Submitted 5 months ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Microsoft-Teams-can-record-office-presence-from-December-10899943.html
Specifically, Teams will detect if the user has connected to the company’s own Wi-Fi and automatically set the work location accordingly to the respective building.
Fun fact, you can use most of teams through teams.microsoft.com
Do yourself and your coworkers a favor and minimize how often Teams is running. If anyone asks just say the desktop version was buggy - no one who has used teams will deny it.
Why are we pretending like someone working hybrid needs to hide their office status during work hours? Its not a privacy issue for your work to know where you are while you’re working for them.
Plus there is already a ton of ways your employer gets this data its not like any new ground is being broken here.
I dont get the outrage with this one NGL.
the only people in uproar about this are the same people who use those auto mouse pads or whatever they are called.
Slippery slope surveillance.
I worked at a shop where the boss was very curious when people went idle. So, if you were white-boarding a problem with a peer, you’d both get asked later where you were – since your mouse was idle.
It got tiring. it was one of the reasons why I left.
But those people are out there, and they’re hindering the career of people who appear idle because #goodhartsLaw, and sometimes you don’t know they’re doing it.
That to me seems like micromanager issue more than an issue with thr software. There are plenty of good managers and teams where they get great benefit from being able to at a glance see if you’re in office that day. In every team ive worked in its expected to update your status to display where you are working.
I’d like to not have to update my status as often and have it update automatically, save everyone a bit of hassle.
If we think about the bad micromanager situation a bit more without this they might be less comfortable with the idea of having people work from home so giving them this info helps them keep track better which allows them to give their team the freedom to remotely work.
I don’t connect to the company wifi at all. No good can come from that.
I love company Wi-Fi. I love company. pays my money. connect directly to my tight holes
Teams is so slow and is missing so many quality of life features.
Luckily this kind of data is illegal to use in Norway
just wait till you learn about how accurate hot desking software is.
Jesus Christ, if you didn’t think your company knew if you were in one building or another before today, you’re a fucking idiot.
Since consumers hate AI, the only way to keep the bubble going is by selling worker surveillance software to businesses and trying to normalize it, Microsoft is a loser company.
Just create a wifi mirroring the one you use at work at home, done.
I feel like they would at least do it by the interface MAC address.
Yeah, I was also thinking that cloning the Gateway or AP MAC address would help obscure what we’re doing 🤣
This seems like surveillance disguised as a mostly useless feature. If you are in the office and logging into a video call, you’re probably using the hardware in a conference room and not your own laptop. That hardware will already display the room you are calling from to everyone on the call.
The only reason for this feature is to tattle on people who aren’t where they say they are.
Teams usually always runs in the background
So if I’m reading this right, won’t a VPN totally fuck with the system? Cause its a nessessity for some to get into local networking.
No, because this isn’t looking at networking, it’s looking at wifi access points
So if I’m using something lime Cisco secure client this bypasses the default security? I’m still missing something here.
Just keep moving the Wifi APs for maximum chaos and open bug reports to Mircosoft since location service is unreliable.
Implementing useless features and fixing nothing since 1975.
Actually true. I have no idea what features that were actual improvements, at least since windows 7.
Windows is the same shit it always was. A total mess of slow, ugly programs and lots of annoying notifications and stream of updates that makes the system slower and slower.
Dont forget the constant shuffling of buttons and menus so that you are constantly learning everything for the first time and can never become proficient at using their software.
I guess the only part of this that is remarkable is that they are doing it with Teams.
Sure there is.
Keep a database of bssid’s and their gps coordinates.
Triangulate your location by the bssids around you and their signal strength.
You can use the netsh command in windows to see this info. You can use an app like geomac to see the location info of bssid’s from google, apple, Microsoft, and others.
You are correct, but you would have to read more that the title of this post to know that. To copy what op already cited:
set the work location accordingly to the respective building.
It will only tell you in which building the person is, not in which room.
And yes, the company still has to tell teams which building has which Wi-Fi SSN. So this is completely on the company to enable and configure
Oops read it slightly wrong :!
I mean… Is it really spying? Your company can detect which AP or Switch you’re connected to (or if you’re using a VPN from home), so they do have that data anyways.
yes
It’s just like ai photo generation. Yes it could always be done with photoshop/checking network logs but making it easier for more people/managers to see encourages more bad behavior and micromanagement.
There’s a huge difference between a piece of data being recorded in a SIEM somewhere and the data being displayed up front all of the time for micro managers to pounce on.
if they bother setting it up
Well, surely someone will set it up for you… For a fee
Maybe even a subscription, why not
Yeah this is shitty managers wet dream coming through.
I mean, it’s a useful feature… But only if you have a good company culture.
I have an awesome job. But its probably because of the union.
if you have a good company culture you don’t use teams
Which is as probable as winning the lottery.
They exist, but people don’t leave them once there, so new jobs don’t come up as often.
Teams isn’t the program actively spying on people (yet), that’s Viva engage.
There’s a whole bunch of ways to do that already. This isn’t really new
Not for the average spineless middle manager. This puts the data in their hands without having to get any approval from anyone in IT
The manager should know if you are at home or in the office. I cant think of a reason why that information would be out of the ordinary.
All it does it checks in which building you are. While moderately intrusive I cannot really see a straightforward relation to home working - surely people don’t pretend to be in the office when they are working from home?
Those are all thing that can all be controlled by the direct lead on any well run company.
I know from my own work that some mediocre middle managers wanted a rigid technological enforcement of the hybrid work framework and are probably dreaming about rolling out a “feature” like this.
Yeah, that’s so much effort, I’d want to be paid extra for it.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 5 months ago
The fact that Cisco has been able to triangulate your phone’s wifi mac position in 2d space for a decade is unrelated. It’s how protesters are being tagged and tracked on the day.