Windows 10 Worst Secret Spins Out Of Control [Updated]
MICROSOFT WINDOWS 10 WORST SECRET SPINS OUT OF CONTROL (UPDATED)
Update: while Microsoft has so far declined to give feedback on the data here, the Voat thread’s results are being disputed with the argument that Microsoft is responsible for only a small portion of the data tracking that is claimed. In fact the original thread post has now been deleted but the thread continues with heated arguments back and forth over the data.
Where there is consensus is Windows 10 does indeed still submit telemetry data to its servers without making that immediately clear to users who have disabled all accessible telemetry options. What is disputed is the amount.
Update 13/02/16: discussions with Microsoft are ongoing. An update will be posted to this story following these talks.
Back in November Microsoft confirmed Windows 10’s worst kept secret: its extensive telemetry (or ‘spying’ as it has been labelled) cannot be stopped. What no-one realised until now, however, was potentially the extent of it…
Providing a shock is Voat user CheesusCrust whose extensive investigation claims Windows 10 contacts Microsoft to report data thousands of times per day. And the kicker? It is said to happen even after choosing a custom Windows 10 installation and disabling all three pages of tracking options which are all enabled by default.
The raw numbers presented come out as follows: over an eight hour period Windows 10 tried to send data back to 51 different Microsoft IP addresses over 5500 times. After 30 hours of use, Windows 10 expanded that data reporting to 113 non-private IP addresses. Being non-private means there is the potential for hackers to intercept this data.
Taking this a step further, the testing was then repeated on another Windows 10 clean installation again with all data tracking options disabled and third party tool DisableWinTracking was also installed which tries to shut down all hidden Windows 10 data reporting attempts. At the end of the 30 hour period he argues Windows 10 had still managed to phone home with data 2758 times to 30 different IP addresses.
The full tabulated results have been broken down and scrutinised by software specialist site gHacks.
A further interesting fact is these tests were said to be conducted using Windows 10 Enterprise Edition – the version of Windows 10 with the most granular level of user control and far more than the standard Windows 10 Home edition used by most consumers. All of which the tests argue this controversial data tracking simply cannot be stopped.
What To Make Of This
The obvious first reaction to this might be to panic and scream about class action lawsuits, but it’s a little more complicated than that.
Firstly the Windows 10 EULA (end user license agreement) which very few users ever read, gives Microsoft full legal rights to do this. Secondly Microsoft has made several attempts to stress that the telemetry and data tracking aspects to Windows 10 are essential to its ongoing maintenance and improvement.
Speaking in November, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Joe Belfiore argued: “In the cases where we’ve not provided options [to disable tracking], we feel that those things have to do with the health of the system…In the case of knowing that our system that we’ve created is crashing, or is having serious performance problems, we view that as so helpful to the ecosystem and so not an issue of personal privacy, that today we collect that data so that we make that experience better for everyone.”
He also stressed: “We’re going to continue to listen to what the broad public says about these decisions, and ultimately our goal is to balance the right thing happening for the most people – really, for everyone – with the complexity that comes with putting in a whole lot of control.”
And yes, of course, the problem here is one of scale. For most users essential “health of the system” will not tally with Windows 10 making thousands of data connections every day to over 100 Microsoft IP addresses, if the tests are correct. And, more to the point, even if all this data sharing is somehow vital then Microsoft has currently made no attempt to explain why or divulge the processes at play.
With this in mind I contacted Microsoft with the full data results, asked it to explain or dismiss the findings and held back on publishing until the company had the chance for a full right of reply. All this meant the story itself published a number of days behind other sites. The response was worryingly predictable: “I’m afraid we are not able to provide a comment on this.”
This is the same response I’ve to Windows 8 support cuts, Windows 10 future pricing and lifecycle support as well as data tracking. In fact this is the same response the company gives to almost any question relating to disclosure of how its operating systems are being run.
It’s a notable change in policy from the openness of Microsoft in the past and makes the comment this week from Mark Wilson at BetaNews (the site which broke the story on February 6th) all the more pertinent:
“With Microsoft facing unprecedented levels of criticism for its lack of transparency over spying components, these findings will serve only to add fuel to the fire.”
Yes, this is the issue in a nutshell – yet again.
Note: It is important to state Microsoft is far from alone in using telemetry from user operating systems, most notably Google GOOGL +0.07% has done this openly for years as has Apple. Historically Microsoft has attacked the practice of collecting too much data and ran a two year global marketing campaign ‘Scroogled‘, which lambasted Google for what was claimed to be extreme tracking in its products and services. Scroogled ran from 2012 to 2014.
