Windows 10 Still Phones Home With Data In Spite of Privacy Settings

Penguinisto writes: According to Ars Technica, Windows 10 will still send telemetry and other data to Microsoft-owned domains — no matter how tightly you crank down the privacy settings. Even with everything buttoned down, Cortana, OneDrive, and Web Search from the Start Menu disabled, the OS still phones home, using a random system ID that persists across reboots. It apparently also tries to bypass proxies to do it. "Some of the traffic looks harmless but feels like it shouldn't be happening. For example, even with no Live tiles pinned to Start (and hence no obvious need to poll for new tile data), Windows 10 seems to download new tile info from MSN's network from time to time, using unencrypted HTTP to do so. ... Other traffic looks a little more troublesome. Windows 10 will periodically send data to a Microsoft server named ssw.live.com. ... The exact nature of the information being sent isn't clear—it appears to be referencing telemetry settings—and again, it's not clear why any data is being sent at all. We disabled telemetry on our test machine using group policies."

Comments

Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has about as much trustworthiness as Hillary does.

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has about as much trustworthiness as Hillary does.

At least with Micro$oft you should know better than to trust them.

Oh wait...

Re:Comparable

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, but if you're a hedge fund manager, they both can make you rich!

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Hedgehogs eat snakes. Come on, do some basic research. Is this how you pick political candidates too?

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top-7-Snake-Killers-75345.shtml

Re:Comparable

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Your anonymous posting in this case is costing you most of your credibility.

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

hahahahahahaga
Hillary, seriously?
Hahahahahahaha

Re:Comparable

[epyT-R]

The argument stands or falls on its own, regardless of who says it.

Re:Comparable

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Unless, of course, you're trolling for attention. In which case not being able to stand behind your remark demeans it.

Re:Comparable

[fustakrakich]

little track record for Carson, but then again he's not already a known-corrupt politician

Would you buy your Glyconutrients from this man?

Re:Comparable

[ExekielS]

Nothing honest about Scott Walker at all.

Re:Comparable

[PitaBred]

Pretty much every bit of Walker's trumpeting about his "success" in Wisconsin is a lie. I'd scratch him off post-haste if I were you.

Re:Comparable

[fustakrakich]

I'd want a snake on my side over a hedgehog.

Smart money goes to the mongoose.

Re:Comparable

[lgw]

No, that's just you disagreeing with his politics. He did what he said he would do, against quite strong opposition. Personally, I think Sanders' political positions are as vile as I'm sure you find Walker's but that's not the point.

The point is: you can't vote on the issues if the candidates don't take a stand, or they're just BSing about everything in their platform. I believe both Sanders and Walker both honestly have the best interests of the people in mind, in their quite opposite opinions of what that is, and that they'll fight for what they say. Contrast with Bush and Clinton who will say whatever their consultants tell them to, then turn around and continue pork-ladling as usual. Carson I don't know so much about, but again: at least he's not already corrupted by the establishment.

Wouldn't it be wonderful to have an election on the issues, for once?

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

have an election on the issues

You mean other than "will ban abortions" or "will not ban abortions"? I'm pretty sure that's what the vast, vast majority of the "issues voters" are looking for in their candidate.

Bringing it back on topic, Windows 10 gets away with phoning home even after you tell it not to because people will keep using it. After all, it runs that game they want to play/application they need/etc.

Re:Comparable

[reboot246]

I'd want a snake on my side over a hedgehog.

What makes you think Hillary's on your side? She's on her own side. In fact, not one of the candidates from either party gives a rat's ass about you and me. I tend to vote for the candidate who I think will do the least damage. It's a shame in a country of over 300 million people that we can't come up with better leaders than what we've had for the last few decades.

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush
Clinton is going to steamroll

Re:Comparable

[jc42]

Seriously, we need someone like Hillary in office. She is the only person running that is vicious enough to get something done after the soft but firm Obama.

I'd want a snake on my side over a hedgehog.

Hey, c'mon; hedgehogs are incredibly cute. (Pay no attention to those sharp spines hidden out in their cute furry exterior. ;-)

And, like many cute critters, they're actually also vicious killers of smaller animals:w.

Actually, it's not obvious just how all this carries metaphorically over to US politics ...

Re:Comparable

[sphealey]

- - - - - No, that's just you disagreeing with his politics. - - - - -

Walker flat out lied about anti-Walker protesters damaging the state capital building. Not only did the protesters do _less_ damage than any other group that size that had used the capital grounds (as documented by the building & ground dept) but they brought trash bags and cleaned up the area afterwards. Walker repeated released utterly false and fabricated statements to the opposite. That tells you all you need to know about him, although the phone call where he talked to the radio DJ he thought was a Koch brothers operative was pretty telling as well.

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

We have some valid reasons to deal with microsoft despite their bullshit tho.

But none to deal with that evil bitch.

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

No more Bush!

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft has about as much trustworthiness as Hillary does.

Right. Check this out too...

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=7843529&cid=50313043

Now we have this thread...
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/15/08/14/1756220/windows-10-still-phones-home-with-data-in-spite-of-privacy-settings

[MOD THIS +5 NO SHIT SHERLOCK]

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

So we should value your opinion when it's pretty obvious you are anti-walker....um, no thanks I'd rather find a source that much more neutral.

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of politics let's play a game of count how many people will post saying they don't have to worry because they use linux. The second counting game will involve how every OS after winxp suck.

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Does neutrality include people who don't give a shit about facts or hard evidence?

Because, I'll take informed bias over ignorant neutrality any day. Also, neutrality is a fairytale concept used to placate the masses, it never existed and never will exist among human beings.

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are an hedge fund manager you're already rich...

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Vote for a third party. Tell your think alikes to do the same. I never got that two party system. And it can definitely be done.

Look at the green party in Germany. It was non existent before 1990. Since then they've been the ruling party (in a coalition with another party). (Not saying it needs to be the green party - just that doing away with a two party system is possible).

Re:Comparable

[pepty]

(little track record for Carson, but then again he's not already a known-corrupt politician

If that is a necessary qualification then Walker is out.

Re:Comparable

[pepty]

Are you in a swing state? If not, focus on someone local.

Re: Comparable

[pepty]

Since then they've been the ruling party (in a coalition with another party).(Not saying it needs to be the green party - just that doing away with a two party system is possible).

In countries with a party list proportional representation system (i.e., Germany) sure. 5% of the vote gets you a seat at the table. In our system voting third party in an election when your candidate is not competitive doesn't "make a point", it just bleeds support from the party (dem or rep) that is closer to your interests. If you're going to vote third party, do it in local election IF your candidate has a chance of getting elected and moving to higher office later on.

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

Third parties are not necessarily a good thing. The Nazi party (also German) was also unheard of in 1929...

Re: Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

And Hillary is already you're friend, by default. She'll also provide more than adequate security against the unruly mob.

Re:Comparable

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly would you say he did? He ran on a platform of economic reform and being pro-business. His policies not only didn't work, but left Wisconsin close to dead last among states in numerous economic markers. The one thing that actually would have been great for business—improving the main rail link between Milwaukee and Minneapolis—he refused the federal stimulus funds for, and they went to another state instead. Freight rail speeds would have increased from 15mph to 60mph. Instead, we now have a chronic shortage of rail car capacity in the state, and the timber and aggregate industries especially are suffering because of it. He was forced to drop out of Marquette in his last semester over a student election scandal in which he was caught tampering with the election campaigns of other candidates. And before becoming governor, did a less than stellar job in Milwaukee where he was once again embroiled in an ethics scandal and illegal campaign coordination. Then we have other wonderful laws hes changed like eliminating the 48hr waiting period on buying guns to do a proper background check. Setting aside concerns about his ethics, or even his politics, the most damning issue is that he ran on a platform that ended up a complete failure. He didn't accomplish what his platform espoused, and the other things he "did" were because the GOP owns the legislature, so they rubber stamp whatever he wants. Why would I support continuing that?

Guessing at a partial explanation

[Sowelu]

Are Live tiles pinned to your start bar completely independent of user, or do different users have different settings for that? Response times and reactivity are king. Making sure the data is already there when a different user logs on, or when you go to the page to see what's available, is a thing.

Not saying there shouldn't be an easy way to really turn it off, but "no obvious need to poll" is a little disingenuous unless Windows 10 is a truly single-user OS.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

They said they'd used group policies to enact this change. If group security policies don't encompass the entirety of the OS, how could you ever be secure in the first place?

Additionally, "Response Times" are not the king for people who *do not want this*.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[Coren22]

This depends. Did they set the policies in User or Computer? If it is User, it is not the entire computer but the currently logged in User.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Live tiles are different across users, and across computers, so that wouldn't be it. But, Microsoft is placing ads for store apps in the taskbar, if you don't turn it off.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[techno-vampire]

Are Live tiles pinned to your start bar completely independent of user, or do different users have different settings for that?

If the machine has only one user and that user has turned it off, there's no legitimate reason to be pulling it down. Of course, this is Microsoft we're discussing, so the question of legitimacy is moot; they're going to do whatever they want and ignore your settings.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[macs4all]

Are Live tiles pinned to your start bar completely independent of user, or do different users have different settings for that? Response times and reactivity are king. Making sure the data is already there when a different user logs on, or when you go to the page to see what's available, is a thing.

Not saying there shouldn't be an easy way to really turn it off, but "no obvious need to poll" is a little disingenuous unless Windows 10 is a truly single-user OS.

Windows 10 (a/k/a NT v?) is actually a server-class multiuser OS, that has been hamstrung by greedy Microsoft Policy into behaving like a one-user-at-a-time OS.

Sad, actually.

Unlike OS X, which, while also acting sort of like a one-user-at-a-time OS, at least lets you spawn additional simultaneous User Sessions via Remote, if you wish. And even when it is acting like a one-user-at-a-time OS, I believe that the other Users' sessions are kept alive and logged-in, which I'm not sure is the case with Windows "Client" OSes. In fact, I used to use that feature to create an ersatz "iTunes Server", by simply having iTunes (with home-sharing turned on) running in another session. A little cheesy, but it worked pretty well.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[roc97007]

Live tiles are different across users, and across computers, so that wouldn't be it. But, Microsoft is placing ads for store apps in the taskbar, if you don't turn it off.

There's a way to turn it off? I'm a little surprised.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what you're talking about. I used to admin Windows NT servers and I assure you that you most certainly handle multiple users simultaneously.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't completely true. While consumer editions of Windows have some limitations in this regard, Windows Server versions can handle many simultaneous sessions.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[pkinetics]

Live tiles are different across users, and across computers, so that wouldn't be it. But, Microsoft is placing ads for store apps in the taskbar, if you don't turn it off.

There's a way to turn it off? I'm a little surprised.

That's a bug. They will fix that shortly

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[macs4all]

This isn't completely true. While consumer editions of Windows have some limitations in this regard, Windows Server versions can handle many simultaneous sessions.

Sorry. I thought I had mentioned that I meant the client version, but saw that I apparently didn't.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[macs4all]

You don't know what you're talking about. I used to admin Windows NT servers and I assure you that you most certainly handle multiple users simultaneously.

Yes, actually I do. I just wasn't clear that I was referring to Windows CLIENT, not Server, but there's really no reason to get all indignant and butthurt about it.

