Microsoft: The Joy of Figuring Out What Code Can Do
October 26, 2020
DarkCyber finds Microsoft in an interesting spot. On one hand, Microsoft wants to be open sourcey. The idea of community created and community supported software provides a useful source of ready-to-microwave code nuggets, hints about whom to hire, and an opportunity to reduce the maintenance cost of certain components.
On the other hand, monitoring what’s on GitHub and, more importantly, how code can be used is a sticky wicket.
“RIAA Blitz Takes Down 18 GitHub Projects Used for Downloading YouTube Videos” explains:
Microsoft-owned GitHub has removed today 18 projects from its code-hosting portal following a legal request filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)….In a letter sent to GitHub, RIAA argued that the “clear purpose of this source code [the youtube-dl library]” was to “circumvent the technological protection measures used by authorized streaming services such as YouTube” and to allow users to “reproduce and distribute music videos and sound recordings […] without authorization.”
The issue is likely to be a thorny one. Code can be used for many things:
- To perform a function
- A way to learn how to do a task
- Create software unrelated to the GitHub offering.
Microsoft has removed the “offending” software. But the problem could become the seed of a giant junk maple in the main Redmond campus green space. The article makes this point, and it is an important one:
RIAA isn’t alleging the library infringed on its rights, but that the library is illegal in itself.
Just as Microsoft wants to get open sourcey and more social, it finds itself in an interesting spot. Who or what will fertilize and water this tiny take down seed? Exactly what can code do? Exactly to what purposes can code be put? What about software which includes code which can do something a third-party defines as illegal? So many questions for the JEDI knights.
Stephen E Arnold, October 26, 2020
One More Reason to Love Microsoft Windows 10 Updates: Malware
October 23, 2020
The pushing of updates reflects two things. First, the generally low quality of software. Second, a crazed desire to lock in customers. Microsoft seems to be working hard to deliver on both counts. However, there is more to love about the silent, unwanted Windows update processes, a topic not covered in Microsoft’s free report about its loss of 250 million items of customer data. Curious? You can download the report at this link.
“This Nasty Malware Has Disguised Itself As a Windows 10 Update”, if accurate, suggests there are other issues with the JEDI warriors’ online systems. We learned:
Emotet, the malware campaign that has been causing havoc for computer systems all over the world, has reappeared with a new approach to infecting devices. An email attachment claiming to be from Windows Update and instructing users to upgrade Microsoft Word is now being used to lure unsuspecting victims into downloading the malicious software. The malware works by first sending spam emails that contain either a Word document attachment or a download link. Victims will then be prompted to ‘Enable Content’ to allow macros to run on their device, which will install the Emotet Trojan.
Seems like phishing to us. Are there steps Microsoft could take to minimize risks to their millions of long suffering customers? Sure, but it may not be a priority. JEDI, you know. Beating off Amazon and Google, you know.
The reports about security are nice. But maybe something more than a free marketing document is needed if the “nasty malware” story is on the money? You know?
Stephen E Arnold, October 23, 2020
Microsoft Bing: Assertions Versus Actual Search Results
September 25, 2020
DarkCyber read “Introducing the Next Wave of AI at Scale innovations in Bing.” The write up explains a number of innovations. These enhancements will make finding information via Bing easier, better, faster, and generally more wonderful.
The main assertions DarkCyber noted are:
Smarter suggestions. The idea is that one does not know how to create a search query. Bing will know what the user wants.
More ideas. Bing will display questions other people (presumably just like me) ask. Bing keeps track and shows the popular questions. Yep, popular.
Translations. Send a query with mixed languages, and Bing will answer in your language. No more of that copying and pasting into Google Translate or Freetranslations.org.
Highlighting. This is Bing’s yellow marker. The system will highlight what you need to read. The method? “A zero-shot fashion.” No, DarkCyber does not know what this means. But one can ask Bing, right?
Let’s give Bing a whirl and run the same query against Googzilla.
Here’s a DarkCyber Bing query related to research we are now doing:
Black Sage open source
And here’s the result:
Black Sage is an integrator engaged in the development of counter unmanned aerial systems. The firm’s marketing collateral emphasizes that its platform is open. DarkCyber wants to know if the system uses open source methods for compromising a targeted UAS (drone). Bing focuses on a publishing company.
Now Google:
The first result from the Google is a pointer to the company. The remainder of the results are crazy and wacky like the sneakers Mr. Brin wore to Washington about a decade ago to meet elected officials. Crazy? Nope, Sillycon Valley.
DarkCyber uses both Bing and Google. Why did Google produce something sort of related to our query and Bing missed the corn hole entirely?
The answer is that Bing does not process a user’s search history as effectively as the Google. All the fancy words from Microsoft cannot alter a search result. DarkCyber is amused by Google and Microsoft. We are skeptical of each system.
