Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft Monitoring How Long You Use Windows 10 (betanews.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the keeping-track-of-your-hours dept.

Mark Wilson writes: The various privacy concerns surrounding Windows 10 have received a lot of coverage in the media, but it seems that there are ever more secrets coming to light. The Threshold 2 Update did nothing to curtail privacy invasion, and the latest Windows 10 installation figures show that Microsoft is also monitoring how long people are using the operating system. This might seem like a slightly strange statistic for Microsoft to keep track of, but the company knows how long, collectively, Windows 10 has been running on computers around the world. To have reached this figure (11 billion hours in December, apparently) Microsoft must have been logging individuals' usage times. Intrigued, we contacted Microsoft to find out what on earth is going on.

42 of 314 comments (clear)

  1. no one cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We already know it collects your private information. It even says so in the fucking EULA. When will we stop pretending to be shocked that Microsoft is gathering one more metric from the users of their closed-source operating system?

    It will become news when it reads: "Microsoft no longer collecting user data from Windows 10".

    1. Re:no one cares by Provocateur · · Score: 4, Funny

      They want to see how long before the new purchaser clicks on "I agree" (Did this guy even bother to read the EULA) then wipe that drive to install something else to make himself more productive.

      Unfortunately, he prefers Windows 7. Brings new meaning to the phrase"Win-Win. NOT!"

      --
      WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
    2. Re: no one cares by arth1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      About as long as we pretend like all other OSes dont gather data on how their software is used

      Gentoo does no such thing. Really.

    3. Re: no one cares by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In some countries the EULA would be thrown out and burned if ever tried in court.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    4. Re: no one cares by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That is irrelevant, though, since it is programmed in and there's nothing you can do about it. The court will not and cannot require the program be rewritten so it doesn't disobey the law, and the program will refuse to operate if it "thinks" that you have broken the agreement. If you clicked "No", refusing the EULA, it won't install, despite the FACT that it isn't required to be agreed to for you to have valid legal use of the product.

      That's, right, even in the USA, there's no legal necessity for agreement to the EULA, since the copy made in installing IS NOT one controlled by copyright and not even one you make yourself, since it is copied by the program, which was written or given rights to make that copy by the copyright owner.

      AND they will refuse to refund. So you have lost the money for the software. If the hardware is only going to be supported with the preinstalled OS, you have also lost the value of the warranty. And if the hardware is insisted as being part of the software/hardware bundle, refusing the EULA still doesn't constitute reason to refund the entire product, software and all, so you're down the entire product.

      Not to mention the terms

      a) aren't available until too late to say no without losing
      b) can be changed at a whim, but you cannot refuse to accept (it will stop working) and if you do, you won't be allowed to get a refund

      and, no, don't give me "You've had use of the software!", because they've had use of the money. Quid, quite literally, quo pro.

      Since the EULA is PROGRAMMED IN, they don't HAVE to go and get the EULA contested in court. They win AUTOMATICALLY. And it's sure as shit not going to be made law that this private extra-legal non-judicial punishment "justice" system is itself illegal and must be removed. After all, you can in theory risk everything in a one-sided legal case in a court of law, right?

    5. Re: no one cares by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Only free countries.

      Dystopian societies like the united States allows companies to enforce that kind of crap on it's citizens.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    6. Re: no one cares by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Informative

      Slackware and Debian as well don't spy on me either.... in fact I am certain that BSD does not as well.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    7. Re:no one cares by Muad'Dave · · Score: 2

      Can you spell "arbitration clause?"

      Can you spell "I didn't agree to the arbitration clause because I didn't accept the EULA"? There are plenty of reasons for the EULA to be challenged in court that don't stem from accepting it (after-the-sale contract, etc).

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
  2. If it weren't for games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It would be the year of another desktop.

    1. Re:If it weren't for games by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 3, Funny

      How many of those hours were just because someone didn't shut down when they were done? And why is this even being monitored?

      Why? Probably for the same reason they implemented a key logger. You are constantly monitored on W10, and hours of use it probably the most benign of the bunch. Because Microsoft fans will put up with anything Microsoft does. - Microsoft pees on your leg and tells you its raining.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    2. Re:If it weren't for games by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Games actually work surprisingly well on Linux by now. Either natively so or with wine or similar tools. It can of course be a bit more of a hassle to get them to run, admittedly.