Re:Guessing at a partial explanation

[rtb61]

Windows 10 is clearly not a single user computer but straight up a part of a marketing botnet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... on every computer which has it installed. You watch MS brag about growth in Bing hits and demand more money from advertisers, every Google search on windows 10 looks to trigger a corresponding Bing search without the user knowing, watch M$'s search market share grow, without end users ever requesting it or seeing any of the results. Once a windows 10 computer is plugged into the internet M$ own it, their service, they own it and they only allow you to use it, until they kill your service. Refuse to pay for the next OS watch them kill the existing service, they own it, you do not, you do not even have a licence to it, you are borrowing their software only for as long as they allow you to. US government doesn't like your country any more, watch them kill every windows 10 computer as soon as it phones home.

That is by far the most important question anyone should ask, can M$ selectively kill any windows 10 computer remotely, each and every time it phones home to check for permission if it is still able to run.

Re: Guessing at a partial explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Win10 (pro at least) creates a toredo 6in4 tunnel to M$ by default... don't count on that v4 firewall.

Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I was waiting to upgrade out of the Windows 8 UI, but it doesn't look like a realistic option anymore.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 is looking even better. Staying put.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[rstanley]

Not really. I would rather go back to Windows 7, that is, if I actually ran Windows at all! I prefer to have my computers run Debian Linux only!

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 is looking even better. Staying put.

Diagnostics Tracking Service...

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[sycodon]

My Huge Aerospace employer is on Windows 7 and only now is dipping heir toes into Win 8.1

I expect it will be 3 years before win 10 touches any of our hard drives and only then after the security people have stripped out all the M.S. Snoops.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Similar to IBM, MSFT could easily charge $50 for Windows XP maintenance PER YEAR AND SEAT. Since XP, there has been NO CUSTOMER VALUE ADDED. Actually, they destroyed lots of customer value by permuting things so that they could call it "new".

Many customers know this and it has burned their business.

The next step in their suicidal plan is to continue charging for their Permuted XP versions, but at the same time collect and sell data like Google. Now, that sounds like an excellent plan to destroy the modicum of trust and relationship they have with their long term customers.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[0dugo0]

TinyXP in a VM still going strong here for my putty+notepad addiction.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

From a customer value perspective, it was all downhill since XP. The effect is that Samsung and Sony quit the PC business. Sony had some of the nicest designed laptops with their Vaio line.

Meanwhile, Apple sells nice and high priced hardware in massive volumes.

It almost seems a secret army of Linuxers invaded the MSFT decision making ranks in order to smoke it out from the inside. So much stupidness cannot be a coincidence.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[drinkypoo]

I'm waiting until I stop seeing a deluge of shit like this before I un-hide the update to upgrade to windows 10, from windows 7. Remember how Microsoft went goddamned insane when they released the latest Xbox? Remember how they eventually fixed the incredibly privacy-raping idiocy? Still waiting. Gonna keep waiting. If they never come around, that's OK. Windows 7 should keep working for me for some time.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, I was thinking MS could not make things any worse than 8, but they did. Do they have a customer avoidance and annoyance division which has taken over the company without anyone noticing, or do they really think they can just ask their customer to bend over?

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to this move, I would like to upgrade my 8.1 installation to Vista. Actually I tried to use my latest i7 4790k machine with Vista, but Intel had decided to support only the later device driver model for their ethernet hw driver and only network connectivity could be done via a USB NIC. All the other drivers could be hacked to work with Vista, but thanks to planned obsolescence, I had to buy my last Windows license. If only Linux would have the games then there would be now Windows for me anymore,

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Server 2012 R2 is pretty nice. Guess I'll stick to that. Plus, the backup program (wbadmin) is pretty decent. Not as good as NetBackup, but you can restore an entire machine image, file, or almost anything in between.

If I migrate, it likely will be to Windows Server 2016.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 7 is looking even better. Staying put.

Diagnostics Tracking Service...

Which, it should be pointed out, can be disabled on 7 and 8.

Telemetry and error reporting cannot be effectively disabled on 10, because Microsoft refuses to make Enterprise available via retail channels.

This AC is also remaining on 7 here. And has refused to install the offending updates (KB3068708 KB3022345 KB2952664 KB2990214 KB3035583 KB971033 KB3021917 KB3044374) from Windows Update. (Another thing that cannot be disabled in Win10.)

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Dutch Gun]

it was all downhill since XP.

Nice rose-colored glasses you're wearing there. Remember how XP was derided as bloated and memory-heavy when it was first released? Remember how it's interface was ridiculed for looking like a PlaySkool toy? How about it's disastrous security record, especially before Service Pack 2 was released? I especially loved that a faulty driver audio driver could end up causing a blue-screen for the entire system. And don't forget about that 64-bit version of the OS that no one used because it wasn't compatible with anything.

Windows 7 is a far superior OS by any reasonable standard. It's basically all the good parts of Vista (better security model, improved driver model, better 64-bit support) but with significantly improved under-the-hood performance optimizations, and a lot of usability improvements.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[ksheff]

hopefully, they'll get things fixed before the free upgrade deadline is reached.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[roc97007]

My company decided to ignore 8.X entirely. And they're adopting wait-and-see on Windows 10. We're happy on Win7.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

>From a customer value perspective, it was all downhill since XP.

In my experience, every version since xp has run faster on the same hardware.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? I never wanted a free upgrade.

I'm perfectly happy to sit on Windows 8.1 Pro (with Classic Shell) indefinitely. Windows 10 is spyware/adware garbage.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Telemetry and error reporting cannot be effectively disabled on 10, because Microsoft refuses to make Enterprise available via retail channels.

Here is a good place to start if you really want to use Windows 10

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[WaffleMonster]

Windows 7 is looking even better. Staying put.

In windows 7 I disabled every call home excuse under the sun from UI, group policy, CLI, scheduler... Must have spent hours disabling various bullshit yet despite considerable efforts windows 7 still keeps making connections to settings.data.microsoft.com, telemetry.microsoft.com with nothing running, with updates set to manual while doing absolutely nothing but executing tcpdump. In the end I gave up and blackholed these sites in DNS to get it to stop.

To be clear I am not nor would I ever make the lame argument that windows 7 does it too as an excuse to give win10 a pass or cover to try and justify a fundamentally indefensible activity. Microsoft's squandering of their customers trust will ultimately only end badly for them. Wireshark is your friend... try it and see what all windows 7 is doing don't assume that Windows 7 is trustworthy.

--
"Finally, 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."

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[execthis]

That is brilliant didn't know about this - have uninstalled all on the list that were installed (a couple were not installed).

Beyond all this, I'm inching much much closer to moving back to Linux permanently or else finding some hacked OS that can run win apps without all the violations.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[execthis]

I'm into this. Its to the point where the risk of running an OS off a pirated site is far more preferable than running something from a company like Microsoft.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

And your great wonder news about Linux has nothing at all to do with the article. So shove off and climb aboard the Linux boat of who freaking cares because Linux makes up at best 1.6% of the desktop market. So I can run all my Linux needs in virtual land too.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[execthis]

Wouldn't WINE be better for that?

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[execthis]

The interface for Windows 10 is also unbelievably ugly. Its so bad that it honestly seems like they are showing some kind of contempt for users, like we paeans don't deserve anything more than the most bare interface with as few moving parts as possible to minimize any potential headaches to them.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[nctritech]

Microsoft does really great work on the kernel side of things. The leaked Windows NT4 and 2000 source code from way back in the day received generally good reviews from OS developers that examined the code quality. Every Windows NT release since 2000 has had massive improvements in the kernel and driver space. It's unfortunate that upgrading the NT kernel side requires "upgrading" the user-level software side to bring all of the trash that Microsoft does a really terrible job on. I'd happily take the Windows 10 kernel and drivers with the Windows 7 userspace dropped on top. In fact, that's what Windows 10 SHOULD have been.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

My company is switching people to Linux (RHEL and Ubuntu choices) and Macs. You can still get a Windows machine (Win-7), but that is primarily only sales team and project managers only.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[fafalone]

Telemetry and error reporting cannot be effectively disabled on 10, because Microsoft refuses to make Enterprise available via retail channels.

And here people thought MS was trying to stop pirates. Enterprise is certainly available that way. When I'm forced off Win7 in a few years it looks like my life of crime won't be over, hopefully software piracy won't have a mandatory minimum of life in prison and forfeiture of 100% of assets yet. Well, probably the latter at least.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you me? This BS is making me consider trying a Linux distro for the first time. My dream is that Valve's distro gets a wide adoption, forcing devs to make more Linux compatible games and software.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[dinfinity]

The only reason to choose Win7 over Win10 would be the contents of the license agreement, allowing Win7-users to sue Microsoft if the behavior of Win7 violates what they agreed to.

On a technical level it doesn't really matter. Given that most of the "I'm staying with Win7 to protect my privacy!"-people will probably install all updates anyway, it seems hardly likely that they will prevent Microsoft from having Win7 phoning home if Microsoft wants it to. That is, without enacting measures that are pretty much identical in both OSs, such as blocking Microsoft servers in the hosts-file.

I haven't dug into the legalese myself, but would like to see a comparison between the license agreements for Win7 and Win10 with regard to phoning home.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[LinuxIsGarbage]

Nice rose-colored glasses you're wearing there. Remember how XP was derided as bloated and memory-heavy when it was first released? Remember how it's interface was ridiculed for looking like a PlaySkool toy? How about it's disastrous security record, especially before Service Pack 2 was released? I especially loved that a faulty driver audio driver could end up causing a blue-screen for the entire system. And don't forget about that 64-bit version of the OS that no one used because it wasn't compatible with anything.

Windows XP being an NT based OS had higher requirements than Win9x, but was in line with 2000, and other NT products. NT has always required more resources, but was more stable than consumer Win9x products.

-Agree on the Playskool interface
-On security the big problem was allowing default windows services to open ports when the machine was connected directly to the internet. The default behavior of the Firewall in SP2 was to deny access to these, which protected against these attacks.

-On the 64 bit, it was never designed as a mainstream OS. AMD64 bit processors were released after the original XP release, and the only real benefit is access to additional RAM above 4GB. At the time RAM above 2GB was rare, and expensive, so it was really only targeted for very high end workstations. Hence why it was only available in Professional, and why it was in the same development cycle as Server 2003 64 bit. XP-64 bit was released Mid 2005, and Microsoft wasn't going to push 64-bit given that few had use for it, and Vista was "just around the corner" which was designed from the start in both 32 and 64 bit versions. XP-64 bit and Server 2003 64 bit marked the very first versions of Windows supporting x86-64 bit instructions, and laid the path for the future with for example, driver models, and how WOW for 32 bit applications worked on it. Since then hardware and software developers have been gradually improving support, such that by ~2009 everyone was ready for mainstream 64-bit support.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought M$ said that the hosts file stopped working in win8?

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[vandamme]

Give us a hint who? At least how big??

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[iampiti]

If you're referring to the policy that was going to require that the Xbox One connected to the Internet once in a while even for offline games I don't think this is comparable.
There was a massive, instant, outcry when the policy was announced and gamers started to claim that they would buy the PS4 instead. In this case, we a few nerds may be aware and dislike the horrible privacy implications of Windows 10 but the general public is oblivious about it and also there's no direct substitute for Windows. Yes, we're in the time of history in which native apps have lost some importance, and many people would be happy with a Chromebook, but many people still needs programs that only run in Windows and can't really go to any alternative.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows XP required much more RAM than Windows 2000 and was much slower.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

This....I recently got a new laptop with Win 8, and immediately upgraded to 8.1.

