German goverment warns of Windows 8

If you are looking for an alternative to Windows, keep this in mind: No support for your directX games, maybe some in Wine Only games that have been ported to Linux will work (OpenGL)

if it comes to a choice between my privacy and playing video games, i pick privacy. lets face it, the game industry has lost its way. much like hollywood, democracy and corporations

reply to post by MarioOnTheFly


I absolutely agree. My files are MY files, and I keep them stored locally. Why on Earth would anyone trust some nebulous "cloud" to store them is beyond me.

I am having a rather hard time believing that on this site of all places we can still pretend that we haven't been in a Cyber war with China for years. It is little more then a digital cold war, the only exception now being that many US corporations rely heavily on cheap chinese labor to stock walmart with goods and push out the newest iphone for all the tech hungry masses.
China Hacking

This is the way the game is played and has been for decades. Intelligence gathering is part of the life blood of keeping any country relatively stable. Every major country is spying on every other country, whether it has power or not. Waiting and watching for any sign that they are about to lose power in some part of the world.

So now your upset that they are doing the thing they have been doing since World War 2?

You fall behind and you get left in the dust to rot. Technology might have advanced but the mentality of the world powers hasn't. We can either keep up or fade away, but anyone paying attention in the last twenty years should have seen this coming the moment the Internet came into it's real power.

Germany hasn't always been the best of countries in Europe. I might not be THAT old but i am old enough to remember that the berlin wall came down in my lifetime and until that point over half that country was nothing more then prisoners.

I am old enough to remember that Russia was an enemy of ours in my lifetime, so was China.

Both have a long list of humanitarian issues that make America look like White Knights in comparison.

Should we just ignore Russia's anti-gay laws or Putin's power grabs to make the rest of the world feel better?

Should we just pretend that China doesn't have thousands of political prisoners or that they haven't had a strangle hold on Tibet for decades?

The only thing that has changed is the costumes they wear and the faces spouting rhetoric on tv.

We make enemies, that's what we do. It's like a world wide version of a high school cafeteria.

As for Microsoft, they had their shot and they blew it, they grew to be one of the most profitable companies on the planet but still managed to piss all that work down the drain. That is capitalism at work. They have lost nearly a billion dollars thanks to the Surface tablet and Windows 8, and the problems they have now are just a reflection of how poorly the company was operating up until this point.

You only need to look at the continuing debacle of Xbox One to see how disconnected they are or remember that Germany and Motorola went so far as to ban the Xbox 360 and Windows 7 in that country.

Microsoft in Germany

If Windows is such a great OS but has a bad UI then change that, make your own system and generate billions of dollars for yourself because i got news for you...

The only thing that matters now, the only thing that has mattered to the world powers for decades is MONEY.

Gold or Green, it doesn't matter. It is about the riches and the spoils that come with being a wealthy and powerful nation. America might not do everything right, but we do it better and with more morality then many of those countries that we have invaded for oil or made back room deals with to keep things in check.


You don't like it? Then move to Russia, China or the Middle East and see just how well things go for you. If you really believe that we have no enemies then i dare you to do that and try talking # about their countries. See how that goes for you and don't come crying to the US to save your ass from the hell you will be living in.

Nice long thread.

Just a knee-jerk;

Germany wanted their gold audited...

Sorry if someone beat me to it.

reply to post by loveguy


Yea, and we told em to stuff it.

Originally posted by Elliot
It will be interesting to see if a completely new 'operating system' is brought in by various countries and the internet will become basically fragmented finally.....as was always inevitable. It was always going to be the case the countries would have to use their own internet to protect themselves from others snooping so perhaps it will all operate on two levels in the future.

edit on 21-8-2013 by Elliot because: spelling

There's Linux - that's open source. But rumor has it that the hardware itself (the motherboard) actually has the spyware installed, that allows remote hardware administration.

reply to post by stormcell


Even if it does who really cares?

