Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

If only Windows users fully understood why M/S wants you to create an account, people would leave en-masse.

The ID along with their telemetry, M/S can map you to what you do and from where. That pretty much makes their builtin disk encryption useless.

 help



> That pretty much makes their builtin disk encryption useless.

Does the encryption keep the user's data safe if the device is lost or stolen? Yes? Then it fulfills its main purpose.


We need to define "safe".

Safe from coffee shop people or in a dorm, probably yes. If you lock your laptop with a good screensaver and have a decent PW, those people are not getting in anyway.

Plus with smart phones hardly anyone carries their laptop around these days.

But with what M/S is doing with Windows 11 "security" any ad company with $, lawyer with a warrant or alphabet soup agencies, can get a decent idea with what is going on even if they cannot get to see your data in Excel or Word.

But most M/S office data is now in the "cloud", so all bets are off for those files in many cases.


Non technical users still write down their passwords. So: no.

Do technical users have the option to install something better? Yes? Then this has no purpose.


For the vast majority of users bitlocker just means that if someone steals your laptop or you leave it on a bus then short of a concerted effort by someone with technical ability, no one will have your photos or tax documents. It absolutely serves a meaningful purpose even if it has significant shortcomings.

Except for the bitlocker vulnerability that lets someone with the physical computer bypass it. Other than that, it works flawlessly.

They also upload what you do

Most people do all their Windows activity from one single specific location. It's Android and iOS that know you just drove down and made a stop at your city's most popular drug marketplace, or that you and your secretary were in the same hotel at 7pm yesterday.

Windows users don't care. The MS account is some set-and-forget BS for the most part.



Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: