adopting. And that's a cost it isn't willing to bear.

We've contacted Microsoft for comment on this and will update if we hear back.

[update] A Microsoft spokesperson we talked to said the company is choosing not to comment on this one.

Hehehe! The NeoKids are foaming at the mouth, especially Dot MetroTard who cannot process all the information he/she is receiving lately, all of which indicates a curse to anyone that touches Microsoft Tiles. Naturally NeoWin begins a quest to locate some kind of offsetting news to quiet down their poor sheeple ...

Former Firefox for Windows 8 developer: Low test numbers doesn't mean OS is in trouble ( NeoWin 2014-03-18 )

In a new blog post today, former Mozilla team member Brian R. Bondy, who worked on the Firefox for Windows 8 team, wrote that just because the browser had a low amount of beta testers doesn't mean that Windows 8 and the Modern UI have low general usage.

[...]

Following Friday's blog post by Nightingale, Neowin attempted to contact Mozilla to see if we could get more information about their decision to cancel development of Firefox for Windows 8. Unfortunately, a spokesperson for the company declined to answer most of our questions, stating only, "We have no plans to start development again at this time. We always watch the desktop and mobile markets to find opportunities to advance Mozilla's mission."

Ummm, well duh! Only NeoKids could be counted on to highlight and latch onto that obvious fact. When the news first broke they kept harping on this "Low Test Numbers" thing ( see the earlier articles ) which is a way to say 'The Sky is not falling!'. Some even said "Make it Anyway" despite the fact that no-one would use it. Meanwhile they throw several hundreds of millions of Windows XP users under the bus at every opportunity.

This time around Dot MetroTard gets the first comment in: ""If you build it, they will come..." Just ask the guys over at VideoLAN...". Sorry, they did build it, and no-one came. There is a lot of hypocrisy as usual here, considering that almost none of the MetroTards would consider using anything except MSIE anyway. They are simply not that smart. Even if a perfect web browser were created, one so bombproof that it could never be compromised, the 'Tards would still use MSIE. It's that reverse Darwinism thing again.

But wait, in the most coincidental of ironic timings ever seen Mozilla simultaneously shoots its own foot in grand Microsoft fashion ...

Is suicide is contagious? ...

Firefox 'Australis' UI revamp now in Mozilla's beta test channel ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

The beta build shows off what will become the new user interface for Firefox when it becomes part of the public build for the browser later this spring, most likely as Firefox 29. Mozilla's blog states:

Weve changed the tab structure and functionality in Firefox to enable you to focus on your Web content. Tabs have a more fluid and streamlined shape, sit higher up in the browser and tabs that are not in use have been visually de-emphasized. Weve also moved the bookmark manager next to the bookmark star in your Firefox toolbar to make it easy to save your favorite sites for one click access.

That's the bureaucratic version of p!ssing on someone's head and telling them it's raining! Making matters worse the bozos are using fascist tactics over in their forums to clamp down on complaints, see here! The world has gone mad indeed.

Over at NeoWin some of the NeoKids once again demonstrate their desire to dictate what other people's computers look like, and also their innate talents for bootlicking. For example, Dot MetroTard wants desktop Firefox, something he clearly will never use, to look even more like Microsoft Tiles: "I'd love to see a Stylish script that squares off those ugly rounded tabs." Apparently it's not yet ugly enough already! The leadoff 'Tard comment was from a young sheeple in-training: "It's called change people, deal with it." Oh yeah, people are going to deal with it alright.

But does not this whole thing beg another question ... why are the Playskool fanboys are having such a hard time "dealing with" the changes underway to accommodate desktop users. Whoa, burnnnnn. Awards time. The first place grand prize for sheeple bah-ing and bleating goes to the fanboy in this exchange ...

"It's remarkably hilarious how people get all bent out of shape over such UI change like this.

I mean... MY GOD.. you'd think some had just walked muddy boots all over your priceless Persian rug.

