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A Naysayer's Take On Windows 10: Potential Privacy Mess, and Worse
Lauren Weinstein writes: I had originally been considering accepting Microsoft's offer of a free upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. After all, reports have suggested that it's a much more usable system than Windows 8/8.1 — but of course in keeping with the 'every other MS release of Windows is a dog' history, that's a pretty low bar. However, it appears that MS has significantly botched their deployment of Windows 10. I suppose we shouldn't be surprised, even though hope springs eternal. Since there are so many issues involved, and MS is very aggressively pushing this upgrade, I'm going to run through key points here quickly, and reference other sites' pages that can give you more information right now. But here's my executive summary: You may want to think twice, or three times, or many more times, about whether or not you wish to accept the Windows 10 free upgrade on your existing Windows 7 or 8/8.1 system.
Now that we're into the first week of widespread availability for the new version, if you're a Windows user and upgrader, has your experience been good, horrible, or someplace between?
It's also enabled by default if you don't customize your installation settings and in a nutshell, does the following:
- uploads a supposedly-encrypted form of your wireless AP's password to a Microsoft server for safe-keeping
- when enabled, shares your wireless password with anyone on your Facebook, Outlook or Skype contact lists who also has it enabled
- also automatically joins you onto hotspots that your contacts share, regardless of how they are secured.
I'm beginning to understand how Microsoft can afford to offer the "new and improved" Windows as a free upgrade for a year, I'm guessing the military and surveillance agency contracts have more than paid the bill.
The OS farms your information? That's it, I'm going back to my Chromebook and Android tablet.
Maybe it was just poorly written, but it doesn't seem like she has any specific complaints.
Then there was the odd bit about how she trusts Google, so it's okay for them to collect vast amounts of information about her.
Why is this here?
Required reading for internet skeptics
Solitaire was originally put in Windows to train users how to use a mouse.
It now functions to train users on how to find free alternatives to the software they want.
Ideology: A tool used primarily to avoid the bother of thinking.
The OS farms your information? That's it, I'm going back to my Chromebook and Android tablet.
Google thanks you for your personal data and promises it will not be evil, perhaps just naughty.
Don't try to upgrade from Windows Update. Just don't. It'll fail. Something is borked with the download process. It'll probably be fixed in a week (or even today, maybe), but for now, to be on the safe side, just go to this link - https://www.microsoft.com/en-u... and download the ISO. Then burn it to a DVD or install it onto a USB drive of sufficient capacity, and away you go. Not sure if it would work if you mounted it to a virtual drive, but worth a try.
I updated 3 systems (a 3 year old desktop, a 2 year old laptop with hybrid graphics, and a virtual machine in VMware on a 4 year old craptop) and did not have any upgrade issues. The only problem I had was on my desktop, where I would occasionally get a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSOD when viewing the start menu, until I updated my AMD Catalyst drivers to the latest on the AMD site.
Some more pitfalls:
- If you have exotic or rare network cards, graphics cards or printers, you may want to hold off to see if people with your hardware have similar problems. .NET framework, kernel, or other things like that? You should probably not attempt an upgrade, especially if the vendor/developer of these changes is not a well-known commercial entity with an established footprint.
- Is your GPU (graphics card, whether it's on the CPU, on the motherboard, or an expansion card) *more than* 4 years old? If so, you may have some problems, especially if it's by Intel.
- Do you have any programs installed which install custom software into the OS kernel ("kernel modules" / "drivers")? Things like: virtualization software (VMware, Virtual Box), VPN software (OpenVPN, SSL VPN clients, etc.), certain audio / video production software, etc? If you see anything in Device Manager that isn't actually a piece of hardware and sounds like it's associated with a program you have, chances are good that the answer is "yes". You should really consider uninstalling these programs before you upgrade to reduce the potential for incompatibility in the kernel. Then you can try to install them after the upgrade is complete, where the driver will hopefully fail to load "gracefully" and error out of the installer if it turns out to be incompatible.
- Is your system *extremely* "hacked up", with extensive deep-running customizations to the UI,
Summary: If you have a computer that was purchased new with current-gen hardware within the past 4 years, and you don't have anything more than web browsers, office programs, and games installed, you should have no problems upgrading. If you have a much older computer, your risk of breakage is higher. If you have deep customizations to the OS, your risk of breakage is higher. If you're in doubt, hold off until others with similar configurations try it first and report their results. But for the love of God, use the ISO, not Windows Update, to upgrade.
Yes, lets run down the arguments in the article:
"It's obvious from my email today that this icon and MS pitch alone are confusing many users."
Ok, this actually has nothing to do with Windows 10 itself. It's a valid point as far as it goes, but how exactly was MS supposed to inform the affected users that the Windows 10 update was available?
"If you decide you do not wish to upgrade to Win10 now, you may want to get rid of that notification. MS doesn't tell you how (surprise!) and the procedure can range from relatively simple to "a real mess" "
Again, not actually about Windows 10. In fact it's about how to avoid Windows 10, which MS wants people to see as simply another update a la "Update Tuesday", though granted a major one.
"Many users -- especially on somewhat under-powered systems -- may find Win10 to be a painfully slow experience compared with Win7, irrespective of MS' claims."
Big citation needed. There's no evidence that Windows 10 performs worse on low power systems and there's significant evidence that it performs better.
"Worse, some functionalities important to many users are missing. If you use Windows Media Center -- that's gone from Win10. DVD playback is currently problematic."
I guess I don't know about this one. I do know I was able to play DVD's on the technical previews without issue.
"And here's a biggy. If you don't want Microsoft installing updates automatically -- if you're a user who has chosen to take control of this process up to now -- you probably will hate Win10."
