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China Raids Multiple Microsoft Offices, Media Demands "Severe Punishment"
With Chinese state media calling for "severe punishment" against American tech firms for helping the U.S government to steal secrets and monitor China, Reuters reports that Microsoft offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu were raided this weekend. Chinese officials declined to give any reasons for the inspections. Whether this is ongoing blow-back from NSA revelations or a back-door Russia retaliation is unclear, but it is an escalation from the ongoing Windows 8 ban. Microsoft's only response, "we're happy to answer the government's questions."
Chinese government officials have made sudden visits to Microsoft offices in China, a spokeswoman for the company said on Monday, but declined to give any reason for the inspections.
China's State Administration for Industry & Commerce, which Chinese media reported had made the visits to Microsoft offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, declined to give comment outside of working hours.
Microsoft has been a focus of anti-U.S. technology sentiment in China since U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden revealed widespread spying programs, including PRISM, which used U.S. company's technology for cyber espionage.
In an e-mailed statement, the Microsoft spokeswoman said: "We aim to build products that deliver the features, security and reliability customers expect and we're happy to answer the government's questions," but declined to give any further information.
It's not been a good few months for Microsoft in China...
The world's largest software company has had a rocky time in China, including a call by state media for "severe punishment" against American tech firms for helping the U.S government to steal secrets and monitor China.
Earlier this month, activists said Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service was being disrupted in China.
In May, central government offices were banned from installing Windows 8, Microsoft's latest operating system, on new computers. This ban appears to not have been lifted, as multiple procurement notices since then have not allowed Windows 8.
A spokesman from the State Internet Information Office, cited by the Xinhua News Agency, said in May that “governments and enterprises of a few countries” are taking advantage of their monopoly status and technological edge to collect sensitive information.
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Send all the Chinese hackers & spies back to China.
You might enjoy Ted Bell's new book Warriors, about scummy Chinese spies and brutal Norks. A fun read!
I think having Windows 8 was punishment enough
I hear you. A few months ago I got a new laptop with Win 8. Hated it. The computer tech than loaded a program for me that makes Win 8 work/look like Win 7.
win8 worse than win94...
Reason for the raids: They're trying to figure out how Microsoft could have made Windows 8 suck so bad.
They kinda let it slide with Vista, but when Windows 8 showed up, they knew it must be a conspriacy.
Yeah, it really sucks ass.
I just replaced Mrs. Cog's computer and my marching orders were simple. No Windows 8. I actually found several new computers that came preloaded with Win 7. I also found very few sales or discounts on the latest models that included Win 7. It seems the Win 7 models are popular with the masses, thus no reason to discount them. On the other hand nearly every Win 8 computer out there was on sale.
I suspect Microsoft will need to end Win 7 support early if they are ever going to convince the world Win 8 is the best thing since sliced bread.
There is an open source program that makes win 8 act like win 7 interface and look. I have it on my laptop and love it. Forgot the name but I can look it up again if someone is interested. You cant tell the difference, very smooth.
Back to the Chinese, I have said it before, dont mess with the Chinese you will live to regret it.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/classicshell/
http://www.classicshell.net/
Im pretty sure it was classicshell that i used, its free and works great.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2109735/replace-windows-8-with-windows-7-...
In a free market world you'll never have an operating system that sucks because there will be so much competition from other operating systems that don't suck and ... blah blah blah ... and no company would dare dumping a popular OS and replace it with a crap OS 'cos ... blah blah blah ... and the customer is always right and ...
Isn't the simple existence of Win8 enough evidence of the true state of the world today???
Taking this back on topic (i.e. at least remotely economics related) this is all a very simple game of optics; computing technology is a *commodity*. In my best Sam Kineson impression, "It's a fucking K-WAVE !!!!! Aaaagggghhhhh!"
Companies that sell hardware, software, or services, are slowly realizing they are in a commodity business. This requires a lot of games to try to kick the can along and folks don't always connect the dots. Windows 8 falls exactly into this paradigm, so let me affirm something for you:
"The cloud" is the same things as "the rentier."