OH NO WHAT EVER WILL WE DO!!!

bunch of sissys."

"Lots of people got bent out of shape with Win8's Start Screen too. Just how it is. Some like the changes, some don't, doesn't mean the latter are "sissys"."

"oh yea, I don't mind the base concept of the start screen but I generally dislike the how works.

But I take it like a man."

Ummm, sorry. That is most certainly *not* 'taking it like a man'. Listen up fanboy. By bending over, grabbing your ankles with a smile on your face you are doing the exact opposite - taking it like a woman. Try again sweetie.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

The Strange and Unusual ...

'Flappy Bird' creator confirms he will release the game again, 'but not soon' ( NeoWin 2014-03-19 )

'Flappy Bird' to rise from the ashes, return to the App Store confirmed ( TechSpot 2014-03-19 )

Dong Nguyen, creator of the wildly addictive mobile game Flappy Bird, confirmed on Wednesday that he would be bringing the game back to the App Store.

[...]

Its unclear at this hour why Nguyen had a change of heart but naturally, many people are still skeptical about the whole thing. Was he really confused, frightened or upset about the whole situation or was his decision to pull the game and eventually bring it back a calculated marketing ploy to build even more hype around the game?

This whole thing has smelled fishy all along. I now vote for marketing scheme.

Man discovers wanted status after Googling himself and surrenders ( NeoWin 2014-03-16 )

A Californian man who Googled his name was in the shock of his life after discovering he was in fact one of the state's most wanted men.

Comment of the day Award goes to: "If he was using bing he'd still be on the loose!"

Microsoft: Pirated software with malware will cost businesses $500 billion in 2014 ( NeoWin 2014-03-19 )

Microsoft has been putting more of an emphasis on security lately with the recent opening of its Cybercrime Center complex. Today, the company released the results of a new study that claims both businesses and individuals will spend a lot of money in 2014 dealing with problems that will be introduced by malware found in pirated software products

Just.Too.Stupid.For.Words. You know, by rights this single headline should be enough to wake up any person with an iota of intelligence to the fact that Microsoft and whoever else is connected to this report is a corrupt collection of liars. They should be broken up just on principle. Moreover it tells us that in general there is no self-restraint anymore, no pretense of honesty and truth. It means that even mathematics and statistics have no meaning and even common sense has been discounted.

It wasn't that long ago that no-one would voluntarily embarrass themselves by posting or publishing everything that crossed their desk, or their minds. Truthfully the world has turned a corner now. We have crossed the Rubicon to irresponsibility and decadence and without individual self-governing restraint there is no way back. If companies and people are willing to say or do anything simply to suit their own selfish purposes, even at the cost of tarnishing their own seriousness and insulting everyone with a functional brain, humanity is doomed. Move over ancient Greece and Rome, be seeing you soon.

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

The Competition is certainly having an effect ...

Nokia: 1 million pre-orders for Nokia X in China ahead of March 25th debut ( NeoWin 2014-03-14 )

Nokia's strategy of offering a cheap Android-based smartphone seems to be paying off. The company announced today that the Nokia X has already received one million pre-orders just in China ahead of the phone's March 25th launch in that country. It reached that number just four days after pre-orders began.

A couple weeks ago I was commenting on how sweet it would be if the Nokia Androids compete with or even defeat the Nokia WP. Now there is already an indication that this is indeed possible. If this actually does happen it will give the fanboys heart attacks. Buy popcorn futures! The NeoKids are already spitting and sputtering about on the news. I like how one commenter throws gasoline on the fire ...

This is what happens when you make a product that no one wants. In the age of faster processing process and better graphics display, you want people to be looking at flat fisher price color tiles with couple of texts floating around. Whoever came out with Metro tiles idea need to get fired. Oh they already did. Now If , there is any sensible people left with MS, they should completely ditch this design abomination and come out with better design.

Hehehe And so true.