      The problem is rather in some more obscure programs that you can neither get natively on Linux nor run smoothly in wine. The more pricey and obscure a program gets, the lower the chance that you'll get a working version on Linux.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:If it weren't for games by ShakaUVM · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >It would be the year of another desktop.

      I think other issues are actually a bigger deal.

      Interestingly enough, I set up my first Linux desktop last night in 10-ish years. I am very much an old school CLI Unix fellow, but since I'm going to be doing some stuff with the RPi 2B with my assembly students, I thought I'd give the GUI a try and see how much it'd changed in the meantime.

      My first impression was that it was terribly ugly and slow. Slow I could deal with, since it's a $35 computer the size of a wallet, but it was still annoying watching it struggling to redraw a web page just because I scrolled down a bit and then scrolled back up. The default UI was bland and terrible. The default web browser ("Web", which is the worst name ever for a web browser, since it makes it impossible to look for solutions for it online, i.e. Epiphany) is slow and terrible. Oh, the ability to set your start page? Yeah, we removed that a while back. For a while we had the ability to set it via the CLI, but then, yeah, we removed that as well. We want everyone in your class to see what the last couple things you Google searched right there when you start it up. (Including, "How do I set the start page for Web?".) Double clicking in the top left corner of a window doesn't close the window, despite the window decorations by default otherwise being cloned exactly from Windows. Wi-Fi Supplicant is terrible (and help on the web on how to fix Wifi for the RPi can actually break it much worse), and I eventually switched to a wired connection to avoid its random crapouts. Changing the picture for the background in the appearance settings didn't change the actual background. Neither did right clicking an image from the web in Web (again, terrible name), and choosing "Set image as background". No audio settings (for setting the volume) obvious by default. Playing Youtube videos in Web is shit. The default clock in the bottom right of the screen has the rightmost number clipped in half.

      Not to say this is the end of the story (I fixed all of the above, even the slowness), but these are reasonable, sane actions that developers should expect an end user to try, and when very simple things like setting desktop backgrounds and wifi settings don't work, or when you can't set your fucking start page in a web browser, it's enough to make the whole thing look like amateur night at the OS vendor faire.

      To be fair, it IS a RPi, which is a very weak system, but it *is* the first Linux GUI that most people will see, and very probably the last as well for many of them, and a quad-core 900Mhz processor is many many times faster than the 68000 processor that ran the GUI for my first X11 system back in the day. So it shouldn't be that shitty.

      And as it turns out, it doesn't really have to be. As I said above, I fiddled with everything (because that's what you do, natch), reset OpenBox, got a lot more settings appearing, got the desktop background change to work, fixed the window decorations so that they look nice and slick (and not something from the aforementioned 68k running X11), ditched Web, got Iceweasel, and the system not only didn't run slower, it actually ran noticeably smoother with the better window manager. I have it set so I can switch it from 1080p over HDMI to a touchscreen with a popup keyboard that makes for an only slightly awkward tablet computer. I installed tons of dev tools and while, again, it's not a CPU workhorse, it works just fine. I've got it set up as a class server for my assembly class, and it should work just fine for those purposes.

      But would the average user go through all that? Would they be happy having to flash their SD card and start over to get another shot at Wifi working? Or would they ragequit out of frustration? In all frankness, the idiotic decisions and awkward user experiences is really no different than what it was like in 2005. Different set of frustrations, maybe, but the overall experience is still the same.

      Anyhow, that's my review of the RPI Linux Desktop, reporting live from the year 2016.

    4. Re:If it weren't for games by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2

      I actually had to install Windows 10 because the motherboard i got this christmas did not like Windows 7 (no pre installed drivers)

      Can you tell us which motherboard? I'm looking to order a new mobo/CPU combo and don't want to have to install 10 yet.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    5. Re:If it weren't for games by Altrag · · Score: 4, Insightful

      a bit more of a hassle

      You've just lost 50+% of your target audience.

      For the vast majority of users, games come in three forms:
      - Click to buy (steam, console downloads.)
      - Insert a disc (consoles again.)
      - Log onto a website (flash games and their ilk.)

      (This applies to non-games as well for the most part, though productivity and business software gets a bit more leeway as they're frequently "must haves" rather than "waste a couple hours.")

      People don't want to work to be entertained. They just want to play the damned game, watch the damned show, etc. And most people don't find fiddling with Wine settings and other "technical" things to be excessively entertaining.

