Security Analyst Concludes Windows 10 Enterprise 'Tracks Too Much' (xato.net) 284
A viral Twitter rant about Windows 10 Enterprise supposedly ignoring users' privacy settings has since been clarified. "I made mistakes on my original testing and therefore saw more connections than I should have," writes IT security analyst Mark Burnett, "including some to Google ads." But his qualified results -- quoted below -- are still critical of Microsoft:
- You can cut back even more using the Windows Restricted Traffic Limited Functionality Baseline but break many things.
- Settings can be set wrong if you aren't paying attention. Also, settings are not consistent and can be confusing to beginners.
- You are opted-in to just about everything by default and have to set hundreds of settings to opt out, even on an Enterprise Windows system. Sometimes multiple settings for the same feature. Most Microsoft documentation discourages opting out and warns of a less optimal experience... But you can't completely opt-out. Windows still tracks too much.
- Home and Professional users are much worse off due to limitations of some settings and lack of an IT staff... I'm not saying ditch Windows. I'm saying let's fix this. If we can't fix it, then we ditch Windows.
Defective by design? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are opted-in to just about everything by default and have to set hundreds of settings to opt out, even on an Enterprise Windows system. Sometimes multiple settings for the same feature. Most Microsoft documentation discourages opting out and warns of a less optimal experience... But you can't completely opt-out. Windows still tracks too much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this essentially the definition of "defective by design?"
The increasingly hostile and draconian moves by Microsoft simply serve to prove that the majority of Microsoft customers are in a co-dependent relationship with Microsoft: afraid that no matter how bad things are with Microsoft, they will be worse without Microsoft. It must suck to live like that.
I know, I know. Some people cannot ditch Microsoft, but most people can and it would cost them only marginally more effort (and probably less in many cases) than they expend dealing with all the crap Microsoft is throwing at their customers these days.
Re:Defective by design? (Score:5, Informative)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this essentially the definition of "defective by design?"
Defective by design is about intentionally not performing the intended function. For all its flaws, Windows 10 still runs windows software just as well as it ever did.
"Deceptive by design" now that's a definition I can get behind.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this essentially the definition of "defective by design?"
Defective by design is about intentionally not performing the intended function. For all its flaws, Windows 10 still runs windows software just as well as it ever did.
"Deceptive by design" now that's a definition I can get behind.
And, more to the point, the actual purpose of Windows 10 is to spy on the users and generate revenue from that data for Microsoft. Performing OS functions is a side-effect. In this respect, Windows 10 is functioning as designed.
Re:Defective by design? (Score:5, Informative)
If the ReactOS project got even 10% of the commits and money that Linux receives, it might soon become the Open Source alternative to even Windows 10, allowing everyone to ditch Windows without having to change the software they use.
Everyone would be better off, except for Microsoft, of course, but that's their own problem.
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If the ReactOS project got even 10% of the commits and money that Linux receives, it might soon become the Open Source alternative to even Windows 10, allowing everyone to ditch Windows without having to change the software they use.
Even Microsoft doesn't know how complex Microsoft products work. They write specifications that literally say "do what the software does here". There is literally no chance that any reasonable amount of money or code commits could make ReactOS even a 90% replacement for Windows. It's not even 5% now. You can crash it just by booting it.
Re:Defective by design? (Score:5, Funny)
You can crash it just by booting it.
I see that got that part of windows to work correctly... O.o
Re:Defective by design? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the ReactOS project got even 10% of the commits and money that Linux receives, it might soon become the Open Source alternative to even Windows 10, allowing everyone to ditch Windows without having to change the software they use.
Said no person with experience reverse engineering ever, at no point has trying to chase your proprietary competitor's blobs ever worked. WINE does an okay job running some Windows software, LibreOffice does an okay job opening some MS Office documents but you'll never repeat every quirk, bug and obscure functionality. You'll never get a fully working replacement for DirectX that isn't DirectX, not without 10x the resources Microsoft used to write it to reverse engineer it. That's not 10% of the Linux resources, probably more like 1000%. The only workable solution long term is to get people over to new, open standards like web apps written for W3C compliant browsers instead of IE6, games using Vulkan instead of DirectX, cross platform tools like qBitTorrent instead of uTorrent and so on.