Microsoft launches free OneNote app for Mac and Windows desktop ( NeoWin 2014-03-17 )

The rumors that Microsoft was planning to launch a OneNote app for Mac users are indeed correct. The company announced today that its popular note taking software is now available for free to download from the Mac App Store.

Sleeping with the enemy is official now.

Microsoft's stock surges up to 14 year high thanks to Office on iPad rumors ( NeoWin 2014-03-18 )

USA Today reports that Microsoft's stock price went up 3.94 percent to close at $39.55 a share today on the NASDAQ market. That's the highest for the company since 2000. Microsoft's stock price has been up 6 percent since the beginning of 2014.

You just know that this really burns the butts of the fanboys. I mean, Apple has such a tiny "marketshare"! If it were up to the fanboys they wouldn't even have Mac versions of anything ( nor would there be a desktop Windows ). An even more enigmatic question than Big Bang or Black Holes or Dark Matter is how can one company like Microsoft create such a contingent of 'Tards in such a short period of time? It's as if they found a field full of lackadaisical sheep and then hand-selected the dumbest and least equipped to survive and then interbred them to create a new species that defies any logical description. It's like a reverse Darwinism, survival of the dumbest.

Microsoft says it has 'renewed focus' on PC gaming, details coming this summer ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

Microsoft Studios head Phil Spencer told an audience at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco today that the company will be putting more effort into PC gaming, though he stopped short of offering any specific details.

Is that fear I smell in the air? What could be causing it? Could it be from all the attacks on all the battle fronts?

GOG announce plan to support Linux, will start this Autumn with 100 games ( PC Gamer 2014-03-18 )

The DRM-free digital distribution service will soon support Linux. "At least" 100 games will gain support for the OS, GOG say, and that catalogue will include a selection of classics making their Linux début.

A post on GOG's news blog explains the details of their planned support:

"We're initially going to be launching our Linux support on GOG.com with the full GOG.com treatment for Ubuntu and Mint. That means that right now, we're hammering away at testing games on a variety of configurations, training up our teams on Linux-speak, and generally getting geared up for a big kick-off in the fall with at least 100 Linux games ready for you to play. This is, of course, going to include games that we sell which already have Linux clients, but we'll also be bringing Linux gamers a variety of classics that are, for the first time, officially supported and maintained by a storefront like ours."

Like I said, multiple battle fronts.

Samsung and HP Reportedly Have Chrome OS All-in-One PCs on Tap ( Maximum PC 2014-03-14 )

We knew this one was coming, but wait until the NeoKids see it And they have only themselves to blame for enabling the destruction of classic Windows used by over a billion people. It's simple really ... When Android and Chrome look more like Windows than Windows does, exactly what outcome should we expect?

[CharlotteTheHarlot]

Security Issues ...

Australian Attorney General's new war on internet encryption and privacy ( NeoWin 2014-03-17 )

Forced compliance to unlock encrypted data on the way?

Buried deep within a 68 page proposal to the Australian Senate lies a hidden suggestion that the adoption of secure internet connections, such as SSL, has become a major problem because it's difficult to spy on. Even worse, the proposal mentions how some people go so far as to encrypt their data.. the same thing that terrorists do!

Masking itself as merely formalizing existing practices, this proposal actually introduces new powers such as

• The ability to force individual suspects to unlock encrypted items (including turning over passwords for private services).
• Making it a criminal offense not to comply with this.

A totally different editorial from NeoWin, pro-privacy and criticizing this Oz bureaucrat, one which has not yet ( at this writing ) been polluted by NeoKids demonstrating their ability to march when fascist bureaucrats order them to. This is probably because Microsoft is not involved. :-)

What is the answer though? Well believe it or not it's actually pretty easy at least for us in the USA, not so much for the UK and Oz though. All we have to do theoretically is enforce the Constitution, perhaps add some Amendments including one that holds elected government to the exact same rules as the citizens. Our construction here is that the government is empowered by us, the People, and the States yet we have stupidly allowed that pecking order to be reversed by the sheeple over time. It would be an Earth shattering reversal to be sure, but it is very simple. The answer is not in more laws that tweak this or that.

