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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."
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.
Do you get paid to post that bullshit?
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Yet another interesting obscure registry key to target for spyware-malware... the registry database is source of all evil on Windows since his creation....
It's even worse on iPad ::
Even with push notification/email/find my ipad feature turned off, it still try to connect to any known WIFI network or 3G network behind your back. (Ever wonder why you always get your wifi connection instantly right after waking it up?) You can't disable it unless you put it on an airplane mode.
Microsoft is still a bit better than Apple here. With Microsoft you can change the ping URL, the same can't be said for iPad.
iPad is the ultimate spyware.
I had wondered why each time I connect to my wireless network with my Windows machine the interactive firewall tells me svchost.exe is trying to connect to a Microsoft IP and why the icon shows limited connectivity until I load a web page (although I apparently didn't wonder enough to go find out--I just deny the requests or let them expire). Looks like I'll be making some registry changes.
... does the same thing ... it shows what type of connection you have AND will show *local only* when your connection drops or if you have full internet access ...
therefore i wouldn't be surprised to see/hear/find out that it sends that vista sends that same info to ms ...
my 2 cents
On my N900 I made a similar shellscript that outputs to a desktop widget. It tries to fetch Google.com using the domain name and via a static IP, and based on that it can tell me if the connection's totally dead, uses a captive portal, has bad DNS, or if it's a good working connection. Very handy for mooching off unsecured and public wifi. I just click a widget and know all about the connection I'm on.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If you do not trust Microsoft stop using their software or stop complaining. Privacy concerns are nothing compared to proprietary software that can be executed on your machine whenever Microsoft wants.
Seriously, I know it's hip to hate MS, but why pretend that this is spyware? It's a very nice feature. Whenever I'm traveling and trying to connect to my company VPN from a hotel or airport or restaurant or whatever, it lets me know immediately if I need to open my browser to do so. Back in the XP days, I would just spend a few minutes wondering if I mistyped the WPA key before figuring it out.
It's not like there's any personal info being transmitted. All they know is that a computer running W7 has connected to the internet with a given IP address. Not exactly the most useful information. The logs are probably only kept to help them debug the service.
You laugh at people who get tricked by those "Your computer may be broadcasting an IP address!" malware banners. Why complain about this?
Uh, Flash? Here.
Dilbert RSS feed
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=9752344&tstart=0#9752344
http://www.apple.com/library/test/success.html
those who have privacy concerns for this , no doubt happily use an iphone all day long....
They can't possibly just have a privacy concern you either agree with, disagree with, or don't care about. No, no, no that's not how we do things around here. There has to be something wrong with them too. We're trying to imply that there has to be some flaw, something wrong with someone who takes a pro-privacy position.
Your suggestion that they'd happily use another device with privacy concerns of its own would mean they're hypocrites. Yes, that will do. We'll matter-of-factly portray pro-privacy as the position of hypocrites. The very best thing about this is that it's all about emotional appeal so it's difficult to reason against it.
So difficult, in fact, that sooner or later you'll start sincerely spewing the same bullshit yourself. 'Course you won't have much time left for actually explaining why you disagree with a pro-privacy position, but for you I suppose that has its advantages. Ad hominems are great fun, aren't they?
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Are you serious? All you have to do is look at his posting history to determine that he is in fact probably *not* an astroturfing shill. Paranoid much?
That said, I thought this was obvious. The very first time I got that 'no Internet access' message, I reasoned that Windows had to determine this by connecting to a known server, certainly a Microsoft one. It's the same troubleshooting step that I take myself when diagnosing a connection failure - I login to the router and use its tools to ping google or something (to eliminate computer configuration problems).
This shouldn't be surprising, or particularly important.
privacy concerns? they know your IP from windows update!
- 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.
Shush! Don't inject logic into the discussion - let the zealots show the world how paranoia and hate infects the Linux world. After a while you realize why ordinary people don't want to use Linux if there's a risk of becoming one of these losers.
I'm all for privacy, but what is the concern with this feature? Nobody has said that it includes any identifying information in the request, so the only thing Microsoft knows is that someone behind that IP is running Windows. They can't track you (there's no way of knowing that a request the next day from a different location is from the same copy of Windows) and there's no way to map a request to a particular person or computer, so I'm struggling to think of any way the data could be used maliciously.
Just curious, does making explorer high-priority really help? I gotta think the windows process/thread scheduling algorithms would manage it pretty well behind the scenes, but if you've found something new, sweet? I always assumed whatever time-slice management they have behind the curtain would give explorer what it needs when called for, and that force prioritizing it would shaft your other processes unneeded for the fact that explorer isn't a heavy worker compared to some applications, again could be completely misguided on this one.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Oh my... you know you can do that once and for all ?
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
> This shouldn't be surprising, or particularly important.
