Microsoft’s telemetry U-turn?

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I am probably going to laugh when this happens. This is because, someone is going to turn these things off, certain things will no longer work that they use all the time and they will complain, complain, complain, complain and complain. Oh, and did I say they would probably complain? :D Oh well, it is what you guys are asking for, enjoy when it comes.
 
It's about time, but it may be too little too late. MS has suffered quite a bit of (deserved IMO) negative publicity about windows 10 since launch. Even with their promises of disabling telemetry in the feature, I'm not exactly jumping with excitement to go back to Windows 10 considering the other shady crap their pulling with updates in Windows 7/8

I am probably going to laugh when this happens. This is because, someone is going to turn these things off, certain things will no longer work that they use all the time and they will complain, complain, complain, complain and complain. Oh, and did I say they would probably complain? :D Oh well, it is what you guys are asking for, enjoy when it comes.

my guess is that, for the users who would turn that crap off, they wouldn't exactly be missing those features in the first place (online accounts/cortana/appstore/etc)
 
I am probably going to laugh when this happens. This is because, someone is going to turn these things off, certain things will no longer work that they use all the time and they will complain, complain, complain, complain and complain. Oh, and did I say they would probably complain? :D Oh well, it is what you guys are asking for, enjoy when it comes.

There are people on the internet, lots of them, who only find satisfaction in life when they have something to complain about. So they will find something to complain about.
 
Not surprisingly the control is for only the enterprise version. Consumers and small businesses will have to live with the full strength spyware version.
 
I am probably going to laugh when this happens. This is because, someone is going to turn these things off, certain things will no longer work that they use all the time and they will complain, complain, complain, complain and complain. Oh, and did I say they would probably complain? :D Oh well, it is what you guys are asking for, enjoy when it comes.

The thing about this subject is that people have turned into all about "spying" and completely forgetting just how complex,connected networked devices work. I doubt even most people on this forum understand the point of every connection a modern OS makes. Here's a very good write up from Ed Bott about the latest "gottcha" on this: http://www.zdnet.com/article/when-it-comes-to-windows-10-privacy-dont-trust-amateur-analysts/. A lot of this stuff is basic and been there for ages. Just as an example of just how innocuous and important to providing basic functionality much of the "spying" is, Bott points about the internet status icon indicator. How does Windows know when it's not connected to the Internet? It tries to open: http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt. Lot's of other basic stuff that's going one here.

I've never been against more control over this and being able to disable as much as possible but putting this type of control in the hands of even so called experts could lead to all kinds of problems for no other reason than pure paranoia and lack of understand how basic services work.
 
It's about time, but it may be too little too late. MS has suffered quite a bit of (deserved IMO) negative publicity about windows 10 since launch.

In the IT bologsphere that makes its money from sensationalism and the typical anti-Microsoft sure. For average people that are already using smartphones, social media, the cloud and other connected apps and services, not so much.

The problem here is that some have made this all about "spying" and that's just not the truth. There's a lot of functionality that's basic on leveraging data and that's simply how much modern technology functions. Yes, there's always cause for concern and a need for vigilance. But there's also a lot of complexity to this subject for which many people making sensationalist claims simply aren't qualified to do. Like Microsoft is just selling all of this data to make money. That's nonsense. How many institutions have tons of personal data and don't just sell it to make money? The risk and liability of that is through the roof for data that quite frankly isn't work as much as some might think. That's not to say there aren't risks, that information could be stolen and used inappropriately. But as a source of company revenue? It's not worth it.

Microsoft has millions of email, cloud, Xbox live, Windows Store accounts. Have they been selling that data? Data with credit card numbers and addresses and personal files? Or what about Azure? Are they selling customer data out of their SQL Sever databases? I'm guessing that has more value than knowing who was playing Call of Duty. There is a matter of trust. And if you think that Microsoft is just going to sell off every byte of data they have, then that's what you think. But again, the idea is nonsense considering just how big the cloud is to Microsoft and that there's no way they could be in that business by selling off data.
 
It's only Enterprise and that's only because of compliance and regulation issues.
 
It won't stop the relentless complaining, or the clickbait bloggers from spewing FUD.

I was going to say something about that little twerp Gordon Kelly, but I see Ed Bott already has that covered.
 