    6. Re:If it weren't for games by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I upgraded from 7 to win 10 precisely because the games I play run better. It was only the first month or so that games ran worse while the as usual lagging video drivers from AMD and Nvidia came up to speed.

    7. Re:If it weren't for games by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2, Informative

      There is no keylogger in Windows 10. Let's be absolutely clear about that so that the myth can die.

      Windows 10 has similar features to iOS and Android for voice and pen input, which do involve sending samples to a remote server. It's optional with both.

      There is no keylogger recording your keyboard input.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:If it weren't for games by Lennie · · Score: 3, Informative

      I wouldn't say the Raspbian on RPi is representative of 'desktop Linux'.

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
    9. Re:If it weren't for games by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. The role of games in cementing MS's domination on the desktop is often overlooked. But it's games that keep the general public running Windows on their home PC (whether for themselves or for family members). And it's the fact that pretty much everybody uses Windows at home that means that businesses and Governments know that they can save a lot of time and money on staff training by using Windows, as everybody will just know how to use it.

      The irony is that MS just spent more than a decade trying to downplay PC/Windows gaming, by throwing out a competitor to it in the shape of the Xbox line. What's interesting is that since Phil Spencer took over MS's gaming operations, he's swung the focus heavily back onto PC gaming (implying, I think, that he "gets it"). We hear a lot less about "Xbox exclusives" these days and a lot more about "Xbox/Win10 exclusives").

      And no, Linux gaming is not even vaguely close to being an acceptable replacement for Windows gaming at the moment. A good chunk of PC gamers use the platform because it allows them to run the latest titles with better performance and visual fidelity than the consoles. Telling them to use an OS where they'll be mostly limited to older games and crappy driver support isn't going to cut it.

      Valve have been trying hard to push it, as they know that in the long-term, having their platform be dependent upon a competitor's OS isn't a good business strategy. They got a nasty shock from Win8's app store, until it turned out to be shite. But the jury is very much still out on whether Valve are going to make serious headway with SteamOS. They've got a lot of work to do to convince publishers and hardware manufacturers.

    10. Re:If it weren't for games by Shawndeisi · · Score: 2

      Give a friendlier distribution that is focused on end users a try. I've been very pleased with Linux Mint lately. The Cinnamon desktop is quite nice and is plug-and-play: I spent less time installing and customizing this to my satisfaction last week than an equivalent Windows install (I gave up installing Windows on this laptop already).

      I don't think that a Linux distribution that is focused on an embedded environment is a good representation of the state of the art on Linux. It would be like dismissing Win7 after using WinCE.

    11. Re:If it weren't for games by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      I game on my Windows 10, and have noticed no difference between 7 and 10.

      Please, tell another story.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    12. Re:If it weren't for games by Coren22 · · Score: 2

      There is no GUI in Windows 10 IoT. Perhaps that was your point though.

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    13. Re:If it weren't for games by cfalcon · · Score: 2

      > There is no keylogger recording your keyboard input.

      The EULA says you agreed that your keystrokes and handwriting will go to Microsoft. The OS ships with a service that does exactly that. Why would you think there isn't a keylogger?

    14. Re:If it weren't for games by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      No the analogy is that my mother swore at me and that means I think she's going to come at me with an axe. If you think an enforcing update strategy is the same as keylogging every computer in policy and severity then you've lost your grasp on reality.

      What kind of work do you do that is so accepting of the system breaking that Windows updates do?

      Next will be you saying that my using Windows 10's breaking my computer is somehow my fault because I know New Windows versions break computers.

      That's called the Mike Tyson rape defense - "Hey, she knew who I was." Then you'll switch back and forth between the two positions as befits your argument.

      My grip on reality, eh? I use W10 because I support people using it. Once upon a time, I would caution people to wait a while before updating. That way there is less chance of the inevitible system breakage. They could cut there problems maybe in half. Now? Those forced updates are the number one reason I do not recommend people using Windows 10. At this point, my support functions are roughly 95 percent Windows 10 based, a few W7, a few Linux, and I had 2 OS X issues with El Capitan not being compatible with Filemaker Pro 11, which is 3 versions behind, and the other was a Prolific USB -serial issue, which was a El Capitan problem and prolific wrote new software for. Oh, the linux issues were with people not knowing how ot enable their serial ports - since Linux considers a serial port a security issue (duh), you have to manually add it to the dialout group in a terminal.

