> Asking for credit-card information within Windows isn’t that startling, as you’ve probably already entered payment information into the Microsoft ecosystem either for buying apps or movies on the Microsoft Store app or for making similar purchases via your Xbox. Still, those transactions are normally performed via your Microsoft Account web page, which manages all of that online and behind the scenes.
The main difference being that instead of a browser interfacing your Microsoft Account, there's a Settings interface for the same information.
What I would really like is some compare/contrast with alternative operating systems. We know how this works in Windows before this change. Does macOS have any way to manage your Apple Account payment information through settings, or do you have to go to a web page? How about iOS and Android?
On macOS, there's a prominent top banner in 'System Preferences' for 'Apple ID, iCloud, Meida & App Store', where if you click the 'Apple ID' button there, you are then one click away from a button labeled 'Payment & Shipping'.
A similar UI exists on iOS. Android is a little different in that the 'Google' option in Settings is a bit hidden on Google reference devices and OEMs get to customize the main app, too.
Yeah, from the headline I thought that the credit card was mandatory for access to the test build or something. But it's just allowing you to (voluntarily) save credit card info for making purchases in the App Store, similar to how Android and Apple devices do it.
> as you’ve probably already entered payment information into the Microsoft ecosystem either for buying apps or movies on the Microsoft Store app or for making similar purchases via your Xbox.
Is this really that common? I've never interacted (directly) with the Microsoft "ecosystem" in my whole life, and I've been a Windows user that entire time. If I was going to purchase a movie or an "app", the Microsoft store is not the place I would go.
Apple uses a central point of entry - your Apple account, and it often requires you re-enter your password to revalidate who your are and will explicitly validate that you want to "really": buy (which you can suppress - I've never done that).
Essentially. They're in no way forcing you to give away credit card info.
Even the title is editorialized in a way to incite hatred against something that's already present in a competing OS. Isn't there an HN policy against such titles?
Wow, that's great (/s)! Next-gen ransomware can then finally allow zero-click payment of the ransom instead of all the convoluted "go to that site, register account, buy bitcoin, send to address X, don't forget to add gas,..."-mess.
Can you clarify what you had in mind for this? Are you imagining the ransomware would grab users' locally-stored credit card info?
In which case, is there reason to believe they'd actually be storing your card info locally? Isn't it more likely that after initially adding your card, it stays on MS servers as it does now, and this settings screen only gets sent the last 4 digits of your credit card?
Or am I misunderstanding and/or missing something obvious?
The haphazard nature of Windows features is always bizarre. Windows in tablet mode still can't tell when the user has tapped on a text box and forces the user to manually open the onscreen keyboard. This from a company that forced a functionless Lock Screen that must be clicked past to get to the login screen onto desktop users just because smartphones were popular and smartphones have one.
Gotta hand it to Microsoft and Nutella. I was pretty bullish on them from, say, 3 years after Balmer left to about 18 months ago, but it seems like every single thing they've done since they started working on Windows 11 has been a cringey shitshow. Even the way they express themselves, and their advertisements, have - rather incredibly - gotten worse. For just one example, I was watching the trailer for the MSFS cloud service a few days ago, and the entire ad is just bullshit - nobody plays games like that, nobody sits like that, nobody holds their controller/device like that. It's like Meta and Microsoft both have completely lost their minds and don't habitate the same universe as me - I'm no Luddite, and it isn't even dystopian or Orwellian to me, it's just cringeworthy. And the problem for MS is, it isn't 2007 or even 2013 when it was properly difficult to completely get rid of all things Microsoft. The only 'must have' really is just Office, and I can still buy that standalone on my Mac and be done with it.