In the IT bologsphere that makes its money from sensationalism and the typical anti-Microsoft sure. For average people that are already using smartphones, social media, the cloud and other connected apps and services, not so much.

The problem here is that some have made this all about "spying" and that's just not the truth. There's a lot of functionality that's basic on leveraging data and that's simply how much modern technology functions. Yes, there's always cause for concern and a need for vigilance. But there's also a lot of complexity to this subject for which many people making sensationalist claims simply aren't qualified to do. Like Microsoft is just selling all of this data to make money. That's nonsense. How many institutions have tons of personal data and don't just sell it to make money? The risk and liability of that is through the roof for data that quite frankly isn't work as much as some might think. That's not to say there aren't risks, that information could be stolen and used inappropriately. But as a source of company revenue? It's not worth it.

Microsoft has millions of email, cloud, Xbox live, Windows Store accounts. Have they been selling that data? Data with credit card numbers and addresses and personal files? Or what about Azure? Are they selling customer data out of their SQL Sever databases? I'm guessing that has more value than knowing who was playing Call of Duty. There is a matter of trust. And if you think that Microsoft is just going to sell off every byte of data they have, then that's what you think. But again, the idea is nonsense considering just how big the cloud is to Microsoft and that there's no way they could be in that business by selling off data.

I don't disagree on some of your points, but you're assuming that those same people don't mind being tracked. Many of us here, myself included, go to great lengths to maintain our online privacy and avoid companies keeping detailed information about us. As a matter of fact, per a survey done in 2014, just over 40% of people
18-29 years old, use some sort of adblocking/script blocking software. Some, purely for the aesthetics I'm sure, but many use it to limit whats being collected about them.

I, personally, would NEVER use a Microsoft account (Appstore, MS cloud storage or anything else) because there is literally no benefit in it for me. Yeah, many naive users don't mind giving up tons of personal information about themselves online because they likely don't understand the potential for abuse (identity theft, possible blackmail, phishing). Those very same users are likely using easy to guess passwords across multiple websites. And while I doubt that MS is selling information of it's users, they've admitted to giving it away to 3 letter agencies in the past not to mention the record number of data breaches year after year. Giving ALL of that information to a single entity is a disaster waiting to happen.

You're obviously never going to be able to completely get away from it, unless you ditch tech all together, but its smart (IMHO) to be protective about who gets what information. Having an OS that milks that data is NOT a great thing. The added 'convenience' of a few dumb features isn't worth it to me. Just because other companies do it too, doesn't mean that I should be OK with MS jumping on the bandwagon.
 
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The only way I'm going to use Windows 10 ever is if Microsoft ships me a Surface Book maxed out to the gills and it has Windows 10 on it - in fact, they'd have to send me two of them: one for me, one for the wife. Until that happens (fat chance, right?) then I have no use for Windows 10 ever and after the official support for Windows 10 is over (still 2020 for my particular license, I know they announced a few days ago that new Windows 7 installs won't get supported) then I'll either continue to use Windows 7 till it's fucking dead in the water totally or I'll move to Linux perhaps.

They created a problem with Windows 10 and they're not going to be able to fix it and I'm certainly not going to help 'em with it.
 
I am probably going to laugh when this happens. This is because, someone is going to turn these things off, certain things will no longer work that they use all the time and they will complain, complain, complain, complain and complain. Oh, and did I say they would probably complain? :D Oh well, it is what you guys are asking for, enjoy when it comes.

Why do you care? Does it hurt your feelings if people don't want to be tracked? I would think if it breaks something Microsoft would not turn it off. Please do tell with an example?
 
Bott points about the internet status icon indicator. How does Windows know when it's not connected to the Internet? It tries to open: http://www.msftncsi.com/ncsi.txt. Lot's of other basic stuff that's going one here.

Really? I know you didn't write it up, but how in the world does it say it's connected when it's in a closed loop network connection via vmware? Unless vmware leaves a hidden port open to microsoft.

Wow, so Microsoft came out of the closet? While I'm in favor of Microsoft's new direction, I think this is only a move to reach their number of installed instances of Windows 10. Hopefully I'm wrong. Will this still be in effect after their goal date?