Key points:
- Microsoft is chasing technology instead of looking for efficient ways to tailor results to a user.
- Microsoft wants to prove that its approach is more knowledge-centric. Google just wants to sell ads. Giving people something they have already seen is fine with Mother Google.
- Microsoft, like Google, has lost sight of the utility of providing “stupid mode” and “sophisticated mode” for users. Let users select how a query should be matched to the content in the index.
To sum up, Google has a global share of Web search in the 85 percent range. Bing is an also participated player. Perhaps a less academic approach, deeper index, and functional user controls would be helpful?
Stephen E Arnold, September 25, 2020
Microsoft and Search: Here We Go Again
September 23, 2020
Microsoft cannot create reliable software. Example: The Surface Duo, née Andromeda. Example: Windows 10 updates. Example: Windows Mobile. Example: Bob (remember Bob?) The company has good ideas, but it cannot move beyond imitating Amazon for the cloud, piggybacking on Google for a Windows 10X vehicle, and buying Fast Search & Transfer for the jargon-charged enterprise search system the company acquired in 2008.
“Microsoft Gets Exclusive License for OpenAI’s GPT-3 Language Model” makes clear that the smart software efforts of Microsoft Research, acquisitions like Powerset and XOXCO, plus the numerous application specific search and NLP functions are not doing the job. The fix is to license the next big thing. Perhaps the challenge is an organization and work process within Microsoft? Maybe technology is not the problem? Maybe execution is?
The write up in the Silicon Valley real news article states:
Microsoft today announced that it will exclusively license GPT-3, one of the most powerful language understanding models in the world, from AI startup OpenAI. In a blog post, Microsoft EVP Kevin Scott said that the new deal will allow Microsoft to leverage OpenAI’s technical innovations to develop and deliver AI solutions for customers, as well as create new solutions that harness the power of natural language generation.
Here we go again. Will the result be a blend Bing, Windows ME, Vista, and MSN?
Stephen E Arnold, September 23, 2020
The JEDI Questioned: Windows 10 Updates and Value
September 21, 2020
“Windows 10 Updates Are Pretty Much Useless” suggests that the JEDI outfit and inventor of two mobile phones held together with a hinge is hand waving. Who knew? The article asserts: “IT professionals claim Windows 10 updates rarely deliver value.” The sample on which these shocking conclusions are based contained 500 people. No, we don’t know how these folks were selected or if they were wearing Steve Jobs-style jeans and shirts.
We noted these items from the write up:
- Of the 500 respondents, 20 percent said they think Windows 10 updates deliver at least some value.
- 22 percent said the updates left them “indifferent.”
- In 2018, a similar survey revealed nearly 70% of IT personnel were dismissive of the bi-annual feature updates at the time.
Is Microsoft Windows winning over the hearts and minds of the JEDI minions? Not much progress it seems. How excited can one get when an operating system is a utility function. Fiddling with an operating system appears to put speed bumps on the information highway.
What about bum updates? Not even a bold online information services dares to enter that digital swamp.
Stephen E Arnold, September 21, 2020
Microsoft Azure: Big Like a Trillion
September 16, 2020
Microsoft, the JEDI knight for 2020, is bigger and more capable. “Microsoft AI Tool Enables Extremely Large Models with a Trillion Parameters.” Yep, a trillion. Can you visualize a trillion? I can’t. When I worked at an interesting consulting firm, I learned about a study of the behaviors of Boards of Directors for large public companies. The finding was that the Boards would spend more time discussing small financial activities than multi-million or multi-billion dollar deals. So a trillion. Yeah, right.
The write up asserts:
Microsoft Corp. has released a new version of its open-source DeepSpeed tool that it says will enable the creation of deep learning models with a trillion parameters, more than five times as many as in the world’s current largest model.
The article continues:
DeepSpeed is a software library for performing artificial intelligence training. Announced in February, it has already gone through multiple iterations that increased the maximum size of the models it can train from more than 100 billion to more than a trillion.
What’s interesting is that Microsoft cannot install a $0.99 codec into Windows 10. The trillion is 12 zeros. The .99 is off the radar, just like the crazy assertions about big data. DeepSpeed, like a JEDI unable to deal with a codec.
Stephen E Arnold, September 16, 2020
The JEDI Gang: Updates Are Great
September 13, 2020
We have an assortment of Mac, Linux, and Windows 10 computers. The Windows updates are, of course, perfect. If you have experienced an uncomfortable moment when a Windows 10 computer is updating, you will find “Windows: The Dread of Updates” interesting. The main point of the write up is:
I got Windows 10 for free and I still feel like I’ve been horribly ripped off. My time is worth more than this.
The explanation for update problems varies. The real reason is that Windows has become so convoluted, no one knows why the “system” fails.
