Over 14 million machines update to Windows 10 in its first 24 hours

[GuidoLS]

14 million people opening their PCs to upload user activity and ID data to Microsoft's servers forever. What joy, what rejoicing much be running like a tremor of ecstasy in the hearts of all at M$oft, and the CIA and NSA, and more..?

http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/...ium-windows-10

I will wait until this is satisfactorily resolved, or stick with my existing installations, then maybe move away from Microsoft altogether.

Opens with picture of Hitler and a line that says people are claiming (without any proof...) - is this supposed to be a computer site or the Daily Fail or some such rag?

[worldmaker]

Opens with picture of Hitler and a line that says people are claiming (without any proof...) - is this supposed to be a computer site or the Daily Fail or some such rag?

No, it's a picture of Big Brother, from a little book called "1984", written by some English bloke called George Orwell about the rise of the management class and their systematic global new world order of control and supervision over people's lives in a world kept on the edge of terror through endless threats of war and the perpetual twisting of the truth. Obviously this has nothing to do with out modern world, political spin, propaganda and the endless war on terror accompanied by the non-stop monitoring of people by computer from the political class and their technocratic facilitators to keep the world safe.

And the articles goes on to explain: "The new Microsoft privacy policies will come into effect on 1 August, and will grant Microsoft a surprisingly broad range of rights over the personal data of users running Windows on their PCs." Which is the basis of the suggestion that Big Brother is Watching YOU.

You can learn more here: Nineteen Eighty-Four

[crossy]

14 million people opening their PCs to upload user activity and ID data to Microsoft's servers forever. What joy, what rejoicing much be running like a tremor of ecstasy in the hearts of all at M$oft, and the CIA and NSA, and more..?

http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/...ium-windows-10

I will wait until this is satisfactorily resolved, or stick with my existing installations, then maybe move away from Microsoft altogether.

It kind of looks like you didn't actually read that article - it makes it very plain that the target recipient for all this collected data is not the three-letter-security-orgs, but advertisers. Remember that Microstuff have long talked about alternate ways to monetize Windows - well here you go, they'll sell your details to advertisers.

Putting away the tinfoil hat for a moment, I'm interested in that you can opt out of these data gatherings - a Hexus article on exactly how to do that would be most welcome. Personally I fail to see the need to cloud save either browsing history nor app passwords, heck I won't even use Lastpass for exactly that reason. Other thing is that the browsing history - is that specific to IE/Spartan or is Chrome and Firefox also effected?

The article itself is not exactly a good piece of writing, if Mark Tyson etc was to post that here (very unlikely, they have higher standards I'd suggest) then we'd rightly pull them over the coals about Daily Fail-style "the sky is falling in" tabloidism.

I'm also interested if this kind of data capture is, strictly speaking, legal. I'm sure various UK acts have strict controls about "personally identifiable information", and failing that (because our current crop of idiots-in-charge would sell you, your family and everyones data to their pals in the City in a heartbeat) maybe the EU Information Commissioner's office should be taking a close look. You can bet your bottom dollar/euro that the French and especially German governments will be - given the US's history of spying on both.

[Spreadie]

Putting away the tinfoil hat for a moment, I'm interested in that you can opt out of these data gatherings - a Hexus article on exactly how to do that would be most welcome.

I'll bet you a steak dinner that the occasional major windows update "accidentally" resets the opt-outs to the default opt-in again.

The more I read about Windows 10, the less I want to install it.

[Saracen]

I'll bet you a steak dinner that the occasional major windows update "accidentally" resets the opt-outs to the default opt-in again.

The more I read about Windows 10, the less I want to install it.

Ditto.

I've been going on about the apparent 'direction of travel' of MS for a while, and to be honest, everything I see suggests the underlying ethos is now one of privacy vampirism, with hardware and software as the vehicle, as the means not the objective. Which is why, short of a (highly unlikely) dramatic volte face by MS, I don't see me ever going to Win10, and never to an MS account either.

[crossy]

I'll bet you a steak dinner that the occasional major windows update "accidentally" resets the opt-outs to the default opt-in again.

The more I read about Windows 10, the less I want to install it.

I won't take that bet, mainly because I don't trust Microsoft not to do that either, but also because I'm a veggie. Given the interest (eg its trending as a topic on my companies internal social media system!) I suspect that there's at least one person doing a "privacy toolkit" to make sure that WE retain as much control as possible.

