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Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

HairyMcbiker
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Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

From El Reg

Now

Windows 10 Home and Pro has, right now, two levels of data collection, Basic and Full. When a computer is in Basic mode, Microsoft says Win 10 takes a note of the state of your hardware and its specifications, your internet connection quality, records of crashes and hangs by software, any compatibility problems, driver usage data, which apps you've installed and how you use them, and other bits and pieces.

In Full mode, shedloads more is sent over. It includes everything at the Basic level plus records of events generated by the operating system, and your "inking and typing data." Engineers, with permission from Microsoft’s privacy governance team, can obtain users' documents that trigger crashes in applications, so they can work out what's going wrong. The techies can also run diagnostic tools remotely on the computers, again with permission from their overseers.

And next

In the Creators Update, aka Windows 10 version 1703, all this information will be collected in Basic mode. A lot of it is to help Microsofties pinpoint the cause of crashes and potential new malware infections, although it includes things like logs of you giving applications administrator privileges via the UAC, battery life readings, firmware version details, details of your hardware down to the color and serial number of the machine, which cell network you're using, and so on.

Then there's the information collected in Full mode, which includes everything in Basic plus your user settings and preferences, your browser choice, lists of your peripherals, the apps you use to edit and view images and videos, how long you use the mouse and keyboard, all the applications you've ever installed, URLs to videos you've watched that triggered an error, URLs to music that triggered an error, time spent reading ebooks, text typed in a Microsoft web browser's address and search bar, URLs visited, visited webpage titles, the words you've spoken to Cortana or had translated to text by the system, your ink strokes, and more.

 

 

So M$ has the RIGHT to collect all this info, 'cause you got a free OS? Think again, YOU gave them permission. Lips_are_sealed

Glad I no longer have W10 on this pc (for gaming only).

Privacy they have heard of it, but obviously assume it doesn't apply to them Crazy

30 REPLIES 30
Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

One way to get around this is to black hole the IP addresses used to send the information to. This can be done using a dummy zone, if you have your own DNS server or entering them into the hosts file on the PC itself. Here's a list of the ones I have should you want to do it yourself.

choice.microsoft.com
choice.microsoft.com.nstac.net
df.telemetry.microsoft.com	
oca.telemetry.microsoft.com oca.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net redir.metaservices.microsoft.com reports.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com services.wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com settings-sandbox.data.microsoft.com settings-win.data.microsoft.com sqm.df.telemetry.microsoft.com sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com sqm.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com telecommand.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net telemetry.appex.bing.net telemetry.microsoft.com telemetry.urs.microsoft.com vortex-sandbox.data.microsoft.com vortex-win.data.microsoft.com
vortex.data.microsoft.com watson.telemetry.microsoft.com watson.telemetry.microsoft.com.nsatc.net watson.ppe.telemetry.microsoft.com wes.df.telemetry.microsoft.com vortex-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net vortex-cy2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net watson.live.com watson.microsoft.com feedback.search.microsoft.com feedback.windows.com corp.sts.microsoft.com diagnostics.support.microsoft.com i1.services.social.microsoft.com i1.services.social.microsoft.com.nsatc.net vortex-bn2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net vortex-cy2.metron.live.com.nsatc.net ca.telemetry.microsoft.com cache.datamart.windows.com diagnostics.support.microsoft.com spynet2.microsoft.com spynetalt.microsoft.com

 

rongtw
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

i have win10 1703 , and have no problem at all being on the insider program , what most people don't realize you cant turn off most of what win10 collects .

its mainly hardware info anyhow , or what software you use I would be more concerned about what your ISP logs say !

Under the terms of the legislation, your ISP would have the right to collect and store all of your browsing history – what domains you visited, how long you spent on certain sites, and even what pages you viewed for some websites. From a privacy standpoint, all rules are now gone and it's up to the ISPs to decide what they want to do with your data.

and that's not collected from win10 !!! its any Operating system

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HairyMcbiker
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

@rongtw hence the rise of VPN's.
Why should M$ want the url of something I watched, they say it is for diagnostics but where does it end. ISP's always could "see" what you visited, they couldn't see the content on secure sites, just the ip address. PN's own systems show it in the usage pages, what/where/when. Not detailed but there.
1994 comes to mind here.

Again YES you can turn off most of it, but it is ON by default even when you select NO (basic mode), But it is down to tech savvy folk to LOOK for how to disable it, joe bloggs user doesn't want to know how to change it, they will just click NEXT.

ReedRichards
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10


@HairyMcbiker wrote:

@rongtw hence the rise of VPN's.
Why should M$ want the url of something I watched, they say it is for diagnostics but where does it end. 