Ok, here we have arguably the first real problem. MS has botched Windows updates in the past. Being able to block them and roll them back is how those situations have been limited and fixed. Lumping drivers into this forced upgrade schedule... as a laptop user this makes me nervous. Laptop drivers can be quite finicky and I don't always blindly trust newer versions when they land.
"In some environments, this is unacceptable from a support and security standpoint, and reports are already coming in regarding driver related issues."
Going back to FUD again... the automatic, unblockable upgrades only applies to Home users. If you're using Home editions in a corporate environment you're gonna have a bad time. It's also probably against your license agreement and can land you in trouble (right or not) with the licensing boards.
"The details are buried down in the new Win10 privacy policy/user agreement, but the bottom line is that by default Win10 will be sending a lot of your data from your computer to Microsoft that they never had access to before." (Data syncing by default)
We're back on track! This is a real issue potentially. I'd prefer this were more explicitly spelled out during install and the user given more fine grained control over things. Sending all your docs and data to a 3rd party by default without informed consent should be illegal IMO. The fact that you can turn the features off mitigates things, but doesn't really solve them.
Just a small part of the EULA (there's lots of other juicy parts):
Usage and connectivity data. Microsoft regularly collects basic information about your Windows device including usage data, app compatibility data, and network and connectivity information. This data is transmitted to Microsoft and stored with one or more unique identifiers that can help us recognize an individual user on an individual device and understand the device's service issues and use patterns.
The data we collect includes:
The software (including drivers and firmware supplied by device manufacturers), installed on the device.
App use data for apps that run on Windows (including Microsoft and third party apps), such as how frequently and for how long you use apps, which app features you use most often, how often you use Windows Help and Support, which services you use to sign into apps, and how many folders you typically create on your desktop.
Network and connection data, such as the device's IP address, number of network connections in use, and data about the networks you connect to, such as mobile networks, Bluetooth, and identifiers (BSSID and SSID), connection requirements and speed of Wi-Fi networks you connect to.
Other hardware devices connected to the device.
Some diagnostic data is vital to the operation of Windows and cannot be turned off if you use Windows.
That's at least as bad as Google/Facebook. Thankfully other operating systems respect your privacy at least a little bit...
and the other one hasn't.
Correction: The other one would like to, but can't figure out why no one wants to give them the data?
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
I RTFA and read the links. They're shocking and I don't use that word casually. I am posting the direct links here with the excerpts from the license agreement.
No human being who had these explained to them in an ordinary setting by someone they knew and trusted would knowingly agree to them.
Here goes:
From:
Sign into Windows with your Microsoft account and the operating system immediately syncs settings and data to the companyâ(TM)s servers. That includes your browser history, favorites and the websites you currently have open as well as saved app, website and mobile hotspot passwords and Wi-Fi network names and passwords.
To enable Cortana to provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. ...
Microsoft can disclose your data when it feels like it
This is the part you should be most concerned about: Microsoftâ(TM)s new privacy policy assigns is very loose when it comes to when it will or wonâ(TM)t access and disclose your personal data:
We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services. ....
Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lock screen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more.â
The author goes on to note:
Lots of things can live in those two words âoeand more.â Also note that because Cortana analyzes speech data, Microsoft collects âoeyour voice input, as well as your name and nickname, your recent calendar events and the names of people in your appointments, and information about your contacts including names and nicknames.â ....
The updated terms also state that Microsoft will collect information âoefrom you and your devices, including for example âapp use data for apps that run on Windowsâ(TM) and âdata about the networks you connect to.'â ...
Windows 10 generates a unique advertising ID for each user on each device. That can be used by developers and ad networks to profile you. ...
They intend to completely remove the notion of privacy from the tools we use to create share and store the most private thoughts we have.
This is Linux's Big Chance. People will reject this massive barefisted amoral invasion of privacy and flee- if they can get a decent computing experience out of some UNIX clone.
Not to turon this into a "What['s wrong with Linux" discussion but I have sincerely tried to move to Linux repeatedly and just found the experience awful. I am nto interested in learning a CLI to get normal stuff done-at all. The performance compared to Windows has always been terrible, my software is slow, the drivers are missing etc etc.
Perosnally I feel like Ubuntu is somehow in the thrall of a culutre of devs who are not interested in accomodating the masses and take it as a point of pride that finding getting installing and using applications still requires exiting to a CLI, which knowledge they love. Yes, many of them do want to share the love with you, but many people wanted me to share their love the Grateful Dead's music with me too and the thing is, I just don't like it.
That "naughty" comment has me imagining the different OS makers as hollywood highschool boyfriends now.
Microsoft: Football jock from a rich family. Has problems playing nice with those outside his little world and expects periodic gifts from you. But he does have a nice car and all the cool toys, plus his family just invited you to the bahamas for vacation.
Apple: Eccentric artist. Cute, paints, writes poetry, and can act. But has a HUGE ego due to loyal groupies. Expects you to pay for everything on dates.
Google: Reporter for the school newspaper. Nice guy, gets on well with others. Gives you lots of gifts, though some are not very well thought out. Constantly taking pictures of you, including some you really shouldn't have agreed to.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
I own my own domain and I give each service I sign up for a unique contact email alias, which forwards to my real email address (currently I have just shy of 500 aliases). I have never received spam at google@mydomain.com. In fact the vast majority of my email aliases receive no spam, indicating the vast majority of online companies are in fact keeping your private info private (at least not without anonymizing it). Contrary to what seems to be the general belief here.
The two major exceptions have been microsoft@mydomain.com and adobe@mydomain.com. Those two companies clearly sold my email address to marketers and spammers.
Linux: Stoner who hangs out under the bleachers during breaks. Nice guy, a bit odd, muttering about demons and reaping children between bouts of screaming at the sky about something called system dee. Gives you the most gifts, though most are clearly hand made.