Windows 10 Will Soon Let Users Track the Data Microsoft Collects (thurrott.com) 148
Windows 10 will soon get a new application that will allow users to keep track of the data that Microsoft collects from their device. From a report: Ahead of the Data Privacy Day, Microsoft today introduced a new Diagnostic Data Viewer app for Windows 10 -- first coming to Windows Insiders -- that enables users to view all the diagnostic data that's being collected by Windows 10. The new Diagnostic Data Viewer will display different types of diagnostic data collected by the OS. This includes Common Data (your OS version, device ID/type, etc.), Device Connectivity and Configuration data (device capabilities, user settings, peripherals and network info), Product and Service Performance (device health, performance, reliability data), Product and Service Usage (data on usage of device, apps, OS), and Software Setup and Inventory (update information). The app includes a search feature that lets you search for specific items.
OK for diagnostic data, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY
Re:OK for diagnostic data, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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What's a carrier?
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A joke you won't get.
"What does a Navy pilot and an internet addict have in common?"
"Both break out in cold sweat when they find NO CARRIER"
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A joke you won't get.
Sigh, I was aiming for funny but I hit clueless millennial. :-)
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Corporate lying degrades lives. (Score:1)
The overall story: Microsoft and Windows cannot be trusted. Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. [networkworld.com] And: 7 ways Windows 10 pushes ads at you... [pcworld.com]
Intel CPUs cannot be trusted: We translated Intel's attempt to spin its way out of the CPU security bug PR nightmare. [theregister.co.uk]
Articles about spyware in CPUs [slashdot.org]
I would be very interested to know the sociology behind
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but they do not mention the user profiling data that is used for advertising or the data that is provided to the NSA.
What actually is that data? I mean you say they are collecting such data so you must have some idea of what that is to be confident that it is being collected.
More to the point, if the government is strongarming companies for data (and we know they are trying given you see the lengths MS is going to in the courts to stop government access to offshore email servers) then perhaps it's the perverse and intrusive government you should be taking it up with.
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I say pretty fucking pointless, as M$ can install any software it wants at any time it wants, including altering was it reported and what is not reported so, yeah, why trust M$. My fucking computer all the fucking time, I decide what gets installed, when it gets installed and exactly what data leaves it and when it leaves it. My response to M$ go fuck yourself with windows anal probe 10. My digital life, my digital rights, my right to control it, don't think I am entitled to those rights, well, my message t
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we invented slashdot and we invented hashtags and we invented internet
From that I extrapolate that 2 out 3 things you come up with are shit.
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Killer app (Score:2)
This is the killer feature that will give Microsoft a foothold over its greatest competitor, Linus Torvalds.
Well, that and FISA Section 702.
Governments please (Score:3)
It's time this unbridled data collecting by companies becomes outlawed.Of course this isn't as simple as it looks but please make a serious start.
FTFY (Score:1)
Windows 10 Will Soon Let Users Track the Data Microsoft admits that it Collects (thurrott.com)
Mockery? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Mockery? (Score:1)
Now you know that MS knows you have a small dick
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The simple things like web browsing, email and office documents can be run on just about any device but when you look at professional application spaces like BIM, architecture, CAD, CAM, CAE, manufacturing simulation, environmental simulation, factory design, video editing, audio production, image editing, post production, game engines, etc... most of that is Windows.
Yes Linux covers the basics of usage that are common to pretty much all users but when you start to look beyond that by and large the applicat
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How useful is seeing the data if I can't stop them? At best it may be an eye opener. But that is far from the ideal situation.
Who stops whom?
Where's Windows 11? Microsoft isn't even going if I can't run Windows 11 by now.
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Should have had this from day 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
It will show the data that Microsoft wants you to know that it is taking. Unless this tool is open source you would be unwise to assume that it was showing you everything; even then: does the operating system keep (or make visible) all the files that it sends ?
Should have just not collected it in the first pla (Score:1)
Agreed, they are not to be trusted. They should just not be collecting data in the first place. How about a simple one-stop shopping applet that displays all the data Microsoft wants to collect, with a little checkbox beside each category, disabled by default.
While we're at it, how about reverting to selectable updates too.
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And a change in thei revenue model to one where the users trade cash for the software they develop at a price that is fair for both parties all without the data collection backed "free" pricing model bullshit. I wish we'd move beyond the free model for most things. Free never is, and I don't like the true price we pay companies now.
