Microsoft To Add A Black Box To Windows

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft plans to add the software equivalent of a 'black box' flight recorder to Windows. According to the article, 'The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created.'" Commentary available via C|Net as well.

Comments

Re:What's In Your Box?

[ackthpt]

The accumulation of diagnostic data isn't the real concern, it's the transfer to external sources. I question the legality of sending document data if, for example, it contains protected heathcare information (as many of my documents do) it may violate HIPAA.

Which is an excellent point. So where does this diagnostic data go?

Suppose I was some insensitive clod sitting around a computer lab at school, experimenting with my wargame stuff, trying to figure out whether the US could invade India or China, in some far-fetched scenario and my process died... next thing you know someone sifting through debugging data in Bangalore or Shanghai gets the idea that the US has the Theo Roosevelt off the coast just for that actual and imminent purpose and it gets forwarded to all the necessary wrong parties ...

Or maybe closer to the pocket book, didn't we just see something in the news about some outsourcing thing in India playing around with people's bank accounts in New York? Can't find the story right now...

Shouldn't that be illegal?

[ankhcraft]

Or is it already?

If sending your computer's configuration to Microsoft in the background was found to be illegal by the courts back in the Win95 days...

Wouldn't sending configuration information PLUS document contents be considered illegal today?

I mean, come on now, this couldn't possibly be happening, and out in the open to boot?