1) I doubt this is Microsoft conspiring against a LibreOffice dev. It's not impossible, but it seems way more likely that it's just an automated process that is misfiring.
2) I cannot prove that this (opaque) process has been retrofitted to use LLM's in its decision making, but I would not be the slightest bit surprised. Neural networks are, intrinsically, even more opaque than the processes they replace.
3) Using Big Tech as a place to backup your work/files/etc. is fine, as long as you have a local copy, and sometimes you have no choice but to deal with them. However, any time you're dealing with Big Tech, even if they have no particular animus towards you, they may suddenly be unavailable (to you) without explanation, for an extended period of time. Plan (as best you can) accordingly.
> I doubt this is Microsoft conspiring against a LibreOffice dev. It's not impossible, but it seems way more likely that it's just an automated process that is misfiring.
I could agree with the beginning of that but not the classification of a misfire. A misfire implies a brief, exceptional occurrence and neither of those adjectives seem likely here.
That's based on a few years spent in Microsoft's forever-shuffling admin carousel (EAC, Exch Migration, Intune, Azure hydra, 365/Copilot-all-the-things). Thru that, I have come to believe that incompetence is almost always the right answer for MS-generated woes.
> However, any time you're dealing with Big Tech, even if they have no particular animus towards you, they may suddenly be unavailable (to you) without explanation, for an extended period of time
this risk goes for any 3rd party, at least the ones that follow sanctions compliance or suspicious activity monitoring. if your name shows up on a denied party list, it's illegal for anyone to tell you why they arent talking to you anymore.
Given Microsoft's previous behaviour towards competitors and open source software, it seems almost certain to me that Microsoft is doing this deliberately. They've got decades of bad faith behaviour at this point, so why give them the benefit of the doubt?
Because, this is the default operating for all big corporations at this point. Ban people based on some random automated factor. And then have no customer support channel to contact.
I just fall on general malice here too instead of specific malice.
Yeah if Microsoft is banning 1% of accounts and independently 0.01% have a newsworthy conspiracy angle then on average One in a million users would fall in this bucket. p is going to be near 1 without other info.
In this day and age, it is almost impossible for certain businesses not to build on someone's else kingdom.
Facebook, instagram, uber, lyft, doordash, instacart, and hundreds of unicorn businesses are literally built on top of ecosystems that are controlled by 2 or 3 companies.
If you have a possible very high return for taking that risk (as the unicorn businesses do) then do it in full knowledge of the risk.
I am not convinced those businesses are good examples. Could they have redeployed elsewhere if they had to? Where they tied to one supplier? Did they have backups else where?
Most businesses and individuals do not have to take that risk and can avoid it.
There was a fleeting moment where the Internet was the "Wild West" but we are long past that. The GP's idiom is about as practical as "don't be a citizen of any state".
> In this day and age, it is almost impossible for certain businesses not to build on someone's else kingdom.
No it is not. It is only the greed for bigger profits. If a company can work with Microsoft, it can also work with LibreOffice. But LibreOffice doesn't promise them the moon, while sucking every cent out of them.
I mean, technically you don't have to use those ecosystems and could roll your own stuff, including infrastructure instead of AWS but it's definitely going to be expensive.
Which is why we need regulation for those big players (gatekeepers as the EU has taken to calling them). If you're going to be so huge that you essentially operate your own market and economy, then you need to be regulated like one, and forced to play nice, interoperate, and not favor your own services.
Do not trust Microsoft, Google or any other company to provide backups... Have at least one backup/copy of your own data on your own hardware. I have onedrive, google-drive and dropbox copied to my nas as well as my desktop and laptop. Other projects are in github or gitlab and copied on my nas.
That said, I should better automate my project backups... I also need to get my backup (redundant) NAS at a friends house (vpn) so that I can have an extra level of safety.
> Do not trust Microsoft, Google or any other company to provide backups.
Hell, even Microsoft (on the enterprise side of 365) says do not treat their services as a backup.
But we do need to get stricter about the messaging these companies are allowed to put out there regarding their services. Microsoft with one side of their mouth says 365 is definitively not a backup, and then turns around and advertises OneDrive on Windows as a backup with the "back up your folders now" notification.
To consumers that don't know any better, it's misleading and leads to a false sense of security, though I suspect "this service is not a backup and you can lose your account and all your files at anytime" doesn't sell as many subscriptions.
Google is good in this regard as you can schedule a takeout and get a complete dump. Stick that on a drive that is running backblaze and do periodic physical backups.
People don't realize how fragile this makes things.
Requiring an online ID to log into a local computer creates all sorts of vulnerabilities. When Microsoft gets hacked again, it can let hackers lock you out of your computer. It's basically ransomware-in-waiting.
