Windows 10 - Deeper Impressions

[Formfiller]

Shill-article from winbeta:

 

http://www.winbeta.org/news/relax-windows-10-doesnt-have-a-malicious-keylogger

 

I found the comments interesting. There are lots of fanboys of course, but a surprising number of dissent as well.

[NoelC]

It's hard news to hear, but Windows 10 has succeeded in getting on near 100 million systems, with copies of the installer sitting on many more - through clandestine means or otherwise.

 

And so we have to treat it as every bit the force Windows 8 has been.  It's probably here to stay, and even the relatively cool reception (for a free system that's being PUSHED on people) will probably not deter Microsoft from doing whatever the hell they want.

 

Seems to me we haven't yet heard from large classes and countries who WILL have a legal beef with Microsoft for this rise in aggressiveness.  But I wonder if even that will result in substantive changes.

 

"Too big to fail" is nothing compared to "too big to be deterred even the slightest bit".

 

-Noel

[Formfiller]

It's hard news to hear, but Windows 10 has succeeded in getting on near 100 million systems, with copies of the installer sitting on many more - through clandestine means or otherwise.

 

And so we have to treat it as every bit the force Windows 8 has been.  

 

Windows 8 has been a force?

[JorgeA]

Shill-article from winbeta:

 

http://www.winbeta.org/news/relax-windows-10-doesnt-have-a-malicious-keylogger

 

I found the comments interesting. There are lots of fanboys of course, but a surprising number of dissent as well.

 

There are so many factual and logical problems with that Winbeta editorial, it would take me a week to sort them all out and explain them.

 

Note that, almost every time the writer refers to a Windows 10 keylogger, he combines the noun with the adjective "malicious." The lawyer in me suggests that that's the writer's way of implicitly admitting that there may be a "well-intentioned" keylogger there, just not a "malicious" one.

 

Brings to mind the old saw, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you."

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Emulating @jaclaz here...

 

Meanwhile, over in Mountain View (Google HQ) they've joined Microsoft in sneaking in PUF (potentially unwanted features) without people's knowledge or permission:

 

So Google did something that upset people. And, you know, these sorts of things are making me glad that I'm still over on Firefox. They, without permission, and without any announcement, quietly added something to Chrome and the Chromium project, which is ostensibly open source, to allow them to add the "Ok Google" speech recognition. And it's there. It's in mine. So go to, if you open Chrome and put in chrome://voicesearch, in fact, if you put in, like, "voi," that's all you need, and it'll complete it for you, you will find it saying "Microphone: Yes." "Audio Capture Allowed: Yes." In my case I didn't have a microphone on my machine. I'm using a different machine, for example, for the podcast, so it wasn't able to do that.

 

But this came to light because apparently something about the way the Debian packages install themselves caused this not to be off by default. Google has said that you have to opt-in under Chrome settings, you know, chrome://settings. You need to turn on "Enable Ok Google" in order for this to happen. But Debian users noticed that the light was on, showing that their webcam was active, without them doing anything. So Google's pushing it off on something about the way Debian's packages update. The controversy is that what Google has created is a blob. It's a binary blob which breaks with the whole concept of open source, especially over on the Chromium side. Chrome users, just like, okay, well, whatever Google wants to do is fine.

 

But the people who are active with, like, building their own Chromium browser, they take some offense at the idea of a blob being secretly downloaded by their Chromium browser. In Chromium's bug tracking, they said the actual fix for this was add a build flag to disable "hotwording," is what they called it. So Ok Google is a hotword. And the description of that so-called bug, which was going to be fixed by adding this optional - oh, and by the way, it's by default not disabled. You have to turn it off if you don't want hotwording to be compiled into your build of Chromium.

 

[...]

 

And then they said: "A build-time flag" - oh, this is just more of the same. Then two comments I thought were interesting in the thread that this triggered. One guy posted: "May I ask why this extension is hidden from the extensions list at chrome://extensions, although the page chrome://voicesearch shows it as an enabled extension? I suggest that sensitive functionality intended to process data from the surroundings -sound input, video input, et cetera - should be presented in an open and transparent way, with easy-to-find controls."

