Topic: How Nadella is changing MS.

[Pugnate]

http://www.businessinsider.com/nadella-builds-new-microsoft-in-3-months-2014-5

[Cobra951]

Thanks for that.  Very informative, and an eye opener.  So this is where all the changes are coming from.

[idolminds]

Huh, interesting. I didn't know about most of those things.

[ren]

This is exciting. Tech news in the last little while has all seemed liked more of the same, it's refreshing to see some new light.

[Pugnate]

I just hope this all makes business sense for MS.

edit:

Reading the article again it all does make perfect sense. It seems logical and it seems that Nadella has replaced a stubborn man.

[Xessive]

It seems like Nadella is attuning Microsoft with a wider-spanning view on the technology industry.

I hope the effects of his influence will be evident on the whole industry and not just Microsoft.

[Quemaqua]

Huh. All of that sounds really cool and like a major improvement over Microsofts of old. But man, The Internet of Things sounds fucking terrifying.

[Xessive]

Huh. All of that sounds really cool and like a major improvement over Microsofts of old. But man, The Internet of Things sounds fucking terrifying.

It can be terrifying or terrifyingly amazing! haha

Every time I hear about the "Internet of Things" I always think of David Rokeby's "Giver of Names" which was an art installation in 1991.

[Cobra951]

Huh. All of that sounds really cool and like a major improvement over Microsofts of old. But man, The Internet of Things sounds fucking terrifying.

This is freaky.  Sandy brought up this article today.  We were talking about it this morning, with no connection at all to this thread.  And it's the first (and second) time I hear about IoT in my whole life.

[Quemaqua]

I've never heard of it until now. And while it isn't entirely a surprise (have to figure we'd get there eventually), I'm absolutely sticking with Fucking Terrifying. Every silver lining has its black cloud, apparently.

[scottws]

Really?  The "Internet of Things" has been a pretty common phrase in the tech world for almost a year now.  I see it at least once a week.

But yes, it is terrifying because of the security implications.  Recently, I saw an article where some white hat hackers were able to record audio from Cisco VoIP phones at their company by performing the following attack:

* Spear phishing attack to get people to print a special, corrupt print job to a specific model network printer known to have a security weakness.
* Install an attack platform on the compromised printer.  Now attacks can be staged from within the network, from a printer (really just another computer device this day and age).
* Use the attack platform on the printer to attack a vulnerability in Cisco VoIP phones.
* Install malware on Cisco VoIP phones that makes the mic active at all times and uploads captured audio to an external server run by the hackers.

Terrifying stuff.  In the grand scheme of things, Windows workstations are quite hardened from a security perspective compared to your average network printer or other network device.  These things tend to go completely unpatched by the endusers, and that's even if the device manufacturer stays on top of security issues and releases regular updates.

So many device manufacturers are networking their devices and are completely clueless when it comes to security.

[Quemaqua]

Exactly. I'm not really "in the tech world" (and in fact have to some degree tried to stay out of some of it ... though that's going to change if I end up going for a CS degree), thus I haven't heard of this. But I've sort of always assumed more and more things would head that way. But yeah, terrifying for all those reasons. And who's to stop the government from exploiting this stuff and not telling anybody? What happens when nearly everything you own can be itemized in a nice list by a government agency simply because it's all hooked up to whatever network? The current-day realities are scary, and the eventual potential misuses are even scarier (especially given the government's in-bed relationship with so many corporations).

[scottws]

Exactly. I'm not really "in the tech world" (and in fact have to some degree tried to stay out of some of it ... though that's going to change if I end up going for a CS degree), thus I haven't heard of this. But I've sort of always assumed more and more things would head that way. But yeah, terrifying for all those reasons. And who's to stop the government from exploiting this stuff and not telling anybody? What happens when nearly everything you own can be itemized in a nice list by a government agency simply because it's all hooked up to whatever network? The current-day realities are scary, and the eventual potential misuses are even scarier (especially given the government's in-bed relationship with so many corporations).

You are right on track.  Potential attack vectors by black hats are trending upward, and introducing more poorly secured devices lacking regular security updates to a network is a problem in itself.  Governmental abuses are possibly scarier.  Did you hear the recent Snowden revelation that the NSA was intercepting Cisco network device shipments bound for specific recipients, installing some sort of spyware on them, packing them back up, and sending them on to the original recipient?

The Cisco CEO has told Obama that revelations about this sort of spying has hurt U.S. technology businesses.  Some NSA legal counsel fired back saying Cisco knew it was going on.  I don't know how true that was (after all, if so, why wouldn't they just do it at the factory?), but I'm sure if Cisco did know it was under one of those compulsory silence situations all those FISA court rulings have stipulated.  Like, "Hey we are going to do this highly intrusive spying on your customers, you have to enable us, and you can't tell anyone it is going on or it is treason."

[Quemaqua]

Right, exactly. It's not just misuse or vulnerability from one corner that scares me, it's the clusterfuck of possibilities in so many arenas.