The level of Windows 10 paranoia reached new heights this week when reports suggested that Microsoft would wipe torrents and pirated software from people’s hard drives. Nonsense, of course, but all the recent privacy concerns were enough to have the operating system banned from several torrent trackers.
Another creepy story here. Windows 10’s privacy is turning into a headache for Microsoft. It won’t be long now until prime time and daytime news shows start picking this stuff up, and blow it out of proportion – deserved or no.
The last link is simply Microsoft Family Safety. I’ve been using it for 3 years to help check my son (now 11) isn’t exposed to unsuitable material, not to spy on him, but so that if (when) he starts encountering such material I can explain things to him.
It’s not a new feature, it is opt-in, I don’t really see the problem.
If your son knows about this, fine. Otherwise it is spying no matter what you call it.
Win 8: the notification “this account is monitored by family safety” is displayed when you log into a monitored account
That last link (“Windows 10 automatically…”) must be a troll. As you said it is indeed the family protection and that has to be setup explicitly. You have to:
1) Identify your account as an admin/parent
2) Identify your child as guest/user/child
3) Enable this protection, set which kind of report you want and wich email address to send it to (that last part MIGHT be automatically if the parent account uses a Microsoft account)
There is no way this feature would just automatically turn on
Windows 10 news indicates that microsoft is moving away from its traditional business model, meaning that the user is no longer going to be the main costumer. A big dose of paranoia is a very healthy reaction to this…
Edited 2015-08-25 11:15 UTC
Everybody are moving away from classical business model. I recently bought a new TV-set and to have particular set of techical features I had to pick up one with Android.Yes TV-s now contain Android and that particular one had 5.0 in it. However what was quite alarming was the direct expression of usage tracking. Everything from TV usage times, watched programes all the way down to every single keypress on the remote are all transferred to the manufacturer. Even if user does not agree with that, some data is still sent. Only way to completely opt-out from this practice is to avoid connecting TV to internet (which I am totally comfortable with) or filter the traffic through tight firewall.
So the simple model where you purchase the product and then just use it does not work anymore. The manufacturers want constant revenue generation from all the sold products and customer usage tracking is the way to go. In fact I would not be surprised when at some point the hardware would be distributed for a very small amount of money provided that user keeps the hardware connected to internet at all times providing the manufacturer the data that can be sold many times over.
I’ve just bought a new TV. It too has Android running on it.
Onece I’d set it up, it was disconnected from the internet. Too bad that I can’t seem to find out how to disable the wifi side of things because it is trying to connect to any unlocked network out there. I have one for testing purposes. It is not connected to my main LAN.
I may have to resort to disconnecting the antenna.
Why not just buy a non-smart TV? They do still exist, and are often cheaper than their so-called “smart” equivalents. I recall seeing a 4K @ 60Hz non-smart TV for under $500 on Amazon recently.
That’s what I did. A 65″ 1080p LED backlit LCD TV (120hz).
I could have bought the “Smart” version of the same TV for $250 more (yikes), but I figured I’d probably want to keep the TV for five+ years, and my idea of what I need for a smart TV would probably change by then.
I built a cheap HTPC using an AMD APU – and the darn thing gamed pretty well 😉 Even better when I put my old 7870XT video card in it! Do that with a “Smart” TV!
We’re good with just a Roku on each of our TVs, though I’ve been tempted to get the Nvidia Shield for the living room so I can stream games from my gaming rig to the big screen. It’s cheaper than building a full gaming PC for the TV, and simpler to operate for regular media consumption.
I did look into the Intel NUC and AMD based mini PCs for a while too though, and I built a new media server out of a Braswell SoC based board a few weeks ago. I love the miniaturization that’s going on in the PC world!
I like some of the things smart TV’s can provide such as a built-in Netflix client. Those functionalities have nothing to do with spying. Manufacturers managed to survive just fine without all that bullshit, until now apparently… It’s a shame really. Perhaps some privacy laws need an update, to benefit the user obviously.
Nowadays non-Smart TV-s are the bottom of the barrel containing poor panels not able to reproduce the colors and have limited capabilities for picture adjustment. The panel tech specs and adjustability was the reason for me to choose higher-end TV that unfortunately came with Android. I dislike massively over-intensified colors that majority of the TV-s have so I wanted the model with specific gamma, color, hue, temperature, intensity etc adjustment capabilities.
Regarding the network however, from first startup, I skipped WiFi setup and disagreed both Privacy Policy and Usage Tracking agreements that would considerably reduce the data sent to manufacturer (if I at some point happen to atach the TV to network).
I guess that if WiFi has been configured then under settings it should be possible to disconnect the WiFi link.
