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posted by janrinok on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the over-to-you dept.

We receive our fair share of slashvertisements. Not daily, certainly, but when we get one we often get a handful. Most get a cursory read by the editors, are identified for what they are, and go straight into the bin. But not all.

Recently we have also covered the enforced Windows 10 upgrade currently being pushed by Microsoft. If there is anyone out there who has not seen such stories you really haven't been paying attention. The effort being expended by MS to make sure that you upgrade - whether intentionally or not - is matched only by that being expended by users trying to avoid the upgrade while still being able to use their licensed software. Even the Chinese are getting in on the act.

And today, both of these things, have come together.

Spybot Anti-Beacon: block and stop the various tracking (telemetry) issues present in Windows 7/8/8.1/10

https://www.safer-networking.org/spybot-anti-beacon/

"Spybot Anti-Beacon is a standalone tool which was designed to block and stop the various tracking (telemetry) issues present in Windows 10. It has since been modified to block similar tracking functionality in Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 operating systems.

Anti-Beacon is small, simple to use, and is provided free of charge. It was created to address the privacy concerns of users of Windows 10 who do not wish to have information about their PC usage sent to Microsoft. Simply clicking "Immunize" on the main screen of Anti-Beacon will immediately disable any known tracking features included by Microsoft in the operating system.

If any issues occur with your PC while using Anti-Beacon, undoing the changes made can be done by clicking the "Undo" button in the main window. This will re-enable all tracking services. If you experience any issues using Anti-Beacon or have any suggestions/recommendations, please be sure to let us know on the forum thread relating to this tool."

We are not making any claims as the the efficacy of this piece of software, nor are we supporting it or suggesting that you should download it. It might work perfectly or may be as bad as the problem that it claims to cure. We simply do not know. But if anyone has tried it we would welcome any comments that you wish to make. You will understand that the community is likely to be a little skeptical regarding comments submitted as Anonymous Coward - that is how we received the slashvertisement in the first instance.


Original Submission

Related Stories

Chinese Backlash Over Windows 10 Upgrade Push 56 comments

Microsoft is facing criticism from Chinese users about the way it is trying to persuade people to upgrade to its Windows 10 operating system.

Chinese microblog site Weibo said users had now made more than 1.2 million posts complaining about Windows 10.

The complaints in China follow criticism from IT experts who said Microsoft was using a "nasty trick" to make people upgrade.

Microsoft has not yet responded to the reports about Chinese complaints.

"The company has abused its dominant market position and broken the market order for fair play," Zhao Zhanling, a legal adviser for the Internet Society of China told the official Xinhua news agency.

He said by forcing the upgrade, Microsoft had not respected the users' right to choose what they install on their computers. This was important, he said, because eventually Microsoft might profit from the "unwanted" upgrades.

One Chinese man, Yang Shuo, who works at a Beijing-based PR firm, said the Windows 10 update interrupted him while he was working on a business plan. This meant he had to abandon the document which led to a meeting about a deal worth 3m yuan (£312,000) being cancelled.

How long can Microsoft stumble before it falls?


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 2) by patella.whack on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:35AM

    by patella.whack (3848) on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:35AM (#352117)

    I haven't yet seen this particular application until now, but FWIW I'll say that I've been a fan of this developer for a long time. I still run 1.6.2 because I like the interface.
    Popularly, SB search and destroy was eclipsed by MalwareBytes a few years ago. I'd like to hear from someone here who can comment on the reliability of these new claims. Thanks

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Hairyfeet on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:43PM

      by Hairyfeet (75) <{bassbeast1968} {at} {gmail.com}> on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:43PM (#352380) Journal

      I just ran it and....its going a little overboard on what it considers "spying" and this is from someone who considers Win 10 to be malware.

      For an example it considers Windows Disk Diagnostic Data Collector to be spyware and all it is a Windows Task Manager task that counts how many disk errors Windows has and alerts the user if Windows is having "disk write error" issues which is a big warning sign your drive is about to shit the bed and it brings up a handy wizard to help you get your data off before it dies...I think most people would like to KEEP that feature, as losing your data to a dying drive is never fun, yet its checked to block it by default. They also have it lumped in with a bunch of the Consumer Experience Improvement Programs so you can't just say "No I want to keep this and get rid of that" which I really don't like. They are also using HOSTS blocking which has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to NOT WORK as the MSFT telemetry programs have their DNS hardcoded so no calls for DNS are needed.

