8 ms·
Microsoft 365 now tracks you in real time?
- al_borland 8mo agoIt looks like MS Teams will never be getting installed on my phone. I don’t even allow location sharing with my own family on and ongoing basis.
- xoxxala 8mo agoAfter they killed Skype, I tried to install the mobile Teams app. It wouldn't sync properly with the desktop app, so deleted it and forgot it existed. So glad it wouldn't work!
- mosselman 8mo agoSome people don't have a choice. Of course they could choose to lose their job over it, but for some that is not an option. I also totally don't get why you would want to share your location, even with family. I don't want to know where they are either.
- al_borland 8mo agoThey could do the two phone thing. I did that for many years. I'd probably go back to it if my company tried to force this on me.
- Hamuko 8mo agoI installed it on my iPhone but didn't allow Bluetooth access or location access. I imagine it can't really do much with how iOS is. I also don't take my work phone with me if I go outside, so Wi-Fi tracking would be fairly useless anyway.
- Twisell 8mo agoGuess it's true unless you have a company issued phone that is managed. But then maybe it's less shocking as long as you are allowed to totally turn it off outside work hours.
- parliament32 8mo agoAI slop. > If you connect to a Wi-Fi network that isn't your company's, Teams will simply display the name of that network. This is hallucinated. The actual change: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?id=488800 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?id=488... IF your 365 admins add a list of WiFi SSIDs to Teams, Teams will (optionally, opt-in by user) toggle your work location. It will not report not-known SSIDs to your manager or display it in Teams (but note your 365 admins have always been able to see this in the first place, in call/connectivity troubleshooting).
- eboy 8mo ago[dead]
- ezst 8mo agoOne more reason it sucks to be American? I know of several counties where that violates more than a couple labour and constitutional laws.
- durzo22 8mo agoCan’t even write their own articles, farming it out to llm
- stalfosknight 8mo agoThe simple solution on Apple platforms is to deny Location Services to Teams in macOS and iOS.¹ Done. ¹ https://developer.apple.com/documentation/NetworkExtension/NEHotspotNetwork/fetchCurrent%28completionHandler%3A%29 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/NetworkExtension/N...
- shevy-java 8mo agoMicrosoft is really dropping everything lately. First the Win11 disaster; this one is even making it in the heads of german news sites such as here: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000306516/windows-11-ist-kaputt-microsoft-verspricht-grosse-fehlerkorrektur?ref=niewidget https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000306516/windows-11-is... "Windows ist kaputt" = "Windows is broken" And now 365 tracking people. So the whole company seems to now just be about sniffing after people. In the past it alleged at the least to enable folks, say, Win95 perhaps up to WinXP. Now somehow the customer became the enemy. It's really strange to see.
- reloadtak 8mo agoWhile you are not wrong on Microsoft, this Teams feature is not a problem - clowns who only read headlines are.
- wasmainiac 8mo agoI used to use Dingtalk, it had a similar feature iirc. I couldn’t find a source, I can’t read mandarin
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- tibbydudeza 8mo agoThey already know - my inbound VPN coming from an ISP rather than office router.
- assaddayinh 8mo agoHow could you hack this? Like spoofing a company hotspot to your phone, that just mysteriously blocks you?
- Artoooooor 8mo agoHow nice that I am forbidden to use private devices with company data! Therefore I can't and won't install Teams on my phone.
- marekful 8mo agoIt's so pathetic that people actually put up with this. There are so many ways to stop that tracking from working and no, your boss doesn't have the right to track you.
- toomuchtodo 8mo agoUntil there is a law, there is nothing to stop them. So you need the law. First person to reach out to would be Ron Wyden, he has been a reliable advocate in this space. https://www.wyden.senate.gov/ https://www.wyden.senate.gov/
- marekful 8mo agoNothing legal prevents them from trying but if you block the tracking then your not in the wrong, and if you prove they tracked you in your lunch break and after work, you might have a good chance at winning in court for invasion of privacy.
