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France Drops Windows 10 Privacy Case After Microsoft Changes Telemetry Settings (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the all-good dept.

Reader Mark Wilson writes: There have been lots of complaints about invasion of privacy since the release of Windows 10. Microsoft's telemetry lead to several lawsuits, including one from France's National Data Protection Commission which said Windows 10 was collecting 'excessive personal data' about users. But now the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libert's has decided to drop its case against Microsoft. The commission is happy that sufficient steps have been taken to reduce the amount of data that is collected and users are now informed about data collection.

24 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. What happens when they re-enable it? by opus_magnum · · Score: 2

    Another lawsuit?

    1. Re:What happens when they re-enable it? by davester666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1. It's still enabled. You can't really turn it off, short of disconnecting the computer from the internet.
      2. You still don't know exactly what Microsoft is transmitting to their servers. It's just "less than before".
      3. There is no limit as to what is transmitted to their servers, nor will there be any notification or approval required when they decide to increase what is being transmitted to their servers.

      --
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    2. Re:What happens when they re-enable it? by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 1

      ... and those settings are 'off' just long enough for the French to drop the suit.
      It'll take the French a few more years just to figure out Microsoft quietly turned it back on,
      and another couple more years to get a legal proceeding into the court.
      Rinse and repeat.

      --
      ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
    3. Re:What happens when they re-enable it? by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      How about the far more realistic version. M$ has now given French security forces full access to that data gathered so the French government waffled some shit and pretended everything is fine. The same as in the US, the US government is doing nothing because they have a pipeline into the data being collected by M$ invading the privacy of people's homes and as an extra special add on, provide custom compulsory update packages targeted at individuals across the globe to allow them to hack into Windows 10 machines at will, each and every compulsory software install cycle (not just bug fixes, not just security fixes but any software M$ wants to install on your computer and fuck your permission). So how does the French government, feel about compulsory software installs without the permission of users or the slightest bit of control by the French government (now about a friendly little Freedom Fries ad on French computers when the government of France refuses to join a US war for profit).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
  2. QLEB? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Interesting

    WTF is a libert? The noise frogs make, perhaps?

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:QLEB? by Frederic54 · · Score: 3, Informative

      liberté, but you know /. only handle ASCII from 32 to 127 or something like if it was 1970

      --
      "Science will win because it works." - Stephen Hawking
    2. Re:QLEB? by ortholattice · · Score: 2

      liberté, but you know /. only handle ASCII from 32 to 127 or something like if it was 1970

      Most computers in 1970 only handled 32 to 96 (no lowercase nor the exotic graphics characters {, |, }, ~ ). The IBM EBCDIC punch cards and mainframe machines were also only uppercase back then, although the set of graphics characters was slight different from the ASCII ones. Same with teletype machines, line printers, and video monitors. I would guess it was around mid to late 70s when lowercase became widely available. I think some experimental mainframe systems like Multics had lowercase typewriter terminals in the late 60s, and I guess Unix did too, although there were methods to use it with an uppercase-only terminal. The uppercase legacy lives on some systems that to this day send you invoices with everything in uppercase.

    3. Re:QLEB? by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      we don't want streams of shitposts loaded with megabytes of copypasta emojis.

      Then block emojis rather than legitimate letters and symbols. And even for them, I fail to see a difference between a shitpost consisting of megabytes of emojis and one consisting of megabytes of ASCII.

      If you can't handle controls such as RTL markers, or excessive amounts of combining characters, filter them out. But I don't really see a reason to ban any conventional printable character.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  3. Wow by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone finally surrendered to France. :-)

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
    1. Re:Wow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Charlemagne and the Franks, Joan of Arc, Napoleon, American independence against the British (the French helped a lot). In modern times, most French military operations are mostly successful. Yes, WWI and WWII France started off losing, but eventually won with the help of allies. They traded wins and losses against the British throughout the period around 1100-1750. Like the British their colonies eventually won independence.

      I'm sure you meant it as a joke, but the French have a fairly impressive military history.

    2. Re:Wow by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      Charlemagne and the Franks

      The Franks were a germanic tribe that invaded and conquered the Gauls.

      Joan of Arc

      Not sure how being burned at a stake halfway during a campaign counts as a win.

      Napoleon

      Utterly crushed.

      American independence against the British (the French helped a lot)

      If I cheer for and do a favour for someone, may I claim all their victories?

      WWI and WWII France started off losing, but eventually won with the help of allies

      A battleground/doormat got rescued by allies.

