Will Microsoft bend the knee?

President Donald Trump on Friday demanded that Microsoft fire [head of Global Affairs] Lisa Monaco, an executive who served as deputy attorney general during the Biden administration [and Homeland Security Advisor under Obama].

The request appeared on Trump’s Truth Social account, which has 10 million followers. It comes one day after former FBI Director James Comey was indicted, days after Trump pushed to prosecute him.

“She is a menace to U.S. National Security, especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government,” Trump wrote in the post. “Because of Monaco’s many wrongful acts, the U.S. Government recently stripped her of all Security Clearances, took away all of her access to National Security Intelligence, and banned her from all Federal Properties.”

[...]

On Thursday, Microsoft said it would cut off cloud-based storage and artificial intelligence subscriptions to a unit of the Israeli military, after investigating a claim that the division had built a system to track Palestinians’ phone calls.

[...]

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella attended a dinner alongside other technology executives at the White House earlier this month. Read more CNBC tech news
  CNBC

Lisa Monaco had helped coordinate the Justice Department's response to the January 6, 2021, attacks on the US Capitol by Trump supporters.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump called Monaco “Corrupt and Totally Trump Deranged”.

[...]

“Monaco's having that kind of access is unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to stand,” he said.

[...]

He further said that she was a ‘menace’ to US National Security especially given the major contracts that Microsoft has with the United States Government.

  Mint

By the way, Microsoft is one of the companies that donated $1million to Trump's inauguration. 

Poking the bear

 

Techbro crybabies

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Microsft users: How to disable Copilot

Meanwhile in internet news

Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet, says the company will “engineer” specific algorithms for RT and Sputnik to make their articles less prominent on the search engine’s news delivery services.

“We are working on detecting and de-ranking those kinds of site."

  RT

What are "those kinds of sites"? Something that propagandizes news? Something like Fox News?

"[I]t’s basically RT and Sputnik,” Schmidt said.

Oh, I see. Russian-affiliated sites.

“We are well of aware of it, and we are trying to engineer the systems to prevent that [the content being delivered to wide audiences]. But we don’t want to ban the sites – that’s not how we operate.”

We just virtually ban sites.

Another reason net neutrality is so important, yet on its way out.

“Good to have Google on record as defying all logic and reason: facts aren’t allowed if they come from RT, ‘because Russia’ – even if we have Google on Congressional record saying they've found no manipulation of their platform or policy violations by RT,” Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan said in a statement.

Indeed.

During the discussion, Schmidt claimed that he was “very strongly not in favor of censorship,” but said that he has faith in “ranking” without acknowledging if the system might serve the same function. Schmidt, who joined Google in 2001, said that the company’s algorithm was capable of detecting “repetitive, exploitative, false, and weaponized” info, but did not elaborate on how these qualities were determined.

Let me guess: Russia.

The Alphabet chief, who has been referred to by Hillary Clinton as a “longtime friend,” added that the experience of “the last year” showed that audiences could not be trusted to distinguish fake and real news for themselves.

[...]

RT America registered under FARA [as a foreign agent] earlier this month, after being threatened by the US Department of Justice with arrests and confiscations of property if it failed to comply. The broadcaster is fighting the order in court.

Big Brother is alive and well.

Amazon announced it has launched a “Secret Region” on its cloud computing service for use by US intelligence and other government agencies. The provider is now able to store government information classified as “Top Secret.”

[...]

“The U.S. Intelligence Community can now execute their missions with a common set of tools, a constant flow of the latest technology and the flexibility to rapidly scale with the mission. The AWS Top Secret Region was launched three years ago as the first air-gapped commercial cloud and customers across the U.S. Intelligence Community have made it a resounding success. Ultimately, this capability allows more agency collaboration, helps get critical information to decision makers faster, and enables an increase in our Nation’s Security.”

  RT

So, is Amazon a government agency now? This strikes me as quite the coup.

It is separate from the existing $600 million contract signed with the Central Intelligence Agency in 2013 that provided cloud services to all 17 intelligence agencies. The new Secret Region agreement makes the technology available to all government agencies with sufficient clearance.

And a one-stop shopping center for anyone with a key.

This comes after it was revealed that the US Defense Department left a massive data collection on an Amazon cloud server, which could have been accessed by anyone with a free account. The data included billions of social media posts from Facebook, Twitter and news sites.

Nice.

But not to be outdone, Microsoft has its own version.

The computing giant Microsoft made a similar announcement in October when it said its government cloud program, called “Azure Government Secret” would support US government agencies working with data classified as “secret.”

RT

How will they compete? What will each offer to the government to get its contract?

While it is unknown what new security measures the AWS Secret Region will include, hackers have previously utilized what is known as “east-west” traffic to move around the servers in the cloud network while avoiding detection for long periods of time.

[...]

This means one breach could potentially put all of the data and applications being stored on the AWS Secret Region at risk of being stolen, manipulated, or held for ransom.

Nice.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Gotta Love Microsoft

Microsoft has a web page where you can opt out of being shown "websites and apps [that] are tailored to your previous activities, searches and site visits."  https://choice.microsoft.com/en-us/opt-out

Only problem is, it doesn't work on Microsoft PC browsers Internet Explorer and Edge for more than one session.  At least in my experience, any time I close and then reopen the browser, it automatically defaults back to offering "personalized ads".

It stays off in Chrome and Firefox.  I take that back.  It doesn't stay in Firefox, either.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What Century Is This?

[ Microsoft’s CEO] Satya Nadella, was speaking at a gathering of women technologists in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday, when he was asked for an advice on what he believed was the right way for women to ask for a pay raise.

"It's not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along," Nadella said.

"Because that's good karma," he said. "It'll come back because somebody's going to know that's the kind of person that I want to trust."

  RT

One person who probably doesn’t need to ask for a pay raise is Nadella himself. His salary as Microsoft CEO is $1.2 million a year, the website IT Pro reported in February. He will also be eligible for a cash bonus of $3.6 million, the website reported, citing Microsoft’s statutory 8K filing.

There was so much backlash that Nadella was forced to apologize and say he was wrong (even though he surely didn’t mean it)…

“I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work,” Nadella said in the email. “And when it comes to career advice on getting a raise when you think it’s deserved [...] . If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.”

So, now, ladies, you have permission.

Is Your Email Encrypted Between Servers?

Google began encrypting email by default in 2010.

[...]

Tuesday, it highlighted for users that encryption only protects messages if both parties use it. And it called out other email providers – including Comcast and France’s Orange – for not using encryption.

[...]

Fewer than half of the messages sent to and from Micrososoft’s Hotmail servers were encrypted.

[...]

Christopher Soghoian, a technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union, says Google’s step Tuesday could help drag other tech companies forward.

“Google’s naming. We can shame,” Soghoian said. “And we will.”

  WSJ

Minimal Intrusion

Facebook announced late Friday that it received between 9,000 and 10,000 requests from all levels of government in the U.S., from local law enforcement to classified national security requests, in the second half of 2012 alone. Microsoft said Friday that it received between 6,000 and 7,000 requests from all levels of government in that same time period, while Apple disclosed in a statement late Sunday that it received between 4,000 and 5,000 requests from U.S. law enforcement from December 2012 through May 2013.

  TPM

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.