Forbe's website is jacked, so i can't read the article. All I get is a loop of their stupid welcome screen. So, is this only for the Enterprise version - or is it for all versions? They can code their software to work even if this stuff is turned off. Unless they are still trying to force you to be assimilated. I feel it's futile.
 
I don't disagree on some of your points, but you're assuming that those same people don't mind being tracked. Many of us here, myself included, go to great lengths to maintain our online privacy and avoid companies keeping detailed information about us. As a matter of fact, per a survey done in 2014, just over 40% of people
18-29 years old, use some sort of adblocking/script blocking software. Some, purely for the aesthetics I'm sure, but many use it to limit whats being collected about them.

I, personally, would NEVER use a Microsoft account (Appstore, MS cloud storage or anything else) because there is literally no benefit in it for me. Yeah, many naive users don't mind giving up tons of personal information about themselves online because they likely don't understand the potential for abuse (identity theft, possible blackmail, phishing). Those very same users are likely using easy to guess passwords across multiple websites. And while I doubt that MS is selling information of it's users, they've admitted to giving it away to 3 letter agencies in the past not to mention the record number of data breaches year after year. Giving ALL of that information to a single entity is a disaster waiting to happen.

You're obviously never going to be able to completely get away from it, unless you ditch tech all together, but its smart (IMHO) to be protective about who gets what information. Having an OS that milks that data is NOT a great thing. The added 'convenience' of a few dumb features isn't worth it to me. Just because other companies do it too, doesn't mean that I should be OK with MS jumping on the bandwagon.

The basic diagnostic data collected by Microsoft at the basic level is for anything at all like giving all your information to a single entity. Now if one does use all of what's there then there is a great deal more information that Microsoft has. And sure, there is law enforcement that can request data from Microsoft like any other company that has data on you, like your bank, credit card company, ISP, etc. And yes there is the potential for hacking but local malware is a far more serious threat to the average PC user than attacks against Microsoft's servers. How many people get data stolen right off their machines everyday compared to hacking into Microsoft?

Again, I'm not arguing against more privacy control and disabling as much as possible. The diagnostic stuff though is really just that and to disable all telemetry involves giving up Windows Update, Windows Defender and MSRT and doing that on your own and keeping all of that up to date which is not a trivial task. This is complex subject, it's not just about "spying", there are features that do make a lot of things much easier and more convenient. Voice web search, that's amazingly productive I'm finding from a PC.

The average person has personal information spread across tons of entities. It's absurd to make the average person think that somehow by not using Windows 10 that you're safer from threats. That's just a lie.
 
Really? I know you didn't write it up, but how in the world does it say it's connected when it's in a closed loop network connection via vmware? Unless vmware leaves a hidden port open to microsoft.

Not sure what you mean. If the router was dropping every request the VM couldn't have been connected could it?
 
Not sure what you mean. If the router was dropping every request the VM couldn't have been connected could it?

When you run operating systems in vmware, you can tell it what kind of network connection it gets. You can specify that the VMs can only talk to each other and not outside the host (no internet connection). Did that clarify? They show as connected. According to the article, it says they are still somehow able to hit that URL. There must be some kind of backdoor??
 
The basic diagnostic data collected by Microsoft at the basic level is for anything at all like giving all your information to a single entity. Now if one does use all of what's there then there is a great deal more information that Microsoft has. And sure, there is law enforcement that can request data from Microsoft like any other company that has data on you, like your bank, credit card company, ISP, etc. And yes there is the potential for hacking but local malware is a far more serious threat to the average PC user than attacks against Microsoft's servers. How many people get data stolen right off their machines everyday compared to hacking into Microsoft?

Again, I'm not arguing against more privacy control and disabling as much as possible. The diagnostic stuff though is really just that and to disable all telemetry involves giving up Windows Update, Windows Defender and MSRT and doing that on your own and keeping all of that up to date which is not a trivial task. This is complex subject, it's not just about "spying", there are features that do make a lot of things much easier and more convenient. Voice web search, that's amazingly productive I'm finding from a PC.

The average person has personal information spread across tons of entities. It's absurd to make the average person think that somehow by not using Windows 10 that you're safer from threats. That's just a lie.

