jbltecnicspro
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It really is that simple. Not sure why people are having a hard time understanding this.
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How To Disable Windows 10 Spying
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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It really is that simple. Not sure why people are having a hard time understanding this.
heatlesssun
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I don't think anyone is arguing against an off switch. But not all data is of the same value. Even if one doesn't like Microsoft collecting data about hardware and software specs, it's not particularly valuable information. It has no value to a hacker. Now it could have value to LE but there are FAR more effective and invasive things they have at their disposal. I guess if they were looking for people running ISIS.EXE it could have some value there.
Tawnos
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Some I don't know, some I can't say. Some I think we just poorly handled the messaging (shocking, right?
) and weren't really prepared for the backlash and the telemetry being put under a microscope and so widely commented or speculated upon. The fact you even have to explain that it's not different than things people love on their smartphones shows the core of the issue - many have nothing to go on beyond speculation of those who stand themselves up as experts or competent to evaluate the data, the news that parrots it with headlines designed to grab eyeballs, and a strong lack of understanding of Betteridge's law of headlines. That is, "Is Microsoft spying on you?" gets remembered as "Microsoft is spying on you" when the actual answer is "no".I don't think there's a "general feeling" you could say about the company or even a product within the company. As far as I know, Windows 8+ had much earlier integration of privacy champions (engineers assigned to spend part of their time specifically considering privacy) and their supporting experts within the process and design.
Since the basic level is so similar to WGA/WAT, I would hazard a guess that the team expected the same level of backlash those got. Some of the more zealous anti-MS people would point to it and yell, the rest of the world would shrug because it was the same shit they've been yelling about since Windows XP came out. The notion of turning off stuff that seems to me primarily for the purposes of where we best spend our resources by estimating pirate percentage and the scope of device use, app use, and stability seems outright dumb.
Of course, I also think users who turn off or significantly delay windows update are wearing their tinfoil a bit too tight, but that's because I've seen the scope of malware out there and how much of it targets already-patched issues. 0-days happen, but it's amazing how many systems are compromised by stuff that was already fixed. Bad updates happen, but they happen everywhere (e.g. the Kali 2 update breaking my desktop, requiring me to reset my gnome settings and muck about with package sources, reinstall X server, and get it all working with Hyper-V again).
I will readily admit that I am not most users, but when you make a general blanket statement like this, it lends itself to be disproved by finding the contrary example.
I have used Siri in the past. When I did, it was mostly as a novelty or as a joke (November 4, Me: "Who's your favorite college football team?" Siri: "I always like to root for the underdog. I guess that makes me a fan of Houston right now" for example). "Allow "Hey Siri"" is off. I have not used Cortana and have no interest. I hated when I was using Ubuntu and searching Unity for programs that it brought up internet search results and turned it off. So to me, Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Hey Google, and voice in general is a novelty and might as well go in the games and entertainment group.
Bookmarks - I don't sync my bookmarks with Firefox (I don't use Chrome, although Chromium might be nice). I like that my phone has different bookmarks than my laptop, desktop, and work laptop. I use them for different things and thus bookmark different things.
I installed Spybot Anti-Beacon on Windows 10 because I experienced that I cannot trust Microsoft to maintain my settings when upgrading. The November upgrade to 10586 blew away the privacy settings. I wasn't patient enough to see if an update truly restored those settings but had read it did not.
My understanding of these Windows 10 Privacy tools is that just automate and centralize capabilities that already exist in the operating system (aside from adding entries to the hosts file - there is no switch or setting for that in Windows 10 besides editing it in an elevated program).
Thanks for this.
I have nothing against market. I question the skills of the market's translator.
I have nothing against tea leaves. I question anyone who claims tea leaves talk and claim to read the tea leaves.
heatlesssun
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So what do people want in a modern PC? I don't think it takes much skill to understand that there's no one answer to that. And I also do think it takes much skill to see that the PC of today is the smartphone. It's the single computing device that most people have and take everywhere. That's pretty personal.
As I've always said about this subject, I don't have a problem with off switches. I just don't think they means a lot in a world where the primary computing device shares tons of data and the functions derived from this are not only expected but loved. Otherwise I doubt half the people I see in public these days would be glued to a smartphone.