- pixl97 8mo agoMost of this will be under 'tracking the corporate asset'. They aren't tracking you as a person, but instead a laptop or phone of which they own or control. That's going to be much harder to defeat in the US.
- toomuchtodo 8mo agoVery true, I support this, but the law is still needed imho unless we're fine normalizing the continuation of corporations tightening the screws on workers to keep their labor costs within their desired tolerances. It's about control, of course, as it always is. Protect the human from bad actors, broadly speaking. I would be chuffed if I see someone present on breaking this at Defcon this year.
- marekful 8mo agoThere are some questions, too. Can I track my boss if he can track me? Can I install a key-logger on the CFO's laptop? Why not? They just want to see where I am, and I just want to see what key they hit...
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- y-curious 8mo agoCan I kill this via pihole somehow? My wife uses teams. This is a sick “tool” that will be wielded asymmetrically by middle management to fire people
- absqueued 8mo agoI have started to use Teams in Firefox browser since last two weeks. Uninstalled app in laptop and phone. And phone dns always goes through pihole. Could this work in your case?
- y-curious 8mo agoGreat ideas thanks
- delusional 8mo agoAny middle management thinking of enabling this technology will make it mandatory. If you blackhole the traffic, that's also reason to fire you.
- reactordev 8mo agoDo they need a reason anymore? Most US is at-will to work.
- jdmichal 8mo agoThey don't need a reason to fire you. They need a reason to fire you and not pay unemployment benefits.
- reactordev 8mo agounemployment benefits are so low do they really care that much? Unemployment benefits for me would be 3% annually of my annual salary.
- 8mo ago
- bri3d 8mo agoHere's the actual "roadmap" feature (scroll to the bottom where the filtered list is): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?searchterms=when+users+connect+to+their+organization%27s+Wi-Fi https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?search... The actual feature brief is: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in." Yuck.
- lostlogin 8mo agoFucking hell. Living in Teams is bad enough without this. It’s only a tiny part of my job, but if it was a major part I’m not sure I could stomach that.
- repeekad 8mo agoThis feels like a much better feature than “they can track your realtime location from the mobile app” as implied in the article? Plus employees will have to opt in? The tracking is still gross, but limited to opt-in on office WiFi seems a lot less dramatic of a headline, especially given the main concern people have is work from home
- bri3d 8mo ago> Plus employees will have to opt in? I mean, that's not really how "opt-in" works for features that your company owns; you might have to "opt-in" technically but your company will probably make that a little more mandatory. I do agree that the blog post, headline, and HN comments are as usual quite an overreaction, but this feature is pretty gross. It's also weird because the controversy/grossness-to-utility ratio seems awful, which either means that Microsoft product management has gotten as bad as everyone thinks it has or there's some future plan to make it more "robust."
- repeekad 8mo agoMy concern is if the employee is aware, at least let me quit before I’m silently opted into my boss realizing I can get the same work done with less time at the desk from home
- black_puppydog 8mo agoI'm surprised this would be even legal in most European countries... Then again, MS might not care any more. Companies who are not looking for alternatives today won't ever be looking.
- tjoff 8mo agoIt is not. Best guess is that this is reserved for the land of the free.
- gmueckl 8mo agoI still expect this feature to roll out worldwide with some legalese fine print that the customer is responsible for configuring and operating the product "in accordance with local laws". I'd be really surprised if MS handles this differently.
- bri3d 8mo agoThe implementation details are sketchy/weak in all sources I can find, but I don't think it's pure (coordinates based) location tracking, but rather a "feature" that will show which WiFi network you're connected to as your Teams status. It's pitched as "what building you're in at the office," which seems like a stretch. It's also kind of unclear whether the blog post is correct that it would show the name of another network if you connect to it - I'd sort of assume it would just show "Out of Office" instead of "connected to YO_MAMAS_WIFI" or whatever, but who knows.
- semiquaver 8mo ago> what building you're in at the office This makes no sense. Every multi-building campus I’ve ever seen uses the same SSID for all APs across buildings.
- bri3d 8mo agoYeah, the whole feature brief seems like either a really flimsy cover story or truly awful product management since it's a completely useless feature.