It sucks balls. I don't just mean that I don't like the whole Metro bullshit. A lot of things break. It frequently loses network connectivity (not a problem with my ISP because everything else connected to the internet doesn't lose it). It spontaneously reboots. It sometimes pegs the disk or CPU at 100% despite not actually running anything other than a very simple browser window (no flash, no video, mostly text). The task manager will not come up fast enough for me to see what is using all those resources, although I'm beginning to suspect it's some crapware Dell put on it.

I didn't skimp on hardware this time either. Granted I didn't buy the most impressive laptop possible but I did spend a few hundred dollars more thinking better CPU and more memory should lead to fewer performance problems. Seriously, guys - I don't know how anyone keeps up with CPUs.....Intel or AMD? i3 or i7? Fuck if I know....I got the i7 because bigger numbers are more expensive and thus better. I tried following some discussions here on /. about AMD processors but even for my slightly technical brain it was too much to think about. I think this is all down to software problems though I suspect both AMD and Intel processors will work just fine especially for most of the consumer world.

There's a certain non-technical place I hang out on the internet and a handful of people there were very eager to upgrade to Win10. Microsoft is begging all of us Windows users to do it. I advised against it. They were excited about Cortana and Edge and couldn't resist. Most (though not all) of them had a lot of problems with it.

I was reminded of myself about 20 years ago when I got my hands on Windows 95. Microsoft said my system could handle it. It wouldn't even fucking install. I spent many many hours before finally giving up.

Interesting comment made by one of the eager Win10 installers (who had a lot of problems) when I was describing a problem with Win 8.1 when I switch from a normal user to Admin. "Why would you need to switch to administrative user? I run everything as admin." You can't get blood out of a stone and you just cannot talk sense to some people either.

I haven't figured it out yet - I've basically decided to reboot whenever I need to do something as admin now but whenever I try to return to my normal user account after doing something as admin my laptop will just freeze for about 5 minutes and act like it just rebooted even though it never showed the normal boot process stuff. (the mouse pointer still moves around the screen, but other than that it is black and completely unresponsive to anything but the power button).

I am certain this will be the last Windows machine I ever own and no, I have actually never said that before. It might not even be a Windows machine for much longer. I fucked around with Linux years ago and decided it just wasn't worth the hassle and it was basically a pile of crap to be honest. I'm fairly comfortable with a unix command prompt and it wasn't really hard to install or anything - it just sucked. Granted that was years ago - over a decade but the year of the Linux Desktop may be coming soon to a laptop near me.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh not this nonsense again. I'd take 7 over XP any day, and so would most other users (technical and plebs alike).

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

It half works. Any modification that MS deems inappropriate will be removed (ie localhost redirects for whitelisted domains), but it's not completely disabled.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

It is still an improvement over 8.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[TCM]

Fear not. Microsoft itself is giving you hashes for all their images:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-...

You can safely pirate and verify.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

On Windows 7 and 8 all I have to do is never install optional updates, which I never did anyhow. That's where all of the spyware is. I also check the information on each update to ensure that it really is needed. Anything that is fishy or worthless gets instantly blacklisted.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, they slightly improve the UI, which is still worse than Windows 8 + Classic Shell, then turn the rest of Windows 10 into spyware/adware/crippleware.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Also if you were caught using a pirated version of Windows 10, Microsoft would have a hard time proving that you caused them any financial harm, what with Windows 10 being, in Microsoft's own words, "free".

All I can say is I would feel a lot safer running the pirated Windows 10 Enterprise "Privacy Edition" than genuine Windows 10. That's pretty sad for Microsoft.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[allo]

> after the security people have stripped out all the M.S. Snoops.
It's not like MS is not putting new surveilance err bugfixes in, to continue providing the best experience to its users.

Re: Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[allo]

xp matured. And that XP was a disaster doesn't make 7 any better. Both are quite okay compared to 8/10, but it's still true, that it constantly went downhill. And not light at the end of the tunnel.

Re:Windows 8 is suddenly looking good ..

[adhdengineer]

you need to do a clean install. Seriously anyone who buys a PC or laptop from an OEM and doesnt do a clean install is asking for it not to work. If you've windows 8 (or 8.1) you should be able to download a clean install iso from MS and do it. all you need to do is backup your data (but you have that already, dont you...)

Reminds me of Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Learning from the best. But they are still at the stage of faking the settings whereas Apple just doesn't have them at all.

Re:Reminds me of Apple

[MacTO]

Actually, Apple does have the settings. In OS X, since 10.10, it has been due to Spotlight doing online queries. In iTunes, for many years, it has been due to their suggestions system and retrieving additional data about your music.

It is, as the article suggests, the price of convenience. It would be nice though if you had the option to turn off those conveniences if you don't want them.

Re:Reminds me of Apple

[macs4all]

Actually, Apple does have the settings. In OS X, since 10.10, it has been due to Spotlight doing online queries. In iTunes, for many years, it has been due to their suggestions system and retrieving additional data about your music.

It is, as the article suggests, the price of convenience. It would be nice though if you had the option to turn off those conveniences if you don't want them.

There is a Vas Deferens between what Spotlight (for "Spotlight Suggestions") and iTunes does and what Windows 10 is doing. For one thing, Apple is straightforward about what is, and what is not, sent to Apple and/or Microsoft from Spotlight. And more importantly, Apple has a nice, simple GUI way to disable "Spotlight Suggestions".

As far as iTunes goes, if you are referring to the "Genius" feature, unless you turn on iTunes Match, you can disable the Genius feature (which I think is now called "Share details about your library with Apple"). If you are referring to retrieving CD Song Names and other info from the internet, you can disable that, too. Both are available as simple GUI checkboxes in iTunes' Preferences, along with the SWITCHABLE "Share details about your library with Apple", "Limit Ad Tracking", "Automatically download album artwork", "Always check for available downloads", "Sync playback information across devices", "Sync podcase subscriptions and settings", and "check for new software updates automatically".

So, compare that with what TFA says about Windows 10 still leaking data no-matter-what, and I think that any sensible person will agree that there is virtually no comparison between the two "mindsets".

Re:Reminds me of Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a Vas Deferens between what Spotlight (for "Spotlight Suggestions") and iTunes does and what Windows 10 is doing

I either (a) really want to know what text-to-speech and/or autocorrect engine you're using; or (b) am genuinely interested in how penis parts made their way in to OS X.

Re:Reminds me of Apple

[macs4all]

There is a Vas Deferens between what Spotlight (for "Spotlight Suggestions") and iTunes does and what Windows 10 is doing

I either (a) really want to know what text-to-speech and/or autocorrect engine you're using; or (b) am genuinely interested in how penis parts made their way in to OS X.

Just a reference to a puerile joke I've carried around in my brain for decades.

The joke goes "There's a Vas Deferens between Men and Women."

Re:Reminds me of Apple

[execthis]

LMFAO

Re:Reminds me of Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm, the macboy got really butthurt by the OP. Apologize some more-- your tears are delicious

Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 Still Phones Home With Data In Spite of Privacy Settings

What the hell, Microsoft?

Re:Explanation please

[FudRucker]

what do you expect from greedy corporate types that worship money as if it was god

Re:Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't worship money. They acquire it and use it to make you do what they want you to do.

If anyone worships money, it's you.

Re:Explanation please

[JazzLad]

Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith believe that doing so is necessary ...

Re:Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple lead the way, Google and eventually Microsoft followed. All of your data belongs to them and you even pay for it. Since they own the US government, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

Re:Explanation please

[macs4all]

Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith believe that doing so is necessary ...

There's those"Good Faith" weasle words. That's right up there with "For The Children" and "National Security" for being an abuse-excuse.

Re:Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

You're surprised? Where have you been for the past 30 years?

Re:Explanation please

[Darinbob]

Also "necessary" is an important keyword. If Microsoft feels it is necessary to spy on you then they'll do so.

Re:Explanation please

[Raenex]

I distrust Microsoft and their new privacy directions, but you're not being honest by withholding the full section you pulled that from:

Finally, 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:

1. comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;
2. protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;
3. operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or
4. protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement.

Please note that some of our services include links to services of third parties whose privacy practices differ from Microsoft's. If you provide personal data to any of those services, your data is governed by their privacy statements.

Re:Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 Still Phones Home With Data In Spite of Privacy Settings

What the hell, Microsoft?

It's in the EULA. They clearly state they will bypass your settings and change them back after an undisclosed period. The amazing this is despite this being on the news channels and in the papers, people still install win10, and could not give a shit about it.

Re:Explanation please

[fafalone]

Explanation?

Microsoft: "Privacy online is dead dead dead. Screw your preferences on the matter, we do what we want. So just stop thinking you can just 'turn off' our ability to collect data from you and get used to it. What are you anyway, a pedophile or a terrorist?"

Re:Explanation please

[Capt.Albatross]

I like the expression 'abuse-excuse' but it apparently already has a different meaning - the use of prior abuse as an excuse for bad behavior. 'Excuse-abuse' seems appropriate here.

http://legal-dictionary.thefre...

Re:Explanation please

[LVSlushdat]

Oh THAT is rich... Microsoft using the words "good faith"...... I'm having difficulty typing I'm laughing soooo hard at that.. Sooo glad I left the Microsoft world back when I retired, and moved all my machines over to Linux...

Re:Explanation please

[macs4all]

I like the expression 'abuse-excuse' but it apparently already has a different meaning - the use of prior abuse as an excuse for bad behavior. 'Excuse-abuse' seems appropriate here.

http://legal-dictionary.thefre...

Actually, it just popped into my head from wherever the next word comes while you're typing. It "sounded" good, so I let my fingers type it out.

Interesting that it is a legal term-of-art!

Re:Explanation please

[Anonymous Coward]

"Good faith" and "necessary" have a legal meaning outside of everyday life. I'm just expecting them to follow the national and international laws, witch are those of EU in my case, and not to fuck with the trust of their customer base. Such a lazy bastard I am. Then again, installing a BSD or Linux is just a click away for I do all my work with open source software. I trust Microsoft knows this pattern by now ;).

Re:Explanation please

[lott11]

Would you look at that someone actually READ THE PRIVACY DOC. This is what I had stated that windows 10 did not make it possible for any privacy at all. I got hammered for it, but I did state read the privacy forms. I also stated that you would have to decline to more then 30 different companies, just to have some privacy. That was the reason I said I would never upgrade to windows 10, and in past week windows 7 has just become as bad. The internet has come down to a crawl, do to it new updates to windows 7 and sending all kinds off info. So is windows 7 any safer at all, no they have implemented the same policy’s. So you are S.O.L. So at least in my case I am just going back to formatting my hard drive and blocking all windows connections to the internet. The wurst part of this is the long time for formatting to zeros, and all of the BS that goes with it. I just wished that steam would no longer be a beta, and all my games could be played on Linux. Then I no longer have to deal with the BS that is being pushed, by dose so called protectors of my freedoms.

Re:Explanation please

[jwhitener]

The full paragraph makes this a little less 'scary'.

