Windows 7/8 updates makes it spy on you like Windows 10 - Polidicks

[QUOTE=Map in a box;48535954]How much more transparent do they need to be? They're not going to go viewing your browsing habits, they're interested in their products usage.[/QUOTE] What information they're logging Why they're logging it All ways it will be used including whether it will be shared with third parties To go back to my Firefox telemetry deal: [QUOTE]Usage statistics or "Telemetry" is a feature in Firefox that sends Mozilla usage, performance, and responsiveness statistics about user interface features, memory and hardware configuration. Your IP address is also collected as a part of a standard web log. Usage statistics are transmitted using SSL and help us improve future versions of Firefox. Once sent to Mozilla, usage statistics are aggregated and made available to a broad range of developers, including both Mozilla employees and public contributors. When Telemetry is enabled, certain short-term experiments may collect information about visited sites. This feature is turned on by default in Nightly, Developer Edition, Aurora and Beta builds of Firefox to help those users provide feedback to Mozilla. In the general release version of Firefox, this feature is turned off by default.[/QUOTE] This states what information they are logging (statistics about user interface features, memory, and your hardware configuration as well as your ip address), why it's being logged (to help improve future versions of Firefox), and who it will be shared with (Mozilla employees as well as public contributors to the project). In addition they go on to state that the option is only enabled by default in the developer version while in the stable version it's disabled by default. And in both cases it's still optional. In Microsoft's case I'd still want a little more information than what Mozilla gives here since your operating system has access to everything on your computer and not just specific parts. It's kinda important to know if Microsoft is sending personal files such as, for example, tax return stuff to their servers.

What exactly is the data Microsoft is supposedly snooping? I really doubt they're recording people masturbate and making a list of every porn and pirate site people visit. Are they recording names of executables or key strokes in certain circumstances, i.e. to diagnose crashes or bugs or potentially combat malware? Is this data being sent constantly or only during error reporting? Do they store this data? Do they prompt you when this data is being sent and what is actually being sent? I'm not going to assume that Microsoft is squeaky clean but I'm also not going to assume they're Big Brother either. I'd like to see some factual information here instead of "yeah they send your data to their servers but I dunno what."

[QUOTE=Map in a box;48535954]How much more transparent do they need to be? They're not going to go viewing your browsing habits, they're interested in their products usage.[/QUOTE] It just so happens that the data they collect for troubleshooting if you tick the "Telemetry" box might say in the equivalent of a giant neon sign that you happen to visit "facepunch.com" on the regular. The idea of privacy isn't that nobody should know anybody's data, it's that everyone has the right to hide information from most anyone, if they so choose.

[QUOTE=lavacano;48536295]It just so happens that the data they collect for troubleshooting if you tick the "Telemetry" box might say in the equivalent of a giant neon sign that you happen to visit "facepunch.com" on the regular. The idea of privacy isn't that nobody should know anybody's data, it's that everyone has the right to hide information from most anyone, if they so choose.[/QUOTE] Exactly. Opt in, opt out. Users can reasonably block Facebook and Google by installing an extension, but there is no such thing for Windows. Because of that, they should make an option that doesn't enable itself after every restart.

[QUOTE=Handsome Matt;48536410]Source is garbage, get some actual evidence or a reliable source then you can talk shit.[/QUOTE] [url]https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3075249[/url] [quote]This update adds telemetry points to the User Account Control (UAC) feature to collect information on elevations that come from low integrity levels. [/quote] wow all that data collection [editline]25th August 2015[/editline] Second one is even focused on users who actually are a part of the Customer Experiance Improvement Program, and optional part of windows A program that is optional for all users

Can Linux run games as easy as Windows?

[QUOTE=TheNerdPest14;48536736]Can Linux run games as easy as Windows?[/QUOTE] If it's supported and assuming the drivers aren't shit, I guess.

lol all these baseless assumptions and fearmongering

Regardless of whether this particular update is a big ol' spy, the general mentality in this thread sound really worrying to me. Like, it doesn't matter that other services are just as bad, that just means the list is longer, not that you can strike someone off it. Separate from that, Google's got okay alternatives and Facebook is entirely optional, which puts both comparisons in a completely different ballpark than Windows, which has pretty much no viable alternative for the common PC user. That said, I don't see how that lack of choice would in any way make people less angry about it, just like people may still feel upset about things too big to be within their direct control, like wars, law or policy changes, kidnappings, whatever. Without showing demand for a Windows alternative nobody's even gonna think about making or supporting one. With that out of the way and onto the way of the general problem of privacy invasion, in a time where leaks are happening every other week (including of sites centered around storing that kinda info) and giants like Sony and Starbucks used to save most sensitive user info in plaintext, I don't see any reason to trust Microsoft with my data, or to willingly let them establish infrastructure that's only gonna get more intrusive and in the future could be abused by either them or third parties gaining legal or illegal access to it. Like, that might just be German perspective talking here, but whether it's subconscious manipulation through ads or scareware or a full-blown surveillance state, I don't want to worry about my data, and the infrastructure it's collected with, falling into the wrong hands and affecting my behavior consciously or subconsciously.

As long as they don't pull a "child protection" and make your visited websites and keylogs visible to literally everyone, I won't care.

What's wrong with microsoft seriously? Do they not care about people's privacy?

What is it with the fearmongering i have seen lately with Win 10? Seen about 3-4 threads about it now on how it is a NSA spy tool, yet most of these threads were shot down because of over sensationalist bullshit like this thread.

[QUOTE=Mr.Brown;48536864]What's wrong with microsoft seriously? Do they not care about people's privacy?[/QUOTE] Took the bait

Of all the data miners, MS is someone I don't want to mine my data.

