Surveillance by the New Microsoft Outlook App

The ProtonMail people are accusing Microsoft’s new Outlook for Windows app of conducting extensive surveillance on its users. It shares data with advertisers, a lot of data:

The window informs users that Microsoft and those 801 third parties use their data for a number of purposes, including to:

  • Store and/or access information on the user’s device
  • Develop and improve products
  • Personalize ads and content
  • Measure ads and content
  • Derive audience insights
  • Obtain precise geolocation data
  • Identify users through device scanning

Commentary.

Tags: , , , ,

Posted on April 4, 2024 at 7:07 AM • 42 Comments

Comments

tfb • April 4, 2024 7:18 AM

A thing I have noticed which is just nasty in a couple of apps I use (not Outlook which I don’t use) is that they will show you some enormous list of people they will send your data to, and you can then decline them all, if you are lucky all at once. But the thing knows you have done something it doesn’t want you to do, so a few days later it asks you again. And again. I have never said ‘OK, have my data’ but I am willing to bet that if I did it would ask me either less often or not at all.

And this is applications, so it is not because I’ve nuked state in a browser.

And it is applications for services for which I am paying money.

echo • April 4, 2024 7:50 AM

Being a lady of a certain age and proclivities advertisers and data brokers won’t get much out of me so they’re wasting their time.

Stuff like this makes me lean more and more towards regulation and open standards and progressive taxation funded internet and maybe for open source development too. I’m sure there’s some mechanism people can get their head around which works.

I know it’s not for everyone but I shifted to Linux after a period of trialing for a range of reasons. I had already shifted to cross-platform applications which made the switch easier. I really don’t know why people need all the bling and bloat. Thunderbird with message display set to text mode is good for me. Microsoft never had a stable data format for email (and I never used Outlook) which was another reason to get fed up with Microsoft not to mention their import-export filters have always been one sided.

molly • April 4, 2024 8:08 AM

@Name, re: “Surprises no one.”

I am a little surprised. It used to be well known that if you wanted privacy, you should use local programs instead of free internet-based services.

Outlook’s always been kind of a bad e-mail program—poor threading, for example—but at least it didn’t spy on its users; and it could schedule meetings and speak the proprietary Microsoft protocols. But what’s the point of this program now? There are better local programs that don’t spy on their users (and most Exchange servers have provided IMAP and SMTP for years), and there are spying-included free web services with better interfaces.

b walker • April 4, 2024 9:10 AM

@molly, +1.. They have to pay for developing the app somehow, this should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Clive Robinson • April 4, 2024 9:41 AM

@ b walker, molly, ALL

Re : It should surprise no one.

“They have to pay for developing the app somehow, this should not come as a surprise to anyone.”

So let me get this straight, you are saying,

We should expect to have home invasion and theft, so that someone can pay a builder to make a monstrosity that nobody of any sensibilities would pay for?

Correct me if I’m wrong but that’s how it reads to me.

NoGoogle • April 4, 2024 9:45 AM

I skimmed over the article. It seems what the article says only applies to the free version of Outlook. I use have the ad-free subscription that costs me around 20$ a year. ProtonMail is now my preferred personal email but plenty of people have my old Outlook account so I keep it as a backup and all my Outlook email is sent to ProtonMail.

I wish everybody moved to ProtonMail but as long as there are large percentages of the population who use Outlook and Gmail, we won’t have much privacy.

Even with what this article says, I would still use the free version of Outlook over Gmail. Surveillance and datamining their users data is in Google’s DNA. Whatever Microsoft is doing vis a vis surveillance is probably insignificant compared to what Google does.

echo • April 4, 2024 10:49 AM

When software reaches a certain level of maturity there’s only so much fiddling you can do without it being simply cosmetic or fiddling for fiddles sake or bumping version numbers as an excuse to milk customers. They’ve made their money on Outlook a million times over and I don’t owe Microsoft a living. I’m sorry to be like that but I really don’t see how it’s justified. Anyway, I don’t run a Microsoft OS so it’s a moot point really.

