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National security defense being used to keep appeal behind closed doors

US politicians and privacy campaigners are calling for the private hearing between Apple and the UK government regarding its alleged encryption-busting order to be aired in public.…

** Apple Intelligence již brzy přijde v Česku do iPhonů ** Funkci jsme v rámci beta testování předem vyzkoušeli ** Toto jsou ty nejvýznamnější funkce, které by se vám mohly hodit

The most important decision in global technology is being made by a single UK judge in a small room, a decision happening in near-total privacy with no transparency at all.

What’s at stake is the use of data encryption, personal privacy, and the huge risk of being forced to install backdoors into tech products. If this sounds like something that could once have happened behind the Iron Curtain, think again: This world-impacting decision is all part of what seems to be a plan to turn the nation into a surveillance society.

“For your protection.”

If you’ve been following along, you already know what’s at stake. 

Welcome to spook Britain

The UK is demanding that Apple open up its systems for surveillance. Apple is opposed to this demand and has already withdrawn one of the services it offered the UK as a result. Today, the company will appeal the demand of the UK Home Office in a top secret court. The public won’t be able to attend that hearing, won’t be able to comment on the case, will not be told the results — and Apple is forbidden from discussing it.

It’s a real case of authoritarian overreach on steroids.

The fact that it is happening at all will embolden governments globally to demand Apple, Google, and others install their own back doors, reducing digital security and privacy — one leaked backdoor exploit at a time. Eventually, it will threaten digital commerce.  

Being secret, we don’t know if other companies are facing the same demand, but it’s reasonable to assume that if Apple is facing such stress, then Google will be facing the same thing. We just won’t be told.

Outside of public scrutiny, the UK government is making a decision that threatens serious negative consequences across most parts of life. US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard last month called the matter a “clear and egregious violation of Americans’ privacy and civil liberties.” 

The special relationship

In the shadowy halls and byzantine pathways infested by those who have acquired power, discussions are taking place. Only last night, a cross-party group wrote a furious letter to the UK government demanding that today’s decision-making process be done in public. Signatories included US Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Warren Davidson (R-OH), and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

“We write to request the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) remove the cloak of secrecy related to motives given to American technology companies by the United Kingdom which infringes on free speech and privacy, undermines important United States Congress and UK parliamentary oversight, harms national security, and ultimately, undermines the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom,” they warned.

The demand the UK is making does, of course, undermine that relationship, as Apple will be obliged to offer up the personal data of any of its users in the world.

Liberty and Privacy International have filed a legal complaint with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) demanding the case be heard in public, wrote the Financial Times.  Caroline Wilson Palow, legal director of Privacy International, argued: “The UK’s use of a secret order to undermine security for people worldwide is unacceptable and disproportionate.”

Too little, too late

There has been some consultation, albeit at the 11th hour. Bloomberg reports that UK officials are rushing around attempting to win support for its plans. Pointing to the UK’s non-existent constitution, these discussions lean deeply into tradition and expectation of privacy and balanced use of these powers. To my mind, these promises are tantamount to purchasing a vehicle from a stranger down at your local bar; there’s no trust without guarantee, and I see no guarantee in what has been promised. 

The UK side has, in typical myopic fashion, argued that criticism of the attempt is “misinformed.” If that’s true, then the UK has itself to blame for this attempted digital smash-and-grab against global privacy without any significant oversight at all. 

Officials argue that they don’t want blanket access and will only request data concerning the most serious crimes. That’s not really the point, of course – the point is that there are no safe back doors; vulnerabilities — even government designed ones — will be identified and abused.

One back door is also one too many, as when one government gains such access, all governments will demand the same thing.

We will never know if we are safe

What makes this act of self-harm worse is that the world won’t be told of the decision, no matter which way it goes. The UK won’t say anything, and Apple is not permitted to say anything. 

That means ordinary people like me and you will never know if our digital lives remain private and secure. But governments and intelligence agencies will know, which means, inevitably, that attempts to find and exploit whatever UK-mandated backdoors are put in place will intensify. Why would any other government not attempt to exploit these holes?

