this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2026
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I distinctly remember the conversations about Office's phone home system and people specifically saying "this seems problematic" and Microsoft hand waving those concerns away.
it's not the 'phoning home' that's doing this. they built-in a time bomb by way of an expiring digital certificate. one that won't get updated or replaced because the software versions in question are 'out of support'.
Literal planned obsolescence
more like forced obsolescence, planned implies they do it in the future, but MS is forcing it now.
It was planned at the time they released it…
Well it kinda is because that certificate is needed for the phoning home. If it didn't need to communicate at all it wouldn't have needed an SSL certificate so there would have been nothing to expire.