from the sunshine-is-the-best-disinfectant dept.
So far this is only in Switzerland, but there is every reason to suppose it will come up in Germany and other countries. In Switzerland, on the request of the Pirate Party, the governmental data protection office is having a look at Windows 10 (article in German, Here is a Google translation).
If the office determines that Windows 10 violates Swiss privacy laws, they can recommend changes to Windows 10. If Microsoft were to refuse to make those changes, the office would have the option of banning Windows 10 within the country. As the article points out, a similar process forced Google to make substantial changes to StreetView, so it can be effective.
Personal opinion: Switzerland is too small by itself. However, if the Pirate Party in Germany, France and elsewhere could initiate similar actions, Europe as a whole could force real change. And, hey, it will show that the Pirate Party hasn't totally lost its way.
Original Submission
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:33PM
It violates everyone and everything else!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:35PM
Do not fold, spindle, or mutilate. Violation is just fine though.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:46PM
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/scissors-cutting-computer-ethernet-network-cable-23301676.jpg [dreamstime.com]
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:10PM
Better yet, don't feed the pigs...
https://www.linux.com/news/software/applications/810295-the-top-11-best-linux-distros-for-2015 [linux.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:31PM
While that list is obviously subject to the Author's bias, it is a good list of great Linux distributions.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 5, Informative) by danomac on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:47PM
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:55PM
Obligatory list of updates to remove:
KB2652664 Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
KB2976978 Compatibility update for Windows 8.1 and Windows 8
KB3080149 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3068708 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB3022345 Update for customer experience and diagnostic telemetry
KB2952664 Compatibility update for upgrading Windows 7
KB2990214 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 7 to a later version of Windows
KB3035583 Update installs Get Windows 10 app in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 SP1
KB971033 Description of the update for Windows Activation Technologies
KB3021917 Update to Windows 7 SP1 for performance improvements
KB3044374 Update that enables you to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to a later version of Windows
KB3075249 Update that adds telemetry points to consent.exe in Windows 8.1 and Windows 7
Services (commands):
sc stop Diagtrack
sc delete Diagtrack
sc stop RemoteRegistry
sc config RemoteRegistry start= disabled
Task Scheduler Library (things to disable):
Everything under "Application Experience"
Everything under "Autochk"
Everything under "Customer Experience Improvement Program"
Everything under "Media Center"
"Disk Diagnostic" -> "Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnosticDataCollector"
"Maintenance" -> "WinSAT"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:41PM
Now muh pewter duznt werk. Thanx.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Wednesday August 26 2015, @09:52PM
I approve of this list; I had made a text file that is essentially the same (all the same KBs if not more due to paranoia, but this list is not overkill and won't harm regular usage)... I check my list every time updates come out... and check to make sure these KB's are not unhidden unexpectedly (and also not installed accidentally... who knows what I did at 3am after a game night of Team Fortress2 or Talisman).
What irritates me even more are the descriptions for many of the task scheduler items that one should disable--it is ludicrous what some of them claim.
The descriptions indicate that one has to have "opted-in" to enable these data collection services to send to Microsoft. I know that I had done no such thing. I was never even asked if I'd like to, and before disabling these things I checked every thing I had--office products, windows control panel, drivers or applications that could refer to it. Nothing. Yet these are enabled.
And more than once (only noticed due to obsessively checking for some reason during the past few months), I have found the Application and Customer Experience Improvement programs re-enabled anyway. The others have remained disabled; time will tell if that remains to be the case.
I now make it a point to check weekly to make sure that my can of raid keeps the bugs dead, even if I have to keep spraying where they pop up.
It seems a shame that the more of an "administrator" I have become over time (or supervisor/engineer/sysop), the less control I feel I have as a whole. That sense of control has eroded over time.
I was told by a colleague long ago that the more of an expert one becomes, the more one is exposed to the unseemly side of that career. This is definitely one of those times.
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Thursday August 27 2015, @08:43AM
Is there a way to make this into a script, and perhaps block those updates via registry keys? No point waiting for them to appear and checking every time if you can just create a registry key and marks them as hidden before they are even pushed out.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 3, Informative) by Jiro on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:09AM
You listed 2652664. This is not real; it's a typo for 2952664, which you also list separately.
Also, you left out 2977759.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acharax on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:23AM
It's also missing kb3075851, a recent WUSO update that had no description as to what it does and unhides itself. So possibly also related.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday August 26 2015, @09:09PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by skullz on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:56PM
Wouldn't this also apply to Android, Chrome Books, and anything Google as well? AdWords?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:00PM
Let's hope so. But those, at least, aren't accused of being a key logger with an OS as an add-on.
Win10 is probably a ready-made HIPPA violation too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by skullz on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:27PM
Win10 is probably a ready-made HIPPA violation too.
