Windows 10 data mining has been caught

Wow, I think the last time people got so interested in Linux/BSD/whatever based systems was when Vista came out and Microsoft nuked pirated XP copies.

If you guys are thinking about this, don't bother yourselves with overt concern as to which one to choose.
In the end you'll be using a desktop environment, just like Windows, and a set of drivers bundled with the Linux kernel that is quite similarly prepared among distributions.

Stay away from "learning Linux" by installing LFS, Slackware, Gentoo. There's no 'Linux' for ordinary users to learn.
There's usually the bash shell, an equivalent to 'cmd', and a toolkit of various little programs like grep, find, less, nano, htop, tar, gzip.

The popular distros usually get the most attention and thus devs have an opportunity to weed out bugs and add features. Fedora, Ubuntu, Mint, Debian are some of the ones I used and they were all okay.

KateOS was IMHO one of the best and most promising distros and I used it most. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KateOS

The most important thing I guess would be to learn to recognize your hardware and move around.
Some random tips off the top of my head:
-You need to check if your HDD is detected as, for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb,
- you need to know that fdisk -l will show you your HDD's partition scheme and recognized partitions.
- if the VGA driver fails during boot-up you can use ctrl+alt+F<1-6> to open up a shell. Console no. 7 is usually the GUI
- ifconfig -a will list your network interfaces, the main interface is usually labeled 'eth0' (eth-ethernet), WiFi is usually wlan0. (wireless Lan)
- most importantly - choose a desktop environment beforehand. Look at some screenshots, see if they appeal. I've tried Xfce, KDE3, KDE4 and Gnome. For me, Gnome is a nightmare to work with but it's often default. I liked KDE3 most, KDE4 is what I use.
 
Wow, I think the last time people got so interested in Linux/BSD/whatever based systems was when Vista came out and Microsoft nuked pirated XP copies.

The last time was the release of 8. And the interest is coming from pretty the same folks pushing desktop Linux
 
The last time was the release of 8. And the interest is coming from pretty the same folks pushing desktop Linux

How do you know I was referring solely to the people in this thread or even forum? I do surely, but the weird thing is it came from actual people in my town.

When XP had to be abandoned after the WGA push, I had a lot of regular people ask me about this mysterious Linux whispered about.

Companies and the government (down to local) were mostly unaffected becuse it's actually super uncommon to pirate software in such establishments over here.

With 8, in my opinion, this was not so widespread because of free third party software that gave users a choice which mode to boot to and provided a more familiar start menu alternative. One OEM I can't recall simply bundled it with their laptops.
 
And you'll be surprised, but I regularly discourage people when they ask about Linux.

I myself don't use it on the desktop because I like to be familiar with my target business platform - in this case 99% it's Windows.
However, I regularly inform people that things like CCTV managers, groupware, backups can be easily done with a ~250MB 'netinst' edition of Debian on some little ITX or micro-atx board coupled with a modern low power CPU.

For my clients, Windows is the platform they use to communicate with other clients - so what's the point of making it difficult for them to shift between their work computer and their home computer (assuming different OS).
 
Sorry for the wall of text but one more thing - there's no such thing as desktop Linux. I'm fully aware that the Linux kernel can one day face EOL due to sabotage, fragmentation, patent issues or hardware lockdown.
The user interacts with the desktop environment and it's software. So the switch doesn't revolve around the kernel at all. More about utilities, file managing, mouse/keyboard/touch/voice control, available software.
 
So what is the consensus on the OP? What we need to do is get a virgin PC with a virgin install and put it on an isolated network and run a network analysis and capture all the packets to see what is really going on here. I think this is basically what the reffered page supposedly did (don't know if there was other machines on the network or if other software had been installed - could have installed malicious software with it).
 
The most important thing I guess would be to learn to recognize your hardware and move around.
Some random tips off the top of my head:
-You need to check if your HDD is detected as, for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb,
- you need to know that fdisk -l will show you your HDD's partition scheme and recognized partitions.
- if the VGA driver fails during boot-up you can use ctrl+alt+F<1-6> to open up a shell. Console no. 7 is usually the GUI
- ifconfig -a will list your network interfaces, the main interface is usually labeled 'eth0' (eth-ethernet), WiFi is usually wlan0. (wireless Lan)
- most importantly - choose a desktop environment beforehand. Look at some screenshots, see if they appeal. I've tried Xfce, KDE3, KDE4 and Gnome. For me, Gnome is a nightmare to work with but it's often default. I liked KDE3 most, KDE4 is what I use.

This is why Linux market share does not even show up on the pie graph. Nobody in the 98.4% wants to know this stuff.
 
This is why Linux market share does not even show up on the pie graph. Nobody in the 98.4% wants to know this stuff.

oh please.. the same block can be written pertaining to Windows.

The most important thing I guess would be to learn to recognize your hardware and move around.
Some random tips off the top of my head:
-You need to check if you HDD is detected as, for example, C: or D:,
-you need to know that in powershell GET-WmiObject win32_logicaldisk will show you your HDD's partition scheme and recognized partitions.
-if the VGA driver fails during boot-up you can use F8 to boot into "safe mode"
-ipconfig /all will list your network interfaces.
- most importantly - choose what desktop environment beforehand. Look at some screenshots, see if they appeal. I've tried Win7, Win8, Win8.1, and Win10. For me, Win8.1 is a nightmare to work with but it's often the default. I liked Win7 most, Win10 is what I use.
 
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This is why Linux market share does not even show up on the pie graph. Nobody in the 98.4% wants to know this stuff.

If people don't want to put in the effort to learn the very basics about how the machine that deals with the most important and intimate details of their life operates and functions, then maybe they deserve what they get? IDK if that line of thinking is correct but I'm sure that line of thought could be argued.

It's kind of like a car and people who get stranded with a flat tire when they are physically capable of changing it, or don't know where the hood latch is, where oil goes, etc.
 
If people don't want to put in the effort to learn the very basics about how the machine that deals with the most important and intimate details of their life operates and functions, then maybe they deserve what they get? IDK if that line of thinking is correct but I'm sure that line of thought could be argued.

It's kind of like a car and people who get stranded with a flat tire when they are physically capable of changing it, or don't know where the hood latch is, where oil goes, etc.

Grease monkeys feel the same way about their 98% that us computer geeks feel about our 98%.
 
I actually agree with evilsofa :D

These are basics, kind of like you need to know what 'ntldr is missing' knows.

They are there (the tips) to deal with PROBLEMS. There should be NO PROBLEMS.
 
Is anyone still investigating what's being sent to Microsoft? There's so many unknowns from that report listed in the OP that I'm not convinced there's anything malicious going on within Windows 10.

Still makes me wonder if Windows 10 is fine to use after turning off all of the data collection items in the privacy window.
 
Is anyone still investigating what's being sent to Microsoft? There's so many unknowns from that report listed in the OP that I'm not convinced there's anything malicious going on within Windows 10.

Still makes me wonder if Windows 10 is fine to use after turning off all of the data collection items in the privacy window.

For all of the conversation about this no one has yet to demonstrate that anything nefarious is going on. There's no direct way to turn off the all of the diagnostic telemetry in non-domain connected devices. However Microsoft has stated that no personally identifying information or local data is sent to them unless it's set in the privacy options.

However pretty much of the data that's sent to Microsoft is encrypted so it's very difficult to now exactly what is being sent regardless of the settings. The main sticking point is that any information is being sent to Microsoft, even if it's not personal, is sent no matter what without a way to turn that off.

My personal stance on all of this is that if businesses can turn all of this off then let consumers who choose to do so. But I don't have an issue with the defaults as they are because they ultimately are useful for connected devices and add features. In any case I think this is way overblown because I don't see anything in it for Microsoft to be gathering information in cases they say they aren't or selling information they say they aren't as proof to the contrary would be catastrophic for a company whose fastest growing business is the cloud where trust is paramount. And the average Windows PC user is at exponentially greater risk of security and privacy risk from local malware.
 
The sources the OP posted are apparently very "fake" or made up, and no one else has bothered to try and repeat what he OP had posted..

While things like Cortana do report to MS and other items like searches, some of the deeper items are still in question.

adding IPs to the HOST file has shown to not block them (will find the site again if i can) as MS has "whitelisted" IP's before in the host kernal so they could not be blocked...
 
The sources the OP posted are apparently very "fake" or made up, and no one else has bothered to try and repeat what he OP had posted..

While things like Cortana do report to MS and other items like searches, some of the deeper items are still in question.

adding IPs to the HOST file has shown to not block them (will find the site again if i can) as MS has "whitelisted" IP's before in the host kernal so they could not be blocked...

thats why i was planning on blocking them on my router not my windows 10 machine...
 
Microsoft is actually quite upfront about the data they're collecting, and I don't think any of this is news when compared to what they say they do in the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

One of the links in the Cortana section leads to the Cortana, Search and Privacy FAQ. One of the more interesting Q&As there is:



Interesting. I'm looking into this myself, and I know it's an old post in this thread. But that does show some level of care for privacy that they spelled out potential cases as that in my opinion. I love win10. Just want to be safe with it too. Had some health issues and am back in the swing of things or trying to be rather :p.

P. S. My signature is so out of date.

Yes, debunked less than five posts in. We're now on page nine of the anti-MS circle jerk.

Thanks. This is actually useful, now I know to Google a bit and maybe pm you later if I have a quick question my Google fu fails me on. EDIT: not sarcasm. :)
 
The sources the OP posted are apparently very "fake" or made up, and no one else has bothered to try and repeat what he OP had posted..

