How Windows 7 Knows About Your Internet Connection

An anonymous reader writes "In Windows 7, any time you connect to a network, Windows tells you if you have full internet access or just a local network connection. It also knows if a WiFi access point requires in-browser authentication. How? It turns out, a service automatically requests a file from a Microsoft website every time you connect to any network, and the result of this attempt tells it whether the connection is successful. This feature is useful, but some may have privacy concerns with sending their IP address to Microsoft (which the site logs, according to documentation) every single time they connect to the internet. As it turns out, not only can you disable the service, you can even tell it to check your own server instead."

Comments

The relevant bits

[Anonymous Coward]

It is possible to disable NCSI by a registry setting if you don’t want Microsoft to be able to check your internet connection.

* HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NlaSvc\Parameters\Internet
* Under the Internet key, double-click EnableActiveProbing, and then in Value data, type: 0.The default for this value is 1. Setting the value to 0 prevents NCSI from connecting to a site on the Internet during checks for connectivity.

Re:The relevant bits

[Dhalka226]

I'm not saying there are no problems with linux, or that it is more user-friendly than Windows in this (or any other) case, but you're hardly treating the situations equally.

For example:

Open doc versus find the doc. System-level configuration options tend to be quite well documented. How are you magically going to know where the documentation for an obscure feature is in Windows but have to look it up in linux? What the hell would you even search for? "My Windows machine seems to be pinging the Internet randomly and I want it to stop?"

Apparently "open terminal" deserves its own step, yet we're magically typing regedit. Where do we do that? Equality dictates there should be AT LEAST one more step in the Windows instructions at this stage, to open Start Menu -> Run or Ctrl-R (I think, anyway).

If you're allowed to edit system-level properties in Windows without Administrator credentials, you have an entirely different problem or, more likely, you're running as one constantly. If it's the latter, consistency once again dictates you've added an unnecessary step in the linux instructions. You're free to run linux as root if you want to vastly increase your chances of getting owned, just like you're free to do so with Windows.

b3 (sudo) and b4 (open the file) are one in the same instruction. You'll do sudo /path/to/config.file which will simultaneously get your appropriate privileges and open the file. You can have B3b if you want, subject to the above.

"Change the key as indicated" is pretty much no different than "edit as per the doc," even though you try to make it seem as if it is. In either case you're looking at documentation, finding the appropriate configuration value and changing its value. You may or may not have to add the line; if it's a feature defaulting to on, as is the situation in Windows, it will almost certainly be there. Likewise, where you add the key almost never matters other than for organizational purposes. And you have to be careful of typos either way. If the value in Windows is 0 or 1 it's likely to be the same in linux. You can fuck typing it up as easily on one system as the other.

In other words, if you're not deliberately trying to make Windows seem superior by fabricating the scenario to be simpler for Windows than linux, the steps are pretty much identical. You need to make sure the have appropriate privileges. You need to know what to edit, whether that is a key buried in the registry or a confgiruation file buried in a directory tree. You have to actually edit it, and you have to not fuck it up while you do so.

And that's without even touching the rest of your "steps," which even you admit are exaggerated.

I don't care what operating system you use; I'm not a zealout either way. I used linux for years. My PC primarily runs Windows (it has a linux distribution on a second partition that has gone from Red Hat to Gentoo to Kubuntu over the years, but it hasn't been used in several years now). I'm typing this reply on a Mac. But if you're going to make comparisons, let's be intellectually honest and make valid ones.

Re:The relevant bits

[Culture20]

Son, vi is the VIsual version of ed, the line EDitor. Try editing files with ed for a while and you'll think vi is so user friendly that you'll play first person shooters with hjkl.

Re:First thing I do when I bootup

[RoFLKOPTr]

- open task manager - goto processes - kill any programs that I don't need (like Compaq Assistant, Adobe Launcher, etc) - kill any services I don't need - make explorer High priority

It frees RAM and makes the computer run faster (less hard drive swapping). Hopefully this internet "IP recorder" service is one of those things I kill off. Although now that I know how to do it permanently, I'll do that instead.

Spoiling mod points to call you an idiot.

Start > Run > MSCONFIG

Turn off the programs and services you don't need so you don't HAVE to kill them every time you boot up, and making Explorer high priority isn't going to really do much for you.

This "IP recorder" thing is just your computer testing for an active internet connection by actually running a real DNS query and actually contacting a real server somewhere rather than assuming your internet works because the interface is up.

Re:privacy concerns? they know your IP from update

[canajin56]

And also, since Windows XP, Windows has come with an NTP client on by default, set to their time server. So they've been "spying" on your IP address for a long time!