Anyway, the fact is that many people won't care and will use their products. That's just how it goes. But it truly is fascinating to watch as a moderately tech savvy person - not sure I can remember anything like this where a tech company in a position where it has a lot of industry/programmer goodwill has inexplicably fucked over its developer-base so often in an 18-24 month period. I mean, does anybody remember how 2 years ago Edge was the shit, seriously - it was like the best iteration of a Chromium browser, and then it was like Microsoft purposely torpedoed it. Same thing with Windows, and the TPM requirement is just the start. All of it is just bizarre.
The consumer side i don't know but on the developer front they're doing pretty nice.. vscode is wildly used (and appreciated), .net is growing ok, typescript too. The github thing didn't turn out sour yet.
The next 10 years will be weird and critical because most new people on earth will be born outside of the windows ruling days. I think they're gonna pull the rug hard on any fat application ala MS/Office because it will be completely aberrant to "work" this way when everything you used since birth was a few swipe away.
Why is this shocking ? They are copying macOS where this feature is already present. When Apple does it, it's just perfectly fine and (in Apple fan voice) - this so significantly improves the UX experience.
But, when Microsoft does it, OMG the SUN is FALLING.
Unfortunately, besides Office, my employer still has a much longer list of desktop and web applications that only work with Windows and Windows-only software (e.g. Internet Explorer). The most prominent obstacle is Acrobat, as we use fillable PDFs with smartcard digital signatures for all of our internal paperwork. Adobe stopped supporting Acrobat for Linux around 2013. I can't even view a lot of our PDFs with the alternative viewers, let alone fill and sign them.
Anyway, I agree to your point about Microsoft turning my opinion against them with all these things about Windows 11. I used Windows 10 at home quite happily from 2017-2021, and I even praised the new Chromium-based Edge to my friends and coworkers. I switched back to Linux when I got a new laptop in October, and I feel like I got out of the Microsoft ecosystem at the right time. I still need a Windows 10 virtual machine on-hand for occasional work-from-home tasks, though.
I worked part-time at a gas station many years ago. When the chores were done, I'd often be reading the newspapers, or straightening things out, and I'd inevitably end up reading the labels of snacks and drinks and such. Eventually, I'd end up reading all of the asterisk'ed statements on the junk food, and it left me with a severe distaste for 'marketing speak', as well as how less-than-honest some of the labels were. This distaste carried over from snack food products to just about all consumer goods.
Windows 8 forced defaults that people didn't like on desktops. You could fix this relatively quickly, but my issue is the principle of MS assuming that MS knows better than their users. Otherwise, I was a fan, so long as I could use educational licenses for free.
Windows 10 was kinda nice, but is (imo) roughly when MS decided that they should force their ways on people. No matter what settings I provided to their update service, it would inevitably decide that I must update and restart when I was trying to use my damn machine. Multiple times in college, I'd get up from what I was working on to do some little 15-minute task, and find that Windows had shut down and was in the process of updating. After the second time I lost work, I made some registry edits to block the auto-install and auto-restart. Updates would get run at my convenience, finally.
Microsoft managed to make updates easy, and then painful again.
Around that same time, it felt like the 'marketing speak' was starting to talk down to me, infiltrating dialog boxes, and implying that Microsoft knew better than I did as to how I should be using my machine. When once dialogs were simply informational, they were now suggestive and intrusive, and groan-inducing. It's only gotten worse, and more pervasive.
I updated my PC a few times when trying to get Elden ring to work last week, and ran into the infamous full-screen not-normally-closable Edge advertisement. The 'close' button was disabled, rightclick in taskbar->close did nothing, and the ONE option available was to click 'Get Started', implying that I as a user agree with this all in some way. Instead, I killed the window via task manager, and decided that my next desktop PC will be linux-first, with a locked-down Windows partition for when cross-compat isn't available for my use cases.
I view an OS as a piece of software that allows me to make use of the hardware in my PC, and not as a service. Cue me, some years ago setting up something for Windows, and being told by the installer that "Windows is a Service". Bullshit!
It's hard to sell something that no one wants or needs, so the sales pitches become progressively stranger and more desperate.