Look at git, the version control software to develop Windows is now created by Linus Torvalds, what better endorsement can you get than the competition eating your dogfood? Look at all the cloud solutions booming because you can just spin up another Linux instance on demand without licensing worries. You don't win by mimicking the old, you win by delivering something new and better. And even if someone builds proprietary stuff on top of it (OS X, Android, Tivo etc.) you keep gaining ground. Even if the pace is somewhat glacial I never had the feeling open source went backwards, even if you look at stuff like Firefox then Chrome is mostly open source through Chromium. It would be a helluva lot less work to fork that than to start over. Tools like ASP.NET Core is being open sourced, Apple has open sourced Swift, for more and more of low-level infrastructure closed source just isn't kosher anymore.
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You are opted-in to just about everything by default and have to set hundreds of settings to opt out, even on an Enterprise Windows system. Sometimes multiple settings for the same feature. Most Microsoft documentation discourages opting out and warns of a less optimal experience... But you can't completely opt-out. Windows still tracks too much.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this essentially the definition of "defective by design?...
If you're looking for what's defective, that would be a society that happily gives up their digital soul in exchange for paying nothing for products and services. If you recall, Microsoft initially gave away Windows 10 for free in order to accelerate deployment.
And the free gimmick works every fucking time because consumers are far too ignorant to understand that they no longer buy products for a reason; they are the product.
The popularity of the free price tag also goes to show just how much consumers gi
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this essentially the definition of "defective by design?"
Nope. It was designed that way so your data could be harvested and aggregated with everyone else's to be sold. It's a very profitable business.
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afraid that no matter how bad things are with Microsoft, they will be worse without Microsoft.
Also known as "battered user syndrome".
cashed cow (Score:2)
When all you've got is a deep frier, everything looks like browbeaten Timbit [wikipedia.org] tempura.
42 years now, and still haven't changed the original oil.
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"Defective by design" is another way of saying the vendor and client have conflicting interests in their requirements for the product.
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Very true on all points. I do however know of one pretty large organization (> 50K employees), that has scrapped all plans to move to Win10, due to both security concerns (against MS modeled as attacker) and the constant UI changes. As soon as Win7 enterprise becomes non-viable, they will move everybody to web-terminals (that will most assuredly not run an MS OS). Since many corporate application landscapes these days are web-based anyways, they cannot be the only ones planning that.
Re: Defective by design? (Score:5, Insightful)
Most people don't give a crap about use privacy.
Proof: just a small uprising (mostly online by the same people who complain) when net neutrality and privacy rules were obliterated
More proof:
All of which have a business idea of knowing as much as possible about you, so they can monetize you effectively.
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Whats worse? The company that gives you something free and takes your personal info in return or the company that charges you and still takes your personal information?
Hint: Windows ain't free and you dont have to use android to use google products.
Re: Defective by design? (Score:2)
Re: Defective by design? (Score:4, Interesting)
This "you are the product" meme is stupid. When you watch TV, you are not the product even though they sell advertising on it. The relationship is clearly more complex than that.
In Google's case, there is relatively little lock-in to their products. Farm animals can't leave, they belong to the farmer. It's trivial to switch to another search engine, to another mapping site, to another email provider. Google doesn't even mind if you install uBlock and Privacy Badger from their official Chrome extension repo. If Google annoys users too much, or doesn't offer them something compelling to stay, their advertising business becomes worthless.
Yes, they are selling advertising targeted ads. But they don't allow individual users to be targeted or for advertisers to access user data directly, only in aggregate via the tools that Google provides. That's not a simple "you are the product" relationship.
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No, the meme is just fine. Ad-supported companies sell eyeballs, that is the product weather you like it or not. If the grain level is coarse that's no problem, like if you're a radio channel and play country music you know you have a certain audience and your advertisers know that too. The problem is that via electronic registration the grain level is extremely fine, via tracking cookies, accounts and loyalty cards they build up massive individual profiles. You can of course hand-wave and say the data will
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Interesting, you don't know how advertising works...
So in both Google and TV's cases, they collect information about the people using their services. They aggregate it and use it to sell advertising space to advertisers. TV has a harder time gathering the information than Google does, but it still does...
Re: Defective by design? (Score:3, Informative)
You can't fix this. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't Windows. The problem isn't even Microsoft.
