Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

up1.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 288 posts

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#141

Post by deciplex »

justThis1Post wrote: post #36

As time goes by, computer software begins to feel more and more hostile to the user. When I installed Windows 10, all the privacy settings made me feel like I was wrangling a beast rather than setting up something that would help me. I don't know if there's any solution or if privacy is just a remnant of the past. Is Linux any better? And is there any way to own a smartphone which is built not to leak my information,…

Any company that installs adware on an operating system you paid for [1], and even forcibly reinstalls it after you remove it and block it, clearly doesn't give a shit about user experience or your privacy. Some Linux distros will also remind you to update, but they aren't paid updates and anyway you can turn those updates off if you like, and they won't come back.

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3035583

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#142

Post by whalabi »

Clearly, the norm is phoning home now.

Google perhaps sets the benchmark, every single action you take in Google apps, whether native or web, is tracked extensively.

As far as I know Chrome OS isn't an exception.

Perhaps we need firewalls to protect us from our own software.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#143

Post by reilly3000 »

I'm presuming this is some kind of analytics function. Just as most sites send DOM events to GA based on every user's activity on your site, I'm guessing Microsoft wants to gather aggregated search patterns to better its usability. It's not cool that they didn't provide an explicit opt-out for this.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#144

Post by x0 »

RexRollman wrote: post #107
bitmapbrother wrote: post #76

Here's a list of servers Windows 10 contacts on startup. There are probably more, but these are the ones that showed up. BN1WNS2011508.wns.windows.com OneSettings-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net a978.i6g1.akamai.net americas2.notify.windows.com.akadns.net any.edge.bing.com bingads.microsoft.com bl3302.storage.live.com bl3302geo.storage.dkyprod.akadns.net client.wns.windows.com corp.sts.microsoft.com diagnostics.support…

That's fucking crazy. But I would love to see examples of how OS X, iOS, Android, and ChromeOS compares.

This is not an authoritative or trustworthy measure in the least, but from running Little Snitch (and denying most things), I'd say OS X tries to contact maybe a quarter of those domains, maybe half as many. And that's not just on boot.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#145

Post by a3n »

morganvachon wrote: post #108
justThis1Post wrote: post #36

As time goes by, computer software begins to feel more and more hostile to the user. When I installed Windows 10, all the privacy settings made me feel like I was wrangling a beast rather than setting up something that would help me. I don't know if there's any solution or if privacy is just a remnant of the past. Is Linux any better? And is there any way to own a smartphone which is built not to leak my information,…

For a desktop OS, try OpenBSD, Slackware Linux, Debian, or Arch Linux, or if those are too obtuse (they can be difficult for the uninitiated to get into) try Ubuntu or Linux Mint. If you go with Ubuntu you'll want to go to the Security & Privacy tab and disable online search results and tracking. For a smartphone, you have to dig back into the past and find a Nokia N900 or an old-school BlackBerry; anything based on…

> For a desktop OS, try OpenBSD, Slackware Linux, Debian, or Arch Linux,

> or if those are too obtuse (they can be difficult for the uninitiated to get into) try Ubuntu or Linux Mint.

For the uninitiated I'd cut to the chase and go straight to Linux Mint, there's just less to contend with.

Some time after initiation, depending on interests and needs, maybe work your way back up the stream to Ubuntu or Debian, or portage over to OpenBSD.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#146

Post by fencepost »

MichaelGG wrote: post #58

I opened a bug (well, feedback item) during the preview about this. Even with the various group policy settings set, there was no way to disable web search. Rather unacceptable. One would think this has regulatory and compliance issues as well, no?

More and more I think I'm going to hold off on updating from Windows 7 - possibly except for one system, since I may fiddle with some Windows Phone development and I'm pretty sure I'll need 8+ for that.

