Slashdot Mirror
Windows 10 Shares Your Wi-Fi Password With Contacts
gsslay writes: The Register reports that Windows 10 will include, defaulted on, "Wi-Fi Sense" which shares wifi passwords with Outlook.com contacts, Skype contacts and, with an opt-in, Facebook friends. This involves Microsoft storing the wifi passwords entered into your laptop which can then be used by any other person suitably connected to you. If you don't want someone's Windows 10 passing on your password, Microsoft has two solutions; only share passwords using their Wi-Fi Sense service, or by adding "_optout" to your SSID.
ahhhh no, for networks you have SELECTED to share it can do it. Wifi sense being on doesn't suddenly expose all your wifi passwords. extremely inflammatory summary. still seems a stupid risky feature, just not as dumb as those writing the Slashdot summaries.
I've been running pretty much every build of Win10 since the preview first came out, and this isn't accurate at all....Yes, the Wi-Fi sense option is there, but when you connect to a new network, there's a "share with my contacts" checkbox that you have to turn ON for this network to be shared. The Wi-Fi Sense "master switch" may be on by default, but you have to specifically allow each individual network to be shared.
The Slashdot summary is pure FUD. In the article itself you can see an image of the settings, with a large checkbox to enable/disable sharing with Outlook, Skype and Facebook independently and it also has a large slider above those where you can disable it entirely.
Your password is stored and hashed on Microsoft's servers. The hash is sent to your contacts. When they try to connect, their computer sends the hash to yours, which then checks that hash against the one on Microsoft's servers. If they match, then access is granted.