What I don’t spend on Microsoft I can spend on something else like a jacket or skirt off Ebay. It keeps me happy.

NoGoogle • April 4, 2024 11:46 AM

@cybershow I like your write up but being candid, the possibility of those technologists currently working at Big Tech becoming ethical overnight is zero. I use the word “technologist” in a wide sense to include no only people who write code, but those who design products -product managers under traditional speak-, who market them, who sell them, etc. The industry was built by people who had absolutely zero moral or ethical concerns for their users. These people will have to die/retire before a more ethical alternative can emerge. This is basic human nature stuff that affects everyone. Those who have power, don’t want to lose it, etc. When I was in my early twenties, an uncle made me read Machiavelli’s treaty The Prince. That’s what we are seeing here. If you want the same principles explained to a 21st century audience using 21st century language, you can read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power .

Nobody’s power last forever and I am optimistic that Big Tech’s best days are behind them/us. The signals are everywhere. The incognito lawsuit Bruce was part of is an example. 10 years ago, the lawsuit would have been dismissed as meritless by the judge. This time around Google had to settle. Make no mistake, all judges in the United States are politicians in robes whether they are appointed or elected.

The Biden administration decided to continue the Trump administration’s antitrust lawsuit against Google (in 2013, the Obama administration declined to prosecute Google on similar grounds).

Now you have private alternatives to all tools Big Tech uses to milk people’s money (Signal, Brave, Proton mail and VPN). 10 years ago, these products didn’t exist or were essentially unusable when compared to the Big Tech products.

The list go on.

It will take time to move away from the Big Tech dominated world because nobody give up power without a fight, but I think that the darkest days of Big Tech dominated internet are behind us.

William • April 4, 2024 11:49 AM

772 third-parties are hoovering up user’s email and they’re worried about TikTok?!
Good grief.

Maarten • April 4, 2024 12:46 PM

A bit ironic that the “Commentary” link then directs to ghacks.net where you can share your data with their 165 partners.

NoGoogle • April 4, 2024 1:05 PM

@cybershow to follow up. If you think about the great tech companies produced by Silicon Valley in the pre-Big Tech era, they were either founded or had key early contributors who grew up in an era where morals and ethics were valued. People like Bill Hewlett, Dave Packard, Gordon Moore, Andrew Groove, Leonard Bosack, Sandy Lerner or John Morgridge, all whom either lived through WWII or were raised early in the post-war years.

On the other hand, I won’t be talking about the personal lives of people like Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, Bill Gates or Steve Jobs because I trust you can do the Googling yourself, but you can’t expect people like this to be ethically compromised in their personal lives and then be ethically virtuous in their business ventures.

From the current crop of very famous people in tech, perhaps only Morris Chang and Jensen Huang shine as the type of ethical tech entrepreneur that should be more common, but they are the exception, not the rule.

TimH • April 4, 2024 1:11 PM

ProtonMail is weaselly too.

Near the end of piece:

“Our security architecture is designed to keep your data invisible even to us, as our business model gives you more privacy, not less.”

I’d prefer:

“Our security architecture keeps your data invisible even to us, as our business model gives you absolute privacy at our servers.”

Clive Robinson • April 4, 2024 4:33 PM

@ TimH,

“ProtonMail is weaselly too.”

Consider that what you ask for,

“Our security architecture keeps your data invisible even to us, as our business model gives you absolute privacy at our servers.”

Is actually impossible.

An Email service is a “data pump” that has an input from a “data source” and an output to a “data sink” and holds data whilst trying to deliver it.

As the pump needs a certain minimum of information we oft call “meta-data” to function then that will be available by necessity to the pump for as long as it has the email.

If it stores it to disk is probable due to the way “Mail Transport” systems work but if it deletes it or not or writes to a logging mechanism is upto the email protocol you use. At the very least it will hold info on inbound emails untill you download/delete them.

BW • April 4, 2024 4:33 PM

@Clive Robinson your characterization of this as home invasion and theft is baseless.

Nobody forces anyone to install Outlook or any Microsoft products for that matter.