- buckle8017 8mo agoSo get a separate work phone and turn it off.
- dehrmann 8mo ago> Teams on Mac > And obviously, the mobile app (your pocket spy). Don't these ask for location permissions? This story is light on details.
- relaxing 8mo agoTeams on iOS doesn’t appear to use location services at all. The option to turn it on or off just isn’t there.
- bri3d 8mo agoThe roadmap feature is light on details too: "When users connect to their organization's Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they're working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in." I found a lot of news stories about this dating back to where it showed up on the roadmap in early 2025, but none of them with any more implementation details (ie - is it using _only_ WiFi network name, or some other data too?)
- entuno 8mo agoThe Teams Android app just asked for location permission today for me for the first time. And got denied.
- mixmastamyk 8mo agoMr. Doctorow calls this “Bossware.” ;-)
- kevinh 8mo agoThis article is like 300 words. Would it have killed them to not generate it using AI?
- mortenjorck 8mo agoI don't know how much of it was hand-edited and how much was direct output, but this article has that unmistakable LLM voice. The rhythm, the rhetorical flourishes; it's all there even if it's diffused through some human revision. The really weird thing is going to be when people start internalizing the LLM voice and writing that way. It's probably happening already.
- boelboel 8mo agoI've seen many people do the latter, I get quite annoyed by it. Worst of all is wondering if I'm affected by it myself, I doubt most people who've gotten an 'LLM writing style' know so themselves. Eventually no space where people can just 'publish' things will be safe from being completely filled with LLM writing/video/images. The only way to combat it is by forcing people to get punished for this behaviour and making it difficult to circumvent. Some invite system where people get punished for the bad people they bring in, one that's linked to your identity/workplace/education. Even if these options were available, I doubt many people would care enough, they'd rather be in 'enshittified ' spaces.
- krelian 8mo agoMaybe this will change one day but at the current moment this is an immediate turnoff. It's like someone trying to show you their project day 1 and it's a page filled with ads and a newsletter popup. You may have good reasons to do that but it doesn't instill a sense of trust and quality.
- copilot_king 8mo ago[flagged]
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- reactordev 8mo agoAnother reason to avoid ever working for a company that uses Teams.
- triceratops 8mo agoFTA > Remember when you could text Dave from the office to turn your PC on because you were stuck in traffic? I honestly don't. This was a thing? Why? > So if you decide to take a "working lunch" and connect to "Starbucks_Guest_WiFi", your boss sees it instantly. I would have a lot of fun with "creative" names for my Wi-fi network.
- teekert 8mo agoExactly this. If you worry about these things, find another job. So much about MS Teams. Nothing about these toxic managers. If you think it’s normal to call in to have someone pretend you’re there because your manager can’t forgive you some bad traffic you’re pretty far away from a healthy working relationship.
- chorlton2080 8mo agoI think they would have thought of that and are likely using MAC addresses and a lookup table tied up Active Server, etc. Yes, MAC addresses can be spoofed, but that isn't going to be what most employees will do.
- triceratops 8mo agoNo I just meant prank names for the network.
- kstrauser 8mo ago"Huh, looks like Ted's working from 'Kiss My Ass, Stalker' again."
- g947o 8mo agoThis doesn't make any sense. In any organization with a remotely capable IT, you'll still need to log in with your own account. If you give someone else your password to log in... there is a bigger problem.
- mystifyingpoi 8mo agoIt could make sense, although probably rarely these days. The question is, whether the benefit of pretending to be on time (no need to stay late to compensate, no need to explain to supervisor) outweighs the security and legal risk. It totally might.
- echelon_musk 8mo ago> managers will be able to see your real-time location. And no, disconnecting from the office Wi-Fi won't save you. Huh? If you're in the office already then your real time location is... the office. Makes 0 sense to me.
- lastofthemojito 8mo agoSome of my neighbors have some rather colorful Wifi SSIDs. I've seen some silly ones like "FBI SURVEILLANCE" as well as at least one crudely expressing their opinion of the current US President. Probably won't be long now before we see someone get fired because their boss saw the name of their home Wifi network.
