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Windows 10 To Be Installed On 4 Million US Department of Defense Computers (betanews.com)

Posted by timothy on from the next-round's-on-you-just-like-last-round dept.

Mark Wilson writes: Microsoft keeps shouting about the millions of users that have switched to Windows 10, and soon the company will have another 4 million to bray about. The U.S. Department of Defense is the latest big name to give Windows 10 the seal of approval apparently unconcerned with the privacy and telemetry issues that have put off others. 4 million enterprise upgrades for Windows 10 is a real feather in the cap for Microsoft, and the aim is to get each system running the latest version of the operating system inside a year. The DoD has also announced that it is granting certification to Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Book devices, meaning that they now appear on its Approved Products List.

5 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Microsoft blog post on this by weedjams · · Score: 4, Informative

    https://blogs.windows.com/wind...

  2. Re:Not the same as the rest of us .. by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually the DOD does get the source code(along with many other large customers and more than a few academic institutions), but in this instance that's irrelevant since the thing that makes the DOD not worry about the phone home is the same as any large institution, they'll be using the LTS branch which has the option to turn off all the telemetry beyond what's existed in Windows since XP (ie crash reporting) and then they'll use further policy to turn off even that ability just as they've had hardening guides since the Windows NT days.

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  3. Enterprise can turn off telemetry by Ryan+McLaughlin · · Score: 4, Informative

    As stated here http://windowsitpro.com/window...

    and here https://technet.microsoft.com/...

    enterprise users can turn off telemetry. Everyone else only gets to set it to basic.

    Manage your telemetry settings You can manage your telemetry settings using the management tools you’re already using, such as Group Policy, MDM, or Windows Provisioning. You can also manually change your settings using Registry Editor. Setting your telemetry levels through a management policy overrides any device-level settings.
    You can set your organization’s devices to use 1 of 4 telemetry levels:
    Security (only available on Windows 10 Enterprise, Windows 10 Education, and Windows 10 IoT Core (IoT Core) editions)
    Basic
    Enhanced
    Full

  4. Re:Not the same as the rest of us .. by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

    I haven't seen any research indicating that an LTSB install with appropriate policies in place leaks data. If you have any links I'd be very interested. As far as updates breaking policy, that's the whole bloody point of LTSB, you only get security updates without any of the feature updates that cause those kinds of issues. Until the second LTSB release comes out in ~18 months we won't know if there's any additional policies that will be needed (though it's likely based on what's happened in the CBB).

    --
    There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  5. Re:Not the same as the rest of us .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    And stop upvoting your own posts with your other registered accounts.

    Considering I have only one account and don't think I even remember the login info for it: done!

    Pro tip #1: Not everyone who doesn't immediately agree with you is a shill/apologist/cretin
    Pro tip #2: Not everyone who happens to agree with someone who doesn't agree with you is a fake account
    Pro tip #3: Given the mod points system used by /., it takes a lot of sustained effort to be able to vote up your own posts, so you may want to consider that the next time you want to try using that argument