Use ‘free’ software and you accept the risks.

Clive Robinson • April 4, 2024 4:43 PM

@ BW, ALL,
@ BW, ALL

Re : Ivory tower Garrett living.

“Nobody forces anyone to install Outlook or any Microsoft products for that matter.”

Yes they do, and Microsoft have been dragged into court over it before.

For the average consumer buyer they get “Microsoft” pre installed no choice available.

Those with children who get a computer for their children to do course work it has to be “Microsoft”

The same with colleges and universities.

The same for “homeworkers” since C19 lockdown.

So would you care to try to refute?

lurker • April 4, 2024 5:57 PM

Thirty years ahead of the game again. I was severely frowned upon by upstream admins for setting up my small Mac based dept with Eudora. Years later users thanked me for the respite they’d had from email beeping at them to remind them of an appointment they hadn’t made in their reliable paper diaries. The ability for upstream management to read any private appointments on the “Calendar” was a big annoyance, along with the ability to write public appointments in any user’s calendar. These ad-sharing data brokers are just the most recent exploiters of MS lack of care for end-users. There will be worse to come …

JonKnowsNothing • April 4, 2024 6:02 PM

@ BW, @Clive, ALL

re: @BW: ‘free’ software

Such software is not “free”. The cost is built into the price of the device. M$ and others are not For The Public Benefit companies, they are For Maximum Profit companies.

These companies all negotiate with the supply chain to ensure that their products are the only ones installed by default. To get something else, you have to uninstall and reformat and then you are not guaranteed that your selection will work due to driver and subsystem components.

It’s not just M$, lots of institutions require specific HW SW combos. They negotiate a Sweetheart kickback deal and all the students, faculty, admin folks must use the designated item(s).

  • irrc(badly) Years back Standford University used Sun Spark Stations or similar with a bookstore cost of ~$10,000 USD and was a required item. There was a very handy special deal credit card they would set you up with to pay it off over time. Of course, it was not part of any student aid or benefit, and was non-cancelable debt. Standford got their cut up front, the student paid for years. Murphy Law: they changed HW SW on a regular basis, rendering the purchases unusable and the debt accumulating more interest.

One aspect that often is overlooked is the built in costs of such deals. In effect Standford raised their already expensive tuition by $10k. They could have offered a $10k discount on their tuition but opted for the ROBODEBT and Hidden CLAWBACK instead.

ResearcherZero • April 4, 2024 10:00 PM

That terrible application that is often the target of intrusion campaigns? The same one that microsoft tries to integrate everywhere and is is awfully inconvenient and intrusive?

The Clippy of mail clients. Software that is best avoided at all costs, but not easily.

Even students are locked into commercial agreements between institutions and companies. Large companies force their software on students by donating “free product” to universities
and schools. Next they then ramp up the requirements, introduce new features and steadily increase the cost and integration of their platforms across the learning environment.

Students are then forced to purchase hardware and to use these products to learn. Hooked.
Next they offer hardware dongles and other authentication methods that require yet more hardware and software purchasing by students and institutions to mitigate vulnerabilities.

Introducing co-pilot, ChatGPT and a host of other integrated features to suck in their data. Don’t forget to update teams to the next version and continuously patch the OS.

Productivity has plateaued? Now how did something like that every happen – one wonders?

Oh cool! Someone just sent me a PDF on how to operate this monstrosity.

echo • April 5, 2024 7:09 AM

Anyone who doesn’t mandate cross platform code and open standards and data portability is a bit silly.

With regard to the Stanford situation the head of computing of a top UK university was wasting millions each year on bad procurement and insurance deals and their network infrastructure was an unmaintainable mess. I clocked this with ten seconds of brain effort after he showed me around the place and merrily opened his mouth about all and sundry. I never got a contract there after one pillar of toxic masculinity tech-head poked his nose in which one manager told me was a bit odd. I wasn’t too happy any of this so after dropping a little truth bomb in the right place invisible wheels turned and the big boss man found himself with his name disgraced in the newspapers and suspended pending investigation and that was the last I heard of him.

