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

531–540 of 596 posts

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#531

Post by pjc50 »

leeleelee wrote: post #391

May I ask...to those who are so deeply opposed to sharing your personal data with corporations and their partners: Let's assume, worst case scenario -- you enable every single data sharing option on your Android phone as well as let's say, Windows desktop. And you use chrome browser, logged in, etc. All the time. Now, the question is: explain to me, what you expect to be the negative outcome and how it affects your d…

It's rather like stopping paying for your health (or other) insurance. If I don't have it, it probably has no effect on my daily life. All the things I need it for are things that may happen in the future.

Information once leaked is very hard to recover and may have a deleterious effect on your career. Just ask Hulk Hogan.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#532

Post by saiya-jin »

nsns wrote: post #76
aluhut wrote: post #30

I like how they put that "Customize Settings" Link down there. I missed it the first time I did it completely. Nice job design devils.

How exactly did we reach a stage when this is acceptable behavior for respectable company? Such shady practices should have never become mainstream.

it is not acceptable, just some people here favor their little convenience (ie saying something instead of few taps on screen) over long term privacy. heck, some even defend targeted ads. Sad thing is, mainstream users won't even know about these things coming.

what i like about the situation - it might actually make some bigger organizations turn away from what MS can offer. biggest issue are usually Win-only or IE-only intranet apps, but with proper management steering, changes (in the way technology for apps is chosen) can be done. Now just to have proper substitute for Active directory, and it's game over for their OS there.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#533

Post by freehunter »

johnchristopher wrote: post #466
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 can see why some people might not, and to be fair I use Linux on my work laptop because the work I do demands it. I would never put my client data on a Windows machine. How do you handle business e-mail ? Only on the linux laptop ? Is the windows device only for personal and entertainment purposes ?

Correct. I have all my work stuff on my work laptop and the Windows desktop is just for Netflix and games and reddit and stuff that happens when I'm done with work. In fact I can't even have business emails on my personal computer because you need to be connected to my work's VPN to get email and you can't connect to the VPN with Windows without getting in serious trouble.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#534

Post by arm »

If these are still the defaults for the $199 boxed version of Windows 10 Pro (including all the things like ads in the OS), I’ll be pretty disappointed. OS X is free as well (and has been for years), but Apple hasn’t pulled crap like putting ads in the OS (probably at least partly because it’s nontrivial to run OS X without buying Apple hardware… all the more reason to be disappointed if Microsoft still includes tracking and ad crap when you’re actually paying for the OS).

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#535

Post by pjc50 »

FireBeyond wrote: post #345
batou wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually in the UK it is covered by the Data Protection Act. Interesting times ahead. If you knowingly or unknowningly give personal information away without my consent this is illegal.

I would challenge you to show something conclusive that states that I am forbidden by law from stating "I know this person. His name is batou." while pointing at you.

Doing this as a person is fine. Storing and processing that information on a computer is covered by the DPA.

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio...

Refers to Schedule 2: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/schedule/2

Additionally, there are "Sensitive" personal data: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/29/section/2

So if someone were to ask your computer "Do you know any trade unionists?" and it were to reply "I know this person. His name is batou.", and you weren't covered by the Schedule 3 exceptions, that would be an offence. This is an attempt at preventing employment blacklists.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#536

Post by hussong »

yAnonymous wrote: post #472
niyogi wrote: post #248

It's too bad that microsoft continues to be villainized when companies like Facebook and Google have social networks and browsers respectively that have similar practices that users are even more unaware of when they use them. Computers these days have become thin clients for browsers (especially for the typical consumer). Except for the occasional open of Word or Excel, you're in your web browser browsing the web an…

So we should stop criticizing Microsoft, because Facebook, Apple and Google are not criticized enough? That's some pre-school logic.