 

This all was said before the Mozilla ad revelations, but the point about Google still stands.

 

--JorgeA

 

 

[NoelC]

Windows 8 has been a force?

 

I didn't imply how much of one, just gave a relative measure.  It's probably all they can manage with the "talent" they have.

 

Just noting that relatively speaking Microsoft didn't have to close their doors after Win 8 was released, and so it will probably be with Win 10.  I doubt they're deterred in the slightest - or maybe they do feel really peeved that they had to maintain compatibility with the desktop for this long, and can't fathom why people aren't all building applications that look like this?

 

 

-Noel

[JorgeA]

^^ Man, I'll need to see the manual for that app. 

 

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

This website might be useful.

 

Note especially their right-to-the-point advice (scroll down a little from the top):

 

Don't use Windows 10 - It's a privacy nightmare

 

BTW the link for one tool in particular, which has been mentioned on MSFN, is broken. Wonder what happened there; maybe Microsoft had an issue with the "fix10" moniker. Remember three years ago there was a former 'Softie who launched a website called "Fix Windows 8" or something like that, and his site mysteriously disappeared in short order.

 

--JorgeA

 

[Formfiller]

 

Don't use Windows 10 - It's a privacy nightmare

 

 

 

No problem. Warning: Rant ahead I've probably written already.

 

I find this whole idea of cloud-computing deeply abhorrent anyway. The "old" way of data-storage on the internet, where you had a millions of vendors for IMAP, web-hosting etc. was reasonable. But modern "cloud-computing" means all your data, all your life, is in the hands of one conglomerate. And there are only 3 of such companies, at least for the average consumer.

 

The s***. We have three giant honeypots where all your life is stored at. The threat that these companies will use your data for their purposes is bad enough, but then there are the intelligence services. The western agencies have direct access to these sites, and the Russian and Chinese hackers are extremely capable. If they want to hack something, I am pretty sure they will get it (just look at all the hacking-scandals). And let's not forget what a bribe and backhand-deals could do ("grant us access to the cloud-database, or we will ban Windows").

 

By using the integrated cloud services, you're giving away a permanent subscription to your data to God knows who.

 

How about f***ing no? I just do not want. And why is complaining about this tin-foil hat material suddenly? Why is it now a sin if I don't want to grant all the megacorps and intelligence agencies of the world my private documents? Seriously, what's wrong with the apologizers in this regard? I am so sickened that we are sliding directly into a tech-dystopia, into a literal bad sci-fi-movie scenario, just because.. .. eh.. to talk to Cortana?

 

What a deal!

Edited September 15, 2015 by Formfiller

[NoelC]

What have I been told so far - by other citizens?

 

• If you have nothing to hide then why are you worrying so much about privacy?
• You're just a stick-in-the-mud old guy who is growing paranoid in his old age.
• You and the other tin-foil-hats, stop with the conspiracy theories already.
• Haters gonna hate.

 

...And I think I hold a pretty moderate view about Windows 10.

 

Who would have anticipated the brainwashing would reach the level where the other drones would parrot the demeaning dismissals?

 

If you're not with me, you're against me!

 

-Noel

[JorgeA]

Not quite OT, due to the Win10 ad tracking and profiling connection:

 

Is Ad-Blocking Software Immoral?

 

If you use software to block the display of ads on the internet, you have acted immorally. That’s the claim made by Arthur Zey, a project manager and engineer who has worked for Twitter and other technology companies.

 

Zey offered the claim in a Facebook post which germinated into a fascinating, highly intellectual, and surprisingly civil thread. He linked to this story from Geek.com reporting on Google’s efforts to “punish AdBlock users with unstoppable YouTube video ads.” Of the effort, Zey wrote:

 

Good for Google. YouTube doesn’t run on the warm, fuzzy feeling you get watching cats do silly things.

