France: Windows 10 collects 'excessive personal data', issues Microsoft with formal warning - Polidicks

This is why I've disabled ALL of that. I've put IP's in the locahost file, I've edited registry entries (To also do things like colorize my menu bar above windows and disable the lock screen) After that, Win10 is great. Of course I can't use the windows store unless I enable a couple things, but who gives a shit about that

[QUOTE=Map in a box;50750409]as long as your ip is constant, they can get a profile on you. in addition, [url]http://sourcefrog.net/projects/meantime/[/url] its really not a big deal regardless[/QUOTE] Well they get a profile on me, and every other person also using the VPN. There's probably a hundred other users showing up with the same IP at any instant that I'm using it

[QUOTE=phygon;50753185]Well they get a profile on me, and every other person also using the VPN. There's probably a hundred other users showing up with the same IP at any instant that I'm using it[/QUOTE] thats a pretty poor vpn if its shared so wildly and even then IPs are only one piece of the puzzle of tracking like I said

[QUOTE=Lyokanthrope;50750447]It's not like Microsoft directly stops you from doing this. There's various workarounds both within and outside of the system in group policy, in the registry, there's third party utilities and patches, and even good 'ol hosts blocking.[/QUOTE][B]No goddamn it, we're talking about people's privacy here. This should be a simple flick of a fucking switch, if I need to fuck around in the registry, engage in host blocking horsefuckery, and download third party software to stop my [I]operating system[/I] from doing shit I and many others might find nefarious then something is dreadfully wrong.[/B] Nothing about the above statement should be difficult for you to understand. [QUOTE]Before you say you shouldn't need a workaround I'm just gonna point to your refrigerator argument here.[/QUOTE]Difference is I bought the refrigerator at an auction and I knew it was broken. [QUOTE]By and large, it's an 'advanced' thing. Probably voids your warranty (if you have one) too.[/QUOTE]No it isn't, but yes it does. Home repair is painfully simple, but most people go "waahh that uses tools I'm scared :(" and hire somebody like me (I do this for a living) and is willing to pay a hilariously large sum of money to do the computer equivalent of removing a disk drive and putting in a new one.

Aren't some services (like Cortana) disabled if you disable sending data to ms?

I feel sorry for Windows users. Having an OS that doesn't try to actively spy on me at every chance is pretty great.

[QUOTE=Ragekipz;50755012]Aren't some services (like Cortana) disabled if you disable sending data to ms?[/QUOTE] Apparently you can't even fully disable Cortana anyways. If you disable it and open task manager you'll find Cortana sitting there eating up resources as if it wasn't disabled.

[QUOTE=Alice3173;50755608]Apparently you can't even fully disable Cortana anyways. If you disable it and open task manager you'll find Cortana sitting there eating up resources as if it wasn't disabled.[/QUOTE] I miss they days you could literally [I]UNINSTALL [/I]bits you didn't want. [I]"Disabled but not really"[/I] seems to be the norm nowadays...

[QUOTE=Van-man;50755967]I miss they days you could literally [I]UNINSTALL [/I]bits you didn't want. [I]"Disabled but not really"[/I] seems to be the norm nowadays...[/QUOTE] Never been Microsoft's thing. For the longest time, 98 onwards, IE was part of the actual OS and "uninstalling" just removed the IE shortcuts and iexplore.exe. Its better now that Windows Explorer isn't literally a custom IE shell. :v: The choice ruse was a distaction.

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50755069]I feel sorry for Windows users. Having an OS that doesn't try to actively spy on me at every chance is pretty great.[/QUOTE] Except it doesn't???

