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Peter Bright at ArsTechnica reports:
Windows 10 uses the Internet a lot to support many of its features. The operating system also sports numerous knobs to twiddle that are supposed to disable most of these features, and the potentially privacy-compromising connections that go with them.
Unfortunately for privacy advocates, these controls don't appear to be sufficient to completely prevent the operating system from going online and communicating with Microsoft's servers.
For example, even with Cortana and searching the Web from the Start menu disabled, opening Start and typing will send a request to www.bing.com to request a file called threshold.appcache which appears to contain some Cortana information, even though Cortana is disabled. The request for this file appears to contain a random machine ID that persists across reboots.
Hairyfeet's contribution adds the following:
A Czech site went one further and did a traffic analysis on a default Windows 10 install, what did he find? Well it looks like the Win 10 Keylogger in the beta is still running with pretty much every keystroke, voice, and webcam data being sent to Microsoft even with Cortana disabled.
[Ed's Comment: The report about the Czech traffic analysis originally came from a newspaper and some comments doubt the veracity of this source.]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by MrNemesis on Thursday August 13 2015, @07:43PM
(One of the) Original submitter(s) here.
Sure, HairyFeet saying something bad and inflammatory about MS is about as shocking as ursine mammals defecating in sylvan settings or inquiring as to the religious leanings of the head of state of the Vatican. But I was actually waiting for the story to be posted so I could chip in with the links he added to his submission since (thanks for merging them, Eds!), well, this whole thing is interesting and bears further investigation.
I wouldn't label myself as an anti-MS nut - I use windows, both begrudingly and happily, both at work and at play because it's great at some things and terrible at others. I'm also perfectly au fait with linux for exactly the same reasons (mostly because when I was introduced to computers I was infodumped on NT5 and linux at the same time so happy to use either of them when Best Tool For The Job comes in to play); the only things I tend to be rabidly against in this debate are a) advertising and b) people trying to pull a fast one on me, both of which are things that W10 is showing strong signs of doing. It's part of the reason I like Peter Bright's articles so much - he's perfectly happy to admit he likes windows but happier still to admit its failings and start diving deep into them if he feels it's necessary.
So, things to investigate now are:
1) If one does block all of those domains in a local hosts file, or in their local DNS server, does windows still try and upload stuff?
2) Does blocking all of this gumpf b0rk windows updates? Is WU indeed also now used as a transmission for telemetry data?
3) Is there any way of breaking open the streams to see what the really juicy data is?
4) Do I need to up my medication or will an extra layer of tinfoil be sufficient?
...but for now for the time being W10 is verboten from my local LANs and Windows 7/2008R2 is looking like that last "good" windows MS made. Watching The Prisoner [imdb.com] as a kid seems to have had a stronger effect on me than I first thought; I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own. Welcome to the "consumerisation" of business tools and I would be grateful if thou wouldst vacateth thine lawn.
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @08:22PM
Number Six had a comfortable little fictional life in which he never had to work to earn any money, never paid taxes, and never traveled anywhere. Here in the really real world, even the alleged freedom-lover Richard Matthew Stallman is pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed and numbered every time he flies on a plane, and RMS is perfectly willing to sacrifice his freedoms because his desire to participate in the jet set is stronger than his desire for freedom.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by captain normal on Thursday August 13 2015, @09:18PM
Indeed, freedom has it's price.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @03:30AM
Indeed, I'm not sure how people can allow themselves to have their fundamental and constitutional liberties be violated by TSA thugs.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @08:18AM
In this specific case, I don't think he has much to worry about. Can you imagine a TSA guy volunteering to grope RMS?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @08:35AM
Of course he has a lot to worry about. Everyone who is searched by the TSA (either by TSA thugs themselves or with their invasive scanners) has their constitutional rights violated.
There should be a complete boycott of the airline industry. That's what I've done ever since the TSA was created. It's sad, but since our courts won't defend the constitution, we need to.
(Score: 5, Informative) by darkfeline on Thursday August 13 2015, @11:42PM
>If one does block all of those domains in a local hosts file, or in their local DNS server, does windows still try and upload stuff?
Yes, the telemetry IPs are hard-coded. Windows will throw errors about not being able to resolve the name, but if you check the traffic the packets will still be sent. No, I don't have a reliable source to provide for this information.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by xav on Friday August 14 2015, @11:04AM
Then add a route for that IP range to localhost, or to a non-existant IP on your LAN. If Windows still takes the default route for those IPs then something is really rotten.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday August 14 2015, @09:06PM
As both the link I provided and the original Forbes article in the comments show using HOSTS will not work in this case (sorry APK, MSFT put you out of business) as they have hardcoded the IP addresses to their servers in the OS. If somebody would like to confirm by loading Win 10 in a VM or spare box and capturing what comes out after using the disable tool or going in manually and turning everything off? Please do but I've seen enough sources saying this is so for me to not trust the OS until somebody shows me a wireshark log saying otherwise.
So until some pirate releases a "Windows 10 Gamer Edition" with everything stripped out? I will advsise my customers that running Windows 10 is no different than hooking up a webcam and sending all your activity to MSFT and pretty much anybody else MSFT wants to hand it to. I bet the first customer for MSFT? The MPAA/RIAA who will use their fingerprinting of movies and music to go after those downloading media, don't be surprised if there is a new wave of *.A.A court cases as they can simply bypass the ISPs and get the data from MSFT without any pesky courts required.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.