Though I may still jump through the hoops to do upgrades on a couple more laptops just to get Windows 10 Pro licenses activated on them - fortunately one of them needs a wipe and reinstall anyway since it was factory restored with Win7Pro 32-bit instead of 64, and the other will need a larger SSD within the next year.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some updates to add better privacy controls - particularly for environments where privacy may be legally mandated. Not every small medical practice is going to be in a position to get Enterprise with possibly better handling of such things, nor will every small law office concerned about someone subpoenaing all of their search terms from Microsoft while they're preparing for a case.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#147

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

devindotcom wrote: post #66
bitmapbrother wrote: post #63

I installed Windows 10 yesterday and used it for a couple of hours before coming to the conclusion that I made an error in downgrading from Windows 7. Windows 10 feels more like their phone OS disguised as a desktop OS. Perhaps the most jarring part was how ugly legacy (Windows 7) apps looked in Windows 10. They didn't even bother trying to make these apps look nice. Also, their services are plastered all over the pl…

I wonder - does that get you in the door to do the free upgrade more than a year from now? I wouldn't mind upgrading once 10 has had a little time to age properly.

Yes. Once you upgrade your account is flagged and you can install Windows 10 using the ISO images/USB Key or simply upgrade again.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#148

Post by pdkl95 »

blackbeard wrote: post #84
MichaelGG wrote: post #58

I opened a bug (well, feedback item) during the preview about this. Even with the various group policy settings set, there was no way to disable web search. Rather unacceptable. One would think this has regulatory and compliance issues as well, no?

This is a big problem for us in the finance sector. We're SOL when it comes to Windows 10. It's a complete dead end if we can't lock stuff down with GPO. There are meetings taking place to work out what to do about this in various companies and the general answer so far is jump the sinking platform ship and "thank fuck we wrote everything in Java". Some of the big guys are already rolling out RHEL desktops.

I wonder if it is even legal to use Windows 10 if you have to comply with HIPAA regulated.

I suggest using this incompatibility as leverage against this kind of data exfiltration. The only way a big company will change is when it hurts their pocket book. They might notice if enough businesses such as yours decline to use Windows 10 while complaining about this.

Of course, Linux is always a good choice, regardless of what MS is doing. If big players are already jumping to RHEL, now would definately be the time to switch.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#149

Post by ossreality »

foiboitoi wrote: post #53
chatmasta wrote: post #34

This also happens on iOS with spotlight. As far as I can tell there's no way to turn it off. Source: MITM your iOS traffic. Sidenote -- a possibly unforeseen side effect of end to end encryption everywhere is that it makes it far more difficult to man in the middle your traffic and hold companies accountable for their privacy policies.

I think this is worse though. It fires even when you've disabled web search through most GUI interfaces. It might stop using Windows Firewall > block SearchUI.exe It will even ignore a-0001.a-msedge.net in your hosts file.

I'd bet a large sum of money that you're flat out wrong about it ignoring an entry in /etc/hosts. That would take absurd levels of dishonesty to implement.

Re: Windows 10 phones home when you search your start menu, even with Bing disabled

#150

Post by giovannibajo1 »

RexRollman wrote: post #98
chatmasta wrote: post #34

This also happens on iOS with spotlight. As far as I can tell there's no way to turn it off. Source: MITM your iOS traffic. Sidenote -- a possibly unforeseen side effect of end to end encryption everywhere is that it makes it far more difficult to man in the middle your traffic and hold companies accountable for their privacy policies.

iOS does tell you have to turn it off but the user has to notice a small notice on the Spotlight control panel. Same with OS X. I believe this kind is unethical as Apple knows that most people won't change the default settings.

Yes but also the privacy implications are over exaggerated. This kind of "phoning home", at least for Apple Siri/Spotlight, goes through a session ID which is random, regenerated every 30 minutes, and not bound to Apple ID or other user profile. Moreover, IP addresses are not used, not communicated to third parties (eg: Bing for Siri) and anonymized in logs. So yes, it's a "phoning home", but with different implications compared to eg. inputting a wifi password on a logged-in Android phone.
Post reply on HN