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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the we-are-really-security-conscious dept.

According to The Register Microsoft plans to enable their WIFI Sense feature on all versions of Windows 10 by default.

WIFI Sense has been lurking on Windows Phones since version 8.1.

A Windows 10 feature, Wi-Fi Sense, smells like a significant security risk: it shares access to password-protected Wi-Fi networks with the user's contacts. So giving a wireless password to one person grants access to everyone who knows them. That includes their Outlook.com (nee Hotmail) contacts, Skype contacts and, with an opt-in, their Facebook friends.

With every laptop running Windows 10 in the business radiating access, the security risk is significant. A second issue is that by giving Wi-Fi Sense access to your Facebook contacts, you are giving Microsoft a list of your Facebook friends, as well as your wireless passwords.

Microsoft offers a totally ridiculous workaround: you can simply add _optout to the SSID to prevent it from working with WiFi Sense.

Microsoft's page on WIFI Sense hasn't yet made it clear that every Windows 10 computer using WIFI will have the feature on by default. But that page does also include this little gem:

Wi-Fi Sense uses your location to identify open networks near you that it knows about by crowdsourcing.

Where are the lawyers when you need them?


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 01 2015, @12:29PM (#203735)

    Well in Windows Phone, there is an option to turn this on or off, so I imagine Windows 10 will also have an on/off feature. And what it exactly does, is it sends the wifi password to your contacts, but it doesn't let them see it or know what it is. Its more for visitors/friends coming around and instead of logging on to your wifi every time, you can share the password with them and bam!, all good.

    In theory.

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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by urza9814 on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:49PM

    by urza9814 (3954) on Wednesday July 01 2015, @05:49PM (#203862) Journal

    Right...an option that's probably on by default, and which 99.99% of Windows users won't know exists.

    So now you give your wifi password to the friend visiting for the weekend...and now a thousand random strangers have your wifi password. Including all the shady spammer fake profiles they've accepted requests from. Yeah, that sounds like a *fantastic* idea...

    Anyone know a simple way to blacklist ALL Windows devices on an OpenWRT router? I don't own any, and I'm sure as hell not giving my password to anyone who does.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @05:46AM (#204113)

    A password that I cannot view, but I can freely use is pretty much just as good.