- ajcp 8mo agoMy go-to SSID will always be "Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--". For all others I just use a ship name from The Culture universe[0] like "Of Course I Still Love You" or "Just Read the Instructions". 0. https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft https://theculture.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_spacecraft
- saltwatercowboy 8mo agoMy SSID similarly used to be "Two For Flinching" :)
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- observationist 8mo agoInstalled Linux on my work computer, completely uninstalled microsoft software from my phone. I'm deliberately excluding Microsoft wherever possible. Switch to Linux, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. Say it's a security measure against spyware by malicious and hostile entities online.
- lijok 8mo agoClassic prisoner's dilemma
- fsckboy 8mo agohow is there a prisoner's dilemma pattern of payoffs here?
- observationist 8mo agoMicrosoft defected, now the correct move for the customer is to defect. Really, based on the pattern they learned, they can defect a thousand times before they lose enough customers over it that they have to publicly apologize and reverse a feature, so customers stepping in mid-game think that there's a tit for tat happening, but they don't realize they're starting off in the hole. We all should have left Microsoft a very long time ago.
- stego-tech 8mo agoDisgusting, and a potential legal liability for employers if they turn it on. Not in the “invasion of privacy” sense, but the “there was a crime committed in area X and now the cops want our Teams logs from the employees who were there that Microsoft disclosed to them.” The more data you collect, the bigger your legal liability when something inevitably goes pear-shaped. Stop treating workers like grifters or prisoners and you won’t have nearly as many problems.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- outside1234 8mo agoThis can't be legal in the EU, right?
- cess11 8mo agoSure it can, other groups are already tracked in detail on the job.
- aquir 8mo agoSo looks like feature is not working in the web client? One more reason to to use that instead. Also, I will uninstall Teams from my phone for sure.
- entuno 8mo agoI wondered why the Teams Android app suddenly decided to ask for location permissions today. Denied.
- ahartmetz 8mo agoSame and same. Like, what the hell is that for now?!
- assaddayinh 8mo agoSociety feels like a prison and the warden is watching.
- copilot_king 8mo ago[dead]
- salawat 8mo agoThis is exactly the end state we'll end up in unless the technology sector starts saying no to implementing the tools of petty tyranny. Hint: Bossware and most things the MBA's drool over. Unfortunately, there's enough people out there that are fine with implementing said features if it means they get a paycheck; even if it ruins the world for everyone else.
- assaddayinh 8mo agoAll defectors
- lpcvoid 8mo agoMicroslop doing Microslop things
- SoftTalker 8mo agoHeh. A lot of panic over this one.
- djha-skin 8mo ago> If you connect to a Wi-Fi network that isn't your company's, Teams will simply display the name of that network. So if you decide to take a "working lunch" and connect to "Starbucks_Guest_WiFi", your boss sees it instantly. Looks like I need to rename my home wifi to "Corporate Network."
- xyst 8mo agoThis is why unions in the workplace are a good thing. It would prevent management from enabling these god awful policies by using collective bargaining. Yet the contrarians here will always say "iTs bEtTeR wItHoUt uNiOn cuz I nEgoTiaTe beTtEr"
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- swgeek 8mo agoIf they really care every large company already knows what building you are in just by tracking your badge info. This was transparent: I could check my own badge history anytime. What this does is track when you are not working in the office.
- SoftTalker 8mo agoStill easy to do if you have a badge system at work. No badge swipes today yet you've done work (emails, PRs, etc)? You're not working at the office.
- rapsacnz 8mo agoI use Little Snitch and block every phone home feature. Works great.
- samch 8mo agoSome of this could be related to laws that necessitate updated location data for emergency calling. Since a common component of Teams is Teams Phone, there can be a compliance gap. I’m sure this isn’t the whole story, but it is likely one facet: https://www.911.gov/issues/legislation-and-policy/kari-s-law-and-ray-baum-s-act/ https://www.911.gov/issues/legislation-and-policy/kari-s-law...
