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Microsoft Office 365: Banned in German schools over privacy fears
- hyperman1 7y agoI always wonder if it is legal for doktors to use microsoft software: In my country, the medical secret is absolute, which means giving or taking medical data to anybody not strictly needing it is a crime. So if a medical program crashes and telemetry picks up medical data in a dump, the doktor commits a crime, as does any microsoft employee reading that dump. I guess the only reason the court doesn't do anything, is thete is no smoking gun. So one day, someone will notice and then it all comes crashing down.
- mcny 7y agoI don't know. I've long argued possession of data should never be a crime, even if the data contains evidence of crimes including crimes committed on human children. To say a Microsoft employee who sees medical data is committing a crime would probably make me a hypocrite. I think there should be some accountability but that should be at the top of an organization, not (just) the foot soldiers.
- jplayer01 7y agoI'd say one of the problems is that often, the heads of an organization are almost never held to account. This is particularly the case when it comes to American companies, as we've seen in the case of Zuckerberg. Maybe if the front line felt the pain in some way, there'd be more pressure to change the internal culture. I don't see any easy solutions here, unfortunately, while companies make insane amounts of money off of violating our privacy and our right to control our own data.
- zelphirkalt 7y agoI really hope that it will one day all break down as you describe, because without any big event people will not wake up or get educated about this stuff. There need to be some examples made by the arm of the law. In the verdict it should say, that some people traded medical secrets for their own comfort. Not the people who use the system unknowingly, but the people, who carelessly put it in place, should be prosecuted.
- corin_ 7y ago> as does any microsoft employee reading that dump. Is it illegal to accidentally receive medical data, if there's no evidence that Microsoft (or whomever) hasn't asked for it or specifically marketed themselves as being compliant with medical data laws (not that I know whether or not they have made that claim in various jurisdictions)?
- nesky 7y agoI'd be interested to know what they're proposing as an alternative? LibreOffice?
- thecount122195 7y agoPersonally I use LaTeX rather than word, theres a bit of a learning curve though so it might not be suitable for lower levels but for high schoolers+ I totally see being able to use it. Everything word does it does better and most of Academia uses it already.
- zelphirkalt 7y agoIt would definitely be a good preparation for academic life after school. Personally I wish I had learned it at school time. How much better and nicer could my notes have been, knowing how to make a really well document, in contrast to loose sheets of paper flying around and being discarded after the school year. Granted, some people are good at taking clean notes and bringing them into order. At school time I was not. A good computer workflow would probably have sparked my attention to detail even with school notes.
- thecount122195 7y agoI find its excellent for article writing, but note writing not so much the semi coding style doesen't lend itself well to free form writing at least for me. I'm in engineering grad school and writing equations from board to free hand notes is much easier for me than writing to a program. Though I have some friends who prefer using computers and some of the note taking programs you can use with a stylus and tablet are excellent.
- zelphirkalt 7y agoA professor (taught mathematics) of mine once said, that "it needs to go through the hand at least once" and I used to think of that being an annoying attitude, but now I am more or less sure he was right. Taking notes by hand is probably often a good idea. But you can still afterwards make them very clean in a document, also thinking about them again while doing that, so there is also a bit of additional learning in that activity.
- zelphirkalt 7y agoWho remembers RMS saying that anything non-free is inappropriate at schools? Here we see part of the reason why. Very good decision by those schools. Hopefully more will follow and other institutions as well.
- seieste 7y agoRemember when Munich ditched Windows? It only lasted a few years before Microsoft successfully won them back by offering steep discounts and moving their headquarters to Munich. One has to wonder whether history will repeat itself. https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-failure/ https://itsfoss.com/munich-linux-failure/
- jplayer01 7y agoFunny, meanwhile in my state the schools are moving to Microsoft. Unfortunately, skepticism of Microsoft and other American companies isn't as widespread as it should be here in Germany.
- jsiepkes 7y agoCompared to your next door neighbour (the Netherlands) privacy awareness is a big thing in Germany. Or at least that is the perception I get...
- jplayer01 7y agoIt's tough. Our laws are stricter than many other countries. But the vast majority of people I know or have interacted with just don't think it's a big deal. The whole "I have nothing to hide" perspective. Maybe it's an age thing. I don't know. I'll point out some creepy privacy violation and I usually get a "So?"