While things like Cortana do report to MS and other items like searches, some of the deeper items are still in question.

adding IPs to the HOST file has shown to not block them (will find the site again if i can) as MS has "whitelisted" IP's before in the host kernal so they could not be blocked...


actually that is not true. after reading the op i did some searching for other people who had done a similar investigation. i found a number of sites/blogs where people performed a similar test and they came up with evidence that somewhat supported the op but it was hard to confirm as the transmitted data was encrypted. also, the sources the op gave didn't state what release of win 10 were being tested so if it was a beta, is it possible that the transmitted data is related to the beta testing program.

**sorry my shift keys aren't working**
 
I don't understand why people are debating about what MS is looking at on your PC. The TOS is clear as day, it says it in BLACK AND WHITE. There's nothing to debate. You just have to decide for yourself if that is acceptable to you, and so will enterprise.
 
I don't understand why people are debating about what MS is looking at on your PC. The TOS is clear as day, it says it in BLACK AND WHITE. There's nothing to debate. You just have to decide for yourself if that is acceptable to you, and so will enterprise.

You are correct regarding the TOS when certain privacy settings are on, on in this case means that the information is being collected. The debate comes down to what exactly is being collected when all of the privacy settings are off when using a local account. Even in that case due to the diagnostic telemetry which can't explicitly be turned off entirely with non-domain machines, certain information is still being sent. Microsoft says that in this case it's non-personally identifying information and no user data is being sent, just technical information about which programs are running and app crashes though Microsoft hasn't explicating said what other things are going on besides those.
 
I guess if you want to use W10 and avoid all the garbage the best solution is Enterpise LTSB.
 
If it's encrypted, the only way I see to find out what's under the crypt would be:
- make two identical PCs, down to modifying the BIOS chips so they contain identical serial numbers, mac addresses, etc
- install Win10, clone the drive to the cloned PC
- set the system time to the same point in the past for both machines
- run PC1 and fish out the packets with wireshark, do it quick.
- run PC2 with the same initial system time and perform all the above steps
- compare the encrypted packets. If they're not identical, abort - it's detecting something else which we can't fake
- if they are identical, one could prepare various scenarios like modifying a random file in Word and modifying the same file on the clone PC but with different content and again compare the crypted packets
- repeat for other activities
 
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I have an easier solution. EU get lawyers and force Microsoft to tell us exactly what data they are collecting. Or Microsoft can just play nice and tell us anyway.
 
So what is the consensus among the professional conspiracy theorists?

Not an official spokesperson and my tin foil hat has a sunroof, so I will conclude with the following:
Win10 is probably not doing anything that hasn't already been done with Sony installing rootkits, massive data leaks from service providers, the various Alphabet Soup agencies monitoring traffic.
Trust noone, know your tech, try to think like the intruder.
 

Its nice of them to post this up...but the sheer amount of info they collect about how a person uses their OS, their location, etc, is unacceptable for a desktop OS. There should be ways to opt out.

I use the Ent. Edition of Win 7 at home and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future. When the day comes I no longer play any games, I will move to Linux.
 
actually that is not true. after reading the op i did some searching for other people who had done a similar investigation. i found a number of sites/blogs where people performed a similar test and they came up with evidence that somewhat supported the op but it was hard to confirm as the transmitted data was encrypted. also, the sources the op gave didn't state what release of win 10 were being tested so if it was a beta, is it possible that the transmitted data is related to the beta testing program.

**sorry my shift keys aren't working**

Still waiting for sources...
 
Its nice of them to post this up...but the sheer amount of info they collect about how a person uses their OS, their location, etc, is unacceptable for a desktop OS. There should be ways to opt out.

I use the Ent. Edition of Win 7 at home and will continue to use it for the foreseeable future. When the day comes I no longer play any games, I will move to Linux.

This kind of logic really makes no sense to me.

No matter how old the OS is, if it's capable of playing a game then, it'll still be capable of playing that same game in the future. On the other hand, as long as Linux remains as niche as it is, a large portion of future games will continue to not work on Linux. Basically, you have a choice between an OS that's no longer being updated that can play old games, or a system that can play a very limited selection of games.
 
This kind of logic really makes no sense to me.

No matter how old the OS is, if it's capable of playing a game then, it'll still be capable of playing that same game in the future. On the other hand, as long as Linux remains as niche as it is, a large portion of future games will continue to not work on Linux. Basically, you have a choice between an OS that's no longer being updated that can play old games, or a system that can play a very limited selection of games.

I see your point. But - Win 7 works great for me...there is nothing I need it to do that it can't do. If it wasn't for older games and Win32 software compatibility, I would be more likely to go to Linux, its gotten much better recently.