It is that simple. How do you herd your customers in the direction of the cloud? Give them shitty products and make them less shitty "on the cloud".
You see, back in the old days, let's say Windows XP, the PC did everything. You could do all your Excel, Word, email, browse, watch cat videos on YouTube. So, did it ever occur to you that you didn't *need* to spend money on a new PC, a new version of Office, etc? Why is your old capital investment so worthless now when it worked just fine! What if you realized that "hey, I bought a license, I want to use it for the rest of my life - I like XP!"
That moment of of clarity is exactly the heart of darkness driving all the IT corps in the world.
The most unexpected dynamic to most is when this shit show collapses on all the IT professionals that think their shit don't stink and they are worth all the money they make. They are just like the machinist unions in the 60s; extremely valuable and soon to be replaced by more efficient systems.
IBM has been doing this shit for years and Microsoft is next in line. Oracle will see the same changes. And so it goes.
Don't get me wrong, applied computer science will be around forever, just like folks use products made of precision manufactured metal (cars, guns, whatever), it is just that the processes are going to be more efficient as time passes.
And I have worked in professional IT from garage gigs up to the biggest corps. I have been successful whenever I was given the basic resources necessary to be successful. I am 40, I am working on my second degree (pay-go) and I am betting on the value add to my skill set to keep me employed for the rest of my life.
An unholy shit storm is coming to folks in "IT" and most are wholly oblivious. Given it ten years ...
Regards,
Cooter
Ah..., Cooter, when will someone come up with an easy-to-use SQL compliant database (like MS Access, but not MSFT's)? I thought I heard that MSFT is going to make Access ONLY for the cloud ("the rentier"), burns my butt.
Big + 1
What's wrong with MySQL?
Just gimme an assembler and a memory map. I can work out the rest myself!
I can understand the need for a standardized operating system but the instant we gave it monopoly status we were fucked.
This episode is quite hysterical, considering that there is no greater violater of IT IP than the Chinese... I bet there are 100X number of pirated copies of Microsoft product in China than those licensed and paid for properly... The interesting part of this article is the tone of the Chinese media, which clearly indicates the PRC position...
mariaDB...postgres...
Windows 8 = The Obama of Operating Systems
Perfect analogy, Freddie.
@pt : brilliant remark.
Did that open source program remove the built in spyware in W8 (pronounced Wait)?
If you didn't program it then you can't trust it. Everything else is lies.
In fact, these days I'd say if you didn't build it then you can't trust it. And if you didn't build the machine that built it then you still can't trust it. You may need an oscilloscope and a spectrum analyzer, but make sure you can trust them ...
Then there's this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
He's too busy over-paying for the Clippers these days...
Rumor has it that Microsoft is now selling a vacuum cleaner that doesn't suck...
I think it was because they stopped support for windows XP
The Chinese better be careful or they might get some viruses from the George Soros-Bill Gate Global Vaccine ( and virus creation) Center.
The win don't know but the little urls u n d e r stand
People have been trying to make Windows "feel" like an earlier version since at least XP. Microsoft operates under the impression their sheep customers will eventually stop bitching and accept their fate.
There are alternatives...
"That does not compute." - Bill Gates
take low tech grandma who pissed you off for decades to send mail with photo.... on windows....
i think the most simple argument to opposite to you is " you never thought to even try to start at the eventuallity to do a linux presentation "
no, i know you didn'y, dont lie to me.
i 'd prefer WW3 instead of teachin linux to anyone over 50 years.
Every second MS product is shit.
8.1 bit better than 8, 7 quite ok, vista shit, XP quite good, NT/2000/etc shit, 95 quite ok
If you guys hate the UI of windows 8, you can customize your UI with easy program called rainmeter.
Heres an example what your UI can look like http://th06.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2012/313/3/d/1st_rainmeter_by_mons...
http://www.rainmeter.net
"The computer tech than loaded a program for me that makes Win 8 work/look like Win 7"
You dont have to be a tech guy to do that, $2.99 well spend
http://www.startisback.com/
Stealing chinese secrets such as how to make rivers run red, how to make rivers run with dead animals, how to make super smog machines, how to make cities with no citizens, and on and on.
