Five Privacy Issues With W10

By DrJBHL on August 2, 2015 8:02:49 AM from

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

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The first and worst? From MS’s Privacy Policy Statement:

“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 […] protect our customers or enforce the terms governing the use of the services.”

This (to me) says my computer now belongs to them. Sorry, this is completely unacceptable.

The second? Cortana:

“To enable Cortana to provide personalised experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device. Cortana also learns about you by collecting data about how you use your device and other Microsoft services, such as your music, alarm settings, whether the lockscreen is on, what you view and purchase, your browse and Bing search history, and more.”

Cortana will also collect your speech data, to “improve” speech recognition. Shades of the Barbie Doll. So, when does your own private MS spy stop “listening”? Does it ever?

Third: Your browser (sorry – their browser): When you sign in to W10 with an MS account, the OS will automatically sync

“some of your settings and data with Microsoft servers”. This includes “web browser history, favorites, and websites you have open” in addition to “saved app, website, mobile hotspot, and Wi-Fi network names and passwords”.

This you can change…there is a way to deactivate that in your MS account settings>”Sync your settings”. That should be set to a negative as the default, not the opposite as MS has done.

Fourth: Advertisers can use your data to send you targeted ads. To me, this is Superfish all over again. You can turn this off in Settings|Privacy and flick the first switch to “off”.

“The ads we select may be based on your current location, search query, or the content you are viewing. Other ads are targeted based on your likely interests or other information that we learn about you over time using demographic data, search queries, interests and favorites, usage data, and location data.”

Lastly (and perhaps worst of all): Your encryption key is automatically sent to your OneDrive account.

So, if OneDrive is ever breached, you’re screwed. Why? Because with device encryption turned on, Windows will automatically encrypt your drive and generate a BitLocker recovery key. This key is backed up, again automatically, onto your Microsoft OneDrive account. If someone changes your data are unrecoverable creating the ransomeware situation.

Don’t you think someone should be asking your permission to do these things? Also, I don’t know about you, but I’m not the property of some corporation, and neither is my computer.

No W10 for me, thanks very much.

Source:

http://www.alphr.com/microsoft/microsoft-windows-10/1001289/the-5-windows-10-privacy-issues-you-should-be-aware-of

Quoting starkers,

reply 100

This is where my roots are now so it's unlikely I'll ever go back there to live.

....translates as 'there's a warrant out for 'im' in the old Dart...

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Quoting starkers,

reply 100

Quoting Leo the Lion,

reply 99

I left the Police Force a few years ago after a very enjoyable career in the UK. Loved it and I miss all my old mates back in the 'old country'. Moved to the US into Corporate Security Work for Disney and had a great time working for 'the mouse'. Great company and great people. Now I'm doing a bit of everything in the midwest...........Corporate.........Government. Once a cop always a cop!

I wasn't actually a police officer as such. No I worked in the Information Bureau dealing with criminal files and histories, etc. I was responsible for officers getting the files required and ensuring they were replaced in their correct places when finished with. I did apply to become a fully fledged officer, and was accepted, but my wife at the time said "I'm not being married to no fechen copper", so I withdrew my application. In retrospect, I should have just gone through with it... cos about a year later she took off anyhow and left me to raise 2 kids on my own.

What part of the UK are you from? I moved with my family to Australia from Brixham, Devon in 1969, and though I missed all my old mates for the first 12 - 18 months or so, I soon made new ones, had my own family, and never really looked back. This is where my roots are now so it's unlikely I'll ever go back there to live.

East Coast and London............Great times..............

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I spent a little time in London, sightseeing and such, but I was more a country lad and wasn't overly keen on big cities I'm still much the same these days. I live about 45 minutes by train from Brisbane but have not been in there for 10 years or more, opting to do all I need in Ipswich, which is more a large country town than a city. I never liked the hustle and bustle of the big smoke, with traffic fumes so thick you could cut 'em with a knife, and everybody in so much of a hurry to get there yesterday.

As for the East Coast, I once got as far as Dover on a school trip, though that's more South East

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Small world, bud............I lived in Ipswich in the UK for some time.

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Quoting Leo the Lion,

reply 104

Small world, bud............I lived in Ipswich in the UK for some time.

I was supposed to go on a school trip for History that included Ipswich, Hastings and Harwich, but I got the measles and missed out.... AND having to do the associated assignments because I wasn't there for the in-situ lessons. Oh well, I got to go on the Coventry trip that included Shakespeare country.

I got to go on quite a few school trips because of my love of History and Geography.... Stonehenge was a beauty, as was Lands End, Canterbury Cathedral and the London Museum. Ah, how my school years provided me with some of the best days of my life, and with the UK steeped in so much history I was never without somewhere of interest to go. If there is one thing I miss about the UK nowadays it would be the history and all the historical sites.

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Microsoft...? NSA...? Google..? All data miners.

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Quoting kimpe60,

reply 106

Microsoft...? NSA...? Google..? All data miners.

I don't have an issue with the NSA as such, being I'm not in the US, but the other two are parasites.... and I don't know that Apple is any better.

Sadly, the human race has become a race of 'compliant sheep' who "Oh, I like Siri: Oh I like Cortana; Oh I like Chrome" who'd prefer to follow along willy nilly and give up their rights for the sake of a little convenience.... translates into 'mental laziness' in most cases.

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Quoting Jafo,

reply 101

Quoting starkers,

reply 100

This is where my roots are now so it's unlikely I'll ever go back there to live.

....translates as 'there's a warrant out for 'im' in the old Dart...

Oi, I resemble that being made public.... and anyhow, how did you know?

I thought that was just between me and the arresting copper.

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was going to mention this when i 1st read it a while back (only just figured out why i can't post replies here eff privacy badger blocked something)

https://boingboing.net/2015/08/10/windows-10.html

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Quoting alaknebs,

reply 109

was going to mention this when i 1st read it a while back (only just figured out why i can't post replies here

eff privacy badger blocked something)

https://boingboing.net/2015/08/10/windows-10.html

I read the linked article and the latter comments, and frankly I have to agree with the original complainant and many commenters that MS has gone too far with its invasive 'Family Controls'. For mine, it should be a family matter/decision to implement, NOT Microsoft's. to have it enabled by default... and to have Microsoft monitor EVERYTHING on under 18 accounts IS creepy. If I had children under 18, I would be more concerned about this kind of data being collected and stored by another entity... like what if it's intercepted and/or hacked by less desirable entities for untoward and/or unknown purposes? And I don't just mean creeps with ill-intent.... advertisers and other corporations are notorious for targeting children with persuasive ads, etc.

Seriously, Microsoft has gone too far in Win 10: re data collection and storage, and sending parents weekly emails about their childrens PC/online activities is way over the top. First off, given how many people have their Microsoft email accounts hacked and/or tampered with, putting that information out there like that gives creeps another avenue of access to kids personal lives. Moreover, it ISN'T going to stop bad parenting! Parents who care about their childrens computer/onilne activities will have already taken the necessary steps to protect them... from themselves and others... and bad parents are not going to respond positively anyhow.

I once caught a youngster viewing online porn, but instead of ranting about how wrong it was and threatening to cut off internet privileges, we had a conversation that proved more useful. One of the questions I asked was, "Would you like it for other people to be looking at you that way?" and the answer was a clear and decisive no. I didn't really need to say much more after that and we agreed that it wasn't a good idea. I can't say for certain that it never happened again, because I wanted to show trust by not checking the logs, but I'd like to think we reached an understanding and that my trust was respected.

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Five Privacy Issues With W10

DrJBHL