      All in all I really do not care for their "all or nothing" approach nor their blocking data which can actually cause data loss if the system begins having drive issues (since with this setting blocked Windows cannot count errors over time to spot a pattern of failed write) so I will be sticking to the handy dandy .BAT file from Alaya [alaya.net] that simple removes the specific telemetry patches if they are found and if not hides them in WU, combined with GRC's Never10 I've not had any "phoning home" showing up on my router logs for anything other than the usual benign things like Windows Time. If they made the tool a little more fine grained and got rid of the snakeoil HOSTS blocking? I might give it another look, but right now I would be seriously leery of anybody who thinks disk diagnostics are spyware.

      --
      ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:40AM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:40AM (#352119) Journal

    I downloaded the software while the story was in the queue. Installed, and I found that most of the crap was already blocked. I enabled the one thing that wasn't blocked. The wife and kids haven't noticed or said anything. I don't use that computer, but I sure hear about it when something is wrong with it.

    Aegis and GWX control panel have both been installed previously, so it appears that they all do similar, overlapping things.

    http://ultimateoutsider.com/downloads/ [ultimateoutsider.com]

    https://github.com/th3power/aegis-voat [github.com]

    • (Score: 2) by patella.whack on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:43AM

      by patella.whack (3848) on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:43AM (#352120)

      thanks to a post of yours awhile back, i installed GWX, so kudos. Hadn't heard of Aegis until now. thanks for the mention

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:45AM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:45AM (#352122) Journal

        You're more than welcome!

        • (Score: 2) by patella.whack on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:05AM

          by patella.whack (3848) on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:05AM (#352124)

          (an aside, my frowny-faced enemy)

          democrat-IC for your sig, or is that intentional?

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:24AM

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:24AM (#352127) Journal

            It's intentional - the idea is to offend both parties. ;^) I'm thrilled that the old reliable GOP voters have taken the election out of the hands of party officials, and I'm cheering Bernie and the threat of a revolution among the Dems. This is turning into a beautiful election year. The one thing that would really make me happy, is for Justice to finally prosecute Shrillary. "Clinton for Prison 2016!"

            • (Score: 2) by patella.whack on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:30AM

              by patella.whack (3848) on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:30AM (#352129)

              Yes! Offend both parties is a laudable goal. IMO This seems to be a crucial year in terms of potential fracture. What is the most we can hope for? Probably, or rather, not likely, but hopefully: a third party.

              Well, Shillary is indeed an apt moniker, but 'they' got nothin' on her. She ain't going to prison. She's goin to the White House.

        • (Score: 1) by FatPhil on Sunday May 29 2016, @08:50AM

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Sunday May 29 2016, @08:50AM (#352196) Homepage
          This is why possible slashvertisments aren't necessarily bad stories - we can share tales of alternatives, both good and bad.

          If you want to slashvertise, be prepared to be torn to shreds.

          Oh, inB4 the other lunies: what's this "windows" thing?
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:57AM

            by zocalo (302) on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:57AM (#352218)
            Definitely, but the editors need to be really choosy about which slashvertisements they make to avoid the issues around it that are still somewhat prevalent on the other site. Continually pushing the same pool of vendors would definitely be bad, but picking out things that have a direct relevance to current hot topics, like the Windows 10 Telemetry issues, is good in moderation. I'd suggest a formal policy for such things of adopting a strict vendor neutral stance and both linking to competing products in TFA and requesting further suggestions of good products in the comments.
            --
            UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:27AM

    by Gravis (4596) on Sunday May 29 2016, @03:27AM (#352128)

    if you want to cure your computer of it's spyware problem, stop using Windows. there are plenty of alternatives that don't spy on you.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:03AM

      by GungnirSniper (1671) on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:03AM (#352132) Journal

      And gain new compatibility problems, unsupported game limitations, and other headaches? For all of Windows' flaws, it is a known quantity. We're used to augmenting the OS, as with Classic Shell or similar.

      The thing that's going to do Windows in is the move to Netsc^H^H^H^H^H the cloud. Why bother with local apps?

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:30AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:30AM (#352169)

        And gain new compatibility problems, unsupported game limitations, and other headaches? For all of Windows' flaws, it is a known quantity.