[QUOTE=SouthParkMGT;48535446]Depends on what kind of distro. Ubuntu is basically same deal, it collects information too. For a totally safe from snooping system I'd go for Arch or Debian.[/QUOTE] Fedora4lyfe.

for what's worth, both these updates are flagged as optional and not as essential.

Even though the source has been disproved the damage has been done. There's too much fearmongering with Windows 10, it's like people are looking for something wrong.

The problem is Microsoft is completely silent about Windows 10 since launch. They neither confirm nor explain why are these things needed, what do they do etc. And people blow things out of proportion all the time (which isn't bad in general), but nobody has proved what is in the traffic data.

Hasn't Windows 7/8.x had this ability for years though? Besides that, it's not like your ISP hasn't been mining the same data from you every time you use the internet. Championing for privacy is great and brings the subject more to the forefront, but at the same time, I doubt your government is really going to care about the "Linux distros" you torrent and porn you masturbate to when it doesn't present any immediate threat to its country.

[QUOTE=FlandersNed;48537173]Even though the source has been disproved the damage has been done. There's too much fearmongering with Windows 10, it's like people are looking for something wrong.[/QUOTE] yo one of our politicians claims that "Microsoft is running a big program in Russia, making people upgrade to Windows 10 for free, which collects our data and sends it to the US!" and that is why our government should look into it and potentionally ban it they don't even care that one of our biggest search engines (Yandex) is registered in palo alto, california legit governments have bought into the botnet scare

To be fair... It is Russia. I'd be more concerned about what data the Russian Government would have on me than the US having that data.

There's Windows 7 with spying And then there's me, drinking tea and reading this thread on Windows XP :v:

[QUOTE=Mitchel.;48538463]There's Windows 7 with spying And then there's me, drinking tea and reading this thread on Windows XP :v:[/QUOTE] So instead of Microsoft knowing your every move, it's just every botnet operator.

[QUOTE=Mitchel.;48538463]There's Windows 7 with spying And then there's me, drinking tea and reading this thread on Windows XP :v:[/QUOTE] Microsoft has been tracking us since Windows 95.

[QUOTE=Keychain;48538625]Microsoft has been tracking us since Windows 95.[/QUOTE] Tracking has never been so blatant and fierce until recent.

[QUOTE]KB3075249 "Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7"[/QUOTE] I'm sorry but this bullshit surrounding Windows right now is just unbelievable. That update only sends data to Microsoft telling them how many people people click 'Yes'/'Continue' and how many people click 'No'/'Cancel' in a UAC dialog. Nothing more. KB3080149 "This update aligns down-level devices on the same UTC binary that’s released in Windows 10. This update would enable all the down-level devices to receive the software updates, design updates, and additional power and performance tuning." [QUOTE]"The diagnostics tracking service collects diagnostics about functional issues on Windows systems that participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP)."[/QUOTE] Both of these state they're part of CEIP which is opt-in, and apparently people need that spelled out for them, it means it doesn't send telemetry by default. Honestly the bullshit surrounding Microsoft and Windows right now is downright ridiculous. I read yesterday someone claimed that Windows 10 uploaded the entire contents of all your harddrives to a company (which was a fraud protection company) to look for pirated software. Don't you think someone would have noticed that several hundreds of gigabytes/terabytes of files were being uploaded on the network? So what is telemetry that's been in Windows for over a decade yet now is apparently the worst thing ever? Well for example if you get a BSOD a minidump is sent to Microsoft so they can determine why your computer just crashed. If it's an issue with Windows they'll fix it. If it's by a third party driver, they contact the developers of that driver and let them know. They also collect the frequency of buttons/commands used. For example: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/cBDfRWj.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/vWSVDgT.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/hO1LlgW.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/wNf0pdL.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/iRGIjeb.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Mq5EXqD.png[/IMG] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/RoFvOna.png[/IMG] None of that telemetry contains any personal information either.

Like I said, sensationalist crap that people eat up because they're scared, and they expect everyone else to be too. Thanks for clearing that up.

At least there are 75 million smart people out there.

[QUOTE=darth-veger;48536922]What is it with the fearmongering i have seen lately with Win 10? Seen about 3-4 threads about it now on how it is a NSA spy tool, yet most of these threads were shot down because of over sensationalist bullshit like this thread.[/QUOTE] I think it's related to the fact that it came out completely free.

[QUOTE=Panda X;48549216]I'm sorry but this bullshit surrounding Windows right now is just unbelievable. That update only sends data to Microsoft telling them how many people people click 'Yes'/'Continue' and how many people click 'No'/'Cancel' in a UAC dialog. Nothing more. KB3080149 "This update aligns down-level devices on the same UTC binary that’s released in Windows 10. This update would enable all the down-level devices to receive the software updates, design updates, and additional power and performance tuning." Both of these state they're part of CEIP which is opt-in, and apparently people need that spelled out for them, it means it doesn't send telemetry by default. Honestly the bullshit surrounding Microsoft and Windows right now is downright ridiculous. I read yesterday someone claimed that Windows 10 uploaded the entire contents of all your harddrives to a company (which was a fraud protection company) to look for pirated software. Don't you think someone would have noticed that several hundreds of gigabytes/terabytes of files were being uploaded on the network? So what is telemetry that's been in Windows for over a decade yet now is apparently the worst thing ever? Well for example if you get a BSOD a minidump is sent to Microsoft so they can determine why your computer just crashed. If it's an issue with Windows they'll fix it. If it's by a third party driver, they contact the developers of that driver and let them know. They also collect the frequency of buttons/commands used. For example: None of that telemetry contains any personal information either.[/QUOTE] Thanks for the info. Nice to get some actual facts here.