Sos Sosowski (@sos@mastodon.gamedev.place)
mastodon.gamedev.placeAttached: 1 image
So, Microsoft is silently installing Copilot onto Windows Server 2022 systems and this is a disaster.
How can you push a tool that siphons data to a third party onto a security-critical system?
What privileges does it have upon install? Who thought this is a good idea? And most importantly, who needs this?
#infosec #security #openai #microsoft #windowsserver #copilot
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My winows 11 work laptop , fully managed by IT the department also has Xbox stuff installed…
Why does every mention or discussion of any annoyance in Windows immediately turn into a “install Linux” thread on here?
Sure, Linux might solve the immediate problem for the affected individual (and probably introduce a bunch of new ones as Linux isn’t always as easy to use as advocates try to convince people it is) but it doesn’t solve the larger issue - Microsoft needs to be held accountable for horrible design decisions and anti-consumerist practices.
Not everyone can, or will, switch to Linux. No matter how hard people champion that cause. And even if they do, it’s a process that will take time. In the immediate, lots of people stand to benefit from Microsoft not pulling this sort of bs, and it’s entirely justified to complain about it to make them walk back this decision.
I think it’s safe to say that the Lemmy user base trends a bit more “computer nerd” than the general public. So we generally have more people that already use Linux, and more people that could reasonably benefit from switching.
Plus of course moving off of windows is one of the most effective ways to show your displeasure with Microsoft.
People moving away from Microsoft is literally how Microsoft will be held accountable though
Once again people forget “vote with your wallet”.
CaNceL cUlTuRe!!
All these discussions turn into that because WE KNOW that no one will convince MS to stop doing whatever they want, specially after investing literally billions on this kind of technology, the idea of MS “being held accountable” is something that realistically will not happen, and literally the only leverage people have against them is to just stop playing their game. Oh yeah, it’s not easy, but given the fact that MS have made it so that you’ll HAVE to fight the tech and relearn stuff every time they unilaterally decide to change things you might as well put effort where it will make a difference and free you from their BS
You’re not wrong, but as privacy conscious consumers we have more ways to force Microsoft and other tech giants to bend the knee than just disengaging with their product and leaving less savvy users to fend for themselves. One such example is legislative action, take a look at how the EU has been wielding their internal market to force companies into more pro-consumer practices. Another is class action lawsuits, there’s a long history of successful suits resulting in lasting change.
You might not agree with me on whether those options are the right path forward here, but I feel that we, as security and privacy conscious owners have a duty to speak up about these things for the majority that can’t or won’t due to their technical abilities.
Oh yeah, this MUST be done too, but expecting that to be the solution to MS apps getting worse all the time is for the moment not a solution for the random user of the day complaining of yet another MS enshittification escalation.
Switching to Linux gets you completely out of that mess and has lasting results, continuing to participate in the MS market might change things if the anti-monopoly forces taking encouraging actions the last few years continue advancing but will take years IF it happens, along with any class-action lawsuit, anything else in the meanwhile (patches, debloaters, secret policy rules or registry entries, etc.) is nothing more than a band-aid treating the symptoms.
So, these discussions always devolve to this because it’s a proven and effective solution that works today and lasts, unlike any other patch that can be broken next time MS forces an update or catches you unaware, it’s hard and imperfect and “not the CORRECT way to solve the problem”, but works.
MS has a server version?!? Weird, I thought everything important was run on Linux.
Is this sarcasm or outright ignorance?
This is exactly what I needed in my servers. An AI assistant to help me… do what exactly?
Data-mine the information you intentionally did not put on the cloud.
To configure your active directories and stuff. Wouldn’t it be great to automatize everything to the point that when something breaks you have no idea what to do because you have no idea what is done and where
How desperate they are to force that shit onto everyone should tell you everything you need to know about what their intentions are.
“Hmm. It looks like you are serving porn. Would you like me to create more of this porn and distribute it to as many of your contacts and visitors as possible?”
NO!
" okay removing hot dildo Asian DP 12 inch penis porn. Sending recall email to contacts from: Pornification@yeahovas.com MikeArmington@UCSF.edu MArmington@Gaminisfun.com JustMikenFamily@MiddleHigh.edu MikesChurch@Churchography.org These are all the email contacts we gathered from you in the past 25 minutes. There’s high traffic from Churchography.org and yeahovas.com, are you sure you want to ruin a good thing? Only 40 people replied from MiddleHigh.edu, the replies were deleted but they seemed awfully upset. Good day Mikey!"
Get rid of that crap, I and I’m not talking about Copilot.
If you have to use Windows Server (or other Windows), install the hellzerg Optimizer
Unfortunately these services also open up security issues
Yes I think the better solution is to read your username. It’s hard to argue with Linux and BSDs when it comes to servers.
I agree 100%. Google Cloud platform doesn’t have Windows servers and the cloud providers are simply two small for Microsoft products.