There is a divide here. Clearly personal computing of today is not what I grew up with, with monochrome CRTs and disconnected devices. As much as some will argue about change for the sake of change, change does occur organically. Windows is in a tough position of being very old IT that's still prevalent. Just about everything on the PCs of today didn't exist when Windows came out.
It doesn't take much skill to understand that if Windows doesn't incorporate the features of the most prevalent modern computing devices it will become the mainframe of our time. Maybe not a bad thing but of little consumer concern. Off switch or no, everything that is being complained about pretty much has to be there for consumer use of Windows. There's no choice in the matter. Adapt or die.
I was just drawing the comparison between reading tea leaves and reading markets. That's all.
Personal Computing was in contrast to mainframe computing. Microsoft was a big part of that. Now Microsoft is a big part of cloud computing. Cloud first. Interesting.
Personal Computing was in contrast to mainframe computing. Microsoft was a big part of that. Now Microsoft is a big part of cloud computing. Cloud first. Interesting.
Some I don't know, some I can't say. Some I think we just poorly handled the messaging (shocking, right?
Not expecting or prepared for the backlash?
Computers are now integral to everyday life. People do a lot of personal things with them such as work, managing finances, keeping in contact with family/friends, and making/consuming media. That's why the OS shouldn't be talking to something when it's not specifically asked/approved by the user to do that. I've done photography as a hobby for a long time. There is something called expectation of privacy. In the USA it's legal to photograph people in public, but you can't go and take photos of them while they are inside their home, or in something like a private business that bans photography. I see the operating system like a digital house we buy and have that expectation of privacy when we use it. If a teacher tells their students to stop passing notes between each other in class, they need to do it or face the consequences. It doesn't really matter what they were sending back and forth.
It's questions like these I should not have to ask myself:
- Why is a Contana processing sitting in Task Manager when it's disabled in settings?
- With default settings, does the local file search send my query to the internet when all I'm intending to do is find a file on my computer?
- If the information is out there on data capture, why have it in EULAs or somewhere else that's not right in my face? Why can't it be a sentence or two of text in the dialog box I'm using? When you intend to send data somewhere it should be explicit.
As other people have said: Google, Apple, and Windows XP/7/8 do similar things?
It doesn't validate them or Windows 10. It just means it potentially wasn't talked about as much or people were not easily informed about what they are giving out by using each service/OS. Though if it wasn't specifically mentioned that's a problem for each one. I see the large Windows 10 backlash as partly blatant things like the setup process structure and defaults along with people caring more about privacy issues now that so many companies are pushing boundaries. It's more visible in general and a lot of people don't find it acceptable for any of these companies to do it without explicit transparency and permission.
Tawnos
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Sure, let's run with the house analogy. As far as I can tell, basic telemetry is like taking a picture of your house from outside. It tells you information about the house, but not about the contents within it. Except the house pictures gives even more information than the telemetry, as the latter is anonymized, while the former can result in personal information. Sure you're not just wearing too-tight tinfoil?
Seriously? I don't know how to respond. If we put it right in your face every time you tried to use something or we wrote software that did something for you, how big do you think the backlash would be? "Hurr MS can't design good hurr, they always annoy us with pop up windows." Do you really want every interaction that triggers a telemetry event to pop up a dialog in your face?
... of course, we coooould do that, killing stupidity like this in one swing. Just include a "don't alert me about future telemetry events" checkbox, checked by default, with a default-checked option to stop receiving notifications. Most people don't read...anything... it seems, so you could get your alerts, and everyone else would click through. Shitty design, shitty experience, all to allay a very small but vocal group's incessant bitching.
As I said before: we got more explicit, people took that as us collecting something new, monitoring them in some new way, or otherwise interpreting that transparency as a negative rather than the "here's the ground truth" we wanted. So, genius, how would you design a system that meets business requirements across worldwide goals and users of every skill level, such that you didn't feel insulted when it told you something but the average user could follow? Eesh.
Software specs have no value to a hacker? What?
That's how hackers figure out potential vulnerabilities of a system.
