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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

#111
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Using steam will not change anything since it is the US laws allowing/requiring companies to comply with the NSA.

There's a big difference between 'allowing' and 'requiring'.

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

#112
post #101

If that's true - doesn't this expose microsoft legally ? I mean we paid for win 7 under certain terms, and now they're changing them.

This is my reaction. I don't want cloud connections and MS/NSA surveillance and key loggers in my OS, so I won't be going to Win10. Hopefully there is enough backlash that MS is forced to allow user to opt out of this garbage on Win7, at least.

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

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit, that may just have changed my opinion on this. Is the first one really correct? Anything we type on a PC anywhere? So if I open up tor and load a site it's basically useless because any url I type in tor will go to ms anyways? WTF? Each and every one of those is completely unacceptable. Anyone know about any good unix distros that wont be too much of a culture shock to someone who has used windows his entire li…

I think the one I would most recommend for a newbie is Linux Mint. I don't feel strongly about this. If you don't like it, try something else. But expect some migrating pains regardless; you're used to Windows's warts, now you need to get used to another operating system's warts.

I guess I am not a linux newbi. I know my way around a unix box I just haven't used it as my primary work station ever. So things like compatibility with all the popular stuff comes into play.

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

#114

I submitted a story to Boing Boing (at http://boingboing.net/2015/08/10/windows-10.html ) about the weird experience I had after upgrading my son's laptop from Windows 8.1 to 10. We did this on a Saturday, and Monday morning I had a "family safety report" email from Microsoft detailing which websites he'd visited, which apps he'd used (and for how long), etc. since the upgrade . According to Microsoft's Family Safety…

[deleted]

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

#117

Here is a more in-depth analysis of windows 10 and what is sent to MS http://aeronet.cz/news/analyza-windows-10-ve-svem-principu-j... For those who don't speak Czech: -It sends all text you type anywhere (not just into search) every 30 minutes to MS. If you type about a holiday to your blog, next day you'll see holiday ads. -Every 30 minutes it sends your geo-location and network information. -If you type a telephone…

No one has verified this. Sorry, but this list is just fearmongering. It would be good if we could focus on the facts here. There's a real issue here and it helps to be honest.

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

#118
post #101

If that's true - doesn't this expose microsoft legally ? I mean we paid for win 7 under certain terms, and now they're changing them.

One of those terms was that they can change the terms at any time without notice.

:) .Is that even legal ?

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

#119

I submitted a story to Boing Boing (at http://boingboing.net/2015/08/10/windows-10.html ) about the weird experience I had after upgrading my son's laptop from Windows 8.1 to 10. We did this on a Saturday, and Monday morning I had a "family safety report" email from Microsoft detailing which websites he'd visited, which apps he'd used (and for how long), etc. since the upgrade . According to Microsoft's Family Safety…

Wow that's insane! And I'm glad you're an awesome parent. You should post a anonymised screenshot of that email sometime if you can, this is pretty ridiculous.

Ask and ye shall receive: http://imgur.com/eeBtcIw

Bear in mind that it's nearly empty because we'd only just recently upgraded to Windows 10, but note that it has an entry for "Latest searches". Wouldn't that be one hell of a way for a kid to come out of the closet to his parents, or for someone to find out their daughter's pregnant?

Consider that this data is linked to each kid's email address. When this database is hacked, won't that be an interesting week in all the local schools as everyone learns what their peers are really doing?

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

#120
post #22

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.

It's not what you said, but note that some of the phone-home behaviour is very deep rooted, ignoring proxy settings (http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/even-w...):

> We configured our test virtual machine to use an HTTP and HTTPS proxy (both as a user-level proxy and a system-wide proxy) so that we could more easily monitor its traffic, but Windows 10 seems to make requests to a content delivery network that bypass the proxy.

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