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Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#101

Post by AlexandrB »

caskance wrote: post #76
AlexandrB wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not happy about Gmail tracking, but the information Gmail has access to is limited to what ends up in that email account. An OS's access is potentially everything on the computer. To me, privacy is about control (deciding who gets to see what) and having an OS that phones home with who knows what information means I have no control once information touches my PC.

Anyone who cares to look it up knows. Of course, there's always the chance that Microsoft is lying in their documentation, but if you mistrust them that much, you probably shouldn't use their software even if they claim to not collect any information.

> Anyone who cares to look it up knows.

Last I looked Microsoft's privacy policy was vague enough that it could include almost anything and everything on a PC as well as whatever Windows can infer about your local network.

> Of course, there's always the chance that Microsoft is lying in their documentation, but if you mistrust them that much, you probably shouldn't use their software even if they claim to not collect any information.

You're right, at the end of the day it comes down to trust. Microsoft's behaviour in this case - making it hard to disable telemetry, being vague about collection details and unresponsive to questions - means that it's hard to trust them. In a hypothetical world where they were upfront with what was collected, responsive to questions, and allowed users to disable all data gathering easily the same feature set might be easier to swallow.

Edit: I forgot to mention how aggressively Microsoft has been shoving Windows 10 down user's throat. I've had several non-technical friends end up with Windows 10 by mistake (and against their wishes) - another sign that Microsoft doesn't give a shit about users' wishes.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#102

Post by us0r »

mattmanser wrote: post #86
Aleman360 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because telemetry is a key tool used to improve quality. What software dev doesn't think logs and crash dumps are useful?

Recording how long someone's had their browser open, how many hours of games they've played or how many photos they've viewed is not a log or a crash dump or in any way related to quality. It's just creepy and invasive.

How about copying/pasting code, inserting tabs into code, inserting break points into code, how many projects you have, references, when you save, why your code wont compile.

Visual Studio is probably the primary reason I'm even bothering with Microsoft but fuck me they collect a lot of unnecessary shit. They claim its "anonymous"... Some of this doesn't seem so anonymous to me:

"Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Location.GeoId":x, "Context.Default.VS.Core.BuildNumber":x, "Context.Solution.LastSolutionBuildID":x, "Context.DebugSession.VS.Diagnostics.Debugger.DebugSession.StartupProject.UniqueGuid":"{x}", "Context.DebugSession.VS.Diagnostics.Debugger.DebugSession.UniqueGuid":"{x}", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsInternal":"False", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsOptedIn":"True", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsMicrosoftInternal":"False", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Type":"External", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Id":"x", "Context.Default.VS.Core.Machine.Id":"x", "Context.Solution.ActiveProjectGuid":"{x}", "Context.Solution.SolutionSessionID":"{x}", "Context.Solution.SolutionID":"{x}"

Short of actual source they send everything (and details) you do in VS in real time.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#103

Post by frik »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #64

I still can't imagine why Microsoft would think it's worth the bad publicity to not offer the option to disable telemetry, considering how few people tend to deviate from defaults in general, and how tiny a percentage of their users even care about privacy to begin with (evident from the commercial success of Windows 10). They've been getting so much goodwill for all the other great things they've been doing lately.…

I would consider Win10 if there is an option to disable the phone home stuff. Without the LTSB license, you simply cannot deactivate all stuff. Why are various IP addresses and domains white listed in signed kernel mode dlls?

Microsoft still thinks the will get away with this. Their bad. They will get problems with their mass collection of data from sensitive areas like doctors, lawyers, etc.

Windows 7 is a very good OS until at least 2020 (minus recent phone-home updates). And every other OS including OSX, iOS, Android and Linux are more forthcoming and less hostile to the end user. (all tracking, crash reporting and phone home features can be deactivated in all OS except Win10)

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#104

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

AlexandrB wrote: post #95
rms_returns wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open-source, meanwhile, has struggled to provide a basic desktop environment to rival the best from five years ago. Open-source is pretty young on the desktop arena. Consider that Microsoft ruled the entire nineties and tried all tricks in the book to sabotage linux. Despite this, the fact that linux desktops are even available today is nothing short of a miracle! IMHO, the GNOME and Unity desktops are mature enoug…

> IMHO, the GNOME and Unity desktops are mature enough to handle 90% of users' needs, the only exception is gaming but that gap is also rapidly getting filled. This is not really true. For example, high-dpi is still a complete crapshoot, font rendering is often bad bordering on terrible. Unity itself is a usability disaster that hides some of an applications most important elements (menu bar) most of the time. Networ…

> hides some of an applications most important elements (menu bar)

I don't know Unity; are you referring to it using a global menu bar, as OSX does? Because the latter is a wonderful idea as far as I'm concerned - it save screen real estate, reduces unnecessary distractions, and has no negative effect on functionality.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#105

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

sageikosa wrote: post #83
jinst8gmi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's start gathering statistics on how many times people open their refrigerator, or use the toilet, or take a shower. Just think of the targeted advertising opportunities based on toilet usage statistics!

