Tony Niesz
Molly Whiteback in my day we called this spyware
"have you ever wanted to install a keylogger to spy on your spouse or kid? well have we got news for you"
sͧb̴ͫƸ̴gͬᵉ@molly0xfff I can also hear workers unions and GDPR lawyers *screeching* over this one.
On the upside, it would be cool to get to do a full enterprisewide Windows-to-Linux migration for an org before I retire.
marco_m_aus_f@subm3rge @molly0xfff Chances for a full Windows-to-Linux migration are good, at least in Germany.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community has been working on openDesk for quite a while. Federal offices run Windows in a VM on secured Linux hosts and mostly anything important is a webapp running on Linux anyway. LibreOffice is the default in Schleswig-Holstein now(~30k desktops).
See a lengthy list of Linuxy things at https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-Source-Software_in_%C3%B6ffentlichen_Einrichtungen#Deutschland
This will not end well for M$
Luna chan@subm3rge @molly0xfff Linux as desktop has gotten good enough and Wine runs a lot of Windows programs now
Nico Jensen 
@nyansen @subm3rge @molly0xfff
There are a few solutions.
But lets be honest Windows is dead for anything remotely secure if this spyware can't be easily removed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfx8MXkExLk
Kiudecan@subm3rge
The entity I work in makes such a transition, on a voluntary basis from the users. Ho boy, M$ is making recruiting volunteers for migration easy !
@molly0xfff
The entity I work in makes such a transition, on a voluntary basis from the users. Ho boy, M$ is making recruiting volunteers for migration easy !
@molly0xfff
Patrick Zauner 
@subm3rge @molly0xfff No. The data remains on device, so why should this be an issue regarding the GDPR?
Chris Ferdinandi@molly0xfff HOLY FUCKING SHIT
royal@molly0xfff
"parent"
"parent"
Alexander Bochmann@molly0xfff "That's how we are monitoring our employee PCs anyway, and now you can do it to yourself."
manchicken moved!
Kris Sargent, MD@molly0xfff "Finally got root access to your target, but don't want to bother doing your own logging or checking multiple applications for valuable data? How about one easy database that has everything available in plain text?"
cameronbosch 
@molly0xfff Or most anti-cheats for games.
Tom EastmanGenuine question: who is *asking* for these features? Is there any consumer/user of windows who's been requesting this?
@tveastman i'm going to go with "microsoft execs desperately trying to justify all the money they're shoveling into the AI fire"
That's truly all I've got too... I'm looking for some kind of counterfactual but it really seems that cynical so far.
Lyall@tveastman @molly0xfff As I understand it, there is a belief at the business strategy level (VC/shareholders/Cxx) that authentic user activity is the new commons which needs to be enclosed.
The old Internet, pre-generative AI, is gone and when a meaningful use for LLMs coalesces whoever controls the source of new training data will win at capitalism.
Claiming that data scraping is a feature which serves users is just a way to manufacture consent.
Glad to hear any less cynical explanations.
M. Shaw@tveastman @molly0xfff yes, their highest-paying customers (namely the police and the military) are absolutely wild about it.
Cat-a-clysm @molly0xfff Smh old boomer who can’t get on with modern tech
(for obvious reasons this is a joke)
gh0sti 
@molly0xfff free update though…
Joe Uchill@molly0xfff Like, on thursday I called that spyware.
2xfoI think spyware has been rebranded
Brassica-boy now in #F9CBD3@molly0xfff
The audacity to call it a feature...
The audacity to call it a feature...
m0xEE
alarmed feet operative: kimothy siddon@molly0xfff i guarantee this will, if not immediately, end up used in an attempt to solve model data scarcity issues
lobingera@molly0xfff i think i also call this spyware.
Today.
Andrés Ortiz Massó 🐌🌍@molly0xfff Microsoft™ Bonzy Buddy
Lance Bachmeier@molly0xfff I left Windows 20 years ago because of a keylogger. Now they're telling us it's actually a feature.
Gay Antifa Leftist@molly0xfff wouldn't that be horrible for memory usage and performance? Why are they doing that? They're destroying their OS!
Willow "Wolveric" Catkin@molly0xfff The ultimate keylogger... :)
Chu 朱In addition to being spyware, the software bloat is just unbelievable.
All I want is a machine that can do word processing. The occasional spreadsheet, and access to the interwebs. There's so much garbage running in the background now I need a machine more powerful than what we used to use to run helicopter simulators to literally do training. And this computer moved a 6 degree of freedom helicopter on hydraulics.
The bloat is absolutely ridiculous.
There's a spacecraft literally in outer space that is a fraction of the capacity of my laptop and my laptop takes 10 minutes to boot.
Dr. Heather EtcheversYou seem like a good candidate to move to Ubuntu. Familiar interface, easy to use from the get-go, and lots of free software shared by passionate creators. Also LibreOffice and Firefox/Thunderbird, and you're pretty much set. Try it out!
