I am also alarmed at the level of adware inside of Windows 10 along with the use of the start menu aka cortana. This presents a means to data mine the user and further figure out what their shopping preferences are without their permission. I mean to put this in the clear the amount of stuff that would need to be disabled is ridiculous: Cortana - Data Mining Telemetry Services - That transmit unknown data Kernel CEIP I mean hell you can't even tell what they transmit because of the SSL usage. I want to know precisely what is being transmitted to MS. What I would propose is a deep level dive into the OS to see exactly what services are connecting to the MS servers. And the services be disabled along with a host block be put in place. Along with permanently disabling Cortana. Finally I would also want full control over every MS update.
@dhjons: I'm sorry, but You are mistaken. The "beady eyed" guy is not from Microsoft, but from the NSA. MS is helping the NSA to set the stage for the most comprehensive data harvesting objective that the World has ever known. If you read the Privacy agreement, you'll see that the scope of data that they can collect is increased dramatically. Not to mention that they can share it freely with third party affiliates. Microsoft is a small part of a large and dangerous agenda. And make no mistake about it. This is not just about the USA; It's about the entire world. It's no joke. And it's certainly not a waste of time. Before you reply to My post, please take the time to read through the information presented here. visit the web pages posted by others. Watch the Binny Whistleblowing video. Most Americans would and should be sickened by what they see and hear. I know I was.
@Smorgan: I agree. I was thinking that earlier today. We have no choice but to RE the OS. This is a classic example of being forced to break the law to protect yourself. And that's just wrong.
@Michaela, by that logic (and I don't dispute it), the answer is to just not use it, computers, the internet, etc. Even if you used a safe, secure OS you would still have to contend with your ISP, email providers, financial institutions, etc.
Disagree. Being forced by social pressures into accepting and treating with the respect the opinions of the dishonest and the retarded is the worst enemy. The "useful idiots" are useful for a reason, and that reason is that in a social(ist) environment, it takes great courage and determination to "out" the people too stupid to participate in a substantive conversation. On the larger issue, I understand the demographic here, and the inclination is to try to solve the problem of Win10 and Privacy via technical means. Most people here think that if you find the right tweaks, the privacy issue can be "fixed". Doomed to failure. DOOMED to failure. It will not work. You'll think it will work because you folks are in love with the elegant, "modify this bit of code and all is well" type of solution and you fail to appreciate that Microsoft has gone "all in" on this move. THEY are the malevolent enemy and you people think you can fix their "erroneous" code one .dll file at a time. "Just modify the HOSTS file" and "Destroy the Telemetry" and on & on & on. You are one little kid with a tiny little finger acting like a cork, plugging the hole in the dike. Like a scene out of "The Matrix" there are infinite rows and columns of dikes, holes, on and on forever and ever and ever. And Microsoft can manufacture more dykes and more holes and you only have 10 fingers and about 70 years before you fall over dead and return to the dust. Microsoft can adapt to your modifications and force the 99.99997% of the rest of the population to use a newly adapted "update" and you'll spend your entire life trying to figure out ways to compensate for Microsoft's infinite ability to circumvent your attempts at trying to make it's Operating System do what you want, when it's creator (Microsoft) knows it far better than you, in fact chances are likely they've anticipated every move you people are going to make for at least the next 3 years. You'll spend the next 3 years figuring out how to "fix" Windows 10, and after that 3 years your awareness will then be where Microsoft's awareness has already been. You'll still be 3 years behind (or more) 3 years from now. Meaning, all these superficial responses are simple-minded and afford you the illusion of (technical) options. The problem here is not technical, and it won't be solved by technical means. The problem here is ideological, legal, moral, political and also the willingness to at some point commit violence. Microsoft will respect humanities' God given right to privacy when they run substantial risk of having their lives terminated if they do not. The only thing that evil understands is a credible threat to it's existence. Evil will not sacrifice itself in order to benefit someone else; it's primary motive is survival. When the human beings behind the corporate veil are in jeopardy of being killed, then and only then will they suddenly discover that individual human rights to privacy (and other things) are inviolate.
I am in full agreement with this at this time. The amount of information flowing from your computer as result of these actions is insane. We would need to completely take apart the operating system to nail every connection being put in. They are even putting them in the freaking updates to pollute operating systems that once only did bug reports. My opinion is that we should take a proactive stance and actively Reverse Engineer the Operating System. This is the first time that I am actively advocating this because of the pure amount of data mining that is occurring on Windows 10. We need to look hard and gather from as many source points in the Operating System in order to make a constructive means to kill it. The other choice is to use Linux or simply not upgrade to Windows 10.
They're pushing these upgrades on Windows 7 and will be killing off support and upgrades as soon as they possibly can. The real answer is to expose what is going on.