Spying on the average American would be like you spying on your Grandmother in the shower. Sure you get a show, but is there really anything there you want or need to see?

I don't know how it can be a huge security risk I won't even use it, it makes using the net harder, not easier. I hate distractions too, it seems to be full of distractions. I suppose the distractions cause people to make mistakes and then it hurts the business. I thought Windows was supposed to be simplifying the internet, I guess they have gone astray trying to impress everyone. I like windows 2000, I can set it up to be very simple looking and turn off what I do not need. Trouble is that some additional hardware I want does not work well with it. It saves me money, I can't buy all those fancy gadgets.

I can not see it toppling america's preeminence as the technology capitol but then the advance of south Korea may very well do that regardless. It may result in a law against anti competitive trade by Microsoft being past in Europe or at least Germany allowing other company's to exploit the technology and produce real time clones of the Microsoft operating systems but we will just have to wait and see.

All I talk about in my eMails is My Little Pony and anime, but the Government has *no*, *zero*, not *one* right to see my private correspondence without a Search Warrant, ever! If Mr. Obama needs to see my eMail, than I need to see his. If the NSA needs to read our internet traffic to protect us from al-Quida, than *why* is Mr. Obama seeking to arm al-Quida in Syria?

If it bothers you all that much then the best i can recommend is a massive form of Civil Disobedience...

This should tell you all you need to know to start and it's free.
Civil Disobedience

If you do not feel strongly enough about the topic to practice this then it probably isn't that important to you to begin with.

Originally posted by ManFromEurope
The NSA/Snowden-affair WILL cost the IT-industry billions of dollars, and has already. All because foreign companies are not trusting the security of their data in the US-based cloud services anymore.

Hey, thank you, NSA.

We will save our data over here, because, you know.. your spying and copying of our companies valuable data as soon as it crosses into the USA!

And this will cost you dearly. Really, really dearly.

Maybe you people over there haven't realized it yet (NSA spying on other countries? Who cares?), but no *freaking* company in the world is trusting your cloud services anymore!

Have a nice one!

Do you really think we in the US really trust the IT "Big Kids On The Block" like Microsoft, Google and the rest? When an agency can plant kiddie porn on your computer or phone that alone should ring a bell or two, that's not news. Aside from the OS you have the "Cloud" and all the "Online Backup Sysems" that should not be trusted as well, imagine yourself as an IT Intel guy working for the NSA, he's always thinking "where can I go next, what can we crack today", he works on this everyday. They pretty much have it all now if it runs on electricity, that includes your car and appliances in your home, there will be absolutely no question at all when the NSA finishes their new muli-billion dollar facility in Utah that they will own us all. As long as we use electricity we're Screwed, and who's ultimately responsible for this mess, We Are, because we let the Politicians and Bureaucrats do it!

The Only One You Can Trust Is Yourself!

Originally posted by Thorneblood
reply to post by JeanneDArc

 

If it bothers you all that much then the best i can recommend is a massive form of Civil Disobedience...

This should tell you all you need to know to start and it's free.
Civil Disobedience

If you do not feel strongly enough about the topic to practice this then it probably isn't that important to you to begin with.

Thank you for judging me. Don't ever directly respond to my post again.

reply to post by JeanneDArc


So basically, you feel strongly enough about it to complain on the internet but not enough to willingly imprison yourself as a form of protest against what the government is doing?

Figures.

And i will respond to whatever i feel like, cause this is America and we do that here.

I am with Windows 8 and you know what pisses me off about it? I use Start8 and I am fine with everything else, as it is similar to Win 7. The one time I accidently ENABLED the stupid windows updates and I got 5 GB used on my SSD.

Security updates - if someone wanted to hack, some security updates would not stop him. Also it is my practice to not send reports, feedbacks, error logs to Windows or anywhere for that matter. So if you use Win 8 you will likely get the same result. But who cares?

If there's nothing bad you've done means - what if they observe you, why care?