IMHO, from a consumer POV, Win 95 and Win 7 are the high points in Microsoft's OS release history. Win 8 was horrendously bad. Win 10 is marginally worse than Win 7.
My 2021 Win 10 laptop keeps trying to convince me to upgrade to Win 11, although even a quick googling indicates that it is almost sure to slow down my AMD-based machine.
> For just one example, I was watching the trailer for the MSFS cloud service a few days ago, and the entire ad is just bullshit - nobody plays games like that, nobody sits like that, nobody holds their controller/device like that.
Anyone got a link? There are a ton of ads/trailers showing up in search but I can't find that one.
" But it truly is fascinating to watch as a moderately tech savvy person - not sure I can remember anything like this where a tech company in a position where it has a lot of industry/programmer goodwill has inexplicably fucked over its developer-base so often in an 18-24 month period."
Then you haven't been paying attention to the last 23+ years of PC gaming, Microsoft and the game industry have been at war with the PC as an open platform once they discovered the average PC user was a moron and didn't understand that buy a client-server application for your PC (mmo's) is literally stealing software from yourself.
When richard garriot launched UO in 1997, the entire silicon valley business community was overjoyed. Garriot had done what other software companies failed to do, they literally got gamers to pay for the privilege of robbing themselves.
For those who don't know "MMO's" are a fake genre invented by the game industry to confuse the tech illiterate so they could monopolize their own products and prevent piracy (aka you can't really copy a game during its window if you don't have the server back end required for it to function).
They wanted to back end all the big budget games (aka steal them). So they needed a cover story to go along with it. Valve got the idea for steam from the success of Ultima online in 1997 and Everquest in 1999.
Everyone saw the sick money being made from stupid.
If you think "MMO's" are some special type of software, you're lacking basic computer literacy.
We've restored the networking code that was pulled out of need for speed world.
Here's an "MMO'" we've restored the networking code of, so no your whole post shows you don't grasp anything about how computers work. Any client server C++ application can be converted back to a local application (aka singleplayer+multiplayer PC game, no login accounts or user names /w server browser).
There are a few other "MMO's" which we've restored the networking code.
Up until the mid to late 90's EVERY PC GAME came with the ability to host your own multiplayer inside the game and quake 2 was already an "MMO" had limitless multiplayer.
John carmack (slightly paraphrasing) "No limit to the # of players..."
For those of you who are shaking their heads, you can go view johns carmacks comment here saying quake 2 has limitless ("MMO") multiplayer, notice it didn't require giving up the game or carving back some of its code to lock the game down behind user accounts. They just wanted to get rid of the infinitely copyable binaries that most PC games were with Descent, doom, duke 3d, Unreal tournament, UT2003, UT2004.
new security feature for Windows 11 that blocks untrusted or potentially dangerous applications
Every time Microsoft does this they make it harder for me to run what I want without making the whole system less secure than it was before their "upgrade".
I just wish there was a good enough equivalent of visual studio for C++ on linux, especially for its debugger.
I'm not sure Clion is good enough.
The usual answer I get is "use emacs or vim", but I really don't have the patience to use vim and gdb and configure it. I just don't want a terminal editor.
I like linux, but in all seriousness, visual studio C++ is just one of the things that makes me stay on windows. I don't see any good enough GUI editor to debug some C++ code on linux, with autocompletion and basic IDE features.
I made the switch on my personal devices from Win/MacOS to Linux a couple years ago.
God! it's so liberating not to live behind walled gardens, dark patterns, corporate giants tracking every click you do and selling and/or misusing that information... let's remind ourselves to donate to FOSS causes.
In a world where there's no FOSS option, I'd seriously consider not using technology vs having to cope with the sheer incompetence and/or malice of modern software design, led by Apple, MS, Google and co.
Windows 7 was probably the last true Personal Computer Windows version in the original sense of the word.
Your PC is yours, has a local account only, no real telemetry, no cloud syncing, it really is your computer.
