Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

jonathan.porta.codes

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 596 posts

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#371

Post by PhantomGremlin »

mejari wrote: post #120
JoshTriplett wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For most users, this protects them to a useful level. Most users don't think losing a password is a big deal and would be very upset to learn their data is lost because they forgot. That's an anti-feature. "Would you like to store a backup for your drive encryption password on Microsoft OneDrive? If you choose not to do so, and you forget your password, all of your data will be lost. [Yes/No]" And none of that warr…

>"Would you like to store a backup for your drive encryption password on Microsoft OneDrive? If you choose not to do so, and you forget your password, all of your data will be lost. [Yes/No]" You know when most people care about whether or not they can recover their data? It's not when someone asks them a Yes/No question, it's when they can't recover their data. And responding with "Well, remember 2 years ago when yo…

Would you like to store a backup

You're quite right in your response to the GP.

It's dangerous to ask Joe Sixpack a question like this and accept a simple y/n answer. When people are installing software they are rushing thru w/o thinking.

What the software could do is put something like this on the screen:

   DO NOT STORE A BACKUP OF MY PASSWORD
and force the user to opt-out by literally typing all those characters exactly like that:

   DO NOT STORE A BACKUP OF MY PASSWORD
At least that way it isn't an unthinking, rote response. Maybe also force them to type

   I UNDERSTAND ALL MY DATA WILL BE LOST
Anyway, that would probably only help about half of them. The other half won't care until, as you point out, they can't access their data.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#372

Post by briandear »

edoloughlin wrote: post #354
freehunter wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? I did. Linux and OSX are still available for whoever wants them. You can stick with Windows 7 if you want, that's just fine. I like Cortana. I like my software knowing what I like and what I'm interested in. It makes my life easier, which is what computers were invented for. I can see why some people might not, and to be fair I use Linux on my work laptop because the…

I like my software knowing what I like and what I'm interested in. So do I, but I don't like my software vendors knowing it too.

I especially don't like trusted partners knowing.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#373

Post by nl »

gok wrote: post #341
api wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... on a Pentium I, using 1990s machine learning algorithms, sure. Nobody's answered my question as to why The Cloud is the magic pixie dust that solves this problem, and why it could not be solved locally with modern compute power and modern ML techniques.

There are several tremendous advantages to server-based speech recognition. Firstly, the models (particularly the language models) needed for state of the art performance are huge. It's not atypical for papers to discuss using a billion n-grams, for example ( https://wiki.inf.ed.ac.uk/twiki/pub/CSTR/ListenTerm1201415/s... ). That's several gigabytes of memory and storage at the very least, and you'd need a copy of th…

This isn't actually true.

The large data size affects the training, but the model itself is pretty small now (after some hard work on Google's part).

The thing everyone seems to be missing is that Android's (English) voice recognizer is offline[1]. While you can use the online model I suspect that is more about continual update of the model (so it understands new words and changing accents etc) rather than recognition.

[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17616994/offline-speech-r...

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#374

Post by pbreit »

npizzolato wrote: post #202
pbreit wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I expected to see all these as defaults". It would be fine if they were defaults if you actually saw them.

What are you talking about? From the article, the "get going fast" picture displays the settings you're agreeing to when using the express settings. It's one page of content. And clicking on "customize" gives you more detail. I mean, I agree with the article that the layout is definitely pushing people who don't care to just pressing "agree", but if you care about privacy, it's not like it's hidden from you.

I dunno, it's not nearly as clear as the individual setting explanations.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#375

Post by sliverstorm »

batou wrote: post #190
Animats wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant." Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? This is not going to fly with business customers. Microsoft has already bombed twice in the business space, with Windows Vista and Windows 8. This looks like another bomb. Windows 7 is still pretty good, and it will probably be the main Microso…

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…

I don't know about no-one. I have three laptops, one desktop, one media PC, one server, one tablet, and one phone. The cloud movement has been helpful to say the least.

Obviously I don't speak for everyone, but I think "no one wanted it" is a stretch.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#376

Post by gok »

nl wrote: post #373
gok wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several tremendous advantages to server-based speech recognition. Firstly, the models (particularly the language models) needed for state of the art performance are huge. It's not atypical for papers to discuss using a billion n-grams, for example ( https://wiki.inf.ed.ac.uk/twiki/pub/CSTR/ListenTerm1201415/s... ). That's several gigabytes of memory and storage at the very least, and you'd need a copy of th…

This isn't actually true. The large data size affects the training, but the model itself is pretty small now (after some hard work on Google's part). The thing everyone seems to be missing is that Android's (English) voice recognizer is offline [1]. While you can use the online model I suspect that is more about continual update of the model (so it understands new words and changing accents etc) rather than recogniti…

Android's speech recognizer has a compact/offline mode, but that's definitely not what's run by default.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#377

Post by com2kid »

Animats wrote: post #167
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…

"Windows is now essentially a personalized, cloud-based operating system with the primary interface as a personal assistant." Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops? This is not going to fly with business customers. Microsoft has already bombed twice in the business space, with Windows Vista and Windows 8. This looks like another bomb. Windows 7 is still pretty good, and it will probably be the main Microso…

> Who wanted that for desktop computers or laptops?