I have no idea who is specified the deal for Stanford but they don’t sound very wide awake. Multiply $10K across however many students and staff and that’s a lot of opportunity loss. Tum-te-tum…

Danielle Crawford • April 5, 2024 11:03 AM

Not that there shouldn’t be efforts to make better clients, but email is inherently insecure. “Moscow rules” apply.

Who? • April 6, 2024 5:05 PM

@ Clive Robinson

We should expect to have home invasion and theft, so that someone can pay a builder to make a monstrosity that nobody of any sensibilities would pay for?

Indeed, we should expect it. This one is the abominable way the world works these days. For most people, privacy is dead or —even worse— nonexistent.

My university will destroy the internal mail servers in the next months (three machines running OpenBSD/amd64 with OpenSMTPD). The “official” email service is Outlook. To me it is clear, this one is the end of email for me for better or worse, and I do not have cell phone. Good luck for them contacting me.

Who? • April 6, 2024 5:51 PM

@ NoGoogle

Even with what this article says, I would still use the free version of Outlook over Gmail. Surveillance and datamining their users data is in Google’s DNA. Whatever Microsoft is doing vis a vis surveillance is probably insignificant compared to what Google does.

Surveillance and data mining is in the DNA of all medium/large corporations these days. Google is not better than Microsoft at all.

Let me put an example. Twenty years ago a recruiter at Google wrote me offering
a job. She said that Google was interested in hiring me because I got a developer
position at one of the best open-source security projects. When I asked her how
Google knew it, because the announcement had not been published yet in our journal,
she said that a few emails I shared with a core developer at that project created
a flag in my emails, and one Google employee read my email to know why these emails
were flagged as “interesting”.

Who? • April 6, 2024 5:58 PM

To be clear, I was using gmail at that time. We had our internal mail servers, running Slackware Linux and Solaris, we had not moved them to OpenBSD yet, but I was playing with gmail too.

I learned first hand how “free” services work; but I was not surprised either, as I read carefully the agreement terms with Google before opening my account and knew they reserved the right to read/modify/remove anything from my gmail account.

Clive Robinson • April 6, 2024 7:24 PM

@ Who?, ALL,

Re : No Email is increasingly a crime.

“This one is the abominable way the world works these days.”

As long time readers are aware, I stopped using personal EMail –even with message encryption– a number of years ago. At the time I stopped using it for mainly “Privacy Reasons” we would now call “Personal Security” or similar. I hung onto a GMail account for “social contact” and some “customer service” reasons for a while, then ditched even that.

As is often the case with the “Privacy” choices I’ve made I was in effect classed as “paranoid” at the time, but now… (Being called paranoid and then found somewhat prescient is something that has become a bit of a badge of honour over the years 😉

Now however the world is catching up and people are learning there is a price to pay for convenience, thus are likewise going for more “privacy” via “supposedly” secure messaging apps (they are not secure as the systems they are used on are not secure).

The problem is that various undesirables in authority have decided that electronic communications in insecure systems are “a convenience” for their “aims and objectives” and thus everyone’s privacy was being “looted”.

Those who are taking precautions are now seen as “enemies of the state” by some and as defacto criminals by others.

Even the Law Courts take a dim view on those who do not participate in “insecure electronic communications”.

A little while ago in a tribunal in a UK court, as a witness on the non State side, I had to remind the Court that the law only recognised direct service, and postal communications, and importantly people with disabilities could not use electronic communications thus the state implying they were guilty because they did not participate was in fact illegal under disability discrimination legislation…

Needless to say the State Representative was not at all happy nor were they happy when the tribunal found against them.

But the point is clear that in the UK and I’m assuming other Western states opting out of electronic communications thus being surveilled upon by the State “industrial surveillance” is increasingly being seen as “actions of a guilty person” and is pushed as “circumstantial evidence”.

Thus the question arises as to how long before the assumption moves through de facto to de jure?

lurker • April 6, 2024 8:55 PM

@Who?

