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Comment by logifail

2 years ago

> It is not stealing anything because you get a dialog asking you for permission to do it

That dialog talks about sync but notably does not mention credentials at all.

Surely this is instance where informed consent is needed, with full disclosure of what's going to happen.

Something along the lines of: "this means your IMAP username and password will be passed to Microsoft where we will store it indefinitely so we can regularly log into your IMAP server to sync your messages".

Of course, users are less likely to consent if you explain exactly what's going to happen...

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logifail

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oaiey  2 years ago

[flagged]

  • nolok  2 years ago

    I genuinely don't understand how you can come to this conclusion.

    If I open the door to someone and allow them to take picture inside my house, there is no legal understanding that they are now allowed to make and keep a copy of my keys.

    The understanding is that I allowed to take the picture (make the sync), through the access that I gave (door opened / imap connection made). And the underlying understanding is actually that I remain in control of access later on, meaning they can't do it again without me opening the door / connecting again.

    Microsoft knows that, because they buried that information inside the webpage that the consent dialog links to, except the dialog doesn't say "important detail there" but "for more information see there" aka pretend the dialog's summary is correct.

    If anything, coupled with the awkward Outlook (but not Outlook) naming this is one more of their modern move that will piss off entreprise IT admins. Your employee opens the "wrong" outlook, type his office credentials and then Microsoft now has outside of your corp account a copy of all data of that employee AND its credentials. If there was any actual real competitor in their field they would never be able to pull such crap.

    • oaiey  2 years ago

      Well, the consent item is "sync" and that translates in your sample more to "you consent to let them take pictures of your house whenever they want". And for that, a key property is the username (or your house key). Otherwise, "sync"/"taking photos any time" would not work. You could argue that "sync" could be considered 1-time sync or permanent sync ... but honestly we talk about IMAP and a permanent connection to fetch Emails. Let us not assume we talk about a one time "sync".

      And yes, I agree that Microsoft buried the nasty password detail with the purpose of not disengaging the users. I also think that anything data privacy related, normal users are completely overwhelmed with no chance to ever understand the situation.

      I share your thought about replicating passwords. Not to the concrete worry you express but that it is a really bad practice compared to industry practice (see OAuth2 refresh token).

  • veqz  2 years ago

    It is not informed consent if people don't understand what is happening, though.

    • oaiey  2 years ago

      Well, they consent to the fact that data is "synced" to Microsoft. That is the use case and the consent-able item. The password is just a random property of that item. And that is literally on the screen. That is broad but that is how privacy topics are generally handled.

      I also do not like it.

      2 replies →

  • zelphirkalt  2 years ago

    I am not so sure about that. Are they allowed to simply assume "expert" knowledge?