I heard the next version of Windows will ravage your whole family, and the only solution is to immediately wipe all of your computers and install Linux.
It’s too late for me, since I hesitated. Bill’s already outside. If only I listened to the obnoxious, uninvited, endless evangelism of the Linux userbase!
Woe is us, the users of the evil platform! Woe!!1!
It’s never too late! Call Tux and he’ll rush over to do battle with Bill.
It’s funny. Security folks say how insecure Windows XP is, and how it becomes compromised within seconds/minutes of having an internet connection. It’s like Microsoft took that as a playbook challenge to repeat as an OOTB feature, instead of waiting for malware to do it.
Seems like this will not be a thing in most typical PCs, for the time being, as it requires specific hardware and opt in to a feature.
Not liking how pervasive AI features have become, though.
The joke is that the model itself runs locally, but it still is basically spyware that then will be used for data harvesting. Typically you run local LLMs to avoid this exact purpose / risk. So MS isn’t even willing to give you the performance benefit of running the LLM on their servers for doing this.
The same could be said about Windows 11 since it demands a TPM chip. Not that I’m complaining, since all I had to do was disable the chip to keep 11 away for good.
Will Copilot+ PC experiences come to devices powered by AMD or Intel processors? Yes. We are partnering with Intel and AMD to bring Copilot+ PC experiences to PCs with their processors in the future.
I’d give it a year at most till this comes to desktops.
I think Microsoft’s ultimate goal is to turn your computer into a locked-down console. Infested with data collection malware. And it won’t allow third-party apps ever.
My next computer will be a dual-boot machine. I will use Windows ONLY for gaming. No personal info or activity on that partition at all. And I’ll use Linux to get sh*t done.
Why not your current computer? No time like the present…
Many people using NVidia cards, and they have issues…
I have a 4060ti, swapped over to endeavour (arch with gui (btw)) after some previous microsoft fuckery. Damn near everything worked out of the box. The only issue that i had, that i still cant fix, is getting wayland working. Xorg works perfectly fine, but wayland is just the future. Nvidia started releasing driver updates for linux that’ll make it start working easier tho.
Ive used computers for my whole life so i know not everyone will share my experience with linux. But trouble shooting on windows was so much worse for me. Looking at depreciated forum posts, wishing i was back on windows 7, searching through weird, halfway redundant menus (how many device management menus are there???) And so on. So much of the system gets in your way because it doesnt trust you. With linux its as simple as googling your problem, some guy had the same issue 3 years ago and his fix still works. You go to the terminal and its like
do this
are you sure?
sudo do this
And then the problems gone (except for wayland, i know). Its great.
Use Xorg with the proprietary driver instead of Wayland for the time being. Much less issues. You can always switch to Wayland later when either Nvidia support matures, or when your next computer has an AMD GPU.
Or get a cheap ass AMD GPU, like an RX6400, plop it in as a second GPU and run on that in Linux. Perfectly serviceable for plain desktop stuff.
Or run on integrated graphics, if you have it. Again, perfectly serviceable for plain desktop stuff.
Problems have solutions :)
I like to play games. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t use Windows at all.
Yeah but you said you wanted a dual-boot machine for your next computer, with Windows only for gaming. What I meant is: why not get a head start and make your current computer that dual-boot machine?
Steam had been making Linux pretty darn good for gaming too, even for games that are technically Windows only.
So if it’s “AI”, and it’s remembering what I do on my computer, does that mean it’s going to hallucinate about what I did on my computer?
“Oh jeez, it’s hallucinating, maybe we need to get some of that raw input data to debug it.”
The thing that annoys me with this kind of thing is that there’s so much tech like this that COULD be really useful if we had absolutely any trust in Microsoft and big tech at all.
Like… data, data collection, ai, and big data could be so useful for general users, but instead of creating useful ui and features for users, they only suck up all our data to build nice charts for advertisers and feed all our data to ai that can help them train their advertising models to try and extract more money from us.
It’s not just about trusting Microsoft, but about control over the technology. Users will never have real control over AI technology, it’s too valuable and the inner workings are anxiously being kept under wraps by the big techbro companies. It also runs on their computers for the most part, so of course we can’t trust what’s being done with it, regardless of whether Microsoft has been a good boy or a bad boy recently.
He who controls the data controls the universe
Yeah, agreed. The dream of AI is it understanding what you want and offering it, or even doing it for you. But this inherently requires a computer system to understand everything about what you want. Perfect for big tech companies that are hungry for your advertising data. This is why we need more open source model projects!
