Mastodawn

Today #EPFL made me a great present: making me understand that they don't give a SHIT about digital autonomy! So now:

- I uninstalled all MS software from my computer and smartphone:
- no mail on my phone anymore, as EPFL decided to block non-MS apps
- calendar barely working on my phone because of MS embrace, extend, extinguish
- I'll request to opt-out from WorkSpace One - why should I send all my data to the USA?

#DigitalAutonomy

Linus Gasser May 19

Now I need to update cryptpad, install a nextcloud instance, and tell Claude to go wild to create a web-service connecting to OUTLOOK.COM to fetch my emails.

It's not that I have nothing else to do, but running after shitty MS products (I just spent 1h fixing Word footers) is definitely not my idea of Digital Trust!

Linus Gasser May 19

If you're an EPFL student and am looking for a student assistant job to manage autonomous digital services, please DM me.

@ligasser Thunderbird already went wild to connect to OUTLOOK.COM.

Afaik the outlook api is undocumented and it requires reverse engineering.

Linus Gasser May 20

@janikvonrotz classic embrace, extend, extinguish protocol. Implemented at MS since the late 70's!

Nicolas Aspert May 20

@ligasser @janikvonrotz Microsoft's behavior is well known. What I find infuriating is that EPFL rushes into vendor lock-in instead of staying clear from it. Experience taught us that this cannot end well...

Linus Gasser May 20

@aspert @janikvonrotz Well, the money is clear: paying 300k per year for all of MS' services at EPFL is unbeatable. How can you compete with that?

When EPFL searched for a new login provider, MS threw in Entra "for free". So of course other companies offers have not been retained.

Nicolas Aspert May 20

@ligasser @janikvonrotz Entra is the less problematic of the lot IMO, you can use it from basically any client since it complies with oidc/oauth. The moronic "email client restriction for your safety" breaks a lot more things

@aspert @ligasser Have you been trough the hoops of registering an OAuth-App in Entra? It has become everything else than less problematic. Of course, the process has been carefully designed to make it as difficult as possible to integrate thirdparties.

Nicolas Aspert May 20

@janikvonrotz @ligasser The EPFL portal for registering the app and getting the tokens is pretty simple to use TBH, so maybe I did not get the full Entra experience :)

Linus Gasser May 20

@janikvonrotz @aspert my colleague did it for the e-voting at EPFL. Seems it worked well. Took some time, as we don't have the sysadmin credentials...

@ligasser @aspert
I hope that the admin of EPFL understands that the question of soverignity has nothing to do with book keeping.

By some ironic twist of fate I am reminded of the Mastercard priceless advert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priceless_(advertising_campaign)

Priceless (advertising campaign) - Wikipedia

Linus Gasser May 20

@janikvonrotz @aspert Well, if your budget gets cut by 10%, going from x millions to 300k a year is a good deal! I can understand that...

Dominique Quatravaux May 20

@ligasser @aspert @janikvonrotz well, I feel that arguing that price is too much of a factor in our purchase decisions, could get some traction with upper management; it being an issue that is certainly not specific to IT procurement.

Linus Gasser May 21

@quatrava @aspert @janikvonrotz I completely agree! However, if the signal from the Swiss government is: "we're cutting your budget", the argument: "digital self-determination is worth more than 3 million CHF" gets under a lot of pressure :)

So I think we need to get more pressure from above, so that this argument becomes more than a "yes" in some conference room.

Btw: what is your favorite term for "digital sovereignty"?

@ligasser @quatrava @aspert And what about paying a lot of money to a foreign company in an irish tax haven? If only we would talk about taxes!
---
I do not have a fitting term. However, sovereignty requires a certain degree of competence. And in that respect, it is the opposite of outsourcing. I'd go as far as "a stance against digital globalization".

Linus Gasser May 22

@janikvonrotz @quatrava @aspert interesting, yes we should look at globalization. It brought us quite a lot of stuff, but the cost is very high for our dear planet.

docta_gervais May 20

@ligasser Bluemind claims they're reverse-engineered the Outlook protocol https://www.bluemind.net/ Maybe there's something useful in there

BlueMind : messagerie collaborative souveraine Open Source

BlueMind, la solution française souveraine et Open Source pour votre messagerie collaborative professionnelle. Nous Avons Le Choix !

BlueMind

Linus Gasser May 20

@docta_gervais Oh, they need you to sign up to get the download link...

Marcel Waldvogel May 19

@ligasser
Thunderbird worked last year, from what I heard back then, as the only non-MS mail app. So did they disable that as well now? Ouch!

(I think I recall that K-9 was refused from connecting, but the virtually identical Thunderbird for Android had no problems. Which I found weird even then.)

Linus Gasser May 20

@marcel Thunderbird still works - sorry for the confusion. All but 4 email clients have been blocked. First for "security reasons", then @cdengler pointed out last year that in the MS documents the whitelisting "should not be used for security reasons", now it is for "don't overload our support".

Nicolas Borboën May 19

@ligasser the Gmail app on Android is somehow still working a few times a day ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Linus Gasser May 20

@nborboen and I should stop reading emails on my phone anyway. So that's a good point :)

Nicolas Borboën May 20

@ligasser me too, it's nice to be forced to.

Nicolas Aspert May 20

@nborboen @ligasser it seems like a fix is underway https://www.google.com/appsstatus/dashboard/incidents/kWSuRqLdsXGzT7Qxjdmz

Google Workspace Status Dashboard

@ligasser That is sad to hear. My brother works for HSLU. Same situation. He just installed Fedora on his issued laptop 🤣

EPFL is supposed to be the place where digital soveregnity happens, but their IT services are to deep in the trenches of MS bullshit.

Linus Gasser May 20

@janikvonrotz One of my main gripes is that we're working for more than a year to remove the blocking of additional email clients. Everybody is "yes, very important" in the meetings. But when it comes to click the button to add the exceptions, it's "oh, no, we can't do that".

Nicolas Aspert May 20

@ligasser I recently switched to Thunderbird on my Android phone to access EPFL mail (since gmail fails and prompts you very frequently for credentials). Works just fine (for now....)

Linus Gasser May 20

@aspert OK, I'll try that - thanks