That is a very good point. I'll admit, I enjoy using Cortana and Windows 10 but if I were typing my SSN / health info into a website I would hope it was protected to some level. The website (if it was supposed to be HIPPA compliant) would but what about the browser? I'm not sure where the "this is not HIPPA, this is now HIPPA" line is but I suspect when it enters the medical system. So your phone / browser isn't required, but the "storing" website does. Otherwise any browser that stores field values has to be HIPPA compliant, as well as any addon for spell check that does a server callback, Skype addons, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:31PM
s/HIPPA/HIPAA [wikipedia.org]/
(Do not apply regex to discussions about decapod crustaceans [wikipedia.org].)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:54PM
Did not mean for regular users, I meant for healthcare providers - the desktop at the nurse's station for example. You can't have that computer sending every keystroke to MS. If MS has a way to make Win10 HIPAA compliant for their commercial customers, we should be able to apply the same changes to personal systems.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:55PM
It's not just about the sites you visit. Imagine a computer in a medical establishment running Windows10 (or Win8 / Win7 with these updates). Even enterprise reports back to M$ telemetry servers, but we're not sure what just yet.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday August 26 2015, @10:39PM
You've brought up a pretty good point beyond HIPPA I think.
If Microsoft is keylogging *everything*, then it stands to reason that the collectors themselves must comply with *all* laws such as HIPPA. Whatever federal laws exist must be complied with as well, in addition to the laws of *every* country that Windows 10 will be released in. No wonder that Russia is moving to ban Windows down all the way to Windows 7, which is coincidentally how far these shenanigans are being pushed down.
I sincerely doubt the collectors could ever comply with all of the laws, and in many cases just running Windows 10 may be a breach of contract for a business. I've seen language in some contracts that spells out the efforts required to secure business data, and quite often uses the term "reasonable efforts". I cannot possibly conclude that continuing to use Windows 10, without additional contracts to secure business data with Microsoft as a SAAS provider, would be in accordance with my contractually obligated duties to my clients business data. It's not reasonable at all to allow Microsoft to log *every* keystroke, and is in fact quite stupid and insane. I'm sure my clients would instantly ask what contractual protections do I have with Microsoft beyond the undoubtedly one-sided EULA that doesn't protect their interests, nor does it establish strong penalties for Microsoft in the event of a breach.
Not to mention that some of my clients have very strong feelings about the cloud and the security of their business data. If they're asking me to isolate all of their systems and prevent their business data from ever entering the cloud, well that just became effectively impossible with Microsoft.
Well before this, I already concluded that I would ban any device through policy or software that runs Apple/Google spyware code. However, that was simple to avoid. Just don't use Siri or the stupid spell checker. That can be disabled to prevent data leakage. Microsoft has enabled business data leakage at the lowest levels possible, while being coy about it and pointing towards some non-existent and meaningless legal protections and promises. I went to look up the updates that turn on the telemetry, and Microsoft popped something up right away asking if I had "questions" about Windows 10. Already pushing propaganda about how their updates are somehow not nefarious.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:26AM
This is what irritates me about those that attack the Windows 10 spying and then in the very same breath offers Chromebooks and Android tablets as a viable alternative...DaFuq? Don't they realize that Google's entire business relies on datamining and that they have been stealing from MSFT's playbook for years, from OEM contracts that would make Ballmer blush to pulling a EEE with Android [arstechnica.com] with the end goal of making it about as open as a TiVo, all you are doing when you choose Google products over MSFT's is trading one master for another as they have become two sides of the same coin.
Frankly everybody needs to be spamming the hell out of links showing how much spying Windows does, because if we can't turn the masses off of Win 10 like we did with win 8? Then two out of three major OSes will be spyware and the third a 'locked down soldered to the board' system that only isn't so deep into the spying because they are making insane profit margins on the hardware side.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @08:12AM
You would be a lot easier to take seriously if you actually listed the problems you have, rather than just saying "but Google", just like a certain MS ad.
For example, I have an Android tablet and no Google account (i.e. I didn't give them permission to track me). What does my Android track?
You can leave Chrome out of the list, as far as Chrome knows, I've only ever visited f-droid org, and downloaded the f-droid app - which I then used to install Firefox (the Fennec-fdroid version).
(Score: 2) by skullz on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:01PM
True but the majority of "ZOMG Microsoft is spying on me!!!1one" things can be disabled if you turn off settings and don't use a Microsoft account. You don't get Cortana, you don't get cross device contacts, WiFi passwords, preferences, etc. Location services are right out.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:37PM
it's pretty much impossible to get a real, clear and reliable picture of what's going on with windows 10 and how to cope with it. Same for modern computing in general.
There's gotta be a middle road between the cybermen and the tinfoil hat brigade, but fuck if I can figure out what it is...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Francis on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:50PM
That's why I'm in the tinfoil brigade, by the time we know where that medium lies, it's likely going to be too late to do anything about it.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:54PM
http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-10-service-configurations/ [blackviper.com] ?
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:17PM
Wow, I haven't used that site since XP days. Good to see they keep up with the times, even though I ditched winsucks for Linux after XP.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Hairyfeet on Thursday August 27 2015, @06:32AM
Informative? Really mods? Didn't click on the link I take it? Because if you did you would see, and normally I like Black Viper but in this case he came up with the default settings list by taking pics at Best Buy with his phone, he even writes "Seriously. That is what I did" so even HE knows how fricking dodgy it is!