The problem is that we don't have strict laws governing the protection of user data. There needs to be serious and utter consequences for pulling this sort of shit. The sort of consequences that would make any shareholder board go "holy shit, let's not fucking do that". Until that happens, absolutely nothing is going to change. You might be able to pressure Microsoft into releasing a patch or two that appears to offer some sort of reprieve, but then they'll get back to doing exactly what they've been doing before, and probably torque down the screws just a little bit tighter while they're at it.
Unfortunately, with the USA now gunning for net neutrality, I doubt anything like this would ever happen. Corporations have too much money and nobody gives a shit about the user. As long as the users keep paying for stuff (because they "have no choice" or don't want to slightly inconvenience themselves), nothing will ever change.
So you better get used to it, because Windows 10 is just the start.
Re: You can't fix this. (Score:3, Informative)
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As this process is slow, it may take until 2018 to happen. But they are definitely working on it, and I think this time around they will not take any crap from MS. And what MS is currently doing is already illegal, so the first thing we see may be that MS is hit with a massive fine and threatened with more and a potential prohibition on sales of their defective product.
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The problem isn't Windows. The problem isn't even Microsoft.
The problem is that we don't have strict laws governing the protection of user data...Corporations have too much money and nobody gives a shit about the user.
Uh, not quite.
The root cause of all this is users don't give a shit about privacy.
That is the true problem.
That is the reason Windows and many other products are given away for "free", turning the user into the product.
That is the reason nothing will ever change. Users have to actually give a shit in order to start demanding strict laws to protect them.
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In a lot of ways, this almost begs for a kind of public health type of response.
In years past, most people would have willfully chosen poisonous product X for its low cost and rejected more expensive non-poisonous product Y. Or they would have rejected tax increases for improved sanitation or water filtration for the same reasons. Or they chose the patent medicine with an opioid versus the one with just sugar.
I don't know that we ever really made the masses more intelligent than they are now about these i
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The trouble is that for a sizable segment of society, their privacy+eyeballs is the only asset they have to sell.
Making Microsoft, Google, et al start charging for everything (or raise their prices in order to make up for the loss of revenue) is going to flat out deny services to those who can't afford them (or are unbanked and have no access to credit cards).
Sure, adding $100-$200 a month to my bills (in the form of micro-transactions, subscriptions, etc.) to protect my privacy (and only have anonymous ads
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The reality is that most users have no concept of the concerns or risks discussed in this article. If someone sat down and explained to these users in lay terms, then you would probably get a different response. Most users are simply ignorant. And they most certainly are not reading /.
A different response? What utter bullshit.
Users are told that weak passwords are a very common reason people get hacked and identities get stolen. So what do they do in response? Keep on using the same shitty passwords.
Users demand many products be at zero cost to them, even though they've been told repeatedly the reason they are free. They've been told they ARE the product. Does that stop anyone from being used by these "free" products? Do they stop and take the time to read the EULA? Hell no.
I st
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The problem is that we don't have strict laws governing the protection of user data.
I disagree. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually not a proponent of the idea of "the invisible hand", but I think the larger problem is vendor lock-in. I think there should be more laws to protect user data, but more importantly, I think we need to find ways to make sure people have real options.
For example, to this day, I can't use a non-Windows operating system for my work computer. Or at least, I need a Windows VM to run a few Windows applications for which I have no non-Windows version available. Ideall
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I'm still hopeful that we will see a Windows 10 N version for the EU, with this crap disabled.
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The EU is slow, but something is brewing. MS already had to make changes for the Swiss Data Privacy Commissioner and, since that guy is certainly talking to his EU counterparts, I am pretty sure that one was a test-balloon. Both the French and the Germans have already announced they are investigating. In the end, MS will have to switch all telemetry off by default, because what they are currently doing is illegal.
EU law states that absolutely every data collection must have a positive agreement by an inform
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>What the security analyst forgets to mention is that the telemetry data sent to MS is anonymized.
Yeah I work at a place where I sometimes get "anonymized" data. Let me tell you I can still easily find out who it was about.
>I don't know how you would "protect" user data any better than that.
Don't send it in the first place. There's no law in the universe that says that you have to send it. Just stop sending it.
