> No tinfoil needed.

That's what Big Tinfoil wants you to believe!

>I don't think Microsoft cares (about anything else than making money), but there are plenty of (state) actors that can influence the decision-making at Microsoft when it comes to these issues.

Microsoft the corporation may only care about making money, but a lot of very high ranking folks within MS Security aren't just friendly to intelligence agencies, they take genuine pride in helping intelligence agencies. They're the kinds of people who saw nothing wrong or objectionable with PRISM whatsoever, they were just mad they got caught, and that the end user (who they believe had no right to even know about it) found out anyway. The kind of people who openly defend the legitimacy of the FISA court.

This aren't baseless accusations, this comes from first-hand experience interacting with and talking to several of them. Charlie Bell literally kept a CIA mug on a shelf behind him, prominently visible during Teams calls, as if to brag.

Remember - Microsoft was the very first company on the NSA's own internal slide deck depicting a timeline of PRISM collection capabilities by platform, started all the way back in 2007. All companies on that slide may have been compelled to assist with national security letters. Some were just more eager than others to betray the privacy and trust of their own customers and end-users.

>I don't think Microsoft cares (about anything besides making mo' money)

If Microsoft amounts to a sentient entity (i.e. is able to care about things), we have a bigger problem.

If we put the wall of metaphor between us and that interpretation, it still remains likely that "users shielding themselves" is of primary concern to Microsoft's bottom line.

You think it would succeed at that? Come on. Copilot is for entertainment purposes only!

If you use an automated process to disable accounts but then state there is no appeals process available as they stated, then you are not to be trusted to be acting in good faith. Bad actors should be called out and not given the benefit of the doubt.

Automated systems breaking things without any human contact to get them resolved seems to be the theme of the last 10 years.

Where are the people that tried to sell us software signatures as security benefit? The reality is that they are a very specific security problem. In theory and in practice.

Maybe they let Mythos loose and it suggested the safest approach was to remove access ;)

When a company makes it impossible to correct their stupidity, it's a malicious act. The behavior speaks loud and clear: "We don't care what damage we do to developers or users. And we don't want to hear about it."

I'm more convinced than ever that this aphorism has it completely backwards.

The guise of a harmless mistake has worn so thin and is so overused by tech companies that I now only see deliberate intent.