It can also be fairly easy to tie back supposedly anonymous data with a specific user or a system. Plenty of times throughout the history companies released what they thought was anonymous data, only to find out there were ways to de-anonymize that data.
heatlesssun
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So a hacker is going to break into Microsoft's servers, obtain this information which would only be useful if it somehow tied back to a specific user via an IP address and then send specialized attacks to devices based on hardware and software configs of each of those machines?
There are much more straightforward ways to attack those machines without having to first hack Microsoft. Most anything is possible but the average Windows user has much more to be concerned about than this kind of attack.
Again, plenty of companies have released "anonymous" information in the past, only to be tied back to specific users with a little know-how.
Or, Microsoft could accidentally leak this information.
So there, you have at least three ways of possibly obtaining this data:
Microsoft releasing it.
Microsoft accidentally leaking it.
Illegally obtaining this data.
Vermillion
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Sure, let's run with the house analogy. As far as I can tell, basic telemetry is like taking a picture of your house from outside. It tells you information about the house, but not about the contents within it. Except the house pictures gives even more information than the telemetry, as the latter is anonymized, while the former can result in personal information. Sure you're not just wearing too-tight tinfoil?
Seriously? I don't know how to respond. If we put it right in your face every time you tried to use something or we wrote software that did something for you, how big do you think the backlash would be? "Hurr MS can't design good hurr, they always annoy us with pop up windows." Do you really want every interaction that triggers a telemetry event to pop up a dialog in your face?
... of course, we coooould do that, killing stupidity like this in one swing. Just include a "don't alert me about future telemetry events" checkbox, checked by default, with a default-checked option to stop receiving notifications. Most people don't read...anything... it seems, so you could get your alerts, and everyone else would click through. Shitty design, shitty experience, all to allay a very small but vocal group's incessant bitching.
As I said before: we got more explicit, people took that as us collecting something new, monitoring them in some new way, or otherwise interpreting that transparency as a negative rather than the "here's the ground truth" we wanted. So, genius, how would you design a system that meets business requirements across worldwide goals and users of every skill level, such that you didn't feel insulted when it told you something but the average user could follow? Eesh.
I agree that some people are more vocal then they need to be. However, the bottom line is even with all the so called transparency it's quite clear plenty of people want MORE which I don't disagree with. I also think a simple ON/OFF switch for the data would have silenced a majority of the vocal people.
I also don't understand why MS has decided to ignore their missteps with Internet Explorer all over again by integrating way too much into the OS. Then on top of that they don't give users adequate control over those new features. I'm one of those who disabled everything Cortana. I don't want Cortana in any way shape or form running on my computer yet as others have said it keeps running no matter what you do. Now if it is sitting there there doing nothing then why is it memory resident? I don't want it running at all but I can't make that happen.
Now I don't want Cortana disabled because I'm worried about my data privacy (For the record I use Google Now). I don't want Cortana because I simply don't want to use it. I don't want it running. That's my choice. It's my computer, not Microsoft's. I should be able to choose how I want it to run. I should not have to have it run how MS thinks it should run. Which means if I don't want it sending data back to MS at all I should be able to do that.
Now before somebody goes "but but you use Google and Android!" Yes I do and I made the decision to use Google's services and if I want I could switch to Microsoft. However, the way Google is handling Android and the Google eco-system is drastically different then MS and their Windows 10 eco-system.
Android itself doesn't do any of the Googlely stuff by default. You have to install the Google services to get that functionality. Go build Android right out of AOSP. Not a bit of Google in it. You can go run Android and never be touched by Google if you desire (I know a few people who have their tin foil hats on too tight and do this with every release on Nexus devices). You could go get any OEM phone with Android and root it. Then remove all the Google services as well.
Can you do that with Windows 10? Nope. It's all forced on you and in some cases you can't even completely disable things. Why MS didn't follow Google's lead and simply build API's for services to tie into and put those apps on the Windows Store (and installed by default and easier to update and add functionality to) is beyond me. Give users choice! What a concept!
heatlesssun
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I never said that this data couldn't be leaked. It's value wouldn't be particularly high for the risk involved. Again, not all data has the same value, a hardware and software inventory isn't that valuable as a lot of if is easy to guess. Windows 10, Microsoft Office, Steam, Flash, Chrome, IE, those would be targets you wouldn't need lists to target.
