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Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

arstechnica.co.uk

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Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#261

Post by scholia »

Silhouette wrote: post #257
scholia wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> OK, but you were arguing that "most people seem to be very happy" with Windows 10. I suspect those people were not. Most people are happy, as far as I can tell. Clearly some are not, but if 50 million people were unhappy they'd be making a lot more noise.... >Of course, the moment a single person in your company accidentally hits share instead of don't share, your sysadmins can look forward to a fun day changing al…

Well, I'm happy for you that Windows 10 seems to meet your needs and apparently doesn't cause you any problems. But I stand by my original position that Microsoft may have misjudged the business market if their strategy is to go consumer first and aim to fix any business concerns later. (Please also remember that I'm not saying they necessarily have misjudged, I'm just saying it's a risk if that's their strategy.) Re…

> apparently doesn't cause you any problems

Not quite. It doesn't cause me any problems that I regard as unsolvable for what I get in return. Android, for example, is a much tougher proposition. That's a bigger privacy leak and the only real alternative is to go to an AOSP-based ROM.

Just using the web requires some effort (Ghostery, uBlock Origin, Google Search link fix etc).

> so I do think Microsoft has left themselves a bit of a mountain to climb.

We shall see. I expect Microsoft has actually talked to its business users, and it doesn't expect them all to defect (though, as I said, it's got until 2020 before it becomes critical).

Meanwhile...

Bank of America CTO Talks Windows 10 Plans, Security http://www.informationweek.com/strategic-cio/executive-insig...

Reilly promised a Windows 10 upgrade is on the horizon for Bank of America. "We're looking to adopt as early as we can," he said. Such a project will be a massive undertaking given the sheer multitude of Windows devices within the organization, but he appears optimistic about the process.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#262

Post by scholia »

Silhouette wrote: post #259
scholia wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The position that the software industry wants to keep changing things so everyone else should be forced to keep up whether or not it's actually in their interests is not something I can support. Oddly enough, Microsoft already tried that. They ended up with people running 14-year-old code (which cost them money both short term and long term) and a major malware problem. Check out conficker devastating businesses an…

Again, this is conflating security patches with more general updates. As a personal anecdote, the only serious malware that has ever hit any system I run, as far as I'm aware, was a zero day exploit. The system was fully patched when it was hit. In contrast, the amount of productive time I have spent over the past few years recovering from problems caused by non-security-related software updates that I didn't particu…

> Just look at the frustration of browser users with Mozilla constantly rearranging the UI or Google actively removing functionality from Chrome

Welcome to the brave new world. (Apple removing functionality as well.)

Windows 10 is moving to a continuous update process that is exactly like Gmail, Facebook and all web apps, and for exactly the same reasons.

At least this avoids the "big bang" updates that left incompetent organizations running buggy, insecure 14-year-old code. (The buggy insecure new code actually does work a lot better ;-)

> Block even knowledgeable users from choosing whether to install specific updates?

How many are of those exist? As far as I can see, the number is between very, very small and zero, and even the best know far less about updates than Microsoft (because Microsoft can see tens of millions of PCs, and it has the source code).

That very small number has a problem because Microsoft is trying to cater to a billion users who don't even pretend to such arcane knowledge.

Otherwise, there's a business branch where you can delay updates for a few months, and one where you can effectively delay them forever.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#263

Post by ajslater »

anonbanker wrote: post #224
lambda wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to be a brat, but what is the possible overlap between people caring to use Tor (for whatever reason) and people using Windows 10 as the host OS ? Journalists. There are many journalists who need to cover sensitive topics, who are not particularly technically literate. They need to be able to buy a system off the shelf, do some minimal and easy amount of installation of privacy protection, and be reaso…

The next Snowden will be caught because the next Greenwald was using Windows 10. and we'll probably never know it happened.

Which is why he had to contact Laura in the first place.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#264

Post by ptman »

scholia wrote: post #96
Silhouette wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

god forbid Microsoft try to deprecate OSs after nearly 13 years. You seem to have invented a decade. Windows 8 RTM was just over 3 years ago. Also, while I have some sympathy with both the idea that software isn't perfect and the idea that Microsoft need a viable business model, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a product like Windows 7 to come with essential support for a significant period of time, perhaps…

> I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a product like Windows 7 to come with essential support for a significant period of time, perhaps based on the expected working lifetime of devices where the software is normally installed. Under Microsoft's software lifecycle policy, operating systems are normally supported for 10 years. So, for example, we already know that support for Windows 7 ends in 2020, unless it's…

https://access.redhat.com/support/policy/updates/errata

http://linuxlifecycle.com/

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#266

Post by wfo »

RaleyField wrote: post #179
wfo wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terms and conditions as a requirement to use a product you've already purchased shouldn't ever count for anything. So I think you should trash any terms. And I'd hope in a civilized country if a company tries to use mandatory-accept 300 page terms and conditions to abuse their customers a judge would step in and say "no." And this is absolutely unexpected. That's why there's a very popular post on ars technica and ha…

> in a civilized country if a company tries to use mandatory-accept 300 page terms and conditions If you don't like 300 pages of ToS then don't buy Windows. It's your free choice. Software should be protected speech. I don't like Windows 10, but then I also think that Microsoft should have the right to write Windows however they like as long as they don't factually lie in their privacy statement and other documents.…

> It's your free choice.

No, it isn't. Very few choices in a very capitalist society are actually free, they are free in the sense that choosing to comply or not with a gun to your head is "free". Which is why regulation is necessary. Burying anything significant in a ToS is in our society meaningless, because if it actually had teeth it would be fraud.

Re: Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

#267

Post by arm »

ultramancool wrote: post #60
cmdrfred wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glasswire huh? Good stuff.

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan actually. Decided to try it out this run, but I used to run Outpost, which I liked a lot more as it could do per-host blocking and stuff. This feels more like a pretty network monitor than a real firewall.

Agreed. It is useful for monitoring things like system changes, but I wouldn’t depend on just GlassWire alone for a software firewall. In my case, I use a combination of GlassWire and NetLimiter (as mentioned here):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039125

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