Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions

[TELVM]

Hardcoding the Windows Update URLs was about preventing malware exploiting the hosts file to kill updates. That was OK given that you had full control over updates ...

 

Sounds reasonably reasonable.

 

And yet one of the baits that the shills are throwing all over the web is: "Forget about privacy, you lost it long ago, Windows 7 is as intrusive as the abomination".

 

To be honest that has me a bit worried ...

Edited August 17, 2015 by TELVM

[Formfiller]

 

Hardcoding the Windows Update URLs was about preventing malware exploiting the hosts file to kill updates. That was OK given that you had full control over updates ...

 

Sounds reasonably reasonable.

 

And yet one of the baits that the shills are throwing all over the web is: "Forget about privacy, you lost it long ago, Windows 7 is as intrusive as the abomination".

 

To be honest that has me a bit worried ...

 

 

I know. What they are doing is producing logical fallacies non-stop.

 

I've wrote a lengthy piece about this on C9 already regarding the "browsers auto-update, so Windows should too" BS:

 

https://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Faulty-update-time-And-again-W10/68126ba9799544399b9ba4f200d92e68

 

The logic of all the **** metro, W10 (and NuMS in general) fanboys goes always like this:

 

1. Boats swim

2. Boats and cars are vehicles

3. Cars swim

 

Regarding W10 they also love the "all similar actions are completely equal" game:

 

1. Credit card companies always charged fees

2. You ordered a new credit card knowing this

3. The company charging 1000$ is completely fine

Edited August 17, 2015 by Formfiller

[JorgeA]

Privacy concerns surrounding Windows 10 are spreading to the general media:

 

Using Windows 10? Microsoft Is Watching

 

There's so much good material in there, I could block-quote the entire article. But you can read the whole thing (it's well worth the few minutes), I'll highlight the following observation only:

 

Microsoft didn’t respond to requests for comment about specifics of the privacy terms, but in a blog post introducing them, Microsoft’s deputy general counsel, Horacio Gutierrez, calls the Privacy Statement a “straightforward resource for understanding Microsoft’s commitments for protecting individual privacy.” Alex Meer of the gaming website Rock Paper Shotgun countered, “There is no world in which 45 pages of policy documents and opt-out settings split across 13 different Settings screens and an external website constitutes ‘real transparency’.”

 

Yup.

 

Thanks to zerohedge.com, where I saw the link to this piece. Dozens of comments on that page, but this one caught my eye:

 

I cancelled my"opt in" for the free upgrade twice and it seemed to automatically put me back into the "accepted" cue for the free upgrade. That was the first red flag, I actually smelled a useless upgrade designed to collect data before I ever started hearing what this article says. My sixth sense kicked in long before. 

 

This setup is perfect, these companies just need to know more and more about you in order to stay relevant. Just happens to be the .Gov benefits from having access to more information on your than they could possibly ever dream of...when they need, meaning if you ever get "terroristy"...like say buying dehydrated food.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

Here's one of the more popular non-sequiturs "for" Windows 10:

 

Other tech companies also collect anonymous data from you and your devices

 

Based on all the chatter over the last few weeks about privacy and Windows 10 an outsider, or everyday user, could be led to believe that Microsoft is in the process of doing things that no other big technology company does when it comes to data, privacy and usage of their OS’s.

 

Bad reasoning, very bad.

 

First of all, no one that I know or have heard of, has argued that Microsoft is trying to do things that no other big tech company does. I don't recall ever coming across this argument. Saying that "one could be led to believe" such a thing based on the criticisms being made of Microsoft, is at best groundless when not disingenuous.

 

Secondly -- and more importantly -- the argument that other tech companies are doing it is completely and utterly irrelevant. Apple and Google do it? So what?? I don't buy Apple products and I don't have a Google account, because I don't want my data to be processed and delivered to advertisers. I've kept to the Microsoft environment precisely because it has been comparatively free of this tracking and monitoring B.S. -- a relative refuge. If Microsoft starts imitating Apple and Google in this regard, there's not a whole lot of other places to go to get one's computing done. Linux is all that comes to mind.

 

The issue is not whether Microsoft is merely doing now what others have been doing all along -- the issue is that Microsoft is doing things with users' privacy that it has never done before. Every indication appears to be that Windows 10 introduces what is for Microsoft an unprecedented level of user monitoring and profiling.

 

In terms of privacy, that is the real criticism and the real problem with Windows 10.

 

--JorgeA

 

[Formfiller]

Secondly -- and more importantly -- the argument that other tech companies are doing it is completely and utterly irrelevant. Apple and Google do it? So what?? I don't buy Apple products and I don't have a Google account, because I don't want my data to be processed and delivered to advertisers. I've kept to the Microsoft environment precisely because it has been comparatively free of this tracking and monitoring B.S. -- a relative refuge. If Microsoft starts imitating Apple and Google in this regard, there's not a whole lot of other places to go to get one's computing done. Linux is all that comes to mind.