Finally, 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:
comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;
protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;
operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or
protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement.

Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Megaweapon]

And block that crap at the router.

Or will Win10 cease to function at that point?

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm assuming we're talking about home computers here (Office, gaming, Web), not point of sale terminals.

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't you heard? All routers are getting upgraded firmware for Win10 compatibility.

(J/K that's not true............. yet).

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[savuporo]

OpenWRT builds should soon come with "none of this telemetry shit" big red switch on the frontpage. And not just Msft, but apple, oracle, etc included. And then, i want OpenWRT built into a usb-ethernet dongle that i can take with me to travel.

Re: Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely Redmond will then conceal the spying traffic in the "update" traffic.

No sleazy trick is too sleazy for the sleazebaggers.

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[afidel]

OpenDNS should also have it as a category you can block.

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[techno-vampire]

I'm fairly sure that in this context POS means "Piece Of Sh!t."

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

They will next just send your data to https://windowsupdate.com, https://itunes.com or https://google.com as a "normal traffic which is encrypted to secure your privacy and to enhance your experience."

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[cfalcon]

You are wedged so firmly on their Johnson that you have finally realized you need a full fledged auto-updating APPLICATION FIREWALL sitting between your computer and the internet just to stop junk from getting out to Microsoft, and you are like SEEMS REASONABLE BRO. Give me a fucking break!

Riot or use Linux. Don't pretend you can keep up with Patch Tuesday, which will change what settings you need to protect yourself constantly. You are literally and finally at the point where you need a whole BSD or real time OS guarding you from your own fucking OS and somehow that's better than just like, Install Linux Problem Solved.

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux sucks ass, though.

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

Using Linux for 15 years and loves it!

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[Anonymous Coward]

> Linux sucks ass, though.
This is a new feature. The new kernel must have it. What version do you run ?
Also am interested in the one with massage feature. Do you know if that is in the pipeline already ?

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[lott11]

To block Oracle and SSH clients, oh you mean the back door to governments. Do you really think they would let you do that, really. Oracle has never delivered anything on time, but has delivered back doors to all servers. But you never see any one complain, just look oracle 7 is only delivering what they promised on oracle 1. And how many millions have they gotten, who is there biggest sponsor.

Re:Just need hostnames or IP addresses

[omtinez]

I know I'm replying to a comment in a pretty old story, but I thought that it may be of interest to you. You could install OpenWRT in a VM and route your computer's internet connection through that. No dongle required.

Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

This battle is lost. No amount of litigation or hacking will change that.

We would be wise to keep our efforts focused on freedom on the electronic frontier. Keep it legal to do all the things we want to do, because we will not be able to do them in secret.

It isn't the happiest of realities, but it is still reality.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

This battle is lost. No amount of litigation or hacking will change that.

We would be wise to keep our efforts focused on freedom on the electronic frontier. Keep it legal to do all the things we want to do, because we will not be able to do them in secret.

It isn't the happiest of realities, but it is still reality.

-Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14, 2015 @03:34PM

Re:Privacy is dead.

[fustakrakich]

No biggie. Let's just pry into their books in return. Let's make this a two way street, and see what pops.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

/. still logs the IP address. The identity of the poster could be tracked down.

None of us are really anonymous. But at least some of us are really cowards.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Higaran]

I actually agree with the first AC, there is no such a thing as complete privacy. I agree that I don't want to live in some 1984 type of world where the government knows all my thoughts or what ever. But I'm a realist and there is almost no amount of off the grid that you can go as to get real privacy, the only way for that to happen is if you were the last person on the planet. It should be viewed more as keeping the freedom to do what we want, because let's face it, there is not a computer system made, that isn't hack-able, so someone can always find out what you are up to. You can use as much encrypton as you want, but some will eventually break it.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

The battle is not lost.

They don't know me. They have no means of verifying what I tell them. And I do know them, and I know that they'll try and try and try to find a way to make my usage profitable. The only question is, "How can I use their greedy nature to benefit me?"

First, I need to know what benefit I want. If it's privacy I want, then nothing works better against a myopic panopticon than a disguise of misinformation. We already know they can "see" my usage and other statistics. But they can't verify. And if they can't verify, they can't trust. And if they can't trust, they can't use that information. But we also know they will use it and trust it, but they still won't verify it. It's a broken link in the chain. A weakness. Exploit it, and suddenly, you're both everyone and no one.

Next, I need to know how they attempt to identify me. What physical methods (servers they upload data to, etc.) and also what psychological methods they use (see also: Target's data mining is faster and more accurate than peeing on a stick).

Next, to re-use a favorite spin-doctor phrase, just "alter the narrative". Block the physical methods outright, but know that there will be new ones to make up for the ones you block. You can't block everything. Poison the data in any others. And by "poison the data", I don't mean to feed them random junk. Oh, no. That will be too easily identified, or too easily filtered out. You will gain privacy, but no other benefits. And you'll train their systems to work around your efforts. This is war. Don't get mowed down by the first volley like that. Feed them "good" data, but data that isn't you, even if it isn't necessarily consistent from moment-to-moment. If they're pushing advertisements at you, find a way to get them to try to push the "right" ads to you. If you want them to die in a fire and go bankrupt, get them to push unprofitable ads. If you want them to think of you as a cash cow (that goes MOO), get them to push profitable ones. Your motivations may change from day to day, and that's your prerogative.

Next, hold the line on anything that intrudes. If they're pushing ads or coupons or services or whatever, cut those things off at the knees (and by "knees", I mean "router"). Don't watch the ads, just farm them. This is trivial. A headless server in a rack in some nameless data center can be your advertisement playback bitch, and can forward the proof-of-impression keys back to your actual user session for reply back to the ad server. This gives the ad network what it wants (proof that you "watched" the ad), while also giving you what you want (not watching the ad for real). Companies paying for advertisements will slowly learn that "proof" isn't good enough, and the ad networks will die slowly.

And then the war is won.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes privacy was lost long ago and enshrined in law. The ironic thing is that the evil government isn't what drove it to this conclusion, they just happen to be one of the fortunate benefactors.

This is about digital personhood harvesting to enable more effective marketing. Oh and if you happen to be in the way there is a nice container with all of your digital soul just ready to be broken down into litigation or imprisonment.

Consume, submit and behave as directed and everyone will be very happy with your "decision".

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

/. still logs the IP address. The identity of the poster could be tracked down.

None of us are really anonymous. But at least some of us are really cowards.

Or just too lazy to log in or create an account...

Re: Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

As soon as Putin or the Chinese decide to build an unhackable computer, it will take less than a year for such as system to be realized.

We actually have millions of young and smart people doing some stupid "make work" jobs. All over the world. If we manage to marshall just 10000 of them into analyzing every single algorithm and concept of a Secure Operating System, we can certainly build that. Rinse repeat with Compiler, CPU, Display, NIC, USB controllers and memory.

Just because Anglosaxon computers are rotten, does not mean computers in general must be rotten.

Mr Kasperksy has already smelled the coffee and attempts to build a secure OS. With the support of the FSB sure as hell he could get it done. I do not know what the intentions of the Russian government are, though.

Cybernetic Security quickly becomes a matter of strategic importance and I am quite sure some power centers will marshall their resources just as they marshalled them in order to build nuclear weapons. Wait a few more months and see.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously dude, I have much better things to do.

There are women to date, games to play, movies to watch, books to read, beverages to drink, dogs to walk, kids to raise, and money to be made. And on and on.

You can be a weirdo that obsesses over keeping your weird whatever-it-is secret from marketers. The rest of us will just cope with the fact that we are monitored, and pursue meaningful lives anyway.

And since there are way more of us than their are of you.....your war will never be won. You might accomplish some degree of social isolation for yourself...at great cost to yourself...but that's about it.

If you get with the program, things will go better for you and you will be happier too.

Re: Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

The more complex a system, the easier it is to break it.

Re: Privacy is dead.

[mark-t]

Being certain of something doesn't make it true. You are, I am afraid, quite wrong... the very idea of an "unhackable computer" is built on a flawed premise, which is that it is somehow a computable function to determine what an arbitrary computer program is actually supposed to behave like.

Even fixed function devices can be hacked and used for purposes other than what they were intended for, Trying to do that for a general purpose computer is logically equivalent to solving the Halting Problem, which can be logically proven to have no possible solution.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually agree with the first AC, there is no such a thing as complete privacy. I agree that I don't want to live in some 1984 type of world where the government knows all my thoughts or what ever. But I'm a realist and there is almost no amount of off the grid that you can go as to get real privacy, the only way for that to happen is if you were the last person on the planet. It should be viewed more as keeping the freedom to do what we want, because let's face it, there is not a computer system made, that isn't hack-able, so someone can always find out what you are up to. You can use as much encrypton as you want, but some will eventually break it.

Privacy is like security, you can only strive for more. Just because you can never achieve 100%, doesn't mean you should just give up.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously dude, I have much better things to do.

There are women to date, games to play, movies to watch, books to read, beverages to drink, dogs to walk, kids to raise, and money to be made. And on and on.

You can be a weirdo that obsesses over keeping your weird whatever-it-is secret from marketers. The rest of us will just cope with the fact that we are monitored, and pursue meaningful lives anyway.

And since there are way more of us than their are of you.....your war will never be won. You might accomplish some degree of social isolation for yourself...at great cost to yourself...but that's about it.

If you get with the program, things will go better for you and you will be happier too.

Let me guess, you're in management aren't you?

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, but fortunately we can still answer to polls for our employment, sexual or financial status and political stands completely anonymously while the information is of course not tied to our cookies.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the words of Kosh:
The avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

It only takes one "weirdo" to automate it and make it simple enough even for you drooling morons. And the best part about automation is that it costs disproportionately less than it takes to fight it. This leaves me, the "weirdo", with a lot more time to do all of those other things you mentioned, but more efficiently and without distraction.

I sincerely hope you enjoy your long slide into obsolescence with a heaping side of annoying bullshit. It's all you've got to look forward to.

Re: Privacy is dead.

[meta-monkey]

This guy knows what's up. GP is retarded. An "unhackabale computer" is a logical impossibility. Privacy can be protected by technology, but privacy invasion can only be curtailed by political action. It's about making it illegal to invade your privacy, and punishing people who do.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[cfalcon]

>This battle is lost.
Install Linux, Problem Solved.

>No amount of litigation or hacking will change that.
I hear OSX doesn't do this, though you gotta fuck with settings. If Microsoft doesn't recant on this outright heresy, there will be a workaround for those that care and use Windoze, but it will be ugly.

>We would be wise to keep our efforts focused on freedom on the electronic frontier.
Install Linux, Problem Solved.

> Keep it legal to do all the things we want to do, because we will not be able to do them in secret.
It's legal to do everything, and legal to do them in private (don't use "secret"- implies you have something to hide- you just don't have every keystroke, every contact, every conversation, to SHARE).

>It isn't the happiest of realities, but it is still reality.
Install Linux, Problem Solved.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

The IP that Slashdot logs isn't my IP.

I think what you meant to say is that YOU are not really anonymous.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

So because you cannot have 100% privacy, you are willing to give up the privacy that you do have.

Great, let me install cameras in your house. Also, give me your email login/password details since it's not really private and could theoretically be hacked into at any moment.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe McDonald's management. Seriously, look at how he writes and the types of things that he chose to rattle off on his list of "important" things to do. He's just a kid and doesn't understand privacy because not having responsibilities beyond getting drunk and playing video games he's never had a need for it.

Maybe he'll smarten up when he reaches manhood, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux will not prevent the firmware from phoning home.

Unless you fabricate the entire chipset yourself, you have no idea what kind of spyware is on it by the time it gets to you.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Tough Love]

This battle is lost. No amount of litigation or hacking will change that.

Hmm, the battle would appear to be a lot more lost for those joined at the hip and face to the Microsoft ecosystem. From where I sit with my Linux desktop, the battle would appear to be far from lost.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[rtb61]

Now this http://store.steampowered.com/... makes a whole lot more sense. Obviously Steam paid attention to the most important thing about windows, the only binding power computer users to windows was high end games and power users will never ever accept privacy invasive practices on a desktop. Mobile phone invasiveness causes grumbles but hey you can always use you desktop or notebook instead for secure oh wait, FUCK YOU MICROSOFT ;D. So Linux for the internet and work and Steam for gaming, so how long before I can get both in the one box.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[WaffleMonster]

This battle is lost. No amount of litigation or hacking will change that.

Lost sales will.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux: For when all you want to actually DO with your computer is tell people how great linux is.

Re:Privacy is dead.

[WaffleMonster]

I actually agree with the first AC, there is no such a thing as complete privacy. I agree that I don't want to live in some 1984 type of world where the government knows all my thoughts or what ever. But I'm a realist and there is almost no amount of off the grid that you can go as to get real privacy,

There is no such thing as a complete vacuum. Even in interstellar space.

--
"Finally, 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."

Re: Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're mistaken - just because you can proove that no automatic proof is possible in the general case does not mean that a human can not construct a proof that one specific program (or operating system) behaves exaclty as specified for all possible inputs. Indeed, such proof can be constructed for sufficiently "simple" programs.

The "behaves as specified": may include simply spitting out an error message for the vast majority of possible (but invalid, according to the spec) inputs, and proving that the hardware is resilient against voltage spikes and other unwanted inputs is another problem entirely.

Re: Privacy is dead.

[mark-t]

Reread what I wrote....when talking about the Halting Problem, I specifically used the words "general purpose programmable computer. " The allegation that the halting problem is solvable for certain subsets of algorithms is a non-sequitur at best, and a strawman at worst.

But even if you try and make your computer into a fixed function device, it may still be used for purposes that were unintended. Trying to output error messages for every invalid input is not really possible because the search space for inputs is never actually finite, and the device cannot always tell if it is actually being used outside of its normal operational parameters. There is no provable way for such a system to detect that it is being used in a way that is unintended without incorporating more sophisticated technologies into the device that would expose the device to even more attack vectors than they could likely close (some of which do not even exist yet, such as a general purpose AI that can know at least as well as any human could given the same information when absolutely any operating condition is not as expected).

Re:Privacy is dead.

[Anonymous Coward]

When Linux has better hardware support and professional software, sure. Right now Linux is about as useful as a box of rocks.

Meet the New Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Same as the old Microsoft.

Re:Meet the New Microsoft

[Raenex]

Actually, while the old Microsoft was a serial abuser of its monopoly power, it was fairly good about privacy. They were making boatloads of money from their desktop monopoly and they started out in a computer age where "phoning home" wasn't the norm -- many people didn't even have modems! Siphoning up user data was a PR problem it didn't need or want for a long time.

Now PC sales are stagnant, Microsoft is flailing in mobile, the network is ubiquitous, and it's the norm to take your data and use it for advertising. Microsoft is just catching up with Google.

Re: Meet the New Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. Consumers already had the choice between privacy (a payed for OS) vs free but with data collection (Android) and do you know what the majority chose? Microsoft needed to remain competitive and they couldn't do it by charging a premium for the OS.

Re: Meet the New Microsoft

[iampiti]

But they could've chosen to give you the option of having a "clean" OS without spying (an with a sane UI if I can ask) if you paid some money (like it's always been done)

once again demonstrating that...

[Lead Butthead]

there's nothing more expensive in life than free.
never underestimate the creative ability of corporate amerika to extract profit out of free.

This is starting to get annoying

[Higaran]

Haven't we see a post like this ever day since launch?

Re: This is starting to get annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

annoying to see your antics exposed ?

Re:This is starting to get annoying

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people are discovering new and annoying ways that the issue is still a problem, or a bigger problem than originally thought (e.g., not turning telemetry off even when you tell it to).

Re:This is starting to get annoying

[gstoddart]

Which are you annoyed at?

The fact that it's getting posted, or the fact that Microsoft is acting like such major assholes?

Everything about Windows 10 seems to be saying "we don't give a fuck about you peons, we'll do any damned thing we want".

Re:This is starting to get annoying

[iampiti]

It's been this way since 8. They knew, by internal tests, that people hated the UI yet they pressed on. Windows is now built with only the needs of Microsoft in mind (user information gathering, pushing of Microsoft services) and disregarding user needs of wants.

Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterprise

[The MAZZTer]

Group Policy explains if you try it on other editions it will act as if set to Basic.

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

The criminals and terrorists will just have to use Linux I guess....

Re:So?

[Anonymous Coward]

The criminals and terrorists will just have to use Linux I guess....

Poor bastards.

Re: So?

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor wolves. They have no nicely made shackles around their necks. Neither do wolves get fed. Imagine they have to run for their food !

How convenient is the life of a dog.

Buy Dog Shackle OS Version 10 !

Re:So?

[Z80a]

They will just use your machine instead, given all the exploits and flaws that this system will obviously have, given how deep it is rooted on the system.

Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

It's good these posts come out, but having worked with it, it's probably just a case of some calls that didn't check for the telemetry lockdown registry key. Say what you will, but it's not likely they have a secret cabal going to collect which live tiles you resized to "large" or unpinned. There's enough of us that either ride with defaults or are actually OK with them learning how to make a better OS based on how we use it. Given how rushed it was on the last few months fixing major issues, it doesn't surprise me that a few things slipped through. If it isn't fixed via update once they can process the feedback, I'll be surprised. For the live tiles, it's probably trying to pre-cache the images for default items. Even if they removed it from their start menu, I think that's still part of the default account profile. Maybe it needs removed from that one as well. That said, maybe it's just poorly coded (feigns shock). It's good to keep them accountable though, I just wouldn't blow this out of proportion. I've got bigger fish to fry.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

The burden is on Microsoft to prove that they aren't up to anything nefarious. Until they PROVE this, beyond a reasonable doubt, I can't see any major corporation or any foreign government installing NSA approved spyware masquerading as an OS on their systems!

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[denis-The-menace]

Doesn't matter.

It's my Bandwidth.

Meanwhile at work, they are only now wondering where the bandwidth all went.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Just Some Guy]

It's good these posts come out, but having worked with it, it's probably just a case of some calls that didn't check for the telemetry lockdown registry key.

Oh, so it's just a case of them not having integration tests. That's not exactly comforting in an OS vendor.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

Eh, some of them are already cool with it and are on the pilot testing phase with plans to move forward very soon. It's either have an insecure desktop that the hackers already own (Win7), or something newer that has an at least usable GUI that the hackers may have not caught up with yet (10). OS aside, it's actually the move to IE 11 that is causing the most effort. IE 8 & 9 are out of support come January but companies haven't recoded their web apps or sites. Lots of teaching them how to use Enterprise Mode in IE11. If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET - good security tool and lets you lock down subsystems to only what you use. I won't call it user friendly, but if you want it to do X and Y but not Z, it's a darn good option.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET - good security tool and lets you lock down subsystems to only what you use. I won't call it user friendly, but if you want it to do X and Y but not Z, it's a darn good option.

Re: Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it is all a coincidence they have tracking ids buried into they spy-traffic. You probably swear on you MBA bible.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

There's enough of us that either ride with defaults or are actually OK with them learning how to make a better OS based on how we use it.

Well if that's all they're after, why can't they simply just ask? Why do they want to immorally invade peoples' privacy instead?

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want any data going to MS at all, they actually do make a good tool for locking it all down, check out EMET

That isn't what EMET is at all.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

It's either have an insecure desktop that the hackers already own (Win7), or something newer that has an at least usable GUI that the hackers may have not caught up with yet (10).

What a load of idiocy. I'm not saying you're an idiot, but you say idiotic things.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[steelfood]

Stupidity is no excuse for doing bad things.

Which is to say, this stuff should be fail closed, not fail open.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[meta-monkey]

No way your workplace already installed 10. Nobody's that stupi...oh fuck I just answered my own question.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[cfalcon]

No. It's not PEBKAC. Go fucking research. To stop Windows from talking, you need several privacy toggles, some of which won't toggle all the way. Then you need a registry workaround, because Windows is so about user friendliness that you need to modify DWORDS in their shitted up binary fuckfest. Then you need to disable like three services, and remove two binaries. Then you need a big hosts file, and that's becoming an issue because Windows will actually work around a hosts file in some cases, using a list of known IPs specifically to circumvent that. So for now, you can block them on your external firewall.

Eventually, you'll need a dedicated Application Firewall to block all that plus the mandatory Windows Update- you obviously don't want to allow Windows Update unless and until the Application Firewall has updated rules, because we can assume Microsoft will sidestep them weekly if allowed to. The advantage of that approach is that Microsoft can't beat it- it's not on their computer- and further, that you can eventually deep packet inspect and sanitize, allowing the use of Cortana with just the information YOU want to share with her.

Again, really, we need to get off Microcock. This level of drama- needing a second computer to use your first computer- is absolutely insane. But for those that want all those lesser applications that only have Windows support, this will be the option.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, that's cute. Enterprise does little to none of this, and doesn't work around all the stuff. They know what they are doing. The Home version they give you, and the Pro version you can buy, are meant to spy on you. They already know that corporations won't stand for this, and Enterprise does little of it.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll worry about that in 2023 when Windows 8 support ends.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[WaffleMonster]

It's good these posts come out, but having worked with it, it's probably just a case of some calls that didn't check for the telemetry lockdown registry key. Say what you will, but it's not likely they have a secret cabal going to collect which live tiles you resized to "large" or unpinned. There's enough of us that either ride with defaults or are actually OK with them learning how to make a better OS based on how we use it. Given how rushed it was on the last few months fixing major issues, it doesn't surprise me that a few things slipped through.

One thing having always bugged me about this line of thinking is the quantity of traffic and number of systems out there that would all be generating these requests is simply enormous... must be one hell of a noise floor to go unnoticed.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Snort / VRT have a rules package for blocking Windows 10 data leaks yet?

Windows 10: never thought I'd have to enable intrusion detection measures where my own machine is the abusive host.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Darinbob]

Even if they are not of evil intent here, they still have broken design goals. Pre-caching stuff like this is always wrong if there is no option to disable. Always. There is no excuse for this, not even Microsoft's disingenuous standard response "it's for a better user experience." It slows down the computer slightly so that you can get a ridiculously stupid feature to work slightly faster. They're still stuck on the idea that silly phone apps on a computer are a good idea. I don't turn on my computer just to see the update on an app and then turn it off again; this makes sense for a phone but is stupid on a computer. The users completely rejected the idea of a live background screen and MS is still trying to keep that idea; as well the users rejected gadgets on Windows but those are being resurrected in a different form too. All this stuff is just a different sort of layer on top of the web, the majority of these aren't even real programs but just wrappers and gloss on top of some URLs, whereas the equivalent web sites are far more useful and informative. Their eyes are blinded at the thought of having a store that all users are accustomed too, thinking they can replicate the itunes model (even though on the mac almost no one uses the apple store).

In other words, even thought they apologized and said Windows 8 was a mistake and they are trying to fix it and regain customer trust, they are still firmly behind the misguided goals of Windows 8.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Darinbob]

It sounds crazy. But there are major corporations that routinely plan to upgrade to the latest OS as soon as possible. I kid you not, but this includes major defense contractors. We all laughed at Windows 8, but the people with the missiles went and rolled it out. I have no doubt some of these places are rolling out Windows 10. This is not driven by the corporate leadership though, but by hordes of IT people who double as the vanguard of Microsoft's marketing forces.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

Not saying you're wrong that it's broken, I bet that it's probably the case. I think it's more of a case of too many cooks in the kitchen in a hurry. We're old hat IT, and kind of curmudgeonly. Feedback from actual users around having weather on their start menu and things like now having to manually update apps has been actually pretty positive. So they get to weigh the desires of the few against the desires of the many. I don't see that as evil, just pragmatic. Keep in mind, things like that background app update, sync my data and settings to every computer I own. So when I set up something like a stock ticker, mail, weather or update Evernote, it syncs my preferences to every new computer I set up. I'll admit, I kind of like it that when I install an app on my laptop, it pops up on my desktop. As long as I have the resources to run it anyway. That does have a cost in the form of syncing overhead. I can disable most of that stuff, but I bet it'll take them a bit to get it 100% dialed in for use "off the grid." It's not perfect, and sure, there's some apps that don't make sense to sync, say a GPS app being synced to my desktop that doesn't have GPS, but I think with time we'll be able to fine tune it. To do that though, they need feedback from legitimate users. I've talked with the program managers and engineers a couple times and they legitimately want real, honest feedback on these things - that's why they left the feedback icons all over Windows 10. They really do want us to help make their OS better. That's why they have so many damn telemetry calls. I can't really fault them for that, but yes, they do need to fix their settings that respect turning it off.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

Didn't say it was user error, but programmer error. On all of their routines that do telemetry, sounds like they didn't check the registry to see if the no call back was present. That said, use the feedback icon that's all over the place and let them know. I've talked to the Product Manager and a couple of the Engineers and they are actively listenting to all the noise, distilling it down and refocusing their efforts to make it a better product. So far I've had three emails back from an engineer asking for more details on my feedback comments, one of which they knew about and fixed in an update already. That's actually a good approach and they need constructive feedback to give us a good product. Yes, they have to weigh the needs of the casual user against the needs of the few IT curmudgeons, but it's up to us to fix it, and they gave us a good tool to let them know what to fix. Also, if you're in a panic about it, download MS EMET and lock your systems down. It lets you lock down every subsystem on your box so it will ONLY do exactly what you want it to do.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

Your right, which is why you should click that little Windows 10 Feedback icon they scattered all over the place and let them know. I've talked with the program manager and engineers a couple times and they really do want our feedback on this stuff. They will always have to weigh the needs of the many against the few (old IT curmudgeons) but the reason all that telemetry stuff is even there is that they want to improve their product.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

I figured you could use EMET to lock down the MS telemetry and store services? I haven't tried, but I've used it elsewhere to similar effect. So you're suggesting just handling it at the firewall level than disabling additional calls? Something Else?

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

I do ConfigMgr work as a consultant, so bulk OS upgrades is a core part of my job. I've got projects booked for upgrades for quite a while. Most of them are PoC though, the big guys aren't going completely bonkers, but they want to get off Windows 7, but don't want 8 so they are left seeing if 10 will be acceptable. Net new stuff though, it's actually getting some traction, did a health care divesture the other day, Windows 10 across 100% of their network so they can get rid of on-prem domain controllers (Azure AD join instead). Pretty big financial incentive since they had hundreds of little bitty locations of users and could ditch all their servers.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

You're right, it's not fair to say Win7 is insecure and 10 isn't, but they companies I work for are so wickedly behind on patches for 7, they know they have massive holes all over the place, especially around .net and so forth. Most of those will only deploy 1-2 updates per month or don't enforce reboots at all so they have significant vulnerability issues. So to them 10 is perceived as more secure because it's "up to date". I do ConfigMgr consulting, so it's all about bulk OS and update deployment. My clients percieve it that way, so it rubs off. Fully up to date, who knows...

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

But surprising?

Re: Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

Spy-traffic? You mean the standardized telemetry data they used to assess how people use their OS to make it better? Where else would you suggest putting a random ID that let's you figure out which feedback comes from which users? Apple and Google do the same things as well - not saying I like it necessarily, but this isn't new. They aren't covert that this feature exists, or why, and it's in the EULA (not that people read it). The fact that when you toggle it off that some of the subsystems keep talking is what's broken. But that said, it's still good to fix it, so let them know to fix it, that's what the little feedback button is for. Complaining on /. doesn't get it fixed. Giving them feedback that something isn't working right via their Windows 10 feedback icon does.

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[Just Some Guy]

Well actually, yeah. I'd have expected someone like the security team to be running it behind a firewall to see what connections it's trying to make. Guess not, huh?

Re:Probably just not optimized yet

[slacklinejoe]

Who knows, maybe it was indeed a corporate directive. Let's let enterprise behave normal, but home and pro have to call back with at least basic telemetry. That said, with enough feedback, I bet they'd reverse direction and respect that telemetry blocking setting.

So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[rstanley]

I can't imagine the lawyers haven't been working overtime. What Mickey$oft is doing is illegal!

This invasion of privacy even when allegedy turned off is nothing short of insane!

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't imagine the lawyers haven't been working overtime. What Mickey$oft is doing is illegal! This invasion of privacy even when allegedly turned off is nothing short of insane!

Not gonna happen. Micro$hit owns all the lawyers!

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which laws are being broken?

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[Calydor]

Unauthorized access to a computer system, for one.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[CanadianMacFan]

You know that EULA that you didn't read but accepted? I'm pretty sure that there's something in there that says they are allowed to send information back to their computers.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[Calydor]

And I'm pretty sure it's been established that a EULA can't be used to do things that go against the law.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[meta-monkey]

But by accepting the EULA you authorized the access. So it's no longer unauthorized access.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[Calydor]

And then took a series of steps deliberately designed to make users think they were REVOKING that access without actually revoking it.

Let's throw in deceptive business practices.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[gstoddart]

Good luck with that. It's illegal when you or I do it.

But due to the magic of EULAs, and corporations buying the laws they want from the politicians ... there's no way in hell Microsoft will be pursued by the DOJ.

The system is corrupt and stacked in favor of the corporations. And they can do any damned thing they want to.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[SuricouRaven]

Microsoft were pursued by the DoJ once, for antitrust violations. The case ran for nine years, eventually ending in 2000. Microsoft lost, and a court ordered the company be broken into two separate divisions. Then Microsoft appealed, and the DoJ quickly changed position and reached a settlement whereby they would drop the case and Microsoft would get a slap-on-the-wrist penalty of no consequence.

There was a change of administration during the case, so it is highly likely there was political meddling - someone ordered the DoJ to knock it off and stop trying to destroy a company of great importance not only economically but strategically too.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[slacklinejoe]

So, you installed and OS that proudly says it has features that cloud sync. Accepted the EULA saying you knew it's there and agree to install. They didn't have to give any options to turn off telemetry collection and had no legal disclaimers that it worked and would adjust your EULA, but provided an option to do so, that works, but only partially. Yeah... Not sure a bug in an option designed to make the OS better is going to qualify as saying it's illegal.

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[Anonymous Coward]

there's no way in hell Microsoft will be pursued by the DOJ.

The word is spelled "dodge", not "doj".

Re:So how many lawsuits have been filed so far?

[allo]

isn't windows one of the softwares, which tell you "please accept the EULA", when you click next without accepting? In this very moment, they tell you to accept it, without asking if you accept it. So its not anymore binding, as you just did what you were told to.

I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Win 7

[QuietLagoon]

I've recently been trying to shut down Microsoft's gathering of telemetry from my Windows 7 PC. I am seeing the performance-draining results of this telemetry gathering process.

.
When I start up my PC in the morning, the hard drive just grinds away for about 5 or 10 minutes, and the CPU is sluggish. At first I thought it was an A/V scan, so I removed my A/V. No effect.

Then I stumbled upon the InfoWorld article, and removed the Windows Updates that were mentioned in the article. The scanning stopped. Until I did a Windows Update earlier this week. And I had to remove once again the offending updates.

What in the world is going on in Redmond?

Influence from Skype

[xeno]

It is interesting to see not only the technical influence, but the design philosophy inherited from the Skype acquisition: That is, from the perspective of a running service, it's perfectly ok or even desirable to worm your way out and communicate with the hivemind, no matter what the user says. For example, if the user configures the app not to communicate with a voip service, the app will respect the exact letter of the user's intent -- not to make voip calls or display presence -- but it will still update itself, download patches, and update directory data so that you *could* make voip calls if you changed your mind... which it will assume you did at the next update when the settings are reset to default-open...

Opting out entirely is within reach for most people/orgs, it's the momentum that keeps people choosing this crapware. I keep Windows around because I like Visio, but my company does everything else in Google services, so my main machine for actual work has been Linux Mint for several years. The kids have Windows tablets but never use them; they just use pocketable android for comm and big iron for gaming/steam/AV/dev. It's not even worth much effort to criticize msft, they're not going to stop doing stupid things, they don't offer an advantage at the consumer level anymore, and I just don't have the time for it.

(Now, ask me as a security geek, do I like having windows event data along with netflow? Sure thing, but the infrastructure to get that is insanely costly to license and run. I just wouldn't build a company that way anymore.)

Re:Influence from Skype

[drooling-dog]

...it's the momentum that keeps people choosing this crapware.

Unfortunately true. It causes most people a great deal of anxiety to acknowledge there's a problem and that there are things they can do to mitigate it, because that means they have to learn about those things, which they fear will be outside their experience and abilities. As long as they're in the same boat as their friends and family, they feel the safety of numbers and can ignore the issue. The FUD mantra against Linux has always been that you have to be an elite geek to install and use it; of course that's nonsense but people believe it. It creates a lot of fear and trepidation that they'll be in over their heads if they even try, and so they don't.

Re:Influence from Skype

[Antique Geekmeister]

> It is interesting to see not only the technical influence, but the design philosophy inherited from the Skype acquisition:

It's consistent with Skype: it was hardly unique to them. It's inherent in Microsoft's registration models, their "Trusted Computing" encryption key architecture, and the very poor security of MS File Sharing itself. You _cannot_ use Powershell to administer your host if you block sharing your entire C: drive as the hidden share \\hostname\c$. A security model that says "to use administrations tools, I must expose my entire filesystem" is not a good approach to security.

Re:Influence from Skype

[meta-monkey]

It's been about 10 months since I moved my wife's grandmother and my grandfather onto Linux Mint. Total tech support calls: 3 very short ones with minor questions related to Skype and Firefox.