      All of the Windows 10 problems were system breaks, and the breaks were conveniently after the updates, that you can't do a damn thing about. Sound cards and virtual sound cards especially are a problem with W10.

      And that's my reality.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  3. Shocking by liqu1d · · Score: 2

    A free piece of software that monitors usage. Dare I say it's a data selling supported model?

  4. Windows 10 is just a giant spyware by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    At this point, after all the news stories about the massive Win10 privacy holes (read: blatant backdoors), it is safe to assume that Windows 10 is simply pure spyware, and it's becoming useless to keep track of ALL the single privacy issues. It should not be used to process any sensitive data, it should be banned from companies' networks and, most importantly, government offices, and those who still use it for non-entertainment purposes are simply poor idiots who do deserve to be spied on, hacked, and laughed at.

    1. Re: Windows 10 is just a giant spyware by TheReaperD · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sadly, if you use hardware or software that requires Windows and the internet, you're hosed at this point. WinXP is no longer really internet safe and most of the privacy screwing aspects of Windows 10 have been back-ported to Windows 7/8 through updates.

      --
      "Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
  5. Or maybe they guessed by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft is also monitoring how long people are using the operating system.

    Wow. That sounds like a pretty certain statement of fact...

    Microsoft must have been logging individuals' usage times

    That sounds less certain.

    Maybe they simply know when people installed Windows 10 and what the average computer use per day is (from their own studies), and, actually, "11 billion hours" is not meant to be taken as particularly accurate.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  6. Re:Last laptop by messymerry · · Score: 2

    I'm right with you on that. Also, I have been using LXLE on a netbook and I like that very much too. Dear M$, No need to monitor all that silly data. It always takes 40% longer to do anything on Windows than it does on Linux. Mostly because I am constantly having to futz around making the OS work. Go to the corner of the room, curl up into a fetal position, and cry your eyes out. Ura Loser.

    --
    Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
  7. Re:Why don't they publish reinstalls ... by LVSlushdat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know the funny part?.. I've installed the latest ISO of the November update, using an OEM Windows 7 Pro product key I had laying around on a spare laptop drive in one of my laptops. I went thru turning off all the cutesy-toosie privacy destroying toggle switches during the install instead of going with the "recommeneded"
    defaults, including all of the additional steps done in gpedit.msc, went with a local account vs an MS account. From a lot of articles I've read, that *allegedly* disables nearly all of the more egregious crap.. Note I said "alledgedly"... After loading a copy of rpcapd on my Tomato router and firing up Wireshark and pointing it at the rpcapd instance on the router, I still see this fuckin' Microsoft abortion yammering away at a good number of the listed (in many articles) MS endpoints. In other words, It appears to me, that MS is gonna vacumn up your data come hell or high-water, even if you believe you've "castrated" the fucker.. I guess the only way to prevent this pile of shit from phoning home is to block *.microsoft.com in your hardware firewall... You *do* have one, don't you??? Sooooooooo fuckin' glad I moved all my systems to Linux about 5 years ago.... The *only* reason I was trying out Win10 was the fact that I *know* I'm gonna be pestered by friends/family to support this pile of shit, so I figured I'd play with it a while....... (shudders)...

    --
    THANK YOU, Edward Snowden!! Americans owe you a debt of gratitude (whether they know it or not..)
  8. It takes MEMORY SNAPSHOTS FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Monitoring how long people use Windows 10?? Is that the best you could do?

    It takes snapshots of memory, which is a way of getting passwords for third party apps, and will also get bits of documents you're working on.
    It watches the programs you run, and sends those details.
    It sends your browser history to Microsoft.

    It sends you disk encryption keys to Microsoft, this seems to have been an FBI request from 2012.
    https://redmondmag.com/articles/2013/09/13/encryption-backdoor-by-fbi.aspx
    It does this for everyone, not just Americans subject to FBIs new found law making capabilities.

    For pen enabled devices it sends your handwriting.
    It lies to you, you turn "off" these diagnositic surveillance feature and it just SLIGHTLY reduces the data its sending!
    It's turn on full by default and automatically on at upgrades.

    This is *before* we get into Cortana's data grab.

  9. I'm not exactly fond of it, but .... by King_TJ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think it's pretty well publicized that Windows 10 chatters with Microsoft servers quite a bit. It's now even coming to light that new PCs with Win 10 preloaded on them are shipped with the disk encryption feature enabled already, and a copy of the master key for the encryption housed on Microsoft's servers. (If you want to use encryption but not have MS hold on to a master key for it, you have to turn it back off, wait a while for it to complete, and do it all over again, choosing the correct options to keep a key yourself but not to upload one to them.)