Most of us won’t know anything, until the eventual and inevitable day these backdoors are weaponized and used in a vast global attack.

Far from making the world safer, this deluded demand leaves the world open to an attack that makes the Crowdstrike debacle look like a rehearsal. The bottom line? Because we won’t know how this judgement goes, we need never feel safe online again — all thanks to a decision taken in top secret by one person.

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**Microsoft vydal 11. března nové servisní aktualizace pro Windows **Opravil 57 děravých míst v ekosystému Windows **Ve Windows 11 můžete sdílet soubory z nabídek na hlavním panelu

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If you haven’t read Joseph Heller’s masterpiece, Catch-22, I highly recommend you do. The Catch-22 in the novel is this: “A combat pilot was crazy by definition (he would have to be crazy to fly combat missions) and since army regulations stipulated that insanity was justification for grounding, a pilot could avoid flight duty by simply asking, but if he asked, he was demonstrating his sanity (anyone who wanted to get out of combat must be sane) and had to keep flying.” 

In modern business, it goes like this: Companies or government agencies insist workers return to the office, but since they have no offices to return to, they must work from home. But since working from home is forbidden, they have to return to the office. Lather, rinse, repeat. 

Stupid, right? Yes, but that doesn’t stop increasingly obtuse managers from being obsessed with forcing workers to work in an office even when there’s no power, internet access, or sometimes even space, for them to do so. 

I’m not making this up. 

Millions of federal workers have been ordered to return to offices across the US, only for many of them to find that those workplaces aren’t ready. Issues have included a lack of desks, Wi-Fi, electricity, and hazardous conditions such as exposed wires and malfunctioning lighting. And, then, of course, there are the plugged sinks and dirty bathrooms — because no one hired janitors to clean up newly opened government offices. (As far as we know, employees haven’t had to bring in their own toilet paper… yet.)

This change came about because US President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order soon after re-taking office demanding the government “take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.” 

Why? It’s so he can “drain the swamp” and  “usher a Golden Age for America by reforming and improving the government bureaucracy to work for the American people.” Trump’s orders further suggested remote work was a hindrance to effective management and oversight, with the belief that in-person work would improve supervision and control over employees.

I’ve said before that the real motivation for many of these efforts to get people back into cubicles is incompetent micromanagers demanding literal oversight of workers. Trump and company are perfect examples. 

Trump, for example, pulled a number out of a hat by lying that “only 6% of employees currently work in person.” Even the lick-spittle, Republican-dominated House of Representatives Oversight Committee was closer to reality: it had just reported five days before that “43% of the workforce were still teleworking as of September 2023.”

Of course, since then Trump’s regime has announced, via Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), that it would terminate the leases of a quarter of the government’s real estate. That’s in addition to the “non-core” government buildings the government might sell off, including federal courthouses, the headquarters of the Justice Department in Washington DC and the American Red Cross.

So, where will the remaining workers work? Good question. Like so many things DOGE is doing, there are no real answers. There are just unfounded, unproven claims that it will save money. In the meantime, government employee morale continues to circle the drain. 

Some businesses, though, are also forcing employees back to non-existent offices, and they do want productive workers. Take Amazon, for example, which has been trying to shove employees back into the office five days a week for months. There’s one little fly in the soup: Amazon doesn’t have enough office space for them. Oops.

The company has had to delay its return-to-office mandate for some locations, meaning employees in cities like Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Nashville, New York, and Phoenix might not return until as late as May 2025. (I’ll be surprised if they can all fit in by then.)

This lack of operational planning has gotten so bad that Amazon is overpaying for additional office space, with such deals as leasing serious square footage via WeWork in Manhattan to accommodate employees.

AT&T is running into similar problems with its phased return to a five-day-a-week plan. According to a Business Insider report, some employees have been told they’ll only have 70% to 80% of the workstations they need. Boy, I’m sure that the crew will be able to work better now that they’re back in the office!