Obviously, people (especially knowledgeable ones) should be consistent in their evaluation of privacy issues across services. Grandparent gives good examples of potentially under-discussed issues. No one said we should "stop" doing anything.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#537

Post by wpietri »

johnchristopher wrote: post #467
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…

> But like I can see your side of the argument, you have to be able to see that some other people want personalization and learning and all that. Pandora and Apple Music are both heavily tailored that way. Google Now on your phone knows everything you do. Netflix can find videos for you to watch based on what you've watched before. Amazon will recommend purchases to you based on what you like. Hell, half the people o…

> Apple, Google, MS and others could deliver the same products [...] without sacrificing privacy [..]

Could they? My amateur understanding is that a lot of today's success in machine learning is due mainly to having enormous amounts of data to work with.

When I look at Google Now, for example, I can't imagine a way to build it without collecting an ocean of detailed personal data. Or your example of finding common behaviors and having computers do the right thing: that gets much, much easier if you have the daily behavior data of 10m people so you can start extracting concepts like "typical morning routine", testing recognizers for that, and having them not do anything in low-confidence situations.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#538

Post by wpietri »

mondoshawan wrote: post #411
bittercynic wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument "Don't use it if you don't like it." certainly applies to many things, but when a company gets to the scale of Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc, the context is not the same. It seems reasonable to hold these behemoths to a higher standard than scrappy startups.

This argument is specious at best. We must hold all parties involved to the same level of standard as any, at all levels because a breach of trust at any size is seriously damaging to the consumer. It doesn't matter about the size of the Corp.

It does matter for a couple of reasons.

One is having approximately equivalent alternatives. If something is wrong with a particular kind of chewing gum, I can easily switch to the next brand over. But when that's not the case, standards should be higher, because normal market forces no longer constrain players in the same way.

The other is the size of the potential impact. If one corner-store merchant keeps their credit card receipts in a box under the counter, it's a much smaller problem than, say, Target or Home Depot keeping them in a poorly secured network.

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#539

Post by AlexandrB »

rhino369 wrote: post #383
codeshaman wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you explain PRISM and similar revelations about surveilance and spying ? The corporation itself might behave like an angel, but there are agencies which can force it to open or install backdoors. Given that the number of such requests is relatively small, the probability of it being detected is low and even if the victim does notice it, then the corp can always say - "they twisted our hands".

As far as I can tell, PRISM was about getting access to data the company was already keeping. So the NSA would get your Google Location data, but only if you were giving to Google. As far as I know, the NSA hasn't made someone collect it anyway. Legally, the heart of the NSA legal basis is the 3rd party doctrine that states that data held by a third party isn't private. It would be a very illegal search to have Micro…

> Even if the NSA hacked your windows install, they won't find any plans to blow up the Sears tower and then go about their business.

This is just a restating of "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear". That's already been discussed recently [1] already so I won't re-tread.

> Compared to risk that a car accident will destroy your existance, who cares about this tiny risk.

Because it's not about the risk, it's about the intellectual climate the situation creates. Notice that because of car accidents there is a lot of focus on car safety, stopping drunk drivers, texting while driving, etc?

Surveillance is like that. As in a panopticon [2], when there's a chance you're being surveilled, certain conversations and ideas feel dangerous. Sometimes because they're antiestablishment but other times just because you're worried they'll be misconstrued. The net effect is censorship through fear.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869755

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Re: I noticed some disturbing privacy defaults in Windows 10

#540

Post by rakoo »

jda0 wrote: post #84
JoshTriplett wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of which could be done locally. There's certainly no shortage of processing power available to do so. All of those services have APIs.

Josh, maybe you don't get how difficult Speech Recognition is now that it comes as standard in your smartphone, but they use Google/Apple (delete as appropriate) servers for a reason. There's a reason people were amazed at the response time of Cortana - local speech recognition that doesn't hog the processor is a big deal. And connecting to O365 calendars offline? Is that not a stupid concept?

> And connecting to O365 calendars offline? Is that not a stupid concept?

Did we enter a new era where using your calendar offline is considered a special case ? I would assume there are few people who actively modify the same calendar, and it's pretty easy to tell a user when they modify a calendar offline meaning that it's not synchronized on other devices; is there really a need for making calendars online first ?

Post reply on HN