“An email server on OpenBSD claiming to be some little university? Tut, tut, keep it on the grey list”

There have been reports of small, private email servers that have run happily forever, suddenly getting “Connection refused” from Google and/or MS, due to their application of white/grey lists, and requiring a strict interpretation of IP4/IPv6. Cynics suggest it is a sales ploy, but I wouldn’t know …

Clive Robinson • April 6, 2024 10:33 PM

@ lurker, Who?, ALL,

“Cynics suggest it is a sales ploy, but I wouldn’t know…”

Probably they are not cynical enough…

To see why,

There is only one way to keep something “secret” and that is to hide it in some manner.

To “hide” something you have to make it look like something it is not, or put it somehow “beyond discovery”.

In this modern world of “forever recorded” electronic communications only physical objects can be put beyond discovery, but information objects can in theory be put “beyond detection” but that requires a “shared secret” treated as a physical not informational object.

In essence outside of “shared secrets” you can put an information object “beyond detection” in one of three ways,

1, Hide it in falsehood.
2, Hide it in ambiguity.
3, Hide it in truth.

The use of “sales ploy” as an argument can be any of the three, to cover something else.

We know Google spys every which way it can and makes profit from selling private information on. We now have more than good reason to believe the same of Microsoft.

Both of them under US legislation “give to the US Government” to avoid potential future prosecution and conviction (you can thank Dianne Feinstein for that bit of legislation).

Thus “sales ploy” would hide the fact that their software is in effect “backdoored” and being pushed at the behest of the US Government into everyone’s usage.

As I’ve said for sometime now,

“I don’t do personal Email.”

Nor am I ever likely to do so again, especially for anything privacy or security related.

To see why…

Considered a “root of trust” or “shared secret” used for authentication etc. The classic example is a “password” stupidly sent by “plaintext email”. As banks and other financial institutions are known to,

1, Do this as standard.
2, Blame the customer if the shared secret is disclosed.

Thus you are “auto-magically” at fault… So as you’ve probably guessed I don’t do “On-Line Banking” either.

echo • April 7, 2024 7:55 AM

But the point is clear that in the UK and I’m assuming other Western states opting out of electronic communications thus being surveilled upon by the State “industrial surveillance” is increasingly being seen as “actions of a guilty person” and is pushed as “circumstantial evidence”. Thus the question arises as to how long before the assumption moves through de facto to de jure?

Being a lady of a certain age I need help opening a new jam jar. This doesn’t exactly fit the profile of public enemy number one.

Has it ever crossed your mind, Clive, you’re the decoy?

Just finding some humour where I can find it. 🙂

JonKnowsNothing • April 7, 2024 11:21 AM

@echo, All

re: need help opening a new jam jar

Many jars are sealed using a vacuum seal where the contents are heated, then the lid components are set on the jar. When the jar cools, the lid is sucked down hard on the jar edges. Home canning systems use this method.

This is different than jars sealed with a protective membrane across the top of the jar that you have to peel back to access the contents. Ketchup, mayonnaise (jars in USA), peanut butter often have this form of seal.

An easier way to open a vacuum sealed jar is to first break the vacuum. There are lots of home remedies for this, my family used the flat edge of a knife to whack the jar into submission. Doesn’t really work though.

You can buy a simple tool, similar to a large old fashions beer can opener that will have a lip to catch the bottom edge of the lid and is wide enough to fit over the top. The handle is long enough that simple leverage will “pop” the seal. (1)

A similar technique is to use the pointy end of the beer can opener and wedge it under the lip of the lid. Then gently pry downwards. You might want to move it around the lid to avoid too much distortion to the lid, until it pops the seal.

This won’t help with the seal lids that are connected to a neck-ring that you have to twist to break the connection. There are many kitchen tools on sale for this sort of lid but they don’t always work easily. You have to grip the cap but that also puts counter pressure against the bottle so makes the twist part harder to do.

===

1) aka Jar Key

echo • April 7, 2024 2:06 PM

@JonKnowsNothing

Oh Lord… The layers of humour went over your head!

