Windows 10 and Privacy?

[MariosX]

So I have read a couple of articles that say "Windows 10 spy on You" and they send your information to other parties

Also Windows can identify pirated games and counterfeit software  and what happen if they do?

 

[Flawedspirit]

I don't have specifics, but I think the privacy situation in Windows 10 sits somewhere between "worse than we hoped" and "better than we feared."

It collects a lot of stuff, but nothing that others (Ubuntu, OSX, anything Google or Facebook touches) aren't already grabbing.

In terms of the "pirated games and counterfeit software" it's only on the lookout for Windows Store apps. Microsoft doesn't give two damns about your pirated version of Photoshop or all that Game of Thrones.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

Depending on who you ask, the answers will vary.

From what I've read, Windows will "spy" on you as much as your smartphone's applications will send data back. It's supposed to be anonymous, nothing that would identify you as an individual.

Regarding the ability to identify pirated software, there is/was talk of that being in place. Check Neowin's article to read up on what may happen.

[Kierax2016]

Windows 10 may spy on you sure, but no more then your mother in law.

[Quillz]

I honestly think a lot of it is being overblown.

[LimeMaster]

Disabling a lot of the options under the Privacy section in Settings app should stop most of the data collecting. And for the rest, third party tools like ShutUp10 are required.
 

[Kierax2016]

I honestly think a lot of it is being overblown.

By now, it's become a solarwind.

[123456789A]

Windows has been collecting information for quite some time. It isn't really new. Pretty much any OS made in the last 5-10 years has some form of data collection.

Microsoft is just very up front about the collection practices, so people get scared of all the options they can or can't disable. They could probably do a better job of explaining why they collect the information.

[kozukumi]

Microsoft offers many new 'services' in Windows 10 with the two biggest ones being Cortana and OneDrive.

If you already use Outlook.com (or Hotmail, Live.com) or Gmail or Yahoo! Mail then you will be used to these privacy policies as they are essentially all the same in that they will analyse your email contents to better target you with ads. This is kind of new to Microsoft as before hand they didn't do the same kind of analysis that Gmail did but now they pretty much do.

Let's break this down a little bit; Cortana needs to listen to you obviously. When you use Cortana Microsoft keeps a record of what you say so that it can develop a better profile of how you use Cortana. If you always ask for the weather in the morning then they can use that knowledge to provide you a better experience. Is it an "invasion" of your privacy? Not really, you opt-in to using Cortana. If you want to use Cortana you need to give her access to things such as your contacts so she can remind you when it is someone's birthday or your calendar and location so she can tell you that you will need to leave 30 minutes earlier today to catch your flight because of traffic, etc. Providing these services without access to your personal data would be impossible. Think of it how you give hospitals access to your medical records regardless of what hospital you are at so they can see your past treatments, etc.

The same is true of OneDrive. Basically Microsoft can analyse your files to see how you use OneDrive, etc. As part of them offering you the service they also do a few extra things such as using meta data and file hashes with their PhotoDNA system to look for child abuse images, etc.

The whole pirate games and hardware thing comes down to their Xbox service. If they detect counterfeit hardware like a fake-official-looking Xbox One controller they will disable it to prevent possible damage to your console. This has actually been true for quite a while from what I understand. The same is true of copied games that are sold as if they were legit games. 

At the end of the day if you are using online services from Google the nyou already agreed to a pretty much identical privacy policy with Google to what Microsoft's is with some Windows 10 services.

Also you should know that you are free to not use these services in which case you don't need to think about it at all.

One thing you cannot opt-out of is providing basic telemetry from your use of Windows 10. This is just standard performance data collected by Microsoft such as did an update install correctly? If not why not? What features do you open once but never use again? What little known and hard to find features do you use every day? All things to help provide a better experience in the future. As I said you can't opt-out of this, at least not without hacking away at services and files and permissions which really isn't worth doing in my opinion.

I hope that helps explain things a bit better for you, sorry it was such a long post!