    The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place. The fact that MS holds a key for the encryption means when Joe Sixpack user screws up and locks himself out of his own drive, he can actually get MS support people to unlock it for him. That's more useful in his "real world" scenario than the concern that MS could pass his master key along to the NSA or FBI, who might in turn look at his hard drive full of poorly written Word documents, his country music collection and his stupid drunk party photos, plus his Windows wallpaper backgrounds of his favorite porn stars.

    The relative minority who actually concern ourselves with online privacy rights are obviously not a crowd Microsoft really targets or cares much about. If it's that big a deal, you probably need to use something like Linux.

    1. Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but .... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place."

      Let me fix that for you:
      "The thing is, the average/typical user doesn't KNOW that any of this is taking place."

      There's a damn good reason Microsoft hides these features behind misleading buttons.

      e.g. ""do you want to use Cortana's assistance" (select Yes and it sends your browser history to Microsoft, yes is selected by default BTW, selecting No and your browser history is *still* send unless you correctly set all the other options that send this).

      "Use page prediction to speed up browsing, improve reading, and make my overall experience better"
      What's hiding behind there?.... Another excuse to send your browser history to Microsoft.

      You can see why people don't know. Microsoft deliberately misleads people hiding the surveillance in embedded wording.

      That encryption key it sends to Microsoft, even experts like us didn't spot that till someone noticed it! How many other surprises are we in for?

    2. Re:I'm not exactly fond of it, but .... by Slashdot+Junky · · Score: 4, Insightful

      average/typical user doesn't CARE that any of this is taking place

      Joe Sixpack might care if he knew and understood what was happening. He doesn't, because Microsoft and every other damn shading business and entity out there that is abusing him doesn't make clear their practices. This is all made worse, because far too many businesses have abusive policies. They all justify them internally by believing that it is okay since "all" their competitors are abusing. The consumer all too often doesn't have practical alternatives. So, simply leaving the correction to the market is not the right approach.

      --
      .
      Landfill Mining Co.
      Managing the (Un)natural Resources of Tomorrow
  10. Re:I shall hug my Windows 7 by Holi · · Score: 4, Informative

    They backported all that crap to 7 you know.
    http://www.extremetech.com/com...

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  11. Re:I don't get the outrage by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

    This seems like it's people getting their panties in a bunch just to get their panties in a bunch.

      Don't get me wrong, I'm all for individual privacy and keeping the government/corporations in check, but this is the modern day.

    Oh hell its 2016 fuck it seems to be incompatible with giving a shit of any kind.

    Everything you do in any digital format is about tracking you to make more dollars off you. This is the modern price for cheap software, before it was you get crap quality for discount items, now it's that you get (falsely believed) more efficient marketing.

    How many customers are needed to support development of an operating system? Windows comes preinstalled on all new PCs whether you want it or not and there are *billions* of users. How the f*** can't they afford to develop Windows without ripping off the average bottom feeding malware/spyware vendor playbook?

    More importantly how the f*** do they expect to keep billions of users once they have proven themselves to be morally bankrupt bottom feeders?

  12. Re:I don't get the outrage by Blaskowicz · · Score: 2

    There is one thing Windows still is needed for : to run chkdsk.
    That and maybe upgrading firmware on non-PC hardware. For flashing PC components I used DOS.

  13. I doubt that by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Like many people, I block them on the router level.
    If I missed some of them, please tell me.

    choice.microsoft.com
    choice.microsoft.com.nstac.net
    cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
    df.telemetry.microsoft.com
    i1.services.social.microsoft.com
    i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
    oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
    oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
    pre.footprintpredict.com
    redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
    reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
    services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
    settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
    sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
    sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
    sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
    ssw.live.com
    statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
    telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
    telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
    telemetry.appex.bing.net
    telemetry.microsoft.com
    telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
    vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
    vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
    vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
    vortex.data.microsoft.com
    watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
    watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.ne

