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posted by CoolHand on Thursday August 13 2015, @06:22PM   Printer-friendly
from the oh-that-microsoft dept.

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.]


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @07:55PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @07:55PM (#222484)

    They probably stick with Windows because they think Linux is a command line OS that requires a lot of experience to install and use. At least that's what I thought 6 years ago, but I got tired of BSODs and sluggish performance so I started out with Ubuntu wubi 10.04. A few months later, after playing with it, I wiped the drive and installed it as the only OS. I try to talk friends and family into switching, but they have the same hysteria that Linux doesn't have a GUI, even after explaining that you can make it look and feel like Windows, they don't want to try because MS is their warm fuzzy friend. I will never go back to Windows, it sucks and always will.

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  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @08:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @08:08PM (#222489)

    So if Marty would've done his mom in the past, would he have vanished immediately, slowly, or become immortal?

    What of his seed?

    Would there, could there by any special qualities passed through someone who has passed through time?

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Tramii on Thursday August 13 2015, @10:11PM

    by Tramii (920) on Thursday August 13 2015, @10:11PM (#222554)

    They probably stick with Windows because they think Linux is a command line OS that requires a lot of experience to install and use.

    They probably stick with Windows because they like playing video games.

    • (Score: 2) by Nollij on Friday August 14 2015, @12:27AM

      by Nollij (4559) on Friday August 14 2015, @12:27AM (#222602)

      People stick with Windows because it's what they know. They've gotten used to it. They know how to deal with its operation, its quirks, and its failings. They know how to get help when they need, but mostly they know how to simply not need help in their day-to-day tasks. No matter how you slice it, switching - to anything else - is a huge learning curve. One that most people simply don't want to do.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @12:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @12:46AM (#222607)

        I kept hearing this very same line presented about Internet Explorer, right up to - and after - the revelation that IE only dominated the market because businesses kept using it.

        Mind you, one of the numb-nuts who told me that also "proved" (in his own mind) that Firefox was just a front end for Internet Explorer. Same guy, a shop owner, has also told me that an aftermarket Cooler Master heatsink will modify a ZIF socket for an i7, causing the graphics subsystem to short out.

        • (Score: 1) by Stardaemon on Friday August 14 2015, @07:53AM

          by Stardaemon (4294) on Friday August 14 2015, @07:53AM (#222725)

          Same guy, a shop owner, has also told me that an aftermarket Cooler Master heatsink will modify a ZIF socket for an i7, causing the graphics subsystem to short out.

          To be fair, he might have been speaking from experience;)

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Friday August 14 2015, @03:06AM

        by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday August 14 2015, @03:06AM (#222655) Journal

        To steal a line from Mel Brooks "Bullshit bullshit aaaaannnnddd BULLSHIT". I have YET to see a single person come into the shop that didn't have a half a dozen "I MUST have these programs" that guess what? Don't work on Linux. This is the classic "We have a browser and LO so that is all you need" and its bull, it was bull 20 years ago and its bull now.

        I probably have a grand in my game collection, how many run on Linux? MAYBE $60 worth, and its all the old games or indie crap i got in bundles I really could not care less about, the triple A titles I play? yeah...no. The hundreds in audio recording software, the interface? yeah that don't work either. My new graphics card? Will perform less powerfully than my old card if I'm running Linux. And of course the hairyfeet challenge is still standing proud after 8 years showing if I were to take Linux I'd waste hundreds of dollars of MY time when torvalds gets an itch and decides to change a pointer because he is old and refuses to get rid of a driver model that is literally older than Windows fricking 98...is he gonna reimburse me for that time? Are you? Thought not.

