Vista is Watching You

greengrass writes "Are you using Windows Vista? Then you might as well know that the licensed operating system installed on your machine is harvesting a healthy volume of information for Microsoft. In this context, a program such as the Windows Genuine Advantage is the last of your concerns. In fact, in excess of 20 Windows Vista features and services are hard at work collecting and transmitting your personal data to the Redmond company."

Comments

Re:This is my single biggest push to free software

[brunascle]

It's really all come down to games for me. If my games would all run on Linux I'd be there tomorrow.

this is the reason my desktop is still XP also. it's become not much more than a gaming console. but you'd be surprised how many good, native linux games there are. i was (recently). check out the linux gamers live cd.

Re:Why do Open Information People Care?

[pandrijeczko]

In fact, I'd bet there's MORE applications on Linux that send your private information back to some web server somewhere, just because Linux sockets are easier to write for than their Windows cousins and so Linux has and will always have a lead over networking for developers.

Let's assume for one moment that what you are saying is correct (although I don't believe for one moment that it is), then since these are independent applications, then it's very easy to disable or uninstall them if you don't like them phoning home. So, pray tell, how would you do this in Windows where the "phoning home" is being done by a stealth application that's running as part of the intrinsic underlying OS.

Also, you're turning this into a "Windows vs Linux" discussion which is an overly simplistic viewpoint. Open Source applications are subject to constant peer review meaning that any suspicious "phoning home" would be rapidly identified and brought out into public attention. I can't comment on YaST as I don't use SuSE Linux but I suspect, as a commercial entity, they are interested in user information but since there are a myriad of Open Source applications that run on Windows also, this is more a case of Open vs Closed Source, not Windows vs Linux.

So, you might charaterize things less harshly as follows : Linux tries to let you keep your personal information private but all of your work product is public, and Windows keeps all of your work product private but your personal information is public.

Sorry, but that's utter trash. Aside from stability, "free beer" and customisability, the main reason I use Linux as my primary OS choice is that it allows *ME* to take responsibility for protecting *MY* information and does not allow me to dump that responsibility into the hands of some private entity.

I am one of the first people to volunteer to take part in surveys and information gathering excercises because when I am *ASKED* to provide information and have the choice of what information to and not to provide, it can be very useful to someone who is designing or marketting a product or service. But I am *NOT* going to let someone just take that information - and if that means never using Vista then so be it...

Re:Egomanical monitoring of the populace?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

The point being made earlier in the thread was that this doesn't always work, because the IP addresses for certain services (Windows Update is one, IIRC) are hard-coded and the hosts file is never checked by Windows when resolving these addresses.

Re:This is my single biggest push to free software

[Tony Hoyle]

HP drivers are pathetic. The printer driver for my printer is a 600mb minimum install (the 'enhanced' software is another 500mb). Every 3 or 4 minutes a console window flashes on the screen - their phone home software is a console app and they haven't even bothered to hide the window.

Oh and that's just for the printer.. the scanner part of the driver is nonfunctional on vista (despite the driver being the latest vista driver), and the whole thing won't install on OSX (a small (for them) 250mb driver) because they stopped supporting it after 10.4.2 and it's hardcoded to reject a version higher than that.

For a while now I've been telling people to avoid HP like the plague because their drivers are is spyware infested bug ridden crap.

If you read what he said, you'd see

[DigitalReverend]

He works in an FDA regulated environment, not works for the FDA. There are several companies that are heavily regulated by the FDA. I used to work for a pharmaceutical research company and almost every piece of software requires some kind of validation in order to protect no only the the pharmaceutical companies, but also the patients as well.

  While most IT environments can install Patches and Service Packs and Updates at will, this is not the case for FDA regulated companies. The update or patch will be installed on a system that has no access to any real data, each step of the installation is documented down to each mouse click complete with screen shots, then the installation is performed following that document by a person who didn't write the initial instructions, and they will then take screen shots of their installation. Then once it has passed the installation steps, then there are instructions written up for each thing that needs to be tested and validated, that is also complete with screen shots, and each mouse click and keyboard entry. Those instructions are sent to someone else who goes through each step, and takes screen shots along the way, and if that passes, it can then go on to production where the installation is performed, with screen shots, and a final series of tests, with screen shot is also done. All the documents are printed out as the FDA hasn't completely allowed electronic storage.

So where the normal IT guy clicks download/install and maybe makes a log of it. A simple windows update in an FDA regulated environment will produce a mountain of paperwork. If anything along the line has the potential of revealing any confidential information against FDA regulations, then the software will be rejected. Vista at this point has been rejected so far.