Okay so the boring stuff:

I did buy a tool but it’s a bit rubbish. I need to buy a different one. In the meantime I normally put a stuck jar lid under the hot tap so it expands and comes off easier. Or at least that’s the theory with a kitchen towel with some grip. I had a similar devil of a game separating some slug trap pots which had vacuumed sealed to each other in the post.

Anyway, I think Clive gets tunnel vision and over-engineers everything too much. I’m not up to anything nefarious and I have zero illusions about what happens at a network level or what GCHQ do or don’t have on me. There are bad actors who might theoretically be interested in some things which may or may not travel over email but good luck with that. I have just too many exit points and offline safe spaces for them to reach, and there are too many actors in my zones of interest for them to knock over. They may as well poke holes in a blancmange. I’m also blackmail proof even if anyone did have anything on me.

Among other things I do have one maybe two important emails to draft. I have a fair idea what the reaction of a random third party might be who might theoretically intercept them even with relatively sensitive material and it doesn’t worry me. They either wouldn’t have a clue what to do with the information or be bored to tears. Would a nation state level bad actor be a problem? Possibly but in all seriousness I blather more on here than they’d get out of any email. The rest is probably a whine about the local council. I wouldn’t say the remainder of my emails about makeup and clothes and jewelry and grocery purchases are that interesting.

My footprint for phone, app, and government services is meh.

That’s my cover story and I’m sticking with it!

lurker • April 7, 2024 8:27 PM

@echo, @JonKnowsNothing

Being a gentleman of a certain age I can still deal to a new jam jar. But, if I use that jar and lid for my own homemade jam or pickle, then no matter what funnels or wipes I use, some of the product dribbles on the jar rim and glues it on tighter than any vacuum seal. The answer is a tech-bro tool from the man-cave: it’s a length of webbing fixed to a square shank, that is usually sold for the removal of oil filters from engines. You’ll need a big spanner to turn the shank, while sitting down and holding the jar firmly between the knees.

Clive Robinson • April 7, 2024 10:05 PM

@ lurker, ALL,

Re : Canning jar rims.

“But, if I use that jar and lid for my own homemade jam or pickle, then no matter what funnels or wipes I use, some of the product dribbles on the jar rim and glues it on tighter than any vacuum seal. The answer is a…”

A wide neck funnel and plate and a before and after rim wipe with cider vinegar. Oh and keep the lids in hot water with a splash of vinegar in it.

If you wipe the jar rim just before you put in the funnel so it is wet, it stops any spills sticking as easily.

The main trick is to lift the funnel vertically keeping it centered above the jar so any drips drop in rather than on the rim, then with the other hand slide a plate or saucer in under it such that any further drips land on it rather than the jar.

Then with a clean cloth wetted with vinegar wipe the rim again so it’s wet and using a magnet stick pull a lid from the hot water and put the wet lid straight on the jar and give it the required “loose turn” depending on what sort of lid it is.

Importantly let the jar and lid cool down quite slowly (in Autumn I put them in the oven and turn that down slowly).

When cool give another wipe down with vinegar to remove finger prints etc and leave on a pantry shelf for several days. Then test the seal and if good label up and put in the boxes and stack in the pantry.

It’s important to not let the jars get to cold so 5-7C is the lowest it should get otherwise water starts to expand and the seal or jar break.

echo • April 8, 2024 1:26 AM

@lurker

Being a lady of a certain age I’m getting used to the idea of “getting a man in” to fix things. I may not be able to abolish the patriarchy on my own but by the Gods I can take advantage of it. Actually, when I stop and think about it I’m happy with a certain level of “managed sexism”. I’ll leave it to men to get worn out, lose limbs, and do all the heavy lifting. Well actually no I’m not that bad. I’m always going on about health and safety and are their pay and conditions good and are they being looked after not that the fussing doesn’t go in one ear and out the next. Half the time I guess men are thinking “Can you shut up so we can get on with the work”.