        If your main concern is technical quality, I think your priorities are wrong. Windows is proprietary software, and not only does it not respect your freedoms, but the software actively abuses its users in extremely malicious ways. You should rank freedom more highly.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2016, @07:15AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 31 2016, @07:15AM (#352972)

        And gain new compatibility problems, unsupported game limitations, and other headaches?

        Windows created those compatibilitly problems. OpenGL was free and they created DirectX first as a wrapper around OpenGL to accomplish the "embrace and extend" part of their typical play.

        Windows don't support games, it's the games that are written to proprietary APIs thanks to various vendor lock-in and even exclusivity deals. This is the exact opposite of "supporting games". If Microsoft actually supported games then they'd have excellent support for both OpenGL and DirectX, but they don't. It's not in their gameplan to let users and devs decide which software API to write their software to.

        While your complaints of having incompatibilities are true, let's not forget who makes sure hardware and software is incompatible: Microsoft. The POSIX standard has been out for longer than Windows, but Microsoft intentionally creates incompatibilities in order to leverage market position. In addition to monopolistic pressures (which they were found guilty of before), they now work to ensure hardware devs don't give users alternatives that are equal or superior to the Microsoft-only drivers (because their oversight period expired). Another example of incompatibilities: Remember IE6? Microsoft could have implemented POSIX and all this "incompatible" bullshit would have been resolved.

        Nowadays developers can simply select a cross platform development toolchain. Starting new projects its a no-brainer. Why not select cross platform compatibility and for the same dev cost pickup more marketshare across more platforms? Exclusivity deals. Look at the Console Market. That's where console makers, like Microsoft, actually pay to prevent games from being cross platform. This is because the truth has come out: Operating Systems are Irrelevant. We have platform abstraction layers now. All major game engines, like Unreal, Unity, Valve's Source, etc. all support cross platform development. So, ask yourself why are the games "incompatible"? Now it's not the Operating System's fault. It's the developer's choice, and that choice is influenced by pro-incompatibility business model.

        Windows is the source of the incompatibilities. Hell, Windows in incompatible with itself. I ran into less issues (none) installing Linux rather than installing Win7 over a pre-installed Win8, and had major driver headaches installing Win7 over Win10. At one point I was booting into a Linux live CD, that just worked, in order to connect to the network to transfer the Windows drivers for ethernet, WIFI and USB controller -- That is to say, I could install and boot Win7 or Win10 on this Win8 box, but once doing so I couldn't use a USB drive or network connection because Windows didn't come with the drivers, but damn near every Linux distro had support out of the box. Talk about incompatibilities. As far as compatibility is concerned Linux actually surpasses Microsoft. Performance wise hardware driver devs still make the windows driver better. Note that this is a reflection not on the OS, but once again on the driver developer choices.

    • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:09AM

      by mhajicek (51) on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:09AM (#352135)

      None that will run my $40k of CADCAM software.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:45AM

        by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:45AM (#352151)

        For $40kthe developers of you CAD software can package their own supported GNU/Linux or BSD or Haiku distribution.

        I suspect proprietary video drivers may be an issue.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by mhajicek on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:55AM

          by mhajicek (51) on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:55AM (#352154)

          I believe you seriously underestimate the size and cost of the project.

          --
          The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:10AM

          by cykros (989) on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:10AM (#352157)

          $40k will pay one engineer for a year, if they're fresh out of college. If you outsource, perhaps you can get as many as 3. I'm not seeing this as enough to accomplish any meaningful change.

          Don't think that just because Slackware can be managed by a couple of guys that you can pay a couple of guys to get the same results. Some things either get done because people WANT to do them more than anything else, or they don't get done without a LOT more than $40k to finance them.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:22AM

            by Scruffy Beard 2 (6030) on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:22AM (#352161)

            The developers of the CAD software likely have more than one customer.

          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:35AM

            by anubi (2828) on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:35AM (#352201) Journal

            I have seen all too many times what happens when one tries to hires the cheapest help he can get.

            Nearly every time I have seen someone go at it this way, he would have been much further ahead one year from then had he not done anything at all.

            One hires on ability to do the job, and someone's dedication to their work.

            If you set price as a primary goal, you are very apt to receive a cheap shafting.

            Kinda like a joke I used to hear in government contracting... "We ordered precision shafting - and they sent pipe!" followed by "We sent exactly what you ordered."

