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Sorry to break it to you folks but if you hated your data being with Google, you are in for a surprise on how atrociously bad Microsoft is at privacy and secur
by Bhilai 4y ago
Sorry to break it to you folks but if you hated your data being with Google, you are in for a surprise on how atrociously bad Microsoft is at privacy and security. Multiple close friends who have worked at Microsoft tell me that search history data - who is searching what, is basically sitting in systems with ACLs so bad that 20-30K employees have access through transitive membership of groups. To access a customer's data you just need to know token which is logged everywhere and is apparently very easy to generate. I have heard horror stories from them about privacy incidents which never went public.
From what I know about Google, they are serious about least privilege type of stuff internally and employees dont get arbitrary unbound access to systems or data.
- revskill 4y agoIt's not much about Microsoft. At least it improved human life in serious ways (Typescript, VSCode,...). What did Google bring to my life ? Nothing except for spam stuffs from Ad, Email,... You're responsible for your data, not Google, not Microsoft.
- kareemsabri 4y agoI can't imagine thinking typescript improved human life more than Google Search
- amartya916 4y agoWhile it might be fashionable to hate on Google, the question "What did Google bring to my life" seems really odd. I can't believe I have to say this but search, and more importantly good/fast search, is to Google's credit. Typescript and VSCode all have, and will continue to have alternatives, but for a long time, Google was (some may argue it still is) the bleeding edge of search. Anyway, there might be a generational thing at play here, if so, I meant no condescension.
- revskill 4y agoYou're making assumptions. I listed facts.
- thefurdrake 4y agoYeah, I'm gonna need to see some citation on how Typescript and VSCode improved life for humanity. Break out some of them facts you're talking about.
- revskill 4y agoI specify "my life", not other's life, and it's a fact. Why bother then (i'm curious)?
- monkey_monkey 4y agoUm no... > At least it improved human life in serious ways (Typescript, VSCode,...).
- revskill 4y agoYou mean "fast bullshit ads" ? I mean "meaningful search results". They're different.
- thefurdrake 4y ago... Did you reply to the wrong individual?
- thefurdrake 4y agoYou said it "improved human life" my dude. Everyone can scroll up and read.
- canadianfella 4y ago[dead]
- rewgs 4y agoWhat an absurd statement. I don't have especially strong feelings for Google in any direction, but I can't deny that, even if Google had only done search or Maps, that alone would be a massive boon for society.
- erklik 4y agoUh... Maps? Open, Permissive phone OS compared to the alternative? Greatest entertainment/information system, especially one that's democraticsed producing media? In terms dev-related stuff, TensorFlow - literally something that's made today's ML possible, Kubernetes, BigTable, MapReduce, and yknow, that good old thing called Chrome.. I understand hating on Google. They're not that great, but none of the FAANG are "great".. They all have some terrible bits, some good bits. However, to say that Google has not provided anything except "spam stuffs" is very wrong. Search alone has changed the entire way that humans consume information. I would say that today's internet landscape, for better or worse, would not exist without Google.
- revskill 4y agoI don't use Phone, nor Maps, nor Youtube, nor Kubernetes, all the things you listed. They're helpful to you, not me.
- knome 4y agothis setup and response seem a little silly to me. "what did the romans ever do for me?" "roads? aquaducts?" "ha! I don't go anywhere and drink well water!"
- revskill 4y agoIt's fine right ? Life gives you many choices.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoBut no man is an island, the minimum reproductive unit of homo sapiens is a village, etc. You may not use those things directly, but you're dependent on those who do.
- revskill 4y agoJust because Google has it, it doesn't mean a mean to an end. There're choices for you to make. It's your choice.
- mc32 4y agoI wouldn't be extraordinarily surprised if this is the case, but I do not expect it to be as lax as you suggest and given how it's presented to us it reads like someone trying to get people to not look at something. If you have things you can present as evidence that would carry water for your argument, otherwise it's random inflammatory claim on in the internet. And I agree, Google does take security more seriously than most places.
- tormeh 4y agoOf the major three cloud providers, Azure is by far the one whose security bugs I hear most about. Not that this necessarily has much relevance to search, but it doesn't inspire confidence in their culture.
- mc32 4y agoAgreed, but parent poster made fabulous claims based on hearsay. It could be true. But it also might be a motivated competitor trying to distract their rival as well. Related question, if security is so bad, how did they win Project J.E.D.I? (honestly curious)
- coredog64 4y agoCloud security is different, especially for these government contracts. Everything has to be certified to a higher standard and the staff all have to have clearances. A clearance gives you a nice comp boost, so dorking around looking at stuff because you can is a good way to get it yanked.
- victor106 4y agoDitto. I work with all three on a daily basis and Azure is the worst
- sofixa 4y ago> Azure is by far the one whose security bugs I hear most about. Only* about. GCP and AWS haven't had cross-tenant security bugs, meanwhile Azure have had multiple, and trivial ones to boot. If a multitenant service can have such poor security, it's doubtful internal only stuff is any better.
- breck 4y agoOh yeah IIRC I used to look at Bing search logs in Microsoft and I wasn't on Bing team. This was 2014. Things probably have changed. IIRC there was some basic safeguards though, like a query must have had like 10 unique occurrences or something. I also have no idea if you could tie searches to people. I was just looking at aggregate numbers. That was really cool. It was like Google Trends but with real numbers!
- binkHN 4y agoThis is an interesting point. In relation to this, I’m starting to wonder which OS is less detrimental here—ChromeOS or Windows 11.
- victor106 4y agoBoth are evil but I agree that Google is less evil than Microsoft. Just like the OP I have first hand info on how atrocious Microsoft’s internal privacy controls are. The later versions of Windows are just ad space for Microsoft to advertise. Azure is the worst of the 3 cloud providers. Horrible developer experience and documentation and reliability. That said, I would still take Satya’s Microsoft over Balmers any day
- blarghyblarg 4y agoBoth are driven by a profit motive, but Google takes some forms of privacy more seriously. Lets not use emotionally driven, ambiguous terms like 'evil' to describe these kinds of things. Google is not, for instance, conspiring to commit genocides, nor is Microsoft planning a coup in an Eastern European nation with the goal of colonizing them to use as indentured technical support.
- birdyrooster 4y agoOne does not simply coup who they wish.
- MuffinFlavored 4y ago> Both are driven by a profit motive What do you want a corporation/company/business (of any size) to be driven by?
- onethought 4y ago- Some environmental metrics (could be solved by pricing environmental harm) - Ethical Metrics (could be solved by allowing corporations, directors, boards to face similar punishments to humans committing crime). – Something that measured employee treatment. Profit is such a shitty motive... it's effective, but still shitty.
- corbulo 4y agoProfit is ethical in abstract if you're intelligent and can see how reputation is valuable. You will have a hard time getting people to buy your product if people hate you. We're not in the state we're in because of profit motive. It's the short sightedness that causes the most unethical behavior from the top down. 10-Qs... a man considered changing that timeline to help fix that problem but he was ostracized. Maybe one day la naranja will return. I would be interested to see what an ethics motive looks like that gets people out of the bed in the morning to do a job they barely care about.
- singularity2001 4y agoThat anecdote reflects the data protection part, everyone dealing with Windows trying to disable tracking experienced their horrible data collection attitude
- Dalewyn 4y agoI hate Big Data(tm) as the next guy in line, but if I have to choose between Google and Microsoft nomming my data I'll happily pick Microsoft every time. Why? For one, I've had a Microsoft account for over 20 years now (anyone remember Hotmail?). It's long past due for me to be complaining, and Microsoft hasn't wronged me in that time anyway. By comparison, my oldest Google account only goes back just over 10 years, and horror stories abound even if I've been fortunate so far. I keep all my truly important correspondance and login tie-ins with Microsoft (read: my Hotmail). For another, Microsoft nurtured over 30 years' worth of good will from me with Windows and Office; even though I hate many things about Windows from 8 and up, among other things, I will ultimately be a friend to Microsoft simply because they were a significant and positive part of my childhood and now my adult life.
- water-your-self 4y agoYour entire argument is based on nostalgia. These are companies, not family friends.
- Dalewyn 4y agoPart of it is, but I wouldn't happily pick Microsoft even today if they were as horrible as Google. As far as I'm concerned, Microsoft is the lesser (and more familiar) of two evils so I'll happily pick them.
- chimprich 4y ago> Microsoft account for over 20 years now (anyone remember Hotmail?) From memory, Microsoft used to be absolute bastards when it came to your data. They did everything they could to keep you gated in and without any control. Things like: refusing any export tools for your emails so you couldn't migrate to another provider; or, not allowing any non-web access to your email. Then Google came along with GMail and revolutionised things: amazingly generous free data allowance, IMAP access, data download options, open standards, liberal approach to letting people set up various hacky app access, and so on. It was hugely successful for them, and forced MS to moderate their approach. Google abandoned their Don't Be Evil strategy and sacrificed a lot of their principles (and, I would argue, a lot of their success with it), but at one point they had a positive impact and they've never been as evil as early-era Microsoft.
- ninth_ant 4y agoI don’t hate Google for having my data because they have worse internal controls. The monopolistic dominance is the issue. They have too much data and too much power, and leverage that to swallow other market categories. Today they have a deeply unhealthy dominance over the tech industry. Google could do everything right and still be an existential problem. You say MS has data security issues, okay sure. I’d still rather have them or anyone at 25%+ of the market.
- graphe 4y agoApple isn't a monopoly yet it has huge power and domnance with safari. Do you avoid Android because it's the most common or Linux since it's got a monopoly on servers? Google isn't forcing someone to use it. It's monopoly can disappear when something better it's there.
- hansvm 4y agoDunno if it was incompetence or malice, but the straw that finally broke me over to Linux permanently was a privacy setting in Windows that appeared to work until you re-entered the menu and it wouldn't persist. In my time at YouTube though, privacy issues were an immediately fireable offense, and even when my role required data, use was gated and then still logged, and misuse was handled. That's an n=1 apples-to-oranges data point, but I personally trust Google a bit more than MS with my data.