Its hard to beat a Linux server as you can spin one up on prem or in the cloud quickly and it doesn’t have a lot of overhead in most cases.
Who exactly is the target audience for this? Home users running Windows server? This would get flagged for sure in an enterprise environment and no self respecting admin would ever install something like that.
When the switch to run it on a server is “/unsafe” I think I’ll pass 🤣
Anyway on Windows the Optimizer is an must have app. It is the best to cut M$'s bad habits
Haha, fuck no
Yeeeeah, no enterprise admin would run that… GPOs would do the same with more transparency and no privacy concerns (besides running Windows of course)
Install Linux on your desktops. If you have windows servers then what the hell are you doing anyway? Dump Microsoft
Yes, even M$ use Linux in it’s servers
Lol
This stuff always makes me laugh. Firstly, yes absolutely, Microsoft shouldn’t do this sort of crap. But more importantly, the person complaining about it here is shouting out for the world to hear “I don’t know how to manage Windows servers properly!”. There is one single group policy setting that stops this from happening. A single, set-and-forget GPO. Anyone managing Windows environments that isn’t aware of this, shouldn’t be managing Windows environments.
Let me see if I understand your logic. Microshit decides to push something sneakily on servers, and the OP mentions that he just found out about it, and never once does he mention that he doesn’t know what to do about it, but and you assume he doesn’t know, but and choose to blast him over your assumption.
Did I miss something?
It wouldn’t have been installed at all if the OP did their job properly and had set the one config option. Microsoft doing shady things is hardly news. That’s why a good Windows sysadmin keeps and eye out for this sort of stuff.
I get that, but we can’t go around assuming stuff and blasting people over assumptions. We don’t know if someone else in his team was in charge of that, and he found out while auditing the server, that’s certainly a possibility. Then there’s the fact that his post could help someone thinking about setting up a similar server rethink this and choose to move away from Microshit altogether. I agree that whomever is in charge should keep updated on information, issues and their potential solutions (I’d fire any sys admin not living by those rules, for sure). Now, if he is, in fact, responsible for that, shame on him, but he’s innocent until proven guilty.
The OP is re-tooting a toot of a screenshot of a tweet. My (mild) criticism isn’t aimed at OP, nor the OP of the OP, just the original Twitter OP. No one was “blasted” but even if they were, the Twitter OP is not likely to see my comments and have a bad case of the sads from it.
Ok, cool, I guess.
There are 5 million ways to configure windows and each have an absurd and almost by-design level of convolution. You can’t possibly expect people to know about a new GPO immediately
That is why companies will hire good sys admins who do their job and stay on top of the important group policy settings. This absolutely would not be missed by any reasonably competent IT dept.
I don’t use windows so I don’t know the specifics. If microsoft is INFORMING the user beforehand about this change (that copilot switch/policy is now available) AND DISCLOSE that in the future if you didn’t touch this switch then copilot may be installed, sure, blame admin. Otherwise, this is a shitty move from software update POV
To add: Maybe you can link the change log provided by microsoft before this update that adds those switches or rules to prove that it has indeed been disclosed to the admin.
A company that’s using Windows Server is not hiring the brightest mfers
There is one GPO to disable co-pilot. One. It’s not even hard to find and has been available for more than 6 months.
And yes I would absolutely expect someone whose job it is to manage Windows servers to know about it. And certainly, I would expect them to look it up before declaring to the world how bad at their job they are.
This is a ridiculous statement. Copilot should be opt-in, not opt-out and the setting is new.
Perfectly reasonable by the sysadmin to not have that already set.
Like I said, Microsoft shouldn’t do that crap. BUT the co-pilot setting has been around for 6 months. Long enough for any halfway decent sysadmin.
Then my next question would be, does that update on the change logs? Does the change log notify the admin that in the future, copilot may be installed if they didn’t touch those settings?
This is going to end very well :P
Is “copilot” the new slang for “back door”?
Makes MS seem desperate. Fordicing it down everyones throat and displaying ads in the OS…
At 8kb it’s certainly not an AI model.
More like open windows that were painted to make shutting them almost impossible.
Man… Anybody remember “Back Orifice”? The late nineties were weird.
Ironically I used to use BO for actual system work…. And one time to prank the hell out of my worker by playing sounds remotely.
memories
https://www.windows93.net
Man they take me back! Used netbus a bunch in friends
I doubt they need to install something new for a back door
Fuck I just set up a Windows Server 2022, because Space Engineers Dedicated Server is officially supported under Windows only.
This guy got it working: https://www.reddit.com/r/spaceengineers/comments/dqgg7u/guide_space_engineers_dedicated_server_on_linux/
You could try running it in wine
ok sure, most servers are already running linux for a good reason.
Use BSD/Linux/Ironclad/SmartOS etc etc Open source Operating systems for
Anyone who cares about this and doesn’t require a Windows server is already using BSD/Linux/etc
Samba AD DC