Unless you have a specific application need that only runs on Windows, there is zero reason for the average consumer to use it.

Re:Influence from Skype

[yodleboy]

It's not FUD... Whatever the year of the Linux desktop people want you to believe, it's just not that easy for most people to switch. The skepticism you have "Windows 10 is free, what's the catch?", is the same thing I hear when I tell people about Ubuntu. "It's free, how could it possible be good if it's free?" Then you tell them that it will change the look and feel of a computer they've used for years. Then you have to admit that their Windows apps won't work. Then confess that they will have a much smaller selection of software available to them. yeah, sign me up right away, is not the response you should expect.

Despite huge improvements, Linux desktop is still NOT for the average user. It's for the average user that has a knowledgeable friend to help them setup things, to install Windows apps under WINE when possible, to help them find replacement apps for all the things they use, and to help them get used to the quirks of Linux. I've got my mother in law's laptop running perfectly under Ubuntu and she loves it, but there's no way on earth she'd ever have done it herself, even if her future self could send a note back in time and tell her how much better it was.

WE don't think it's that hard or intimidating because we play with this stuff all the time and tend to forget we've grown along with the Linux desktop and take a lot of acquired knowledge for granted.

Re:Influence from Skype

[drooling-dog]

A lot of people are still running Windows XP (and earlier) for much the same reason. It works as well as it ever did for them (not considering the security issues), they've acclimated to it, and who knows what may go wrong with an update? Will their old familiar apps still work, or will they have to shell out hundreds of $$ to update those too?

Re:Influence from Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

In what way is KDE different from Windows 7 in any way that would make a difference to the average not-professional?

Re:Influence from Skype

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true. The main barrier is not the final functionality of Linux, it's getting it installed and configured. If only it came pre-installed and supported the main windows applications - Office and games - which is what the majority of people seem to use their computer for in a home setting...

Welcome to The Muppet Show

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not the customer, you're the product.

Re:Welcome to The Muppet Show

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but this time the customer has paid 100 Eur for the product without consenting to be sold to anyone who wishes to give a dime to Microsoft.

Windows 10, brought to you by NSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing to see here. Keep moving. Continue typing your letters and downloading your porn.
Here, here is some free porn for you. Yes. That's it. Masturbate.

SHOCKED

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Obligatory "I'm shocked, SHOCKED I TELL YOU!"

What were you expecting?

[koan]

Wasn't auto update, upgrade the give away clue?

Watch as time goes by how much worse it gets, from broken apps (due to auto upgrades) to massive security fails.

people still use windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

what is this 2003?

Re:people still use windows?

[epyT-R]

Yes. Many of us still do more with computers than browse failbook.

Re:people still use windows?

[arkane1234]

That's only a browser feature, you can do that on nearly any OS.

Re:people still use windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows is the only operating system choice for professionals. All of the software available for Linux is a fucking joke. That's why Linux has less than 1% of the market, because it's complete and utter shit.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[Anonymous Coward]

save you a few minutes
wusa /uninstall /kb:2952664 /quiet /norestart
wusa /uninstall /kb:2990214 /quiet /norestart
wusa /uninstall /kb:3035583 /quiet /norestart

Telemetry is for cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine

Re:Telemetry is for cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Moo says the cow... etc.

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Attach a virus to every message being sent to their servers....

So. To Upgrade an Old Joke

[sehlat]

You never have to go looking for Microsoft. Microsoft always knows where to find you.

Re:So. To Upgrade an Old Joke

[techno-vampire]

In Microsoft's Amerika, software upgrades you!

Re:So. To Upgrade an Old Joke

[sehlat]

So. You upgraded my joke. I thought I'd set my privacy settings properly at install.

Re:No Fucking Shit!

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Did you go: "Derp derp derp I hate Microsoft so they must be ignoring privacy settings!" ... as opposed to "Here are logs that prove what's happening?"

Just curious because there's a huge difference between the two.

Hahahaha

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try Mr Redmond. MSFT proves that some businesspeople are truly devoid of reason. You had this nice PC business where your customers had control of their data on their local harddrive or the local server. You earned nice money from that.

Then came Google and offered "free cloudspace in exchange for your freedom and trade secrets". A hightech form of begging and stealing.

What does MSFT do ? Yeah, try to emulate Google and waste their decisive advantage of "user owns data" as if it were a dirty diaper.

When it comes to stupidness, MBAs prove they can always ratchet the madness up one more notch.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[ShaunC]

Here are a few others, and some scheduled tasks that I was surprised to find on Windows 7 machines.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[QuietLagoon]

save you a few minutes

Thank-you!

Re:Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterpris

[Blue Stone]

Windows 8 was a fuck up because of the UI.

It looks like Microsoft said, with 10, let's just go deeper and fuck up the user's privacy instead.

The more I hear about 10, the less it looks like a saviour to Windows woes and the more it looks like an even bigger disaster.

Re:Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterpris

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, so the US military personnel can in fact use only one of the editions in their networks.

Re:No Fucking Shit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Was Janice Dickenson raped by the Pudding-Pop guy? No. Were the others? Yes. Proof is in the pudding, after it has left.

Re:the Borg will be the Borg

[Anonymous Coward]

Most software doesn't work on BSD or Linux, so that seems like poor advice. Just what I'd expect at Slashderp.

Host file?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you can trivially disable this via some simple monitoring to see which domains it's hitting and then either point those to localhost via the host file, or use your router/firewall to simply disable those domains?

No?

Re:Host file?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you can trivially disable this via some simple monitoring to see which domains it's hitting and then either point those to localhost via the host file, or use your router/firewall to simply disable those domains?

If the host doesn't resolve, the code falls back to a hardcoded IP address to which the hostname was expected to resolve.

Yes, that's a bad idea. But remember, if you own the IP address and have a forced-update mechanism, and you decide to reallocate 1.2.3.4 to something else, you can always push another DLL with that falls back to 2.3.4.5 instead of 1.2.3.4 as part of a mandatory update.

So 2015

[Anonymous Coward]

will be the year when Linux goes mainstream?

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish somebody would develop "anti-spying" software which would simplify privacy settings for ordinary Joe's machine and which would control your system for changes and malicious updates. It would be running as a daemon and protecting from Microsoft bastards not to override those anti-spying measures. Such software would need to be regularly updated itself to accommodate for new Microsoft spyware as discovered in time...

If somebody would start such a project, I would gladly contribute - I think anti-virus guys should develop something like that... hello Clamwin?

Also I think EU commission should ban sales and distribution of W10 in EU until Mictrosoft modifies their policy and allows simple anti-spyware settings.

Look! I installed a virus.

[Anonymous Coward]

And it doesn't respect my privacy, sends my private data, logs my keyboard and uses my computer as a part of a botnet.
Although they advertised it is not malware!
How can it be?!

Is there still a hosts file?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you put all of these urls into the hosts file to block them?

Re:Is there still a hosts file?

[frovingslosh]

My thoughts exactly. If there is a hosts file (and they are not bypassing it for themselves) then shame on anyone who lets M$ phone home. If the host file is gone (which kills a lot of my abusive advertisement and malware protection) or bypassed then it is time to get the router to protect you from traffic going to Microsoft.

Another nice advantage of the hosts file or router hack is that the home version will wait until you believe it is safe to download those "security updates" and you actually want them, rather than forcing them on home users first to see how much damage is done before feeding them to business users. And I say that as an experienced computer user who has only had real harm done to his system twice, once by uninstalling something that left behind an updated DLL but uninstalled the other new DLL that the first one now needed (nice design Bill) and once by a "security update) that deliberately changed my NIC EEPROM so that Linux would not run properly on it (Thank you Microsoft for such aggressive security).

Re:Is there still a hosts file?

[w_dragon]

Apparently they're hard-coding some of the IPs, so the hosts file won't fix everything.

Re:Is there still a hosts file?

[frovingslosh]

Anyone know this to be correct and able to provide a list of IP addresses that need to be blocked at the router?

Re:Is there still a hosts file?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS bypasses hosts for Windows update (vs viral infestation corrupting it). Hosts can't fix everything but they can fix a lot for less resources used than other solutions and from a single file you already natively possess.

Re:Is there still a hosts file?

[Anonymous Coward]

For starters, you don't put URLs in the hosts file, idiot.

Second, using the hosts file for anything is lunacy. It's completely inflexible, doesn't allow wildcards, needs every host explicitly spelled out and can only redirect the traffic somewhere, not say "this host doesn't exist".

It's a fucking stupid method discovered by idiots who know nothing else about networking.

Re:Is there still a hosts file?

[slacklinejoe]

Microsoft uses a content delivery network for windows updates, since URLs don't go in a hosts file, you'd have to put IPs, problem is those CDN IPs are used for lots of things and change a lot. An intelligent outbound proxy is a better solution as that will parse URLs and wildcards.

ugh...

[arkane1234]

It always has been for the best to not put any trust in Microsoft.
They have a proven track record of unworthiness, for decades.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[Anonymous Coward]

When I start up my FreeBSD in the morning, I've got a fully working desktop with X, browser, email, chat and music... all automatically started and waiting for me in about 90 seconds, and half of that is BIOS POST.
I used to run Windows, then I reclaimed my time and life money and freedom and privacy from Redmond.
I get more chicks now too.
It's win win as far as I'm concerned.

Nice double standard, slashtards

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows 10 does NOTHING DIFFERENT from Android or OSX, but everyone's throwing a hissy fit. Hey, nerds -newsflash! If you're on the internet you have NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY.

Re: Nice double standard, slashtards

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason you're seeing all of this FUD is because if Windows 10 works out it will have a massive impact on Google's finances through search. If people start to get used to just asking Cortana or using the search bar, that's a lot of eyeballs not looking at Google.

So what to do. The OS is more or less stable, so that's not a good target and most people seem to like the new UX. What if there was a campaign to get all of the unwashed Facebook posting masses yelping about spying between posting selfies? That might work....

Remember, if you're using an Android, iOS device or God help it, any social networking app, you shouldn't even begin to comment on any of the Windows 10 transgressions. If you do want to comment, make sure to address your ire at all of the operating systems and apps that participate in this behavior or all you're doing is being a patsy for the other billion dollar companies end game. It's embarrassing.

Re: Nice double standard, slashtards

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? Because you say so? Go to hell. Seriously.

It's true that if you choose to send packets somewhere and expect an answer that you have to tell a number of devices how to reach you by definition, but it's also true that I expect control over when and to what that happens.

Unrooted Android is a big problem there no doubt, but my phone is not a general purpose computer and for now I simply avoid letting it know anything really private. And I unload all google services, don't use social networking or have those apps installed, don't sync my data and photos to 'the cloud', use my phone as a GPS and I disable wifi when going into stores known to track you via that method.

Perfect? No, but good enough. I know my Android phone is an untrustworthy device and I treat it that way. My PC? That will never be allowed to spy on me. So no Windows 10 until those 'features' can be effectively neutered.

Re: Nice double standard, slashtards

[Anonymous Coward]

I think one issue around the Windows 10 privacy discussion is the lack of distinction between personally identifiable information and basic telemetry like sending some words out of context to help with speech recognition. Yelling about privacy every time something makes an outbound connection doesn't help advance the discussion.

Re:Nice double standard, slashtards

[tlambert]

If you're on the internet you have NO EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY.