Everyone who is switching over to cloud connected OSs on their tablets and smartphones.

Why should I have to reinstall and resetup every new computer? My contacts have been following me around on my phone for 8 years now, why the heck shouldn't they be just as accessible from my PC?

My favorites, they should always be there. Chrome does a great job of this, it is nice that Microsoft has decided to catch up.

Windows 8 had some of this, having wallpapers, theme colors, and OneDrive follow me around already made my computers all seem closer together, now just a little bit more is happening.

There is so much common sense in this. If I schedule an appointment while I am at home for me to leave work early to go pick up my cat from the vet, it should show on my work PC because that damn well makes sense.

All this does is bring Windows fully into the 21st century.

> Windows 7 is still pretty good, and it will probably be the main Microsoft desktop OS for years to come, despite what Microsoft wants.

About 6 hours ago I was apprehensive about Windows 10. Now I'm using it and it is lightening fast and responsive.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#378

Post by briandear »

batou wrote: post #237
x5n1 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now if can only do the same with Google and Android, we'd be all set. Why does Google get a get out of jail for free card in this? Android is like the spying on everything you do operating system. Your location, your voice, your pictures, your passwords, I mean fuck... There is nothing Android doesn't know about you that it doesn't share with Google and on request the US government.

Google are just as bad. I've moved to a dumbphone and an IMAP mailbox at an independent company. I tried Android but that was pretty much impossible to keep control of (Moto G 2, Android 5.0)

Are you really this paranoid? You must be loads of fun at parties. It's interesting though because your British government is tracking your phone, your texts and watching you as you traverse London on CCTV. But luckily Microsoft doesn't know about your affinity for Yorkshire Terriers and love of Bass Ale.

Don't get me wrong, I value privacy, but all things in moderation, including paranoia. I personally don't think most peopke's lives are that controversial to be so concerned about their privacy that they'll avoid the grid altogether lest some lewd fact trickle out amongs the billions of other lewd facts trickling out about everyone.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#379

Post by PhantomGremlin »

bhauer wrote: post #187
slg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the resource costs would be too high to really make that worthwhile. The choice is probably between bad privacy settings, a bad personal assistant, or bad battery life and disk usage. Microsoft chose the option that would likely upset the smallest group of people.

I don't buy it. My Windows 10 machines will be Ivy Bridge, Broadwell, and soon Skylake-powered desktop processors running with gobs of excess computing capacity. Voice recognition should be feasible with this hardware, as it has been in the past with Windows 7 and Windows 8's often-ignored voice transcription feature. Furthermore, even if the performance were slightly worse, I would gladly sacrifice some performance…

processors running with gobs of excess computing capacity

You're right about the CPU. However, it's possible that good voice recognition also requires gigabytes of data. That wouldn't work so well for a tablet. Or maybe there is some custom hardware (like DSP chips) in the data center that is used? I don't know, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

I do agree with your sentiments. I'm not about to opt in to this garbage. I came of age in the era of the mainframe and I despised the lack of personal control. I won't willingly return to that. Today's cloud is just yesterday's mainframes and time-sharing by another name.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#380

Post by themeekforgotpw »

chc wrote: post #105
jimrandomh wrote: post #52

"Send typing and inking data to Microsoft to improve the recognition and suggestion platform" "Typing data" sounds like keylogging. If it's what it sounds like, that's really emphatically not okay; that would include all passwords and the contents of all emails sent. Would someone with actual knowledge care to chime in and say what data is actually sent? If it turns out that Windows 10 really is sending keystrokes to…

Based on the wording, it sounds like it's autocomplete data — "I suggested this for what they typed or handwrote, but they chose this instead." If so, it probably wouldn't include passwords (since password fields intentionally disable this kind of feature), and it shouldn't include the full contents of emails, just telemetry on how they were typed. But Microsoft really ought to have explanations so we don't have to g…

> shouldn't include the full contents of emails, just telemetry on how they were typed.

Can you explain how you got to this from what you asserted before? Autocomplete data should be more than enough to get that content.

Post reply on HN