The future for Windows is what you already have in your pocket, on iOS or Android. Cloud-based, linked to an account, every single thing tracked, and as many things as possible are deeply integrated, payment, health, and much more coming.
It's going to be more convenient, secure, consistent, so consumers will embrace it. It all feels like a smooth transition yet people are missing the dramatic steps taken.
As just one example: files. We used to manage them locally and only we had access. Now they're in the cloud and a private business has access, with a back door to government.
Your cloud files will be auto scanned for violations, even if they're not public. In the physical world we'd call this an illegal search, requiring a warrant. Not anymore. The process may also flag you as a false positive, with no way to repeal, or it taking very long.
Or, maybe you were born in the wrong country, which means no files for you. Sorry. Please just "overthrow" your government or something.
You could of course make the same point regarding money. You can now be financially "cancelled" with the push of a button. No such thing is possible with cash.
I am serious when I say that we're giving up an incredible amount of privacy and freedom in record time. Whilst simultaneously dramatically elevating the power of authorities. Under the assumption that it will not be abused.
Before, if the government would want to track you, they had to hire somebody to physically follow you. If you made an offense, they would have to find you and go through a lengthy legal process. If they wanted to seize your financial assets, they wouldn't even know how much you have and where it is. Blocking you from making transactions would be impossible altogether.
Now all these barriers are taken away. It's just a push of a button.
I fully realize that I sound old and paranoid. I used to hate comments like these. Lately, I've been changing my mind. Mostly because the actual scenario is unfolding.
"I fully realize that I sound old and paranoid. I used to hate comments like these"
We told you that client-server apps would be the end of PC ownership, that started way long ago in 1997 with ultima online, then we got steam in 2003 and world of warcraft in 2004.
That told the tech industry all they needed to know. The average person using computers, even among professionals is oblivious.
Honest question: who actually wants these features? Why are MS-specific subscription integrations at the OS level desirable to me as a home user? It really doesn't seem hard to visit a website the rare times I want to modify a subscription, or to get email notifications about expirations.
The more I read about Win 11 the more I wonder who they're designing the OS for. None of the features I've read about so far are really anything I care about.
It doesn't matter if anybody needs them or not. Microsoft introduces whatever is profitable for them and most users have little choice. Those who could, Migrated to macOS or even Linux already. The rest will be milked, permanently.
The want to kill honest binaries (aka, access to raw hex instructions of programs allowing them to be cracked). UWP games on windows 10 was a trial run of trusted computing tech where windows update disabled cracked exe's, that's why UWP games can only run on certain verisons of windows 10. Windows 11 is that on steroids, Microsoft is lying because they know the average person using windows is clueless and tech illiterate. They learned that in 1997 with ultima online, everquest in 99 and wow in 2004. Client-server software is the same as buying a program with missing files. It's literally a broken application.
This is who they are designing it for, big media companies:
TC provides for a monitoring and reporting component to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of TC emphasised the role of a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. The current version has five components - the Fritz chip, a `curtained memory' feature in the CPU, a security kernel in the operating system (the `Nexus' in Microsoft language), a security kernel in each TC application (the `NCA' in Microsoft-speak) and a back-end infrastructure of online security servers maintained by hardware and software vendors to tie the whole thing together.
The initial version of TC had Fritz supervising the boot process, so that the PC ended up in a predictable state, with known hardware and software. The current version has Fritz as a passive monitoring component that stores the hash of the machine state on start-up. This hash is computed using details of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc). If the machine ends up in the approved state, Fritz will make available to the operating system the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt TC applications and data. If it ends up in the wrong state, the hash will be wrong and Fritz won't release the right key. The machine may still be able to run non-TC apps and access non-TC data, but protected material will be unavailable.