>A lot of new vehicles today upload data to the manufacturer and this data does include e
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Yeah I work at a place where I sometimes get "anonymized" data. Let me tell you I can still easily find out who it was about.
Then it's poorly anonymized. This isn't some checkbox, tick here to anonymize all code. I work at a place where wifi is secured by a standard that can be cracked in under 5 seconds, that doesn't mean secure wifi doesn't exist.
Don't send it in the first place. There's no law in the universe that says that you have to send it. Just stop sending it.
Don't send user data. Don't provide user feedback. 1yr later: Users: "Hey MS why did you make this change, all your users use this function, do you not know how we use the systems you provide!?! #theyshouldhaveknown" Telemetry isn't collected because someone has too much disk space and
Let's ditch Windows, huh? (Score:2, Informative)
>I'm not saying ditch Windows. I'm saying let's fix this. If we can't fix it, then we ditch Windows.
Well, maybe you can do what I do... ...I run Windows 10 on a separate SSD, and run Linux daily on my Main M2. NVMe.
Re: Let's ditch Windows, huh? (Score:4, Informative)
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That works if you don't need Windows for pretty much the only thing that people need it anymore and can't replace it with Linux: Playing games.
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Wrong. Windows 10 is quite usable in a VM for business and even programming tasks. Sure gaming probably isn't a go. But everything else works fine. I use Windows 10 in a virtual machine quite often, running Visual Studio.
Optimal Experience (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with optimal experience is that Microsoft means their own experience not that of the users. Optimal for them means that the customers are eyeballs for advertisers and with easy to access to data for analytics. Optimal experience for the actual users means that they can turn off Microsoft's control, nothing ever defaults to opt-in, and they don't get tracked or advertised to.
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Unfortunately one side-effect is also that if they don't get the data from all users then their experience data is getting skewed. So this means effectively that if only morons don't disable the telemetry and everyone else do, then they base their decisions on the user experience morons has and make an operating system suitable for morons based on that.
But we do need to tell them that we don't like being tracked all the time. There are limits to how far a government may go in many modern countries, but rare
Better Solutioin (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Better Solutioin (Score:5, Informative)
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I want to. Really, I do. For about half the tools I use there's replacements in Linux. Nearly everything else works great in a locked away Windows VM.
And now please solve the last bastion that Windows has: Games.
Games are, odd as it may sound, tricky. Hard, if possible at all, to run in a VM, many don't work well in Wine and very few (at least outside the Indie circuit) run natively on Linux.
Re: Better Solutioin (Score:2)
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Same here. I think when Win7 goes out of support, I will just go dual-system with a KVM switch, and the only thing on the Windows machine being games. For Office (which I occasionally need), I will just go for an non-networked VM on Linux. It is truly sad that the mainstream-OS has now to be treated basically as malware.
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Stockholm syndrome (Score:3)
We already know it's unfixable. What's the delay in ditching Windows?
I think that, for many people, if running Windows required the user to endure an electric shock, they would still not ditch it. They have such little imagination that an alternative is possible.
We? (Score:5, Insightful)
" If we can't fix it, then we ditch Windows."
"We" can't fix MS Windows, only Microsoft can.
Any one think they will?
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Start with the restricted baseline, and remove the stuff meant to prevent this from being useless, like the CRL checks. That's how we fix it. Oh, and document minor deviations that people may want like Defender av updates.
When that fails, patched binaries, signed if needed via Let's Encrypt.
And then we fix by ditching it. Wine or ReactOS or dump it completely.
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I think they may not be able to either.
I'm not your home IT staff... (Score:2)
Home and Professional users are much worse off due to limitations of some settings and lack of an IT staff...
I haven't fixed anyone's computers in years since I started charging $300 per hour.
Re: I'm not your home IT staff... (Score:2)
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Hahaha I had to do the same thing.
A coworker went a step further by requiring his customers to order and pay for their replacement parts through Best Buy so he can pick them up. No money comes out of his pocket for the replacement parts and he doesn't get stuck with a $300 video card because someone cancelled the job.
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He lives and works in Silicon Valley, consoling hurt computers and fixing broken users.
These days I console hurt workstations and create tickets for the local techs to fix broken users.
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These days I console hurt workstations and create tickets for the local techs to fix broken users
"User error. Please replace user and try again."
