deaddrop

>Microsoft never amassed the data on their "customers" that Google and Facebook and every Tom, Dick, and Harry do now.

They caught wind of their "mistake" and "corrected" that error in Windows 10 but have since slightly changed course under pressure[0].

[0] - https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/5/15188636/microsoft-windows...

>Why on earth would they need separate infrastructure and the rest of us do not?

I imagine they wanted to build their own version of SIPRNet.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIPRNet

>...we tend to call them "vendor staff" internally...

There was a time when MSFT called them "dash trash". Good times. /s

>How do you find such contract work?

It's a misnomer[0]. You usually find this work through vendor companies that actually hold the contracts with BigCo's. To the BigCo, you're a contractor but you're "technically" an FTE with the vendor company, who holds the actual contract (head count x duration) to work at the BigCo.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnomer

For 1, I use Temporary Containers[0] and have it set to auto-start and delete the containers as soon as the last related window closes.

It's a PIA for logging into things (e.g.: companies who use three different redirects to three different sub-domains) but that complaint is my fault, based on how I've configured it.

That plus deleting history on close of Firefox isn't enough to thwart the most egregious adversary (e.g.: those with three-lettered names) but should be enough for privacy concerns.

For 2, I might also recommend Canvas Fingerprint Detector[1]. Instead of not replying (which could be, in and of itself, a fingerprint[2]), it generates a random fingerprint signature in response; though, in principle, this might be a tracking vector, as well.

[0] - https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-SE/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

[1] - https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-SE/firefox/addon/canvas-finger...

[2] - https://multilogin.com/how-canvas-fingerprint-blockers-make-...

>That's the "monitor from the customer's point of view" approach the OP alludes to.

...but now you're in a recursive problem: Who watches the watcher? If the watcher goes down, your insights are gone. Do you devote your entire engineering staff to monitoring, then?

A two-pronged approach would be better: Customer Touch-Point monitoring built into your product and external monitoring should your CTP monitoring go down. If your external monitoring goes down, you still have the CTP, so not all visibility is lost.

>I wonder if OP was referring to any of the more immediately concerning positive feedback loops

Yeah, that's why I prefaced it with it being a dumb question. :)

If the feed backs are accelerating global warming, it wouldn't be too distant a notion from the premise of runaway greenhouse gases.

I'll have to brush-up on my nomenclature to not ask such bone-headed questions in the future. :(

>The average July high for Alert is 7 C.

...and...

>Environment Canada says Canadian Forces Station Alert hit a record of 21 C on Sunday.

If we're talking about the same exact region, those are drastically differing numbers, indeed.

Stupid question: Would it be a run-away greenhouse[0] type of situation that would explain the starkly contrasting differences?

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect

Correct, as the NASA link clearly delineates:

>The researchers point out that the gain in greenness seen around the world and dominated by India and China does not offset the damage from loss of natural vegetation in tropical regions, such as Brazil and Indonesia. The consequences for sustainability and biodiversity in those ecosystems remain.

Thinking that China and India have "got this" would be a catastrophic assumption (obligatory xkcd[0]).

[0] - https://xkcd.com/1732/

I think that their critique of the overall judicial system was a tangential aside and didn't - directly - apply to this specific situation.

Admittedly, I could be wrong here but that was my take-away from the OC.