[QUOTE=Alice3173;50755608]Apparently you can't even fully disable Cortana anyways. If you disable it and open task manager you'll find Cortana sitting there eating up resources as if it wasn't disabled.[/QUOTE] Pretty sure if you fully disable Cortana you lose one of the best benefits to Win 10 other than four way Snap Assist. Not Cortana herself, but actually the Win+S search menu, which does not work if Cortana is completely removed. When Cortana is disabled rather than removed you have the ability to search your computer via a quick keyboard shortcut that is very convenient and accurate, and basically works so well I literally never use the start menu other than to shut down or for the convenient right click menu that has all your system tools and settings for quick access. Win 10 has some great features for power users, but all the apps they added have very little audience even for regular users. A lot of the seniors I advise at my job have no reason to use Groove Music, Calendar, Mail, Maps, etc. because they do everything in their web browser and still rely on physical methods for calendars and other stuff. I basically just show them how to make their old web browser their default and then it's back to normal for them. The "spying" seems to be only telemetry and if you're not using Edge or Cortana the only info they really get is simple shit like how often File Explorer crashes or how often you launched OneNote, and from my experience Cortana, Siri, Google Now, etc are a novelty most people don't really use and Edge is basically Chrome lite with Paint slapped on it. Besides, its trivially easy to set the telemetry to "basic." The rest of the stuff they collect is so minor and scrubbed of personal info that its not useful, can't build a profile on you, and only helps them tweak the OS. Your cell phone provider, ISP, local clothes shop you got a rewards card from, and random telemarketers have way more info about you than Microsoft would unless you used Bing, and then it'd just be comparable to Google's info on you (although Google seems to get a lot more data since they have AdSense). I can understand making it easier for power users to tweak the OS, but the average computer user doesn't know crap about what they're doing and that user base is the most important to get telemetry from, so fixing their problems is higher priority and telemetry helps. If you make it easy to completely turn off telemetry then you might as well not have it because any random Joe is going to equate "basic telemetry that's helpful in fixing problems" with "big corporation scanning my PornHub searches and bank transactions." Not having automatic updates on older Windows versions was a huge fucking pain for me to deal with because the security updates fixed a ton of issues that could lead to malware getting into the system, and a lot of people I know turned them off because they "slowed down the computer" or "were annoying." The anniversary Win 10 update is bringing a new feature to update scheduling called Active Hours that lets you set times where Windows won't download or install updates and will better determine when you're idle or not. Basically, they want to make things not intrusive, but they also want to stop ignorant people from fucking up their computer by not keeping it up to date. I mean, any games that have SecureROM on them won't run on Windows 10 because Microsoft has flat out stated its a huge vector for attacks and is so shitty in terms of code that its dumb to allow it to be installed. The average Joe doesn't know what the fuck DRM is and don't have any clue if they even have SecureROM on their system, so there's times where someone more knowledgeable has to take control. Ideally for power users there'd be a way to get around it and there probably is but if you make it too easy you end up harming the user via their ignorance. It's weird to think of computer users as kids but sometimes you have to be the parent with your users and prevent them from doing stupid shit, that's why we have administrative privileges for one thing.

[QUOTE=SleepyAl;50760848]and Edge is basically Chrome lite with Paint slapped on it. [/QUOTE] Except it has a better javascript engine It's my goto for flash sites (speedtest.net) and abysmal javascript pages since it's common for gecko browsers to be brought to their knees if some shitty code is running but yeah A lot of browsers are starting to follow how chrome does things, even with mozilla opting for the extention format used (and failing badly), and for some god for saken reason continue making poor choices but yeah extensions [t]http://jesusfuck.me/di/PQ7G/16-07-23-21-02-09-save-33-on-samorost-3-on-steam-microsoft-edge.jpg[/t] It's pretty much the chrome extension Glad to say the days of Internet Explorer being utter shite are behind us, still a lot of room for improvement, can only play like %5 of webm media on the net

[QUOTE=SleepyAl;50760848]Pretty sure if you fully disable Cortana you lose one of the best benefits to Win 10 other than four way Snap Assist. Not Cortana herself, but actually the Win+S search menu, which does not work if Cortana is completely removed. When Cortana is disabled rather than removed you have the ability to search your computer via a quick keyboard shortcut that is very convenient and accurate, and basically works so well I literally never use the start menu other than to shut down or for the convenient right click menu that has all your system tools and settings for quick access.[/QUOTE] This may be true but for someone who literally never uses the win+s search menu it's a completely irrelevant point. It's actually quicker for me to just navigate to wherever what I'm looking for is installed through Windows explorer since I tend to know more or less where everything on my computer is installed. Also rather than that right click menu you're talking about, you can use win+x which is, in my personal opinion, probably the feature that is the best addition in Windows 10. (Especially if you're using something like DisplayFusion which has an option to open that menu where your mouse cursor is rather than only at the start button.)

[QUOTE=Alice3173;50762466]This may be true but for someone who literally never uses the win+s search menu it's a completely irrelevant point. It's actually quicker for me to just navigate to wherever what I'm looking for is installed through Windows explorer since I tend to know more or less where everything on my computer is installed. Also rather than that right click menu you're talking about, you can use win+x which is, in my personal opinion, probably the feature that is the best addition in Windows 10. (Especially if you're using something like DisplayFusion which has an option to open that menu where your mouse cursor is rather than only at the start button.)[/QUOTE] It's an addition to Windows 8 though :smug:

[QUOTE=Scratch.;50763782]It's an addition to Windows 8 though :smug:[/QUOTE] Wasn't actually aware of that. I've only used Windows 8 on a tablet where win+x wouldn't be useful and I could've sworn I read somewhere that that was a new addition in 10. Oops.