Will it ever happen, it's admittedly doubtful, but it would be the best of all solutions. It is the way it used to be, back when everyone knew the President was no better than any random person on the street and could not do anything we could not do ( this ended during the 20th century after years of baby steps by succeeding Presidents each outdoing their predecessor ). Somewhere in the chain of Teddy/Wilson/FDR/JFK/LBJ/Nixon they evolved from citizen President to Prince. Perhaps because none of them were cut down to size in a courtroom for violating the Constitution. You can put me in the column of supporting a 2nd Constitutional Convention now, all doubts have been removed in my lifetime and there is nothing else on the horizon to scale it back.

Twitter cans direct message encryption project without explanation ( TechSpot 2014-03-20 )

Late last year it was revealed that Twitter was working on a way to encrypt direct messages sent between users. That project has since been dropped according to sources familiar with the plans as reported by The Verge.

[...]

Abandoning the project is a bit puzzling when you consider Twitter has typically been ahead of the curve in terms of privacy. The company has a reputation for fighting government data requests and has repeatedly challenged subpoenas and gag orders.

Puzzling? I don't think so. Twitter is seemingly hacked every other day seemingly at will and are heavily monitored by Spooks. Besides, as a newly minted Wall Street darling they have to play ball, and this means letting accommodating the Feds from every bureaucracy from regulators to spooks, a now-obvious characteristic of all public corporations particularly in the upper echelon of sheeple management like Facebook, Microsoft, Google and Apple.

NSA program can record every single phone conversation from an entire country ( TechSpot 2014-03-18 )

The National Security Agencys spying capabilities seemingly know no bounds. In the latest Edward Snowden-inspired leak, the Washington Post highlights a program called MYSTIC that is able to record 100 percent of all voice calls in a target country and retain them for up to a month.

Calls are said to be recorded automatically and stored in a 30-day rolling buffer that deletes the oldest calls when new recordings are added.

Just out of curiosity, wasn't anyone else alive during the 1990's battles over Carnivore and the V-chip? So glad we won those.

[bpalone]

It just keeps getting more unbelievable by the moment.

Navy database tracks civilians' parking tickets, fender-benders, raising fears of domestic spying

Entire article here: http://washingtonexaminer.com/navy-database-tracks-civilians-parking-tickets-fender-benders-raising-fears-of-domestic-spying/article/2546038

Am I missing something here? Just why would the Navy need this information?

"Clearly, it cannot be right that any part of the Navy is collecting traffic citation information,” Fidell said. “This sounds like something from a third-world country, where you have powerful military intelligence watching everybody.”

1984 might just be a kinder version of what is going on.

bpalone

[jaclaz]

Am I missing something here? Just why would the Navy need this information?

IMHO, besides that, what sounds to me alarming is not that Abbey Shuto and McGee have access to that data but this line:

More than 1,300 agencies participate, including The FBI and other Department of Justicedivisions, the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. Police departments along both coasts and in Texas, New Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii are in LinX.

1,300 agencies!

Having 1,300 "agencies" (including local police) capable of accessing that kind of data is IMHO very little short of publishing it.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

The Windows XP FUDpocalypse continues! ...

Microsoft Store offers $50 gift card with select new PCs to help ditch Windows XP ( NeoWin 2014-03-14 )

[...]

Microsoft sweetens XP upgrade offers as support deadline nears ( TechSpot 2014-03-21 )

Microsoft Store now offers $100 off new PCs for trading in a Windows XP machine ( NeoWin 2014-03-21 )

A funny and fitting description of this move by Microsoft (source):

...the offer comes across like paying someone to take your ugly cousin to the prom (Windows 8.x is the ugly cousin).

