Microsoft Office 365: Banned in German schools over privacy fears

[Member VW]

Microsoft Office 365: Banned in German schools over privacy fears

State of Hesse says student and teacher information could be “exposed” to US spy agencies.

You would think that, being German, they would use Debian as a matter of course.

“These are the times that try men's souls" - Thomas Paine

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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You would think that, being German, they would use Debian as a matter of course.

Might be worldwide interaction kind thing. Like being prepared for any scenario.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

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[Member Xecure]

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VW wrote:

You would think that, being German, they would use Debian as a matter of course.

I must have missed a history class, as I thought Debian had an American origin (being the original creator a worker in Pixar), but they could be considered an international endeavor now.

Being German, they should have considered SUSE or their community child, openSUSE, as I believe they are distros with a German origin and backing.

More and more governments are moving away from outside telemetry and to linux (for more control). Microsoft et al will have to think carefully what they need to do if they don’t want to also lose the Big companies to Red Hat, Intel’s Clear Linux and other groups. The day Adobe announces they are also releasing their software on Linux will be a difficult day for Nadela (or whoever is the next CEO).

PS: Can a mod move this to kafeneio?

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Member eugen-b]

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I love the EU GDPR!

[Member VW]

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I must have missed a history class, as I thought Debian had an American origin (being the original creator a worker in Pixar),

I have no idea why I thought that. Even worse SUSE was the very first Linux I tried. Duh!

“These are the times that try men's souls" - Thomas Paine

[Forum Admin rokytnji]

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PS: Can a mod move this to kafeneio?

I was going to. But news is news. Not a big deal to move it. I will defer to the OP.

Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.

Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problems

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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Debian was originally started by –

Who created Debian?
Ian Ashley Murdock
Ian Murdock. Ian Ashley Murdock (28 April 1973 – 28 December 2015) was an American software engineer, known for being the founder of the Debian project and Progeny Linux Systems, a commercial Linux company. Source: Wikipedia

The guy you may be thinking of from Pixar Studios is Bdale Garbee; he worked for Pixar a long time ago, and worked for a few computer companies too. He helped organize some of the early Debian infrastructure.

As for Ian Murdock, he was a student at Purdue University in Indiana at the time he came up with Debian. At the time he dated a person named Deb, hence the name with Deb and Ian, Debian. In the early nineties the first couple of attempts to package Linux were very awkward, to say the least. Slackware, created by Patrick Volkerding, and Debian by Ian Murdock, while NOT the two FIRST distributions, they were two of the early ones that improved packaging; Red Hat came into being at very close to the same time as well. Mandrake came along a couple of years later and added some improvements and alternatives to Red Hat, while leveraging a lot of the good work that had been done. Mandrake became Mandriva, and later Mageia. Of course by this time there were a LOT of distributions; this “history lesson” only covers a tiny portion of what was going on when Debian was created (from which antiX gets much of its software).

I hope this is interesting to someone.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member Xecure]

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Brian Masinick wrote:

I hope this is interesting to someone.

Thanks for that. I always like learning things.

I was wrong about the Pixar thing. I always thought it so as all Debian versions had a Toy Story character name (and some say that the logo is Buzz Lightyear’s chin drawing)

antiX Live system enthusiast.
General Live Boot Parameters for antiX.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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The Pixar things and the release names do in fact have a strong historical connection to Bdale Garbee. He was an early project leader and he should be thanked for many things. The way the project organization works, and it is a very good approach, had a great deal to do with him, so your mention of Pixar makes sense: he worked there in the nineties and I actually met him and many other people associated with Debian in 2001 when they had the annual Debian conference. It was at York University of York, Ontario (suburban Toronto and I made it to that one particular conference.

If anyone remembers Michael Robertson, he was the one who started the Lindows, Linspire name controversy. He also got into early use of Internet based phone networks and owned other technology companies as well. Michael sponsored and paid for one of the evening dinner events at the 2001 Debian conference.

I found him to be a good speaker, idea promoter, and though his projects didn’t bring much code, if any, to Linux, it’s that kind of money and marketing that can attract attention.

As for our project, I believe that some people want to see ease of use as a major project goal. Personally, while I am not opposed to such things, I more appreciate that our modest distribution continues to be a major contributor to the availability of software for aging computer systems.

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Brian Masinick

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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As Buzz Lightyear would say, “To infinity and beyond!” 🙂

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Brian Masinick

[Member VW]

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Back in the days of Usenet Newsgroups people would openly discuss alleged backdoors in a certain companies software and how to stop them. You still have people like MVPS producing the Hosts file and and Steve Gibson producing various pieces of software, but the mainstream press usually completely ignore the topic, until the report that I posted and now this

Of course, in forums where people openly discuss how much they love the Google browser, discussing such internet security is a complete waste of time. I fully understand why you think this is not news, and all about rivers in Egypt.

Just rely on anti to keep patching the kernels.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by VW.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by VW.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by VW.

“These are the times that try men's souls" - Thomas Paine

[Member ModdIt]

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At Least in Northrein Westfalia, BBS Stadthagen my daughter is forced to use Office 365.
Any refusal would mean she would not be able to receive any information from the school or
do her work as assigned. We are very unhappy about that and have setup a school only sandboxed user.
MS is able to get so much sensitive information about kids through this system.
It makes me want to puke. Her previous school was Libreoffice orientated but as a parents rep I found
out about a lot of teacher lobbying and baiting in the background toward a change. Came from MS, free
laptops and software for teachers. Apple with i.pad class intro would give free devices to teachers.

.

[Anonymous]

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You might also call it “black suitcasing” … 😉

1st –> https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Datenschuetzer-Einsatz-von-Microsoft-Office-365-an-Schulen-ist-unzulaessig-4466156.html

then

2nd –> https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Datenschuetzer-duldet-Microsoft-Office-365-nun-doch-teilweise-an-Schulen-4490044.html

Didn’t really come as surprise. 😉

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