181–190 of 265 posts
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Are the telemetry data made public? If it's not, then it could be manipulated to justify arbitrary decisions from MS
Why would they make arbitrary decisions that run contrary to what the telemetry data shows? That just doesn't make sense.
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First, please let's draw a distinction between different kinds of tracking. We're smart enough to appreciate the naunces here. Some information is more valuable than others. * How many times you clicked Edit -> Paste vs Ctrl/Cmd + V. This is not personal information. It cannot be used in any way to identify you. * Your location/medical information. Guard this with your life if you must. Share it with literally no one…
With machine learning they might only need to know your pasting habits and what function names you use most commonly, maybe a bit of information about how fast your type and this will be enough information to identify you based on your behaviour. Search engines are recording really detailed information as you type, as you browse other websites using their invasive trojan-like analytics. With this data you can probabl…
Tell me, who exactly is running ML on this data? They're going to great lengths to anonymize this data. If they wanted identifying information, they'd just upload your unixname, they wouldn't anonymize and then de-anonymize with ML.
I don't even know how you conflated the metrics on menu clicks with uploading paste data. That's ridiculous. Did you even notice you made that leap?
I suspect the tracking in VSCode is mainly used to improve the product. It's probably in my best interest, and the interest of the community as a whole to leave tracking on. I mean, I get it, HN is usually a more skeptical and security-focused crowd. At the same time, it's likely MS will just take that information and tailor their bugfixes and features to the things I need most, so by all means I want them to have it…
I hope this is sarcasm. If not, what did I miss? This is the same empty phrase that facebook, google, etc. use. Why is Microsoft more trustworthy in that regard? I am 100% sure they use the data to make money in short terms or in a long run. They for sure use it to make VSCode better, but only to get more people use VSCode and make them dependent on it. VSCode is a prime example of the Embrace, Extend and Extinguish strategy. I already see them grasping for the Python community.
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VSCode is OSS right? So microsoft’s Work and Investment was specifically designed to be reused without any direct financial compensation. I don’t quite understand your point. Do you think that it’s hypocrtical to use and benefit from OSS work and investment? It seems important to respect the creator’s intent and if software is released under an OSS license it’s not dissonant or hypocritical or bad to reuse, or even m…
This is a clear case of people exploiting and perpetrating FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt), riding on Microsoft's historic reputation as not being trustworthy, and turning it to their private benefit. If you have trust issues with Microsoft, you shouldn't be using software authored by them, as software can have backdoors and security issues hiding in plain sight (heart bleed bug, for instance). Atom has/had the exa…
So why is it problematic now for other people to build on top of what Microsoft added?
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First, please let's draw a distinction between different kinds of tracking. We're smart enough to appreciate the naunces here. Some information is more valuable than others. * How many times you clicked Edit -> Paste vs Ctrl/Cmd + V. This is not personal information. It cannot be used in any way to identify you. * Your location/medical information. Guard this with your life if you must. Share it with literally no one…
With machine learning they might only need to know your pasting habits and what function names you use most commonly, maybe a bit of information about how fast your type and this will be enough information to identify you based on your behaviour. Search engines are recording really detailed information as you type, as you browse other websites using their invasive trojan-like analytics. With this data you can probabl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, please let's draw a distinction between different kinds of tracking. We're smart enough to appreciate the naunces here. Some information is more valuable than others. * How many times you clicked Edit -> Paste vs Ctrl/Cmd + V. This is not personal information. It cannot be used in any way to identify you. * Your location/medical information. Guard this with your life if you must. Share it with literally no one…
With machine learning they might only need to know your pasting habits and what function names you use most commonly, maybe a bit of information about how fast your type and this will be enough information to identify you based on your behaviour. Search engines are recording really detailed information as you type, as you browse other websites using their invasive trojan-like analytics. With this data you can probabl…
I suspect the tracking in VSCode is mainly used to improve the product. It's probably in my best interest, and the interest of the community as a whole to leave tracking on. I mean, I get it, HN is usually a more skeptical and security-focused crowd. At the same time, it's likely MS will just take that information and tailor their bugfixes and features to the things I need most, so by all means I want them to have it…
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Wait a minute, there is tracking involved in a code editor? No, it's not in anyone's best interest. It can't be. Any info collected with tracking could also be used for other, malign purposes, covertly and illegally. I understand your perspective, I wish it was true as a fact. But it isn't. What I've learned in the recent years - don't trust anything that tracks and collects data unless it's your own thing.
There's a pretty wide area between a skeptic and a conspiracy theorist, but this kind of mentality certainly leans toward the latter. Logic dictates it's vastly more likely the data collected is to improve the editor, than a multi-national multi-billion dollar company collecting data to use it illegally.
It’s not like it’s human sifting through it by hand.
I suspect the tracking in VSCode is mainly used to improve the product. It's probably in my best interest, and the interest of the community as a whole to leave tracking on. I mean, I get it, HN is usually a more skeptical and security-focused crowd. At the same time, it's likely MS will just take that information and tailor their bugfixes and features to the things I need most, so by all means I want them to have it…
Wait a minute, there is tracking involved in a code editor? No, it's not in anyone's best interest. It can't be. Any info collected with tracking could also be used for other, malign purposes, covertly and illegally. I understand your perspective, I wish it was true as a fact. But it isn't. What I've learned in the recent years - don't trust anything that tracks and collects data unless it's your own thing.
I recall a recent thread here on HN where I learned that the Windows Calculator was sending data ("telemetry") back to the mothership.
Nowadays I think I'd be more surprised if a Microsoft product were released that didn't phone home.
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It maybe starts with simple statistics. But then you want to know what features the user use, then you want to know what other programs they have installed. Then you want to know what the users search for on the web. etc. It's a slippery slope.
Every time I hear the phrase "it's a slippery slope" uttered by someone arguing against something, I am immediately suspicious of the argument that person is making. There really isn't such a thing, in the way you've used that phrase. Capturing telemetry on how I use a tool from within that tool is perfectly fine, to me. Collecting telemetry on my search history in the browser by that same tool isn't. THERE ARE NO IN…