I don’t think they do, most of the MS doomerism I see implies they probably never tried to turn any of it off. I uninstalled one drive years ago along with turning off the ads and telemetry and its all stayed that way ever since, but I keep getting told all of it will be back with the next update. I update when it prompts me to and it never undoes my settings.
Or I click a link to story about a cat stuck in a tree and it takes me to small, local newspaper I’ve never heard of called “The Sawfly Gazette - serving South Western Maine since 1975!”, then it immediately tells me I’ve hit my “article limit” and must subscribe for $14.95.
My cousin sister lost all her files to a malicious script on her pendrive, and I am fixing it right now (at the time of writing this). The unreliable pile of crap called OneDrive didn’t even back up properly, and well, Windows has gone so bad, it’s terrible,laggy and slow on a Ryzen 5800U with 8GB of RAM. I wish she was open to learning Linux desktop environments.
I set up my 90 year old grandmother with Ubuntu; she was extremely open to learning. If somebody’s got to learn something, then why not the more useful skill? That’s better for the user, the teacher, and society at large.
The insurance that costs you $200/month, COULD have cost you $700/month (if you chose this exact plan from this exact provider on your own without HR negotiating a bulk discount)
So, you’re not losing $200, you’re EARNING $500!!!
The moment a lawyer saves their medical records in a way that unintentionally and without their consent uploads them to OneDrive, they have a pretty solid case to charge Microsoft for a HIPAA violation.
HIPAA doesn’t even require encryption. It’s considered “addressable”. They just require access be “closed”. You can be HIPAA compliant with just Windows login, event viewer, and notepad.
(Also HIPAA applies to healthcare providers. Adobe doesn’t need to follow HIPAA data protection, though they probably do because it’s so lax, just because you uploaded a PDF of a medical bill to their cloud.)
HIPAA applies to whichever entity consciously chooses to move/store data.
Generally, after a patient downloads a healthcare-related item, they are that entity - and as the patient, they have full control/decisions about where it goes, so they can’t violate their own HIPAA agreement even if they print it and scatter it to the wind.
BUT, if your operating system “decides” to upload that document without the user’s involvement, then Microsoft is that entity - and having not received conscious permission from the patient, would be in violation. It’s an entirely different circumstance if the user is always going through clear prompts, but their more recent OneDrive Backup goal has been extremely forceful and easy to accidentally turn on - even to the point of being hard to disable. As you said, encryption has nothing to do with it.
No. Microsoft is not liable, at least when it applies to HIPAA.
The HIPAA Rules apply to covered entities and business associates.
Individuals, organizations, and agencies that meet the definition of a covered entity under HIPAA must comply with the Rules’ requirements to protect the privacy and security of health information and must provide individuals with certain rights with respect to their health information. If a covered entity engages a business associate to help it carry out its health care activities and functions, the covered entity must have a written business associate contract or other arrangement with the business associate that establishes specifically what the business associate has been engaged to do and requires the business associate to comply with the Rules’ requirements to protect the privacy and security of protected health information. In addition to these contractual obligations, business associates are directly liable for compliance with certain provisions of the HIPAA Rules.
If an entity does not meet the definition of a covered entity or business associate, it does not have to comply with the HIPAA Rules. See definitions of “business associate” and “covered entity” at 45 CFR 160.103.
When they’re specifically writing business plans designed for hospitals, sure, they can likely account for it. But not when designing end user services that are laissez-faire about user data privacy - on the random things people put in “My Documents”. As with many organizations, it’s very possible the two parts of the corporation don’t talk to each other.
That’s not how it works. Microsoft knows Windows will be used in medical settings. They know “but it’s a product for home users” won’t be an effective defense if they cause a HIPAA violation.
They also should “know” that being forceful about backup prompts, AI features, and major version upgrades will irritate users into switching off their OS, and yet they’re doing it anyway. Logic is not driving their actions; greed for data is.