I will stay on Win7 for a while longer and just keep an eye on Microsoft updates, privacy issues etc and make sure its not doing something I dont approve of.
 
This kind of logic really makes no sense to me.

No matter how old the OS is, if it's capable of playing a game then, it'll still be capable of playing that same game in the future. On the other hand, as long as Linux remains as niche as it is, a large portion of future games will continue to not work on Linux. Basically, you have a choice between an OS that's no longer being updated that can play old games, or a system that can play a very limited selection of games.

Or until you upgrade to new hardware that doesn't have drivers for Win 7.

.
 
I see your point. But - Win 7 works great for me...there is nothing I need it to do that it can't do. If it wasn't for older games and Win32 software compatibility, I would be more likely to go to Linux, its gotten much better recently.

Desktop Linux improving per se isn't the issue with desktop Linux, it's the 3rd party ecosystem, or lack thereof. It's exactly the same problem experienced by Windows Phones, not enough apps because not enough users. Sure Linux is fine if you don't need the Win32 specific apps or don't care about the latest and greatest Windows hardware that rarely gets official Linux support if ever or if you're willing to work on a migration plan that finds substitutes and workarounds.

I think the one big issue with this is that we've go through this stuff all of the time with Windows since Linux came out. In the late 90's, many in the Linux community were trumpeting how free Linux, which was inherently more secure with no issues with malware, would begin to eat quickly into Windows' market share as more and users and businesses would refuse to pay the "Windows tax" for an inferior OS and that FOSS software development would boom on the desktop and we wouldn't need Office anymore. And that Windows would just die off.

Now we're at spyware. And we'll should all dump Windows because Windows NSA Edition is such a horrible invasion of privacy. In the era where billions of people carry smart phones everywhere tracking their every bowel movement. So the argument because everyone is stupid or lazy and negligent for not being incensed over the loss of privacy. And ultimately there so much information about most everyone on systems all over that often our privacy is breached and has nothing to do with using Windows 10.

It was kind of an eye opening experience to me when we had a major university president come give a talk and Q&A, this a guy with a PhD in CS, and all we could talk about is this new age of data sharing, social media, analytics and how these forces were a huge driving for in IT today. All of this stuff is so deeply engrained in some many things today that Windows 10 doesn't amount to anything more than an ice cube out of an iceberg.
 
They are pushing the data collection to windows 7 and 8/8.1 soon if not already. I ran wireshark myself just to see if the OP was full of crap and to my surprise I got pretty similar results. The most disturbing thing is I already had disabled Cortana and set all my privacy settings to don't track/etc.

Why does Microsoft need that data from my webcam when it is enabled? You can somewhat kinda maybe sorta come up with a good reason as to why they would want most of the other stuff, but there is no legitimate reason I can think of to need webcam footage.
 
They are pushing the data collection to windows 7 and 8/8.1 soon if not already. I ran wireshark myself just to see if the OP was full of crap and to my surprise I got pretty similar results. The most disturbing thing is I already had disabled Cortana and set all my privacy settings to don't track/etc.

Why does Microsoft need that data from my webcam when it is enabled? You can somewhat kinda maybe sorta come up with a good reason as to why they would want most of the other stuff, but there is no legitimate reason I can think of to need webcam footage.

Yeah the problem with "disabling" Cortana is its not actually disabled. Look at task manager and Cortana is usually still a running process. You have to actually rename the damn executable. StartIsBack for Windows 10 also has an option that blocks Cortana from preloading at launch.

The creepy stream of encrypted outbound traffic constantly going back to the mothership, even if you have all privacy crap disabled and have a local account and everything, is just disturbing and arrogant.

I realized yesterday the only net featurr gain I experienced between Windows 8.0 w/ StartIsBack, and Windows 10 w/ StartIsBack, is the ability to ctrl-c/ctrl-v copypaste in a CMD prompt window. That's it. Pointless.
 
Yeah the problem with "disabling" Cortana is its not actually disabled. Look at task manager and Cortana is usually still a running process. You have to actually rename the damn executable. StartIsBack for Windows 10 also has an option that blocks Cortana from preloading at launch.

The creepy stream of encrypted outbound traffic constantly going back to the mothership, even if you have all privacy crap disabled and have a local account and everything, is just disturbing and arrogant.

I realized yesterday the only net featurr gain I experienced between Windows 8.0 w/ StartIsBack, and Windows 10 w/ StartIsBack, is the ability to ctrl-c/ctrl-v copypaste in a CMD prompt window. That's it. Pointless.

Ya, I honestly like w/10 over 8 but some of it's features are just overwhelmingly invasive and I see little reason to upgrade at this point. I guess the question is when they push the data gathering into the other os's are they going to push cortana into windows 8/8.1 as well?
 
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