 

 

The commenters' replies run pretty much along the same lines of what we would say.

 

Personally, I don't mind seeing ads on websites, but I do object to pushy audiovisual ads that take over my computer's speakers, and I certainly do not want a profile of my likes and preferences to be built up somewhere, be that on Google's or Microsoft's servers.

 

While we're on the topic of ads, has anybody noticed that anymore, when you're streaming a show online (we do it once in a blue moon), not only are they running commercials now but there is no way to skip past them? In addition to the general clunkiness of the streaming experience, that's another reason I prefer my DVR and Windows Media Center: I can just fast-forward over the ads. For the life of me, I cannot understand why streaming is so popular -- you're surrendering control of the viewing experience back to the provider.

 

--JorgeA

 

EDIT: BTW, I can't access the Facebook discussion because I have facebook.com in my Hosts file. 

Edited September 15, 2015 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

No problem. Warning: Rant ahead I've probably written already.

 

Rants welcome here!

 

 

The s***. We have three giant honeypots where all your life is stored at. The threat that these companies will use your data for their purposes is bad enough, but then there are the intelligence services. The western agencies have direct access to these sites, and the Russian and Chinese hackers are extremely capable. If they want to hack something, I am pretty sure they will get it (just look at all the hacking-scandals). And let's not forget what a bribe and backhand-deals could do ("grant us access to the cloud-database, or we will ban Windows").

 

By using the integrated cloud services, you're giving away a permanent subscription to your data to God knows who.

 

That's the crux of the matter for me. I wouldn't mind so much if it were simply a private company gathering the data to try to sell me stuff. The problem is that this data is then available to official and extra-official snoops, who may not have my own best interests at heart.

 

--JorgeA

[NoelC]

If you use software to block the display of ads on the internet, you have acted immorally. That’s the claim made by Arthur Zey

 

Arthur Zey (and all who would push ads) can bite my...

 

 

Those I can't block with my knowledge of the craft, I don't get because I refuse to partake in the source.  In other words, if I can't watch a video without a preceding ad, I don't seek to watch the video.  There are other, better things to do.

 

I've mixed feelings about sharing how to technologically accomplish an ad-free existence (which is wonderful, by the way)... 

 

On the one hand, if everyone effectively blocks 'em, there won't be any money in it and the industry will abandon the practice.  That would be the best possible outcome.

 

On the other hand, they'll more likely just develop more intrusive ways to push them, that are harder to block.  That may well be what Microsoft is doing with Win 10 - I don't think we've begun to see what it's capable of yet.

 

EDIT: BTW, I can't access the Facebook discussion because I have facebook.com in my Hosts file.

 

Bravo!  Me too!  And Twitter!

 

-Noel

 

 

P.S., my 93 year old mother-in-law is glued to the TV, which is often on commercial stations.  Gawd that's hard to be around.  It's about 75% commercials, and 25% shows not worth watching any more.  Idiocracy is really here.

Edited September 15, 2015 by NoelC

[ralcool]

@JorgeA Is it of any irony that link for ad-blocking being 'immoral' -- is chock full of ads?, even the comment section,er commented on it.

 

However, the little mention of 'unskippable' youtube ads isn't entirely correct.

 

I, for matters of convenience, often download stuff off youtube for future viewing. save once,. play many times. Saves bandwidth, etc.

 

Noticably, if you use a site like keepvid.com to extract download links from youtube, you get the option of size and format- but the best part is it manages to avoid the ads that load before the video you wish to see.

 

It only downloads the video you asked for... and as a bonus- if you never click on what you've searched for, just cut and pasted the url into keepvid... then the video will also NOT show up in the play history.

 

I'm sure there are other downloaders that get the same result.. but this is my experience to share.

 

Cheers!

[NoelC]

@JorgeA Is it of any irony that link for ad-blocking being 'immoral' -- is chock full of ads?

 

Is it?  That IS funny!

 

-Noel