The operating system security kernel (the `Nexus') bridges the gap between the Fritz chip and the application security components (the `NCAs'). It checks that the hardware components are on the TCG approved list, that the software components have been signed, and that none of them has a serial number that has been revoked. If there are significant changes to the PC's configuration, the machine must go online to be re-certified: the operating system manages this. The result is a PC booted into a known state with an approved combination of hardware and software (whose licences have not expired). Finally, the Nexus works together with new `curtained memory' features in the CPU to stop any TC app from reading or writing another TC app's data. These new features are called `Lagrande Technology' (LT) for the Intel CPUs and `TrustZone' for the ARM.
Once the machine is in an approved state, with a TC app loaded and shielded from interference by any other software, Fritz will certify this to third parties. For example, he will do an authentication protocol with Disney to prove that his machine is a suitable recipient of `Snow White'. This will mean certifying that the PC is currently running an authorised application program - MediaPlayer, DisneyPlayer, whatever - with its NCA properly loaded and shielded by curtained memory against debuggers or other tools that could be used to rip the content. The Disney server then sends encrypted data, with a key that Fritz will use to unseal it. Fritz makes the key available only to the authorised application and only so long as the environment remains `trustworthy'. For this purpose, `trustworthy' is defined by the security policy downloaded from a server under the control of the application owner. This means that Disney can decide to release its premium content only to a media player whose author agrees to enforce certain conditions. These might include restrictions on what hardware and software you use, or where in the world you're located. They can involve payment: Disney might insist, for example, that the application collect a dollar every time you view the movie. The application itself can be rented too. The possibilities seem to be limited only by the marketers' imagination.
Holy clickbait blogspam Batman! Microsoft added a payment information screen to the settings, so that you don't need to go through your browser, where you may or may not be logged in already and may need to jump through auth hoops.
"Conceptually, however, it implies that your PC is as much a tool to make purchases as it is to simply work and game."
Hot take Mark Hachman, you joke of a "journalist."
[+] [-] neogodless|4 years ago|reply
> Asking for credit-card information within Windows isn’t that startling, as you’ve probably already entered payment information into the Microsoft ecosystem either for buying apps or movies on the Microsoft Store app or for making similar purchases via your Xbox. Still, those transactions are normally performed via your Microsoft Account web page, which manages all of that online and behind the scenes.
The main difference being that instead of a browser interfacing your Microsoft Account, there's a Settings interface for the same information.
What I would really like is some compare/contrast with alternative operating systems. We know how this works in Windows before this change. Does macOS have any way to manage your Apple Account payment information through settings, or do you have to go to a web page? How about iOS and Android?
[+] [-] ntauthority|4 years ago|reply
A similar UI exists on iOS. Android is a little different in that the 'Google' option in Settings is a bit hidden on Google reference devices and OEMs get to customize the main app, too.
This is very much par for the course.
[+] [-] digitallyfree|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Strang|4 years ago|reply
Is this really that common? I've never interacted (directly) with the Microsoft "ecosystem" in my whole life, and I've been a Windows user that entire time. If I was going to purchase a movie or an "app", the Microsoft store is not the place I would go.
[+] [-] xyzzy21|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikusR|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rashil2000|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] archi42|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hbn|4 years ago|reply
In which case, is there reason to believe they'd actually be storing your card info locally? Isn't it more likely that after initially adding your card, it stays on MS servers as it does now, and this settings screen only gets sent the last 4 digits of your credit card?
Or am I misunderstanding and/or missing something obvious?
[+] [-] nih0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] causi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmix|4 years ago|reply
The sales team has an idea! x100
[+] [-] avazhi|4 years ago|reply
Anyway, the fact is that many people won't care and will use their products. That's just how it goes. But it truly is fascinating to watch as a moderately tech savvy person - not sure I can remember anything like this where a tech company in a position where it has a lot of industry/programmer goodwill has inexplicably fucked over its developer-base so often in an 18-24 month period. I mean, does anybody remember how 2 years ago Edge was the shit, seriously - it was like the best iteration of a Chromium browser, and then it was like Microsoft purposely torpedoed it. Same thing with Windows, and the TPM requirement is just the start. All of it is just bizarre.