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It will show the data that Microsoft wants you to know that it is taking. Unless this tool is open source you would be unwise to assume that it was showing you everything; even then: does the operating system keep (or make visible) all the files that it sends ?
Open sourcing the tool wouldn't help you as long as the operating system underneath can be doing absolutely anything with your data without you knowing. If Windows lies to the tool about the data it's forwarding there's no way you could ever tell. You would need to open source the entire operating system and then make sure you compiled it safely [dwheeler.com] from that source.
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I don't care. I want an OFF button. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't collect data from my devices. No ifs and buts. Don't.
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https://github.com/10se1ucgo/D... [github.com]
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Look at that date on that. It's an obsolete kludge that won't work any more.
"4 days ago"
Yeah, totally obsolete.
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It's not that hard, just disable all network connections if you must use windows for CAD or something.
Then use an Open Source OS for your web browser, email etc.
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Then it's time to develop something that poisons the data pool. What we need to do is add enough bogus data that it becomes impossible to tell false from real data apart, rendering the whole data collection worthless.
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One thing has nothing to do with the other, you Redmond fart-sniffer, you.
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Yes it does. When MS did some initial pilots of this, they found that around 80% of Windows crashes were caused by a small number of device drivers not sanity checking the data coming from the device. Apparently it was really common to see code that would read an error code from a device register and then use that to index into a table of error messages and return that higher up the stack. This works fine in most cases, but transient errors on the bus can cause that value to be out of the expected range,
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Useless (Score:3)
Who says that's ALL they really collect?
Sounds like it'll shut a few people up but overall nothing changes.
Nobody's forcing anyone to use products that collect information on you. Why is everyone so uptight about having their dick pics scanned by "Company X" anyways? If you want to get something somewhere in a safe and secure manner, there are ways to do it; or just don't put extremely sensitive stuff on your daily device of choice.
Sure this post can be read as flame bait but let's be honest here, unless they start using said data to put people in jail over some very questionable Google searches, who fucking cares what they know about you? If *they* REALLY want to know who you are, they'll find out. Otherwise it's just a way for them to cater to their audiences/market their products better. A *competent* criminal in today's world wouldn't dump everything about them in digital format anyways.
I'll worry when they feed it all to an A.I. that spits out something along the lines of "I've concluded person X is a danger to society and should be incarcerated." and we actually treat that as absolute truth by going ahead and doing it. THEN people should flip their shit.
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Who says that's ALL they really collect?
You can never be 100% sure, but if this report is inaccurate then their liability under the GDPR is going to be huge. Someone in Redmond is no doubt calculating the size of the fine versus the value of the data, and my guess is that the value of any data that they're not willing to admit collecting is far lower than the possible fine (I forget the exact amount, but I think it's something like 10% of annual turnover).
Misleading. (Score:5, Interesting)
What they are doing is trying to mislead you into thinking that diagnostic data is the only thing they are collecting. The truth is they are collecting a whole lot more and selling it to advertisers but they aren't giving you a tool to see that data.
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Do you have any support for this statement, or are you just making shit up?
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some people have short memories: https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
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Also, as a Windows Phone user, I can tell you, I don't see any tracking going on. That might be because I'm not logged in with any Microsoft id. You don't have to be to use Windows Phone. Can't say that about Google or Apple.
So yes, I'd say that Microsoft is different in that respect.
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The truth is they are collecting a whole lot more and selling it to advertisers
No, that is just untrue and you trying to masquerade that as the truth makes you just as untrustworthy as Microsoft. They do not sell your data to advertisers, they (like other companies) sell a service to match advertisements with a target audience based on the data they collect.
I know it sounds a lot more nefarious to say what you're saying but you're just lying, their behaviour is misleading and your behaviour is dishonest. If you can show me where I, as an advertiser, can go and buy people's personal da
One small step for Microsoft... (Score:3)
Avoid hypocrisy (Score:2, Insightful)
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Aka "screw you, I got mine".
Yes, I can protect myself and my data from an overreaching corporation, and a government acting likewise. Does that mean I should not care about those that cannot protect themselves?
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I can protect myself and my data from an overreaching corporation
Using Linux is the actual solution to the problem of being abused by an operating system vendor. Suggesting that others should also use this solution isn't "screw you I got mine", it's actually helping by recommending a solution.