 

 

I would call that behavior suicide by cloning. Removing key features which stood out and thus become indistinguishable from the competiton. This utterly fails pretty much every time though, because your current customers get dismayed and new ones won't come - they will stay with the established product you cloned!

 

Note, "cloning" and "copying features" are two different things. It's OK to copy a feature, say virtual desktops, but if you clone the whole experience (like the whole spying aspect) without adding a key benefit, you made your own product (even your whole company) irrelevant.

 

This can be often seen in games, take Command and Conquer 4, where they have tossed the traditional base building the fans were accustomed to and copied the instant-action model of more popular competiton at the same. The result was that the players from the other titles stayed where the are, the established fans became angry and the franchise died.

[NoelC]

We can only hope that SO much information will be collected from SO many people that our little personal smudge of data individually will be so insignificant that we'll be overlooked.

 

That would work if a human were going through it all.  Trouble is, the bad guys have computers.

 

Seems to me that it's not a matter of IF such a large and valuable database will fall into the wrong hands.

 

I can't see all this heading anywhere except back to a world where to be safe one needs to be disconnected.

 

-Noel

[loblo]

The kind of data gathering and individual profiling of the world online population the tech giants are able to pull is the dream of a dictatorship military/intelligence apparatus. That is why what is happening  in this respect is so incredibly dangerous .

 

Those who merely complain indignantly  about their personal data being sold for commercial purpose such as targeted ad delivery are completely missing the point of what is really at stake IMO.

 

And I think there are no good or bad hands for holding such data. The fact that such data  is being harvested and stored is bad per se, no matter who holds it.

[OldSchool38]

We can only hope that SO much information will be collected from SO many people that our little personal smudge of data individually will be so insignificant that we'll be overlooked.

 

That would work if a human were going through it all.  Trouble is, the bad guys have computers.

 

Seems to me that it's not a matter of IF such a large and valuable database will fall into the wrong hands.

 

I can't see all this heading anywhere except back to a world where to be safe one needs to be disconnected.

 

-Noel

 

The kind of data gathering and individual profiling of the world online population the tech giants are able to pull is the dream of a dictatorship military/intelligence apparatus. That is why what is happening  in this respect is so incredibly dangerous .

 

Those who merely complain indignantly  about their personal data being sold for commercial purpose such as targeted ad delivery are completely missing the point of what is really at stake IMO.

 

And I think there are no good or bad hands for holding such data. The fact that such data  is being harvested and stored is bad per se, no matter who holds it.

Well said, it reminds me of an interview I saw a while back of some of the actors in the Terminator series, one of them was an older gentlemen (I believe he was the one who played a police shrink) who mentioned he didn't have any internet connection at all and always tried to use cash or checks when buying things or paying bills because he was so spooked by the idea of what intrusive technology could do. 

 

I used to have DSL back in the old apartment I lived in years ago and have enjoyed a couple of bouts of cable internet where I live now the last few years, the rest of the time it's been dialup due to the fact that any highspeed option in my area is just plain expensive.  I'm finally getting some stuff paid off soon, so I had been planning to go back to cable-but recently the more information I see here and the more I think about it-I have to ask myself, do I REALLY need to have the extra speed just to watch youtube in my spare time and play around with a bunch of stuff I don't need to waste time with.  Back in the old days, when you wanted a PC game-you could just buy the disk, install it and you were ready to go-you didn't need an internet connection to do so, if it needed a patch, you could look it up yourself.  Now most of the stuff out there is wired into Steam-which requires a high speed connection (not to sound too paranoid, but it makes you wonder if Steam couldn't be used to get into your system as well).  Anyways, these kind of discussions make me reconsider how and why I use the internet in the first place and the fact that there is so much snooping out there nowadays makes me want to take a minimalist approach, e-mail, a few news/history/theological websites that I know from years of experience that aren't malware havens.  As silly as it sounds, there are times I wish we could go back to the pre-internet days-but MSFN at least is always worth checking out. B)

 

Edit: I just had another thought-a wise person once said-don't post anything online you wouldn't want to see on the first page of the New York Times!

Edited August 18, 2015 by OldSchool38

[alacran]

Diferent use for each device and/or program:

Yes we know they spy people when they use Google search or Google browser but you have many more alternatives and you are able to use it only for certain things or not use it.

About android yes we all know they spy us but that's why we do never think in put in our cell phone our credit card info or many other important things as all our private life in it as we just can lose the device or it may be stolen.

About Chrome OS I will never use it as OS, but anyway devices using it are only toys. Same goes for all Apple devices and IOS.

But on our PC this is a very diferent approach as first having biger storage it is able to content all we can put in it, we have in it all our life, bank accounts info and more private info, this is very personal not a toy as the cell phone or the tablet.

