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Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

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Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#121
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. Javascript is required to view and upload files. No, it is definitely not.

Up1 uses client-side crypto, so in this instance it is. No real point here though, but I use ShareX with it, and it's nice to be able to deliver screenshots and stuff like this privately.

What's the point of client-side crypto in a browser? Can't you be served backdoored JavaScript that no longer does proper encryption, and you'd be none the wiser?

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you sign an other contract, you also can not argue, you haven't read the terms (even when they are in very small letters). Sure you can. And if it's a contract of adhesion between a business and a consumer where the terms are unreasonably loaded in favour of the business, you might actually win, too. (I am not a lawyer, your jurisdiction may vary, etc. I have however worked with real lawyers on real terms and co…

Sure, you can try with any contract -- and go to trial. But I have seen worse contracts and the companies are coming threw with it most of the time, but maybe in your country the juristic system is better and not the size of the company or the number of lawyers are important. I for my side, would not bet on winning a trial against Microsoft in such a case.

In reality it probably wouldn't be an individual customer against Microsoft anyway. It would be someone like the national data protection regulator or European authorities, acting on behalf of the population as a whole, and they would probably be looking at the actual behaviour of Microsoft and whether it violated data protection laws. If Microsoft attempted to argue that weasel words in their terms permitted their behaviour but the evidence showed that in the real world users didn't know or understand the implications, I doubt that would work out very well for Microsoft. Those authorities are generally more pro-privacy than the US, and they have handed serious financial penalties to big tech companies before.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#123
post #107
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change the gateway on the Windows 10 install computer (or "default route" as another commenter calls it) to a computer _you_ control, i.e., a UNIX install, that can do IP forwarding. Turn on IP forwarding. Connect the UNIX install to the internet. Also change your default DNS servers on the Windows 10 install to point to the UNIX install. If you know how, set up DNS on this computer. I recommend using your own cache…

The problem is that it is not an user friendly solution. It will only help those people who do have several OS running or are capable of understanding. The privacy settings that do not work were pretty good hidden already and many are scared away already. This second level is even worse. What we need is a simple tool where you set check boxes to fix it all. That would be a solution for the target audience.

Well in the case of the Tor or VPN users, I suspect most of them are probably not the typical user you're implying, and at least have some IT skill.

In the case of other users, I'm not sure because I do not fully understand it, but it seems like this would not be necessary?

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#124
I got a refurbished HP Stream 11 for $120 (Groupon) and spent 3 hours upgrading to Windows 10. I then installed Chrome and LibreOffice. It works fine, but, with all these privacy invasions, I see no reason to use it. My Acer C720 Chromebook (upgraded to a 128GB SSD) with Crouton and Ubuntu 14.04 is much more useful to me.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have an enterprise edition VM in test and it appears to react the same as Pro at least. Haven't tried home. What is scary is the lack of GPOs to turn this stuff off which you'd expect in an enterprise product. Technically we can't apply policy to make this compliant with our data protection requirements. Their funeral to be honest.

There's actually some GPOs to turn this stuff off. I'm running Enterprise on my desktop... the problem is that many of them don't work or only disable the UI, but still connect out to random Microsoft servers. How the hell does Microsoft think that's acceptable in an "Enterprise" product?

This was something I was wondering about. It seems like any company that has proprietary data to protect or privacy laws to comply with (most) don't even have a choice. I personally don't use Windows a lot, but even knowing that information was being sent out by default would be a deal breaker for me.

Can you give some examples of the stuff that does actually have switches?

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#126
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on Windows 10 for a couple of days now. VPN traffic doesn't leak if the default route is the VPN interface. I tried it and my firewall went silent apart from the tunnel. I have absolutely no fucking idea what it is sending out though. It's always talking to something. I've turned everything off that is documented and use a local account and remove-appxpackage'd everything. Sorry but this release is a write…

How can you trust any cloud service then?

You shouldn't. The cloud is just someone else's computer. You can mitigate things by encrypting a lot but there's no way you can't know they don't peek at your data.

So if you can't trust the company offering the service, you shouldn't do business with them. It's the same with food and food supplies: if they can't be trusted to serve/sell you stuff that doesn't make you ill, don't do business with them. Very simple.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#127

In the post-Snowden era, USA tech corporations, like Microsoft, felt the downturn on trust from non-USA companies and citizens in their online offerings. With Microsoft betting more and more on their cloud services, I find it strange (or maybe it isn't strange, but let's be naive for a minute here) that Microsoft goes against this and actually gives people _more_ reasons to not trust them than less. As if they're thi…

Or maybe when nobody trusts you anyway, that ship has sailed? :)

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running away from the firepower effectively means living the digital life of Stallman. Writing as someone who has been the victim of a data-driven screw-up and spent several months of having life turned upside down while trying to fix it, I am increasingly wondering if Stallman has been right all along. More practically, privacy is not a binary measure. We all interact with other people and organisations, and data ge…

Privacy is a cluster concept. Implicitly, it includes the idea of constraints on others. The most effective constraint is that others simply don't care and that's most of what privacy boils down to accept in a few corner cases covered by legislation and the existence of legislation implies that in those cases others do indeed care and hence the legal restraint. It is clear that Stallman was and is right in regards to…

Privacy generally breaks into security or anonymity.

Privacy is much more general than that. It is about having control of what information about you is shared, who has that data, and how it can be used.

The legal protections for privacy cover a lot more than just a few corner cases as well, but they lag behind what technology can do in 2015 and need updating.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#129
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on Windows 10 for a couple of days now. VPN traffic doesn't leak if the default route is the VPN interface. I tried it and my firewall went silent apart from the tunnel. I have absolutely no fucking idea what it is sending out though. It's always talking to something. I've turned everything off that is documented and use a local account and remove-appxpackage'd everything. Sorry but this release is a write…

> If I don't know what it's doing, how can I trust it? It's not enough to examine software: if you don't trust the company , then anything they say or promise is worthless. Automatic updates can change anything, including the TOS! This is the same company that sells a 1984-Telescreen (XBox) with an always-on camera and microphone. _NSA shouldn't be forgotten. Oracle likes to tout Java as GPL, but what does that matte…

Or as I like to put it, at the end of the day you have to trust someone, somewhere in the chain.

In the case of software vendors, you have to trust the vendor.

You cannot independently verify everything. You do not have the expertise nor the bandwidth.

Edit: and if you have the software audited, are you not then trusting the auditor?

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