"Sure you're not just wearing too-tight tinfoil?"
"So, genius, how would you design a system..."
I hope your attitude isn't an indication of the general culture at Microsoft. Insulting me isn't going to help your case.
As far as you can tell? How would users be able to tell what their computer is doing without their consent then? I still don't understand why they can't just let the user decide with an actual on/off switch for communication outside of Windows updates.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement/default.aspx
The link that the settings screen in Windows 10 has reads like a lot of fluff without any real substance.
It isn't just telemetry. It's having install defaults like with that wifi feature that tries to connect to random networks. I can't find that setting at the moment to give a specific name to it. As mentioned before, I'm not going to use features like Contana or "Speech, inking, & typing" (in settings) because there isn't a way to see what information is saved about me outside of my computer. I see there is a link to Bing settings that allows some of the information to be cleared ( https://www.bing.com/account/personalization ). I'd like to see what is in there and know all of it is gone when I opt to have it deleted before considering services like that.
I'll agree that there are issues with that. It's not the idea in itself that I was trying to portray. It's that users want to be in control of their system they purchase because they use it for personal and private things. I don't agree with the move toward software as a service and everything that comes with that.
I recommend against doing this under any circumstances, but it's your analogy that I am extending. Try going from house to house with a camera and a notepad, taking pictures and taking notes, and you'll have a lot of pissed off neighbors. You'll probably be confronted by some, reported by some, and maybe even threatened by some.
Microsoft employs some of the smartest people in the world. I have a hard time understanding how they have been and continue to be this tone deaf. The world just recently came off the almost universally criticized controversy regarding the NSA revelations. Governments, companies (including Microsoft), individuals, and even politicians roundly criticized the NSA's practices, behaviors, and programs. Did Microsoft not expect this level of criticism, if not more? Why wouldn't they have tried to make sure to get ahead of this and paint it in the best light possible?
I can't speak for everybody, but when I get into an accident, get pulled over, injure myself, etc, I am overly cautious in the days, weeks, sometimes even months following. The saying (that some people can't get right) is "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." So given the revelations, of course we would be suspicious and oversensitive. We saw denials, heard that it wasn't that bad, that we needed to take off our tin foil hats, followed by evidence that it was worse and further revelations in the case of the NSA. I can't blame people for being suspicious when it sounds like Microsoft may be doing the same thing.
The thing is, Microsoft seems to eventually capitulate. It's similar to the Churchill quote "you can always rely on America to do the right thing, once it has exhausted the alternatives. Microsoft may eventually provide control that would satisfy most people (the illusive off switch). Why don't they save themselves the bloody nose in the press and on videos, social media, and blogs and just do it?
Others have basically observed that the coverage of Windows 10 focuses on the sensational. Which gets more eyeballs, clicks, etc, "Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do heres how to opt out" or "No, Microsoft is not spying on you with Windows 10"? (An easy example is I believed the California gunners may have been wearing body armor or bullet proof vests because I heard it in the news. It was only when I repeated it to a friend that I found out this claim was later proven false.)
I can't speak for everybody, but when I get into an accident, get pulled over, injure myself, etc, I am overly cautious in the days, weeks, sometimes even months following. The saying (that some people can't get right) is "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me." So given the revelations, of course we would be suspicious and oversensitive. We saw denials, heard that it wasn't that bad, that we needed to take off our tin foil hats, followed by evidence that it was worse and further revelations in the case of the NSA. I can't blame people for being suspicious when it sounds like Microsoft may be doing the same thing.
The thing is, Microsoft seems to eventually capitulate. It's similar to the Churchill quote "you can always rely on America to do the right thing, once it has exhausted the alternatives. Microsoft may eventually provide control that would satisfy most people (the illusive off switch). Why don't they save themselves the bloody nose in the press and on videos, social media, and blogs and just do it?