[Noir Angel]

The telemetry collection program in the insider program analysed the contents of files and sent them to Microsoft, so I'd personally say I consider it pretty intrusive. I personally use these 2 command scripts to disable it, just put the text into notepad then save it as a .bat file

First script:

sc delete DiagTrack
sc delete dmwappushservice
cd C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Diagnosis\ETLLogs\AutoLogger
echo "" > AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener.etl 
cacls  AutoLogger-Diagtrack-Listener.etl  /d SYSTEM
pause

 

Second Script:

@echo off

title Disable/Enable Windows Telemetry
color 1f
:Begin UAC check and Auto-Elevate Permissions
:-------------------------------------
REM  --> Check for permissions
>nul 2>&1 "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\cacls.exe" "%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\config\system"

REM --> If error flag set, we do not have admin.
if '%errorlevel%' NEQ '0' (
echo:
echo   Requesting Administrative Privileges...
echo   Press YES in UAC Prompt to Continue
echo:

    goto UACPrompt
) else ( goto gotAdmin )

:UACPrompt
    echo Set UAC = CreateObject^("Shell.Application"^) > "%temp%\getadmin.vbs"
    echo UAC.ShellExecute "%~s0", "", "", "runas", 1 >> "%temp%\getadmin.vbs"

    "%temp%\getadmin.vbs"
    exit /B

:gotAdmin
    if exist "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" ( del "%temp%\getadmin.vbs" )
    pushd "%CD%"
    CD /D "%~dp0"
:--------------------------------------

:Check the key:
(reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection" /v "AllowTelemetry"|find /i "0x0")>NUL 2>NUL
if %errorlevel% NEQ 0 GOTO :KEYOFF

:KEYON
echo ============================================================
echo Windows Telemetry currently disabled.
echo Would you like to re-enable it? (Y/N)
echo ============================================================
echo.
choice /c yn /n
If %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 1 GOTO :QUIT

Echo Deleting Telemetry Registry key
REG DELETE "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection" /v "AllowTelemetry" /F>NUL 2>NUL
IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO :ERROR
Echo.

Echo Windows Telemetry enabled
Echo.
goto :QUIT

 

:KEYOFF
echo ============================================================
echo Windows Telemetry is currently enabled.
echo Would you like to disable it? (Y/N)
echo ============================================================
echo.
choice /c yn /n
If %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 1 GOTO :QUIT

Echo Changing Registry key
reg query "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection" /v "AllowTelemetry">NUL 2>NUL
if %errorlevel% equ 1 REG DELETE "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection" /v "AllowTelemetry" /F>NUL 2>NUL
REG ADD "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DataCollection" /v "AllowTelemetry" /D 0 /T REG_DWORD /F>NUL 2>NUL
IF %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 GOTO :ERROR
Echo.

Echo Windows Telemetry disabled
Echo.
goto :QUIT

 

:QUIT
echo ============================================================
echo Press any key to exit...
echo ============================================================
pause>NUL
goto :EOF

:ERROR
echo ============================================================
echo The script ran into an unexpected error setting reg key.
echo Press any key to exit...
echo ============================================================
pause>NUL
goto :EOF

 

[adrynalyne]

I highly recommend nobody runs the above scripts.

The first two commands delete services from the registry.

 

I consider that reckless and irresponsible. At the very least backup the keys yourself and then delete them.

[binaryzero]

LOL -  I would NOT run those scripts. Good luck when your PC grinds to a halt because of stupid hacky scripts like ^.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

I highly recommend nobody runs the above scripts.

The first two commands delete services from the registry.

 

I consider that reckless and irresponsible. At the very least backup the keys yourself and then delete them.

 

LOL -  I would NOT run those scripts. Good luck when your PC grinds to a halt because of stupid hacky scripts like ^.

I second third this.

I'm not much of a fan of Windows 10 ... but this whole tinfoil privacy "issue" is getting a bit out of hand.

[adrynalyne]

 

 

I second third this.

I'm not much of a fan of Windows 10 ... but this whole tinfoil privacy "issue" is getting a bit out of hand.

I can respect people looking to turn things off, and Windows allows it (though I think some think they are being sneaky and bypassing MS).

However blindly deleting things is just..

 

 

[+kpo6969 Subscriber¹]

Every time a new cumulative update is released I have a feeling all the settings that have been disabled, hacked get turned back on anyway.

