Microsoft could finally kill HDD boot drives for good

[Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many]

On 6/10/22, jdb10987 at yahoo.com <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Jun 10, 2022 3:12 PM, "Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many"
> <gmkarl at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 6/9/22, jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> > Microsoft could finally kill HDD boot drives for good
>> > https://share.newsbreak.com/192x4v8n
>>
>> They are trying to switch to SSD by 2023.
>>
>> Meanwhile many other systems are devoid of harddrives, such as the
>> chromebook I think? And more importantly single board computers like
>> the raspberry pi or A64 boards.
>>
>> It boggles my mind that jim bell is sharing some kind of marketing
>> referral shortlinks to this list.
>
>
> I think it is an interesting development.
>
> And I notice that just about every issue that potentially affects millions
> of people could, arguably, also be of interest to "marketeers".
>
> So, just about anything I post could arguably be criticized on the basis
> that it is of interest to "marketeers".  You have developed a formula that
> allows you to criticize me for just about anything I post, just by claiming
> that it is of interest to "marketeers".

I don't mean that the content has marketing value, I mean that the
link you gave to it is a "shortlink" commonly used for tracking and
identifying visitors, nor does it make it easy to find primary source
information. The shortlink forwards to a third-party website with more
ads than article content, where visitors have to click a further link
to actually read the article.

The first link is https://share.newsbreak.com/192x4v8n . This is a
"shortened" link for quick sharing. Such forwarding links are
generated separately from the article links in a way that lets
newsbreak associate every visitor with the mechanism of sharing, or
the person who did the sharing. Newsbreak did not even publish the
article; they just made a forwarding page for it.

The first link forwards to the second url:

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/2630738588483/microsoft-could-finally-kill-hdd-boot-drives-for-good?_f=app_share&s=a3&share_destination_id=MTY3MzQzMTItMTY1NDgyMjM4MzEyNA==&pd=018DMGUN&hl=en_US

In this second URL, a user ID and referrer for newsbreak.com is given
to every viewer, associated with the short link. This second url sets
8 cookies without asking the user's consent, which I believe is
illegal. The first cookie it sets is called "nb_wuid" and is a session
identifier for newsbreak.com that can be used to identify the same
user uniquely on future visits for the next 10 years. From the
headers:

Set-Cookie:
nb_wuid=2840bbb7-3fdd-4542-bc6d-c6cde96ec460; path=/; expires=Tue, 08
Jun 2032 07:38:43 GMT; domain=.newsbreak.com; secure

This second URL behind the short link doesn't yet contain the actual
article, only the first paragraph and a teaser phrase: "Microsoft
could have plans to scrap its use of hard disk drives (HDD) among its
main storage components on PCs running Windows 11, according to a
recent report by industry analyst firm Trendfocus, as reported by
Tom’s Hardware. If Microsoft goes through with its plans, consumers
could begin..." .

To see the entire article, one needs to click a link on newsbreak.com,
that takes you to the real article on digitaltrends.com:

https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/microsoft-could-finally-kill-hdd-boot-drives/

Why didn't you link straight to digitaltrends.com ?

Meanwhile, the article on digitaltrends.com begins by introducing that
it is repeating a story from a mainstream, well-recognized publisher,
tomshardware.com :

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsofts-reportedly-trying-to-kill-hdd-boot-drives-for-windows-11-pcs-by-2023

Why didn't you link straight to tomshardware.com ?

Anyway, I know you've been through prison, and I know it can be
indescribably hard to stay cypherpunk after that, so I don't really
blame you for it, but I kind of assume some mainstream effort has
influenced you to use an article sharing app that lets them track more
cypherpunks.