Torrent Trackers Ban Windows 10 Over Privacy Concerns

Just curious does/will windows 7 have any of this spying stuff in it, say through updates down the road?
 
I'm posting this from Fedora running off a USB stick. I guess Microsoft doesn't want me loving them anymore. :(
 
HardLiner said:
Fuck, now do go back to windows 7 and avoid the updates or do I try Linux again....Linux is safe right?
Click to expand...

The article is retarded. Telemetry points apply only to those who choose to participate in the CEIP and are things like "user invoked next then back in so and so screen four times" - useful for finding problems in app navigation (and we have those, you'd have to see my internal emails to see how pissy I get about them), problems in too many re-elevations or failed launch followed by elevation (useful for finding/creating shims for apps that aren't coded right), etc. While I'm sure there's someone out there who could figure out a malicious use for that data, it's really unlikely. We want to abide by our privacy policy, and that means meeting it to a standard that won't have the FTC trying to slap a consent decree upon us.

To that end, we take numerous steps I can't go into without violating NDA, but suffice it to say that it involves, pre, during, and post-deployment checks to ensure users' privacy is protected to the best of our ability. What I'm currently working on tries to do that holistically to be able to present managers and higher-level folks an easy way to check how their orgs use data, what data they use, help concerned employees make their case why certain data shouldn't be collected, etc. Hell, if you worry about the NSA giving us a secret court order that requires us to comply, how much do you think we worry about the same? It's expensive (software engineers aren't cheap, not to mention the lawyers involved in such things), time-wasting, violates our (at the least, my) sense of right and wrong, and has great potential for exposing us to security vulnerabilities.

Point is, there's a large group of us spread across the company that are extremely privacy-aware, concerned, and do our best to protect our customers' privacy. Personally, I see privacy as a platform differentiator, and I don't want to see Microsoft go the way of Google/Facebook/etc, making our money by providing you something then selling you as the product.

Not to mention, the changes linked there _reduce_ the opened network connections on systems where the user says not to enroll them in CEIP. Eesh, I get the paranoia, but I don't get the idiocy that tends to accompany posts expressing it. It makes those of us with genuine concern look like the nutters posting this shit.
 
It's gonna take a while before reliable data about what Windows 10 is sending back home both before and after all the little toggle switches are flipped (though I think we already know it continues to phone home even after you tell it not to do so, but what gets sent isn't well-known yet). Until then, it's probably not worth getting upset about very much.

Though this kinda concern was stuff I totally saw coming even before Windows 8 was actually out so I've spent like a few years playing with Linux and learning slowly about it. Now, the transition has been pretty easy and smooth since I already have been using it on a daily basis on my cute little netbook. Loading it onto my big laptop (that's been collecting a lot of dust anyhow since I haven't really turned it on much) and making a bigger step away from Windows was easy.

I think even gaming types would be happy with Linux these days since at least 1/3rd of Steam games are available for Linux. Admittedly, gaming doesn't appeal to me at all, but the stuff I have tried works pretty well without any huge differences between a gaming experience on Linux and the same game in Windows. At this point, if you wanna switch, there's not really much reason to stay aside from not wanting to learn as many new things in exchange for peace of mind.

Then again, I do recommend having a secondary Windows computer around for a while until you're used to life without a familiar security blanket. :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top