I couldn't agree more with your statement here. We must abandon Windows 10, and ultimately abandon Microsoft. And the only way to change this is by Government intervention. But, since this is the Government's agenda, we are ultimately doomed to failure. All we can do is to try to protect ourselves as best as we can. To do that we need knowledge. We need to investigate this further.
Why am I getting a tin foil hat? I mean it should be readily apparent form what is seen in Windows 10 that their is active data mining occurring. At what point do you cross a threshold into privacy violations? I want to know what is being transferred so I can have an option if I want to use Windows 10. I am not one to be swayed into such debates simply by hear say.
There's so much data being sent to MS that it's nearly impossible to make a proper assessment of the issue. In win7 with these issues, you could at least figure out what is doing what. Now: Every app has firewall access They all send data to MS Even the Settings app sends data to MS Just to go through and plug all these holes is a huge challenge. It's such a huge challenge that every time someone makes a "super privacy plugger" app or script, they likely only plug 1/10th of what is being sent. It's really ridiculous. The default privacy options are an insult. I actually feel insulted that they thought that telemetry of your keystrokes by default was a good idea. I may play with a butchered version of this, but there is no way I'll ever spend money on it. It's too much.
I am in sad agreement Murphy78 I mean it was good for Win 7 and Win 8.1. We could at least see what was being transferred. Now its just a full on mess.
OK, the points being made about the security of Windows are indeed very sobering. Solely from the info gleaned from MDL, I have decided to leave W10 alone, with the possible exception of playing around with, as Murphy78 put it: a "butchered version"; and I will do this on a virtual machine, sandboxing it as much as I can. I use W7 pro as my daily driver and have 8.1 pro on a laptop. I also tinker with various Linux distros in VBox. From the looks of things, I may shift to Linux as my daily driver. But I like 7, and hope that it too, will not fall victim to what so many of you have discovered about 10. So, I am soliciting an opinion from those who know: Can W7 be protected from becoming "Ten-ized"? Or has that already started? It would be useful to have what I will call a "state report". What is the state, in terms of an individual user's control over their W7 system now, as compared to 5 years ago? What telemetry and associated data has been incrementally implemented/collected by MS over the years on W7? It's above my pay grade to know if this is even practical or not; but many of you have produced some very impressive work here, and your opinion is valued. Some have suggested that system tinkering will be ultimately futile, that MS will overcome all attempts of a user to be free from the brazen collection of data by MS. Others here keep coming up with more tweaks to fix things. So, is there hope....or is time to go full steam with Linux? Thanks for your consideration edit: this is probably wrong place to post this, as my question is about W7, but is still relevant for 10's privacy issues.
Along with completely disassembling Windows 10, it should be exposed as much as possible and let MS and other companies know that this is not acceptable and we are not going to stand for it. If someone can take it apart and write up something that explains what is going on in a somewhat professional manner, that can be understood by the layman, I will do everything that I can to get it into the light of the media.
That's the problem. It's a lot of work to even figure out everything that they're doing. I feel like first we need to figure out everything that sends data to MS and how. Then we need to compare other OSes. Then we need to make some sort of online petition showing how much data is being sent to MS compared to other OSes.
I understand that. But if we (by we I mean the more technically inclined than me) can get even one thing that is damning evidence of malicious intent or doing, then it will open a can of worms. I will do everything that I can to get it out there. I'm not implying that I have "connections", but I know places that will listen. And once it gets out there, then mainstream media normally picks up on it.
Ok, first item for the state report comes from info in this link: oops cant post links yet, but the article is about KB2952664, a telemetry update for W7 that rolled out in April of this year. I just uninstalled it. Earlier today I uninstalled KB3035583 and KB3021917, which have to do with W10 nagware on W7. Link is at infoworld, dated April 20, 2015. Author is Woody Leonhard. Title is: KB 2952664 triggers daily telemetry run in Windows 7 -- and may be snooping on users I just raised my pay grade by 1 cent..
Dearest, i am not American citizen nor living in the US. Fact is that the american policy is applied to all nato and american influence countries. I am full aware of the nieuw world order which is stil going on. I don't like their practices, not to be spied, not for marketing or other reasons. That's why i do not have facebook, twitter or similar social media. On internet, even on phone, i speak that way like everybody is hearing me speaking.... But i love my devices, i can hardly imagine my life without them and internet. I take so much information from the web, so much pleasure from my devices, and information, like you mentioned, is power... That makes me vulnerable to privacy attacks, from all sides, and that is also fact. But, i will not leave that fact to ruin my psychic nor my private life. I do everything i can with my limited knowledge, to limit these attacks, full aware that i can not entirely stop them... I am already happy stopping all these tons of advertisements and a part of the new M$ practices. More i can not do, neither i am lying awake because of them. I fully agree that human rights are every time under stronger pressure, i resist to that with my own way...