However I’ve got no sympathy for even a small business to use IT without someone configuring their system in a way that controls this. A lawyer of all people know that knowledge is worth something.
It is feasible to CHOOSE to use OneDrive and take all the proper precautions. We’re talking about home users getting OneDrive data uploaded without their consent through their “push assumed default”, and “giant popup, tiny cancel” setups.
The article you link only says it’s okay when using a OneDrive business plan together with a signed agreement.
You should be, if you’re in a work computer with privileged documents, controlling it with an appropriate level of care. No matter Linux or Windows. If you’re using home and defaults, you’ve failed no matter what.
The moment a lawyer saves their medical records in a way that unintentionally and without their consent uploads them to OneDrive, they have a pretty solid case to charge Microsoft for a HIPAA violation
Lawyers, once they take off the suit and go home to their kids, are end users, not businesses. It would simply be easier for someone to initiate the lawsuit if they have a background in law.
Ah you’re thinking I’m reading your other comments to other people.
BTW HIPAA is for providers for their patients information handling. Once it’s in the person’s hands, it’s no longer under HIPPA and it no longer applies. If you decide to put your private medical information on a commercial advertisement board on a highway, and it’s not breaking laws to do with acceptable adcertisement (eg gore or smut) you’ll be able to do that to.
Basically theres no expectation for a individual person to adhere to HIPPA for their own personal information storage and it doesn’t apply.
My assumption with your lawyer comment, is this was a insurance or otherwise medical malpractice lawyer who might collect this information for their client cases, since without having client/patient requirements, HIPPA is irrelevant.
The original idea behind school isn’t to educate the masses. Why would a factory worker need to know calculus and Shakespeare? He needs to read the clock and timetables, be on time, wake up in the morning early enough to be punctual, …
Likewise higher education isn’t about the thinks you learn. It is about learning methods to learn. If you can learn the nitrogen cycle, you can learn our scrum statuses. If you can hand in your homework in time, you can keep our deadlines.
This isn’t to say the system is good, but it helps to understand it when you want to criticize it.
But learning to critically question statements and judging them yourself (which requires some knowledge, for example you can’t question anti-vaxxers when you don’t know anything about how vaccines work) instead of simply believing them is extremely important in a democracy.
Judging sources for the information requires way less knowledge. To continue your analogy, for most people it’s obvious to take your medical advice from your family doctor instead of that crazy aunt in Facebook
While you’d generally believe that to be true it can be hard for people with no knowledge who aren’t the brightest to see through statements like “doctors just are part of the wealthy smart people society who aim to keep us down”.
The problem is when medicine is for profit, you really do end up with that feeling when doctors are rushed to get you out of the door because they need to see ten patients an hour. When you’re the product it’s harder to build that trust.
It was probably better before when family doctors actually had a relationship with your family.
Dont you think that answer is far to clear cut? How about if it’s abstatement heard from a supposed friend’s doctor and you dont want to get a hold of your family doctor for as inane of a question as it is?
I have watched YouTube videos of smart people reading a smart book that basically said that our education system has the focus on learning facts which gives us a submissive attitude. It gives us a feeling of passivity, of the silent observer.
That said, I realize that the system is getting better in the sense that it tries to evoke curiosity and makes kids to explorers instead of observers if that makes sense. Also, as someone who got interested in history only after school, I know that basic knowledge is important and bad if missing. Than again, why didn’t school make me want to know stuff.
Cant you find out the answer for these questions with a series of short tests?
I once applied for a job at IBM and instead of an initial interview they sent me a series of interactive tests to check my skills. I ended up moving to another country and didn’t follow through, but still liked this approach.
Also in the EU I can see lots of job listings are using now a system where you either have a certain type of education/degree or a certain previous experience to be eligible to apply.
Still you need to have knowledge of the specific field, but technically if you started at the bottom with an entry level low skill job you can get higher with experience alone and without a university degree.
A college degree ahows you can complete a series of seemingly-unrelated tasks (courses) across multiple phases (semesters), to finish a major project (degree).
