Talk about a screen shot.
An official photo shared by the White House on Tuesday evening captured President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence meeting with Republican and Democratic congressional leaders in the Situation Room of the White House. In the background were large computer screens showing that Windows 10 is the preferred OS in that particular room, located in the basement of the West Wing and known for its secure communications capabilities.
The image, captured by official White House photographer Shealah Craighead and distributed by the Office of the Press Secretary, was quickly shared on Twitter, causing a bit of a commotion over the White House’s choice of operating system.
https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/1080679417599410176
While the image seems, at the minimum, to be a nice product placement for Microsoft, opinions differ on whether it was a big deal that Windows 10 was in use, or whether being able to see the screens constituted some sort of security vulnerability. Trump’s team certainly isn’t alone as Windows users. The latest stats show Windows 10 surpassing Windows 7 in overall usage, and Microsoft said last year that Windows 10 was installed on more than 700 million active devices.
In pointing out the picture, Zach Whittaker, TechCrunch security editor, referenced Windows 10’s “god awful telemetry” — Microsoft’s collection of systems data from computers running Windows — while also saying he expected tech journalist and author Ed Bott to weigh in. Bott focuses on Microsoft Windows, and his primer on Windows 10 telemetry is illuminating.
Bott replied, as if on cue, with an open-source reference.
https://twitter.com/edbott/status/1080820288722366465
https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1080680547016417280
https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/1080681317828841474
https://twitter.com/pwnallthethings/status/1080681442202566656
Jokes at the expense of the president and the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant ensued. At the very least, it seems as though Trump should ask for the desktop background image to be updated from the Windows 10 default to that “Game of Thrones”-style poster he was so proud of earlier in the day.
Keep scrolling for a sampling of the replies.
https://twitter.com/zackwhittaker/status/1080681765033922560
https://twitter.com/chrismerkel/status/1080699838440882178
https://twitter.com/charleswj81/status/1080870693233922051
https://twitter.com/StevenPrentice/status/1080692744354377728
https://twitter.com/notameadow/status/1080681899301969923
https://twitter.com/dom1h/status/1080737599331987456
https://twitter.com/rdrooney/status/1080681939126743040
https://twitter.com/ediblesticker/status/1080770988068036608
https://twitter.com/_AlanCurran/status/1080876100639707136
https://twitter.com/tdgor/status/1080686537765842944