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German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

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Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#181

Post by SBArbeit »

maxxxxx wrote: post #24

I am surprised that they using server names like "alpha.telemetry.microsft.com". when I see something like "microsft" in an E-mail or link I immediately suspect that somebody is trying to fake being from Microsoft. Or are these spelling errors in the article? Edit: these domain names are in the report too. Very strange. I would get very nervous if I saw "microsft" in a firewall log.

It's probably because using microsoft.com would force every cookie from that domain to be put onto every REST call they make for sending telemetry, which would be pointless and would waste every user's outgoing bandwidth. An alternate domain that doesn't have any cookies is a better choice.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#182

Post by wtallis »

SBArbeit wrote: post #181
maxxxxx wrote: post #24

I am surprised that they using server names like "alpha.telemetry.microsft.com". when I see something like "microsft" in an E-mail or link I immediately suspect that somebody is trying to fake being from Microsoft. Or are these spelling errors in the article? Edit: these domain names are in the report too. Very strange. I would get very nervous if I saw "microsft" in a firewall log.

It's probably because using microsoft.com would force every cookie from that domain to be put onto every REST call they make for sending telemetry, which would be pointless and would waste every user's outgoing bandwidth. An alternate domain that doesn't have any cookies is a better choice.

What cookies? Wouldn't Microsoft have to go out of their way to make their telemetry programs pick up and use the cookies from the user's browser?

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#183

Post by anticensor »

anoncake wrote: post #180
anticensor wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one forced you to use Windows 10. You could have used ReactOS.

I didn't know ReactOS has achieved 100% compatibility. That's great news!

Currently 99.9%. You can help for the rest to get ReactOS over the Pareto's hump.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#184

Post by ryacko »

thepp1983 wrote: post #143
ernst_klim wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why doesn't by usb headset work? >The only thing I haven't had work is some cheapo chinese Serial PCI card from fleabay. You are contradicting yourself here. Besides, linux hardware support is incredible nowadays, and most of the time if you have problems with linux, you would have them with windows as well (aka, oem drivers for crappy nonstandard custom hardware). Nowadays most of the soundcards, gamepads, headsets…

> You are contradicting yourself here. No I am not. I was just saying that the only thing I've hadn't have work out of the box was some dodgy PCI card from China. It is literally the only thing in the last ten years that wasn't a video card that didn't work out of the box for me. > Besides, linux hardware support is incredible nowadays, and most of the time if you have problems with linux, you would have them with wi…

The only way to have good hardware support is to buy two computers, and send one to a developer.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#186

Post by fokov »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #150
salvar wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I really do. Why don't more computers come with Linux pre-installed? If Linux is such a great replacement for Windows, why has it made very little gains in replacing Windows? Is it all somebody else's fault and has nothing to do with the usability of Linux?

Because money = influence. Linux has none and Microsoft has lots. It's really that simple.

There has got to be more money in Linux than Windows since the majority of servers are running it. The problem is Linux doesn't see user experience as anything that is necessary. When it does (ubuntu, et al) it thrives....but many of us have been waiting since the 90s for everything to "work" on Linux without having to screw around.

People love it when things just work and for many of them Apple and Windows do just that.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#187

Post by hyperman1 »

winrid wrote: post #90
emayljames wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LTS (Long Term Service) versions of Linux OS' are now breaking even, or even sometimes ahead, of Windows. Office is easily on par (actually better IMO). You can have the UI exactly as you want it to be. You have GIMP. The home of Apache/PHP, and many other improvements!.

Word is light-years ahead of any open source alternative. Gimp is not a photoshop replacement. These guys don't care about Apache on their desktops. :)

Unfortunately, Word is light-years behind any alternative, open source or not. Styling is a half-assed inconsistent mess. Bullet indentation jumps around like crazy. Changing your default printer might cause reformatting. There is no decent separation between content and formatting. The menu ^h^h^h^h^h^h ribbon is such a mess you need a search function. Word is the kind of product that should be taken out and shot. I speak as someone who used word competitors back in the days when there were some left.

Now if you say Excel, however, we might start to agree.

BTW, while Gimp is not a photoshop replacement (please fix the window behaviour, guys) but krita is getting really nice, and plenty good enough for your average corporate user.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#188

Post by Dylan16807 »

rasz wrote: post #113
Dylan16807 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could just block all communication with Microsoft by the OS. Easier said than done when there's a minefield of firewall-bypasses for it.

Care to elaborate? Afaik and tested w10 does NOT bypass its own firewall when set to 'drop all' traffic.

From what I've seen "drop all" works at the moment but directly blocking the telemetry programs keeps getting undone whenever the file changes and it intentionally doesn't use the hosts file.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#189

Post by anoncake »

thecatspaw wrote: post #96
goldfeld wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To preserve their main domain from the filthiest blacklists? So they can move on to another shady domain for dirty tricks if this one goes under in reputation. Executive thinking..

but why wouldnt they use microsoft-telemetry.com instead?

Maybe it was a typo and fixing it would have required more bureaucracy than getting the domain.

Re: German federal office publishes Windows 10 telemetry analysis

#190

Post by snaky »

wolfgke wrote: post #30
snaky wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could set up the proxy for (not Microsoft) web browser on your router and disallow all the traffic forwarding other than going via that proxy.

See chapter 3 of the linked German paper > https://www.bsi.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/BSI/Cyber-Si... for other suggestions. The variant with an HTTP proxy is described in section 3.2.1.

As far as I can tell, what they do with proxy is 'allow all, disallow telemetry' policy. That's not what seem to work reliably, because Microsoft is free to change everything at any second, and the 'telemetry' list is moving target. What I'm talking about is 'disallow all, allow the traffic from Firefox only' basically.
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