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Actually saw this developed last year by this guy https://habrahabr.ru/post/2684... via http://hackaday.com/2015/10/10...

Reading through the long Reddit thread, it looks as if the "telemetry" call saves the telemetry data locally; it does not seem to export it. So it's hard to call it "inserting backdoors".
From https://www.reddit.com/r/cpp/c...

[–]flashmozzg 68 points 1 month ago
Apparently it's only VS15 feature. It logs at least when your app is executed. You can access logs via logman and tracerpt. Some investigation was done here recently: (lang: Russian) https://habrahabr.ru/post/2813...

[–]sammiesdog[S] 30 points 1 month ago
Are the logs a local feature (i.e. stays on the user's computer)?
And can it be disabled?

[–]flashmozzg 29 points 1 month ago
Seems to be that way. At least right now they only keep main invoked/returned, exit/abort called and such. Nothing serious.
The suggested way to disable it is adding this to your project:

extern "C"
{
        void _cdecl __vcrt_initialize_telemetry_provider() {}
        void _cdecl __telemetry_main_invoke_trigger() {}
        void _cdecl __telemetry_main_return_trigger() {}
        void _cdecl __vcrt_uninitialize_telemetry_provider() {}
};

Well, here in Moscow area they tell that speeding cameras (the actual boxes on the streets, not the desktop in the police department) run Windows XP. Presumably unpatched, because OS updates must be "certified" by the Russian NSA, and the agency just doesn't think "up-to-date" is a word. The media reported these computers were hacked in February 2013. And then they reported that in January 2014 the second time. Haven't received a single speeding ticket since the second news.

And, well, what's with the data? The media didn't even think about that. I even skimmed the comments (in Russian; Google translate is really bad at informal language) on the most popular "news for Russian-speaking nerds" site: a small thread on possible tampering and validity of tickets (well, no one thinks the court is likely to take this seriously, end of thread), but nobody seems to give a fuck about possible data leak.

There is a post (in Russian) that explains Yandex's position better.

It's quite long-winded, but boils down to the fact that several phone manufacturers were told that they will be globally denied access to Google services if they ship a Russian regional version with Yandex's competing services pre-installed.

It's not just a matter of "in Russia, choose between having Google Play / Google services and Yandex", but "try to pre-install competitors in one market and we won't give you Google Play access anywhere".

Is it this page? They even disassembled the firmware where the string is used.

No, the habraabr page is dated yesterday. It is about the same blog posting that we are discussing here.

"A quick Google for the âoexmlset_roodkcableoj28840ybtideâ string turns up only a single Russian forum post from a few years ago, which notes that this is an âoeinteresting lineâ inside the /bin/webs binary. Iâ(TM)d have to agree."

Is it this page? They even disassembled the firmware where the string is used.

All common programming languages are based on English, but are really their own languages.

For example, here is a programming blog post in Russian with some Java code mixed in. You don't have to understand Russian to "get" the joke, but you do have to speak Java.

http://habrahabr.ru/post/153225/

For whoever can read Russian: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/telecom/129943/ For those who can't - "Marina Akulich, blog-secretary of MTS, this is an official company comment - at this time company does not prohibit using any VoIP services such as Skype and the likes. Obviously, installation of such software is not blocked an all corresponding services are granted at full scale. The issue came out of Comstar-Direct (probably an acquisition done by MTS) company who did not have a license to provide voice communications over Internet (translator: that's a weird case of Russian licensing to you). All customer agreements are being updated now and this paragraph will be removed from all new version of such agreements". Bottom line: corporate SNAFU.

That's correct and here is a comment (in Russian) by an MTS representative

there is no ban from MTS. there was a mistake: this is an old version of Agreement from subsidiary. nobody looks in Agreement. proof: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/telecom/129943/

I was just reading about one of those @ http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/DIY/116659/#habracut

It's not Soviet , it's French ! It's a PERICOLOR-1000 system with a software translated to Russian. They used to buy hardware and software in the West and change it a bit(translate) and present it as one developed internally in some scientific institute. Here is the discussion in Russian: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/history/107465/

the average user just doesn't give a shit and is unwilling if not incapable of tweaking the OS to accomplish otherwise simple tasks.

Absolutely. You've hit the nail right on the head. 95% of users out there are not going to RTFM, will not open the command prompt, and will not edit a config file. Not because they're stupid, or lazy - but because it's not their job. And the sooner developers realize this, the better.

It's not a question of "how can we make the stupid users figure out that 1% of the application experience so we don't have to code a step-by-step GUI configuration util for it?", it's a question of "how do we understand that the secretary/doctor/lawyer/manager *expects* the machine to work just like every other machine in his/her universe?".

The problem is not that the average office user / home user is stupid. The problem is that they're used to their coffee-maker, microwave, fax machine, and calculator being 100% operational out-of-the-box, and the computer should not be any different.

There is a significant difference in the mentality of Joe Q. User and Jim Q. Developer when it comes to the question of what's acceptable in a computer application, and until we IT professionals suspend our hubris for a minute and try to work out a solution that "just plain works", we'll keep running into the same brick wall and wondering why it's still there.

Of course, this is IMHO, YMMV, and so on.

P.S. Someone mentioned a dearth of audio software for Linux. Here's a small list: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/sound_and_music/59815/#habracut
Google Transation: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fhabrahabr.ru%2Fblogs%2Fsound_and_music%2F59815%2F%23habracut&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=