Microsoft Admits Windows 10 Automatic Spying Cannot Be Stopped

[dainthomas]

You're talking about activation, which isn't the type of "spying" that's being referred to in the OP. Yes, they generate a hardware signature during activation, but do you have any reason to believe that it isn't anonymous? They can generate a hash out of hardware characteristics and store it without having any identifiable info. I can remember the language from the disclaimer that's played to you when you perform a phone activation; "this process is completely anonymous and no personally identifiable information will be collected", or words to that effect.



The "Safety and Reliability Data" is what everyone's losing their shit about. Assuming that Microsoft isn't lying about the contents of this, what exactly is the risk? So a hacker breaks into Microsoft's servers, decrypts the data and makes off with a swag of... anonymous crash reports.

Lol, this.

The tin foil hat crowd here and in the other thread are hilarious. As if everything connected to the internet isn't tracked by someone. But by all means, please spend countless hours researching and deactivating various updates. The rest of us have lives.

 

[Ham n' Eggs]

 

[lxskllr]

You're talking about activation, which isn't the type of "spying" that's being referred to in the OP. Yes, they generate a hardware signature during activation, but do you have any reason to believe that it isn't anonymous? They can generate a hash out of hardware characteristics and store it without having any identifiable info. I can remember the language from the disclaimer that's played to you when you perform a phone activation; "this process is completely anonymous and no personally identifiable information will be collected", or words to that effect.



The "Safety and Reliability Data" is what everyone's losing their shit about. Assuming that Microsoft isn't lying about the contents of this, what exactly is the risk? So a hacker breaks into Microsoft's servers, decrypts the data and makes off with a swag of... anonymous crash reports.

As companies expand the amount of data hoovered up via their subscribers, a common refrain to try and ease public worry is that consumers shouldn't worry because this data is "anonymized." However, time and time again studies have highlighted how it's not particularly difficult to tie these data sets to consumer identities -- usually with only the use of a few additional contextual clues. It doesn't really matter whether we're talking about cellular location data, GPS data, taxi data or NSA metadata, the basic fact is these anonymous data sets aren't really anonymous.

The latest in a long stream of such studies comes from MIT, where researchers explored (the actual study is paywalled) whether they could glean unique identities from "anonymous" user data using a handful of contextual clues. Studying the purportedly anonymous credit card transactions of 1.1 million users at 10,000 retail locations over a period of three months, the researchers found they could identify 90% of the users' names by using four additional data points like the dates and locations of four purchases. Using three clues, including more specific points like the exact price of a purchase, allowed the identifying of 94% of the consumers. Intentionally trying to make the data points less precise didn't help protect consumer privacy much:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...howing-anonymous-data-not-all-anonymous.shtml

"Anonymous" data, is data that isn't collected in the first place.

 

[Dude111]

I have no love for Windows 10, and almost no respect for Microsoft at this point, but I think this privacy issue is being overblown and personally I don't have an issue with them collecting anonymous diagnostic data ("Safety and Reliability Data" as they call it) since you can disable the outer layers of data collection ("Personalization Data").

But really they have ZERO RIGHTS to anything on YOUR COMPUTER!!


You bought and paid for it.... UNLESS THEY GIVE YOU $2000 you should not willingly let them collect anything FROM YOUR MACHINE!!

 

[postmortemIA]

I've been getting "Get Office" notifications periodically ever since I've upgraded in August. Sure you can disable the notification... And leave the app.
BUT if you actually try to remove the app for all users you'll see how much you no longer have ownership over your computer.

 

[tidy]

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[lxskllr]

So assuming that that it can be de-anonymized, can you give me a specific scenario of how the safety and reliability data ("device ID, device type, and application crash data" as defined by microsoft) will be used to my detriment?

No, I don't sit around and try to forsee every way people and companies can screw me. It takes too much time, and I'm not smart enough. In any case, that's putting the cart before the horse. MS has no right to *any* of your data. Nothing should ever be sent to them without being explicitly allowed at the time of request. A 20 page EULA/service agreement shown at the time of install isn't proper consent. It's your computer, not MS's.

Once that's settled, then we can discuss what's being sent to MS. Can it be examined by the user? If not, you're taking MS's word on what they collect, and their word has no value. It may or may not be as "anonymous" as they say, and care of storage is taken at their whim.

 

[tidy]

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[lxskllr]

That sounds like a perilous road to start down. If their word has no value, then why the mistrust of 10 in particular. What's to say they were't sneaking data in previous systems?

I agree. They've never been trustworthy. Win10 is only an evolution, but it could be considered worse(in general) due to increases in technological proficiency. Data is cheaper to acquire, store, and analyze than its ever been, and it'll only get easier in the future. That's why it's important to control it now. Once data is released, it's gone forever.

If one doesn't trust Microsoft's word, then it would seem that one has little choice but to steer clear of their software altogether.

Words to live by ;^)

 

[bruceb]

I was able to do the free upgrade on a Toshiba laptop from Win 8.1 to Win 10 Home x64 .. got most things setup fairly well, but I do miss the Classic theme. Can't really get it to look like XP yet. And since it was free, I did not get the option to go with the Pro version which has more features. I could always update it, but that would cost the price of a license for it. As usual, Microcrap did some things correct and a whole lot of things incorrect.

 

[quikah]

I was able to do the free upgrade on a Toshiba laptop from Win 8.1 to Win 10 Home x64 .. got most things setup fairly well, but I do miss the Classic theme. Can't really get it to look like XP yet. And since it was free, I did not get the option to go with the Pro version which has more features. I could always update it, but that would cost the price of a license for it. As usual, Microcrap did some things correct and a whole lot of things incorrect.

Did you try one of the start replacements? Might make it more to your liking.

You will upgrade to the same version you had. Not sure why you were expecting a free bump up to pro.

 

[bruceb]

Yes, I installed Classic Shell ... menu is better, but not the actual Desktop Theme.
One item at a time, I will get it as close as I can to how I really want it to be.