My most recent thrill involved a pop up that demanded I upgrade a codec via the Windows Store. What? I thought there was an update process that did not involve the Windows Store. Wrong. I followed the link, learned I had to pay $0.99 for the HEVC update.
The system did its thing and promptly crashed. After a reboot, I learned that the Microsoft provided file could not install.
No kidding. But the Microsoft mechanism for charging me $0.99 for the codec worked.
These guys are going to power the US military establishment? Of course.
Stephen E Arnold, September 13, 2020
Help the Duo, Obi-Wan. The Future Is Here
September 11, 2020
I read “Surface Duo Is Packed with Power and Bugs.” If you want to locate the story online, you will need to search for “Microsoft Surface Duo Review: Two Screens, Too Many Problems.” Why? “Because Murdoch.” Did you have to ask?
The key point of this short item is to point to the title of Matt Barlow. Now the good part. His title allegedly is:
corporate vice president of modern life, search and devices.
Okay, modern life is replete with buggy Windows 10 updates, the pandemic, financial turmoil for non-monopolistically inclined enterprises, and social unrest. The search thing is a bit of a joke. We need Elizabeth Barrett Browning to count the number of ways to “search” using Microsoft applications and solutions. (How about that Excel and Dynamics search by the way?)
Now jump to the ultimate paragraph in the write up which says:
I’m hungry for the real power and productivity promised by this future feeling gadget. It just has to actually work.
The hunger is a trope related to the ill-cooked steak. The split infinitive is the new “real” journalism. Gritty.
The point, however, is probably one Microsoft’s corporate vice president of modern life, search, and videos would prefer to delete. Yeah, that’s the reminder that Microsoft outputs have to work actually.
Actually?
Stephen E Arnold, September 11, 2020
Microsoft Channels the Google: Users Moved to Second Class Status
September 9, 2020
Microsoft is notorious for angering its users, no matter how loyal they are to the brand. Microsoft developers must get perverse pleasure from annoying their clients, because Fossbytes details how “New Microsoft Edge Support Page May Have Pissed Users Even More.”
Another thing Microsoft is notorious for is its support and help pages not being helpful at all. Apparently they have upped the ante on useless support information, because users cannot uninstall Microsoft Edge.
Microsoft Edge is Microsoft’s built-in Web browser and users do not like it. They want to remove it. Windows will not allow users to install it. The only way to get rid of Edge is to switch to a Mac or join the Linux community. Most computers come with default browsers. Apple products have Safari and Chromebooks from Google use Chrome.
It is SOP for computers to come with a preinstalled Web browser and doing otherwise would not be good marketing, especially for a company as big as Microsoft. What rankles users more than anything is the aggravation and taunting behavior:
“But the way it’s promoting Edge may be easily called as too pushy. Probably, Microsoft shouldn’t have just created a page called “Can’t Uninstall Microsoft Edge” and blatantly tell users they can’t uninstall Microsoft Edge at all. Surely, a user browsing the web to find a solution wouldn’t dance in joy after reading it. If you think your product is good, then you have to release it properly and then at least trust your users that they’ll eventually start using it.”
There is a way around using Microsoft Edge. Download another browser like Chrome or Firefox, then make it the default browser. You might not be able to delete Edge, but you can delete the icon from the desktop and not browse the Web with it.
Whitney Grace, September 9, 2020
Windows and Its Fan Boys: Sound Problems Plague Podcast
September 4, 2020
At the gym yesterday, I was listening to a new to me podcast called Windows Central. The program focused on the two phones stuck together. About 15 mintues into the podcast, one of the experts on the program could not turn off sound from another program running on his Windows 10 computer. There was muttering; there were unhelpful suggestions from a co-host; and there was the sound of clicks and sighing. Most amusing was the fact that the expert could not figure out from whence the unwanted sound was coming. Ah, Windows 10.
But there is a fix for our intrepid Windows’ cheerleader. “PowerToys Now Lets You Mute Your Webcam or Microphone on Windows 10” provides a link to a free but experimental control that allegedly may have solved the expert’s quite shallow mastery of Windows 10. (I mean an expert who cannot mute sound communicates a great deal about “experts” and, of course, about the Byzantine, increasingly exciting Windows 10 operating system.)
I want to point out that the $0.99 codec for HEVC which I downloaded from the Windows Store (!) did not install. But that was a minor problem compared to forced updates that killed my printer not long ago. Yes, Microsoft is a JEDI knight, but the fancy engineering powering the system has some — how shall I phrase it — issues. What happens in a battle when the sound does not work on a JEDI powered laptop? Telepathy? Luke Skywalker suddenly appears?
And for experts who cannot figure out why two sound streams are playing on a podcast? That will be a boost for these wizards’ credibility. No, I don’t understand why I want two phones held together with a hinge.
And, no, I did not listen to the entire program. I mean an expert who cannot control his machine’s audio. Amazing stuff.
Stephen E Arnold, September 4, 2020
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