It means you finish what you start and have an eye on the future instead of the present.
Your answer sounds like it was lifted from a LinkedIn motivational post.
College favours the rich, who can afford it and I don’t think people with higher education are better at planning their future.
Lots of people are forced through college by their parents, often backed up with money and safety nets of security - if they fail the first time they just throw more money at it and try again.
A lack of a degree isn’t proof of anything, good or bad (for most jobs).
But a degree is a positive indicator.
The reality is that when hiring an employee I don’t care how privileged they are. I care about whether they’re going to be a good fit for the position.
There are other things people can use to demonstrate their ability to be a good employee. If someone worked for a company for multiple years and was promoted during that time it’s a good indicator.
If someone is 23 and has worked for 10 different companies, I’m gonna guess they’re flaky.
However, if someone worked for the same company more than once that’s a good sign, because after leaving the company wanted them back.
But, all else being equal, having a degree is better than not for a skilled position, and will usually demand more money.
It’s definitely not a perfect system and you’re absolutely right that it significantly favors people with strong support and safety nets, especially those of a financial nature.
That being said it’s a very easy shorthand for a company to take and is reliable enough to keep using it, just like how financial institutions in the US use SSNs as private identifiers because it’s easier and cheaper than running and supporting their own systems/assessments and mostly works well enough
I’ve grown rather cynical of corp-speak lately, and I’ve heard this line before.
Whether said overtly or not, at least nowadays I’d be willing to bet a degree is used as a positive indicator that the candidate is likely in debt, will do anything for a job, and therefore will stick around and put up with almost anything for less wages, because they lack leverage.
They’re therefore cheaper to hire than an independent individual that might exercise their freedom to leave if they’re not treated with respect.
This might also explain why folks with high level degrees are constantly called “overqualified” and ghosted.
Ah, Elementary through Highschool teaches you to be an employee.
Higher education is being sold dreams and taking on debt to learn to be a better employee. Sounds about right.
I teach myself new complex skills all the time, but I imagine I’m still written off a ton because I didn’t pay for at least the four year license to learn to learn. Lol
(I want to emphasize I’m being playfully sarcastic about our clown world society and not attacking you, you are very correct about needing to understand before one critiques!)
Well that’s about the system in the USA or some third world countries. Locking higher education behind a paywall only helps to keep the population uneducated, combine that with no focus on critical thinking in school and you get a population that’s easy to control and to polarise.
Of course politicians like Trump (or pseudo-democracies or straight up autocratic regimes in third world countries) really benefit from an easily-convinced population that’s not questioning them too much, so, given how strong the republicans currently are, that sadly probably won’t change anytime soon.
At some point they’ll realise that they need free or at least very affordable education to stay internationally competitive…
On a national level we’re reaping the tainted harvest wrought by years of cultivating an uneducated populace.
They make for great desperate-workers, emotionally swayed voters, readily-motivated armed forces, and well-trained consumers, but making higher education an increasingly lofty privilege while also undermining it at every turn for politics is totally coming back to bite us.
Instead of being seen as the wealth of our nation, people are seen as another commodity product for corporations to buy and sell. (Readily evident at the defunding and disrespect towards arts and social sciences.)
Now when there’s a “shortage” of educated workers, they just import them from wherever’s cheapest.
…And tons of our college funding still goes to the football teams. To entertain and profit off the uneducated masses.
Well that’s about the system in the USA or some third world countries.
And boy, are we feeling it. Infrastructure crumbling. Crime, unemployment, homelessness on the rise. Everybody is stupid. But check out our new super-carrier! /s
Man I wish I had some positive note to end this with but I’m just frustrated, and a lot of me wishes to just escape. Lol.
The original idea behind school isn’t to educate the masses. Why would a factory worker need to know calculus and Shakespeare? He needs to read the clock and timetables, be on time, wake up in the morning early enough to be punctual, …
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