[+] [-] pedrogpimenta|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] agumonkey|4 years ago|reply
The next 10 years will be weird and critical because most new people on earth will be born outside of the windows ruling days. I think they're gonna pull the rug hard on any fat application ala MS/Office because it will be completely aberrant to "work" this way when everything you used since birth was a few swipe away.
[+] [-] lenkite|4 years ago|reply
But, when Microsoft does it, OMG the SUN is FALLING.
[+] [-] warner25|4 years ago|reply
Anyway, I agree to your point about Microsoft turning my opinion against them with all these things about Windows 11. I used Windows 10 at home quite happily from 2017-2021, and I even praised the new Chromium-based Edge to my friends and coworkers. I switched back to Linux when I got a new laptop in October, and I feel like I got out of the Microsoft ecosystem at the right time. I still need a Windows 10 virtual machine on-hand for occasional work-from-home tasks, though.
[+] [-] gigaflop|4 years ago|reply
Windows 8 forced defaults that people didn't like on desktops. You could fix this relatively quickly, but my issue is the principle of MS assuming that MS knows better than their users. Otherwise, I was a fan, so long as I could use educational licenses for free.
Windows 10 was kinda nice, but is (imo) roughly when MS decided that they should force their ways on people. No matter what settings I provided to their update service, it would inevitably decide that I must update and restart when I was trying to use my damn machine. Multiple times in college, I'd get up from what I was working on to do some little 15-minute task, and find that Windows had shut down and was in the process of updating. After the second time I lost work, I made some registry edits to block the auto-install and auto-restart. Updates would get run at my convenience, finally.
Microsoft managed to make updates easy, and then painful again.
Around that same time, it felt like the 'marketing speak' was starting to talk down to me, infiltrating dialog boxes, and implying that Microsoft knew better than I did as to how I should be using my machine. When once dialogs were simply informational, they were now suggestive and intrusive, and groan-inducing. It's only gotten worse, and more pervasive.
I updated my PC a few times when trying to get Elden ring to work last week, and ran into the infamous full-screen not-normally-closable Edge advertisement. The 'close' button was disabled, rightclick in taskbar->close did nothing, and the ONE option available was to click 'Get Started', implying that I as a user agree with this all in some way. Instead, I killed the window via task manager, and decided that my next desktop PC will be linux-first, with a locked-down Windows partition for when cross-compat isn't available for my use cases.
I view an OS as a piece of software that allows me to make use of the hardware in my PC, and not as a service. Cue me, some years ago setting up something for Windows, and being told by the installer that "Windows is a Service". Bullshit!
[+] [-] mring33621|4 years ago|reply
IMHO, from a consumer POV, Win 95 and Win 7 are the high points in Microsoft's OS release history. Win 8 was horrendously bad. Win 10 is marginally worse than Win 7.
My 2021 Win 10 laptop keeps trying to convince me to upgrade to Win 11, although even a quick googling indicates that it is almost sure to slow down my AMD-based machine.
I don't want Win 11.
[+] [-] tzs|4 years ago|reply
Anyone got a link? There are a ton of ads/trailers showing up in search but I can't find that one.
[+] [-] tored|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] someguydave|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TameAntelope|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuu99|4 years ago|reply
Then you haven't been paying attention to the last 23+ years of PC gaming, Microsoft and the game industry have been at war with the PC as an open platform once they discovered the average PC user was a moron and didn't understand that buy a client-server application for your PC (mmo's) is literally stealing software from yourself.
When richard garriot launched UO in 1997, the entire silicon valley business community was overjoyed. Garriot had done what other software companies failed to do, they literally got gamers to pay for the privilege of robbing themselves.
For those who don't know "MMO's" are a fake genre invented by the game industry to confuse the tech illiterate so they could monopolize their own products and prevent piracy (aka you can't really copy a game during its window if you don't have the server back end required for it to function).