China copies so much of MSFT's software already, that Microsoft won't care what they do.
EDIT:
Wait until China starts creating interesting software and we copy it, ha ha ha!
The NSA backdoor was included at no extra charge! Like freeware! Who knows, maybe the NSA reimbursed Mr Softy for every pirated Chinese copy.
I was saying to anyone who would listen back in 2002 that Windows contained a backdoor. I was roundly booed. This was back in the days when people still believed the US government didn't torture people or lie about terrorists and corporations and the mainstream media were independent of government influence.
Ahhhhh....the good old days.
Don't worry CD, those times will be back before you know it. The normalcy bias will shift (yet again) and one of these false flags will finally stick. Only two years until the Plebeians "elect" a new actor that makes them all warm and fuzzy inside.
As the Chinese embrace Linux as well as the Russians and Brazilians, MS will be done as an operating system. They will literally implode compared to the software offerings that will be available for Linux once billions around the world completely embrace open source linux and contribute to it.
More and more companies outside the USA are dumping USA spyshit like Cisco, IBM, MSFT, Oracle, Apple and other garbage. Larger companies will have all their secrets stolen and they are moving away from Silicon Valley and Redmond's spy crap as fast as possible.
CD,
Living with an software architect for 30 years has been quite interesting. All through his college years and his various jobs I watched him put back doors in EVERYTHING. I was quite incensed about it claiming this was a betrayal of trust. His response " sweety, in case the customer really fucks something up and yes, they probably will, I need to get in. What they don't know won't hurt them." I no longer ask and he no longer divulges but I suspect this is not unusual. What the customer doesn't see, the cook gets away with.
Miffed;-)
Are we blissfully ignorant because we wish to be so or is this condition present because it is promoted as the only way to navigate life. There used to be something called informed consent. Now it is left up to benevolent dictators to determine what is best for us.
Ultimately we have allowed ourselves to be conditioned and sated. Is it any wonder then that those who feel the easier way forward is to make decisions for us and then to keep us in the dark so as not to disturb?
Whenever I hear the argument that we should be kept in the dark for our own good I can't help but wonder who benefits most from this unilateral decision. It is usually the decision maker who does.
Your long term discomfort with this arrangement is justified in my view. Too bad so many around us have had our critical thinking skills conditioned out of us to rally to your side.
I dislike subterfuge. It troubles me in all cases. I live very openly and honestly though many are uncomfortable with my candor. However, I do acknowledge the necessity for reticence at times.
In my field there are cases when the patient and his family are not told of things behind the scenes. In many cases this is highly appropriate. I am frantically trying to determine the ID of a microbe so a dr can determine what to do. Do you wish to hear the play by play of my struggles and the repercussions of my possible failure? This would add stress to an already stressful situation to no purpose. But taken to extreme, incompetent Drs have been able to practice behind this veil to the detriment of their patients. Certainly there needs to be a balance. Unfortunately that appears to be elusive.
The beauty of knowing what my husband did is that I viewed everything with suspicion from the start. Anything I did or do now on line is done with the view it is not, nor ever will be safe from prying eyes. The implied security and respect for privacy I laughed at. Knowing it all is a lie from the start gives me freedom. Finding it out later is betrayal.
Would it be different if all this was divulged at the start? Would you participate if there were no implication of privacy? Probably, but maybe less open. Or the other route is the " don't give a shit" response you explored. They may take your privacy but never who you are. You mind will ever be yours and impenetrable. Once again, there is freedom.
Miffed;-)
If he were an auto mechanic, would you be concerned if he made replica keys for all his customer's cars?
Dealers and their service departments already have these, believe it or not.
There might not be any future backdoors on OSes themselves since Intel has made a seperate running OS on the chip... I liked very much a video presentation that Intel had made for their new i7 where you could have remote access via GPRS to the processor, they also advertised that "you don't have to be connected to the internet", but the videoclip is gone out of the face of the web... It was too informative for the general population.
I hear that whenever they access anyones computer through a backdoor, their speakers play the doors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-EIi7ToTkA
That was actually a huge component of MS's early marketing strategy - easy to pirate software. The world got hooked on software keys like 1234567 and so forth. Then they took the free heroine away and it's been on ever since.