        So people will just stick with Windows NOT because they "don't know better" but because your "choice" won't run the piles of software they have, has worse performance, and is frankly of lower quality by pretty much every measure there is. Instead some pirate will just release a "Hey here is how to kill that shit" patch, just as they released "Windows 8 Gamer Edition" with all the bullshit stripped out, and all will be good. Oh and I predict that despite the backlash Windows 10 will still have more users in 3 months than Linux has had in 22 years, just as it was for every Windows since Windows 95 because while "a browser and LO and Gimp" may be good enough for you? The vast majority of us actually buy our PCs to do shit besides browse the web and all those tasks and all that software? Yep don't run on Linux and probably never will. You might as well say "Hey people don't need trucks and cars, here take this bicycle" because that is what you are offering, a tool that won't do a tenth, hell a hundredth, of what you are attempting to replace.

        --
        ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
        • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @08:34AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 14 2015, @08:34AM (#222733)

          I have YET to see a single person come into the shop that didn't have a half a dozen "I MUST have these programs" that guess what? Don't work on Linux.

          Possibly because only the people with those requirements shop at your shop. Walmart and others have plenty of selection for everyone else. That's where my parents were sent when they were looking for a new laptop. "But we don't know what to look for" - "The screen. Make sure it has a good screen that you can see without needing a magnifying glass. Even the cheapest laptop you'll find will have at least twice as much power as you need".

          Turns out they got a Windows 8 laptop, so we had to install Classic Shell. Other than that, the software they need is called Firefox (nobody wants to clean in IE-infected PC), Libre Office (WGA checks have made pirating MS Office too much trouble), and Gramps (https://gramps-project.org/). Plus I had to install Thunderbird, because they can't figure out the GMail interface.

          All that software runs at least as well on Linux. But Windows is what they know.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday August 14 2015, @05:16PM

          by tangomargarine (667) on Friday August 14 2015, @05:16PM (#222908)

          Maybe we would take you more seriously if you didn't rant and rave so much. You're like Ethanol only minus all the slurs ;)

          And is it really so shocking that a bunch of people working for free, reverse-engineering support for a platform that is constantly upgrading are behind the curve? *cracks whip* Work harder, you retarded shitstains! Faster!!

          --
          "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
          • (Score: 1, Redundant) by Hairyfeet on Friday August 14 2015, @08:59PM

            by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday August 14 2015, @08:59PM (#223006) Journal

            I am old and won't pussyfoot or play politics, you want pretty lies? Go to HuffyPo or Faux, Homey don't play that.

            And you DO know you are arguing the classic "shit sandwich" fallacy, yes? You are literally saying that if somebody hands you a free sandwich filled with dogshit that its free and you have no right to complain. Well YOU can munch down on that juicy dog turd but I will be more than happy to point out that free shit is STILL SHIT, be it Windows 10 keylogging shit or Linux broken shit, shit is shit is shit. And I notice you chose to ignore the entire post which to condense by stealing a line from a POTUS election "Its the programs stupid" because who gives a shit about your free OS if it doesn't run the programs I fricking bought a computer to run in the first place? I built my PC to 1.- Run my expensive A/V software, 2.- Play my games, 3.- Record said gameplay, 4.- Surf. The only one of those your OS does is the last and least important one as the software I use for the other 3? Yeah it don't work. And please don't point to some half ass ersatz copy that "kinda sorta" does those jobs because they do them poorly, with less features, and with lower performance.

            So I'm sorry but your argument that just because a handful of people (just FYI more than 80% of work on Linux is paid for by major corps, the "free developers" is a myth, most are on a payroll of a corp like HP or Red Hat) do a piss poor job on their own time somehow makes it "noble" or worth giving up thousands of dollars in software just to take it? Well I'll be happy to paint the walls of your house in ditch water for absolutely nothing but I really don't think choosing me over Sherman Williams would be a wise choice, do you?

            --
            ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
            • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday August 17 2015, @12:58AM

              by tangomargarine (667) on Monday August 17 2015, @12:58AM (#223694)

              And you DO know you are arguing the classic "shit sandwich" fallacy, yes? You are literally saying that if somebody hands you a free sandwich filled with dogshit that its free and you have no right to complain.