They wanted to back end all the big budget games (aka steal them). So they needed a cover story to go along with it. Valve got the idea for steam from the success of Ultima online in 1997 and Everquest in 1999.
Everyone saw the sick money being made from stupid.
If you think "MMO's" are some special type of software, you're lacking basic computer literacy.
We've restored the networking code that was pulled out of need for speed world.
Here's an "MMO'" we've restored the networking code of, so no your whole post shows you don't grasp anything about how computers work. Any client server C++ application can be converted back to a local application (aka singleplayer+multiplayer PC game, no login accounts or user names /w server browser).
https://sites.google.com/site/djnfswo/
There are a few other "MMO's" which we've restored the networking code.
Up until the mid to late 90's EVERY PC GAME came with the ability to host your own multiplayer inside the game and quake 2 was already an "MMO" had limitless multiplayer.
John carmack (slightly paraphrasing) "No limit to the # of players..."
https://youtu.be/TfeSMaztDVc?t=100
For those of you who are shaking their heads, you can go view johns carmacks comment here saying quake 2 has limitless ("MMO") multiplayer, notice it didn't require giving up the game or carving back some of its code to lock the game down behind user accounts. They just wanted to get rid of the infinitely copyable binaries that most PC games were with Descent, doom, duke 3d, Unreal tournament, UT2003, UT2004.
[+] [-] hughrr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marcodiego|4 years ago|reply
They will continue to behave this way until competition surges.
[+] [-] pipeline_peak|4 years ago|reply
No, but they seem to have this delusion that people are using their MetroUI ridden app ecosystem like it’s 2012.
I’ve never seen such a thriving ghost town as well supported as the Microsoft App Store.
[+] [-] dorianmariefr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pipeline_peak|4 years ago|reply
I would like to sit in my office chair for two hours and view Garden State on a 22’.
All I can think of is some home theater scenario
[+] [-] causi|4 years ago|reply
Every time Microsoft does this they make it harder for me to run what I want without making the whole system less secure than it was before their "upgrade".
[+] [-] jokoon|4 years ago|reply
I'm not sure Clion is good enough.
The usual answer I get is "use emacs or vim", but I really don't have the patience to use vim and gdb and configure it. I just don't want a terminal editor.
I like linux, but in all seriousness, visual studio C++ is just one of the things that makes me stay on windows. I don't see any good enough GUI editor to debug some C++ code on linux, with autocompletion and basic IDE features.
[+] [-] nih0|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zorrolovsky|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleddr|4 years ago|reply
Your PC is yours, has a local account only, no real telemetry, no cloud syncing, it really is your computer.
The future for Windows is what you already have in your pocket, on iOS or Android. Cloud-based, linked to an account, every single thing tracked, and as many things as possible are deeply integrated, payment, health, and much more coming.
It's going to be more convenient, secure, consistent, so consumers will embrace it. It all feels like a smooth transition yet people are missing the dramatic steps taken.
As just one example: files. We used to manage them locally and only we had access. Now they're in the cloud and a private business has access, with a back door to government.
Your cloud files will be auto scanned for violations, even if they're not public. In the physical world we'd call this an illegal search, requiring a warrant. Not anymore. The process may also flag you as a false positive, with no way to repeal, or it taking very long.
Or, maybe you were born in the wrong country, which means no files for you. Sorry. Please just "overthrow" your government or something.
You could of course make the same point regarding money. You can now be financially "cancelled" with the push of a button. No such thing is possible with cash.
I am serious when I say that we're giving up an incredible amount of privacy and freedom in record time. Whilst simultaneously dramatically elevating the power of authorities. Under the assumption that it will not be abused.
Before, if the government would want to track you, they had to hire somebody to physically follow you. If you made an offense, they would have to find you and go through a lengthy legal process. If they wanted to seize your financial assets, they wouldn't even know how much you have and where it is. Blocking you from making transactions would be impossible altogether.