[adrynalyne]

Every time a new cumulative update is released I have a feeling all the settings that have been disabled, hacked get turned back on anyway.

Have a feeling, or know?

[+kpo6969 Subscriber¹]

Just a feeling.

[Mockingbird]

If you think that Windows 10 is scary, you should stop using your smartphone and switch to a flip-phone.

[T3X4S]

I'm unable to post for 2 weeks (ahem) , I come back and there is still this "Windows 10 is worst than the NSA !!!" fodder ?

1.)  Read the settings and customize upon install of Win 10
2.)  What are you doing, saying, typing, looking @ that would interest the powers that be & cause some kind of repercussions ?
3.)  If you are one of those tin foil hat types, they (MS, Govt, your ISP) could already do anything that the paranoid people are accusing Win10 & Microsoft of
4.)  This really is nothing more than FUD for geeks and paranoid people
5.)  How many PC technicians had to deal with that customer who said, "I dont want you looking through my computer" - and while cleaning all of their infections, you notice he didnt have anything on there... like nothing.  And it just proved what you already knew - that person was an idiot

I am not saying that the people who are worried about this are idiots, I am just saying - there is nothing new in Win10.  You dont like that they can potentially remove pirate software -- well......... you know where Im going with this.... stop stealing. 

 

[kozukumi]

If you think that Windows 10 is scary, you should stop using your smartphone and switch to a flip-phone.

Indeed, especially Android users. Google is very data happy. The best phone when it comes to privacy is still Apple who make their money on the hardware and app sales, yes they do do some data mining on Siri data but that is pretty obvious because otherwise how will they offer the service

LOL -  I would NOT run those scripts. Good luck when your PC grinds to a halt because of stupid hacky scripts like ^.

Damn straight. If you don't like the new privacy policies then don't use Windows 10, don't start hacking out system files with random scripts downloaded from forums!

[Anibal P]

Indeed, especially Android users. Google is very data happy. The best phone when it comes to privacy is still Apple who make their money on the hardware and app sales, yes they do do some data mining on Siri data but that is pretty obvious because otherwise how will they offer the service

Damn straight. If you don't like the new privacy policies then don't use Windows 10, don't start hacking out system files with random scripts downloaded from forums!

Apple collects just as much data as Google, let's not spread any more lies about the Apple vs Android nonsense 

[kozukumi]

 

Apple collects just as much data as Google, let's not spread any more lies about the Apple vs Android nonsense 

You got anything to back that up?

[George P Global Moderator]

The whole illegal game bit was about MS "services" not the Windows 10 EULA, it covers pirated Windows Store and Xbox Live games, things that use MS's service to work/run etc, that's all they care about, it's NOT about other pirated games or apps you have, they don't scan or look for those.  What they will do is see if you have some pirated game from the Windows Store that uses Xbox Live and is connecting to their service, if so, they'll go in and delete it from your system, same thing that all the smartphone OS makers do, iOS, Android and even WP/WM.   

The services agreement probably also covers putting and sharing illegal content through OneDrive, again, MS can't not say it's illegal and do nothing about it, if they didn't use this type of wording in the services agreement then if lots of people were found to be using OneDrive to share pirated games or apps, then MS would be held liable, it'd be the same thing that happens to torrent trackers/sites and what happened to MegaUpload.   If they find someone is sharing illegal files using OneDrive they'll delete them and kick you off, that's pretty much what they do now as well.

One last part of the agreement that talked about hardware, well, it's about unlicensed hardware that might infringe or allow people to break some services, like, some hardware that mimics some Xbox Live security check, like a mod-chip, or unlicensed controllers that mimic the Xbox One controller or whatever else people can think up, again, it's just MS covering their backs from any future tampering with their online services, it has zero to do with Windows the OS and what you put on it, well, as long as it's not pirated Windows Store stuff.

[techbeck]

I take the same stance no matter what company.  I opt out of anything I can and disabled everything I can and post no sensitive data on cloud services or other areas of the web where I am not compensated if I have my security compromised.  In the end, its up to the user to protect their data.

[goretsky Supervisor]

Hello,

Here's an article I wrote that might be of interest on the subject:  Windows 10, Privacy 0.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky