Worrying security issue

Speaking of Linux...

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/3/17422752/microsoft-github-acquisition-rumors

 

https://www.askwoody.com/2018/what-does-microsoft-expect-to-get-from-github/

Microsoft wants to usurp freeware grounds (and Linux, too). They got a cold welcome to Linux last year, and the coolness in reactions to their GitHub movement seems to have shown up quickly, too, developers say already now that they will or have moved away to other platforms.

Instead of corrupting the competition from freeware, Nadalla should get his acts together and see what a mess his new policies have meant for Windows, and how bad the situation with it now is. Even many very optimistic and hesitent IT pros trying to see the light at the end of the tunnel, have run out of patience and trust and in the last coupe of months and have started to become quite hostile to Microsoft's ways with Windows in the first half of this year. For business users of W10 the situation has become to difficult and too threatening with W10.

Its real money that companies lose when W10 once again gets a hickup or a new "update as a service" breaks something.

I would not trust it any further than what I use it for indeed: a gaming console. And even there it suffers technical problems at times.

 

And yet when you speak of these concerns, you commonly get the generic rebuttal "well, it's the most secure OS, and why wouldn't you want that"

But here is what the insiders are saying: (source: Bleepingcomputer)

"The number one fear expressed by companies and developers is that by buying GitHub Microsoft now gets full access to the millions of private projects that companies are currently hosting through GitHub's premium service."

*All our offices are still running Windows XP

 

Which is fine if these machines are not accessible via internet or external/mobile data carriers connected to their network. And how likely is that?

XP today means you just ask for desaster sooner or later. No realistic valid option, imo. Nor is W7. Chrome anbd Android are more safe, but know no privacy, of course, a death sentence for a company needing to protect its business data. Apple also collects data and has its hidden backdoors in its software, one can be certain of that. Then, all these three big players must obey American legislation, which can force them to allow US interests being in jected into the product: government-demanded backdoors for allowing access., interersting for economic spionage and learnign abotu what other state offices and services and governments are up to. In Germany we have plenty of experince with outr govenrmental data networks getting hacked by foreign hackers. And no, the attacks by far do not always come from the East...

Für business, Linux is the best bet there is currently. Not perfect, not invulnerable, but better than the others. I think of it as shifting chances in my favour a bit - not more, not less.

Real sensitive things should not be run and done via electric media at all - not in these times of ours. In the cybersphere, world war three already is being faught since many years. And cyber bank robbery is outclassing the damages from paper-money bank robberies since many years. And there is more crime done behind the name "cyber". People mocking about this as paranoia only, operate by the logic of "ignorrance is a bliss".

 

Good article

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/18/why-do-we-care-so-much-about-privacy

 

Yes, good read. Thanks!