Before AT&T implemented its back-to-the-workplace demands, CEO John Stankey said in May 2023 that if employees “want to be a part of building a great culture and environment, they’ll come along on these adjustments.” If this is a great culture, I’d hate to think what he believes is a lousy one.

If you’ve been reading my stories for any time, you know I’m a big believer in working from home. But, come on, people, if you feel that everyone working in the office is the right way, don’t you think you should do a better job of at least providing the spaces and resources your people need to be successful? 

I mean, this is management 101. It’s also that rarest of qualities: common sense.

Intel’s appointment of semiconductor veteran Lip-Bu Tan as CEO marks a critical moment for the company and its enterprise customers.

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Microsoft never sleeps. In addition to its steady releases of major and minor updates to the current version of Windows 10, the company frequently rolls out public preview builds to members of its Windows Insider Program, allowing them to test out — and even help shape — upcoming features.

Although Windows Insiders can choose to receive Windows 11 preview builds in one of four channels — the Canary, Dev, Beta, or Release Preview Channel — Microsoft currently offers Windows 10 Insider previews in the Beta and Release Preview Channels only.

The Release Preview Channel typically doesn’t see action until shortly before a new feature update is rolled out; it’s meant for final testing of an upcoming release and is best for those who want the most stable builds. The Beta Channel previews features that are a little further out.

Below you’ll find information about recent Windows 10 preview builds. For each build, we’ve included the date of its release, which Insider channel it was released to, a summary of what’s in the build, and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it.

Note: If you’re looking for information about updates being rolled out to all Windows 10 users, not previews for Windows Insiders, see “Windows 10: A guide to the updates.”

Releases for Windows 10 version 22H2 Windows 10 Build 19045.5674 (KB5053643)

Release date: March 13, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which thumbnails in File Explorer crashed and caused white pages to appear instead of the actual thumbnail.

(Get more info about Build 19045.5674.)

Windows 10 Build 19045.5552 (KB5052077)

Release date: February 13, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which Open Secure Shell (OpenSSH) refused to start, stopping SSH connections.

(Get more info about Build 19045.5552.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.5435 (KB5050081)

Release date: January 17, 2025

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This update introduces a new calendar and the new Outlook app. It also fixes a variety of bugs, including one that depleted virtual memory, causing some apps to fail, and another in which the Capture Service and Snipping Tool stopped responding you pressed Windows key + Shift + S several times while Narrator was on.

(Get more info about Build 19045.5435.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.5194 (KB5046714)

Release date: November 14, 2024

Released to: Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel

For Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel, the recommended section of the Start menu will show some Microsoft Store apps from a small set of curated developers. If you want to turn this off, go to Settings > Personalization > Start. Turn off the toggle for Show suggestions occasionally in Start. Note that this feature is being rolled out gradually.

Windows Insiders in the Beta and Release Preview Channels get several bug fixes, including for a bug in which when you dragged and dropped files from a cloud files provider folder, it might have resulted in a move instead of a copy.

(Get more info about Build 19045.5194.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.5070 (KB5045594)

Release date: October 14, 2024

Released to: Beta and Release Preview Channels

In this build, those in the Beta Channel who have chosen to get features as soon as they are rolled out get new top cards that highlight key hardware specifications of their devices.

Insiders in both the Beta and Release Preview Channels get a new account manager on the Start menu. The new design makes it easy to view your account and access account settings. Those in the Beta and Release Preview Channels also get fixes for a variety of bugs, including one in which a scanner driver failed to install when you used a USB cable to connect to a multifunction printer.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.5070.)

Windows 10 22H2 19045.4955 (KB5043131)

Release date: September 16, 2024

Released to: Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which playback of some media could have stopped when you used certain surround sound technology, and another in which Windows Server stopped responding when you used apps like File Explorer and the taskbar.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4955.)

Windows 10 22H2 19045.4842 (KB5041582)

Release date: August 22, 2024

Released to: Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel

This build fixes several bugs, including one in which when a combo box had input focus, a memory leak sometimes occurred when you closed that window, and another in which some Bluetooth apps stopped responding because of a memory leak in a device.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 19045.4842.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4713 (KB5040525)

Release date: July 11, 2024

Released to: Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel

In this build, Insiders in the Beta Channel get a fix in which they will see a search box on their secondary monitors when the setting for search on the taskbar is set to “Search box.”