[QUOTE=Alice3173;50765671]Wasn't actually aware of that. I've only used Windows 8 on a tablet where win+x wouldn't be useful and I could've sworn I read somewhere that that was a new addition in 10. Oops.[/QUOTE] Not surprised really Ads in minesweeper only became a massive issue to everyone after windows 10 released, despite being in the 8 version of the game No one really cared about windows 8 I guess :v:

[QUOTE=FlandersNed;50760281]Except it doesn't???[/QUOTE] Microsoft is part of NSA's mass surveillance program "PRISM": [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)[/url] Microsoft informs the NSA about bugs before fixing them: [url]https://archive.is/OBGB1[/url] Microsoft openly offeres cloud data to support PRISM: [url]https://archive.is/tW6fu[/url] Microsoft has backdoored its disk encryption: [url]https://archive.is/2XIvX[/url] · [url]https://archive.is/qLRZx[/url] Windows snoops on the users' files, text input, voice input, location, contacts, calendar records and web browsing history, even after related settings are turned off: [url]https://archive.is/Zny36[/url] · [url]https://archive.is/sz1nt[/url] [url]https://archive.is/g3QdQ[/url] · [url]https://archive.is/ko469[/url] A Traffic Analysis of Windows 10: Keypoints: Windows 10 has a keylogger and uploads all your keystrokes every 5 minutes. Everything you type in Edge or Cortana is sent to Microsoft, along with any media files it finds. When webcam is enabled, 35MB of data goes to Microsoft. Even with Cortana disabled/uninstalled, Windows 10 sends all microphone audio to Microsoft, when the computer is idle. [url]https://archive.is/QnTTA[/url] [url]https://archive.is/eZKc9[/url] Windows 10 sends desktop screenshots straight to Microsoft: [url]https://d2.maxfile.ro/rwspylwbwo.webm[/url] [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDeHqiydk4A[/url] Windows 10 scans for illegal/pirated software: [url]https://archive.is/vhjwm[/url] [url]https://archive.is/2jehd[/url] Microsoft proudly presents surveillance statistics: [url]https://archive.is/MB0Yy[/url] - Over 82 billion photos viewed. - Gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games. - 44.5 billion minutes/month spent in Microsoft Edge. - Over 2.5 billion questions asked of Cortana since launch. - Windows 10 now active on over 200 million devices.

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50767249] Windows 10 sends desktop screenshots straight to Microsoft: [url]https://d2.maxfile.ro/rwspylwbwo.webm[/url] [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDeHqiydk4A[/url] [/QUOTE] 1st link doesn't work and 2nd one is false as proven by plenty of comments

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50767298]2nd one is false as proven by plenty of comments[/QUOTE] Got some sauce on that?

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50767307]Got some sauce on that?[/QUOTE] Can you read russian? If not use a translator and read some of Evgeny Vrublevsky (VEG) comments

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50767318]Can you read russian? If not use a translator and read some of Evgeny Vrublevsky (VEG) comments[/QUOTE] I stand corrected. Still, there's plenty of other points that show Windows 10 is an awful spy machine.

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50767341]I stand corrected. Still, there's plenty of other points that show Windows 10 is an awful spy machine.[/QUOTE] That's true. But it doesn't seem like much will change if we want to keep gaming.

Wasn't the piracy one debunked, and was actually related to pirated Xbox stuff?

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50767397]That's true. But it doesn't seem like much will change if we want to keep gaming.[/QUOTE] Nothing's ever gonna change if no one makes an effort to try. The first step can be pretty difficult but once you get used to Linux it's like a dream compared to the nightmare that's wangblows. If you absolutely *need* Windows for games there's always the option to set up a kvm environment with GPU passthrough for a Windows VM or just dual boot.

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50767489]Nothing's ever gonna change if no one makes an effort to try. The first step can be pretty difficult but once you get used to Linux it's like a dream compared to the nightmare that's wangblows. If you absolutely *need* Windows for games there's always the option to set up a kvm environment with GPU passthrough for a Windows VM or just dual boot.[/QUOTE] So much easier to just use Windows rather than go through all that hassle really.