That can be garnered from purchase data, at least on a household level.

How is that data currently collected? Are you referring to store loyalty cards?

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#106

Post by serge2k »

agentultra wrote: post #72
dantillberg wrote: post #60

I spent my holiday break shifting my alignment 2 or 3 points towards Stallmanism. The existence/collection of statistics like this increase my confidence in that choice. Between Windows privacy craziness and Apple's continuing lockdown of OSX (I think that System Integrity Protection augurs an iOS-like walled-garden future for OSX), I recently switched all of my OSX/Windows/Ubuntu systems to Arch Linux; it takes some…

I went the other way around. I started with your conclusions and have been migrating to the Apple ecosystem and am tempted to move to Windows. I had become tired of the dearth of issues that crop up to maintain an Arch desktop distribution. While the privacy collection issues should be addressed and be transparent to end-users I think open source is not the way to go for these devices. I'm tired of each device being…

> It's simply too much work without a paid, focused, and highly-skilled product team consisting of more than just developers. And they're still fighting the chicken-and-egg problem of user-adoption.

I think these "spyware features" actually help a ton with that. Without some level of usage data (anonymized is great) how are you supposed to know how your product is actually being used.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#107

Post by Alupis »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #98
rms_returns wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Open-source, meanwhile, has struggled to provide a basic desktop environment to rival the best from five years ago. Open-source is pretty young on the desktop arena. Consider that Microsoft ruled the entire nineties and tried all tricks in the book to sabotage linux. Despite this, the fact that linux desktops are even available today is nothing short of a miracle! IMHO, the GNOME and Unity desktops are mature enoug…

> Can you cite a single widely used software that doesn't have a FOSS alternative which works on Linux. Yes. Photoshop and Lightroom. And before you all jump in and slather me with suggestions of Darktable, Shotwell, GIMP, ASP, RAWtherapee et al please know that NONE of these are a true substitute for Lightroom and Photoshop. Individually you can put together a decent work flow with Linux programmes but it's slow. Pa…

> Yes. Photoshop and Lightroom.

Have you tried PlayOnLinux (a very, very good and very easy to use WINE wrapper).[1]

It supports CS6 (including PhotoShop) and Creative Cloud installs on Linux.[2]

[1] https://www.playonlinux.com/en/

[2] https://www.playonlinux.com/en/app-2316-Adobe_Photoshop_CS6....

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#108

Post by serge2k »

dantillberg wrote: post #85
caskance wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complain about the feature all you want, but pretending that it's not well documented or configurable is just silly. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85...

Microsoft is pretty good at catering to the desires of enterprises, so you're right, but in the linked article I see at [0] that with a typical consumer license of Windows, I can reduce the "telemetry" level, but only to "Basic" from the default level of "Enhanced" (side note: how is it "enhanced" if it's the default?). While the Enhanced level accounts for a lot of the usage-specific statistics detailed in TFA, Basi…

That list looks less like valuable user data and more like basic telemetry data that is mostly useful to anyone trying to provide a good OS experience.

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#109

Post by jinst8gmi »

sageikosa wrote: post #83
jinst8gmi wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's start gathering statistics on how many times people open their refrigerator, or use the toilet, or take a shower. Just think of the targeted advertising opportunities based on toilet usage statistics!

That can be garnered from purchase data, at least on a household level.

You'd want the data before the purchases were made in order to influence the purchases (e.g. medicine...).

Re: Microsoft reveals details of Windows 10 usage tracking

#110

Post by Alupis »

Fuxy wrote: post #94
dantillberg wrote: post #60

I spent my holiday break shifting my alignment 2 or 3 points towards Stallmanism. The existence/collection of statistics like this increase my confidence in that choice. Between Windows privacy craziness and Apple's continuing lockdown of OSX (I think that System Integrity Protection augurs an iOS-like walled-garden future for OSX), I recently switched all of my OSX/Windows/Ubuntu systems to Arch Linux; it takes some…

Arch Linux is not exactly ideal for security and it requires too much technical knowledge to offer privacy for the masses. The unfortunate reality is that non technical uses will never achieve the same level of privacy and security as technical ones. I personally feel like I have no choice Windows is collecting way too much data for me to be conformable using and Apple is just a benevolent dictator for now it can cha…

> If I need Photoshop or some software that only runs in Windows I can always run them in a VM

Or try running it in PlayOnLinux (a very good WINE wrapper). It supports all of CS6 and also Creative Cloud installs on Linux.[1]

[1] https://www.playonlinux.com/en/app-2316-Adobe_Photoshop_CS6....

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