              I'm just pointing out that comparing Windows vs. MacOS vs. Linux on an even basis as you love to do isn't really fair.

              I built my PC to 1.- Run my expensive A/V software, 2.- Play my games, 3.- Record said gameplay, 4.- Surf. The only one of those your OS does is the last and least important one as the software I use for the other 3? Yeah it don't work.

              1. Why? There's the whole thing where on Linux you don't really *need* antivirus. I have a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine and I don't run that expensive antivirus shit either, even on Windows. If you're halfway tech-savvy (which you seem to be) you don't need it anyway.
              2. Somewhat accurate, but WINE. It really depends what games you're talking about. Don't they support WoW pretty damn well? It's admittedly kludgy and hit-and-miss.
              3. Yep, I'm sure that's covered, assuming of course you can get the game to run in the first place. Kind of disingenuous to list it as a separate bullet point since it's so heavily dependant on #2.
              4. Also covered.

              (just FYI more than 80% of work on Linux is paid for by major corps, the "free developers" is a myth, most are on a payroll of a corp like HP or Red Hat)

              Yeah okay whatever Captain No Citation.

              or worth giving up thousands of dollars in software

              It seems like you're usually arguing this issue in a business context, which I concede. But just because Linux isn't the best solution for business doesn't make it "shit shit shit oh my god I wipe my ass with this shit fuck off and die" as you like to froth about.

              --
              "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
              • (Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Monday August 17 2015, @03:37AM

                by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Monday August 17 2015, @03:37AM (#223749) Journal

                Are you REALLY saying "you don't need that" to the thousands of dollars of software that I spent nearly a grand building my PC to run? Really? Wait a minute...are you really so bad at Internet lingo you think A/V means antivirus? LOL A/V is "audio visual" as in programs to record and compose music and video, what you are thinking of is "AV" without the dash. my AV is free so I do not care if your OS has no AV, which just FYI you might want to Google "Linux malware" as metasploit now has no less than 4 pieces that WILL infect a Linux desktop so if you go to the wrong site? You'll be pwned quicker than an XP user.

                Wine? LOL what a bad joke, if you are REALLY lucky you'll get 40% of the framerate and unless the game is WoW or a handful of otherf "this is too big for us to ignore" titles your performance is gonna be ass. I didn't spend $150 on my card to have it run like the $60 card I replaced, thanks. Also I refuse to buy Intel and Nvidia, I'm strictly AMD, and AMD drivers on Linux are fine for an XBMC using an APU, but for gaming? It would be like going back to Win98, no thanks.

                And I take it you have never heard of this thing called Google? Here let me Bing it for you...there ya go [dbta.com], took less than 5 seconds. Next time try usiung a search engine, its really not hard, ok? If you need the search term its "the majority of Linux development paid for by" and you'll find hundreds of links saying the same thing, its paid by companies like RHEL and HP for SERVER use, desktop doesn't get more than a couple % and the lions share of that? Canonical on code nobody but they use.

                And I have already proven its shit because it cannot perform what is the most basic function of an OS, the ability to update itself to respond to threats without shitting on its own drivers. The hairyfeet challenge has stood for EIGHT YEARS, without a single "user friendly" Linux passing, not one. What is this mountain of a task I ask Linux to do it simply cannot surmount? "Update yourself without shitting on your drivers"...that's it. Hell I even rigged the test in Linux' favor by removing items that frankly should be considered standard, no printers, no support for cell phones, hell I even left out support for gaming cards so those guys using Intel crap APUs could use their systems to take the challenge, result? Linux STILL craps itself and dies hard, in fact i have yet to see a Linux distro make it to year 3 without WiFi and sound busted, and often you'll get a black screen of death before you even get to that point. Feel free to take the challenge, its been posted all over the net but I warn ya if you do? You won't be singing the praises of Linux any more, in fact I had 2 that took the test tell me they went out and bought Mac Mini units as they were so depressed by what they saw they just quit Linux then and there.

                --
                ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.