If your browser crashes after you visit a particular web site and the same thing happens to a large number of people then I imagine Microsoft would want to know which web site is responsible.  It seems a bit egocentric to believe that Microsoft want to know the URLs of all the harmless web sites you visit.  You ,or any other one individual, aren't that interesting. 

rongtw
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

Yes ,, if you have nothing to hide ,, why worry

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HairyMcbiker
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

Why worry, indeed just move to China, there the government will take care of everything for you. As we move closer to that, people are just letting them and big companies take over their lives. Social media has a lot of blame in this, upload a photo to a sharing site and it is no longer your property it is theirs to do as they want with it. Allowing a random individual to take control of your computer WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION, is what M$ have added, and you are just rolling over on it.

@ReedRichards it is not JUST your browser it is ANY app you are running. If you are fine with it then go on your happy way, me I will stick with Linux, and only use M$ for gaming not viewing any media/browsing.
ReedRichards
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

@HairyMcbiker I'm not particularly happy but it does seem to me that there is some sense in being able to see which websites cause problems.  And Plusnet must know every web site I visit anyway so that's not my biggest secret.    

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

That's a fair point @ReedRichards, but in reality how often do you encounter a broken web site that would need Microsoft's assistance to fix it when in reality it is down to the webmaster at the domain to fix it and not Microsoft.

ReedRichards
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

I don't think Microsoft would care tuppence about a broken web site but they might want to know about one that frequently crashed Edge or Internet Explorer.  Or one that people had visited just before their security software started detecting malign activity.  

Anonymous
Not applicable

Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

Again very fair points, but I really don't think they care at all, with the exception of being able to collect as much information about a user as possible. As I've said before, data is money, and we both know whose benefit it is for, and with all of the scams purporting to come from Microsoft support we know they're not going to contact you. If you've got an issue you resolve it yourself of your get a tech to do it, and they're not going to contact Microsoft either, as the default recommendation is to avoid the site or re-install Windows.

I'd be interested to find out how many, if any, people have actually used Microsoft in this manner.

chenks76
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10


@HairyMcbiker wrote:

So M$ has the RIGHT to collect all this info, 'cause you got a free OS? Think again, YOU gave them permission. Lips_are_sealed

Glad I no longer have W10 on this pc (for gaming only).

Privacy they have heard of it, but obviously assume it doesn't apply to them Crazy



of course we gave them permission, as we ticked the box saying we agree to the Ts&Cs during installation/setup.
those who don't agree to Microsoft doing this can simply say no to the Ts&Cs and abort the install/setup, and then return the item with Windows pre-installed, or install a different OS of their choosing.

personally i couldn't care less about what info they take or don't take. have it all, feel free to see all the debauched dark porn sites i look at, or the more embarrassing ones like engadget.

nanotm
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10


@Anonymous wrote:

Again very fair points, but I really don't think they care at all, with the exception of being able to collect as much information about a user as possible. As I've said before, data is money, and we both know whose benefit it is for, and with all of the scams purporting to come from Microsoft support we know they're not going to contact you. If you've got an issue you resolve it yourself of your get a tech to do it, and they're not going to contact Microsoft either, as the default recommendation is to avoid the site or re-install Windows.

I'd be interested to find out how many, if any, people have actually used Microsoft in this manner.


if you ever go to the worldstores website using the edge browser it crashes the browser, 100% of the time forcing you to alt+f4 to restart it and remember to use an alternate browser to view the webpage (not the only one but one that pretty much always catches me out) Microsoft need the information about that in order to fix edge browser so it will not lock itself up any time some unsuspecting user visits that website to do a spot of shopping....

although I suspect the majority of people who shop there are using icack to do so (given the recent layout revisions)

theres a set of music files on my pc that cause groove music to crash (all in older wma lossless format go figure) certain games interact in an odd way with a Cortana subroutine causing both Cortana and the game to crash.... something both Microsoft and the game dev's are trying to figure out and stop (only started doing it after the last Cortana update)

 

and fortunately for me and the thousands of others using windows 10 and playing that game or using those websites we don't have to personally fill out some bug report because the computer does it all automatically which means the faceless minions in the basement can whip the imps to fix the bugs and one day things will "just work without crashes"

 

and if the price we pay for this is them having the opportunity to see usage data and check through website history so be it

just because your paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
VileReynard
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10

I've set up the family's sole W10 so that the fibre connection appears to W10 as a dial-up connection. M$ claims that virtually no information will be phoned home.

I don't believe them, though.

BTW Why would you use a broken web browser when there are several free non-broken alternatives?

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ReedRichards
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Re: Get your tin hat on if you have Win 10


@VileReynard wrote:

 

BTW Why would you use a broken web browser when there are several free non-broken alternatives?


You're telling us that there is software out there that is perfect, never goes wrong, will never be found to have some zero day vulnerability?