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Windows 8 - Deeper Impressions

JorgeA

By JorgeA
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jaclaz

jaclaz

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Re: the cloud AND NSA

 

This is an interesting article (though a bit longish/needing some time to read):

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/27/-sp-privacy-under-attack-nsa-files-revealed-new-threats-democracy

 

Among the many arguments touched, I would like to highlight this:

 

We need to decentralise the data. If we keep it all in one great big pile – if there's one guy who keeps all the email and another guy who manages all the social sharing – then there isn't really any way to be any safer than the weakest link in the fence around those piles.

But if everyone is keeping her and his own, then the weak links on the outside of any fence get the attacker exactly one person's stuff. Which, in a world governed by the rule of law, might be optimal: one person is the person you can spy on because you've got probable cause.

Email scales beautifully without anybody at the centre keeping all of it. We need to make a mail server for people that costs five bucks and sits on the kitchen counter where the telephone answering machine used to be. If it breaks, you throw it away.

 

 

I like the idea of a mail server device similar to a phone answering machine. :yes:

 

jaclaz

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JorgeA

JorgeA

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That was pretty good, and thanks for linking to it.

 

A couple of quibbles: (1) the process of mass encroachment on communications privacy didn't start with the previous administration, but rather with the one before it (recall the Echelon and Carnivore programs). I remember being astonished in October 2001 how quickly the provisions of the Patriot Act seemed to have been put together, and concluding that these ideas must have been cooking for some time previously. (Note that I'm not suggesting some sort of conspiracy to create a crisis in order to pass this legislation; I think it was more a case of seizing an opportunity to enact something that some people had desired for a while.)

 

And (2) given that telecommunications companies are forced by authorities to hand over their data (when not having it stolen from them without even their involvement), it would put them in an impossible position to at the same time be subjected to privacy lawsuits from the opposite direction. Guns pointed at you from all sides making mutually exclusive demands, what are you supposed to do? In my view, a more constructive approach would be to foster an alliance between private-sector actors (individuals and the services they use) over and against the state-level actors who threaten them both.

 

I do like the call for developing user-friendly ways to implement security and privacy technologies. However, we need to find some way to ensure that these technologies are not themselves compromised during creation or delivery.

 

--JorgeA

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JorgeA

JorgeA

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Good news: Mary Jo Foley reports...

 

Windows 365: Not coming to a PC near you

 

After asking around a bit, I believe that Windows 365 is not real, not in development and not on the roadmap.

 

I've heard from my contacts that Microsoft is not working on anything called "Windows 365." Nor is the company planning on trying to get consumers to "subscribe" to Windows releases the way that Microsoft has convinced more than 3.5 million consumers to subscribe to Office with Office 365 Home and Personal.

[emphasis in original]

 

That's a relief!

 

Another (apparent) victory on the multi-front war that we (and so many others) have been fighting for more than two years. We seem to have won substantially over the public's reaction to Windows 8, over the Start Button and Menu, over the ability to boot directly to the Desktop and to banish Metro (almost completely) from our monitor screens, and now on whether we will be expected to pay eternal tribute to the OS lords. :thumbup  :thumbup

 

By my count, this leaves two major undecided fronts: whether users will be given an official choice to use Aero Glass on machines that are capable of it; and whether Windows will eventually become a "cloud OS" that turns our PCs into dumb terminals. Is that second one covered by the announcement above? Any other battle zones left unresolved?

 

--JorgeA

 

 

 

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TELVM

TELVM

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Another milestone in the road to the Gulag:

 

Google Is Now Blocking Chrome Extensions Outside of the Web Store

 

" ... From now on, to protect Windows users from an attack  :yes:  , extensions can be installed only if they're hosted on the Chrome Web Store. With this change, extensions that were previously installed may be automatically disabled and cannot be re-enabled or re-installed until they're hosted in the Chrome Web Store  :w00t: ..."

 

 

All for your protection, you know  -_-  .