- everdrive 8mo agoOne more reason not to use WiFi but to use ethernet.
- jollyllama 8mo agoHmm, what if you're using the browser app?
- SoftTalker 8mo agoMy question as well. When I'm remote, I use Teams in the browser and I proxy the connection over SSH to my desktop machine at work.
- jollyllama 8mo agoI'll consider the practice. How does it even work for hard/ethernet/non-wifi connections?
- jerlam 8mo agoMost MDM software would already have access to your location. This might make it available to a lower level of management.
- bambax 8mo ago> If you connect to a Wi-Fi network that isn't your company's, Teams will simply display the name of that network. So if you decide to take a "working lunch" and connect to "Starbucks_Guest_WiFi", your boss sees it instantly But what if I have a secondary wifi network in my home that says "BigCorpSuperSecureWifi", wouldn't that work? What if that's the name of my phone's hotspot?
- xcf_seetan 8mo agoDoes it works both ways? Does it also tracks where the boss is? To be fair to the employee, he should be able to see where the boss is at any time.
- kccqzy 8mo agoCompletely agree. My employer makes all employee badging data available. Any employee can view whether any other employee has badged into the office and when. This includes viewing whether your boss has come in. However badging data is much more coarse-grained than WiFi. For one, because the building is large, you can’t tell which part of the office the employee is. For two, you can’t tell when the employee has left work because no badging is needed to exit the building.
- FpUser 8mo agoYeah, I remember seeing board with the list in the 90s in some company I can't remember. It included every employee including the owner along with the status like IN,OUT - WHERE - PHONE, OUT
- varispeed 8mo agoMicrosoft is building better chains for corporate slaves.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- bnchrch 8mo agoI truly believe our industry needs to elevate our own anti-awards, like others have (Razzies, Worst Game of the Year, etc.) to shame those responsible for building the regressive tech that corporations and governments push. There's already the Big Brother Awards [0] and EFF's smattering of Worst Government and Worst Data Breach articles each year. [1] But I think we need more. Personally I would love to nominate: - Mark Stefik and Brad Cox for their contributions to DRM - Erick Lavoie for his work on Wildvine DRM - Vern Paxson for his contributions to DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) - Latanya Sweeney and Alexandre de Montjoye for their contributions to re-identification of anonymized data - Steven J. Murdoch and George Danezis for their work on de-anonymization attacks [0]http://www.bigbrotherawards.org/ http://www.bigbrotherawards.org/ [1]https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/breachies-2025-worst-weirdest-most-impactful-data-breaches-year https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/breachies-2025-worst-w...
- cptaj 8mo agoAnother thing that I think would help is to start introducing some ethics into our profession as programmers. Most other professions have you take ethics classes, have ethics boards and even ethics legislation. We're severely lacking in this area as a community. It really shows when every year there's a new company building the Maximum Oppression Orb from the book Dont Build the Maximum Oppression Orb. Its like we're dealing with the moral equivalent of a mentally challenged person all the time
- surgical_fire 8mo agoProgrammers are not really decision makers there. The requirements for this sort of stuff come from top down. Do you expect C-Level and and the top layers of sycophants beneath them to be ethical?
- pepperoni_pizza 8mo agoSome people are doing their best to get on that list: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46784572
- lotsofpulp 8mo ago
- Detrytus 8mo agoOK, I’m renaming my home WiFi to “Riverside_Strip_Club” :-)
- alistairSH 8mo agoAssuming your office has entry gated with a badge (which I assume most do in 2026), don't they already know when you're physically at the office? Heck, my employer's entry system was already coupled to my phone's location (optional, but meant I didn't have to reserve a desk manually). So, I already looked like I was coming to the office on weekends because the grocery store is next door. EDIT: not to mention Teams already shows your status as "Away" if you don't type for 5 minutes. Sitting there reading a document - yep, you're clearly smoking in the parking lot or wandering around gossiping.
- SoftTalker 8mo agoYep there are so many ways an employer can know if you're coming to the office or not, if they really care.