    1. Re:I doubt that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      http://someonewhocares.org/hos...

      0.0.0.0 a-0001.a-msedge.net
      0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 choice.microsoft.com.nstac.net
      0.0.0.0 compatexchange.cloudapp.net
      0.0.0.0 corpext.msitadfs.glbdns2.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 corp.sts.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 cs1.wpc.v0cdn.net
      0.0.0.0 df.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 diagnostics.support.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 fe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
      0.0.0.0 feedback.search.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 feedback.windows.com
      0.0.0.0 i1.services.social.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
      0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
      0.0.0.0 pre.footprintpredict.com
      0.0.0.0 redir.metaservices.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 sls.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
      0.0.0.0 sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
      0.0.0.0 ssw.live.com
      0.0.0.0 statsfe1.ws.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 statsfe2.update.microsoft.com.akadns.net
      0.0.0.0 survey.watson.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net
      0.0.0.0 telemetry.appex.bing.net
      0.0.0.0 telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 telemetry.urs.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 vortex.data.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 watson.live.com
      0.0.0.0 watson.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com
      0.0.0.0 watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net

  14. Re:I don't get the outrage by donaldm · · Score: 2

    I use an SSD for my Fedora 23 installation. Actually it is a bit of a waste since a fully optioned up Fedora 23 distribution takes up approximately 7GB and that includes /boot, / (includes /usr) and /var (I allow 30GB). Even if you add swap (my PC has 16GB of memory) I am hardly using the SSD. Still after all is said booting through to me actually doing something takes less then 40 seconds and that does include authentication.

    I have not used a Microsoft Operating system in my house for over seven years so it is rather pointless for me to dual boot. I can fire up a virtual machine but even then I can't see the point since I can do everything I want and more under a Linux distribution.

    For those who think "Well what about gaming?". My answer is I have a PS3 and PS4 connected to the two HDMI ports on my IPS monitor (my PC is on the D-SUB port) and can switch within a second to the appropriate machine and back again without drooping signal. I can even get games for Linux (see Steam) if I want although that may not be a bad idea considering I am hardly using my SSD.

    --
    There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
  15. Respectfully, this is likely Wrong... by ytene · · Score: 2

    Unless I have missed something about the way that GNU/Linux package management works, there is a very significant difference in capability between Microsoft monitoring Windows users and whatever might be done by Linux distributions:- When a Microsoft OS starts to download and deploy updates, it does so from a unique instance of that OS, made unique by the presence of an activation key. Further, in most use case scenarios, connections for software updates are "direct", i.e. internet-connected Windows PC links to the Windows Update service to download patches. The exceptions would be large corporations that have their own, internally-hosted update servers [so that they can manage the roll-out of patches] and those companies that have employed caching proxy connectivity [i.e. such as the functionality provided by the IPFire Linux-based firewall/proxy server] that allow caching of OS updates. it's the fact that Linux distributions *don't* have unique license keys embedded within them that help eliminate the potential for eavesdropping on specific targets. Having said, these, please don't forget that there are scores of ways that a computer can be identified as unique. Those interested in learning more should check out "Panopticlick" [an EFF-provided free tool that will show you exactly how "anonymous" you are on the web...]. Take a look at http://panopticlick.eff.org/

  16. Re:They are not "monitoring" you by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2
    All that I provided was copied and pasted from a microsoft we page that I accessed with my Windows 10 machine.

    Open update and security, click on the Windows defender text at the left.

    Go to "Sample Submission" on the screen and click on the "Privacy Statement" link.

    This will take you to the Microsoft webpage I copied and pasted from.

    You gotta realize I seldom make statements without the facts to back them up. My dislike of Microsoft is based on facts. Or are the Shills denying what Microsoft puts out on their website now? The utmost of denials, when you claim that someone referencing teh source is somehow confused about the facts.

    Physician - cure yourself.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  17. Re: They are not "monitoring" you by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    2)- You have agreed to have all your text sent to Microsoft (note that THEY "scrub the data", and they are not legally bound by the terms used [it's not like "Microsoft shall recieved pre-scrubbed data" followed by a definition of scrubbing], meaning that they GET the data RAW AS YOU TYPE IT). 3)- You come here and imply there's no keylogger.

    Wake the fuck up. You consent to it, and there's a service that sends it. It's a fucking keylogger by the definition of a goddamned keylogger.

    The denialism is strong in these folks. They are so smitten with Microsoft that they now even declare Microsoft of lying about what Microsoft does.

    I have this image of them refusing to look at the Eula.

    Another item -Scinve most people simply choose "express Settings" they enable the keylogger by default. NO doubt Microsoft keeps an unscrubbed version of your passwords and all - you know, just in case.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.