I'm not talking about data being requested http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1890966

And I'm not ignorant to how technology works. But "Windows Telemetry" is painted with a pretty broad brush (and I'm willing to bet it's by design). Collecting malware samples and crash logs from a users machine is completely different from checking against a server to see what updates you might need or syncing the date/time. It's all very vague... and given MS's very shady track record of recently not being 100% upfront about what certain updates are doing, or why the windows 10 installer is STILL trying to do its thing, even when you blocked the proper updates... or how un-upfront their being about using your machine/network as a CDN, I honestly don't have a lot of faith or trust in them anymore.

Its easy to say that "disabling telemetry will break other crap", but my question is what will break and why? There is no reason, in my mind, why there shouldn't be a switch to turn off the new "convenience" features of Windows 10 without breaking the entire OS (or at least it's ability to update). I mean, the Windows 10 machines I've had worked 100% fine disconnected from the internet. I get the feeling that, if MS gave us what want, it would pretty much screw with their longterm business goals they laid out for Windows in the future.
 
I doubt MS will deliver on that. The ability to track users has many benefits inside and "outside" Microsoft.
 
And I'm not ignorant to how technology works. But "Windows Telemetry" is painted with a pretty broad brush (and I'm willing to bet it's by design). Collecting malware samples and crash logs from a users machine is completely different from checking against a server to see what updates you might need or syncing the date/time. It's all very vague... and given MS's very shady track record of recently not being 100% upfront about what certain updates are doing, or why the windows 10 installer is STILL trying to do its thing, even when you blocked the proper updates... or how un-upfront their being about using your machine/network as a CDN, I honestly don't have a lot of faith or trust in them anymore.

I agree. But it much of this has long been "pretty vague" in that every detail of every byte of data that's being transmitted between a Windows PC or any other device is not documented at a definitive data element level. And even the stuff that IS documented people miss. The Forbes article talking about thousands up thousands of network requests from a Windows 10 VM that was dropping traffic at the router. There's just so many KNOWN details about what was going on there that simply got turned into "spying" that the conversation is pointless now.

For those that are just going to just ignore facts and make up their own, there's no point in trying to satisfy them. I've suggested before that some sort of logging facility that logs all Windows interactions with Microsoft's remote services is really the only way to be completely transparent about it. A list of countless thousands, perhaps millions, of distinct data elements of what could be transmitted is beyond useless because you still wouldn't know exactly what was being sent or any of the circumstances was to why something was sent. A log is the only way. And that's another can of worms.

Again, I'm all for disabling as much as possible for those that want it, but now you have people taking about how setting the Internet connection icon in the task tray is spying. And many of these people have no interest in facts. They either don't like Windows or Microsoft and think that Linux will free them from the evil Microsoft.

Hell even if every possible thing were logged you'd have people bitching that they can't trust Microsoft because the logged might be false and there's no way to check it against the encrypted traffic. Of that the log provides a way to break the encryption.

Its easy to say that "disabling telemetry will break other crap", but my question is what will break and why? There is no reason, in my mind, why there shouldn't be a switch to turn off the new "convenience" features of Windows 10 without breaking the entire OS (or at least it's ability to update). I mean, the Windows 10 machines I've had worked 100% fine disconnected from the internet. I get the feeling that, if MS gave us what want, it would pretty much screw with their longterm business goals they laid out for Windows in the future.

You CAN turn off every transmission to Microsoft with the Enterprise version currently and they tell you exactly how to do it. They also explain that that breaks Windows Update, Windows Defender and MSRT and that if you shut down ALL of it you have to handle these things in house.
 
Now they just need to give users the option to deny updates, especially for drivers, and I'll be ready to sidegrade to Windows 10.
 
So, I am reading this article http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonk...-10-data-tracking-spying-levels/#2176b2b7aa99 which states this: "Firstly the Windows 10 EULA (end user licence agreement) which very few users ever read, gives Microsoft full legal rights to do this."

No it does not, local laws take precedent over any EULA. The EULA will usually state this somewhere in the fine print too. If you Americans have weak privacy protection and consumer laws then change it.

Hint: Do Not Vote for Hillary and her ilk.
 
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Now they just need to give users the option to deny updates, especially for drivers, and I'll be ready to sidegrade to Windows 10.