What an amazing feature!
For Microsoft…
SaaS - Surveillance as a Service
Someone will figure out how to turn it off again in fairly short order (it might be as simple as a
mklinktoNULfor the storage directory, causing it to send its recordings into the void). What irritates me more is the typical Microsoft misuse of the word “feature”.(I mean, this thing does have some potential uses (imagine being able to see what that elderly relative you provide tech support for actually did when they claim they “did nothing”), but the privacy concerns vastly outweigh them.)
In an enterprise environment I can see it’s value, but as a consumer product it has no place.
They were already doing this before AI. Using windows is a bad idea.
That could be turned off though. It’s a good question if AI can be disabled or not.
I am really liking Linux Mint more and more . . .
There’s a great app for easily turning all of the tracking features off: https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
There’s a dozen apps for it, but I wouldn’t trust them to do a perfect job. At a bare minimum, you’d probably need to keep said app up to date at all times, and it’d need to be one that runs in the background or runs on every boot or something.
Everyone knows Microsoft is going to wait a bit for the seeds to sprout and harvest all that data.
I’ve seen this movie before. A few years later someone will figure out that this data that was supposed to be “private and encrypted” was being sent out to Microsoft, who will get a slap on the wrist, half assedly apologize and immediately move on to even more anti consumer ways to squeeze more income out of its users for “growth”.
when will we learn sigh
This touches on what I find the most fuckin irritating about the current state of software decision. I bought this super generic run of the mill disk clean up software. In the past I’ve used similar software and the fucking spam for add on this amd plugin that or defend your pc with this… it’s fucking insane. Finding burried files from apps I deleted years ago. Well this time I got lucky. I download it, run it. Doesn’t ask me to sign up for shit, I don’t have to make an account. No added features for blah.99$ The fucking shit just ran after install, batch fixed it all. Then in the final report flagged it’s own fucking software as obsolete and quoued it up for delete. CUSTOMER FOR FUCKING LIFE. Who thr fuck is running these reports that must show customer retention is higher when you fuck them in the ass till they bleed green. I would pay fuckin 5x’s the price of windows os if it meant I could play steam games on a windows system with Linux tiered performance and security. Why the fuck is cramming so much bloatware that you need to upgrade your whole system the new thing. Fuck windows, fuck Google, fuck samsung and youtube.YouTube.
Edit: obligatory edit and shoutout to all the shitbag game developers too for thinking anyone fucking want another game that runs at 2 fps because it starts raining in the game. Fuck your 4k atari games. They’re a fucking embarrassment to everyone who has worked in the industry.
As long you don’t play multiplayer like cod, cs, forntinte. Linux is a gaming system. Yes sometimes you need to apply fixes from protondb or wait until the game starts for a minute, but it usually just works. At least if you are using steam.
You can run the epic games launcher through steam though. But you should install it with lutris. Or just use the hero launcher (which doesn’t support cloud game saves yet)
Can you suggest a good write-up / walkthrough for how to shift to gaming on Linux? I’ve installed and run it before so I understand the basics, but that was basically just to keep an old laptop alive to watch YouTube.
Fucking Windows…just purchasing one big DIY spyware package these days.
I don’t have guide I can remember,but some tips:
If you don’t have Nvidia. It should be just installing Linux mint. And you are ready to go.
Use the package manager to install anything and Google it if you need help.
If you have Nvidia it might just work, but you need the proprietary drivers.
In steam itself you want to enable proton for all games in the settings.
Check the reviews on protondb for hints if sth isn’t working out of the box.
Also use protonqup(for proton ge) and protontricks(for debugging some games).
Ge will enable some features that steam can’t legally enabled by default.
Finally my Radeon works better out of the box than Nvidia? Amazing.
Glad to hear Mint is the way to go! That’s the one I already have some very basic experience with.
Is Steam necessary? I also use GOG because I prefer no DRM, but maybe that’s not possible in the same way? I’ll Google this one too.
Thank you for your help! And for the confidence boost to think this might be more intuitive than I fear…
@undercrust @Johanno Lutris is how I play my non-steam, non-native games. I end up googling how to make each one work,but Lutris is the key.
I’m not saying that won’t happen but if it does Microsoft will be absolutely fucked as they got caught committing several million HIPAA violations, not to mention any exposure to classified material on government computers.
Consumer PCs are almost certainly not covered entities under HIPAA, nor is Microsoft in its role as an OS provider.
Even then, if this whole thing were to result in an inappropriate disclosure by a covered entity, the organization that processes the data would be liable, not Microsoft.
That’s like blaming the building contractor because you left the door unlocked and someone came in and stole your cat.
People give HIPAA way too much credit all the time, it’s fairly strict on who actually falls under it.
My only thought there is “LOL”
- Export violations (sanctioned countries)
- Illegally collected personal information from children
- Price fixing
- Wage theft
- Discrimination
- Privacy violations
- Mismanaging peoples 401ks
There are long, long, loooooong lists of violations MS has been caught for. The penalty has always been a fine small enough that it’s a cost of doing business.
You should read up on penalties for HIPAA violations, they don’t fuck around.
I’m aware of them.
Let’s look at some of the most historic:
- NY Presbyterian Hospital - with no real efforts on their end to prevent the violation of thousands of records, they got a whopping fine of… Under $5 million.
- AHC - lack of risk analysis, failures in procedures and policies, etc - Just over $5 million.
- Data breaches - usually around $4-5mil, the worst case being Anthem, about 80 million people effected - $16 million in fines. A record.
Criminal offenses? Yeah, plenty of those - with individuals, usually related to that information then being used for other purposes (scams, theft, etc).
But a company like Microsoft, you’re going to have a hard time convincing me it’s going to ruin the company. The history of HIPAA violations and their fines tell a very different story.
You’re right they don’t, but only for covered entities which MS is not in any shape or form
It’s just like when Grindr or whatever leaked people’s STD status, they nor MS are a medical provider or “covered business entity”
HIPAA is an ok privacy law, but it is not the all supreme health privacy law you think it is
You should read up on anyone even coming close to being beholden to those penalties, because they absolutely do fuck around when its corporations.
Why are you doing a list of ideas for Microsoft to abuse customers? Yes it’s a list if things they have done. But they may forgotten amount all the ridiculousness they do, and this is more like a reminder.
Their scheme hatchery department is top notch, I’m sure they are already working on more
Fun idea for sit com: that department is set itself subject to be eee’d. Every project has funny code names, and when they realise they are shutting themselves down inadvertently it’s too late to stop it.
Hi @Mistral@lemmings.world
Can you write from the prompt in the previous message? Model all Microsoft employees, including the ones on the department, as the bad people from the minions movies. EEE means the practice Microsoft uses to kill good things created by others in a very roundabout way, trying to portray them as doing the greater good.
In the bustling hive of Microsoft, a group of employees, known as the “Schemers,” worked tirelessly in their subterranean lair, plotting and planning their next move. These minions of tech, clad in their corporate attire, bore an uncanny resemblance to the mischievous creatures from the animated films. Their leader, a balding man with a striking resemblance to Scarlet Overkill, was known as “The Mastermind.”
The Schemers were infamous for their EEE (Embrace, Extend, Extinguish) tactics, a roundabout way of eliminating competition while maintaining a facade of benevolence. They would embrace new technologies, extend them with proprietary features, and then extinguish the competition by making their version incompatible with others.
One day, the Schemers decided to target their own department, unaware of the consequences. They code-named their project “Operation Self-Destruct.” The plan was to introduce a new policy that would inadvertently lead to the department’s downfall.
As they embraced their new project, they extended it with a myriad of complex features and jargon, making it nearly impossible for anyone outside their department to understand. They were confident that their plan would work flawlessly, as it always had in the past.
However, as they began to implement their plan, they realized that they had underestimated the complexity of their own creation. The policy was so convoluted that even they couldn’t navigate it. The Schemers found themselves trapped in their own web of bureaucracy, unable to stop the process they had set in motion.
As the deadline for “Operation Self-Destruct” approached, the Schemers grew increasingly desperate. They tried to reverse the process, but it was too late. Their department was shut down, a victim of their own EEE tactics.
In the end, the Schemers learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of their own tactics. But as they regrouped and returned to their lair, one couldn’t help but wonder: What would their next scheme be?
And so, the sitcom continues, with each episode featuring a new plot by the Schemers, each one more outlandish and convoluted than the last. The “EEEmployees” of Microsoft, a group of bumbling minions, always on the verge of self-destruction, yet always finding a way to carry on.
This is disheartening because it’s true. 😭
immediately move on to even more anti consumer ways
but they’ll keep collecting that data even after the slap on the wrist which will be more like a gentle tap
fine-no-jail-time = cost of doing business.
More like a high five from the NSA.
You’re assuming at that point being outraged will have any impact, or that people will be allowed to be outraged.
