I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10 • Hacker News Board

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#311

Post by ytdht » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

Zarel wrote: post #305

natmaster wrote: post #198

I find it shocking how people readily accept Google's far worse policies, and yet are so concerned about an easy opt out. For instance, in Android, Google tracks with GPS accuracy your whereabouts constantly. This isn't just what IP your desktop is attached to. Furthermore, there is no prompt telling you this happens with a very easy way of undoing. In fact even if you knew about this it is very hard to find a way to…

This is completely false. For one thing, SRWare Iron is a scam: http://www.insanitybit.com/2012/06/23/srware-iron-browser-a-... For another thing, Chrome doesn't log every website you visit. The closest thing they do is suggest autocompletions for searches/URLs you type in the URL, which is a straightforwardly-explained checkbox in Chrome's privacy settings.

The Google updater is the main reason that I don't install Picasa or Chrome... that's a good thing if Iron doesn't use it.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#312

Post by chadzawistowski » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:44 PM UTC

tychuz wrote: post #310

jda0 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little "Recommended App" tile underneath your "Most Used" list.

I still have no idea what you all are talking about. After fresh install, my Start looks really barren, I'd even welcome these mythical ads... http://i.imgur.com/tdkFeiQ.png

Wow, that's huge. Are you in tablet mode? If not, you can drag the edges of the start menu to resize it.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#313

Post by joering2 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:47 PM UTC

The little four-squares icon that popped up few weeks go on my Windows 7 desktop notification zone, spamming me with messages to update for free to Win10, cannot be uninstalled, is deeply rooted into parts of OS Win7 through KB updates and crashes at least twice a day. With hibernated computer, it somehow forces LAN to awake, as a result blu-screening otherwise perfectly well hibernated session.

For this reasons alone, I think Win7 will be my most loved and probably last version of Windows I will ever use.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#314

Post by alyx » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:48 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #286

It looks like Microsoft has installed the "back door" that FBI Director Comey wanted.[1][2] That may be the real motivation behind these "features". The "backing up" of the local drive encryption key to Microsoft servers is one of the things the FBI specifically asks for. Any press reading this, ask Microsoft what communications they've had with the FBI regarding backdoors. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2…

I get this whole skepticism thing, but Microsoft has been backing up BitLocker keys in OneDrive since at least Windows 8.

I have personally used the feature several times to recover my drive keys.

There's no evidence here that Microsoft has installed a "back door" for the FBI.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#315

Post by cm2187 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

ManFromUranus wrote: post #279

batou wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely no one wanted it. No one asked for it. We were spun a load of marketing disguised as listening and attention. This turned out to be exactly what Microsoft wanted which was another aggressive move against customers both business and consumer. Despite all this the noise and confusion and dubious love for the products is shining out of the arses of every non technical news source. What did we expect? I've lef…

You were always free to not use new MS operating systems. Nobody forced you to make any MS accounts or use Window 8,10 or whatever, so if you installed Windows 8 and didn't like it, that doesn't make MS evil, just don't use it. Anyone who inclined to use CentOS as their daily driver probably was never going to like MS OS's anyway. You probably only ever installed it just to find out what you hate about it.

I am hearing the "if you don't like it don't use it" loud and clear. I did that for Windows 8. Looks like I will do that again.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#316

Post by ancientworldnow » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

api wrote: post #179

pdkl95 wrote: post #124

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…

I'm increasingly believing that for privacy to live, a necessary (but not sufficient) condition is for free to die. By free I mean free as in beer, not free as in freedom. The problem is that if everything has to be free, there can never be any money in the actual maintenance and development of the product. User-centric and privacy-respecting business models are impossible if the product is free. It's necessary but n…

Of course this argument falls apart with the many truly free OS's that would work perfectly well in the general market (as long as you didn't tell consumers they were using GNU/Linux and made it look the same as their Windows box).

I agree with you that "free" as a business model needs to go in one direction or the other. Truly free, as in my Fedora install (ignoring some binaries) or pay for privacy.

The problem with pay lies in the search for more revenue. Cable television used to be ad free. There wasn't a need to advertise since they were already getting subscription money - now look at it. The temptation to add easy profit is too great for many businesses (which is why we now have targeted ads within an OS we already quasi-paid for).