            --
            "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:47AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @07:47AM (#352187)

      Yes. Linux.
      Without systemd.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday May 29 2016, @04:09AM

    I am increasingly using Haiki [haiku-os.org]. It is a BSD-licensed clone of BeOS.

    While it's not beta yet, it is stable enough for daily use. It works fine in a VM and often can work when natively installed. What's required before it goes beta is mostly a large number of really petty fixes.

    As I write this I'm running Linux Mint Cinnamon 17.2 as I'm getting set up for Android Platform Development. Maybe I'll take a stab at building Android firmware on Haiku. An article about doing so would make nice SEO for my site.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dltaylor on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:16AM

    by dltaylor (4693) on Sunday May 29 2016, @05:16AM (#352158)

    I used a spare drive to clone my laptop's Win 7 install (which defaults to an OpenBSD partition), patched it fully and let it "upgrade".

    Spybot (S&D and Anti-Beacon), along with a couple of my other Windows lock-down tools (ZoneAlarm and MalwareBytes AntiMalware) are already installed, and re-installed, and fully updated.

    I have port mirroring on the switch, so I can watch the traffic from another computer. What IP addresses, ports should I look for as Microsoft spyware? It can't be Microsoft globally, because Windows 10 IS going to check for updates, at least.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:38AM (#352172)

      What IP addresses, ports should I look for as Microsoft spyware? It can't be Microsoft globally, because Windows 10 IS going to check for updates, at least.

      And here we have the winner. This is why such schemes will never work. Bit like DRM, if you lock up something but then have to also give the key to somebody to use it, it's not going to work. Funny how such realizations don't seem to stop people for going for such "solutions"...

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:46AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 29 2016, @06:46AM (#352175) Journal

      This is one list I found - http://pastebin.com/xWGWGE2M [pastebin.com]

      There are several lists circulating, but I'm unsure what all the addresses are, TBH. Anything with vortex, telemetry, or telecommand in the name is probably pretty bad, the others I just don't know. My own personal opinion is that my machine should never communicate with anyone or anything without my express permission and intent. Others may have different opinions.

      • (Score: 2) by dltaylor on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:38AM

        by dltaylor (4693) on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:38AM (#352216)

        Thanks. It gives me a starting point.

        I agree about the never without my permission, but Windows 10 update explicitly violates that tenet.

        For those few times I only have a Windows tool, I'll keep Windows 7 around, but that laptop normally is running OpenBSD, or, for the odd multimedia job, AV Linux (I despise systemd, but that distro has packaged, and tested, a large collection of multimedia tools, some of which are not (yet, at least) in the OpenBSD "ports" tree).

    • (Score: 2) by zocalo on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:06AM

      by zocalo (302) on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:06AM (#352221)
      If you let it then Spybot Anti-Malware will install a list in your hosts file (\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) of the ones it knows about - 70 hosts across a whole bunch of domains (not all owned by Microsoft) and cloud providers as of the current version.
      --
      UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:26PM (#352371)

      https://github.com/WindowsLies/BlockWindows/blob/master/hostslist [github.com]
      Not sure how accurate it is. But I seem to have notice a slightly longer delay to boot after using it on my router.
      I might have to actually measure it rather than just guess if it's the "phone home" timeout or not.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @10:26AM (#352213)

    How does that work? I assume all that one does is add the relevant Microsoft servers to the hosts file - and hasn't it been established already that Microsoft bypasses hosts for telemetry?
    Has anyone tested if less data gets transmitted after using this tool?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hamsterdan on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:15AM

      by hamsterdan (2829) on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:15AM (#352228)

      What about blocking at the router itself? (Like I do for ads)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @01:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @01:50PM (#352243)

        so what's that tool for then?

      • (Score: 2) by KritonK on Monday May 30 2016, @07:57AM

        by KritonK (465) on Monday May 30 2016, @07:57AM (#352541)

        I tried it, and Windows Update stopped working—shows how much Windows was respecting the hosts file, that I was using before.

        The next day I installed Linux and never looked back.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:53PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @02:53PM (#352258)

    This is a problem to be solved in router firmware.

    Mobil usage means you carry a router if you care.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:18PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @09:18PM (#352358)

    Microsoft claims that you'll not get updates if you stop the telemetry.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:14PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2016, @11:14PM (#352389)

      works for me