Others have basically observed that the coverage of Windows 10 focuses on the sensational. Which gets more eyeballs, clicks, etc, "Windows 10 is spying on almost everything you do heres how to opt out" or "No, Microsoft is not spying on you with Windows 10"? (An easy example is I believed the California gunners may have been wearing body armor or bullet proof vests because I heard it in the news. It was only when I repeated it to a friend that I found out this claim was later proven false.)
Red Squirrel
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One would think that the necessity of doing this would be quite a telling point to consumers at large, but I just have to wonder if anyone is really paying attention.
That's the sad part the majority of people don't even care. Same with all the NSA stuff. This basically tells the spies that what they're doing is ok. The few of us that DO care are seen as "tin foil hat maniacs".
That was a great video, that spybot tool looks pretty nice too. I did not get around to trying 10 yet, but I'll have to do it sometime. I'm curious to check with a packet sniffer for myself. I know it's been done, and the amount of data going to MS is pretty scary.
Tawnos
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Hey, Genius was a recruiting/advertising campaign. I'm not sure anyone can make a statement about the "general culture at Microsoft", since there are so many teams. Certainly, I can be much more abrasive than I need to be, but this is a forum that (generally) handles such snark well. I've repeatedly made it clear that I'm not representing Microsoft in any official capacity. I'm sorry I was rude to you, as you've been quite polite even when I think you're misinformed or think the worst of us. I should probably stay away from topics like this late at night when I'm working way too many hours to finish up a new feature for our internal privacy toolset.
As far as I can tell means that, since I'm not going to go violate my NDA by looking at the actual code and making explicit claims about what it does or does not do. The only thing I can say is what we have publicly promised coupled with the fact that I actively work to make sure those promises are kept. The "off" switch is "basic" - again, reading and understanding the privacy policies for WGA/WAT vs basic telemetry, I can't find significant difference in what the policies allow to be collected. The latter simply gives more specific, concrete examples. I'm guessing that may be why enterprise has the ability to go lower - the licensing is different for enterprise than consumer, and is maintained locally by volume licensing services.
Can you explain what you mean about it being fluff without any real substance?
Wi-Fi Sense *shrug* That goes either way. It's great for the average user who would connect to any random open network regardless of the feature, and actually protects those users a bit more than having them choose (open APs don't get added to the wifi sense database until and unless enough users have connected and only after it "analyzes some characteristics" - not sure which, but I'd guess whatever indicators of rogue AP that team has).
That's definitely a "for the average user" feature, and I often keep it off. When traveling, I might turn it on to increase my connectivity chances (using my encrypted tunnel(s) for the net).
In my official capacity for this paragraph only:
Thank you, I'll take that feedback to my PM counterpart as we consider what areas to focus on and develop, what teams we need to meet with, and what users want (that is actually feasible for us to deliver). We work in this area because we are passionate about protecting users' privacy, and knowing what would help demonstrate the work we do internally is good information for me. I can't promise any particular feature or product delivery, but I can say that at least this engineer, who is concerned with and working in that area, has received your feedback and will weigh it when considering my next steps.
It's a matter of trade offs, and we focus on making sure that a user's privacy is protected even when they willingly agree to provide additional information to us by enabling enhanced or full telemetry. Satya has made it clear both inside and outside the company that everyone need to remember that our users are our customers, not our product. I'll try to be a bit more professional about answering concerns like yours, because it's not an excuse that I get fed up with certain preposterous claims simply because I spend so much of my life ensuring those claims aren't reality. In those cases, I'll try to just go look at funny cat pictures instead
.So you actively went into settings and turned Siri 100% off then correct?
I did not.
This is the ridiculous thing.
Google has immunity among the geeks.
If I was worried, Chrome would be the first thing I'd get rid of. It is possibly the biggest spy tool on Windows machines.
Google does not have immunity among geeks. Posters on this very forum criticize Google.
Microsoft is emulating Google. I was exposed to account privacy and personalization pages through Google first and better (https://myaccount.google.com/), then Microsoft second and less robustly (https://www.bing.com/account/personalization).
I use Google search pretty heavily because each time I've tried switching to Yahoo or Bing search, the results I'd get were worse. (Bing sucks on Remote Desktop if you're not using RemoteFX). I don't search with a Google account. I have a couple Google accounts that I don't use (I don't use Gmail, I reserved a name for one, and the other was a converted account from a Google acquisition). I use Outlook.com and Yahoo Mail. I don't use Chrome. I use Firefox. I used to sign in to and use a YouTube account. When it became Google+, I stopped. I tried Android but didn't inhale. I stay away from Google Chrome.