NESARA- Restore America – Galactic News
Source: http://nesaranews.blogspot.com/2016/02/windows-10-worst-secret-spins-out-of.html
So another big company is (again) cheating their customers? What’s new here…
Fair comment. It is probably detailed in full in the EULA…. but who reads that. Ignorance is not bliss.
If you read the EULA for Win 10, you find that you are paying for a product’s use, not the ownership of it (we call that ‘LEASING’ down here in Texas, but hey, what do I know?), and that basically nothing you have residing on that Windows system is actually private, or yours, and that Microsoft claims access to it all, as it needs it, to do whatever it is doing that they’ve locked you out of.
I read the Win 10 EULA before installing it, deleted the ‘FREE’ Win10 install, and downloaded Ubuntu that same day.
Thanks Microsoft, for finally pushing me off your Spyware Heroin to a system that performs twice-as-fast, without the spyware, and almost no viral threats.
What’s all this user data snooping for? To enable tailored and targeted marketing? Or something more sinister?
Mister Wong thinks… something more sinister; I wouldn’t be surprised if M$ were collecting user data on behalf of NSA.
All companies that track you, Samsung, Lg and any appliance that is a ‘smart device’ tracks you. Just look on pg 48 of Samsungs Tv Manual, Its right there, We track and monitor your family and give the information to a 3rd party,,,, *NSA* Time to ditch anything thats ‘smart’ until the govt gets their invasion of our privacy’s bell rung. And I hope thats not far away either.
I have a “smart” tv but it has never and will never be connected to the internet.
Yup. All companies track you. with 5500 phone home attempts over 113 differentr IP addresses and with 2758 successful connections in a single day. Actually even CIA monitoring in the international spy racket draws the line at once every minute… which is about half as many attempts as Windows 10.. It’s good to see that M$ is so concerned about the welfare of it’s clients that it checks in every 30 seconds… And 113 different addresses! Just imagine 113 dedicated Microsoft employees all over the world in 113 different safe houses ready to jumpp into action if any of these twice a minute messages looks suspicious…
Ring Ring! Hello ..
Hallo.. are you of the Computer user in house please thanking you?
Um.. Yes..
We having disturbing message of computer with the windows having virus please thanking you?
Yes..
Just to confirm… do you having the Windows on computer please?
Yes..
Would you be willing to give password and private information so I can access the windows 10 please thank you?
Yes
OK then.. what is number.. please thanking you?
Yes
OK am not thinking I got that correct please thank you -would you repeating that for me?
Yes
I am thinking with myself you are only going to be saying yes.. is that correct?
YES!
“click”
F**ing YES!
I write software and this dates back to the days when home computers only had 16k of ram and today i have become a bit of a security expert.
The data that Google collects is being feed into an evolving A.I system that is getting smarter by the day and what seems like useless information to you is being processed to read whats going on inside your mind, what makes you tick.
I never thought they would ever get bar-codes scanners working in the shops let alone facial reconision at airports so when i say be afraid, be very afraid.
This A.I system Google (Maybe others too) user interface is voice and the turing test was past during it’s trial testing before it was feed terrabytes of human data.
Not forgetting Google’s foray into robotics, filght and military contracts. The dummies that work for the company think they are all hip and trendy yet fail to realise they are creating a monster.
Back in the nineties a lot of professionals took data mining jobs not thinking for a moment why these companies needed so much intimate info on their customers. When customers didn’t give any further info they got it anyway through data mining.
We will suffer the consequences of programmers blissfully assisting these types of companies.
Yes i am guilty as charged in that respect.
Robo-cop will start life as a traffic warden but it’s comeing if we don’t stop them
Best reagrds
http://www.illuminati-news.com/070906b.htm
http://www.zengardner.com/bill-gates-pledges-allegiance-to-the-illuminati/
http://members.tripod.com/diogenes_maclugh/BGIlluminati.html
http://ressource-info.net/videos/windows-videos/bill-melinda-gates-illuminati-satanists-27653/
Methinks Microsoft wants information about your internet browsing, emails and purchases.
All this can be done quite easily using Linux…screw you, microsoft. I’ll never use windows 10.
With windows 10 you can at least take some control if you know what you are doing but X-Boxes from microsoft are another story and so far no one has jail broken one as far as i know and yet running private windows is childs play so why is that ?
The reason is that Microsoft wants you to run windows and not Linux even if it comes free because they want to spy on every one but when it comes to game play, well they have taken security very serious and locked every one out.