- danesparza 8mo agoAnd cameras inside the office
- palmotea 8mo ago> Microsoft confirmed that starting March 2026 (delayed from January), managers will be able to see your real-time location. And no, disconnecting from the office Wi-Fi won't save you. Is there anything more than the Wifi SSID stuff below? > If you connect to a Wi-Fi network that isn't your company's, Teams will simply display the name of that network. So if you decide to take a "working lunch" and connect to "Starbucks_Guest_WiFi", your boss sees it instantly. You can’t hide behind a generic "Remote" status anymore. So how exactly does this work? It'd be pretty trivial setup my access point to provide a work SSID? How much access does Teams really have to get info to discern your location?
- iso1631 8mo agoSSID, signal strength, BSSID, private IP, public IP, ipv6, all trivially available to a binary running on a machine. It sounds far less than the diagnostics data I get from a small go binary. If corporate policy is you can't connect to starbucks wifi, then enforce that at the MDM mangement layer - I assume things like SCCM can do it.
- palmotea 8mo ago> SSID, signal strength, BSSID, private IP, public IP, ipv6, all trivially available to a binary running on a machine. So it sounds like if you want to circumvent this: get a travel router that spoofs a work access point, and make sure any kind of identification requests that would reveal a public IP are either blocked or are going through your work VPN.
- iso1631 8mo agoHell of a lot of opsec you need to ensure to lie to your employer. How ware you going to spoof the certificate? I don't get it personally, what's the purpose?
- PunchyHamster 8mo agorunning it in a browser would be enough, no ?
- antaviana 8mo agoWhen I started working at a time with no mobiles and no remote, calling or being called to the office for personal reasons was seen with disrespect from your coworkers. At work you were supposed to be working, and outside of work you were supposed not to be working. Pretty much as in the Severance series, but without the forgetting. With mobiles and connectivity, everything changed, I'm unsure if for better. Now you can work 24/7 or slack all day as if there were no tomorrow.
- ngetchell 8mo agoThis screams E911 compliance than stalker-ware but I could definitely be wrong. I know E911 was a big deal in the telephony world and since Teams is a phone service, this makes sense. I don't like it but it makes sense.
- galleywest200 8mo agoI am doubtful that Teams is going to fire off an e911 address change request to a vendor such as Intrado/West or Sinch every time you change WiFi.
- newsoftheday 8mo agoAgree, one could imagine a scenario where a worker went to the bathroom in a not too busy wing, had an anurism, stroke or seizure which left them debilitated right when a fire alarm rings and people need to evacuate. As it is today, the person might die if not found in time, this assumes someone else knew where to look without similar technology.
- re-lre-l 8mo agoIn my opinion, if I want to install any work-related software on my personal devices, it means I’m so excited about the job that I honestly don’t care whether a manager sees where and what I’m doing - just as a manager usually doesn’t care either. I mean, there’s no reason at all to install anything on personal devices unless you actually care about the business.
- n3dm 8mo agoWhat is your opinion about installing M$ Authenticator or any other mfa software?
- mystifyingpoi 8mo agoIt's a good question. At work, we were given an option: install non-intrusive authenticators on your personal phone (you are free to disable their notifications fully, and you get some extra money as reimbursement) or you are given a company phone (that you have to carry to work and back, have to charge and update etc). Most non-oncall people decided to pick option 1. Oncall people picked option 2.
- storus 8mo agoIt seems like the worst practices from Trilogy/Crossover are leaking all over the industry. First the crunch at all times at FAANG, next tracking everyone in a few minute intervals, ending up with real-time video tracking at all times, all spawned by the desire of inept top management to run software development as a manual factory with predictable assembly lines and not an intellectual pursuit.
- dlenski 8mo agohttps://ztechtalk.com/microsoft-teams#:~:text=obviously%2C%20the%20mobile%20app%20(your%20pocket%20spy) https://ztechtalk.com/microsoft-teams#:~:text=obviously%2C%2... Add this to the infinite list of reasons why I don't put company-issued spyware on my personal devices. If Slack/Teams/Outlook/whatever wants to "administer" my personal device in any way, it's a hard no for me.