      While the meme isn't entirely true, it has quite a bit of validity.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  4. Users have alwaqys been clearly warned by mea2214 · · Score: 1, Interesting
    What was the point of this entire case? MS has always warned about what they send. Warning is not disabling. From: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-...

    Microsoft does not intend to gather sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, email addresses, or other similarly sensitive information for Linguistic Data Collection. We guard against such events by using technologies to identify and remove sensitive information before linguistic data is sent from the user's device. If we determine that sensitive information has been inadvertently received, we delete the information.

    1. Re:Users have alwaqys been clearly warned by CAOgdin · · Score: 1

      Convenient explanation, but where is the DOCUMENTATION from Microsoft?

      They can SAY all they want, but unless they, essentially, engage in a clear contract with their customers about what they will and will not collect, they are treating us as ignorant customers they can deceive at will.

    2. Re:Users have alwaqys been clearly warned by chipschap · · Score: 1

      Are they gathering more data than needed for their stated intent? Probably. Is that extra data gathered with malicious intent? Probably not. Is there a manager at some level who saw the accidental data gathered and devised multiple malicious uses? Absolutely, probably over three dozen of them in a company that large.

      This is, to me, a fair and honest assessment. But it strengthens the argument that users should have the ability to unconditionally turn off all telemetry, with the expectation that it will not be turned back on. Large data sweeps inevitably pick up sensitive information, even if unintentionally. Large companies inevitably have some bad actors. Not a good combination.

  5. Paid by MangoCats · · Score: 1

    Off.

  6. This post brought to you by ampersand e acute sem by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    You managed it. Seems this Mark Wilson fucktard doesn't know how to proofread. They'll probably offer him a job.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  7. Reality check by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Telling someone your going to do something first before you do it does not legitimize the underlying action.

    Amount of data required to be sent to Microsoft to ensure proper operation of Windows is 0 bytes.

    Take it or leave it demands are not choices to the extent Windows is not a commodity and leaving it isn't a viable option.

    Windows 10 is malware.

    1. Re:Reality check by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Completely agree. An OS does not need to send any info to the manufacturer to work.
      You should be able to completely disable the sending on any data. I was hoping cases like this would force Microsoft to do the right thing but it seems goverments really don't care. This will only be seen by OS makers as a green light to get more bolder with user spying, publicity and other anti user "features".
      Right now I'm not happy with any OS of the major manufacturers (Apple, Microsoft and Google). They all try to either push you to buy services from them, force to install software from a store they control, include publicity in the fucking OS (Win 10) or spy you in a million ways.
      The obvious alternative is to use Linux but it still doesn't have the same kind of support from the commercial software developers and I do really want to use some software that's Windows only.
      I just want a "classic" OS which doesn't limit the user in any way, doesn't spy them and just stays out of the way. I really liked Win 7 but it seems we'll never see another one like it.

  8. Sufficient "steps" by grasshoppa · · Score: 1

    Wonder how many 0s those "steps" had.

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  9. Re:Led by chipschap · · Score: 1

    Thank you for this enormously important contribution to the discussion.

  10. All proprietary software could be malware by jbn-o · · Score: 1

    All variants of Microsoft Windows could be malware because all proprietary software could be malware. There's no reason to point to just Windows 10 as it shares the same problems other non-free OSes and non-free programs do. The only way to get software you can trust is to only run free software on your computer—software that respects one's freedom to run, share, inspect, and modify.

    When you prioritize convenience by saying "leaving it [Windows] isn't a viable option" you've narrowed the allowable terms of debate such that only proprietary (untrustworthy) software can do the job. You've come up with something that is meant to sound strong-willed ("Amount of data required to be sent to Microsoft to ensure proper operation of Windows is 0 bytes.") but it actually weak-willed because it's a condition you're willing to cave in on. The solution is to stand up for software freedom for its own sake, hire people to write the free software you need to do the job and modify the job parameters to be solved by free software that already exists by pressing free software into service, not caving into proprietary software. The moment you cave into proprietary software again you're right back at the software you cannot trust and you've solved nothing.

    --
    Digital Citizen
  11. In other words... by srichard25 · · Score: 1

    In other words Microsoft finally agreed to share their "telemetry" data with the French government.

  12. Windows reduces the amount of data sent back by najajomo · · Score: 1

    Will it still send all your key presses and search queries back to Fort Meade, er I mean Redmond :)

  13. A new kind of crash dump in Win8 by yuhong · · Score: 1

    https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.c...

    It basically scrubs all values that don't meet certain criteria with 0xAAAAAAAA. Also in patent 8,645,763.