Microsoft To Ban ‘Offensive Language’ & Monitor Your Private Account

[Flemur]

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/03/27/micr ... e-account/

I'm not worried because I never cuss or say or write anything that's controversial.


Oh wait, I'm not worried because I don't any Microsoft stuff.

[Mattyboy]

My reply to this is full of offensive language far to sensitive for the polite members of this forum.

There's going to be a lot of unhappy 12 year old gamer's out there.

People are going to spam M$ 'services' with 'offensive' language now for fun.... ban your user base M$, clever.

[xenopeek]

I get that such policies are put in place for strangers communicating online in an public space. I don't get that such policies are used for private communication like with Skype. But then again, Skype was never private to begin with so I don't get the fuss. Some alternatives: https://prism-break.org/en/all/#video-voice

[Pierre]

YEP - saw that one - - just wait for the Privacy Advocates to step in . . . . .

[KBD47]

How do they monitor all this? Do they have people sitting in a dark room watching people's videos and listening to their chat?

[BigEasy]

There should be a lot of interesting videos. Anybody knows how to get job in MS?

[Portreve]

I dunno... I think it worked particularly well with the late Stephen Hawking looking for a replacement voice video...

YouTube: Stephen Hawking's New Voice

[sdibaja]

How do they monitor all this? Do they have people sitting in a dark room watching people's videos and listening to their chat?

the collected data is copied to NSA to be held for any conceivable future prosecution
or resold to Facebook (that's redundant, sorry)

inalienable rights?

[all41]

I wonder what Linus Tovalds would have to say

[DAMIEN1307]

i dont know the exact words linus would use but i guarantee that they probably are not printable in a family friendly forum...lol...DAMIEN

[idle]

Look forward ...what bothers me about these types of controls is today its 'offensive language' but what about tomorrow? People can agree today and think nothing of it, but once its established, it opens a way for more controls.

China seems to be the world leader when it comes to these types of controls. http://www.scmp.com/tech/china-tech/art ... ished-text 'China's new surveillance technique for stopping jaywalkers' uses cameras, AI, facial recognition and your mobile device to issue fines. But even more terrifying is their 'social-credit system' which will introduce public controls beyond Orwell's 1984 scenario.

China are currently piloting a "social-credit system" that will assign a "personal citizen score" to every single person based on behavior. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chin ... ce=twitter



Tie all this together with the massive data collection on every citizen worldwide via MicroSoft, Google, FaceBook and so on, and it doesn't take much imagination to see where this is all heading ...

[Arch_Enemy]

Think of all the XBox games that are going to be scrapped now...

[absque fenestris]

Under the rule of Microsoft Messrs. Goethe and Mozart will get difficulties...

How does it look, actually, with Mr. Shakespeare?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Götz_von_ ... n_(Goethe)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difficile_lectu

[hotdog789]

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/03/27/micr ... e-account/

I'm not worried because I never cuss or say or write anything that's controversial.


Oh wait, I'm not worried because I don't any Microsoft stuff.

I have a free Microsoft Office 365 account from being enrolled in college, and just got a new "Updates to our terms of use" email. It starts out with "Your privacy is important to us." and then drones on for 1,318 words about everything they track and monitor. Some tidbits:

We collect data about your interests and favorites, such as the teams you follow in a sports app, the programming languages you prefer, the stocks you track in a finance app, or the favorite cities you add to a weather app. In addition to those you explicitly provide, your interests and favorites may also be inferred or derived from other data we collect.

We collect data about the features you use, the items you purchase, and the web pages you visit. This data includes your voice and text search queries or commands to Bing, Cortana, and our chat bots

We collect content of your files and communications when necessary


We collect data about your contacts and relationships if you use a Microsoft product to manage contacts, for example Outlook.com.

-- Yes, I can see that privacy is indeed important to them. Its important to their ad revenue stream that you have none whatsoever, and now it's even more important that you have no privacy so that they can uncover whatever they choose to deem as "offensive" behaviour. If you actually use Microsoft, there's no way to hide. Yuck!!!

[mike acker]

Suggested Reading:

Bruce Schneier comments of commercial surveilance aka "Data Mining"

Excerpt

There are 2,500 to 4,000 data brokers in the United States whose business is buying and selling our personal data. Last year, Equifax was in the news when hackers stole personal information on 150 million people, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and driver's license numbers.

This might change soon. In 2016, the European Union passed the comprehensive General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR. The details of the law are far too complex to explain here, but some of the things it mandates are that personal data of EU citizens can only be collected and saved for "specific, explicit, and legitimate purposes," and only with explicit consent of the user. Consent can't be buried in the terms and conditions, nor can it be assumed unless the user opts in. This law will take effect in May, and companies worldwide are bracing for its enforcement.

perhaps it's time for me to re-publish my essay "Secure Computing in a Compromised Environment". I'll have to hunt it down and review it.

[KBD47]

That China thing reminds me of a Black Mirror episode where you have to rate a certain 'personality credit score' to be able to rent nicer apartments, etc.
Back to MS: I wonder how long before Windows forces users to use Edge Browsers and will not open docs with anything but Office. They seem to be increasingly aggressive across the board in spying and forcing users into a box with their OS.

[Portreve]

When I was in college (I still need to complete my AA) I mostly used LibreOffice.

Hopefully *when* I go back (not *if*) my plan will be to continue running a strictly GNU+Linux environment and use LO. I get the fact I'll have to save files as Misfit Word or Misfit Excel, but I can deal with that.

If they think, however, I'm going to run Windows or Mac OS X, they've got another thing coming.

[KBD47]

For excellent file compatibility with MS files I've found Softmaker Office to be better than LibreOffice. Softmaker has a free version, but the paid version works with docx, xlxs, etc.

[Arch_Enemy]

When I was in college (I still need to complete my AA) I mostly used LibreOffice.

Hopefully *when* I go back (not *if*) my plan will be to continue running a strictly GNU+Linux environment and use LO. I get the fact I'll have to save files as Misfit Word or Misfit Excel, but I can deal with that.

If they think, however, I'm going to run Windows or Mac OS X, they've got another thing coming.

Don't bother. I used to go back every 10 years, more or less, to stay current.

They no longer teach you HOW to think...