Microsoft vacates moral high ground for the data slurpers' cesspit A funny thing happened while I was reinstalling Windows 8 over Windows 10 yesterday morning. There in front of me, halfway through the installation process, were two full, clear pages of privacy toggles. Every toggle was set to not send private information to Microsoft, or anyone else. In addition, Windows 8 created a local …
@capain veg
"I've been known to bitch about RyanAir. I don't care about how badly they treat their customers because I will never again be one. I do care about what they have done to people's expectations and how the rest of the industry has responded in kind."
Exactly.
This is the problem right here and it extends across several industries. I am a 'gamer' and was one of the people who vowed not to buy an Xbox One after the ridiculous 'always online' requirements. But why did MS even attempt this? What made them think that people would accept that? Steam did. Steam and EA (Origin) and Ubisoft (Uplay) and Blizzard (Battle.net).
Or take something otherwise unrelated to the topic - beer. In Australia, our standard size bottled beer is 375ml. Has been for yonks. With the rise of imported beers and craft beers, more traditional, standard offerings have been downsizing their bottles to the same 345ml, 330ml and even 320ml sizes that these more premium option come in. The price stays the same (or even increases), of course. It's the same thing - and, in the end, the same result: before too long you won't have much of an option as everyone follows suit.
Someone might decide to refuse to fly with an airline that charges for baggage but what happens when they all start doing this?
Likewise, related to another article on Samsung 'Smart' TVs inserting ads and collecting data. Sure, you can say: "just don't buy a Smart TV" but what happens when they are the only ones available?
why "upgrade" if you dont need to?
Because you sometimes don't have a choice. I got a Samsung for my parents, and the reason I got it is because it's big enough for my father to read subtitles without glasses. The issue is that it is flat out impossible to buy a large TV of a decent quality that does NOT come crammed to the gills with all this crud, and worse, makes it impossible to delete it.
The only useful thing on that TV was Skype, because it can run in the background for inbound calls so I can get hold of them without a separate computer involved (although Samsung naturally implemented it in a way that needs their expensive webcam to make it work), but every so often it wants to upgrade. There is no way I have found that makes that silent or kills it off, and God help me if they touch any of the Smart Hub buttons because it confuses the heck out of them.
I would welcome it if a company made a TV for seniors where you could lock out all that crud or (better) delete it altogether.
Oh it's all about the money, no doubt there.
But just for one second imagine the situation if WinSlurp 1 0 fails as spectacularly as Vista did.
I'm pretty sure that would be one hell of kick to Micrsoft's bottom . . line.
But yeah, I know, I'm dreaming again. Nurse ! Bring me my pills. The red ones.
I'm pretty sure WIndows 10 will fail spectacularly.
Windows 7 users have no reason to "upgrade". There is nothing tempting about Windows 10 for them.
Only Windows 8 users have a real reason to "upgrade", but Windows 8 doesn't have a large market share. Windows 10 GUI changes should really have been a service pack for 8, as an apology for its clumsy GUI.
PC sales are down, and probably mostly bouyed by corporate sales. Corporations have only just transitioned to Windows 7, if that. No way will they transition to Windows 10 as it looks at the moment.
MS tries to charge you for an OS that is essentially a tool for MS to monetise you. Not a good plan.
The "free" version of Windows 10 is essentially a conversion of another OS (Windows 7 or 8) into an operating system where control of it has been transferred to MS (via the mandatory update path).
The new version you get is tied to the hardware. It is unclear what happens when the motherboard dies, or the harddisk needs upgrading, etc. If you previously had a fully payed for version of Windows,
with installation media, installable on the PC of your choice, you would be MAD to swap that with a Windows 10 version! (I can see lot's of back pedaling by MS in the future when angry hordes have finally discovered what they accidentally have agreed upon.)
I feel pretty much the same, data harvesting should be opt-in, not hidden opt-out.
Additionally, I believe this is against some (?) EU regulations on data protection and I still believe someone whose self-expressive skills aren't sub-turnip should write a petition since I haven't seen any sign of any EU organs noticing what's going on, as usual.