Agreed. There is a general antipathy towards MSFT here, but this is a fairly innocuous and important thing for almost everyone. The very few people who have serious concerns about it also can use very restrictive firewalls or change a setting. No big deal.
Also, after the article referenced in this story yesterday, Microsoft could be reading my credit card and bank statements and taking daily webcam photos through my machine, and they still would not even 1% creepy, comparatively.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Doesn't Vista have this same feature?
call me FOSS im the boss with the sauce and the source
Don't Firefox and Thunderbird also call home every time they start up - or at least the log-file equivalent - when they check for updates?
Oh please! I can make that into a little .reg file and go "See this thing? Go clicky clicky and reboot" and its done, period, the end. ... Then remove the shell or mod them down so you can NOT use them! I bet the machine won't even make 6 months, and you sure as hell won't be updating the thing, because without CLI Linux falls down like a house of cards.
While I understand your point, and your frustration about the state of the various GUI environments for Linux, I really don't think that comparing a .reg file (and thus the Windows Registry) against the various Linux shells illustrates the shortcomings you think it does. For one, any CLI script could very well be turned into exactly the kind of clicky clicky executable file you mention -- with the added benefit that a Linux distro probably wouldn't need to be rebooted. Putting your metaphorical shoe on the other foot, I could just as easily say:
Then remove the registry or mod it down so you can NOT use it! I bet the machine won't even make 6 months, and you sure as hell won't be updating the thing, because without the registry Windows falls down like a house of cards.
If the CLI in and of itself is such the charlie foxtrot, why is it that Windows has been adding more and more CLI functionality with each iteration?
You should NEVER need CLI on a modern OS. The fact that Linux can't live without it just shows how far behind it is in the desktop arena. Embedded and server its great, desktop is shit.
I assume here that by "modern OS" you mean "modern desktop OS", yes? If so, it's easy enough to run a desktop Linux distro without ever touching the CLI -- Ubuntu and Canonical have seen to that, among others. But if you really want to get in there and get your hands dirty with some power user customizations, sure -- you're going to need to use the CLI, whether you're running a Linux distro, Mac OS, or even Windows.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
My Grandma uses Linux. I installed it for her, yes, but I wouldn't expect her to install Windows or any OS for that matter. I didn't have to touch the CLI to install it. I enabled auto-updates, showed her how to "open the Internet", and where the "app store" is. It's been 2 years. She "accidentally" upgraded to the next LTS release by herself, with no CLI -- A single button click...
My Brother, Uncle & Aunt all use Windows. In the same space of time, They've each gotten infected with malware at least twice, some more than others. Two of them have shelled out cold hard cash for Win7 because "it's more secure than Vista", had to take the computer to a technician to do the "upgrade" for them, and both of them have been infected with malware on for Win7.
Grandma tried to use my Uncle's computer -- She said, "Can you make the mouse less shaky, dear, I have shaky hands and I end up making the files disappear" (she means accidentally dragging them into adjacent folders) -- Gnome has drag & drop threshold... My Uncle's OS's window manager doesn't... her response: "Well, just turn it off and on again and go into the Linux." -- She was a bit upset that my Uncle B. didn't have "the Linux"... "Well why don't you have it? It doesn't cost anything, and the whole screen can zoom in when it's hard for me to read..."
She has a point -- it is free, why not have a dual boot just in case the other OS gets hosed?
My 75 year old neighbor started using Linux last year. He couldn't use a CLI to save his life. Same story as my Grandma -- Now they call me to shoot the shit, not guiltily ask me to remove malware -- My brother and uncle have both asked me to install Linux on their computers at the father's day family get together.
Please -- Stop spreading FUD. If these barely computer literate people can use Linux just as well as they can use Windows, I don't see what all the fuss is about.
I always wonder when one of you idiots is going to pounce on some pro-Linux post and accuse the poster of being a shill so everyone can see how perceptively cynical you are. I expect I'll be waiting a while.
Didn't we just see an article where it was decided that IPs don't map to people? http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/05/03/2020205/An-IP-Address-Does-Not-Point-To-a-Person-Judge-Rules
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Google makes most of their money off giving their users as little privacy as possible so their targeted ads become even more valuable to advertisers.
Microsoft makes most of their money by making people and organisations pay for using their software. They could care less about digging clients private information. Bing is a bit of a different story, but bing is just a small division inside microsoft that has very little connection with windows division, which is what we're talking about here.
Aforementioned difference in income models makes for all the difference in the world when it comes to being a threat to privacy.
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!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
Because MicroSoft can map it to to a MSN account, Skype account or software or service registration they have on you as well. Once they can do that, they can map your traveling with your windows device and essentially know exactly where you drink your coffee, go for business and all that. Maybe it's not automatically considered proof in a court room anymore, but who said legal proof is ever required for invasion of privacy?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
If you value your privacy, it's better to pay for your software instead of selling your privacy to marketers in return, like with Chrome OS.