Now all these barriers are taken away. It's just a push of a button.
I fully realize that I sound old and paranoid. I used to hate comments like these. Lately, I've been changing my mind. Mostly because the actual scenario is unfolding.
[+] [-] stuu99|4 years ago|reply
We told you that client-server apps would be the end of PC ownership, that started way long ago in 1997 with ultima online, then we got steam in 2003 and world of warcraft in 2004.
That told the tech industry all they needed to know. The average person using computers, even among professionals is oblivious.
[+] [-] moonshinefe|4 years ago|reply
The more I read about Win 11 the more I wonder who they're designing the OS for. None of the features I've read about so far are really anything I care about.
[+] [-] hdjjhhvvhga|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuu99|4 years ago|reply
This is who they are designing it for, big media companies:
https://www.theregister.com/2001/12/13/the_microsoft_secure_...
What is trusted computing?
TC provides for a monitoring and reporting component to be mounted in future PCs. The preferred implementation in the first phase of TC emphasised the role of a `Fritz' chip - a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. The current version has five components - the Fritz chip, a `curtained memory' feature in the CPU, a security kernel in the operating system (the `Nexus' in Microsoft language), a security kernel in each TC application (the `NCA' in Microsoft-speak) and a back-end infrastructure of online security servers maintained by hardware and software vendors to tie the whole thing together.
The initial version of TC had Fritz supervising the boot process, so that the PC ended up in a predictable state, with known hardware and software. The current version has Fritz as a passive monitoring component that stores the hash of the machine state on start-up. This hash is computed using details of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc). If the machine ends up in the approved state, Fritz will make available to the operating system the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt TC applications and data. If it ends up in the wrong state, the hash will be wrong and Fritz won't release the right key. The machine may still be able to run non-TC apps and access non-TC data, but protected material will be unavailable.
The operating system security kernel (the `Nexus') bridges the gap between the Fritz chip and the application security components (the `NCAs'). It checks that the hardware components are on the TCG approved list, that the software components have been signed, and that none of them has a serial number that has been revoked. If there are significant changes to the PC's configuration, the machine must go online to be re-certified: the operating system manages this. The result is a PC booted into a known state with an approved combination of hardware and software (whose licences have not expired). Finally, the Nexus works together with new `curtained memory' features in the CPU to stop any TC app from reading or writing another TC app's data. These new features are called `Lagrande Technology' (LT) for the Intel CPUs and `TrustZone' for the ARM.
Once the machine is in an approved state, with a TC app loaded and shielded from interference by any other software, Fritz will certify this to third parties. For example, he will do an authentication protocol with Disney to prove that his machine is a suitable recipient of `Snow White'. This will mean certifying that the PC is currently running an authorised application program - MediaPlayer, DisneyPlayer, whatever - with its NCA properly loaded and shielded by curtained memory against debuggers or other tools that could be used to rip the content. The Disney server then sends encrypted data, with a key that Fritz will use to unseal it. Fritz makes the key available only to the authorised application and only so long as the environment remains `trustworthy'. For this purpose, `trustworthy' is defined by the security policy downloaded from a server under the control of the application owner. This means that Disney can decide to release its premium content only to a media player whose author agrees to enforce certain conditions. These might include restrictions on what hardware and software you use, or where in the world you're located. They can involve payment: Disney might insist, for example, that the application collect a dollar every time you view the movie. The application itself can be rented too. The possibilities seem to be limited only by the marketers' imagination.
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
[+] [-] hughrr|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thesuperbigfrog|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] T3RMINATED|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kahrl|4 years ago|reply
"Conceptually, however, it implies that your PC is as much a tool to make purchases as it is to simply work and game."
Hot take Mark Hachman, you joke of a "journalist."
[+] [-] pier25|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cryptos|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zhyl|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tartoran|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duxup|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paxo|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|4 years ago|reply