However, I find the number of people ignoring, accepting, or even defending these practices rather disturbing. Has the 'civilized' society completely given up its demands for privacy and not being datamined for no benefit to it? Most of the apologists would respond to this something along the lines of "If you want privacy, don't upgrade" or even "Don't use the internet"... Oh well.
Has the 'civilized' society completely given up its demands for privacy and not being datamined for no benefit to it?
Short answer.. yes. Just look to the comments sections on any article about privacy, be it companies or agencies. There's a hard core of "this is neat that I get this but I don't have anything to hide" for companies like Google to "we need to stop terrorism and paedophiles". And the list and acceptances of this go on. The IoT with all of its intrusiveness is seen by many as a "good thing".
Let's face it, we've been sucked in. It's only a matter of time before we get chewed up and spat out once our usefulness the data hoarders is used up.
"People mostly lived in small towns, and had no anonymity, and not much privacy either."
From their neighbours. But their lack of privacy had a small radius, perhaps a mile or so. The cottager or smallholder only knew about the outside world perhaps through visitors or a newspaper that might be weeks out of date, and the outside world didn't know about him at all. A lot of people still fundamentally don't get this; that in the small town people know who you are and you know who they are, but on the Internet, many people can know about you and you do not have a clue about them. What's more, in those small communities there was a web of trust; everybody knew who could keep secrets and who couldn't.
The modern concept of privacy is only necessary because previously unimagined ways of invading it now exist.
>>"To be honest, this concept of privacy is almost recent. Only a two hundred years ago, you wouldn't have dreamt of hiding your secrets from your neighbors. People mostly lived in small towns, and had no anonymity, and not much privacy either."
Actually, I'm pretty sure people hid their information going back as far as there were those with power and those without. Every village hid information from the visiting taxmen. And if you think there weren't secrets in even small communities then you've never lived in one. In short, you're talking bollocks.
And this data slurping "it's not your machine" stuff started a while back, first, when MS decided to keep Windows Updates a secret until they were released, followed shortly thereafter by all the "important" updates that turned out to be nothing more than data grabs and ads to get you to install Windows 10. No wonder they stopped telling you what was coming! That was a watershed moment for our organization, when we knew instantly that ANY trust we had in MS was gone.
It's stunning to look at how badly they want to destroy their Enterprise business. Almost like those in charge have always hated the company-provisioned desktop and now they're going to liberate us all with something "fun". They blew it with Windows Phone - imagine what they could have done if they had targeted the Blackberry market with Enterprise features and real MDM - and they've been destroying the desktop market since Win8. Win10 looks to continue that tradition.
I was happy to see Ballmer leave, but I'm starting to wonder if the cure is worse than the disease.
Actually it started a long time ago perhaps as long as 15 years ago... The moment that setup/install programs began to phone home to report that they were being installed or to check for updates on install.
I remember when setup/install programs did not access the Internet and one had to visit a website to check for updates. Yes a little inconvenient I will admit. But at that time the only data one shared was what the browser used to download the update leaked. Nowadays without using Wireshark and being able to decrypt the sent data one does not have a clue what data is being sent.
'one had to visit a website to check for updates'...
Remember 'Oil Change'? Little program that scanned your machine and checked for any of your installed software required updates. Saw it at COMDEX back in the late 90's, sat on one of the booth chicks until she gave up a couple of copies..
I thought it was pretty cool at the time - reckon it just opened the door. Damn shame really, too bad we can't have nice things anymore, eh?
And this data slurping "it's not your machine" stuff started a while back...
The first inkling I recall, that things were going bad, was when Microsoft infested Windows XP with Windows Genuine Advantage DRM via Windows Update. (I never trusted them again.) The next big milestone was video DRM baked-in to Vista. After that it's hard to pick out individual instances.
Clearly, the moral decay is accelerating on some kind of exponential curve.
The first inkling I recall, that things were going bad, was when Microsoft infested Windows XP with Windows Genuine Advantage DRM via Windows Update. (I never trusted them again.)
That "Windows Genuine Advantage" was also the first really clear hint that they have no problem with feeding their customers any line of BS to get their way. There was no "Advantage" there for anyone except MS, for the people just trying to run a box this &^%$ thing was forever in the way when changing hardware or recovering from the many crashes it was prone to.