Sad (Score:2)
Sad to read another article about painful writhing over using Windows.
Ditch Windows.
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10x more games for windows, for the meantime I can stick with 7, I'm still waiting for 3rd parties to fix the giant feces known as windows telemetry in win10.
'Basic level' - they collect so much they say it'd take 149 min's just to read what type of info it collects:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-... [microsoft.com]
PlayOnLinux is the killer app (Score:5, Interesting)
To keep it short: I set up Linux Mint and ran updates (about 10 min total install time, from bare metal), installed PlayOnLinux (about three clicks into the Software Manager app), then used that to install MS Office (including Visio), registered and all. The Cisco VPN works (of course), the browsers are faster (of course) and work well with corp apps, and MS Office just works. Tons of other stuff Just Works(tm). Corp IT never hears from me, all the tools just work, everything's much faster, and I didn't have to do ANYTHING at the CLI -- in fact, it was easier and much faster than typical interminable Windows setup processes. It's beyond me why people still put up with the stress of Windows, or insist that it's easier (it's not) or more secure (*snort*).
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You know that PlayOnLinux is a layer on top of Wine, right? You are using Wine.
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So? What matters is that it makes using Wine much easier and user friendly.
This is exactly the only problem Linux still has that keeps it from breaking out into the world: You still need to know a thing or two about the machine you're using. Yes, that should be a good thing. Actually, it should be a requirement. Sadly, most people neither do know a thing or two about the machines they're using, they also do not want to learn. And there is unfortunately an OS that supports their laziness.
And just as people c
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and ALL that Windows telemetry is gone, because Windows is gone.
That's a dangerous assumption to make. MS Office could include its own telemetry.
Since you told us you did the registration, it connected to MS servers at least once already.
Did you take steps to isolate it from the internet afterwards?
If not, how can you be sure it doesn't spy on you?
Re: (Score:2)
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...Wine promised to solve that it's way too complex for most people. Enter PlayOnLinux....
PlayOnLinux is just a front-end to WINE. While is may increase your success a bit, it's still limited by WINE's abilities.
All in the name... (Score:2)
Sadly, Windows is a brand, a familiar name to pretty much everyone. Linux is getting there too, but the unfortunate part is Linux has a reputation of being 'geeky, technical, difficult to use, not for end-users.' Which is really sad and completely wrong, the Linux Mint team have put together one of the easiest to use systems I've seen. It's not perfect, but it's definitely easy to use.
Linux needs to work on it's reputation with the general public. I'm not sure how we go about doing that other than educa
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It's changing. Windows is a household name, yes, but it becomes more and more something that people despise for two reasons. First, for a real one, because they get to hear time and again "bad news" about it. Privacy? Shady business tactics? Nah. Malware. Crypto trojans. And it does only happen to Windows users. No Linux user reports any problems, no MacOS has ever been affected. Yes, technically they could if those OSs had any market share interesting to the crypters, but ... folks, why shouldn't we use th
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S
Mint has a long way to go, however. Out of the box it's fantastic, but installing anything becomes quickly overwhelming for end users.
I hear ya Bro! I damn near died when I opened Synaptics and then I'm telling you the facking program made me enter my password - again, fer crissakes! Then I had to search through all of these gaddamned programs and get this - click on the one I wanted. Then it was scary, when a new screen popped up and told me it had to install some other programs - wut dafuk? Sounds like a virus or sumpin from the roooshians!
Finally I just gave up, asked for prayers from me friends on facebook and cried myself to sleep.
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Microsoft might self-destruct if they push Windows S too hard, that is just a nightmare. That'll drive everyone toward Linux in a hurry. Please do it, Microsoft. Push Windows S harder.
I do hope so. The Windows "Shit" edition should make it clear even to the dumbest user.
Ditch proprietary software. Not just Windows. (Score:4, Insightful)
You should be saying ditch proprietary software precisely because nobody but the proprietor (the very party you can't trust) is legally allowed to fix this (where the word "fix" is a fix from the user's perspective, of course, since the software already works as the proprietor has programmed it to work). That's what proprietary software means and that power over the user is why proprietors distribute their software without respecting a user's freedoms to run, share, and modify the software at any time for any reason. The system's behavior can change at any time, so even if someone monitors what a particular variant of a non-free, user-subjugating OS does now that can change later. Perhaps the software only does something bad under conditions one doesn't typically reach, or maybe an update changes how the software behaves. Furthermore, said software updates don't have to come through an updating program which seeks a user's approval before installation (such as Windows Updates).
