By opt-in approach and full transparency on what data's sent.
Seriously, ask me "hey, can you help us?", provide an option to let me see what data exactly was, being and will be sent (NOT some multi-page legalese with notice that everything in there could change at company's discretion) - and unless you're sending something I really don't want to share (like actual raw texts I typed instead of processed statistical data), you're very likely to have my help. And, given the current situation, even praise the approach and suggest other to help the noble intent.
There's a giant difference between this and a pre-installed black box that sends some data which contents I don't even know.
The more common phrase is easier rather than better. (Which is why the initialism form is EAFP rather than BAFP.)
And it is easier. Also, however, more prone to adverse consequences when the answer to what you ask is "no".
Which works perhaps twice in the corporate world before you're thrown out on the street.
In the realm of public opinion sometimes even once is enough to wreck a brand.
For the first time ever I have non-tech colleagues asking me about Linux.
Obviously, they're machine-encoded (binary or XML), so the representation should be modified a bit to be more human-readable.
I don't care that I won't know what most of metrics mean exactly ("magic mumbo-jumbo average time: 0.42us" or some hard-to-read probability matrices), but as far as I can see no raw personal data is being leaked out (my private file information, raw texts typed on keyboard, screenshots - this sort of stuff) it's probably OK. The important part is not me understanding the data sent, but the transparency about the program.
American internet speeds suck enough without Microsoft grabbing some for itself.
> Windows Defender
They seemed to be able to improve their services before. In fact, I think that's what a Security Researchers job is. MS has several of them.
> handwriting and voice recognition
Neither of which apply to my desktop, so why do I have to give them any information.
Microsoft could have saved a lot of face simply by making all this opt in and off by default.
Which is why you should only have to download updates once for your entire network and not per device and why you shouldn't waste bandwidth on failed partial updates. This feature fixes both of these issues.
>They seemed to be able to improve their services before. In fact, I think that's what a Security Researchers job is. MS has several of them
I'm a software developer. My job is to write bug free code. My job would be a lot harder if I couldn't get any debug information from my testers or users. Just because it is possible to do a job without certain information, doesn't mean it is a good idea to intentionally withhold that information.
>Neither of which apply to my desktop, so why do I have to give them any information.
If you don't use voice or ink, why are you worried about sharing your voice and ink data with Microsoft?
>Microsoft could have saved a lot of face simply by making all this opt in and off by default.
Because most of these features would have never been turned on by the user. What good is a security setting that is supposed to protect unskilled computer users if it requires in depth knowledge of the OS to turn on in the first place?
For what it's worth, I don't think this is a fair assessment. Sure, with ink data, you actually need a tablet or some kind of input device in order for Microsoft to collect and send data. But almost every laptop or off-the-shelf computer nowadays comes with a microphone, and they will be more ubiquitous now that voice recognition and input is becoming more accepted by the general populace.
The problem then, is that the microphone is _always_ on, and could potentially send _everything_ you say, or could listen in at any given moment. The problem is that with voice data, the feature 1) can't be inspected and 2) will send data, even if you never use the service. Most important here is the latter point: I shouldn't be subject to the terms and conditions of using a service if I am not using a service. By not agreeing to the terms and conditions, I don't get to use the service (Cortana). If I'm fine with that, and don't want to use that service, then the terms and conditions of my data being sent to Microsoft should not apply to me (i.e. my data should not be sent).
Doing otherwise is shady behaviour, regardless of your opinion on the usefulness or nefariousness of the feature in question.
There is ONE Windows machine on my network, so there are no other Windows machines to share updates with. There are a tonne on the internet though, I don't care about sharing with them.
> My job would be a lot harder
It's too bad it was impossible to do before Microsoft was spying on its users. Oh wait, it wasn't.
> If you don't use voice or ink, why are you worried about sharing your voice and ink data with Microsoft?
I don't want to send anything to Microsoft.
> Because most of these features would have never been turned on by the user.
There is a reason for that, people don't want it.
> What good is a security setting ...
These are not security settings. The security comes from turning them off.
This sounds uncomfortably like "if you don't have anything to hide …".
Before what? These are no new features.
Handwriting and voice recognition software have both been available for decades, and have improved considerably over most of that time without most end-users being required to share data back with the software makers (in many cases, without most users even having a mechanism available to do so.)
Exactly by not sharing any information with MS. If they didn't assume that people wanted to share their private information (they don't), they'd create software with proper architecture that doesn't need to connect to the could to do simple things like handwriting analysis and voice recognition.
I honestly can't tell if you actually believe what you are saying, or are just making a really badly told joke.