Insiders in the Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel get fixes for a variety of bugs, including one in which the TCP send code often causes a system to stop responding during routine tasks, such as file transfers. This issue leads to an extended send loop.

(Get more info about  Windows 10 22H2 19045.4713.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4593

Release date: June 13, 2024

Released to: Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel

In this build, Insiders in the Beta Channel get bug fixes for Windows Backup. Insiders in both the Beta and Release Preview Channels get a new feature for mobile device management in which when you enroll a device, the MDM client sends more details about the device. The MDM service uses those details to identify the device model and the company that made it.

Insiders in the Beta Channel and Release Preview Channel also get a variety of bug fixes, including for a bug that could have stopped systems from resuming from hibernation after BitLocker was turned on.

(Get more info about  Windows 10 22H2 19045.4593.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4472 (KB5037849)

Release date: May 20, 2024

Released to: Release Preview ChannelThis build fixes a variety of bugs, including one in which TWAIN drivers stopped responding when you used them in a virtual environment, and another in which the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) app stopped responding.

(Get more info about  Windows 10 22H2 19045.4472.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4353 (KB5036979)

Release date: April 15, 2024

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build introduces account-related notifications for Microsoft accounts in Settings > Home. A Microsoft account connects Windows to your Microsoft apps. This feature displays notifications across the Start menu and Settings. You can manage your Settings notifications in Settings > Privacy & security > General.

A wide variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which when your device resumed from Modern Standby you might have gotten the stop error, “0x9f DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE, and another in which the Windows Local Administrator Password Solution’s (LAPS) Post Authentication Actions (PAA) did not happen at the end of the grace period. Instead, they occurred at restart.

(Get more info about  Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4353.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4233 (KB5035941)

Release date: March 14, 2024

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This build adds Windows Spotlight, which displays new images as your desktop wallpaper. If you want to know more about an image, click or tap the Learn More button, which takes you to Bing. To turn on this feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Background > Personalize your background and choose Windows spotlight. The update also adds sports, traffic, and finance content to the lock screen. To turn it on, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. Note that these two features will roll out to users gradually.

In addition, in Windows Hello for Business IT admins can now use mobile device management (MDM) to turn off the prompt that appears when users sign in to an Entra-joined machine. To do it, turn on the “DisablePostLogonProvisioning” policy setting. After a user signs in, provisioning is off for Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices.

A wide variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which some applications that depend on COM+ component had stopped responding. Also fixed was a deadlock issue in CloudAP that occurred when different users signed in and signed out at the same time on virtual machines.

(Get more info about Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4233.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4116 (KB5034843)

Release date: February 15, 2024

Released to: Release Preview Channel

In this build, using Windows share, you can now directly share URLs to apps like WhatsApp, Gmail, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Sharing to X (formerly Twitter) is coming soon.

The build fixes several bugs, including one in which you weren’t able to use Windows Hello for Business to authenticate to Microsoft Entra ID on certain apps when using Web Access Management (WAM).

(Get more info about  Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.4116.)

Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.3992 (KB5034203)

Release date: January 11, 2024

Released to: Release Preview Channel

This update adds eye control system settings. You can back up these settings from the former device while you set up a new device. Then those settings will install automatically on the new device so you can use them when you reach the desktop.

The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which an MDM service such as Microsoft Intune might not get the right data from BitLocker data-only encryption, and another in which some single-function printers are installed as scanners.

(Get more info about  Windows 10 22H2 Build 19045.3992 (KB5034203).)

Za půl roku skončí podpora Windows 10, takže se Google upomíná s tím, že firmy nemusejí logicky přecházet na Windows 11, ale měly by jako alternativu zvážit ChromeOS. I když jsou vázané na softwarový ekosystém Microsoftu, na chromeboocích a chromeboxech mohou část těchto produktů používat také. Na ...

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