With Windows 10, Microsoft Disregards User Choice and Privacy

Post by Senji » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 6:59 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #362

rasz_pl wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jury is not out, shutup10 turns off "official' telemetry services. Problem is MS build in telemetry into everything now, explorer, cortana, edge, crypto service or dnscache, _everything_ calls home regularly ~once per hour during ordinary use. Only way to 99.9% block telemetry is to switch blocking all outgoing by default in firewall and whitelist what you use. This still leaves DNS exfiltration route :(

Did you read the comments where, if you do block the standard ports, the telemetry system in Win10 goes all subversive botnet-like and starts connecting on random ports to random hosts in order to get out of the firewall? Frightening.

Post by Senji » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 7:09 AM UTC

jalami wrote: post #84

S_A_P wrote: post #56

Framed this way, I cant believe there is no class action lawsuit. I remember my mother in law said she was being asked to upgrade from 8.1. She said she didn't want to. I actually willingly installed win 10, and was across the country. She then called me one day and said "windows 10 installed anyway and I clicked the X to get out of it". At the time I just chalked it up to user error, but thanks MS, now I owe my moth…

IANAL, but it looks like when you agree to the Microsoft TOS you waive your right to bring a Class Action suit against Microsoft >Class action lawsuits, class-wide arbitrations, private attorney-general actions, and any other proceeding where someone acts in a representative capacity aren’t allowed. Nor is combining individual proceedings without the consent of all parties. I believe that's why companies are taking M…

Post by tracker1 » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 8:35 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #237

Osiris wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was running Ubuntu 14.04 on a small PC with XBMC and proprietary Nvidia drivers. The standard `apt-get update` would never rebuild the nvidia drivers so inevitably on reboot, X couldn't start and I had to figure out why, then rebuild the nvidia drivers manually, and try again. I'm much more scared of Ubuntu aptitude updates than I am of Microsoft updates.

Fixing a broken apt update is easier than fixing a broken Windows update, though.

Post by rasz_pl » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 10:11 AM UTC

Senji wrote: post #370

rasz_pl wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jury is not out, shutup10 turns off "official' telemetry services. Problem is MS build in telemetry into everything now, explorer, cortana, edge, crypto service or dnscache, _everything_ calls home regularly ~once per hour during ordinary use. Only way to 99.9% block telemetry is to switch blocking all outgoing by default in firewall and whitelist what you use. This still leaves DNS exfiltration route :(

Not if you run your own DNS server.

Post by hendersoon » Fri, Aug 19, 2016, 4:36 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #374

hendersoon wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My statement was that the telemetry wasn't baked into the OS itself-- and it isn't. It's in the programs you _run_ on the OS, so the user has agency. How many users opt for the extreme inconvenience of turning off Google Play Services and all the Google apps isn't really the point-- they _could_. Windows telemetry is baked in the OS. I believe that is a fundamental difference. Also, I don't think it's disingenuous to…

What constitutes being baked in? Various components of Windows gather telemetry data, the basic stuff is pulled by the Diagnostics Tracking Service which can simple be disabled. Other things such as Office and Contana gather in their own ways. That's no more baked in than Google Play Services is baked into Android. The fundamental difference is that Windows isn't Open Source so you can't go to a repo and pull down a…