Windows for me is really just a gaming platform, I won't even use IE to do online banking or similar. But it looks like I'm going to be switching to doing ANYTHING "sensitive" on Linux, whether that's on my main machine (Ubuntu desktop) or even a Virtualbox VM running BSD or Debian in W10. Unless someone's going to tell me that there's a key logger in W10 too?

[Saracen]

... but also because I'm a veggie.
...

Quorn steak? Nut cutlet? Portion of lentil lasagne?

[Spreadie]

Quorn steak? Nut cutlet? Portion of lentil lasagne?

TBH, I'm not expecting to lose the bet, but I'll cough up for the chips, mushrooms and peppercorn sauce in any case.

[crossy]

TBH, I'm not expecting to lose the bet, but I'll cough up for the chips, mushrooms and peppercorn sauce in any case.

Sounds nice.

I'm struck by the shift in opinions. Before launch it seemed to be a case of boundless optimism that W10 was definitely, incontrovertibly going to fix all those horrible bits of W8 and add some nice new shiny toys.

Now it seems we're back to the same dismay that attended the post-W8 launch - the "oh my god, what have those idiots done to us NOW?". If I was Microsoft I'd also be kind of worried whether the now-general negative reaction is going to spread - are they going to have companies refusing to leave W7 for W10?

Most relevant comment is probably my missus' - "I'll switch when this one (W7) stops working, and not before then". Me, I was thinking that W10 would be a good excuse to declutter the old gaming rig, but maybe waiting until W10-SP1 is still the smart move?

No doubt we'll see cNet et al claiming that this is the "best Windows evah" and it's been a runaway success.

[Spreadie]

TBH, I was of the opinion that Windows 10 might have some interesting features and I was interested to see what Edge would be like.
I've said it before - your OS is akin to the tracks for your morning train. Important but hardly exciting.

When the free upgrade was announced, I immediately thought "nice, but what's in it for them?", then I heard about the 30 days grace before tying your serial key to the windows 10 installation and thought "they're trying to lock us in for their own benefit".

Lo and behold - all your data are belong to us!

[DanceswithUnix]

Looks like articles are starting to appear on how to turn all the reporting off.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/information...how-to-fix-it/

[GuidoLS]

Looks like articles are starting to appear on how to turn all the reporting off.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/information...how-to-fix-it/

All one has had to do is simply pull up the settings screen. None of that is even remotely close to hidden, nor has it been. Yes, MS should have made all this crap opt-in instead of opt-out. No doubt about it. I don't find turning everything off that I want to be of a chore. And it's certainly no more nefarious than anything that either Apple or Google/Android has out there. That's not a cop out for MS - it's revoking the get-out-of-jail free card for them. And don't think for a second that several major distro's of Linux aren't out to monetize what size your skivvies are. WE are the commodity now. Not the ad, not the product for sale. Us.

[GuidoLS]

No, it's a picture of Big Brother, from a little book called "1984", written by some English bloke called George Orwell about the rise of the management class and their systematic global new world order of control and supervision over people's lives in a world kept on the edge of terror through endless threats of war and the perpetual twisting of the truth. Obviously this has nothing to do with out modern world, political spin, propaganda and the endless war on terror accompanied by the non-stop monitoring of people by computer from the political class and their technocratic facilitators to keep the world safe.

And the articles goes on to explain: "The new Microsoft privacy policies will come into effect on 1 August, and will grant Microsoft a surprisingly broad range of rights over the personal data of users running Windows on their PCs." Which is the basis of the suggestion that Big Brother is Watching YOU.

You can learn more here: Nineteen Eighty-Four

Interesting - I own 2 copies of said book, and interestingly, neither features a caricature of Hitler. One features a very prominent eye (hard cover, 2nd edition) and the other is a pulp paperback from the 50's with a group of people milling about. But thanks for your kind attempt at educating me on a modern classic. I hope it did wonders to boost your e-ego for the day.

Meanwhile, the privacy policy (or at least a direct link to it) was posted here weeks ago, and has been discussed, in multiple ways, since. And every single thing they were whining about in that article is easily turned off or circumvented.

Quite frankly, if people want to run around with a tinfoil cap on, they're as big or bigger of a problem than the actual problem. And that article was tinfoil in a way that makes vacations in Tahiti a monthly event for the Reynolds family.

[Spreadie]

I've ditched Windows 10 on my tablets, and reverted to 8.1.

I installed it on them to try it out without messing with my laptops or PCs, but I've run it on them for almost a month to give it a good go - there's just no perceivable benefit from running 10, in my opinion. It's slower, currently quite laggy and crash-prone and the default privacy settings are a no no.

The only thing I liked was the ability to switch between PC and Tablet mode.