this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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Privacy

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 hours ago

opt-in by default

That’s not really what “opt-in” means.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 hours ago

well, i switched to libreoffice on my laptop 2 weeks ago. Switching to linux entirely when i get the desktop. Garuda or Bazzite. Maybe Tumbleweed

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

On a Windows PC, the steps include going to File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Optional Connected Experiences and unchecking the box.

For everyone who, like me, has to use MS for business reasons.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago

If you're in an organization, create a support ticket citing concerns about internal documents secrecy. They can disable it for everyone and tell Microsoft that they crossed the line.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago

How delightfully convoluted

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago

The opt-out button is actually very easy to find. It's right there with the rest of the Uninstall buttons.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

This is illegal in Europe. I'm pretty sure EU countries are left out of this. This behavior is so blatantly criminal that one wonders why the EU are the only ones who have banned it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Well I just checked my settings and it was enabled and I'm in the EU. Analytics was disabled but this special content scraper thingy was enabled.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 50 minutes ago

Wow, if that's true, I hope the EU imposes significant fines, and not in two years...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 hours ago

Great, nothing better than training LLMs on vulnerability assessment and Red Teaming reports of banks and clients. I hope this does have a GPO.

Not that it would help. Even though there is a chance the testers would turn it off (assuming they even know about it, I just learned about it today and already worked with two reports this week) the report still goes through the hands of several management and even sales people on both sides. Unless both ITs has caught wind of it and have the GPO turned to opt out (which is unlikely), I'm honestly really looking forward to some training data in the form of highly confidential security data leaking.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

Scraping Excel? What the hell are they going to do with that data, you can’t just make up quarterly reports.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago

It’s probably the structure of the documents that is most interesting for „AI“ when it comes to excel. Not the bare numbers, but what information goes where and how it gets linked.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

How else would you come up with your financial data?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago

I throw dice at monkeys then pray they don’t murder me in my sleep.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago

Frankly, I wonder about that sometimes, given the reports I have seen from some CFOs

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

It's not like businesses can just not use Excel or whatever. Microsoft has everyone by the balls and they know it.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

LibreOffice. I'm surprised anyone uses any Microsoft product these days given that they shit all over their users.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Many of my macros / vba code can't run on LibreOffice.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago

Because they're done with specific ms-office macros or because libre-office has no equivalents?

It may not be an immediate 1 to 1 switch with extensive or specific macros, but I would imagine it would be possible and no worse after migration?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 hours ago

Excel is a brilliant program, some may even call it excellent.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Businesses run on Excel. While it's feasible (if painful) to relieve Word or PowerPoint, replacing Excel is just out of the question.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

From what I hear from my brother working in a bank, they should be using databases and data querying instead of excel. What excessive excel use leads to, at least in such cases, is awful flimsy practices, certainty and stability.

The financial data and its accumulations run through multiple excel files referencing others. Traceability requirements that they have to guarantee by law are an issue; I wonder if they'll be able to implement them with Excel at all.

Businesses running on Excel is certainly factual. But I have to wonder whether it's necessary of even a good solution for their work.

If they're deep and wide into Excel, I imagine other data tooling would be better. And if they're not, other products like LibreOffice seem viable as direct replacements.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Why is that? Is there just not enough support for exporting existing data across or does Excel have more features?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Every large company has sunk countless hours into training people, designing sheets, writing macros etc. Trying to move all that to a different product would be hugely painful and disruptive to everyday operations, because all of that would have to be redone and relearned. No company is going to do that.