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[RT] 'Don't spy on me!' How to opt out of Windows 10’s intrusive defaults

21K views 236 replies 90 participants last post by  looniam 
#1 ·
Quote:
Windows 10's pre-installed settings are privacy-intrusive by default, so changing those setting is just a matter of self-respect - and also a message to Microsoft.

Following the release of Microsoft's new Windows 10 operating system, experts pointed out that it has little care for privacy, collecting on factory presets all available information about you, be it your location history, text messages and any information your share via them, personal contacts and calendar notes about your plans for exact dates, among other things.

"Microsoft collects information about you, your devices, applications and networks, and your use of those devices, applications and networks," says the Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions nearly all of us accept without reading. "Examples of data we collect include your name, email address, preferences and interests; browsing, search and file history; phone call and SMS data; device configuration and sensor data; and application usage."

What is this all about? The first thing coming to mind is targeted ads bombardment as well as selling undesired services.

"We will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to," the document says.
http://www.rt.com/usa/311383-windows-opt-out-privacy/

I'll be opting out of Windows 10 altogether.
 
#2 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by r0llinlacs View Post

http://www.rt.com/usa/311383-windows-opt-out-privacy/

I'll be opting out of Windows 10 altogether.
Everyone says that and then they cave in. I fear when I get a real job they'll not take kindly to my habit of running MSOffice in Wine on my Linux computers. I hate the cradle to the grave indoctrination product strategy that corps like MS and Apple have going.

The funny thing is that now the joke in the software world is even if you pay for something you are still the product and still mined for data.

/waits for an MS defender to come and go "there's nothing horribly intrusive about Win10" or "it's the same stuff Google does". Doesn't matter, we're still upset.

Final joke...even though Win10 is going to spy on people it will be the biggest OS even in Russia and China (eventually).
 
#4 ·
Spread the info around.

The OS for all intensive purposes appears to be back-doored from the language that Microsoft uses in their privacy policy. Pay particular attention where they mention private folders.



"Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to:

comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;

protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;

operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or

protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement."
 
#5 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by aweir View Post

Spread the info around.

The OS for all intensive purposes appears to be back-doored from the language that Microsoft uses in their privacy policy. Pay particular attention where they mention private folders.



"Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary to:

comply with applicable law or respond to valid legal process, including from law enforcement or other government agencies;

protect our customers, for example to prevent spam or attempts to defraud users of the services, or to help prevent the loss of life or serious injury of anyone;

operate and maintain the security of our services, including to prevent or stop an attack on our computer systems or networks; or

protect the rights or property of Microsoft, including enforcing the terms governing the use of the services - however, if we receive information indicating that someone is using our services to traffic in stolen intellectual or physical property of Microsoft, we will not inspect a customer's private content ourselves, but we may refer the matter to law enforcement."
Everybody can read the TOS all they want, the sad majority won't, but the fact of the matter is only so many people can really understand what it means.

I can't believe that after the Snowden "leaks" and everything we've heard about what's going on lately, I can't believe that people are putting this much trust in Microsoft at a time like this. After all we heard about the Xbone, and Microsoft failing horribly for it, now they pull the same scam with Windows and people accept it? I don't get it. I guess Windows has more loyal buttkissers than I thought.
 
#6 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by r0llinlacs View Post

Everybody can read the TOS all they want, the sad majority won't, but the fact of the matter is only so many people can really understand what it means.

I can't believe that after the Snowden "leaks" and everything we've heard about what's going on lately, I can't believe that people are putting this much trust in Microsoft at a time like this. After all we heard about the Xbone, and Microsoft failing horribly for it, now they pull the same scam with Windows and people accept it? I don't get it. I guess Windows has more loyal buttkissers than I thought.
Exactly. The frightening part is that we don't know who these "other government agencies" are or if a court order is even needed, but so far it seems like it's a free-for-all.

If I install Windows 10--IF--I will most certainly be doing my web browsing on Linux running inside virtualbox. That is, unless it somehow manages to violate Microsoft's TOS and the NSA kicks my door down to seize all my copies of non-Microsoft-approved operating systems.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by aweir View Post

Quote:
Originally Posted by r0llinlacs View Post

Everybody can read the TOS all they want, the sad majority won't, but the fact of the matter is only so many people can really understand what it means.

I can't believe that after the Snowden "leaks" and everything we've heard about what's going on lately, I can't believe that people are putting this much trust in Microsoft at a time like this. After all we heard about the Xbone, and Microsoft failing horribly for it, now they pull the same scam with Windows and people accept it? I don't get it. I guess Windows has more loyal buttkissers than I thought.
Exactly. The frightening part is that we don't know who these "other government agencies" are or if a court order is even needed, but so far it seems like it's a free-for-all.
EXACTLY, time to wake up and see what this current regime in Redmond is doing. Complete disclosure of your private details including most importantly your monetary details, to other parties should be extremely frightening.