The Spoonless Kitchen@chu I 100% agree with @Etche_homo; this is the way!
I probably should look into it. My current machine has specialty software used for some research that I can't ditch yet. Will look into this for the next.
Thanks!
@chu @thespoonless Same issue. But try refurbishing an older machine (this was my entry point) - you could be in for a pleasant surprise.
Kent PitmanAnd your laptop probably operates a million times faster than that spacecraft and still can't win that race.
But not just software bloat. Data bloat. I remember in the early days of audio and video editing thinking someone at Microsoft probably made a co-marketing deal with hardware disk vendors that they would give away such recorders for free just so that people would suddenly burn through tons of disk and need more hardware. Dunno if that was true, but it's easy to understand how it could be.
BeeCycling has moved@chu @molly0xfff This is why I finally got tired of Windows a couple of years ago and switched to a Chromebook. (I know, Google is evil too, but at least they're not trying this BS. Well. not yet.) Never looked back. Like you I mainly do word processing, a bit of spreadsheet use and internet access. Chromebook easily does all of that.
The problem with chromebook is that all of your work is on the cloud so that locks you into their storage and subjects you to them owning all your data/writing to train their stupid LLMs. Cloud storage is a brutal energy hog.
If web access is down, you can't really do much either.
The problem with big companies is that it inherently takes a lot of evil to become big and then we have no choices.
lupus_blackfurThat headline is a near perfect summation of what M$ (and other big tech) has become...
Customer data is everything and the sale of same is what sustains companies and the interwebs...
🤡🫏🤡🫏
Wyatt (🏳️⚧️♀?)@molly0xfff you will live to see manmade horrors beyond your comprehension
TanatoesStep 5: Throw your Windows computer in the sink, add salt and hot water, marinate for one week.
Step 6: Go live in a faraday cage in the woods with no electricity - there is no hope for humanity any longer.
HollieK@Tanatoes @molly0xfff Obviously Windows recall is on by default, so it will have taken snapshots as you set up your new computer ...
David Somers@molly0xfff No longer spyware but a “feature”. Whilst I am sure that some AI might be useful, it doesn’t have to be baked into every new thing… it reminds me of all the ‘coin hype
@omz13 @molly0xfff So you don't want an AI-enabled toaster or kettle? Me neither.
Sturmflut@molly0xfff I don't really see how this new development makes anything worse compared to Telemetry and the built-in ads. We all knew Windows is recording stuff and sends it to someone else. At some point even Microsoft itself couldn't figure out what data is sent to what endpoint in what country.
zephi@Sturmflut at least microsoft's actually letting you view all the data it's collected on you, good luck about deleting it tho, they probably already sold it on to 428795247865702 ad companies /hj
@zephi We have no way of knowing for sure what they actually collect. They themselves can't fully explain it to regulators anymore.
ryebread8403@molly0xfff how long before prompt engineering tutorials for domestic abusers?
Natsura 
Janus (Mike Curtis)@molly0xfff It still is spyware. Companies used to make a profit selling software to remove spyware, now they make twice as much profit by selling you spyware and software to remove other people's spyware. More profit, as we all know, is always a good thing.
Takiro 🎨@molly0xfff
Who has thought that it's Microsoft making The Year of the Linux Desktop finally happen?
Who has thought that it's Microsoft making The Year of the Linux Desktop finally happen?
Minski@molly0xfff I literally protested against that shit on the street a decade ago and now it's a feature... 😒
Scott Jenson@molly0xfff No question this could be a violation of privacy. But that violation occurs only if the data is removed from the device. There are amazing potential scenarios with this data, with the very important caveat that it doesn't escape the machine. However I completely understand that people won't trust that this caveat holds. It's just unfortunate that we can't have a discussion of how much potential is indeed possible.
But knee jerk reactions will never allow this discussion to happen.
Entitas@scottjenson @molly0xfff Thank god there's no way for data on my machine to leave my machine without me knowing about it. There are no means people can access my machine without my consent. This service is completely safe and absolutely nothing can go wrong with an unfiltered log of my passwords and financial data being stored on my machine. Think of the potential.
@TheEntity @molly0xfff 😀 I wanted to make that point as well but felt it wouldn't fit
@TheEntity @scottjenson @molly0xfff
The protection is that it's bad with numbers. So people will ask it what your finances are, but it will confabulate different numbers.
OK, I'm just kidding, and it's pretty darned dark humor, but it raises another key issue: We sometimes analyze the risk today by saying "well, there's no way to make use of that now" but then someone makes an unrelated change that means there is a way, and then we don't go back and re-review the things we've let through.
So if we did stupidly rely on how bad these LLMs are with numbers and decide it was OK to see our financials, and then someone fixed its math, we'd have a danger we'd already let through. And it might not be obvious that the thing creating the danger was "We fixed math."