Sum Ting Wong? You no Like bwu scween?
Ho Lee Fuk
it's only funny if you can get some local news broadcaster to read it unknowingly....the first time. and please- someone abort the guy trying to do a 'chinese' Boris and here lately. speaking of boris.... really missing his contributions to the zh perspective in these her times.
U sperr it long.
Ho Ree Phuk.
Puhreaze. It Ho Ri Fuk.
Doing what millions of Americans have longed to do for decades.
"I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you, to find out that spying has been going on in here."
-- Captain Renault
"Here is the audio transcript of that wiretap you ordered sir." - Helpful employee
They're smart to ban Windows 8, it sucks ass anyways.
Bullish for Linux distros and VIA Technologies.
Some day in the not too distant future we're all going to look back on the days where we paid money for an operating system and just laugh and shake our heads.
Using Manjaro and Mint for years and never looked back or wanted to.
Bullish for MS (what isn't?). Maybe they will fire another 20000 employees... which will be even moar bullish.
May you live in interesting times.
That's that Putin Boomerang at work again. If the U.S. Has not showcased to the world we are a user nation of imperialists who simply bully than people have not been paying much attention.
Putin has made it very clear that China is next on the menu if they don't nip this in the bud...good thing we have been exporting all our dollars over there for junk so Americans can enjoy the facade of paper money printing via the reserve status..
Wanna sanction his buddies? They will collectively sanction our corporations which cannot afford to not have that Chinese Slave labor..glad we exported all our technology also that they have been learning from at what will be a severe cost to our innovation in the coming decades. Difference being the US real string pullers will eat the lunch of their puppets and not be cohesive and loyal to their purchased politicians because at the end of the day Putin singularly runs his nation and all we have are clowns in suits acting as business agent looking for handouts for doing their crony work well.
Yeah. Good thing we taught the Chinese how to make everything and closed down all our factories over here and then jacked up the price of real estate so even if we had slave labour over here the price of the mortgage on the factory would still be greater than the price of production in China. Now we can annoy the Chinese as much as we like. What could go wrong?
NSA NSA NSA!!!
But but but...Gates passes out freeeee condoms.
Yea, the Chinese should love that one.
That's it. I'm boycotting the China Wok up the street.
Microsoft will make something that doesn't suck when they start making vacuum cleaners or female sex robots.
cue uncle remus in 3,2 1..... 'keep it greasy, so it'll go down easy. keep it greasy so it'll go down easy" ...."psyyyyyyborg! gimmme dat gimme dat psyyyyyyborg"
48,000 tech job losses so far this year not including the 18,000 Microsoft "layoffs" according to NPR tech-talk person this afternoon. She said this is a 68% plunge from last year and the near-term outlook for USA tech jobs does not look bright.
I notice some of the outlying silicone valleys [Boston, Austin, etc] have layed off quite a few and some companies like AMD have totally shut its doors in Austin.
I'm guess GS would call this "Bullish" but it sucks if your a Merikan tech grad esp since many of these companies are recruiting from India like crazy ... at half the salary.
Silicon Valley...silicone is used in other places...think Newport Beach etc.
Interesting. This is news to me and I like to think I'm on top of current events. You would think from the sheer number of tech IPO's this sector was doing just fine.
Do you ever get the feeling that we've crossed the Rubicon?
Cool ain't it?
Here...hold my beer!
More like the Dnieper. The Dnieper goes through Kiev where all the oligarch zio scum is.
The most notable rivers of Ukraine include the: Danube, Dnieper, and the Dniester.
Arrest Bill and Melinda Gates. Lock them away as eugenicists somewhere in China. Make Microsoft software copyright free. Arrest Monsanto executives and prosecute them for poisnoning billions. Go China Go.
We will come rejoicing bringing in the thieves.
The problem is that even if Microsoft products are free, they still suck.
check mate?
Im surprised to see them angrier over this then the time Windows ME appeared in China.
