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I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

jonathan.porta.codes

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Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#121

Post by brudgers »

MichaelGG wrote: post #50
ewzimm wrote: post #20

Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant, so I expected to see all these things as defaults. The advanced features just couldn't work without it. I'm glad there's at least an opt-out, but I do think that Windows needs an OS-wide incognito mode, just a simple switch to record or not record data. I generally use that on my browser for whe…

Yeah there should definitely be a "Hey Cortana, off the record,..." query mode. I'm a bit conflicted now. My girls are 7 & 9 and they've been using Microsoft Accounts. With the final Win10 build having all this (none of these settings worked a few months ago), it looks like I've got a lot of reading and explaining to do for them.

For the US market, the way you frame the concern is the legal reality for Microsoft...parents who will blame Microsoft when information about their children passes online...are why there are no privacy guarantees in Microsoft's new policy. It's just too easy for a lawyer to convince a trier of fact that Microsoft "should have known".

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#122

Post by _yosefk »

vitd wrote: post #103
iambitjelly wrote: post #51

I dont' know why so many people are surprised by the Cortana data vacuum. Doesn't Siri send everything you say to it to Apple or a "trusted partner"? Why would Cortana be any different? The keylogger and Start menu ads are just creepy though. I shouldn't have to opt-out of targeted ads INSIDE MY OS.

There's also a difference in perception between Apple's "trusted partners" and MS and Google's "trusted partners". Since MS and Google make a large amount of money from selling you to others, I just instantly assume that they're sharing my data with advertisers . Since I pay for all my Apple stuff and they repeatedly say that they don't sell my data, I assume that "trusted partners" means companies they've outsourced…

Isn't MS closer to Apple than Google in terms of how it makes money? You pay directly for all or most of its stuff. Also, I thought Google sold your eyeballs to advertisers but not your data nor how it figured that it were your eyeballs that were most fit for the ad.

(I guess for some ads, the very fact that it thought your eyeballs were fit for them already discloses more about you than you'd like... and I'd guess that at least some ads placed by Google would be able to figure out whom they were shown to. But other than that, isn't data collected by Google kept secret from everybody else? It'd make sense from a business standpoint apart from any other considerations; better keep the competitive advantage, and better keep exactly what you know a secret from users as well as competitors.)

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#123

Post by partiallypro »

iambitjelly wrote: post #92
chadzawistowski wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do start menu ads look like?

This: https://twitter.com/GazTheJourno/status/626736454610366465 According to these screen shots, this guy got skincare product ads in his start menu. I can't verify because I noped out of anything that smelled like ads right from the get-go. Also, classic shell. !!!EDIT: I know it looks shopped, which is why I said I couldn't verify it. Windows Store app ads are quite real though.

This is undoubtedly fake. Why even post this garbage?

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#124

Post by pdkl95 »

https://projectbullrun.org/surveillance/2015/video-2015.html...

Of course MS wants to get in on surveillance-as-a-business-model. It keeps people tied to your Service as a Software Substitute, and as long long as most people are still ignorant about how technology works, they won't notice how the stalker-like nature of a lot of modern soft^H^H^H^Hmalware.

As for the few nerds that notice, they can probably be shut up with an obscure option to disable (most of?) the data collection; the number of people that even know the option exists will be insignificant. Some of those nerds can even be distracted with promises of "open" access (to our proprietary APIs we can remove or change without notice); if you phrase it right, it can even sound like "open" is referring to the commons. After a while, some of them may even build entire businesses based on feeding user surveillance data upstream. After a generation, the days of being able to write client software will be long forgotten.

--

The ongoing Theft Of Privacy (and the closely related The War On General Purpose Computing) are being fought, and this brazen behavior by Microsoft to take advantage user ignorance is taking yet another step down a dark path.

Which side are you going to be on? The side that is trying to maintain the remains of our privacy, an open internet, and free computing?

The apathetic side that fixes technical problems for themselves, while everybody else gets spied upon a little bit more while their tools become even more removed from their control? I hope you enjoy the consequences of rewarding this kind of behavior. Why should Microsoft (or anybody else) change when they still get paid and maintain their user-count?

Or are you the apparatchik, who thinks Cortana (or Alexa, or Siri, ... or Google Analytics) is a useful, cool piece of software? Surely the Big Data being collected is just going to be used for the stated purposes and could never have a noxious effect on users or become an attractive target for hackers or governments? If you're in this category, you might just want to start paying attention to the larger games being played, because if you don't start fighting for your future others may take it from you.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#125

Post by rifung »

coldpie wrote: post #57
CSDude wrote: post #12

Upon seeing these options in the installation, I thought I downloaded beta version that needs these for feedbacks Realizing I have installed retail version, I regretted my decision now I will read the all EULA for the firet time in my lifetime to see what it gets without asking. And probably I will just keep windows for games only.

Are the games really worth it? There's a lot of games out there. You can live with missing a few Windows-exclusive titles.

Are most games on OS X too? The last time I checked the majority of games were not on Linux.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#126

Post by kayone »

vitd wrote: post #103
iambitjelly wrote: post #51

I dont' know why so many people are surprised by the Cortana data vacuum. Doesn't Siri send everything you say to it to Apple or a "trusted partner"? Why would Cortana be any different? The keylogger and Start menu ads are just creepy though. I shouldn't have to opt-out of targeted ads INSIDE MY OS.

There's also a difference in perception between Apple's "trusted partners" and MS and Google's "trusted partners". Since MS and Google make a large amount of money from selling you to others, I just instantly assume that they're sharing my data with advertisers . Since I pay for all my Apple stuff and they repeatedly say that they don't sell my data, I assume that "trusted partners" means companies they've outsourced…

There are a lot of assumptions in your post, but I guess that's implied given you are talking about perceptions.

At least for me I tend to trust MS (at least the new MS) more than I do apple or even google.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#127

Post by nsgoetz »

ewzimm wrote: post #20

Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant, so I expected to see all these things as defaults. The advanced features just couldn't work without it. I'm glad there's at least an opt-out, but I do think that Windows needs an OS-wide incognito mode, just a simple switch to record or not record data. I generally use that on my browser for whe…

I love this idea - I just submitted it as a suggestion in the feedback app.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#128

Post by ctdonath »

venomsnake wrote: post #55
frogpelt wrote: post #43

People want to be connected, join social networks, download apps, be able to control their appliances from across the ocean, carry devices loaded with sensors everywhere they go--and on top of all it, they want privacy. These are fun and interesting times.

PGP solves all of those. Encrypt on device and prevent the cloud operator of seeing anything.

IIRC, that's what Apple is trying to do: they'll provide all kinds of cloud services, but in a way that they know as little as possible about the content beyond what's vital to providing the relevant service.

Apple is trying to sell hardware, which a robust encrypted cloud experience tied to that hardware will do.

Microsoft is trying to make money from the operating system; since they're giving it away for free, they have to sell commercial access to third parties (ads in the Start menu? really?).

Google, well, I assume they're out to mine as much data as possible, whether or not it's user-specific.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#129

Post by blkhp19 »

cptskippy wrote: post #25
jarsin wrote: post #4

This is why i think Tim Cook is genius for marketing Apple as the anti "We sell all your data and spy on you" companies.

Apple just spies on you, they're vertically integrated so there's no need to sell the data.

How do they spy on you? There's no suspicious network traffic leaving my Mac. They might collect info about Siri queries or downloaded apps, but they're certainly not logging keystrokes from OS X or iOS.
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