Driver updates, perhaps, though I've never personally had Windows 10 install drivers over the ones I've installed manually. But this "force update debate" is badly misunderstood. Microsoft has two different branches on Windows 10, the LTSB which currently is only available in the Enterprise and that receives essentially only fixes and the Current Cumulative branch that gets the fixes AND new functionality. A lot of people still aren't getting that the development approach with 10, which is agile, precludes picking and choosing updates because new functionally can be added at any time which creates dependencies in the update chain.

I'm not saying this is perfect but it's the development approach that Microsoft is taking, agile, which gets new stuff out in regular intervals versus the big bang 3 year approach. I don't think that's going to change the slower delivery of new features just isn't acceptable in the consumer market anymore.

There's nothing nefarious about this, agile is well understood and documented process, incremental functional updates by design create a dependency chain and the way you get around that is with a different branch that only gets bug fixes. It's textbook software development that's done by countless organizations.
 
So, I am reading this article http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonk...-10-data-tracking-spying-levels/#2176b2b7aa99 which states this: "Firstly the Windows 10 EULA (end user licence agreement) which very few users ever read, gives Microsoft full legal rights to do this."

No it does not, local laws take precedent over any EULA. The EULA will usually state this somewhere in the fine print too. If you Americans have weak privacy protection and consumer laws then change it.

Hint: Do Not Vote for Hillary and her ilk.


That entire Gordon Kelly article is pure BS. The guy is a hack.
 
So, I am reading this article http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonk...-10-data-tracking-spying-levels/#2176b2b7aa99 which states this: "Firstly the Windows 10 EULA (end user licence agreement) which very few users ever read, gives Microsoft full legal rights to do this."

This is like the #1 error made by people bashing Windows 10 while using this Microsoft services privacy statement. These services are cross platform and have NOTHING to do with Windows 10 specifically. This privacy agreement can apply to any connected device in existence that has a web browser and uses these services. From a Linux desktop PC to a Smart TV to fridge with a web browser.
 
It's about time, but it may be too little too late. MS has suffered quite a bit of (deserved IMO) negative publicity about windows 10 since launch. Even with their promises of disabling telemetry in the feature, I'm not exactly jumping with excitement to go back to Windows 10 considering the other shady crap their pulling with updates in Windows 7/8



my guess is that, for the users who would turn that crap off, they wouldn't exactly be missing those features in the first place (online accounts/cortana/appstore/etc)

They haven't suffered at all. The vast majority of people give zero fucks. I'm honestly not even sure why they're bothering with this? Maybe to get the last bit of die hards off of 7? Other than us, no one gives a fuck.
 
I have a question re: Ed Bott's explanation of the thousands of connection requests. If the system checks frequently to see if it is connected to the internet, and it is not, why does it keep attempting all the other connections?
 
They haven't suffered at all. The vast majority of people give zero fucks. I'm honestly not even sure why they're bothering with this? Maybe to get the last bit of die hards off of 7? Other than us, no one gives a fuck.

Given the snail-paced adoption of W10, and Microsoft trying to auto-upgrade the hordes of hold-outs....I'd say quite the opposite.
 
There are people on the internet, lots of them, who only find satisfaction in life when they have something to complain about. So they will find something to complain about.

So, you are complaining about their complaining? lol, wow
 
The basic diagnostic data collected by Microsoft at the basic level is for anything at all like giving all your information to a single entity. Now if one does use all of what's there then there is a great deal more information that Microsoft has. And sure, there is law enforcement that can request data from Microsoft like any other company that has data on you, like your bank, credit card company, ISP, etc. And yes there is the potential for hacking but local malware is a far more serious threat to the average PC user than attacks against Microsoft's servers. How many people get data stolen right off their machines everyday compared to hacking into Microsoft?

Again, I'm not arguing against more privacy control and disabling as much as possible. The diagnostic stuff though is really just that and to disable all telemetry involves giving up Windows Update, Windows Defender and MSRT and doing that on your own and keeping all of that up to date which is not a trivial task. This is complex subject, it's not just about "spying", there are features that do make a lot of things much easier and more convenient. Voice web search, that's amazingly productive I'm finding from a PC.

The average person has personal information spread across tons of entities. It's absurd to make the average person think that somehow by not using Windows 10 that you're safer from threats. That's just a lie.