- lenerdenator 8mo agoHmmm. Looks like I need to remove Teams from my phone.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- gblar 8mo agoThe Brahmin wants to track the commoners. The market isn't very happy with MSFT's AI bubble and dumped the stock yesterday. 50% more to go down!
- midtake 8mo agoMost middle managers will either not require this, or require it but find ways to themselves avoid being tagged as logging into their home wifi. The prevailing culture around middle-management is one of inefficiency and rule avoidance. Middle managers need to be replaced by AI already.
- newsoftheday 8mo ago"Here is the scary part" "The Bottom Line" It reads like AI generated content, is it just me?
- durzo22 8mo agoIt 100% is ai generated
- Insanity 8mo agoWow, what a dystopian feature. One more reason to stay away from Microsoft products as far as possible.
- tiku 8mo agoRun it from a VM, use a hotspot named the same as your home connection. Lots of options!
- smeej 8mo ago> Remember when you could text Dave from the office to turn your PC on because you were stuck in traffic? I don't understand why this doesn't still work. If Dave from the office has access to your PC, presumably Dave and your PC are in the office, connected to your office's network, and thus it would appear that you are in the office? Or is the assumption that you're carrying another device with you that would give you away? In which case, shouldn't the complaint be more about being forced to perform some kind of work task (like carrying/being accessible by your phone) when you're off the clock...which is hardly a new issue/complaint?
- hsbauauvhabzb 8mo agoMost people I know who wfh use laptops.
- smeej 8mo agoThis doesn't answer the question, though. If Dave could cover for you before, whether your computer was a desktop or laptop, it'd have to be at the office. This way...it still would.
- Jamesbeam 8mo agoI don’t get it. What is this good for? If this is for people physically working at some place they have access controls and will see if you left the building, when and for how long. So this is only good to track when your company phone leaves to the toilet. I imagine if they want to get rid of you they just set up a WiFi access point in the toilet and track your poop time. Then tell you to "optimize" your diet so you are more productive or get fired. I mean it’s Microsoft the king of shitty features. If this is for catching people working from home, just clone the WiFi and Mac on an OpenWRT 5g mobile router and take it with you and enjoy laughing at your boss while brunching with the whole team on company time. Sometimes I think people forget that you borrow the company your (life)time and skills for the agreed terms. You’re not some kind of pig that is tracked until you’re fat enough to get butchered. If your company turns this on, just look for a better workplace immediately that is actually respecting you as a human being and not "human capital" and tell them to get fucked.
- cheema33 8mo agoI don't get it. People complain when they have to go to the office. And then some are given the option to work from home. Then they complain their boss can find out where they are during work hours. What on Earth are you complaining about? Just go to the damn office already!!!
- SoftTalker 8mo agoIt's pretty amazing to see the bubble many people here seem to work in. A guess, but probably 90% of employees have to go to work. Either they physically cannot do their job remotely or the employer demands that they be present. A lot of people are coming across as whiny children here, "Oh no I might have to go to the office for my 6-figure paycheck." Grow up and go to work, as George Carlin might say.
- imglorp 8mo agoIt's about trust and empowerment. It's about hiring adults, respecting and trusting them to do the job and support the team, and be responsible for their methods. The details are not important to that goal. If an employer instead treats people like toddlers needing supervision, spoon feeding, and metrics around methods, not work, they will get only that.
- mahirsaid 8mo agothe people that sacrificed years of education and hardship to be employed by a company and have a boss in the end of the day your still back to the same predicament. A plumber, electrician, carpenter, has more autonomy than any profession in the US. A surgeon after years of schooling and experience still has to answer to a director or board, wrong doing will lose all of their credentials and revoked in due time.
- treetalker 8mo agoElsewhere in the news (including HN): "Microsoft is working to rebuild trust in Windows".
- navane 8mo agoBuy a burner phone. Plug it in at your office for charge. Put teams app on it. Bam you're in the office 24/7.