Anytime an OS starts providing FREE and easy details of ALL of your data to other interests, means it's time to choose another OS to install on your PC.
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by r0llinlacs View Post

Everybody can read the TOS all they want, the sad majority won't, but the fact of the matter is only so many people can really understand what it means.

I can't believe that after the Snowden "leaks" and everything we've heard about what's going on lately, I can't believe that people are putting this much trust in Microsoft at a time like this. After all we heard about the Xbone, and Microsoft failing horribly for it, now they pull the same scam with Windows and people accept it? I don't get it. I guess Windows has more loyal buttkissers than I thought.
It's less that they have so many loyal followers than it is that there aren't ANY competitors out there that come even remotely close to matching what M$ provides with Windows operating systems...

Yeah sure, make the claim that Linux is great, but in reality... Linux is good until you need ease of access, and that's the major downfall of Linux itself. That and the lack of overall support...
 
#11 ·
You guys should stop using the internet too... because, guess what? You're still being spied on right now. Oh and.. burn those smartphones too btw.

Look, people need to understand that there is no way out of being spied on, as soon as you have 1-foot into the internet. It's either the entire internet bands up and put a stop to this entirely, or you know what..? Deal with it.
rolleyes.gif
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by phaseshift View Post

You can turn it off for good and have it not enable again. Here is mine, it's grayed out

 
#16 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by r0llinlacs View Post

http://www.rt.com/usa/311383-windows-opt-out-privacy/

I'll be opting out of Windows 10 altogether.
You can almost find the exact copy/paste of these policies on pretty much any major software companies site.

ANYTHING related to "oh no, they comply with law enforcement" is so incredibly cringe worthy. It's been a while, but I used to work in the SOC at Time Warner Cable. Police would just call us up, fax over the required verification docs, and boom - they have whatever logs related to a customer that he/she needed.

The applications you use log you, the OS you use logs you, the hardware you use logs you, the network you're logging into logs you, the infrastructure you use nationwide logs you.

It's silly really to sit here and complain that an email client has access to your emails.
 
#17 ·
As long as Microsoft's conduct is in line with the laws, moaning won't change anything. Probably the only real solution will be blocking connections on 3rd party firewalls, if and when the telemetry servers are revealed
biggrin.gif
 
#18 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Catscratch View Post

As long as Microsoft's conduct is in line with the laws, moaning won't change anything. Probably the only real solution will be blocking connections on 3rd party firewalls, if and when the telemetry servers are revealed
biggrin.gif
Things like Windows defender can probably be blocked with a HIPS also. Because of all the crap Windows 10 has, Comodo can't even figure out how to get their HIPS software to run on it correctly.
 
#21 ·
I'm sure we all can agree that the default privacy level is to allow MS to get everything. I'm sure we all can agree that it isn't too hard to turn these things off, even though it is somewhat of a hassle. I'm sure we all can agree that there are some functions that can't be turned off just because. My PC is probably the most privacy demanding thing I'd want for it, while my phone has Cortana and services making my life easier on the road.
 
#22 ·
OK. Last warning. Any more OT posts will lead to infractions and a locking of the thread since we can't seem to stay on topic.
 
#23 ·
I don't get why it's so hard to find orange sherbert in the U.S., most of it is tooth-rotting filth, just sugar and water and artificial flavoring. Really gets my goat when I come across a new brand, pick up a half-gallon hoping that a good brand has finally found it's way into my area, and bite into a mouth full of diabetes......

Ahem.....

Phones have been collecting just as much data for ages, and they've had just as much or more sensitive information on us for a while. People really ought to read the fine print that comes with their new shiny gadgets.
 
#24 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ganf View Post

I don't get why it's so hard to find orange sherbert in the U.S., most of it is tooth-rotting filth, just sugar and water and artificial flavoring. Really gets my goat when I come across a new brand, pick up a half-gallon hoping that a good brand has finally found it's way into my area, and bite into a mouth full of diabetes......

Ahem.....

Phones have been collecting just as much data for ages, and they've had just as much or more sensitive information on us for a while. People really ought to read the fine print that comes with their new shiny gadgets.
If people read and understood every EULA for each product/service they used, they'd never actually use anything.

(they'd probably never have time too either - those things can be pages and pages long)
 
#25 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kane2207 View Post

If people read and understood every EULA for each product/service they used, they'd never actually use anything.

(they'd probably never have time too either - those things can be pages and pages long)
To be honest, just try to read a EULA when you are not a lawyer.
I tried it once and it's just a mess of terms and combinations that mean as much as Chinese to me.
 
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