I'd be suprised if you were to tell me that Linux, BSD (particularly OpenBSD), or any other fully open OS is breaching your privacy.
ordinary people don't want to use Linux if there's a risk of becoming one of these losers.
Yes, that must be it...
If you customized the url to your own personal server this could be very helpful in tracking down a stolen laptop.
Shh! Stop saying it's old! It's one of the features of Windows that actually WORKS! :)
(I kid, I kid...) But I hate Steve Ballmer.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
How can somebody be a shill for Linux? It's free. You might find a few fanboys but, shills? No. Microsoft, on the other hand has a history of paying people to shill their products.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
They also don't know it's *your* IP address. For God's sake, all they're doing is acquiring a list of IP addresses that have Windows 7 installed. That's not particularly revealing information.
Made a .reg file for a lazy friend of mine.. basically, it just reroutes the requests to my server instead, as he trusts me more than microsoft, heh.
Feel free to use it, if you want, or edit it to fit your own preferences.
http://www.jarmund.net/stuff/JarmundNCSI.reg
I take no responsibility, etc...
PS: I'm slightly less evil than google.
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
You forgot to warn everyone about the windows clock! It talks to a Microsoft server without ever telling you. Your right to private timekeeping is being grossly violated by this so-called "feature." Microsoft will never admit it, but they're secretly keeping logs of all your time drifts so that they can sell--"personalize"--your data to everyone. To protect your privacy, delete your clock and replace it with the secure Rolex Timekeeper. Rolex's privacy policy explicitly says that they will NEVER give your current local time to anyone, and best of all, you can examine the Rolex internals yourself and verify that it's security and that it NEVER talks to Microsoft. Best of all, Rolex does not need monthly updates like Microsoft's products, so you can be assured that even if Rolex ceases support, your Rolex Timekeeping device will continue to function securely and reliably. Remember folks, when it comes to privacy, trust Rolex, not Microsoft!
MS has LONG been using our information. And they SELL IT TO HIGHEST BIDDER. You can get information about MS's customers if you pay them (name, addr, and phone). OTH, Google will NOT give you the information that you want (say name, addr, phone). They WILL use the data to target ads at you, but then again, so does Apple, MS, Yahoo, amazon, e-bay, etc.
More to the point, so does Canonical when you run apt-get update. Indeed, they probably actually analyze the logs "in order to catch abusive clients". See, I can make repository maintainers look scary by putting their perfectly valid reasoning in quotes.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
If it didn't connect to a Microsoft server to test connectivity, somebody would be screaming about the hundred million pings per day they were receiving.
Windows also connects to Microsoft's time server. There are many other time servers, but most of them aren't sized for hundreds of millions of connections per day.
My computer is leaking my IP Address to internet! Not a big deal, there are a whole lot of other services: Windows Update, Time Syching (most people will have that on), Weather (some people), 8000 different software update checks etc. If you are paranoid about your system checking if you can pull a file from an MS server, then disconnect your machine from the net, because everything else is going to scare the hell out of you.
You do know there are companies that sell Linux products, including Linux support, right? You can shill anything that makes someone money. Shit, you can shill free stuff you developed for ego gratification if you really want.
As much as I am concerned about Microsoft collecting statistics about me, I am more worried about this text file. What are the chances that Windows actually interprets this file when retrieved? What are that chances that it can be used as a remote command? Of course Microsoft would never do such a thing (..) but it is technically possible.
They have a database with all IP addresses. If they are able to link it to you, they may be able to send you a different file with a different command. They may be able to identify you by triggering a non-standard GET from you. Which may include your license key. Or other information from you. They may even be able to instruct your computer to do things behind your back. And they may even be able to use this as a universal kill switch.
But I trust they will never do such a thing...
To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
There is a very simple answer to all privacy concern: Just convince Apple, Redhat, Google that all Macs, Linux machines, iOS and Android devices should implement the same functionality by accessing the exact same file, using the exact same request byte for byte as Windows 7 does.
That way, Microsoft gets _everyone's_ IP address, but there is no information content anymore. All that they would know is that the IP address exists. Today they know that the IP address is using Windows 7; that information would evaporate.
It's mildly annoying. When a proxy is blocking people from browsing the web at certain times every Win7 user on site gets this message and to start with they were ringing me up to tell me there were network problems. I expect they will do it again each time they come back from holidays.
As for the blocking policy - I know it is stupid and an actual brake on productivity but management were getting pissed off by seeing a few people on Facebook all day. My solution would have been to redirect everyone going there at work to some site that would scar them for life so it's probably just as well squid is being used to block access at certain hours instead.
Using http to check connectivity seems a bit heavy handed and implies ignorance of just about everything in networking - but remember that way back Microsoft was the company infamous for not even being able to get "ping" right even when they were handed the source code for free.