I'm sorry mods but in this case Black Viper knows about as much as your average Geek Squad employee, that is he is just talking out his ass.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 4, Informative) by EQ on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:36PM
Really HairyFeet? Did you actually read the article at the link or just skim it? Your comment is misleading. Here' ill post a verbatim quote
This information is based upon the Windows 10 desktop versions released July 29, 2015 ...
Notes for Surface 3 and Surface 3 Pro users:
The Safe and Tweaked configurations assume a desktop environment as I do not own either device and cannot extensively test the configurations on them.
How I obtained the default service settings was by going into a local Best Buy and taking pictures of the service settings with my phone. Seriously. As such, they may not be “completely” accurate, but it is the best that I can do without spending a couple thousand dollars on the retail products. I thought about exploiting their (Best Buy, that is) 14 day no questions asked return policy, but decided to whip out my phone’s camera instead.
Furthermore, there is this:
These entries are exported directly from the registry of a default Windows 10 installation.
They are in the .reg file format (many entries are in hex notation), not as you would actually view the content via regedit.exe.
The latter pretty much shows he does have a Win10 desktop set up, from which the reg files were exported. Did you get that? The whole "camera" thing applies ONLY to the service settings on a Surface device. Not a PC desktop Win10. All the others are done on a desktop computer. I suggest you read the whole thing and recant your post or at least post a response clarifying it so its not so misleading. The one talking out his ass here is clearly you.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @12:34AM
You deride privacy advocates as the "tinfoil hat brigade", but that is just a smear term. We already know that companies have absolutely no qualms about violating users' rights if it means they can make more money, and we already know that many users tend not to care about privacy issues. Those two things just don't mix. Furthermore, because this is proprietary software, they can hide all sorts of bad things (which, as history shows, is not above them), so you can't trust it.
Not every claim against Windows and Microsoft is necessarily true, but there is also absolutely no reason to trust Microsoft.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Common Joe on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:26AM
We can't get a clear picture because Microsoft is not giving us a clear picture. And history has proven that when an entity is not giving us a clear picture, it's a very good thing to be suspicious. It usually means they are purposely misleading us or incompetent. Microsoft is so large, it is probably both.
In my opinion, the top is doing it on purpose and leaving the underlings scratching their head so they can later blame it on incompetence. That's standard operating procedure these days at a lot of companies.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Thursday August 27 2015, @04:35AM
Its actually pretty simple and as I suggested might make for a hell of a scoop for Soylent. All you have to do is 1.- Install a legit version of Windows 10 (since Insider versions cannot use privacy settings), 2.- Use a tool such as one of these [ghacks.net] and finally 3.- Analyze the traffic coming out of the machine and see if its still phoning home AFTER everything has been disabled/removed.
If after using one of these tools like "Disable Windows 10 Spying" that not only uses the privacy settings but ALSO does the reg hacks AND the HOSTS blocking AND flips the GPEdit switches you find Windows 10 is still phoning home I'd say you have your smoking gun.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Wednesday August 26 2015, @07:37PM
This might work for the EU too, because it's a plutocracy disguised as a democracy, while the USA is a corporatocracy disguised as a democracy. So it makes sense that all these privacy violating ideas are made up in the USA, but sometimes get a slap on the wrist by the EU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @08:21AM
.. and Switzerland is a bank disguised as a country. Oh, and it is not part of the EU.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:18PM
What I find more troublesome is that this Microsoft spyware isn't in violation of US laws.
Yea, yea, I know, the US laws are purchased and written by the powerful corporations. But they aren't even pretending they aren't the ones running the show any more.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @04:15AM
The spyware wasn't their idea, it was forced on them by the DEA/NSA; they had no choice but to comply.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday August 27 2015, @07:27AM
The spyware wasn't their idea, it was forced on them by the DEA/NSA; they had no choice but to comply.
It's all right, then, because they're just following orders.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @07:41AM
This is what happens when you feed a stoner scrambled eggs, and a clear indication of why europe should have pushed the TTIP treaty through much quicker than they did - if TTIP had been signed and in law by the time W10 was launched, there wouldn't be any privacy laws to worry about.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by francois.barbier on Wednesday August 26 2015, @08:42PM
There's your problem. When one corporation has power over an individual country, you are bound to be abused. I'm all for globalisation, but with regulations. This shit should not happen.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Wednesday August 26 2015, @11:35PM
The problem is more specifically that the cost in Microsoft's mind of changing Windows is higher than the cost of being banned out of the country.
Still always moving
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:19AM
I installed Windows 10 "N Edition" in a VM the other day, but then I wanted to play some MP3 files in Microsoft Edge, so I downloaded and installed the "Media Feature Pack" which restores all the features removed from N Edition.
Removing the privacy-invasive features of Windows 10 from specific editions such as the European "N Edition" will make very little difference if there will be a downloadable Privacy Invasion Pack.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2015, @05:31PM
Wait a second they actually opened up a port and let me put as much data in as I like? All from 'different' machines?
Oh that will end well. For their servers...