Even when told not to, Windows 10 doesn't stop talking to Microsoft

This will change soon though, they're working on browser extensions which will keep all content client side too.

EDIT: Clarified some points, added a little more detail.

That part is not sent to the server by your browser. That's a seed, it's run through sha512 then split into parts, including a key, iv and filename to fetch from the server.

Now, as I said, in this instance, since I distributed the link on a public website, it's pretty pointless. But when I link my friends and colleagues on a private XMPP server or via textsecure, it's a pretty nice feature to have, as I can very easily share private screenshots.

Hacker News is a site I browse on my phone because it works without eating up RAM or anything.

Salesforce is the root of all evil. Once you're in the ecosystem, you're stuffed. You know it's bad when the entire business team start running round clucking when the EMEA salesforce instance goes down hard...

AWS is fine. Most of the platform's concepts have real world parallels for example.

Also, your link does not appear to have been updated on Jul. 29 when the author says the final release should have been available. The Ars Technica article we are discussing is from today, Aug. 13, while the ZDNet article is from almost eight months ago (Jan. 27).

It is clear that Stallman was and is right in regards to the technical dimensions. It's not like we can go back to the time when email was private. STMP never was, that's why Stallman chose his course so long ago. Email is more private today thanks to STMPS. The same is true for HTTP/HTTPS. But even in the old days, there was nothing to prevent someone from publishing your love letters in the school newspaper. It was just more difficult.

Privacy generally breaks into security or anonymity. The issues surround either authorization and identification. Both have always been mostly limited by interest more than anything else. Computers have reduced the cost of being interested and so long as we use computers the djinn isn't going back in lamp.

As a personal anecdote, the only serious malware that has ever hit any system I run, as far as I'm aware, was a zero day exploit. The system was fully patched when it was hit. In contrast, the amount of productive time I have spent over the past few years recovering from problems caused by non-security-related software updates that I didn't particularly want but couldn't avoid if I wanted to keep the security patches is probably measured in weeks by now.

I'm all for keeping systems secure, but when updates start to take priority over keeping systems useful, you have a problem. Most security patches are fairly low risk and have few if any unrelated side effects anyway, but that is certainly not the case with modern software updates more generally. Just look at the frustration of browser users with Mozilla constantly rearranging the UI or Google actively removing functionality from Chrome, or of course the number of users who never moved from Windows XP to Vista or from 7 to 8 because the changes weren't considered improvements.

In the brave new world of Windows 10, the average individual user will be stuck with all the updates, security or otherwise, whether they want them or not. There's really no excuse for that, even in a consumer-focussed OS. Install updates by default, so less technical users get what they probably want? Sure. Block even knowledgeable users from choosing whether to install specific updates? The only time that makes a difference is if Microsoft want to force an update that the user does not want.

There is no practical way for the average person to have a significant enough understanding of privacy policies due to the wordings and the 'as provided by law' type clauses that require understanding of even more complex documents (and possible even court cases). That people agree to it anyways is because it cuts one out of so much to not agree to privacy policies. Even going to the doctor involves a policy that includes 'as allowed by law' that makes it very difficult for anyone other than a specialized lawyer to understand.

Microsoft knows that people aren't understanding this and using it to their advantage. A ban on taking advantage of this is no more a nanny state than already existing bans on many cons and scams (those that don't rely on lying but on confusion and misleading others). For example, I can't hand out checks for $100 that include really nasty terms of repayment ($200 due in one month, else I get to seize any items I wish from your possession). This isn't a ban on any freedom of my own except my freedom to take advantage of others.

To relate it to your example of taking candies form strangers, if I'm handing out bad candies and someone else is eating them, who is at fault? Even if they should know better (which with these being complex legal candies that means most people shouldn't know better) I'm still at fault for handing out bad candies.

That seems where we disagree.

With other kinds of product I buy, at least in my country, there are consumer protection laws about the being of sufficient quality and fit for their intended purpose. If a product doesn't live up to those standards, I am entitled by law to have the situation put right or compensated one way or another, for example through repair, replacement, or ultimately a refund of some or all of the money I paid to buy the product. If a product is so bad that it causes other harm as well then in some cases I would also have grounds for further compensation. (The situation is also somewhat different when selling to businesses vs. private individual in my country, so I'm oversimplifying here.)

With software, developers have historically been given a lot of slack, in part because none of us know how to write bug-free programs so expecting everyone to achieve that standard before being able to sell anything is unhelpful. However, the same basic legal principles do still apply, and they have sometimes been used in practice. Part of the reason that big software developers like Microsoft don't fall foul of those rules more often and wind up paying back a lot more in refunds and/or other compensation is that they do make reasonable efforts to fix defects in their software for a reasonable time after purchase.

My point is that providing a reasonable degree of support is not really optional for them and they are not really being generous in providing it. If they stopped doing so, and their customers then started suffering real damage because of bugs or vulnerabilities in Windows, then Microsoft would risk being sued until either they fixed the problems or their business failed.

This has absolutely nothing to do with any other kind of update. Microsoft has, to my knowledge, no obligation after a customer has already purchased their copy of Windows to provide ongoing development of new features, drivers for other vendors' hardware, or their UI. They might choose to do that, and they might choose to offer those things to customers in return for money, data, or any other agreed form of compensation.

But whether or not they do that, it doesn't change the basic obligation they do have to provide a decent product if they're charging real money for it, and to make reasonable efforts to fix defects or compensate for them if their original product is flawed. The customer is entitled to get what they paid for, not a broken version of what they paid for, and not a version where a defect was fixed but some other unwanted change was also made so it's still not what the customer was originally supposed to be buying.

A quick google....

I'm not sure how much credibility I'd give reviews from that kind of source. Of course they look favourable, because they seem to make little effort to be at all critical of anything and almost completely gloss over the widely reported problems and backward steps in favour of... ooooh, shiny!

For example, several of them highlight robustness as a big point in favour of Windows 10. Given the huge amount of negative comments from people who were in the beta/preview programme and the multiple, widespread, system-breaking forced updates that have already been pushed out within just a few days of launch, I don't see how any unbiased review could possibly conclude that stability is a strong point for Windows 10 so far, and I see no basis for the blind faith several reviewers seem to have that Microsoft will fix the fundamental risk of bad updates bricking boxes. Few of the reviews make a big deal of removed features like Media Center, or hardware incompatibilities with older devices, which are the kinds of issues that won't trouble the majority of users but will be very bad for those who are affected. I don't see much mention there of clunky search tools or the confusing division of what used to be in the control panel into multiple areas. None of the reviews that I looked at even mentioned things like privacy concerns, or spamming ads at you unless you pay subscription money to turn them off, or the WiFi Sense security concerns.

Try Googling a few other relevant terms, like say "Windows 10 laptop reboot loop" or "Windows 10 WiFi Sense security" or "Windows 10 search", and see how overwhelmingly positive the commentary looks then.