Windows 10 data mining has been caught

Yakk said:
Used to value privacy... Sad state we are going towards... Newer generations may not even get know what privacy really is at this rate.

Not so long ago there were many fiction books written about the loss of privacy, which people at the time would never, ever, thought could come to pass.

Yet, here we are. Heading right towards a worst case scenario at full speed.
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Not even in Kafka or Huxley's wildest nightmares did they conceive of a government or company methodically and systematically analyzing our piss.

Undesirable bladder content = undesirable human being.
 
silk186 said:
social security number, credit card details, banking details... if this information is being transmitted it can likely be hijacked.
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Not to mention passwords and confidential information about your business or your job.
 
felt said:
It's fine by me, I definitely don't have anything to hide.
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Facefuckingpalm.

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So in the last half hour I have:
1. Ran a Wireshark for 10 minutes
2. Spent that time doing DNS lookups for "vortex.data.microsoft.com"
3. Sat here scratching my head about where this supposed data was transmitted. (It states it does it every 5 minutes)
4. ???
5. Profit

I am going to keep digging for the subnet ranges, but this is goofy.
 
It's this sort of un-verified nonsense that has several of the C-level IT types I consult for asking for a path away from Microsoft platforms as fast as possible.

I'm disinclined to act in Microsoft's defense here ... maybe this stuff isn't enabled in the Enterprise builds, maybe it actually stops when you turn off the options in other builds; I'm not paid to do the analysis to determine that nor am I willing to bet on Microsoft doing what they say when it could come back to burn me (been there, done that).

Definitive, unambiguous, legally enforceable, statements/promises/assurances from Microsoft about there being no data harvesting or analysis of user behavior or data, are, at this point, the only way those particular companies are going to stay the course with Microsoft.

I'm not talking about "Mom & Pop" shops, but companies with hundreds of millions to billions in revenue.

They are nicely spooked.

Windows 10 might be a decent product, but this stuff, real or tin-foil-hat brigade, is not helping.
 
Is there a third party automatic software program that can remove all the MS spyware from Windows 7/8 at least?

While I iron any issues with a move to linux for everything except for the occasional game, I just have to test a few win32 programs with wine. Often I help people install new operating systems/ upgrade etc, but I won't be installing any spyware os such as windows 10 on any computer.
 
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It's your own fault you shouldn't have been writing that spy/thriller novel in MS word.

And maybe you shouldn't have been working out your finances in excel or on windows 10 if you knew funds were running low that month and you didn't want your credit rating affected.
 
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[U]ber|Noob;1041807072 said:
Is there a third party automatic software program that can remove all the MS spyware from Windows 7/8 at least?
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If someone were to offer such a product, why would you trust them more than you do Microsoft?
 
RandemTox said:
It's this sort of un-verified nonsense that has several of the C-level IT types I consult for asking for a path away from Microsoft platforms as fast as possible.

I'm disinclined to act in Microsoft's defense here ... maybe this stuff isn't enabled in the Enterprise builds, maybe it actually stops when you turn off the options in other builds; I'm not paid to do the analysis to determine that nor am I willing to bet on Microsoft doing what they say when it could come back to burn me (been there, done that).

Definitive, unambiguous, legally enforceable, statements/promises/assurances from Microsoft about there being no data harvesting or analysis of user behavior or data, are, at this point, the only way those particular companies are going to stay the course with Microsoft.

I'm not talking about "Mom & Pop" shops, but companies with hundreds of millions to billions in revenue.

They are nicely spooked.

Windows 10 might be a decent product, but this stuff, real or tin-foil-hat brigade, is not helping.
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I have to agree with you. I am running 10 Pro on my home machine. I learned with Windows 8 to not take the easy path for the install. I took my time read all the options turned off everything I did not want (which was really everything) and installed. When I get home today I am going to do some more Wiresharking but I have yet to find transmissions.

I think it safe to say that if this was really true there would be more people searching for these mysterious transmissions. More importantly if this original source said these transmissions are stored then sent out periodically my questions is, where are they? His article was more or less, "HEY CHECK OUT ALL THE ADDRESSES FROM MICROSOFT!" When in reality if these files do exist we should be able to find them on our HDDs as logs, databases, registries, etc. I think my searching will turn eventually to that instead. It is easy to take all these address and just say MS is stealing and capturing everything because look, they have a ton of public IPs. But with no file names to back it up the doubts I had are really now becoming more real as I dig deeper. I think this is a hoax, or just false information, or hell, even tranmissions from Beta builds. Unless you opted in for all the optimization then yes you are probably hosed, but I really do not know that.

Honestly I feel that every company in some way gets our data, is it wrong? Yes. Can we stop it? Who knows. This is really just my opinion disagree if you want you are entitled to your own.
 
I'd just forget about windows 10 for 6-8 months, if they haven't cut out all this keylogging/spying stuff by then make the move to linux and recommend that's what everyone that asks me about installing windows 10 should do.
 
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It's kind of amusing how so many people in this thread went through the express install in Windows 10.

I turned this off during setup.
 
Terpfen said:
It's kind of amusing how so many people in this thread went through the express install in Windows 10.