Clive Robinson • April 8, 2024 6:07 AM

@ echo, all,

Re : The tyranny of the perfectly cooked baked beans on toast.

“I may not be able to abolish the patriarchy on my own but by the Gods I can take advantage of it.”

Which is one of the major reasons women “of a certain class” are the worst enemy of those who want change be they men or women.

They like the comfort of their “guilded cage” that allows them to be “ladies who lunch”, “ladies of the WI”, “ladies who do the church” etc.

Thus hold back other women who want equal access to life and so be independent and have equal opportunity to think, create and be as individuals.

I first noticed this “nonsense” half a century ago when young.

What I also noticed was that few women were “ladies who XXX” or got the opportunity to be.

That is the “ladies who XXX” could only be so, if the money coming to them could be used to “pass the drudge downward”.

For those that think this sort of thing is past, consider those “Z listers”, “Internet Influencers” and similar “living the life” or more correctly the lie that so many others aspire to today.

I’ve always been curious, and had the watchmaker tic, of take it apart and put it back together, but better. To be creative and in the process make things better for others by moving not just technology but knowledge forward.

What I’ve never liked is those who impede and hold others back for their own selfish reasons.

Call it matriarchy or patriarchy, it does not matter because the underlying process is the same,

1, Create a hierarchy
2, Ensure control is at the top
3, Ensure benefit is at the top
4, Ensure those beneath pay upwards
5, Implement a heretic punishment system.
6, Ensure only those at the top are of similar mind
7, Ensure you are at the top.

It’s the basis for all authoritarian systems and cons such as pyramid selling, crypto coin and almost every investment bubble and what we are seeing currently with AI LLM and ML systems.

Unfortunately those actually at the top are compared to the norm mentally deficiency in a number of quite harmful ways (see dark pentad).

echo • April 8, 2024 9:09 AM

Which is one of the major reasons women “of a certain class” are the worst enemy of those who want change be they men or women.

They like the comfort of their “guilded cage” that allows them to be “ladies who lunch”, “ladies of the WI”, “ladies who do the church” etc.

Thus hold back other women who want equal access to life and so be independent and have equal opportunity to think, create and be as individuals.

You may notice I’ve been having a bit of a laugh lately hence the ironic self-aware joke. I say joke. Er… Men like doing things for women and women like men doing things for women so it works out, right? Okay I’ll knock it off… But yes, this is quite true hence my mentioning oppositional sexism and intersectionality. It’s quite a simple topic but can get a bit windy.

I’ve admired some men who were leaders. I don’t know if admire is the correct word but it will do. Not so many lately I will admit. There are some good women leaders about but too many lately who have been disappointing. There was an article in the Guardian recently about women who had navigated their way to the top and I skipped it as at first glance it seemed too soulless. I know Carole Vorderman is minted and used to be a Tory but she has been absolutely slapping the Tories about lately. Good for her. She’s agreeing with Prem Sikka on a few issues which is nice to see. He’s a real darling he is. His family were immigrants when he was a boy. His parents were poor and died from work. He’s stayed true to his roots and is committed to ensure nobody else has to suffer the same.

Intersectionality is a touch more complicated. It’s basically the class dominance you describe but it can also be a member of one disadvantaged class can abuse their position over someone in an advantaged class who is disadvantaged. You can have abuse within disadvantaged classes as much as within advantaged classes. So really it’s not a straight down linear hierarchy nor a flat hierarchy but more something in the middle for example B can dominate A who can dominate C who dominates A. It can get a bit messy. I follow discussions on the topic on and off as it gives me a refresher and it can help me feel differently about things so that can be useful.

A small note:

The Women’s Institute can be unfairly stereotyped. It can be radical and progressive. It had better be. I’ve been thinking of joining it. It’s something to do.

I lunch given any excuse especially if someone else is paying. The last person to buy me lunch was a parliamentary candidate at the time. Oddly enough I was trying to get something out of them so I should have bought him lunch, really, although thinking about it that won’t do will it? He took my advice and is now the CEO of the company I recommended he try if he could elbow the then CEO out of the way. (The CEO was a completely untrustworthy two-faced slimeball who tried to bully me once in a meeting about, oh, a few decades ago. Never say I can’t hold a grudge!) So it all turned out the CEO was got rid of by ways mysterious of which I have no knowledge and I think he did well out of me. It was Weatherspoons too, the cheap so and so.