Or you could just use the Group Policy Editor and achieve the same thing without faffing about...
Yeah, I had a sig once; I got bored of it.
It took this long for people to figure this out? Did network sniffers go out of style or something?
Who uses their own IP for Windows Update? Who even updates direct from the Microsoft servers?
You can easily turn it off or even change what url it requests.
If easy is defined as either finding some obscure MS documentation or searching the registry.......
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
The pattern is obvious to anyone with half a brain: First post by a non subscriber, often much too long to beat the usual "FP!!!" nonsense. Usually tries to make a positive comment about MS (sometimes lumping them in with other companies to hide the obviousness of the shilling) and a negative comment about it's competitors (namely Google, sometimes lumped in with Apple/Linux) and complete with links to stories. There are several other users in the 2 million+ UID recently that have the exact same pattern. If you watch too, his comment will get modder to +4 or +5 in a matter of minuteswith less than a half dozen posts on the story, before it eventually gets modded back down where it belongs by the real mods. This is indicative of someone using multiple accounts to mod themselves up.
These shills have been outed several times. Hell, even Facebook JUST admitted to trying to pay bloggers through a PR firm to smear Google.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/may/12/facebook-pr-firm-google
This isn't paranoia, it's fucking happening and you're proud of your willfull ignorance. You do realize MS is an investor in FB, right? And that they are still a client of Burson-Marsteller:
Burson-Marsteller is no stranger to anti-Google stories. In 2007, Microsoft admitted that it had an "ongoing relationship" with the firm, which had been lobbying a number of top UK businesses to raise the issue of Google's dominance in search.
And they have been known for this in the past: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2001-08-23-microsoft-letters.htm
And they are also targeting Google heavily in the phone and search market especially with threatened lawsuits.
So, yeah, a quick glance at a posting history means jack all when someone who knows what they are doing would try and mix normal comments in with the shilling. But you look at the consistent themes on particular topics, the ability to land FPs with prepared essasy with links, and you realize what you're looking at is clearly astroturfing.
Personally I dont give a shit about Linux, and use Windows and Macs mostly, but I do give a shit when people are paid to shape the conversation. And you should too. It's not tin foil hat stuff when they have ADMITTEDLY paid bloggers to do this.
I hear Microsoft sells the information to advertisers for a tidy sum. As an astroturfer can you prove that wrong?
just the fact that the destination is editable makes me wonder how many windows machines are reporting information to botnet owners using this "feature".
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Who uses their own IP for Windows Update? Who even updates direct from the Microsoft servers?
Home users and home users.
Any more questions with obvious answers that I can answer for you?
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
IBM was directly questioned by the judge during the SCO trial if they were paying Pamela Jones. They denied this. If they were, you can bet your bottom dollar that SCO would have found the smoking gun and ran to the judge to tell him about it. Judges hate liars and this would have severely tarnished IBM's credibility in his eyes. This didn't happen. PJ is no shill.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
If you developed it it's hardly being a shill. It's called promotion.
how is babby formed?
+1 if you follow your beliefs instead of $, the $ will follow, potentially in greater numbers.
how is babby formed?
http://www.conditions.in.ua/
Yes! It's true! And once they have everyone's IP address documented they're going to ... !! They'll be able to ... !!
What exactly is it they're going to do with our IP addresses?
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
It isn't 'astroturfing' if it is simply objectively wrong, and it isn't 'astroturfing' is it is subjectively disagreeable.
To dismiss a post as astroturfing or trolling because one disagrees with it is not a fair way to hold a discussion.
Or, he/she's someone who prefers Microsoft to Google?
So, assuming the person above was in fact 'astroturfing', your objection is not that they were bending the truth, exaggerating, mis-representing facts, etc. but merely that they are financially benefiting from it.
If they astroturfed for MS for free would it be OK?
I work as a software developer for linux. I've been running linux for a decade. Some things still don't work properly and it's mostly related to hardware support.
I recently got a new laptop for the family and then work upgraded my business laptop. Both of them use a touchpad that doesn't have proper linux support because the vendor doesn't want to release the specs. Thus when running Linux all the fancy multi-touch gestures don't work, horizontal scrolling doesn't work, and I can't configure sensitivity, tap-to-click, disable-when-typing, etc.
Similarly, multi-monitor support is kind of flaky. It doesn't remember which outputs I was using so X always starts up using the laptop display even when it's in a dock.
Lastly, the wireless networking manager in KDE can't connect to a wireless access point that isn't broadcasting its SSID. You need to enable broadcast, configure the network, then disable broadcast again. This is fine when it's your own network, but if it's not yours this is a real pain.
Shit, you can shill free stuff you developed for ego gratification if you really want.
how is babby formed?
You can easily turn it off
Well it doesn't appear to be that easy (from the article): ...
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.