I am not worry about goverment agencies, they are not going to use the info for any other thing than security (and they will get the info ALLWAYS). What worry me is how long is going to take the hackers to enter in MS servers and make a copy of all this info, I am sure they are working in it right now, as this is now the big target.

So it is very diferent use for each device, and an OS spying all the info in hard disk and all we do in the PC (online and offline) it's something we must not allow. So we have only two alternatives:

Install a Linux OS (not my preference).
Or go back (or stay) to Win7 which is less invasive to let MS know we do not want Win10 this way (as they understood Win8x had to be replaced ASAP) and start learnig Linux (just in case).

Best Regards

Edited August 18, 2015 by alacran

[351837]

To quote from another forum where we talked about privacy issue in Windows 10:

 

We already gave it away a long time ago. Smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, Google account, emails... your privacy stopped existing long time ago. You'll just give it to Microsoft as well.
Best way to stop being bothered by privacy is to literally give all your data to everyone. At that point they lose interest in you since... well, everyone have your info so they can't sell it to anyone else

 

 

Can someone here with more brain cells than me could explain what kind of mindset stays behind that logic?

Edited August 18, 2015 by 351837

[JorgeA]

Here's another privacy-related concern:

 

Bring Your Own Device and Windows 10

 

We have all been reading the stories about the new End User License Agreement (EULA) in W10 that gives Microsoft the right to view huge reams of your personal information, including information in private folders. This may be a non-event for some home users but in an age of BYOD, where company and academic data may be copied or synchronized onto private IT, it should be seriously considered as a business threat. I have no doubt that Enterprise licenses will be locked down fairly tight but a BYOD is not an Enterprise license.

 

Businesses and academic institutions will need to carefully examine the W10 EULA and understand it in detail before allowing W10 BYOD equipment to join their network; if they allow it at all. Right now, we are only starting to see the sort of data that W10 phones home to Microsoft and we don’t know who Microsoft allows to see that data or how that data can be analysed or mined. We simply don’t know enough to be able to adequately risk assess this.

 

This is going to create massive headaches for businesses and institutions that accepted the BYOD trend: either they take enormous risks with their data, or they disappoint (not to say p*ss off) their employees/students/customers.

 

One thing is for certain and that is that Microsoft's lawyers will be hearing about this sooner or later, either before as a warning of the threat that Windows 10 represents to proprietary data -- or else afterward, once important private data has leaked out thanks to Win10's eager sweeping-up of all the bits it can get its digital hands on.

 

--JorgeA

 

[JorgeA]

 

 

Well said, it reminds me of an interview I saw a while back of some of the actors in the Terminator series, one of them was an older gentlemen (I believe he was the one who played a police shrink) who mentioned he didn't have any internet connection at all and always tried to use cash or checks when buying things or paying bills because he was so spooked by the idea of what intrusive technology could do. 

 

If we can no longer trust our own PCs to keep our information private, it may have to come to that.

 

--JorgeA

[lurk&jerk]

Aside from not being able to phone home, what happens when Windows 10 is used in a non-network environment, as might be the case if it is installed in a home or business with dial-up access or a classroom with no networking or restrictive networking? Does the OS react as if network access is being intentionally blocked and stops working normally? Even with network access, what happens when you don't have enough bandwidth for large daily or even weekly updates? 

Edited August 18, 2015 by lurk&jerk

[JorgeA]

Diferent use for each device and/or program:

Yes we know they spy people when they use Google search or Google browser but you have many more alternatives and you are able to use it only for certain things or not use it.

About android yes we all know they spy us but that's why we do never think in put in our cell phone our credit card info or many other important things as all our private life in it as we just can lose the device or it may be stolen.

About Chrome OS I will never use it as OS, but anyway devices using it are only toys. Same goes for all Apple devices and IOS.

But on our PC this is a very diferent approach as first having biger storage it is able to content all we can put in it, we have in it all our life, bank accounts info and more private info, this is very personal not a toy as the cell phone or the tablet.

 

I totally agree! Different devices for different purposes. The root of the problem is that Microsoft wants to treat (and wants us to treat) our PCs like phones.

 

So it is very diferent use for each device, and an OS spying all the info in hard disk and all we do in the PC (online and offline) it's something we must not allow. So we have only two alternatives:

Install a Linux OS (not my preference).

Or go back (or stay) to Win7 which is less invasive to let MS know we do not want Win10 this way (as they understood Win8x had to be replaced ASAP) and start learnig Linux (just in case).

 

That's exactly my plan: to stay on Win7 for as long as possible, and then switch to Linux if MSFT hasn't corrected its appproach by then.

 

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

As a side note, BYOD makes no sense whatsoever anyway so it is a non-issue for anyone even minimally "sane".

 

jaclaz