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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

#281

Post by Artemis2 »

yellowapple wrote: post #247
ewzimm wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can call it a key logger, and I understand why you would object, but sending search terms typed into a search box to a search engine is pretty much what people expect. Ubuntu does it. GNOME does it. Android does it. iOS does it. OS X does it. Windows is very nearly the last one to do it. Privacy is important, and I don't think either I or David Tomaschik would ever argue otherwise, and there should definitely be…

> 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…

> > OS X does it.

> Again, by default? Because I've yet to actually see online results when searching for things in, say, Finder. Not that I wouldn't hold it above Apple to pull such shenanigans, of course; they love fucking over their users for the sake of a "more beautiful" (please) product.

It's in Spotlight from at least OS X Yosemite.

> > Windows is very nearly the last one to do it.

> Hardly. [...]

These are not consumer-oriented products.

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

#282

Post by ewzimm »

tdkl wrote: post #269
ewzimm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It says "Search Windows and the web" right on the search box and displays web results. You don't have to pay for an alternative. When Windows 8 came out 3 years ago, lots of alternative start menus became available. If you haven't found out about them in that time, you probably don't care, but maybe they could be featured in the Windows Store or something like that under customization.

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

#283

Post by yellowapple »

Artemis2 wrote: post #281
yellowapple wrote: post #247

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…

> > OS X does it. > Again, by default? Because I've yet to actually see online results when searching for things in, say, Finder. Not that I wouldn't hold it above Apple to pull such shenanigans, of course; they love fucking over their users for the sake of a "more beautiful" (please) product. It's in Spotlight from at least OS X Yosemite. > > Windows is very nearly the last one to do it. > Hardly. [...] These are no…

> These are not consumer-oriented products.

PC-BSD certainly is. openSUSE arguably is (while it has quite a few enterprise features, it has plenty of consumer features, too, especially when paired with KDE or GNOME). Kubuntu certainly is. KDE certainly is.

And we haven't even gotten into the other consumer-oriented operating systems that don't compromise privacy to the same degree as Ubuntu+Unity, iOS, Android, or (now) Windows. I haven't even mentioned Linux Mint (with Cinnamon, MATE, KDE, or Xfce), which is certainly consumer-oriented (it sure as hell ain't enterprise-oriented, in my experience). Then there's ElementaryOS, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, Vector, GhostBSD, AmigaOS, RISC OS... the list goes on. Said list goes on even further once you factor in some more experimental - yet still designed to be consumer-oriented - systems, like Haiku and ReactOS. As far as I know, zero entries on this here list have fallen into the trap of siphoning user data by default.

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

#284

Post by tacone »

yellowapple wrote: post #244
tacone wrote: 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…

Installing keyloggers is not legal in all the countries. If you look at the advanced economies, I'd dare to say in very few of them.

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

#285

Post by yellowapple »

superskierpat wrote: post #264
yellowapple wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hadn't heard of Harvey before. Looks like an interesting take on Plan 9; I'll definitely have to try that one out.

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

#286

Post by nothis »

inevitable2 wrote: post #90

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…

Call me naive, but some of these, especially the first, seem borderline illegal and I doubt that even in their greediest hour Microsoft would dare to implement this shit. If this is true, I'm sure they could be sued on quite a monumental scale.

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

#287

Post by yellowapple »

tacone wrote: post #284
yellowapple wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Installing keyloggers is not legal in all the countries. If you look at the advanced economies, I'd dare to say in very few of them.

Even where illegal, few employers realize this. "It's our hardware, we bought it, so we have the right to monitor it in infinitely-fine-grained detail" often kicks in well before any ethical or even legal implications do.

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

#288

Post by morganvachon »

acqq wrote: post #171
0x0 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see what someone knowledgable would report back on by taking something like zynamics bindiff onto pre- and post this KB.

I've never seen the proof of the claims from the article discussed here three days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099180 "Information transmitted: All text typed on the keyboard is stored in temporary files, and sent (once per 30 mins) to: oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net pre.footprintpredict.com reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com" On another side, MSFT never issued the statement what they actua…

I've noticed recently that I'll get a weekly e-mail from Microsoft showing my "week in review", with inline copies of photos I took with my phone and uploaded to OneDrive (I have 1TB of space with OneDrive thanks to an O365 account). This just started a few weeks ago.

So, Microsoft is not only rifling through the contents of my OneDrive camera roll, they are then transmitting the photos to my email unencrypted, without ever asking me to opt in to this service. I used to praise Microsoft for being opt-in as opposed to Google's opt-out; I guess that's all out the window now (no pun intended).

I guess it's finally time to flip the switch on the OwnCloud account I've been testing and drop OneDrive.

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

#289

Post by smeehee »

morganvachon wrote: post #288
acqq wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never seen the proof of the claims from the article discussed here three days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10099180 "Information transmitted: All text typed on the keyboard is stored in temporary files, and sent (once per 30 mins) to: oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net pre.footprintpredict.com reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com" On another side, MSFT never issued the statement what they actua…

I've noticed recently that I'll get a weekly e-mail from Microsoft showing my "week in review", with inline copies of photos I took with my phone and uploaded to OneDrive (I have 1TB of space with OneDrive thanks to an O365 account). This just started a few weeks ago. So, Microsoft is not only rifling through the contents of my OneDrive camera roll, they are then transmitting the photos to my email unencrypted, witho…

This seems loosely equivalent to Google's account activity mail, but with invade-by-default. I can see it being useful, though, despite the flaws which you describe.

Also – potentially – incredibly dangerous, as other posters mention. I don't think that we can have the possibility of one without the possibility of the other here.

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