SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
With the release of Windows 10 there have been serious privacy concerns raised as to what data Windows is sending home to mommy and daddy. Much of this could be called benign data leakage for your average user (location information for a map, search information, etc) but it has been hinted that even disabling these features doesn't prevent data being sent from your computer. This is also true for Android, iOS devices, browsers, browser plugins, and software registration / update tools. Even a vanilla Linux or BSD install may be sending out information you aren't aware of. If you haven't checked, you don't know.
Firing up a packet monitor is fairly easy on the host OS and a decent firewall / gateway can dump all the packets from a local network. Assuming the majority of data you would be concerned about leaking out is encrypted, is there an easy way for an owner to decrypt it to see what is actually being sent out? Are there groups conducting this type of analysis and publishing their results with any level of detail?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday August 28 2015, @11:15PM
even if you cant decrypt the payload the metadata will yield some insight.
Where are the packets sent? When are they sent? Do you receive any packets? How big are they?
Using a firewall to ban the destination IPs might help.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Saturday August 29 2015, @12:49AM
Well according to an AC on the other site [slashdot.org] the WHOIS data points to an anti-piracy troll corp, which if true every vid and song you play on Win 10 is being looked at by a *.A.A corp. On the other side we have Ed Bott saying its bullshit [zdnet.com] but he doesn't say a word about the Ars article [arstechnica.com] so we really need somebody to do an in depth traffic analysis of Win 10 to cut through the BS and the lies and determine once and for all WTF is going on.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0, Troll) by aristarchus on Saturday August 29 2015, @05:21AM
Usually, Hairyfeet, I understand what you are saying. And usually it is total crap. But this time I have no idea what you are saying, and I think it may be something worth reading. So, if you please, could you try to say this again in a way the rest of us could understand?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jbWolf on Saturday August 29 2015, @09:29AM
I thought it was understandable. Translation: "According to an anonymous commenter on slashdot, some of the data sent from Windows goes to a front for an anti-piracy group. That implies that Windows 10 is being looked at RIAA type people. Ed Bott of ZDNet says it isn't true, but doesn't talk about the information found in the Artstechnica article. Hairyfeet would love for an expert to look through the facts, ignore the bullshit and lies, and figure out what is really going on because none of us can say for certain what is going on."
And I agree with him. Microsoft has made this very obfuscated even for the experts and the tin-foil crowd is going nuts over it -- and rightly so. The past five years have shown there's a lot of companies in bed with a lot of governments and other companies on a world-wide scale. Why wouldn't we believe information is being fed to the RIAA and governments? Even completely outside the scope of Windows 10, there has been a lot of evidence to support that notion.
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Saturday August 29 2015, @11:09PM
Yes, and if someone came out with findings that disagreed with the mainstream and was confirmed to be both repeatable and true, it is possible the attention received by that person could end up being quite unwanted. Drawing attention to who swept what under the rug often draws the ire of the parents as well as whoever put that under the rug.
Note how agreeable the tech pundits have been. It is hard to find a recognizable name that has a problem with Windows 10, unless they were security people to begin with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2015, @01:15AM
ZDNet AKA PCMag are total shills for M$ft. I wouldn't give that denial any plausibility.