Oh goody. I can just imaging trying to get them through Customs without paying Duty and VAT on them.
I did look for a half decent non-Smart TV. Not easy to get. Very limited choice espeically if you don’t want to buy Samsung. I also need a Satellite Tuner because terrestrial TV signals are a bit iffy where I live because I’m surrounded by trees.
The user was never the main customer. The typical user bought a bundled Microsoft license for $30 with a Dell PC. They did this every couple of years. That isn’t a whole lot of money. Businesses were much better, throwing money at them for Office, but the developer has always been the main customer.
Even in the good old days, the developer was the main customer and the user was part of the product Microsoft offered to the developer. In many ways, the spying is just a continuation of this policy, offering the developers better data and analysis of what the user is doing.
What users need to do is to move away from Windows
If only there was something to move away to.
Linux is by far much better than any MS garbage.
Let’s be honest. That’s just a fanboy rant.
I use both… Linux is good on server side… No problem with that but on client side it’s good only for two categories of users:
1) Extremely low-end users who barely know how to read a mail and play a YouTube video.
2) Linux geeks (In the positive sense).
For the first category you set up the 3~4 apps they use in a way the just have to click on it and the second category of users knows enough about the system to get through it alone.
For the immense majority of casual users doing more than watching mails and videos (sometimes installing software and even more incredible… using it) Windows, or up to some point OSX is much more appropriate.
Not with the bad trade-offs like this. On the other hand, people are often ready to trade privacy for “new and shiny”. That’s besides the point that I don’t think Windows is even so shiny or new.
Edited 2015-08-27 08:08 UTC
Oh the Horror! Child accounts and activity reports a have been around like forever …. Vista, 7, 8 , 10 perhaps the “daytime news shows” will do a bit of googling before exclaiming on this one ..
Impossible to feel sorry for Microsoft as they brought ever last bit of this on themselves, even the trollish hyperbole.
Microsoft’s privacy blunders have largely been incidental until recently, and not entirely flagrant until they saddled people with Windows 10 in which you can’t turn off everything that Windows 10 reports home about. Microsoft hasn’t been forthcoming with what each setting does, how they are limited, or what information they can and what they normally do extract even with the settings off. And you can’t tell me “none” because that’s patently false. The telemetry feeds remain active even in 10 Pro and blocking those servers just means 10 uses others.
Fortunately, no one is “saddled” with Windows 10.
I am happy to report that Windows XP and Windows 7 continue to function perfectly well.
Windows XP users were even spared the intrusive Windows 10 advertising that was distributed as a “Recommended Update” and set to constantly run in the background as a “service.”
Nobody ever mentions the login brick windows 10 get if you install the noribbon mod and decide to logoff the next log in will be without user selection . buggy unfinished win10 , no way to get back the win8 login either and the beta version regmod does not work anymore
But the fact that removing pirated software from your computer system is a breach of privacy not to mention false alarm that triggered the erasure of genuine software.
Removing pirated software made by a third party is not the job of Microsoft. It has only the sovereign right of protecting its own software against piracy, but those created by third parties, definitely a BIG no, except by giving third party developers tools to fight against piracy, but not the job itself. I believe the motive of Microsoft here is to impress commercial software vendors.
This will surely backfire, as I have tested Window 10 today as an insider, it feels like so many information goes out to Microsoft for monetary reasons, selling your data. Therefore I made the decision to block all Microsoft websites using OpenDNS*.
If Microsoft made the decision to sell your data, it should offer Windows 10 operating system at no cost, in the same way that we use Facebook for free.(No, there is NO FREE Windows, we shouldn’t use the term Windows as a free operating system, even if Windows is offered at a “no cost” option for the user, because its not equivalent to free.)
*I will unblock MS sites when critical updates are needed from time to time.
MAKE too many tweaks AND MODS and get blank logon
Warning! Spyware detected. Win.10.generic. Click button to remove.
Sauron,
Haha. Microsoft may have the upper hand…
“System Recovered From a Serious Error – You’re Not Getting Rid of Me That Easy”
Seriously though I am unsettled at how creepy the Windows platform is becoming.
As long as we cannot get a hand on a Windows distro, i.e., a version of Microsoft Windows released as an open source / free operating system, there is no hope in Windows. We should put our hope instead to BSD and Linux and use them extensively from embedded(smartphones included) to desktop and servers. I will not trust https://www.reactos.org/ to release a stable version for the next decade maybe not in our lifetime. It maybe possible that Microsoft will be the one to release first an open source version of Windows in the future than waiting for reactos to reach version 1.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2905302/open-source-windows-the-unth…