Is that you, Scott McNealy? Because 1999 called, and they want that quote back.

Re:Nice double standard, slashtards

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't get a pass just because someone else is being evil. Also, my operating system isn't the internet, you stupid little shit.

Go shill somewhere else, tool. Better yet, go dig a hole and die in it. Freedom hating fucks like you are why the world is in such bad shape.

Re:Nice double standard, slashtards

[allo]

So?
Install a fresh AOKP ROM. No googly connections at all.
It's your fault to install gapps, which connect to google all the time (as that's the purpose of gapps. Give you i.e. GCM, which needs a persistent connection to google)

FIREWALLED! Blocking 207.46.7.252

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool, thanks, just did an IP lookup on it and got back 207.46.7.252. I just made a new outband rule in my firewall blocking all outbound traffic from all applications to 207.46.7.252. Hopefully that should solve the problem.
It isn't that hard to do, I would like to see any other servers windows tries to contact that it dose not need to so I can block them too.

My thought after reading most of these posts......

[dbreeze]

Thank you Linus, and all the other developers who gave the world an alternative. Think about what this would be like with no solid, open, computing platforms to stay clear of big money/brother.

Re:Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterpris

[cfalcon]

It is hands down the biggest disaster in computing history. The interesting part is how Enterprise will, eventually, not have any of these spyware bugs, so the challenge for the die hard win-heads will be to pirate and use Enterprise. I'm not really sure if it counts as piracy- you're really just looking for the patch set of the OS you are buying (Pro) that doesn't upload every little thing you do to Microsoft, and since the only entities with privacy rights are corporations, you have to use the stuff meant for them.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[pkinetics]

thank you all! Was wondering why my almost never used Win machine was going dog slow on startup

Privacy is a prerequsite for liberty

[jbn-o]

Hacking free software continues to prove fruitful. In fact, some people use it and rely on it for their freedoms (such as Edward Snowden). But proprietary software is long known to be untrustworthy by default, no matter who the proprietor is or what excuse they (or their water carriers) have for denying users software freedom. So there's no gain to be had in a capitulation view. Privacy and other freedoms are worth fighting for and there's plenty of good to be had in the fight. Some of those fights take the form of saying "no" to a convenience or trend on the grounds that one values one's privacy more.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[cfalcon]

> What in the world is going on in Redmond?

Frankly I have no idea. This OS is absolutely bat shit insane.

installed Gnome today

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumped KDE today, because of Akonadi
net installed debian on this fresh machine in ~15 minutes(after configured new partitions and other options)
what's the advantage of WIndows anymore? does it have anything putting it ahead of Linux?(definitely not UI)
How long before Microsoft starts porting their software onto Linux?
Windows is a sinking ship.

Re:I've been trying to stop Win 10 telemetry on Wi

[kheldan]

Friend, I'll tell you what's 'going on in Redmond': The same thing that goes on at Facebook, and countless other companies these days: You are the product they're selling, and you're paying for the 'privilege' of being such by buying Windows 10. They're collecting data from your computer whether you like it or not, and selling that data to someone else.

Personally, I love Windows 10

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally love Windows 10. Being a self employed computer tech, I am getting a lot more calls about undoing this "Windows 10 update". While I am in the process of reverting their system back to their previous OS, (or re-imaging if the revert fails), I explain to them that this "update" wasn't really an update. I tell them, if they were happy with 7 or 8 that they had, they should stay with it as they will still be supported for some time. If they weren't happy with their previous version, I explain the benefits and drawbacks of using an alternative OS such as Linux. So far, all of the ones that have switched to Linux (I usually suggest Centos due to stability) have been very happy because they were already warned about the drawbacks such as, you can't just download random.exe and install it. Most of them just used their systems for web browsing, email and social networking.

So, here's to you Microsoft. You are doing a very good job of paying for my new boat.

How to block MS?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm basically stuck with the apps(er programs) I've been using for over a decade.. So switching to linux sounds great but...

How can one block all MS communications within Windows 8.1-10? I don't wish to use any MS online service or updates, or anything MS related asside from the initial stable install of the OS... Is there a list of all IPs and or hostnames built into the OS to simply block (can it be done t hosts file with defender disabled?) at the router if necessary?

I am against all self-updating/backdoored programs(chrome etc) as well.

127.0.0.1 bing.com
127.0.0.1 microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 api.bing.com
127.0.0.1 www.bing.com
127.0.0.1 update.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 updates.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 activate.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 live.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 www.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 ssw.live.com
127.0.0.1 www.msftncsi.com
127.0.0.1 dns.msftncsi.com
127.0.0.1 msftncsi.com
127.0.0.1 ncsi.glbdns.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 msdn.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 prachand.ncsi.com
127.0.0.1 ncsi.com
127.0.0.1 technet.microsoft.com
127.0.0.1 go.microsoft.com

Re:How to block MS?

[slacklinejoe]

Outbound proxy, or even just a good outbound firewall/content filter would do the job.

Re:How to block MS?

[slacklinejoe]

For proxy filtering, I don't have a full list for the app store, but here's a list from Intune which includes all of the update pieces: https://technet.microsoft.com/... - that would at least be a start. Also, Microsoft does have some additional steps on isolating Windows Store apps once they are on a PC, but I'm not sure I fully understood the direction they are going. It looks like they recommending the removal of networking permissions to anything except your user account, but I'd have to test it out to fully digest it: https://technet.microsoft.com/...

We will access, disclose and preserve personal

[Anonymous Coward]

"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."

You are asking the wrong question

[Taco Cowboy]

can M$ selectively kill any windows 10 computer remotely

As Win 10 is an 'in progress' project M$ can acquire that kind of power (if it does not already have it) and toggle the 'kill' switch any time it wants.

Win 10 is becoming the largest security threat there ever is.

Because of that I have decided to not upgrade any of my company's computers (which run Windoze) to Win 10. All the computers that are needed to be retired will be replaced with computers running any OS other than Win 10.

Re: You are asking the wrong question

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you should use the LTSB version of Enterprise which doesn't update like that.

Those who believe enterprise version is safe ...

[Taco Cowboy]

... are idiots

Telemetry and error reporting cannot be effectively disabled on 10, because Microsoft refuses to make Enterprise available via retail channels

There is one thing about the masses - they believe in whatever they were told, such as "Users of Enterprise version of Win 10 can disable spying"

Just because they say the enterprise version can disable spying does not mean:

1. It is true
_and_
2. It will always be true

Remember this thing - Windows 10, unlike prior versions of Windows, is an "in progress" project, which means, Microsoft gets to add it, or take out, any function/feature it wants.

The hundreds of millions of users of Windows worldwide used to be the customers of Microsoft, used to be, because as of now, they have become Microsoft's product, to be packaged and sold to Microsoft's new crop of customers - the ad agencies, spook agencies, data miners, and so on, and so forth ...

For the BEST custom hosts file?

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-2 32/64-bit http://start64.com/index.php?o...

FREE & adds speed, security, + reliability, doing more with less, more efficiently vs. browser addons & locally installed DNS servers @ home + fixes DNS' redirect security issues - obtaining its data vs. online threats & adbanner blocking from 10 reputable sites in the security community!

* :)

MalwareBytes' hpHosts Admin (MalwareBytes employee) hosts & recommends it -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Downl... & MalwareBytes = BEST antivirus per this VERY recent testing of them all http://www.av-test.org/en/news...

&

It's GUARANTEED safe & clean per it being checked by 57 antivirus programs recently in BOTH its 64-bit model https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

+

In its 32-bit model also https://www.virustotal.com/en/...

---

"The premise is quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work for the body rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen: "I am legend"...

APK

P.S.=> Of course, that's *IF* the hosts file still works on Windows 10 - MS in VISTA made Windows Defender attack it for NO GOOD REASON (what good is it if you can't make alterations to it) since my app protects hosts vs. unwanted malware alterations of it AND you may have to make a firewall rule to allow inbound connects to my program (it doesn't even warn you of it VISTA onwards, unlike how it does for say, a game like Quake 4, asking you to allow or deny it) making it seem like it doesn't run at all PLUS the DNS cache client needs to be disabled (long problem for MS making it a fixed size vs. redimmable on the fly) - I don't recommend VISTA onwards - Mr. Ballmer spends millions on buying ad services trying to turn MS into Google & failed but TRIED to take down hosts' abilities with it since it posed a threat to his goal (dumb, & he's gone now after f'ing MS up)

...apk

Thanks but no thanks

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Thanks but no thanks, Microsoft.

I'll stick with Win 7 until my PC dies, and after that I'll probably switch to Linux.

Win 7 works fine for me, and Win 8 and Win 10 do not appear to offer me ANYTHING useful whatsoever.

Bitch, bitch, bitch

[vandamme]

STFU and enjoy the Windows you paid for willingly, or go to distrowatch.com and pick one of the 250 alternatives.

Don't get mad, get Linux.

Re:Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterpris

[iampiti]

It's a disaster for us users. Whether is a disaster for Microsoft remains to be seen. The fact that it's a free "upgrade" has already won many people over. Most regular joes seem not to care much about the UI or the spying and I'm thus not very optimistic about it failing and forcing Microsoft to backtrack.

Nooooooooo ooooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Asshole!!!!! You summoned HIM!

Re:Nooooooooo ooooooooo

[Opportunist]

It's like saying Beetlejuice thrice...

Re:Nooooooooo ooooooooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting here 9 days after this was all posted Opportunist? Please, grow up.

Re:Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterpris

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, fuck these faggots and pirate that shit.

"vlmcsd" is a C tool available as source and binaries for every platform imaginable and can activate everything that's volume-licensed, 7/8/10 Enterprise, Server, Office VL.

Take their free 10 upgrade, throw it before them, spit in their face and pirate Enterprise LTSB instead. It's the best version without Cortana, the Store, Apps, any of that shit, i.e. what a real 10 for consumers should have been.

Re:Disabling telemetry only works for 10 Enterpris

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people would care if they knew about all of it. The only ones I have seen who handwave the security concerns away are non-technical kids who only use their computers for Facebook and video games.

Tombstone

[ThatsNotPudding]

"Finally, 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."

One of the longer epitaphs I've run across.

So, no Internet for Windows

[RockDoctor]

Seems simple enough to defeat - don't connect to the internet. Or set up rules on your firewall to block those domains. That would be *.microsoft.com and *.live.com

YOU are the product

[Anonymous Coward]

Bottom line "If you do not PAY for the product .... YOU are the product" Microsoft Windows 10 is FREE only because Microsoft will be making money by selling your personal data

How to remove crap on 7, 8, 8.1 and 10

[Anonymous Coward]

Remove the following updates (if installed already)

KB971033 Description of the update for Windows Activation Technologies
KB2952664 Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
KB2990214 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
KB3021917 Update for Windows Customer Experience Improvement Program
KB3022345 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3035583 Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
KB3044374 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to a later version of Windows
KB3068708 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3075249 Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
KB3080149 (update for CEIP and telemetry)

---

run cmd as administrator

sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack

*Task Scheduler Library:

Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Under "Disk Diagnostic" only the "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
Under "Maintenance" "WinSAT"
"Media Center" and click the "status" column, then select all non-disabled entries and disable them.

*services.msc:

"Remote Registry" to "Disabled" instead of "Manual".