Remember Bob? That one didn't last long.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob
Wow! The economic war and fiscal conflicts are in full gear! I have to think now, with the latest events that no matter what the original price, that Russia, China and some other BRICS are going to say fuck you king dollar, if we have to suffer pain to get off it, then so be it!
I want to know, do the fuck heads in NSA, CIA and Congress, along with the Illegal Immigrant in the White House, do this cunts have a clue what they are playing at.
Fucking insane. What do American Tech giants say now when huge markets begin to throw the American made spy devices in the crapper.
You got it Jack.
Watch closely folks what happens in an international Tit for Tat exchange between big players.... it gets bigger and bigger. What shape do you think IBM is in with China throwing them out?
Everybody got their preps in order? You should be watching closely to the news items like these.
And the left field things like Ebola and pandemics which at first may seem like a coincodence.
IBM has always been an arm of Uncle Sam and the intel crowd. Shitty company and the Chinese "ain't" gonna pay for IBM's expensive and clueless consultants. Who buys their crap? US tech companies are getting destroyed and it is going to get worse.
I just laugh because loads of libturd techies voted for Obam's total full retard, sellout and destruction of America along with the Dems and RINO owned by the NWO oligarchs.
What about Germany?
Well said, Comrade Jack!
Hateful bearded monkies in caves are no justification for gutting our Bill of Rights. It amazes me how little we Americans uderstand our own system.
Sad that we need the profit motive of private corporations to beat the NSA back into the box the Constitution intended for it.
"What do American Tech giants say now when huge markets begin to throw the American made spy devices in the crapper."
They say this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc
All of Silicon Valley and Redmond voted for this in 2008 and 2012 along with much of Austin. Let em eat f*cking cake.
Not like we have real elections.
The Chinese buy software?
Good. My Windows, MS laptop sucks and my Apple desktop works fine.
RIP Steve Jobs, fuck you Bill Gates.
May you get a virus and Norton too.
Because Apple would never sell out to the NSA...
Don't forget dear old "don't be evil" Google and "let's be as evil as we can" Facebook.
YOU ARE THE PRODUCT!
ADOBE, watch out for adobe.
Spyware no. 1, and Jobs corps wasn't even cold they announced an Adobe shill as successor. Just a coinkidink.
Since it's really down to the component level, WTF difference does it make?
It's the whole of the tech complex by extension.
Nothing new here on the windows 8 ban.
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/china-builds-own-p...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/03/goodbye-windows-ch...
Stupid thing is android is actually a secure OS when implemented properly. It is the hardware you need to be concerned about but the reality is this if you put in a kernel level rule set based firewall app to control access for access to the antenna(s), you've essentially secured the phone if nothing can transmit unless you give it access to do so.
Claptrap for consumption by the masses. As if they didn't know. Anyone with half a brain knew about the back doors as well as the spying for years. Just planned justifications on the way to the world moving east.
Of course everyone knew, it just was not Politically expedient at the time to make a fuss, now it is.
Yep. It is called keeping your powder dry.
Severe punishment for Microsoft for Windows 8 sounds like true justice.
True justice would be injecting them with their charitable vaccines.
Vista_Error: 010 Reserved for future mistakes by our developers
Tariffs, Trade Wars, Contraction ... The Greater Depression is upon us
Microsoft Windows-the virus you pay money for.
Get a Hurrumph out of that guy...
I always wonder when I am forced to download a new security update for Microsoft Windows - whether the download is fixing a 'real' security problem, or is just opening a new backdoor for the NSA!
Skype opened up by itself yesterday so I finally covered up my camera...what's that about?
Disconnect camera entirely if possible. If built in, make sure to cover microphone too. Perhaps you can load a hardware profile with audio/video disabled. When you need them, you would load the normal hardware profile enabling those devices. No guarantees you understand but .......
Getting screwed by Uncle Sam and big brother.... Isn't that incest?
Black electrical tape over the camera and a few drops of super glue on a mic will make it non-functional.
You might want to check the tasks manager and see if a process called internet....mic is running I believe they use it to listen in on what your up to.
My MSFT down $0.53 :(
My AAPL is up $1.35 :)
Probably there for early copies of Windows 9.