- mystifyingpoi 8mo agoAfter 3 days of such, an automated system detects this trivial anomaly and emails your boss + HR.
- navane 8mo agoMake it connect to the wifi according to your work schedule.
- dleslie 8mo agoFor what it's worth, unless it can be conclusively argued that surveillance is necessary for the task to be done this sort of continuous surveillance is illegal in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. It violates the privacy of employees.
- uberman 8mo agoI feel like if they want to track my phone using an app then they owe me a phone. Their laptop is in theory theirs but not my phone
- charles_f 8mo agoI work on Teams (I know, I know... please don't hit me, it's not my fault) 1. I don't speak authoritatively and 2. I don't have knowledge of the whole product - there's always a rogue team here and there doing stuff. We've had that feature turned on at MSFT for some time now. It does not allow your manager to see that you're at Starbucks, at home, on the shitter or anything like that. There's a new toggle in the calendar settings called "Share location with my organization", and the settings are: "all details: building, desk, etc.", "general location: office or remote", "can't view any location information". What it does when turned on is just adding, at the top of your calendar, icons that tell you which of your colleagues are in office, and if they share and you click on someone's picture, what building they're in (when it works). The whole "it will tell your manager what your wifi is" is just baseless extrapolation, and plainly false from what I can tell.
- esseph 8mo agoIt also shows them what wifi network you are connected to.
- dang 8mo agoThanks for showing up to provide some corrective information. I know it can feel like opening a box of yellowjackets, but one of the best things about the HN community is when someone with first-hand knowledge is willing to share what they know. Edit: from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46827312 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46827312, it does sound like the feature isn't really opt-in for end users though?
- tokyobreakfast 8mo ago> it does sound like the feature isn't really opt-in for end users though End users should not have an expectation of empowerment when using Teams or its predecessors... the administrator can override basically anything. If you work in a large enterprise they already control everything—or have the capability.
- refulgentis 8mo agoAI written with zero sources, links, anything, shouldn't be acceptable, especially to HNers. Makes me sad. :( Apologies you both have to deal with this.
- BrouteMinou 8mo agoI think the only outrageous people here are the paranoid and the slackers... My manager has called me when I was doing a mid-day grocery and I just told him: "sorry for the noise, I am at the grocery store at the moment". This is absolutely no problem at all, he asked if I wanted to call back when I got home... It's pretty much making a storm in a glass of water here. That's karma farming by bitching the ebil Microsoft...
- hsbauauvhabzb 8mo agoSounds like you work in a nice place. Most organisations are not nice places.
- voldemolt 8mo agoThere was an article here not too long ago about someone decrying a fellow cow-worker for their rather liberal usage of AI and how their manager would see it and promote it, changing company process in the meantime. The writer found this revulsive. But what I found interesting is what was not discussed. This “Microsoft just did X” is another entry in that. Folks, let’s not beat around the bush: if you’re not your own boss, you don’t have agency and ultimately you have no control over the situation. The frustration is rooted in the lack of control, or at the very least in the lack of perception of cooperation that is a temporary substitute for agency and control (until the rug gets pulled from underneath them). It’s not Microsoft, it’s not Teams, it’s not AI. It’s not the person being promoted for doing this. It’s you. If it was your company, you could have put an end to it and changed the processes immediately. But it isn’t. So for having the privilege of working at whatever company you’re at, and getting paid whatever money you’re paid, you have to eat shit. This is the price you pay. If you don’t want to eat shit from your bosses, you have to be your own boss. I think that’s as succinct and straightforward of a solution to things like these that you can find.
- kitsune1 8mo ago[dead]
- api 8mo agoMicrosoft really seems to be tripling and quadrupling down on total surveillance of the user's "own" system. If you haven't ditched MS yet, I'd consider it now. Linux is becoming more and more viable for a gaming PC. For business uses a Linux desktop is usable but probably not ideal, but you also have macOS. I'd pick anything but Windows and MS stuff.
- WalterBright 8mo agoI'd have two phones (and two laptops). One for work only, the other for everything else.