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Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

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Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#21

Post by JimmaDaRustla »

jsingleton wrote: post #3

Site seems overloaded. Here are the KB links from an earlier discussion ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10110316 ). Thanks vetinari. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3068708 https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3075249 https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3080149 Also found: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/2976978

Some of those look like they'd be used to upgrade to Win10? Compatibility checking, diagnostics, etc.

Nothing seems malicious, but you never know.

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#22

Post by nly »

Easiest way to block this for sure is probably going to be harvest a list of hostnames and/or IPs microsoft are using and block them at your border gateway/router.

I've recently considered setting up a separate wifi SSID where everything outbound except DNS, and tcp 80/443 is blocked, as well as TLS SNI and plain HTTP logging just so this sort of thing can be monitored.

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#23

Post by jsingleton »

leni536 wrote: post #7
jsingleton wrote: post #5

Not sure why this is being down-voted. Just trying to be helpful in case people want to avoid these optional updates or uninstall them. Maybe I should just delete the comment?

Please don't

OK, just didn't want to add to the clutter if it was unhelpful. A load of links without context isn't a great comment. :)

BTW these updates all appear to be "Optional" and are part of the Customer Experience Improvement Program (which in my experience is always opt in and you get a notification in the system tray).

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#24

Post by simonh »

mnw21cam wrote: post #17
archimedespi wrote: post #4

Is there any tool like DisableWinTracking for Windows 7?

A Linux machine with two ethernet cards acting as a firewall to the internet?

Do we even know how you'd need to configure the firewall to block the specific traffic that's the problem?

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#26

Post by sschueller »

ionised wrote: post #20
tinfoilman wrote: post #18

Brilliant, 2 options I see Never do updates again (which is what I will be doing this evening) and make system perm insecure Or let MS and the NSA rape me for even more data than they already have Go [insert abusive word] yourself Microsoft and to think just last week I got a 3rd windows 7 license because I was planning to stay on 7 long term and not upgrade to 10. Steam hopefully will push linux gaming that i can fi…

If Steam OS becomes a viable desktop gaming OS that plays most, if not all games, I'll drop Windows in a heartbeat.

Steam is owned by Valve and Valve is a US company. Using steam will not change anything since it is the US laws allowing/requiring companies to comply with the NSA.

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#27

Post by dmfdmf »

When KB3035583 GWX/Win10 Spam came out I removed it and put my updates into manual because I figured it won't be long before MS put out another updated to push Win10. This is much worse, now I find out there are a number of updates that I have to track down and uninstall. Going forward I will always have to lag a month or so behind updates to make sure MS is not installing a key logger on my Win7 computer. I guess my move to Linux is sooner that I thought.

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#28

Post by FilterSweep »

jsingleton wrote: post #23
leni536 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't

OK, just didn't want to add to the clutter if it was unhelpful. A load of links without context isn't a great comment. :) BTW these updates all appear to be "Optional" and are part of the Customer Experience Improvement Program (which in my experience is always opt in and you get a notification in the system tray).

They are currently optional - different than "Important Updates" and "Recommended Updates." I checked my windows update panel in Windows 7, mind you, (Start --> Control Panel --> Windows Update), and saw it listed as an optional update. I believe these optional updates, in windows 7 at least, are defaulted to be listed, but not downloaded or installed. I clearly won't be installing these, haha.

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#29

Post by A010 »

archimedespi wrote: post #16
yuhong wrote: post #11

FYI, you can't disable telemetry on Win10 unless you have enterprise edition, but you can select levels.

You sort of can, see things like https://github.com/10se1ucgo/DisableWinTracking/ .

It's easy to blackhole those domains and remove reg keys, but I wonder if M$ will add new ones in later updates.

Re: Updates Make Windows 7 and 8 Spy on You Like Windows 10

#30

Post by thescrewdriver »

Navarr wrote: post #2

2016 is the year of desktop linux. For the kind of people who care about this sort of thing. Also puts "Scroogle" into perspective.

I doubt there are enough people who care. Google has already proved that seemingly benevolent spying is a highly profitable business model. Most people aren't bothered, or even know, that they are being "Scroogled". Microsoft is just following suite. Sadly it seems to be a sign of things to come.
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