Ooof. Church. Yuck. Too many Tories and off their trolley Born Again Christians in those places.

Who? • April 8, 2024 12:03 PM

@ echo

Being a lady of a certain age I need help opening a new jam jar. This doesn’t exactly fit the profile of public enemy number one.

On the contrary, an enemy of the state is defined by her/his brain, not the physical strengh.

lurker • April 8, 2024 6:17 PM

@Clive Robinson
not below 5 – 7 Celsius?

Maybe your extensive military experience didn’t include any real Polar regions.

Water occupies the same volume at 0° as at 10°. The food is usually put into the jars at or above 100°, and as it cools and shrinks, a gap forms at the top, filled not with as popularly believed, a vacuum; but with water vapour, which has a partial pressure of only a few percent of atmospheric at ambient temperatures. So, plenty of room for the liquid to expend into with little danger to the “vacuum” seal. What happens to the jar depends on its strength, and the quantity and quality of comestibles disolved/suspended in the water. Jam in glass jars can easily survive -40°C; cans are preferred because they are more rubust in dockside handling.

The principal effects of low temperature or freezing are cosmetic. The denaturing of protein in beer forms a floating cloud, which polar veterans refer to as “snot”.

Clive Robinson • April 8, 2024 7:49 PM

@ lurker,

“Maybe your extensive military experience didn’t include any real Polar regions.”

Depends what you mean by “regions”… Remember only one pole has a solid footing so unless you are a cold blooded fish…

The reality of the “not below 5 – 7 Celsius” is what the manufacturer of the lids with the white silicon rubber/plastic says in their paperwork about the seal/jar.

But on another note about freezing water, ever had a copper pipe fail due to the water inside freezing?

Well according to those who sell certain CO2 pipe freeze kits to plumbers, the copper pipe will not break even though the water freezes…

Yup things are always a bit more complicated than they appear to meer mortals 😉

echo • April 8, 2024 9:01 PM

@Who

On the contrary, an enemy of the state is defined by her/his brain, not the physical strengh.

Busted.

Being a lady of a certain age in the real world whether online or offline protects me from the low hanging fruit. To a point… And that’s where the fun and games begin. It’s really horrible knowing your own government wants you unalived.

In practice I find it’s not always the state per se but any entity containing various forms of unofficial systems, ego, and moral cowardice. That’s the real threat and we’re seeing it play out on rather a grand scale in the UK at the moment. That’s Clives “controlling minds” thing. Where I robustly differ is I favour the multi-domain security model. Find a problem in one area and it usually shows there’s a problem in another area.

I have no idea where the security services are because they’re doing nothing from my perspective. I have questions about national security policies. Whether I ask those or not depends very much on the outcome of the next general election.

NoGoogle • April 9, 2024 12:57 PM

@Who?

Oh, I am sure Microsoft does its share of datamining. We are talking about a difference in degree.

Microsoft’s DNA is selling software licenses. While they didn’t invent the concept, they became the top dog in making money selling software at a profit. To this day, they are the best in the business by a huge margin.

Google’s DNA is datamining people’s data and selling the insight of that datamining to the advertiser who pays the highest price.

Both companies have tried to compete with the other at what they are good at but Microsoft is not as good at playing the datamining game as Google and Google is not as good at licensing software as Microsoft.

Given this reality, if I want to minimize the possibility of my data being misused, I rather use Microsoft’s add free offering than any of Google’s so called “free” products.

My personal email these days is Proton Mail (with the Bridge that allows me to use Outlook as my email client). But because I used ad-free outlook in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations, a lot of people still have my outlook account. I have all my outlook email forward to my Proton Mail account. I hope in a few years to be able to switch completely to Proton Mail, but for now, I have to do this.

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