Precisely. If you have done nothing wrong then you should have no reason to be concerned as far as i can tell. Your expectation of privacy has likely not been breached in any fashion because it is extremely unlikely that anything you do or say is of any real interest to the government and especially Obama.

However, if you truly feel that you privacy has been breached and the government is monitoring you constantly as they would a prisoner then the most logical course of action is to willingly make yourself a prisoner of the United States as a form of protest.

It is really rather simple, just use Twitter to harass the President until you get a visit from the Secret Service. At this point you allow yourself to be arrested and when speaking with your lawyer you inform him that you are practicing Civil Disobedience and will continue to do so until the NSA shuts down it's spying program.

You might lose your freedom, but since many people seem to believe you have lost your freedoms already then what is stopping you?

You will instantly be a hero to millions of people, get wide spread media coverage and perhaps make a change to a system you feel is unfair. If enough people follow your example then you actually enact change instead of simply wasting time bitching about it.

So again, here you go, this is the instruction manual and is widely revered by most intelligent people.

On the duty of civil disobedience

It is a free download and can be used on many tablets and smart phones.

reply to post by ImpactoR

Originally posted by ImpactoR
If there's nothing bad you've done means - what if they observe you, why care?

LABOR! *points to the left*

reply to post by Thorneblood

Originally posted by Thorneblood
Precisely. If you have done nothing wrong then you should have no reason to be concerned as far as i can tell.

SHOWER! *points to the right*

Enjoy your fascism.

Oh the irony, perhaps we should thank your government for all the assistance?
Germany and NSA

It was a busy two days for the surveillance specialists of the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany's foreign intelligence agency. At the end of April, a team of 12 senior BND officials flew to the United States, where they visited the heart of the global American surveillance empire: the National Security Agency (NSA). The purpose of their mission can be read in a "top secret" NSA document which SPIEGEL has seen -- one of the trove of files in the possession of whistleblower Edward Snowden.

According to the document, BND President Gerhard Schindler repeatedly expressed an "eagerness" to cooperate more closely with the NSA. The Germans, the document reads, were looking for "guidance and advice.
Their wish was fulfilled. Senior employees with the NSA's Foreign Affairs Directorate were assigned to look after the German delegation. The Americans organized a "strategic planning conference" to bring their German partners up to speed. In the afternoon, following several presentations on current methods of data acquisition, senior members of a division known as Special Source Operations, or SSO, spoke to their German guests. The SSO, one of the most secretive groups within the intelligence community, is the division that forms alliances with US companies, especially in the IT sector, for data mining purposes. Snowden describes this elite unit as the NSA's "crown jewels".

The journey to Washington wasn't the first educational trip by German intelligence officials across the Atlantic this spring -- nor was it the last. Documents from Snowden that SPIEGEL has seen show that cooperation between Berlin and Washington in the area of digital surveillance and defense has intensified considerably during the tenure of Chancellor Angela Merkel. According to one document, the Germans are determined to "strengthen and expand bilateral cooperation."

Completely Unaware?

This is awkward news for Merkel, who is running for re-election as the head of the center-right Christian Democrats. The German campaign had been relatively uneventful until recently, but now a new issue seems to have emerged: the Americans' lust for data. Opposition politicians have intensified their attacks in recent days. First Peer Steinbrück, the Social Democratic candidate for the Chancellery, accused Merkel of having violated her oath of office for failing to protect the basic rights of Germans. Not long later, SPD Chairman Sigmar Gabriel referred to Merkel as a "spin doctor who is trying to placate the population." According to Gabriel, it has since been proven that the German government knew about the NSA's activities.
"

reply to post by Thorneblood

So ze Germans are coming (or rather the German BND, if we still take the time to distinguish between people and Gov.) to look for guidance and advice... from your NSA...

How do you think pointing this out would make your Government look better in any way??

reply to post by ColCurious


Oh it doesn't, it just puts us all in the same boat.

But i guess that fascism tastes better to you when its home made huh?