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About LinkBacksIs there a conclusive list of exactly what Win10 "leaks"?
I've seen plenty of scare stories and personal opinions but never a confirmed list.
Is there a conclusive list of exactly what Win10 "leaks"?
I've seen plenty of scare stories and personal opinions but never a confirmed list.
I get the feeling from the wording on the question that it's a loaded one but I'll bite all the same.
Nothing is going to be conclusive as there's always going to be people casting doubt, questioning the results, or saying they're inconclusive, and i can't see Microsoft ever providing details on what's going on. In the end it comes down to how much credence you want to put in either Microsoft claims that all is good, or claims that it's not is down to personal opinions.
virtuo (14-10-2015)
Question wasn't loaded, honest! Just think it'd be useful to see a curated list of information that is confirmed to be siphoned off to MS.Originally Posted by Corky34
I get the feeling from the wording on the question that it's a loaded one but I'll bite all the same.
Nothing is going to be conclusive as there's always going to be people casting doubt, questioning the results, or saying they're inconclusive, and i can't see Microsoft ever providing details on what's going on. In the end it comes down to how much credence you want to put in either Microsoft claims that all is good, or claims that it's not is down to personal opinions.
Reason I ask is my current Win 7 install is getting a bit ragged, driver stew and a couple of blips. I'm going to be switching my GPU from AMD to nVidia shortly and am thinking a nice fresh install would be great.
I'm considering possibly upgrading to 8.1 or 10, but was hesitant if it's a total disaster privacy-wise. In honesty I don't care if a few non-sensitive details are sent off. I accept Google's snooping/profiling T&Cs by using Android/Gmail/Google Search etc. I can't imagine being inconvenienced by a similar thing from MS. And I'm confident that IF it transpired they were taking the mickey with the data they kept, there'd be enough pressure on them to stop it anyway.
From the ARS article you linked, it does seem to be a huge storm over nothing much. I'd certainly disable most of the "features" anyway, and I'm sure a few hardware/router configs and select registry edits would prevent most of it getting through.
Edit - This looks promising: https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking
It comes down, IMHO, to the point made earlier about whether you trust MS saying "everything's fine". My gut feel, from a number of moves and decisions MS have made is that no, I can't. The single most obnoxious part of Win10, for me, is that it demands the authority to make background system updates, of whatever nature they wish, with no ability to block it or even be told about it.
If you didn't want me spying on you, would you be content to hang a duster over the cameras I've installed in your home, in the full knowledge that you've given me your front door key, and I can pop in and hide more any time I wish?
Okay, I know the analogy is weak, but my point is, would you trust me when I say I won't install more cameras, or would you want new locks on your door?
After some of the things MS have said and done, do I trust their avowed good intentions? Hell, no. And that's my problem with them.
I don't think it is really down to what they are sending now, it is more that if you read the terms and conditions they have pretty much full access to everything and in the future they are no doubt going to be sending more and more stuff through their cloud servers.
The terms don't seem any worse than those of Google scanning your emails and feeding your phone's microphone into their cloud for analysis, I think people just trust Microsoft less. But then only one of the two is a convicted monopolist
Business are very different to the consumer market and the demands to upgrade and keep up to date are very different. We are currently testing Windows 10 Enterprise (not available to home users) but we also have group policy to fully control the machines, prevent updates from being carried out until they have been fully tested and to prevent tracking information and the like to be sent over to Microsoft. There are a whole lot of products out there from both Microsoft and other developers build around centrally controlling servers and desktops and configuring them to the exact setup that a business wants.
Add that most businesses have a business spec firewall which allows full protocol, ip, port and url filtering and it is not that hard to filter out the requests.
The difference is that Microsoft allows businesses to turn off these 'features' while Apple allows very little control over their IPad/IPhones, even via a MDM system.
There does seem to be a lot of 'hate' around the way that Microsoft has offered the Windows 10 OS with its connected features.
It seemed to me that they would just sniff through anything you hosted on their cloud (OneDrive, Outlook.com etc.). I run my own mail server and the only cloud storage I use is Google drive and occasionally dropbox to send passworded archives to clients/friends.I don't think it is really down to what they are sending now, it is more that if you read the terms and conditions they have pretty much full access to everything and in the future they are no doubt going to be sending more and more stuff through their cloud servers.
The terms don't seem any worse than those of Google scanning your emails and feeding your phone's microphone into their cloud for analysis, I think people just trust Microsoft less. But then only one of the two is a convicted monopolist
Good points about them leaving the agreements open to allow them to poke around in future. Realistically though, what can they do? Other than for advertising/market profiling and genuinely thinking they can improve the user's experience with service suggestions. MS is big enough with enough lawyers to tell them they'd be incredibly daft to do anything worse than that.
I'm not a big fan of MS, I don't trust them any more or less than Google or Apple or amazon or eBay or (etc..) . I have an Android phone and aside from casual browsing, gaming and anything needing Adobe, I use Linux as my primary desktop/server/HTPC OS.
Could the 'hate' have something to do with the way Microsoft have changed the way it's treating us normal plebs?
It seems everyone other than enterprise customers have been turned into beta testers and sources for data collection.
Well, I don't store any data on anyone's cloud services, and have no intention of ever doing so, short of a real need for it, and considerable reassurance about privacy, via solid encryption. I currently have neither.