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Flasche

Flasche

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Another milestone in the road to the Gulag:

 

Google Is Now Blocking Chrome Extensions Outside of the Web Store

 

" ... From now on, to protect Windows users from an attack  :yes:  , extensions can be installed only if they're hosted on the Chrome Web Store. With this change, extensions that were previously installed may be automatically disabled and cannot be re-enabled or re-installed until they're hosted in the Chrome Web Store  :w00t: ..."

 

 

All for your protection, you know  -_-  .

 

I'm pretty sure that the chrome blocking none store items was already in place for a while now.

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jaclaz

jaclaz

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I'm pretty sure that the chrome blocking none store items was already in place for a while now.

 

Well, you are also probably pretty wrong, as the announcement was given on May 27:

http://chrome.blogspot.ca/2014/05/protecting-chrome-users-from-malicious.html

 

Protecting Chrome users from malicious extensions

Posted: Tuesday, May 27, 2014

...

From now on, to protect Windows users from this kind of attack, extensions can be installed only if they're hosted on the Chrome Web Store. With this change, extensions that were previously installed may be automatically disabled and cannot be re-enabled or re-installed until they're hosted in the Chrome Web Store.

....

 

 

 

jaclaz

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Flasche

Flasche

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I'm pretty sure that the chrome blocking none store items was already in place for a while now.

 

Well, you are also probably pretty wrong, as the announcement was given on May 27:

http://chrome.blogspot.ca/2014/05/protecting-chrome-users-from-malicious.html

 

Protecting Chrome users from malicious extensions

Posted: Tuesday, May 27, 2014

...

From now on, to protect Windows users from this kind of attack, extensions can be installed only if they're hosted on the Chrome Web Store. With this change, extensions that were previously installed may be automatically disabled and cannot be re-enabled or re-installed until they're hosted in the Chrome Web Store.

....

 

 

 

jaclaz

 

 

Your were right, I was wrong. I was thinking of this. http://www.zdnet.com/google-unapproved-chrome-extensions-require-manual-install-7000000997/

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TELVM

TELVM

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^ ... In other words, Google wants you to use the Chrome Web Store ...

 

 

Exactly like the Tiles crap is just the sucker bait to force us into the MS store.

 

"All sheep proceed inmediately into the walled gardens. It's for your own good and protection. Resistance is futile - you will be assimilated".

 

IMG_3039.JPG

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JorgeA

JorgeA

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^ ... In other words, Google wants you to use the Chrome Web Store ...

 

 

Exactly like the Tiles crap is just the sucker bait to force us into the MS store.

 

"All sheep proceed inmediately into the walled gardens. It's for your own good and protection. Resistance is futile - you will be assimilated".

 

IMG_3039.JPG

 

 

 

 

 

--JorgeA

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JorgeA

JorgeA

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Steve B. gets another chance to wreck a prominent business:

 

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wins Clippers bidding war for $2 billion

 

Former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has won a frenetic bidding war for ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, with a $2-billion offer that would set a record price for an NBA team.

 

Ballmer bid higher than competitors that included Los Angeles-based investors Tony Ressler and Bruce Karsh and a group that included David Geffen and executives from the Guggenheim Group, the Chicago-based owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

 

So will Ballmer start throwing chairs in the clubhouse if the Clippers go on a losing streak?   :angel  Or will he lead the players in a team spirit-building chant --

 

 

"Defenders, defenders, defenders, defenders, defenders"? :lol:

 

Or maybe he'll make them wear vomit-green uniforms with a flat tile design...

 

--JorgeA

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TELVM

TELVM

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Windows 8.1 Finally Passes Windows 8 in Market Share

 

"... It might be hard to get hold of Windows 7 these days, but that hasn’t stopped the OS packing on growth. It went from 49.27 percent in April to 50.06 percent in May -- finally breaking through the 50 percent barrier -- for an increase of 0.79 percent, nearly double that of Windows 8.x. ..."

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Flasche

Flasche

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That's hardly what I would consider a news story. How long after SP1 did Windows 7 SP1 outrank Windows 7 RTM?

 

I would agree with you, but Windows 8.1 was like its own OS. So to me I find it hilarious to see it finally surpass windows 8.

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