New microsofts pushed O/S upgrades to X-boxes now turn a wifi hotspot on with a hidden SSID and very high signal output about ten times a hour for just a few seconds and this can force other devices in your house to drop the singnal to the wifi-router and connect directly with your X-Box so microsoft can steel all the MAC addresses of netowork devices in your house.
HTTPS is then used to upload this encrypted data back to microsoft 20,000 times a day along with DLNA devices on your LAN even if your X-Box machine looks like it is turned off and no you cannot block all microsoft ranges in a hardware firewall because the box will stop working and thats just how they like it.
We are being taken for twats and have no rights because the likes of Google and Microsoft fills the back pockets of your local politicians with money.
I manually deleted Cortana from my win10 installation during the brief period that I tried it. It involved alot of changing permissions and stuff and was a pain.
I don’t know how much good this did though.
(“One” of) the first logic threads on awakening is: AM I SYMBIOTIC (HERE)?
IF Yes – continue…
ELSE BE AFRAID
Echelon found NOLEHCE
‘n Tardville is in for a WAKE-UP!
Got your Ferrocell.us ?
It’s about time some civil liberties group challenged the catch 22 clauses on smart devices, apps and software terms and conditions we are ‘forced’ to accept everytime the ‘update’. We often invest out own money in products and do not find out until after that we can only use them if we allow draconian ‘spying’ measures to take place upon us. They can access our microphones, take photo’s and access any personal data as well as contact lists when ever they want, how ever they want. In my personal opinion this has nothing to do with security but has everything to do with building a consumer profile on every individual for nefarious corporate control measures. The only way this can be stopped is to not use the software, no matter the inconvenience. If enough people did it at the same time, someone might actually take notice! There is enough room here for some smart individuals to cash in on the public desire for privacy and anonymity, the question is, is anyone brave enought to take the big boys on. I personally will be reverting my PC and laptops back to Windows 7 regardless of the ‘perceived risk’. I have stopped using Google to search the net and have already closed my google accounts. My next step is to close my Facebook account, when I recently posted my intention to do so on my Facebook pages to my friends, the post was removed from my own time line and my friends timelines! Such is the power of these corporations. I wonder what Microsoft do to me when I migrate back to an older operating system?
And, yet again, LINUX IS FREE. I run several Win 7 systems at work and home, and have refused to upgrade to Win 10. I read the Win 10 EULA, and when it said that you are paying for it (or not, if it’s free to you) but you don’t own it, or ANY DATA ON THAT SYSTEM, then I realized that Win 7 is the last Microsoft OS I will ever load on any computer again.
That same day, I downloaded a copy of UBUNTU (Linux) for FREE, and using an old computer, loaded it and started playing to learn it. I have to say, it is quite a bit easier than I expected it to be. There is, of course, free Office software for it too (like LibreOffice or Apache Office), so instead of selling your online soul to Microsoft so they can build their AI overlord, I’ll just keep my data private, thank you.
This said, be aware, even if you are turning off Windows 7 from receiving and installing ‘updates’, some of the prior patches seem to also be doing some of this Win10 spying already, anyhow. I am not sure to what level, or how much, or how much data details, but understand that even the old systems are reporting on you.
Their intent is to back up the world’s knowledge to a computer neural net, so that it not only is AI, but is referencable to ‘the elite’. Why, you might ask? Because, when 6-billion of the 7-billion are suddenly vaporized, they won’t lose any inherent knowledge from those who ‘vaporized’ along the way.
Doubt it? Then ask yourself why you paid $100 or more for Win 7, $150 or more for Win 8.1, and suddenly Win 10 has ‘all the problems worked out’ and they are giving it away to customers, FREE?!
The reason is simple, it’s hard to even get the sheep to hire and pay for that 24/7 spy sitting in the living room, otherwise. They clearly don’t need your money – so ask yourself, who IS paying them for these hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in building new software. It’s the government, silly.
If you believe that by using ubuntu, that your internet activities cannot be tracked, you’re fooling yourself.
I am so done with Microsoft. From here on out I am driving an Apple….
I guess you have no problem trusting Apple right????????????????
Time to move on from this bloated OS. Move to LINUX.
I do not trust MS anymore. THEY FORCE you to move to this OS. They give you NO CHOICE and that makes me VERY SUSPICIOUS!
I believe the storage is so cheap now they are making huge data fields about EVERYBODY on this planet. Every KEYSTROKE is now recorded – FOR THE PLEASURE OF THE MARK OF THE BEAST!!
Use MS Windows Ten at your own risk. None of its privacy features can be turned off and because keystroke logging is built in it cannot BE DETECTED OR TURNED OFF!
Time for you to be turned off by MS!