Stage 1 - Collect all personal data...
Stage 2 - ?
Stage 3 - Profit!
I wonder what the Microsoft gnomes are cooking up for stage 2. The only thing we can rely on is that today's Microsoft is too crap to every get it right. But I'm still not going to touch Windows 10.
ISTR from my readingof Groklaw over the years that MS was behind the SCO farce.
I agree thought tht El Reg has been slow at criticising Google for its failings, too.
And I pointed out 5 ays ago somehwere in the commentard stream that MS likely now see its users as the product. They're probably seeing if they can head Facebook and Google off at the pass.
I'm glad to be reminded of that wonderful saga. Especially the guy who worked in an office opposite McBride's and used to report on his comings and goings, and how he appeared to be enjoying his day.
Sadly since then PR has become much more professional, and we probably won't see his like again.
One part was quite clear - MS (and Sun) felt a sudden urge to buy 20M$ 'Unix licenses' from The SCO Group. Who didn't even have a proper right to sell them.
But ties between MS and other TSCOG investors were elusive at best.
techrights.org/wiki/index.php/SCO
I think the model is now to continuously upgrade Windows 10 (as a paid-for service of course) so it could be seen as the last Microsoft Desktop OS.
I would suggest that as far as Microsoft is concerned, the last Desktop Windows OS was Windows 7.
In future, the desktop will merely be there to provide support to the App layer and any other uses people have (maybe not even gaming, since they seem to have got XBOX-PC streaming working) at the moment don't seem to figure in their plans.
This privacy bullshit has, for me, totally and contemptuously discarded decades of trust people have had in Microsoft.
Next year - Linux On The Desktop, by default.
The thing that I find the most disturbing is the lack of both awareness and, once that's sorted, concern about this among my technically literate, otherwise intelligent colleagues. We've been discussing Win10 today and I've been dismissed as paranoid when describing the defaults.
The only machine of mine that's getting Win10 is a cheapo crappy laptop that currently has 8.1, on the basis that it will rid me of 8.1, and that machine hardly ever sees the internet anyway. For my work and gaming machines it's stick with 7 for the foreseeable future.
The tech-unsavy love the XboxOne integration, the tech-savy are happier with the ui, and even the IT workers like the new ui, and are recommending it left right and centre.
I think prolonged exposure to google has resulted in numbness to privacy concerns, and prolonged exposure to MS marketing has resulted in a numbness and softening between the ears.
The problem with your approach has already been demonstrated. Microsoft is more than willing, definitely able, to insert anything they want into the Windows Update stream. Keeping your machines on Windows 7 isn't going to amount to any kind of protection. Simply rolling a telemetry tool into a security patch (the telemetry being, just sayin', monitoring the patch) is enough. I have no idea if this will ever happen though.
I'm taking a different tack. Android tablet and Windows 8.1 laptop are going to be the internet facing machines, my serious hardware completely off the grid. Even ignoring the the privacy threats (my privacy is long gone), the internet is getting much more crazy than even the Wild West reputation to date. We've seen limited forms of blow-back already. Won't prevent everything but I'd like my archives to have a reasonable chance to survive intact at least until I'm gone.
I might even update the Asus laptop to Windows 10. Google at least seems to have a clue about me, I check regularly. Microsoft given past performance on the advertising and data collection end, well they aren't so good.
...Hit the nail on the head right there.
Microsoft have in recent years got caught up in some stupid race with Apple to provide the best 'digital assistant'.
Such a service does require deep integration with the entire operating system and application environment combined with a high degree of connectivity with supporting cloud processing and storage to make it all work.
It really hasn't occurred to them that a lot of people like myself really DON'T WANT a digital assistant.
My problem with a digital assistant has nothing to do with being an expert system, that's nearly ideal, especially for those times I am out of contact for whatever reason. My problem has everything to do with the system (potentially) being under the control of others be they corporate or government. I've circled the problem many times as I'm very predictable so having some autonomous software that lives immersed in the internet wouldn't be at all difficult to engineer. Securely by design, given. I'd go so far as formal verification being as if it screwed up, well identity theft would be mild by comparison. None of the pieces are hard given how many different fields I've done predictive analytics in. More applying the right model for each dataset.