The moment I saw nytimes' reporting that a dad lost access to his Google account because of "nude" photos of his baby and couldn't get help, I de-Googled almost completely and am now using fastmail as my main email account. My other inboxes are only kept just in case someone reaches me via those old addresses.
I knew that if I didn't do that, the same thing would some day happen to me.
I haven't been affected by any of those censorship laws and I doubt it ever will (in which case I'll just use a different provider). The biggest difference is that if something goes wrong, at least there is a real human being I can talk to at Fastmail.
Hotmail/outlook support isn't great (I've had a similar challenge but it was eventually resolved), google support is worse (a similar challenge, eventually denied).
I had this exact same thing happen to me a while back. Luckily the account was one I had created just for this one user group who required I become part of their AD domain to access MS Teams. I tried getting back into the account and hit the same roadblock this guy did. I didn't care that much and just abandoned the account.
I figured it was something that Microsoft would soon fix, as it was such an obvious cluster; I'm surprised the issue still exists.
Readit News
2) I cannot prove that this (opaque) process has been retrofitted to use LLM's in its decision making, but I would not be the slightest bit surprised. Neural networks are, intrinsically, even more opaque than the processes they replace.
3) Using Big Tech as a place to backup your work/files/etc. is fine, as long as you have a local copy, and sometimes you have no choice but to deal with them. However, any time you're dealing with Big Tech, even if they have no particular animus towards you, they may suddenly be unavailable (to you) without explanation, for an extended period of time. Plan (as best you can) accordingly.
I could agree with the beginning of that but not the classification of a misfire. A misfire implies a brief, exceptional occurrence and neither of those adjectives seem likely here.
That's based on a few years spent in Microsoft's forever-shuffling admin carousel (EAC, Exch Migration, Intune, Azure hydra, 365/Copilot-all-the-things). Thru that, I have come to believe that incompetence is almost always the right answer for MS-generated woes.
Google is similarly notorious for brining businesses to a halt and only fixing the issue when it makes the news and a human at Google finally sees it.
this risk goes for any 3rd party, at least the ones that follow sanctions compliance or suspicious activity monitoring. if your name shows up on a denied party list, it's illegal for anyone to tell you why they arent talking to you anymore.
I just fall on general malice here too instead of specific malice.
Deleted Comment
"Don’t build your castle in other people’s kingdoms."
https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/11/01/dont-build-your-cast...
Facebook, instagram, uber, lyft, doordash, instacart, and hundreds of unicorn businesses are literally built on top of ecosystems that are controlled by 2 or 3 companies.
No it is not
It is often difficult and expensive, relative to letting Facebook (or the like) do the hosting.
But VPSs are a thing, you can run almost any software on them.
Stretching the analogy: Build your castle on your own bedrock, and build "forts", or "outposts", on the enemy territory
Ignoring Facebook et. el. is stupid, but depending on them is fool hardy
I am not convinced those businesses are good examples. Could they have redeployed elsewhere if they had to? Where they tied to one supplier? Did they have backups else where?
Most businesses and individuals do not have to take that risk and can avoid it.
No it is not. It is only the greed for bigger profits. If a company can work with Microsoft, it can also work with LibreOffice. But LibreOffice doesn't promise them the moon, while sucking every cent out of them.
Which is why we need regulation for those big players (gatekeepers as the EU has taken to calling them). If you're going to be so huge that you essentially operate your own market and economy, then you need to be regulated like one, and forced to play nice, interoperate, and not favor your own services.
Deleted Comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/1h48tkz/app...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38394364
https://medium.com/@thedarkhacker94/apple-has-terminated-my-...
That said, I should better automate my project backups... I also need to get my backup (redundant) NAS at a friends house (vpn) so that I can have an extra level of safety.
Hell, even Microsoft (on the enterprise side of 365) says do not treat their services as a backup.
But we do need to get stricter about the messaging these companies are allowed to put out there regarding their services. Microsoft with one side of their mouth says 365 is definitively not a backup, and then turns around and advertises OneDrive on Windows as a backup with the "back up your folders now" notification.
To consumers that don't know any better, it's misleading and leads to a false sense of security, though I suspect "this service is not a backup and you can lose your account and all your files at anytime" doesn't sell as many subscriptions.
Requiring an online ID to log into a local computer creates all sorts of vulnerabilities. When Microsoft gets hacked again, it can let hackers lock you out of your computer. It's basically ransomware-in-waiting.
I knew that if I didn't do that, the same thing would some day happen to me.
Mike doesn't make this claim in the original source: https://mikekaganski.wordpress.com/2025/07/25/microsoft-anyb...
Hotmail/outlook support isn't great (I've had a similar challenge but it was eventually resolved), google support is worse (a similar challenge, eventually denied).
I figured it was something that Microsoft would soon fix, as it was such an obvious cluster; I'm surprised the issue still exists.