Then again, maybe they want an extension of XP support.
The vast like 80%+ of all copies of Windows are pirated. Even by the Chinese government. Wonder why Microsoft never really complained? I can't remember his name but a drug dealer once said he knew his phone was tapped when he stopped paying the bill and the phone company never disconnected him.
Yeah, don't know why MSFT would care. There are 200+ million copies of XP pro and 7 in use in China, all are pirated fakes, all of them. There are hundred's of thousands of gaming cyber cafes and they all have XP even in July 2014. When you look at a chart of OS usage and wonder who still uses XP, it is everyone who has a computer in China.
LOL
The Chinese nature is to be prematurely arrogant and over reaching in the face of small gains or victories. It is almost axiomatic that the flush of success leads to their indulging in petty games of control and intrusive practices with their foreign investors. And those investors get VERY peeved.
Can we say "CAPITAL FLIGHT"?
China is bleeding like a stuffed pig right now with all the dollars flowing out to just about ANYWHERE else.
Funny that this does not get very close and vocal attention by the investor media.
Yes, we can all see the result of the currency flow out of China, massive property booms in NZ,Canada etc.
Yes the paper is headed out buying up real assets while gold is flooding IN to the country leaving China in possession of real things while the West prints themselves to death. Meanwhile its a thousand times easier to get a job in China (I should know as that's where I am) than anywhere in the West and the state is actively pushing personal ownership of gold, encouraging its citizens to buy, buy, BUY. Somehow I don't think this is the disaster everyone thinks it is.
Would that I could upvote your comment 50 times so that others would heed your excellent analysis.
Since when you still can run pirated windows? Once you hook up internet and update, your pirated windows is done.
So, don't hook up updates..
Updates are not needed. I have an XP machine still running that hasn't been updated since 2005, and a Win 7 machine with no updates since 2010. Both work fine to this day.
Serves those faggot traitors right!!!
MSFT is #3 in % weight in the s&p. APPL is #2, which made news a couple of days ago for spying in China. Glaxosmithkline is down 10% in July for bribery in China. MCD is down 5% for bad meat there. Including IBM, there are 5 firms, 3 of them are in the top 10 weighted companies. China wants to open its new BRICS bank with a bang. And the Chinese love opening their business with celebratory fireworks.
There are a lot of misconceptions about the "BRICS Bank". It is not what most people think it is.
So what is it? Does the USA need to worry?
"The BRICS Bank: A First Look"
http://goo.gl/rMqBNC
Does Bill Gates have a back door?
And was it plugged by the NSA?
Hey fellow ZH contributors to the discussion: -does anyone of you still use MSFT products? I would be worried, that even the MSFT keyboard HW and mouse HW call home. Since ages I use Linux and freeBSD and OS SW only. Bitmessage and GnuPG.
And yes, legaly those companies (MS, CISCO APPLE, IBM, HP) enable a foreign spy service to spy on chineese. This has to be punished, those exec (be it just the local ones in China) have to go vor a 50years sentence behind the bars.
I'm getting a new computer soon, and it will use Linux. After the transition, all computers in the house will be wiped and converted to Linux.
You're not telling me that MS & Bill Gates got rich by selling our private information to the NSA?
Monetizing your rights is big, - very big - business.
China will fine Microsoft $50bn
Bill Gates is a traitor to all people, especially with his deadly vaccine project (suppose to help people but they don't). He's part of the cabal now as Warren. Spineless.
The title is appropriate. Look anywhere Microsoft builds offices, datacenters and other facilities and one will find there is one for Microsoft, and one for government - the latter is always "hush-hush."
After all, surveillance is good for "shareholders."
Microsoft be damned.
The PRC have the source code to every version of Windows since Win95 with MSFTs blessing. The PRC does not run off-the-shelf Windoz. GOVs around the world have known that American or any Foreign made equipment is infested with NSA or Pick-You-Spy-Agency back doors. Snowden and Binney haven't taught us anything - they just made it clear to most of the dopes what has been going on since the day computers were invented. Cisco did more to take down Saddam than the US ARMY.