Cortana, Siri, Google Now, none of them in any way, shape or form resemble how I'd do things. All have been DOA here, will always remain so.
>>"It really hasn't occurred to them that a lot of people like myself really DON'T WANT a digital assistant."
I would be fine with it if I could choose the aspects that I want. It would be nice to use it for appointment's management. But MS want consent to scan my txts and emails. I'm perfectly happy to accept a compromise and not have it auto adding things because it found an email from an airline in my inbox. But compromises don't seem to be on offer. There might be a setting to turn it off but as far as I can see you can't even get to that part without first going through the consent agreement part.
when i have to upgrade the win7 in 2020 its looking like i will upgrade to 8.1 (with classic shell) until it is EOL in 2023 unless something privacy focused and decent from microsoft comes out between now and then.
my compliance officer would have a heart attack if i allow windows 10 on the corporate network in its current state even with all switches turned to "Do NOT send Data" as with updates who is to know what will be slipped in or turned back on. even reading the description of each update before putting on WSUS is risky as Microsoft's recent from shows that the description is rather vague or downright misleading.
Personally and at work I would pay a premium to have a privacy based version of windows with no tracking tools. "I know sod all chance of that" but without it work will NOT deploy windows 10
Has any one turned everything off to make windows 10 less key logger esque and set up network logging to see if data is still transmitted?
nor did I until last month.
I have avoided 8 & 8.1 like the plague until i had to help a friend out and my usual protests about not working on it failed. (owed them a favour so couldn't just say "NO") and was pestilently surprised how usable it was (after classic shell had been installed!!!)
i still prefer win7 but when its EOL need to change to something supported and win8.1 with classic shell or start8. as compliance wont allow me to run an unsupported OS at work and at home i want a secure os with as small a footprint as possible but looks like what im used to.
I do now run 8.1 with classic shell as a test OS on some machines at home and work.but not ready to move over totally yet.
Given MS is really an enterprise oriented company, W10 may be a bigger disaster than W8 or Vista. Many organizations have legal obligations to protect much of their internal data. Any OS that consistently phones home by default jeopardizes data security. If I were asked what to do in the future my likely recommendations would be a Linux distro (probably Linux Mint) or Apple. Linux would be attractive because no new hardware would be needed.
Thats the problem we have the compliance officer would not allow Windows 10 on the network due to statutory legal obligations over security. so unless they bring out a "NO !!!" spyware Enterprise edition,
Linux may be the only option after 2023, "I" would need to retrain to admin it :-( i run a linux box as a user as a test box but i have no admin experience where as I have been using windows since 3.1 and being admin since NT4.
the company may also not want to move to Linux due to user training costs but with more and more of the tools they use becoming web based (running on web servers on the company network) I hope the base OS will become irrelevant, as long as the users can log in, get the rights they need to access the relevant files they need and can fire up a browser they can get their mail (OWA) and their office tools etc that they need. finance would be the main sticking point as their main tool is windows only.
here is hoping someone at Microsoft has an epiphany moment and realises they have a problem and bring out a paid for secure version, and hope users dont keep sleepwalking in to the data belongs to the corporations mindset, be it Google, Apple or Microsoft. - but unfortunately i dont see either of these things happening. - EU investigation?, doubt it :-(
There are no Windows 7,8 or Windows 10 users who have a legitimate reason to complain about computer and Internet user privacy - at all.
It has become tiresome to an extreme to hear constant moaning and complaining from Windows users, who all the while are kissing Microsoft's anus for crap software they are receiving as simple-minded, slavish minions.
The article author's reverting to Apple Mac Pro was wise although late, or he could have moved some time ago to one of the world class GNU/Linux distributions, even for running some Windows specific applications via VMWare Virtuaualization. Fortunately companies like Valve with their Steam game engine have moved to porting more than 1300 "games" to Linux environment as of July, 2015. Others are apparently following suit.
There should be no sympathy for the Windows supporters mired in everlasting whining, mental confusion and mediocre technology.
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