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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

#261
post #167

Cant wait for new EU fine, lets hope its orders of magniture more significant this time. Cool 10 Billion Euro should be enough to stop MS from screwing people over.

Or that they finally fund a project that could replace windows

Something like ReactOS or Longene would be a feasible target for such efforts. Or even just a commitment to GNU/Linux or one of the BSDs.

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

#262
post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sending search terms typed into a search box to a search engine is pretty much what people expect. Ubuntu does it. And Canonical has received a barrage of flak for it as a result. I outright stopped using Ubuntu as a result. Users expect the search box on their computer to search their own computer, not bombard them with ads. > GNOME does it. By default? Which distro? Last I checked, the GNOME search tool is limite…

GNOME searches whatever you want it to, but they heavily advertise integration with online sources as a feature. OS X Spotlight does online by default. Finder and Windows Explorer search local files. I said very nearly since, although they're great, BSD, KDE, etc. have very few users. I'm not arguing that having control over your computer is important. I think people should be using exclusively free software, but it'…

> GNOME searches whatever you want it to, but they heavily advertise integration with online sources as a feature.

Right, and so does KDE (to an extent), but I don't recall either actually using those online sources for searches. Maybe GNOME3's managed to get worse since last time I tried it, however ;)

> OS X Spotlight does online by default.

TIL. I guess I don't use Spotlight enough to notice...

> but it's really hard to sell them on that.

It depends on the approach. I've managed to get quite a few people switched over to openSUSE (for example) on the simple grounds of "your Windows XP machine can't handle Windows 7 very well; here's something better that will save you the cost of a Windows license and the cost of upgrading your machine and won't slow down after a few months of use".

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

#263
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, per person. At 50 million users, you need a 35 Tbps pipe to take in all that data.

That can conceivably be split across multiple datacenters in multiple countries - something which Microsoft almost certainly has access to.

Even breaking it across multiple datacenters you're still hardpressed to do those speeds over a short period (weeks), let alone constantly over time [1]. My point was the physics in the parent don't work.

1. http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2015/07/windows-10-launch-hug...

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

#264

Well I can see Russia putting alot more money into ReactOs

Or GNU/Linux, or OpenBSD, or something else privacy-aware. But yes, ReactOS could certainly use some love, from Russia or otherwise. Can't wait for 0.4.0 to come out; should be a nice push toward general usability.

I've just finished installing arch linux after nuking my ubuntu/windows install, I've been doing a hell of alot of configuration but I'm pretty happy with I have.

More on point, I've been planning to buy a cheap laptop to test more experimental oses, like react and harvey.

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

#265
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also think what impact it's gonna have on organization. Would they have access to everything an employee types? Any website they visit?

In reality, if you're using a machine that's owned by your employer, you should always assume that everything you do is being monitored at all times, regardless of what operating system said machine is running, because chances are in favor of that being the case. Expect at the absolute least some sort of web traffic monitoring (probably via a corporate proxy); in some cases, I've seen companies install keyloggers (an…

> In reality, if you're using a machine that's owned by your employer, you should always assume that everything you do is being monitored at all times, regardless of what operating system said machine is running, because chances are in favor of that being the case. Expect at the absolute least some sort of web traffic monitoring (probably via a corporate proxy); in some cases, I've seen companies install keyloggers (and, in fact, this is the "legitimate" use case for keyloggers, remote administration tools, etc.).

It is one thing for a company to do so. I really really doubt that companies are OK with microsoft having a copy of all activity from all their employee's workstations.

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

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Only played New Vegas for 8 minutes? Please. This is obviously a fake. :)

Well, that one night. He's logged another 19 hours so far today.

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you haven't witnessed Corel Linux, Wordperfect for Linux or Loki Entertainment. It's been predicted way longer than 2006. Ps. Sorry for the accidental downvote :(.

Oh! Someone that remember Corel OS. I have one disc yet somewhere...

Yeah :). I was mostly using Slackware Linux at the time, but my brother bought a Corel Linux box at the time. If I remember correctly, it came with an inflatable Tux.

I also had a separate copy of WordPerfect for Linux for a long time. It still worked fine until I sold it on eBay, thanks to libc5 compatibility in most distributions. Even though I stopped using it at some point, I continued to use the Type 1 fonts that came on the CD.

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

#268
I put this in a file called something.bat and ran it as administrator to uninstall (I hope) most of the KBs. Any feedback would be great:

    wusa.exe /kb:3075249 /uninstall /norestart
    wusa.exe /kb:3080149 /uninstall /norestart
    wusa.exe /kb:3068708 /uninstall /norestart
    wusa.exe /kb:2976978 /uninstall /norestart
    wusa.exe /kb:3021917 /uninstall /norestart
    wusa.exe /kb:3035583 /uninstall /norestart
    wusa.exe /kb:2952664 /uninstall /norestart

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

#269
post #256
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't know that in Windows 10 until the news hit that disabling Cortana doesn't prevent that. Hell, I've never even seen Cortana since I'm in Dragon land (perhaps that's on the positive side for once) and I would've never thought the Start menu search isn't local only. Can I opt-out ? Nope. I can on Ubuntu, Android and iOS though.

It's really not that hard to opt out. The search is just a default program, and you can replace it with whatever you want, like Classic Shell. You could argue as others have that there should be a default search which is local only, but why is it so important that everyone uses Microsoft's default programs rather than the millions of third party programs available? There seems to be a double standard where people say…

The issue I see with it is transparency about it. If an user updates from Win7/8 who didn't have this explicit functionality, it doesn't know that it sends the queries online, nor is he immediately shown how to easily opt-out. I mean, where's a section in Control panel that's titled "Windows 7/Classic mode" ? FFS, I'd pay for that Service pack or edition.

At least now we know why they're offering the update for free.

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

#270

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…

Abusive parents are going to love this. (And that's terrifying.)

For parents of kids who are getting themselves into troubling things (physical, mental, social: thinspiration, suicidal temptation, and dangerous "religious" indoctrination, to pick one example from each of those categories) are going to like it too - so while I see your concern I can definitely see why this was considered a good enough idea to implement.

Of course we are still in a position where most kids know more about what goes on inside the computer than their parents[] so many will find ways around this if they need to...

[] though I feel this is changing, at least here, as the 90s (and to an extent 80s) generation have growing families: they grew up with tech around them so were far more attuned to it than their parents, and to many kids these days tech is just commodity items so they can use them well but don't bother to understand them.

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