Hacker News Reader

Comment by mirimir | Hacker News Reader

The last time I helped my wife with a Windows 10 install, I was utterly grossed out. I've always been suspicious about snooping and covert logging, and spent years playing the game about blocking it all, but Windows 10 is crazy invasive.

I mean, by default, it wants to send every keystroke back to Microsoft servers! For "diagnostic purposes", I guess. And every URL that you visit. That's arguably worse than Google. Which is saying a lot.

View on HN

> I mean, by default, it wants to send every keystroke back to Microsoft servers

do you have any proof to substantiate this statement? I don’t believe for a second that Microsoft is getting away with an OS-wide keylogger

Of course he doesn't, because it's obviously untrue. Newer versions of Windows 10 gives you the option to save all diagnostic data and view it, so that you can actually see what they send back.

Got a link for the instructions on how to do this?

Here: https://www.thewindowsclub.com/diagnostic-data-viewer-window... Or here: https://www.onmsft.com/how-to/how-to-see-the-diagnostic-data...

Quite a few sites have listed how to do this.

It's true that I can't, because that was years ago. But I do remember what I read. And some searching will find others who say the same.

All of the angst about Windows 10 spying did force Microsoft to be more transparent. At one point, they were facing legal action from France and Brazil, and very likely other countries.

>But I do remember what I read

There was actual fake news going around about it. Actual as in sponsored by Russia. So finding others saying the same isn't close to saying it happened, especially given many people have an axe to grind.

So was this Russian propaganda?

https://betanews.com/2017/06/30/france-drops-windows-10-priv...

Or this?

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/windows-10-illegally-co...

Or this?

https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-office-365-banned-in...

> fake news

> sponsored by Russia

I appreciate that this is a prevailing and popular narrative pushed by popular people, but that doesn't mean it needs to penetrate into a discussion between two civilised human beings capable of critical thinking. It would be best to keep at least this website as propaganda-free as we can.

There's no way of verifying that the data shown is identical to the data being sent back.

For me Microsoft has become untrustworthy as an OS vendor, enough for me to even scrap my Windows7 installations.

I just setup Windows on a machine for the first time in a decade, it was a very gross experience indeed. I do recall it asking a series of questions about sending data to MSFT that were all by default, opt-in. One of those options sounded a lot like a key logger. The entire install process was so full of dark patterns it was really quite unbelievable to me.

As I recall, this is what you saw when customizing privacy settings, back when Windows 10 first came out:

> 1. Go to Start, then select Settings > Privacy > General.

> 2. Turn off Send Microsoft info about how I write to help us improve typing and writing in the future.

I didn't verify what it actually sent, but that's what I remember seeing.

I got that here: https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/03/microsoft...

For current Windows 10 versions, it's become a local database:

> As part of inking and typing on your device, Windows collects unique words—like names you write—in a personal dictionary stored locally on your device, which helps you type and ink more accurately.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4468250/windows-10-...

I helped a friend turn off the worst of telemetry and there was definitely a pre-checked checkbox that would send data to MS to improve "typing" or some other nonsense.

Given that MS can connect to your computer at higher telemetry levels and run programs and download documents, I have zero trust in this company and turned everything I could find off.

If you have zero trust why do you expect turning off everything achieves anything? Microsoft is known to turn their malfeatures back on.

Furthermore, if you have zero trust in your OS vendor, then why are you continuing to use their product?

I need to use Windows sometimes to check out VPN client apps. Also to use Excel, when Calc chokes on too much data and/or too many calculations.

So I'm just very careful. I have old Windows 7 and Office DVDs that I bought for cash at a yard sale. I created a VirtualBox VM, and updated it through a nested VPN chain.

When I need to use Windows, I just clone that VM. If I'm putting data on it, I don't give it an Internet uplink. Occasionally, I update a clone. And if everything goes well, I use that as the source for future working clones. If I need to retain old clones, I put them on an external LUKS SSD.

Perhaps you work on windows (and are required to), or you like playing AAA videogames. Two use-cases where not using windows is not an option, but a requirement.

Playing AAA videogames is not a requirement for anything unless your job is game testing.

I said it was a use-case. It might not be a use-case that is right for you, but I'd hazard to go so far as to say that it is a use-case for a large amount of people that run Windows.

One possible solution is to block access to Microsoft IP ranges on your firewall:

    $ whois -h whois.radb.net '!AS8075'

    $ pfctl -t drophosts -T add <results>

Or on Linux:

    $ for range in <results> ; do sudo iptables -A INPUT -s $range -j DROP ; done

Of course this will break a lot of Windows native system functionality, perhaps even Azure hosting, but this may not be an issue for someone just wishing to game in peace and privacy, unmolested by Microsoft telemetry.

Using an unpatched OS isn’t the best advice I can think of in this day and age.

That's very true.

As in my nearby comment, I only allow network access on VMs that don't contain any sensitive data. Once I've fully updated, I create clones to actually work on, and disable the Internet uplink entirely. When it's time to update again, I start with a virgin clone. And then transfer data to it, after disabling the Internet uplink.

I wonder if the Windows Firewall is trustworthy enough? So if it just has allow rules for non MS third party programs for both inbound AND outbound connections, would that block all the telemetry?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com