Meanwhile Red Hat isn't doing too bad with their blend of paid and free.

None of what I'm saying is particularly well written or fleshed out after a long day, but this is also something I think about a lot.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#317

Post by Maarten88 » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:53 PM UTC

phjesusthatguy3 wrote: post #182

MichaelGG wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you don't have any Windows-only applications keeping your younger-than-double-digit children on Windows, well then now is your chance to put them on anything-other-than-Windows. My own children are still using computers with Windows 7. They play Spore (Windows only), Sims 3 (Windows only) Minecraft (Java, so playable anywhere), Osu! (no idea, really), and a couple of other games. I have no intention of upgrading W…

My son, who mostly plays Minecraft, does not understand why many of his friends use Apple PCs. The "render distance" and framerate in Minecraft on our home PC (running Windows 8.1) is twice that of his friends, and our PC cost half what a similar Apple costs.

As a parent, I'm also not sure if an equivalent of Family Safety exists on other platforms. Windows sends me weekly overviews of our kids PC use and blocks inappropriate content. Also, our kids log into their own profiles, I don't give them Administrator level access, they have to aks me if they want to install something.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#318

Post by shabbyrobe » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:54 PM UTC

alyx wrote: post #314

Animats wrote: post #286

It looks like Microsoft has installed the "back door" that FBI Director Comey wanted.[1][2] That may be the real motivation behind these "features". The "backing up" of the local drive encryption key to Microsoft servers is one of the things the FBI specifically asks for. Any press reading this, ask Microsoft what communications they've had with the FBI regarding backdoors. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2…

I get this whole skepticism thing, but Microsoft has been backing up BitLocker keys in OneDrive since at least Windows 8. I have personally used the feature several times to recover my drive keys. There's no evidence here that Microsoft has installed a "back door" for the FBI.

Would you assume that they haven't and trust your secrets to that assumption?

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#319

Post by nivla » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:56 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #240

x5n1 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should be an optional feature. Not a feature that's the default of most computers on the planet. It's fine that you wanted it, and it's fine that it's available. It's not cool that it's the default on anything.

As far as I can tell, it is an optional feature. It's the default option, but still an option. On top of that, a fair argument could be made that most people who don't care enough to change their privacy settings probably do prioritize convenience over maximal privacy, so this might even be a reasonable default.

This. Majority of people don't care about having any of these privacy issues on their cell phones which infact is far more capable and something you always keep next to you. Heck I have even seen hackers here recommend ChromeOS, an operating system where everything lives on the cloud. Even though I am cautious about my privacy, I have come to learn that most are not and there is nothing wrong with it. It is just not something that bothers them enough to care about. Privacy is not black and white, some try to maintain an absolute fence while others are willing to trade some for convenience in return.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#320

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Thu, Jul 30, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

QUFB wrote: post #241

natmaster wrote: post #198

I find it shocking how people readily accept Google's far worse policies, and yet are so concerned about an easy opt out. For instance, in Android, Google tracks with GPS accuracy your whereabouts constantly. This isn't just what IP your desktop is attached to. Furthermore, there is no prompt telling you this happens with a very easy way of undoing. In fact even if you knew about this it is very hard to find a way to…

> Secondly, Chrome send every website you visit to their servers to be logged. Again, this is not explained in some easy opt-out screen and in fact the only way to get around this is to use SRWare Iron, where they removed that code. Citation?

My experience:

A while back I put together a Linode server for a small project. Because I was lazy I made a private page of web links for the site logs and made the URL something long and obscure with plenty of backslashes that couldn't be spidered or guessed. The main site had no Google analytics and barely any traffic.

When I checked the logs a couple of days later my private log page had been accessed externally. The visitor's IP address was in one of the ranges that belongs to Google.

So... I changed the URL, looked at the new URL in Chrome, and checked again a day later.

Same thing. Someone - or something - from Google was accessing my private URL, based on my Chrome history.

I changed the URL again and switched to Safari.

Nothing.

Clearly, Chrome phones home and Google feels entitled to check new URLs that it can't spider. Safari doesn't phone home. (Or if it does, no one at Apple cares enough to check weird URLs).

I don't think any other conclusion is possible.