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

I guess it would hurt his brain to find out that all the ransomware I have cleaned has been on, wait for it, Windows 7. But carry on Brad, spreading FUD, lies and hype. It really is notable that it has only taken 14 years for Y2K media abuse to already have been flushed down the memory hole. ( DIGRESSION: Y2K *was* indeed a serious issue and was successfully mitigated, but the world was far less connected at the time and would be far worse today, however I am only talking here about the media abuse with sensationalism aspect of the press who can always be counted on to screw it all up. The real lesson from Y2K is as a statement about how stupid we humans really are. Apparently no-one used Y2K as an educational opportunity to learn to use 4-digit year dates, or to specify them most significant digit first, and now we are right back where we started. I recall sorting the medication of a family member in 2001 and could not make heads or tails from the dates, and it also happens with food, and chemicals and everything else EVEN TODAY. ) Brad Sams, too young to know anything.

Speaking of Y2K: I have a special version of DOS called DS-DOS Plus, published in 1984 by a long-forgotten company called MichTron. This OS, based on MS-DOS 2.11, enabled the Sanyo MBC computer (some may remember it as the "silver fox") to read from and write to quad-density, 10-sector (800K) floppy disks. If you slide one of these OS disks into the drive, start up the machine, and type in today's 21st-century date, it will accept it without blinking and if you type "date" at the command prompt it will give you the right day of the week.

That was back in 1983. These guys looked further ahead than BillG and his crack team of programmers.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Microsoft Software Leak Inquiry Raises Privacy Issues ( New York Times 2014-03-20 )

[...]

Microsoft said it had done nothing wrong, but seemed to acknowledge the unusual nature of its actions as well as a brewing outcry over its methods of investigating the former employee by saying it would take several new steps to reassure customers that their communications will be private.

In a statement, John E. Frank, a Microsoft vice president and deputy general counsel, said that in the future, if the company had evidence of a crime against Microsoft, it would submit that evidence to an outside lawyer who is a former judge, and that it would conduct a search of private communications only if the judge concluded there was enough evidence to meet the standards for a court order. Companies do not need to obtain court orders to search their own services, Mr. Frank said.

To me, the nub of the issue is this:

Microsoft: Going through your 'private' emails is like searching 'ourselves'

"...So even when we believe we have probable cause, it’s not feasible to ask a court to order us to search ourselves", says Microsoft in the statement.

Sorry, but it is NOT searching "yourselves" when it's somebody else's e-mail. Sure, the e-mail may be stored in your servers, but you have rented or lent out the servers for other people to place information on them, therefore you have no property right in that information. If you want to reclaim your server drives, then close out everybody's accounts and stick the drives where they may fit best.

Oh,and if you want to pull out the cr*p about the TOS allowing you to do this -- yes by all means proclaim it far and wide. Put it prominently in every TV and Web ad for your e-mail service, that you're allowed to go through people's stuff at your sole discretion. Do this for a couple of years, and then let's see how many users you're left with at the end.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

WPA2 wireless security cracked

The entire article can be read here: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-wpa2-wireless.html#jCp

Not quite as easy breaking into a WEP system, but it appears that it isn't all that hard for a determined party to breach. Wouldn't want to point any fingers, but I think we can all think of several alphabet agencies of various governments that would fall into that category.

Didn't mean to ruin everyone's weekend.

bpalone

Thanks for the heads-up. The following excerpt states very well what I have believed every since I started thinking about wired vs. wireless networking:

The convenience of wireless network connectivity of mobile communications devices, such as smart phones, tablet PCs and laptops, televisions, personal computers and other equipment, is offset by the inherent security vulnerability. The potential for a third party to eavesdrop on the broadcast signals between devices is ever present. By contrast a wired network is intrinsically more secure because it requires a physical connection to the system in order to intercept packets of data.

Not that a wired connection is totally secure -- just that it's more secure than a wireless one.

--JorgeA