The GNU Project has no shortage of proprietary Microsoft malware [gnu.org] and that includes universal backdoors, snooping on user's activities, ignoring user's settings on so-called 'privacy' settings, and sending identifiable data to Microsoft and third parties ("even if a user turns off its Bing search and Cortana features, and activates the privacy-protection settings").
If you need a real OS, find one (Score:2)
Let Microsoft track all the hours spent playing games.
Anything of value use a real OS.
Why risk all the malware, CIA, NSA code and other security services?
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Indeed. As soon as Win7 goes out of security-support I am doing that. Not quite sure how yet, but possibly just by using two machines and a KVM switch. Alternatively, if Graphics passthrough works well by then, I might jail Win10 in a VM.
So What's the Right Way to do Telemetry? (Score:2)
I want to zig-zag here a bit. We all agree that MS is doing it wrong with telemetry on Windows 10. So then, fellow Slashdotters, what is the right (or at least, righter) way to do it?
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Do we make it opt out or opt in?
The problem right now is that it is neither. Opt-out would be an improvement.
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A big problem with telemetry in my opinion is that it's being used as a form of retroactive quality control, encouraging rapid version cycling and the release of immature code.
I don't think they're using telemetry to identify edge cases that reasonable testing wouldn't catch, they're using it to find common problems that thorough testing would identify. I have a hard time believing that edge cases can even be found in the fire hose of data presented by mass telemetry. I'd wager it takes pretty serious ana
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Sounds plausible.
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Very roughly speaking, the more you understand how your users use your software, the better you can optimize it for their needs.
You don't actually think that is why they are doing it, do you?
Direct edit (Score:2)
The author puts the difficulty of opting-out in term of numerous, confusing, and hard-to-find settings that need to be changed.
All of these settings must be stored in a database somewhere on the HD, why not create something that directly edits the values and automates the process?
Spybot anti-beacon (Score:4, Interesting)
Spybot abti-beacon fixes mst of it, even if it can't kill cortana.
https://www.safer-networking.o... [safer-networking.org]
I will mostly do without Win10 (Score:2)
As I am a gamer, unless Vulcan makes Linux version of most games a reality by the end of security support for Win7, I cannot fully get rid of it. But I will likely go for one machine for gaming only and a Linux box for everything else. Alternatively, if graphics passthrough works well by then, I will jail Win10 in a VM on a Linux base. But there is no way in this universe I am going to give Win10 access to my email, browsing, and other things.
What setup will DOD, CIA and NSA use internally? (Score:2)
Shit "article" (Score:2)
It does worse than that!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
I caught Microsoft fucking my entire system over when I got new hardware and HAD to go with Windows 10 - after installing Windows 10 (Legit license) I had to install an audio driver.
Naturally, the driver prompts me to reboot.
First fucking thing it does - go straight into the "Updating computer, please wait."
It wasn't updating. What it was doing was scanning my hard drive and wiping out anything that wasn't Microsoft-related - EVERYTHING in my Windows.old directory was wiped out - my music player (which was
fix it! (Score:3)
easy, just fork the code and remove all those tracking bits...
what is that? you can't do that?
well then there is nothing you can do to fix it, so ditch windows.
Re: Will you finally get to work already? (Score:2)
Re: Will you finally get to work already? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
WTF are you talking about? Linux works perfectly fine. Seriously. It really does.
The problem with Linux isn't that it doesn't work, it does, and usually quite reliably. The problem is, and I think that this is what the OP meant, that it just isn't user friendly.
Installing drivers are not automatic, like the are for most devices under Windows today. Finding applications to take place of existing Windows applications, including financial apps, are much more difficult. Granted, as more companies provide web based apps this becomes less of a concern. Finally, Linux still doesn't have ma
Re: Will you finally get to work already? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've found the opposite to be true. Linux ships with 99% of the drivers you'll ever need, on Windows part of the install is traditionally using another machine to search vendor sites for drivers. Also many things that are trivially simple on Linux, like channel bonding, are hard or impossible on Windows depending on vendor and hardware support.