As for occasional access to files for friends (etc) I can do that, but rarely need to. When I do, I grant access to an FTP server, with files robustly encrypted, but on an IP-specific and scheduled timeslot basis. That is, at an agreed time slot, an FTP server will be running for an agreed period of time, and then shut down. Fortunately that's rare.
My single most effective method for protecting data and privacy, is to be very cautious about what gets put on ANY system or device with an internet connection in the first place. If it doesn't need to be on a net-facing system, it isn't on one. It's not perfect, but by definition, it significantly narrows the window of risk.
The most overt example of the above is the avoidance of owning a smartphone. Until (and if) they come up with one that isn't a snooper's wet dream, my need or use for one doesn't exceed the downside. I doubt that'll be a popular stance, especially among Hexen.
Yup.
Air gapped systems are of course the ultimate privacy solution for use cases that don't require internet access. In that scenario it doesn't really matter if you're using Win 10, Linux or Windows 95. It'd be interesting to see how a retail copy of Windows 10 coped with being installed from disc/usb bought in a shop and never being net connected. Would it even be functional?
You may be as well just to reinstall 7 until it loses support in a few years. Be aware however that a lot of Windows 10's "telemetry" services have been backported to 7/8 through Windows Update. If you're someone that installs all updates by default they're already scraping your data. Worth looking through the Knowledge Base article for an update before deciding to apply it.
True, but it's the other that has a current monopoly.The terms don't seem any worse than those of Google scanning your emails and feeding your phone's microphone into their cloud for analysis, I think people just trust Microsoft less. But then only one of the two is a convicted monopolist
While true, it's surprising that the same ire hasn't been poured onto Google or Apple as their OS have been doing it for years. Maybe it's because it was their default mode, while MS have had to publicly shift to that model.
I think it's probably impossible for anyone to produce a smartphone that doesn't snoop even if you wanted to. At minimum it will broadcast your rough location (through cell towers,) probably exact location (GPS) and connect to your email & allow you to browse. Even if somehow a manufacturer ensured it couldn't collect any of the above the network certainly could.
But then look at how other large companies treat their customers. Apple for instant with all the issues with IOS9. At least Microsoft were open with the Beta software with the windows insider opt in.
Microsoft had to change with Apple and Google coming into its Market and I think it has done a good job. However, it can never please anyone so at least there is choice these days for those that want it.
Well, I've certainly poured as much, if not more, scorn on Google. And for longer. But Google doesn't impact me the way MS does, because I've been using MS OSs since before windows was born, and have sone essential software that requires Win, including WinXP. It would be extremely time-consuming, and pretty expensive, to port those applications onto someyhing else, leaving me with an air-gapped network as the optimum, if somewhat unsatisfactory, solution. As for Apple, I think my last Apple product was a Mac, circa 1985.
You may well be right on smartphones, but I draw a distinction between releasing data required for a service to operate, and commercial snooping for THEIR benefit.
For example, celltower-based approx location may be necessary for the network to ooerate, but IT IS NOT necessary to release it to all and sundry to send me advertising I don't want. Precise GPS data shouldn't be available to anybody unless I enable GPS (which, on tablets, I NEVER do) and give permission for someone to have it. As it happens, I never use mapping, satnav etc on tablets or phones, but if I did then it would be my decision to enable that data to be sent to the satnav company, for the purposes of providing satnav services and only gor that purpose, but not for them or ANYBODY else to use it for anything else, unless I agree.
That would, for instance, allow a satnav software/services company to offer two levels :-
a) Free, or low cost, but your GPS data is used for marketing
b) More expensive, but your data isn't abused.
I might well sign up, and pay for, option b). After all, I've quite happily just upgraded a standalone SatNav for about £200, which is about half what the previous one cost, let alone three or four before that. But I will never agree to a).
If I could get a smartphone that respected MY wishes about the use of data on me, I might be interested. And I'd be prepared to pay commercial rates for software/services I wanted or needed. What I'm not prepared to do is just give in to corporates lust for extensive data on my life. It's none of their damn business. I'm nit daft or naive enough to think I can stay out of databases entirely, but I can and will do everything reasonably within my power to deny them any and all data I realistically can. Hence, rarely buying online, using cash in supermarkets, and not having a smartphone.
I certainly think it would be possible to produce a smartphone that worked in a way that woukd meet my needs, but I doubt anyone will. The mass data on us all is too valuable. The only way it might happen is if there's a really major, mass-market backlash over all this data harvesting, and I don't see that happening because I doubt the vast majority either realise what's going on, or if they do realise, don't care much.
I guess such a backlash is possible, but I think it'd take a major scandal, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for it. Short of that, and a privacy-respecting smartphone, the price in privacy loss is just too high for me, especially given that I'm not really bothered about having the functions of a smartphone in the first place.
Nothing wrong with having a monopoly, it is abusing it that gets you convicted.
Apologises it was my fault for not being clearer, when i said "us normal plebs" i meant every person other than enterprise customers, while Microsoft may say the insider program is their beta testing phase others, myself included don't see it like that, insiders are the Alpha testers, normal customers or in Microsoft's words those on the Current Branch & Current Branch for Business are the beta testers (due to mandatory/forced updates) And finally when those updates/upgrades reach the Long Term Service Branch (enterprise customers) are they something i would consider not likely to cause problems (release quality).
That also holds true for the data collection, it's only as you move up the different release branches that you gain more control over what is collected.
Absolutely right.
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