I disagree that you would have to give up Windows Update, defender and other stuff. It worked fine prior to the unmitigated data grab of 10.
 
I disagree that you would have to give up Windows Update, defender and other stuff. It worked fine prior to the unmitigated data grab of 10.

These tools have always shared data with Microsoft servers. Even in Windows 7 you have to disable them if you don't want Windows share any data with Microsoft servers.

This is what I find most frustrating about this issue. Windows 10 comes along and prior to it no one talked about this stuff. Now everyone is a Windows and networking expert that clearly didn't understand how much this stuff has ever worked.
 
I've never been against more control over this and being able to disable as much as possible but putting this type of control in the hands of even so called experts could lead to all kinds of problems for no other reason than pure paranoia and lack of understand how basic services work.

This is logic fail. You're basically saying that MS putting controls back in to their software limiting telemetry somehow gets 'so called experts' into trouble?

If the software is sound and the controls are doing what they're supposed to be doing then I don't see how much trouble we can get in to.

Maybe you should stop posting. I know my Windows 7 breaks all of the time. Heck, my Windows 10 breaks all of the time too. I must get in to a lot of trouble.
 
This is logic fail. You're basically saying that MS putting controls back in to their software limiting telemetry somehow gets 'so called experts' into trouble?

If the software is sound and the controls are doing what they're supposed to be doing then I don't see how much trouble we can get in to.

Maybe you should stop posting. I know my Windows 7 breaks all of the time. Heck, my Windows 10 breaks all of the time too. I must get in to a lot of trouble.

All I am saying is that there's a lot of complexity in all of this. The idea that Windows prior to 7 was completely standalone and now 10 comes along and only makes requests to "spy" on folks if flat out a damned lie. That Forbes article now has people freaking out over local NetBIOS connections, time servers and the internet status icon.

The average person is NEVER going to understand all of this, hell even people here don't even understand how basic services like Windows Update work.

When something becomes contentious and is full of factual errors, bad stuff happens.
 
All I am saying is that there's a lot of complexity in all of this. The idea that Windows prior to 7 was completely standalone and now 10 comes along and only makes requests to "spy" on folks if flat out a damned lie. That Forbes article now has people freaking out over local NetBIOS connections, time servers and the internet status icon.

The average person is NEVER going to understand all of this, hell even people here don't even understand how basic services like Windows Update work.

When something becomes contentious and is full of factual errors, bad stuff happens.

Nope, that's pretty much not what you said, accuracy is your friend. Well written software and well written controls should limit trouble. I don't care how complex it is.
 
Nope, that's pretty much not what you said, accuracy is your friend. Well written software and well written controls should limit trouble. I don't care how complex it is.

What I am saying is that if Microsoft puts in a switch that says "Off" and yet there's still some data being sent to Microsoft because of the time service or Windows Update, some people will freak the fuck out and say that Microsoft is "lying and/or spying". Indeed that's already happen with the Enterprise version that had an "Off" setting but that really doesn't disable able all telemetry because some of it is built into tools that have it baked in and it can't be turned off with turning off those tools. And BTW, those tools did the same thing in Windows 7.

I'm sorry, there's just some people harping on this stuff new and much of it's far for new and has nothing to do with Windows 10. Windows 8.x expanded it and 10 even further, especially in connection to things like Cortana which are optional. But then people freak out about turning off Cortana but then seeing data sent to Microsoft because Cortana can update itself independently. Cortana got an update about a month ago that allows for category views. To disable that you HAVE to disable Cortana at the firewall. And that's well documented.

How come all of this stuff that Microsoft is hiding has been out in the open for YEARS? Just way too much BS, too much name calling and not nearly enough attempt to learn. I don't pretend to know everything and I'm not saying that everything is in a clearly concise document about how all of this stuff works. There's not, it's complicated, it's not something that the average non-technical person will ever attempt to understand and many people that call themselves technical didn't know as much as they thought.

Again, Cortana is SELF UPDATING. It has to be shut off at the firewall. The updating part is not related to the web search integration.
 
I didn't mention anything about any of that and you're drifting away from the original post. You're off the topic I posted on. Cortana self updates? Fine, control to remove Cortana. Again well written.
 
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