So it's you who is saying "screw you (normies) I got mine" because you continue to use the system that abuses others-- because you're ok with it.
The difference between us is that I actually recommended a solution while you pointed out how you're doing alright yet tried to claim t
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Linux is very often not a solution. There are a lot of Windows programs that can't run natively on Linux, and which may not run well under Wine, and which don't have good Linux equivalents. If you don't use any of those, great, but many people do.
Are there no computer programs any more (Score:1)
Apps were something that ran on your tablet or cell phone, but now it seems like people call everything an app.
Folks like us are now appers (or something) and no longer programmers??
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Apps were something that ran on your tablet or cell phone, but now it seems like people call everything an app.
Folks like us are now appers (or something) and no longer programmers??
Before that, "apps" were things you ordered before dinner at a restaurant.
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They still are.
If someone asks me to program an "app", I know someone I don't want to work for. If you're smart, don't. You're looking at someone who has no idea what he's talking about but is 100% buzzword-compliant. That's the WORST kind of customer you could have.
Right! (Score:2)
I only boot my Windows gaming pc once a week, and I noticed just how much that windows telemetry accessed my NVME drive, it took minutes for it to finish whatever it were doing at boot up, reading hundreds of megabytes pr second. until I finally had enough and disabled it in registry.
Although you never really know what they are doing, I just don't trust that machine.
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Have you tried it recently? With the last update they made it harder (again) to get rid of their junk.
How dumb the customer is perceived ? (Score:1)
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Most people don't know about this and many of the people who do don't give a damn.
Here's what would shut me up. (Score:2)
If Microsoft wants to offer a free or reduced priced version of Windows that collects system, application and/or user telemetry - fine. As long as they *also* offer a version -- perhaps more expensive -- that had all those data collection features (and, optionally, Cortana, which I never and would never use) removed or permanently disabled. (I would bet they're, at the very least, a simple compile-time option.) If they did that, how many here would pony up the extra $$ to buy the spyware-free version vs.
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Alas, it seems they're not interested in that, and only give a nicer (not good enough) version of Windows to companies that pay for Windows Server.
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And would it be possible to point out which "service or two" we'd have to disable?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:2)
Who watches the watchmen?
Seriously, we can track the data that Microsoft collects, using Microsoft's own software, and maybe there are some things we don't get to track? Who knows!
Viewing Data (Score:2)
is fine but how about the ability to block the data from being sent at all? This is still not enough to get me to use Windoze again
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C'mon, that can't be possible. Not even APK made that claim, and according to him hosts files can cure aids and cancer.
Nice, but... (Score:2)
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Now how about a way to stop it collecting the data in the first place?
Most data sent can be blocked in the Task Scheduler.
There are .CPL's that claim opt-out's, but they don't work, only from the Task Scheduler. It's always been this way.
Application Experience
Collects program telemetry information if opted-in to the Microsoft Customer Experience Improvement Program.
Cortana can be disabled by renaming the directory: x:\windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy
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https://github.com/10se1ucgo/D... [github.com]
I heard it! (Score:2)
What about all the crap about taking sceeenshots and sending them back to MS, and keystroke logging too?
Lessons from the past... (Score:1)
Don't care (Score:2)
I don't run Windows, but even if I did, this news would be meaningless to me. Now if the headline had said "Windows 10 Will Soon Let Users Track Microsoft Executives' Internet Activities", I might consider using Windows. But until somebody tells me that all this data collection is taking place bi-directionally on a truly level playing field, then any such 'concessions' are merely insulting. Microsoft and others of its ilk can go pound salt.
data (Score:1)
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When you know what they collect, you know what to flood them with to make the data useless.
No deal (Score:2)
So long as Windows can't be configured not to communicate with Microsoft at all for ANY reason Windows is off the table.
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No updates for you then.
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No updates for you then.
Excellent point. It's impossible to update an operating system without communicating with OS vendor. Doing so would violate causality.
MS get a taste of their own medicine (Score:2)
2. MS admits to spying on people
3. MS let each person track the data collected
next steps:
4. MS let people track any data MS collects
5. People track whatever MS does
Let them pay (Score:2)
I'd like the EU to install legislation that makes companies like MS, Google and Facebook pay me for the data they collect about me and sell to whomever.
All the data? (Score:2)
And how are we to confirm this is really ALL the data? or just a subset of it that they want to share or use under false transperacy claims?
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