Windows 10 will share your Wi-Fi key with your friends' friends

[NobleSavage]

I do not want!

A Windows 10 feature, Wi-Fi Sense, smells like a security risk: it shares Wi-Fi passwords with the user's contacts.

Those contacts include their Outlook.com (nee Hotmail) contacts, Skype contacts and, with an opt-in, their Facebook friends. There is method in the Microsoft madness – it saves having to shout across the office or house “what’s the Wi-Fi password?” – but ease of use has to be teamed with security. If you wander close to a wireless network, and your friend knows the password, and you both have Wi-Fi Sense, you can now log into that network.

In an attempt to address the security hole it has created, Microsoft offers a kludge of a workaround: you must add _optout to the SSID (the name of your network) to prevent it from working with Wi-Fi Sense.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

I AM SICK OF SHIT WITH AUTO SHARING!!! No, I don't want to change my SSID to the MS naming scheme.

 

[bilby]

I do not want!

In an attempt to address the security hole it has created, Microsoft offers a kludge of a workaround: you must add _optout to the SSID (the name of your network) to prevent it from working with Wi-Fi Sense.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/

I AM SICK OF SHIT WITH AUTO SHARING!!! No, I don't want to change my SSID to the MS naming scheme.

Wow.

How the fuck did that get all the way from idea to implementation without anyone saying 'Hey, this is a shit idea that will make us a laughing stock, so we should not do it"?

Of course, that's a rhetorical question; I know from personal experience that responding to "Hey, wouldn't it be a good idea if..." questions in planning meetings by saying "No, that would not be a good idea. It would in fact lead to disaster, in the following ways..." is a career limiting act that gets you branded as 'negative' and 'not a team player', regardless of how monumentally stupid the idea being critiqued might be.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What happened, they hire the three stooges?

 

[bilby]

What happened, they hire the three stooges?

I think they have been employed at MS for at least two decades. Somebody gave the green light to Windows ME, FFS.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

How the fuck did that get all the way from idea to implementation without anyone saying 'Hey, this is a shit idea that will make us a laughing stock, so we should not do it"?

I'm not certain how it got from idea to something expressed in writing or verbally. What an absurdly ridiculously unbelievably large security hole.

A: Hey, you know customers complain about having to use a friends WIFI and having to input a code once.
B: Hmm... I've got it! If they are friends through Outlook, they'll automatically have access because the Keys will be shared through Outlook!
A: Umm... wouldn't that create a substantially large security risk? People are breaking into this stuff all the time.
B: And Social Security numbers, Drivers License, health history, library book lending habits, everything! It'll all be shared on Outlook.
A: Hey wait a second! You're from the NSA!!!

 

[TSwizzle]

With every laptop running Windows 10 in the business radiating access, the security risk is significant. A second issue is that by giving Wi-Fi Sense access to your Facebook contacts, you are giving Microsoft a list of your Facebook friends, as well as your wireless passwords.

Compared to Micro$oft, the NSA are benign.

 

[bigfield]

How the fuck did that get all the way from idea to implementation without anyone saying 'Hey, this is a shit idea that will make us a laughing stock, so we should not do it"?

I'm not certain how it got from idea to something expressed in writing or verbally. What an absurdly ridiculously unbelievably large security hole.

A: Hey, you know customers complain about having to use a friends WIFI and having to input a code once.
B: Hmm... I've got it! If they are friends through Outlook, they'll automatically have access because the Keys will be shared through Outlook!
A: Umm... wouldn't that create a substantially large security risk? People are breaking into this stuff all the time.
B: And Social Security numbers, Drivers License, health history, library book lending habits, everything! It'll all be shared on Outlook.
A: Hey wait a second! You're from the NSA!!!

Don't be ridiculous.

There's no-one named B working for the NSA.