Microsoft is not a leader here. They're following the work of others.
Which means that while you might not be using Siri to look for stuff it is still spying on you. It is still gathering all types of data on you and sending it all back to apple to create a profile about you. In iOS 9 Siri and spotlight now collect data about what you have on your phone, what apps you run, where you go, what you search for, what time of day it is that you are doing things... and then uses all of this data to create a profile that it can then turn around and use to give you search results more personalized to you. All of this was done to make Siri what they call proactive. That way if you normally listen to an audiobook on your way to work, as soon as Siri syncs with your car in the morning it will ask if it should start playing the audio book. If you plug in headphones it will use previous history to know where you are, what time it is and what type of music you normally listen to and start playing what it thinks you want to hear right them.. Example given "When Federighi walks into the gym and plugs his headphones into his phone, Siri cues up some peppy music to help him work out. The implication is that Siri knows where Federighi is (the gym), what hes doing (exercise); what kind of activity he likes to do when he gets there (listen to music)and what kind of music to play (fast, uptempo).". If a phone number calling you isn't in your contact list it now scans through all your emails to see if there it can find the number in there to try to guess who is calling you. All of these new features are designed around Apple gathering data on your every move to know "you".
And that was the point I was trying to make. People are ok with their phone spying on them and leaving Siri turned on for it to collect all types of data about them none stop however then complain about windows having similar features. Siri is still there and still doing things even if you aren't asking her questions.
So in that regards sadly have you not disproven my point that people use (dont' disable) Siri on their iPhones.
With all the uproar about Microsoft having features (that can be turned off) that collect data about you, there should be the same level of concern and uproar about iOS 9.
I don't use Spotlight search becauseI know where my Apps and Settings are. I don't read Audiobooks, I don't watch TV/movies/videos on my iPhone. I don't listen to music on my iPhone. I haven't plugged headphones into my iPhone. I make calls, check emails, and search using Safari in Private. I have used Google Maps on occasion. I play games. I take Notes.
I am concerned about privacy on my iPhone, which is why I try to do as little as possible on it.
Even if I am not the paragon example, I could find and present to you a better example. There is demand for a private or Blackphone. So I may not be your example. They would be. There are people who root their phone or use AOSP. They would be good examples. The fact that there are detailed articles on turning off this crap on all devices, not just Windows proves that, while small, the demand and concern exists.
But honestly, Microsoft and Google both have a history of doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason. Apple too, but less so.
How rude of me. I forgot to thank you. Thank you for setting me up as your personal straw man and learning into and tearing into me personally until I was a pile of tattered cloth and straw in a pile on the ground feeling the need to defend my personal habits, choices, and behaviors. It is the sort of treatment I have come to enjoy whenever I try to express an opinion and perhaps try to get into a reasoned discussion on the issue of privacy in Windows 10 on the HardForum.
It's interactions like this that have me trying to leave the HardForum for days only to like a story posted on HardOCP and insanely wanting to be a part of the discussion (where insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result). I want to set my email to a fake address, set my password to random, and not sign in again, except I enjoy other places on the HardForum, even just as a lurker. I wish I could erase this post, my other reply, and the post you replied to but cannot. I need to exit this thread. I've already been a part of a thread that was set to dead, probably in part due to my continuing it.
Thanks.
The nice thing about Chrome is that you *can* get rid of it. You can't get rid of 10, the OS itself, unless you go back to a previous version. See the problem?
And bullshit Google has immunity. Every time there's a thread with Google in the headline, guaranteed there are "lol spying" posts. Rightfully so.
It's amazing to me how many people can't tell the difference between being spied on by software you opted to use, and being forced to give up information because your OS automatically farms it from your PC. You can't exactly lie about everything you do on your PC like you can on Facebook.
This is where the Linux clowns come in and say "Just stop using windows, har har!" and totally ignore the fact nobody wants to run their programs in a shitty emulator.