[QUOTE=rndgenerator;50767519]So much easier to just use Windows rather than go through all that hassle really.[/QUOTE] Dual booting isn't hard, really. The installer for *buntu and debian based distros has an 'Install alongside Windows' option and will automatically detect your Windows installation and add a boot menu option for it. (Note: if the computer is a prebuilt or uses UEFI just make sure to disable SecureBoot.)

[QUOTE=Scratch.;50765776]Ads in minesweeper only became a massive issue to everyone after windows 10 released, despite being in the 8 version of the game[/QUOTE] My biggest complaint about the ads in Microsoft's Win10 games would really just have to be the fact they seem to lag the game horribly. I used to play their jigsaw app pretty often and every time the ad changed it would freeze the game for 5-10 seconds. Eventually it even started causing the app to crash too. (Though around this same time even starting it could cause it to crash.) Ended up having to find another jigsaw game to play. Turned out to be a good choice though since that one is actually superior in just about every way as it turns out.

[QUOTE=Map in a box;50747796]better ban ios/osx, they keep track of all apps their users install and for how long better ban android, they keep track of all apps their users install and for how long better ban windows phone too, their app store keeps track of all apps their users install and for how long pretty sure the "users consent" is whether or not they have the telemetry enabled [editline]20th July 2016[/editline] knowing what applications are installed and for how long is vital in determining problems with an OS microsoft should just get rid of all telemetry and drop all support for win10 because at this point they'll have to[/QUOTE] You can't disable it unless you're on the enterprise edition, please educate yourself before you say shit like this. I don't want microsoft to know what I've got installed, it's none of their business. You do know it's also been confirmed that they track every keystroke you make, and use that "to improve cortana" among other things. Sounds bullshit to me.

[QUOTE=Map in a box;50753294]thats a pretty poor vpn if its shared so wildly and even then IPs are only one piece of the puzzle of tracking like I said[/QUOTE] Regarding the first statement, no? If everyone has their own unique VPN, that's just another alias, if a VPN is used by many people it increases privacy across the board. This is one of the principles the Tor network is based on, along with email mixers and many other privacy tools. And the second statement is true, but noscript and not accepting cookies would block most of the profilers out there. Privacy wise, phygon is probably pretty okay. People are incredibly fatalistic about privacy on the internet.

[QUOTE=FurrehFaux;50767249]Microsoft is part of NSA's mass surveillance program "PRISM": [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_(surveillance_program)[/url] Microsoft informs the NSA about bugs before fixing them: [url]https://archive.is/OBGB1[/url] Microsoft openly offeres cloud data to support PRISM: [url]https://archive.is/tW6fu[/url] Microsoft has backdoored its disk encryption: [url]https://archive.is/2XIvX[/url] · [url]https://archive.is/qLRZx[/url] Windows snoops on the users' files, text input, voice input, location, contacts, calendar records and web browsing history, even after related settings are turned off: [url]https://archive.is/Zny36[/url] · [url]https://archive.is/sz1nt[/url] [url]https://archive.is/g3QdQ[/url] · [url]https://archive.is/ko469[/url] A Traffic Analysis of Windows 10: Keypoints: Windows 10 has a keylogger and uploads all your keystrokes every 5 minutes. Everything you type in Edge or Cortana is sent to Microsoft, along with any media files it finds. When webcam is enabled, 35MB of data goes to Microsoft. Even with Cortana disabled/uninstalled, Windows 10 sends all microphone audio to Microsoft, when the computer is idle. [url]https://archive.is/QnTTA[/url] [url]https://archive.is/eZKc9[/url] Windows 10 sends desktop screenshots straight to Microsoft: [url]https://d2.maxfile.ro/rwspylwbwo.webm[/url] [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDeHqiydk4A[/url] Windows 10 scans for illegal/pirated software: [url]https://archive.is/vhjwm[/url] [url]https://archive.is/2jehd[/url] Microsoft proudly presents surveillance statistics: [url]https://archive.is/MB0Yy[/url] - Over 82 billion photos viewed. - Gamers spent over 4 billion hours playing PC games. - 44.5 billion minutes/month spent in Microsoft Edge. - Over 2.5 billion questions asked of Cortana since launch. - Windows 10 now active on over 200 million devices.[/QUOTE] Never thought I'd see the day when 4chan copypasta hits SH [editline]25th July 2016[/editline] [url]http://jesusfuck.me/di/T9DA/16-07-25-15-36-08.jpg[/url]