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About 10 years I'd have agreed with you. But today? Aside of your gaming argument, this isn't the case anymore. Installation of tools and drivers is actually easier in Linux today than it is in Windows because way more tools are part of the whole distribution package. There are very few tools and programs I had to install manually lately, and I tend to use rather exotic tools due to my job.
Your argument about games is (still) valid, though even there you can see improvement. With more and more games using s
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It works so well that I'm currently bisecting my kernel to find a regression for sound over HDMI on my HTPC that broken some versions ago.
I'm currently down to some long list of 200 changes from some "drm-next" branch. Yay, so fun!
Linux (the kernel) works like just any other kernel. The problems are usually in the userspace though.
Re: one file disable (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately it is well documented that Windows 10 ignores the hosts file for "telemetry"
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately it is well documented that Windows 10 ignores the hosts file for "telemetry"
Source?
It is well documented that Windows 10 ignores the host file for a list of "vital" MS services like Update. I have been unable to find any evidence the the telemetry urls get ignored too.
In fact they seem to be perfectly blockable by the hosts file.
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This should not be a problem for large enterprises. You don't need to mess with hosts files when you control the DNS and the perimeter firewalls. Also if you have a WSUS server you should have better control over what updates are applied.
Not saying enterprises should have to do this - they should not have to, but they can.
Re:BS (Score:5, Insightful)
While the guy might not be a world-class IT specialist, he does report the truth. Window 10 does track too much, and you can't even opt out of it.
Unfortunately, the last sentence of the summary is delusional. There is only one company that can "fix" it, and they refuse to.
Re:BS (Score:5, Informative)
When the PS4 and Xbox one were about to be released Microsoft revealed that the Xbox would require constant connection to the Internet to play. They players revolted and Sony said they wouldn't do it. Microsoft (correctly, IMO) sensed that could be a fatal blow to their console and backtracked really fast.
Something of that caliber would have to happen for they to remove all the spying in Windows. What could that be? I can only think of mass migration of governments and big companies. Alas, that is very unlikely to happen.
In the end this is just another thing that shows how bad monopolies can be (In this case is a monopoly in the sense of "OS that can run Windows software and drivers", ReactOS could theoretically be an alternative but realistically they'd need billions of dollars to get close to Windows).
Re: BS (Score:3)
The one advantage of closed source over open source is it lets the IP owner keep things broken that would otherwise be fixed by the community.
Re:BS (Score:5, Informative)
Window 10 does track too much, and you can't even opt out of it.
True, you can't opt out of it within Windows which is pretty much unethical in my book. There are third party tools available (like Spybot Antibeacon) where you really can turn it off.
Know what the problem is? Remember all that talk about big data being the next big thing? It's here and all this "telemetry" data is being sold because it is considered very valuable.
Re: BS (Score:2, Informative)
Spybot Antibeacon is decent, but best paired with W10Privacy.
Here's the thing about Win10 though: changing general settings, registry keys, and group policy settings isn't enough. You also have to block many domains and ip's of various Microsoft telemetry servers! The thing still spits out data even with every conceivable setting and tweak utilized!
W10Privacy includes adding firewall rules and hosts file entries to achieve this. I suggest copying those entries and blocking them at the gateway as well. Even
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The only way to solve this is to beat Microsoft at their own game by figuring out the telemetry data that's sent then spam them with faked data that's completely weird.
If enough people do that then the data they collect is useless.
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It would be quite hard to contest the data you get back though. It is also quite hard to ensure that their process costs them more money than the telemetry data they're selling on.
Re:BS (Score:5, Interesting)
The *REAL* problem is you can use the Antibeacon tool to turn off the spyware aspects of Windows, but every time you get another "update" or new version from MS, they default those spyware aspects back on, so you're playing an endless game of "whack-a-mole" trying to keep MS's nose of your bidness.. I used/supported Windows for 20 years as a sysadmin, and never really trusted MS, but since Windows 10 came out, ANY trust I may have had for MS has evaporated. When I retired in 2010, I moved all of my computers over to Linux and thats where they'll stay..
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There is a difference between things you can turn of and things you cannot. That is the whole point of the discussion. You seem to have missed that.
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You should cut back on the drugs. They are not good for you.