Romkslrqusz

It never seems to be the people who have actually used the mouse complaining about the port location.

A brief 1-2 minute charge nets you hours of use, it’s really not a big deal.

Can’t actually buy MacOS, you have to buy their hardware. For the time being connecting with an Apple Account is still fully optional.

I’m pretty sure those ads also have to meet certain criteria though.

Using ABP, I’ve never had a popup ad, full page ad, auto-playing video, or other intrusive form of advertisement. The “acceptable ads” have been quiet and out of the way in what would otherwise be empty space.

With the understanding that some websites and content creators are entirely reliant on ad revenue, I prefer to have those filtered down to those that don’t provide a burdensome experience.

I will say that having a new tab open with a solicitation for a donation / “premium” every single update (so almost daily) is irritating and they better knock that shit off if they don’t want to alienate users.

Ever seen wet roadkill?

The new version of this is coming across a reddit post where it seems like OP replies “Thanks, that worked!” to “In protest of Reddit’s API changes, I have removed my comment history. Fuck u/Spez”

Working in IT Support, the fact that Outlook refers to webmail and two distinct email clients makes understanding user’s problems a nightmare.

Not to mention data recovery

Interesting timing, these practices are about to be super illegal under Oregon’s SB1596 right to repair bill that just passed

If you’re at that point of not trusting a company, the best practice would be to avoid using their devices or connecting them to your network.

There are plenty of other ways to track and identify users, a company could conceivably bake whatever the hell they want into the operating system and doesn’t need to rely on you creating an account with them to achieve that objective.

I used the term “unhealthy paranoia” due to the logical fallacy that is at play.

Then don’t?

If you still want to use Windows and use their encryption solution, manually enable Bitlocker and store the recovery key yourself.

There are also third party encryption options.

There are dozens of more probable scenarios that could have the same outcome. Mitigation is as simple as keeping at least one backup, a recommendation as old as home computing.

Ironically, the problem you describe most commonly applies to systems with Intel Optane storage technology, so it’s hardly even a Microsoft Issue.

Hi, repair shop owner here.

Automatic Bitlocker encryption has been a thing since TPM 2.0 devices hit the market in 2018.

If a device is UEFI, Secure Boot is enabled, TPM 2.0 is present, and the user signs in with a Microsoft Account , then the disk is encrypted and the recovery key is saved to that Microsoft Account.

If those conditions aren’t met, automatic encryption doesn’t happen.

As long as they know their Microsoft Account Identifier, users can easily get to that key through the first search engine result for “bitlocker recovery key”: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/finding-your-bitlocker-recovery-key-in-windows-6b71ad27-0b89-ea08-f143-056f5ab347d6

We don’t really have a hard time with it - if a user provides their login PIN, a short terminal command will let us grab a copy of their key before BIOS updates or battery disconnects.

I have had very few cases where folks suffered data loss because of Bitlocker. Most of them were HP Laptops that used Intel Optane accelerated SSDs - encrypting what is effectively a software RAID0 is a recipe for disaster.

The other few had an unhealthy paranoia where they were reluctant to share anything about themselves with Microsoft, yet still decided to use a Microsoft operating system. While setting up the computer, they created a new Outlook.com email (instead of using their primary email), made up a random birthday, and did not fill in any recovery options like a phone number or secondary email. With the password (and sometimes even email) forgotten, they created a situation where they could not prove the online account was theirs and therefore could not get to the recovery key that had been backed up.

I do think that Microsoft should have this as an opt-in feature during the out of box experience, which is how Apple has it set up for Filevault and how most Linux distributions are set up. Ultimately, most users will still mash “next’ through the process and later blame the computer.

I have had quite a few clients have their laptops stolen after car breakins. Their biggest stressor was the possibility of thieves having access to the data on those machines, and the fact that we knew their systems were encrypted with Bitlocker brought them a lot of relief.

The automatic encryption and subsequent backup both took place because you were using a Microsoft Account

Pretty clear you either haven’t read the bill or grossly misunderstood it. What you describe is not proposed legislation - it’s the current reality that individuals and independent repair shops already live with.

The 2024 variant of the bill isn’t actually publicly available online, but here’s last year’s WIP text:

https://olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2023R1/Downloads/MeasureDocument/SB542

You wrote:

manufacturers have to share repair manuals, tools, and parts ONLY with ASPs under “fair and reasonable terms”.

Line 23 of the bill says:

(2)(a) An original equipment manufacturer shall make available to an owner or an independent repair provider on fair and reasonable terms any documentation, tool, part or other device or implement that the original equipment manufacturer makes available to an authorized service provider for the purpose of diagnosing, maintaining, repairing or updating consumer electronic equipment that the original equipment manufacturer makes or sells and that is sold or used in this state.

[…] “journalist” that hasn’t read the bill otherwise they would know that it’s NOT right to repair […]

Have you read the bill?

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This article starts off with some inaccurate information right from the onset, so it leaves me with some credibility concerns that incline me to do some of my own testing.

Since Windows 10 1803, both Windows 10 and 11 Home and Pro have automatically enabled Bitlocker Encryption during the Out Of Box Experience (OOBE) as long as the following conditions are met:

• The device is UEFI and Secure Boot enabled
• The device has a TPM2.0 device that is enabled
• There are no un-allowed Direct Memory Access (DMA) capable devices on a DMA capable bus.
• The user signed in using a Microsoft Account and had an active internet connection at the time.

It is not specific to Windows 11 and has nothing to do with Home/Pro. This has been going on since 2018.

They also mention encryption built-in to SSDs. That is a fundamentally different kind of encryption. With Bitlocker, removing an SSD from a device or accessing it from anything but the original Windows environment will require the user to enter a 25-digit key to gain data access. Without Bitlocker, the on-disk encryption does not prevent data access in those scenarios. That encryption key exists primarily so that you can secure erase the disk by changing the encryption key. The alternative is a block-level erasure, which would put wear and tear on the SSD.

Pretty disappointing to see this coming from an otherwise reputable source like Tom’s Hardware.

I’d rather edit every single post / comment to say “Fuck u/spez” but I don’t know how to use the API to do that and I don’t have the time to commit to that project :/

Add Samuel L Ipsum to your list!

https://slipsum.com