I turned this off during setup.
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are you sure it is off? have you run a wire shark to view if it is or not?
 
Autopia said:
i'd love to, please provide me with your external Ip address?
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Burden of proof is on the accuser. There is almost no evidence that anything nefarious is going on here, other than people opting in to send information to MS, or bitching about how the beta was spying on themm.
 
ocellaris said:
Burden of proof is on the accuser. There is almost no evidence that anything nefarious is going on here, other than people opting in to send information to MS, or bitching about how the beta was spying on themm.
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this is funny, i don't use windows 10 and the sad truth is, there is more evidence with more coming out every day that using scripts to disable or remove the process that send the information doesn't work.
logically the response is to ask if someone is certain, blindly allowing companies to take or invite themselves into our lives will lead to nothing good. people that question this sort of practice have every right to question or ask to opt out of this type of crap, UNLESS of course those that are collecting this information is not allowing the opting out, which is what microsoft is doing!
 
Autopia said:
i'm willing to bet this is a lie.
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Then go for it. Prove that Microsoft listens to phone calls. The FBI would be really interested if you can. You know, all that stuff about how wiretapping is illegal?
 
So is there any effective to way to stop microsoft invading my privacy? Surely it should be illegal? For example if I spy on someone... that would be illegal... but microsoft are allowed to spy on me why? Because they are bigger and have more money the normal rules don't apply?
 
Nicholars said:
So is there any effective to way to stop microsoft invading my privacy? Surely it should be illegal? For example if I spy on someone... that would be illegal... but microsoft are allowed to spy on me why? Because they are bigger and have more money the normal rules don't apply?
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Turn off those features in the OS... Most of these reports are from people who did Express Installs or are posting information from the Beta.
 
evilsofa said:
Then go for it. Prove that Microsoft listens to phone calls. The FBI would be really interested if you can. You know, all that stuff about how wiretapping is illegal?
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i have no idea what you are talking about, the post had to do with data collecting not listening to phone calls, where did you come up with that?

Originally Posted by evilsofa
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:
 
Autopia said:
is this a jok,e did you read the first post to this thread?
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Yep and it looks like that the initial report has been debunked. You said EVERY day more and more was coming out...so what else is there besides some loopy Czech guy whose results can't be duplicated?
 
ocellaris said:
I can't wait to see what new information is coming out tomorrow! ;)
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Tomorrow is saturday... DATA MINERS DON'T WORK ON THE WEEKENDS.

In all honesty though, we know they collect data, but this key-logging thing I think is a bit far fetched.
 
Monkey God said:
Yep and it looks like that the initial report has been debunked. You said EVERY day more and more was coming out...so what else is there besides some loopy Czech guy whose results can't be duplicated?
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could you please provide a link to the story that debunks this?
 
if you are talking about this: http://blog.robseder.com/2015/08/16/whats-the-real-deal-with-windows-10-and-privacy/

please read, he says: Disclaimer: 1) I’m not an expert with Wireshark! 2) I didn’t decrypt any data, so this is based on clear-text traffic I can read, or otherwise just metadata-only.

i think I would trust a network engineer a hell of alot more than someone who claims he can only:
The Findings:
Considering that I half-way know my way around Wireshark, but I am by no means an expert
 
This is actually pretty insane, this is no longer "tin foil hat" when you realize just how much data is actually being sent. There is absolutely ZERO reason for sending this much data. I can almost guarantee this is done at the request of the NSA or other alphabet soup agency and they somehow thought people would not notice.

I also would not test this with a local packet sniffer, Microsoft may be smart enough to design this in such a way that a packet sniffer wont pick it up. I would test it with a packet sniffer that is at another network node such as the firewall. I have not gotten around to trying windows 10 yet in a VM but whenever I do I will definitely play around with this.

If this data is actually being sent on non default ports the easiest solution is to just block outgoing connections to those ports that way you don't have to worry about the IPs changing. Ex: through windows update they could easily keep changing those IPs and they could keep buying different IP ranges so you can't just block a range and be done with it.

I've been doing my best to stay away from proprietary software/devices these days. There's way too much espionage going on it's just ridiculous. Feel like we live in the middle of a film like Equilibrium or something.
 
I set up a filter on my router to block all of the telemetry URLs referenced in the other thread. It may just be placebo but my Windows 10 test box *seems* faster now, actually.
 
You didn't even read the article posted!

"My question to the Microsoft representative was whether she’d be allowed to disclose if there are deliberate back doors in their systems, in the event that there are. She never responded to that question, but obviously, she didn’t have to. From other sources, we know that the NSA always prohibits the private companies they force into cooperation from disclosing any of it."

Linus Torvalds has integrity and wouldn't allow a back door in but I wouldn't put it past Microsoft at all.
 
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"Windows 10 data mining has been caught"

it was caught back in beta, this is nothing new, hence the numerous threads and post across the internet on how to block most things where possible...

Good to know the frequency though! Just more things to try and block.

So 2 things

1. dont use windows 10
2. if you do get an external firewall to block everything except what you allow.. but that could get tiring..

Check out
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/threads/63874-REPO-Windows-10-TELEMETRY-REPOSITORY
 
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