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Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#131

Post by crumbshot »

russh wrote: post #130
crumbshot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such an outrageous claim I had to check for myself. From looking at conhost.exe in IDA Pro, there are some references to telemetry in a function HandleKeyEvent: https://i.imgur.com/MwaBLcW.jpg But looking more closely it's just used to increase some counters when Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V are used: https://i.imgur.com/29e2qLD.png There is another one for Ctrl+A elsewhere in the function as well. Seems these are for wh…

But how can that be when "... the engineering lead owning conhost.exe: I can't find anything in our code that would trace user input, or data effectively derived from user input, to even a local event stream."

I think this disassembly supports their assertion. The number of times a user copies and pastes isn't in itself input to the console, just a metric of some out of band events.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#132

Post by DHowett »

russh wrote: post #130
crumbshot wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such an outrageous claim I had to check for myself. From looking at conhost.exe in IDA Pro, there are some references to telemetry in a function HandleKeyEvent: https://i.imgur.com/MwaBLcW.jpg But looking more closely it's just used to increase some counters when Ctrl+C or Ctrl+V are used: https://i.imgur.com/29e2qLD.png There is another one for Ctrl+A elsewhere in the function as well. Seems these are for wh…

But how can that be when "... the engineering lead owning conhost.exe: I can't find anything in our code that would trace user input, or data effectively derived from user input, to even a local event stream."

I mean, I suppose that the key sequences around copy/paste are technically user input. Those events get processed into telemetry as to whether they were done in processed or raw input mode, and whether Quick Edit was engaged at the time.

Additional telemetry points include whether the "Find" dialog is being used (explicitly, whether "find next" has been clicked, and how long the search string is -- no other user-generated search content is included in event logs), when a process detaches from the console, and when the window is resized.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#133

Post by romwell »

dvtrn wrote: post #26
diminish wrote: post #12

MS goes on to open source the famous and non interesting parts of its products. What's next? Notepad, Ms Paint? Shall we see anything bigger than VS Code?

"Microsoft open sources MSPaint.exe" two weeks later "Show HN: I added transparency support to MSPaint" two (more) weeks later "Adobe shares plummet as users cancel their subscriptions to Creative Cloud by the thousands, analysts baffled"

I know you joke, but in case someone has been unaware, there's Paint.NET[1], which is somewhere between MSPaint-on-steroids and Photoshop-lite.

In 7.5MB, it offers most of the features casual users need from a graphics program: layers, transparency, curves, etc. - all in a footprint (and startup time) comparable to that of MSPaint.

[1]https://www.getpaint.net/

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#135

Post by amibang »

starik36 wrote: post #45
Titanous wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's what they are actually collecting: https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator/blob/master/src/Calc...

So nothing really nefarious then.

Well it must include your IP address too, and they know the time and date is was received. And then it gets bundled with the rest of the data they collected.

I don't even want them knowing when I'm using my computer.

“What gets measured gets managed.”

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#136

Post by radgeRayden »

robin_reala wrote: post #95
mywittyname wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is true a program? I thought it was a command built into the shell.

It’s /usr/bin/true on Mac, and the OpenBSD source for it is at https://github.com/openbsd/src/blob/master/usr.bin/true/true... .

I don't know what I expected.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#137

Post by selimthegrim »

theunamedguy wrote: post #127
selimthegrim wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually pretty relevant because TI has been goofing up the cube root function in its calculators for decades.

I have a hard time believing this and can't find any details online. Source please?

I should specify I mean the ones they market to middle and high schools , TI-89, Nspire, and etc

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#138

Post by creato »

kgwxd wrote: post #93
turrini wrote: post #7

https://github.com/Microsoft/calculator#data--telemetry "This project collects usage data and sends it to Microsoft to help improve our products and services. Read our privacy statement to learn more. Telemetry is disabled in development builds by default, and can be enabled with the SEND_TELEMETRY build flag." Even on a simple calculator.

I'm just surprised it's opt-in for dev builds.

Developers use software in weird ways. I've written scripts to hit buttons thousands of times for hours on end. It makes sense that they don't want developers' janky experiments polluting data used to drive design decisions.

Re: Open-Sourcing Windows Calculator

#139

Post by narcissus »

oblio wrote: post #109
rozenmd wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can effectively disable telemetry in Android by getting Blokada from F-droid

Can it run on regular Android?

You don't need to root your phone to run Blokada, if that's what you're asking... I installed it sometime last year and as of right now, it claims to have blocked 595944 requests.
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