Směrť Špionam! BAN Windows 10, it SPIES too much, exclaim Russians Russian lawyers have filed a complaint calling for an outright ban – or at least tight restrictions – over the sale of Windows 10 in Russia. The complaint to the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office argues that Windows 10 collects user information in a way that violates Russian laws. Moscow-based Bubnov and Partners contended …
"'Smert' Shpionam 'I think"
You are correct. I am not sure what the inverted caret over the "e" signifies but I have never seen it used to transliterate Russian. An unadorned "e" would have been both sufficient and correct.
The inverted caret over the second "s" however is commonly used to denote an "sh" but not commonly used in transliterating Russian; I have mostly seen it used in Eastern European Slavic languages written in the Latin alphabet where the letter with caret is native to the language. In other words, it gets the correct sound across, but in this case it's an eccentric and little-used way of conveying it.
The first word, "Smert'", (death) is one of those Russian words that can be written using characters from the Latin alphabet solely, like so: CMEPTb.
We are waiting for Microsoft to pay enough to politicians for someone to declare it is HIPAA compliant to have unknown amounts of patient data sent to an unknown address for an unknown purpose.
And for devices to be FDA approved that can update their OS without us having chance to test the updates work with our software.
They say you can turn of the offending "features", but how do we know that doing that, does actually turn of those items? I wouldn't mind betting, that those settings are just there for eye candy and they actually have no effect.
I think someone needs to set up a Windows 10 machine, turn off those settings and then analyse every packet sent, to identify it's content, purpose and destination.
Wireshark is your friend...
Not when it's encrypted, and the results are transmitted in burst mode or encapsulated in other traffic (to name but a few camouflage techniques used in high grade bugging kit). There are many ways to cloak traffic.
It's not that I deem MS itself capable of writing decent enough code for that to work, but there is plenty of help for the willing. In addition, they can push this in or out with rolling upgrades, so every patch could change the signature of the traffic.
Best of all (from MS/NSA perspective), you legalised this with the EULA. No more pesky lawsuits...
Even if they are really turned off, does it stop Windows 10 from logging all that information locally on the machine anyway; ready to be sent if you ever change your mind or Microsoft (or law-enforcement or the NSA) decides they'll have the data anyway.
Some years ago (forgot which version of Windows) I had the featured disabled to keep track of my recently opened documents/files. One day I read somewhere that Windows still recorded this information, it just wasn't showing it. A quick change of settings and low and behold it revealed the list of my most "recently" access files - running into several hundreds of them!
All the data logging is built in to the OS.
The Data collection is 'always' switched on.
All you are doing switching flags on/off is opening/closing the tap (Faucet) on your data.
It is the same with all the optional stuff in Windows, the data collection is running and saving logs etc 'always'.
In Win 7 the 'Customer Experience Improvement Program' is the same.
You may have switched it off but it still runs and just does not send anything to MS, you hope.
'All your Data are belong to us' ...........(Microsoft Corporation)
:)
"I think someone needs to set up a Windows 10 machine, turn off those settings and then analyse every packet sent, to identify it's content, purpose and destination."
According to Ars Technica (final paragraph):
"Finally, it's worth pointing out that these are just the visible config flags; without some packet-level analysis, it's hard to say exactly what data is being sent back to Microsoft, and by which service. As one commenter pointed out, even after they disabled Cortana and turned off a bunch of privacy-related settings, the search box still seemed to be sending keystroke data back to Microsoft."
A tenner on those "settings" turning off transmission of SIGINT but not local gathering... W10 then simply awaiting the appropriate unidentified yet compulsory "patch(s)" (command(s)) to "accidentally" re-enable those "settings" and dump that gathered data en masse to the receiving agencies before the targets (you) have a chance to notice WTF is going on.
The hint would be that the default is to gather everything it can and send it on home (Passwords? Really??) I am most interested to see how businesses and government agencies deal with this particular bit of data-gathering. Oh, wait... that's exactly what is going on here.
Pretending that hiding a few settings in the back of beyond, probably badly labelled that the user 'could' change to stop the spying means it doesn't spy is ludicrous.
MS and many other providers already share your data. Google does as well... seems a favourite hobby of US companies (but not limited to them).
My Android device spent £15 in about 48 hours uploading Chirst only knows what to the server... without once asking me... it is a good job I hadn't put any data on the device.
That the Russians and Chinese spy on their folk does NOT make it more acceptable that the UK spies on its people or the US spies on everybody (often with the help of the EU.... who share ALL your bank details, ALL your flight details with the US)
"That the Russians and Chinese spy on their folk does NOT make it more acceptable that the UK spies on its people or the US spies on everybody"
If you think that the US is the only one attempting to spy on everyone or that the other countries only spy on their own citizens and residents of their own countries, then you are deluding yourself. They are all engaged in as much surveillance as they can manage.
They are all engaged in as much surveillance as they can manage.
Not that it is ever enough, it seems. The Dutch government has wasted no time to use the Thales train terrorist incident to yet again push for more intercept powers, just as if the Netherlands aren't becoming second to the UK already in terms of state surveillance...
Second to the UK? The Netherlands already has one of the highest rates of surveillance of any Western country, I doubt the UK is even close: http://amsterdamherald.com/index.php/allnews-list/306-20120523-one-in-1000-dutch-phones-wiretap-interception-police-evidence-gatherin
Apparently they are fighting with the Italians for top spot: http://history.edri.org/book/export/html/41
While everyone can see that Russia is hardly a bastion of freedom or protecting citizens from spying, it would be good if a few big enough countries kicked MS so hard in the privates that they were forced to make Win10 defaulting out of all spying.
Then users would have to bend over and lub themselves, rather then find the new trousers come with a convenient hole and pre-lubed for MS' convenience.
Does it really matter what the end users device does anyway?
As soon as it connects to a network (any network?) the network server can slup all that up any way?
So why be coy?
Google Drive really is your friend?
Any way it is all sort of turning irrelevant as (haven't you heard?) China has crashed (probably means there is no dosh to bail out Corbyn, Greece, all the rest of defray-payment-policy-strategy-executive shmuchery(?) and besides the UK has always depended upon slaves and/or empire to pay for its costs of livings (plural and plurality seems important no? Alternatively: Get out of that TW?)?
>The data from Win10 should also go to the Russians. Problem solved.
You're right, I think that problem has been solved.
--
However, the backlash against W10 is just further proof that this linux thing is a pinko commie conspiracy to hobble our security services and should be banned as aiding and abetting terrorists and dictatorships around the world. We didn't spend all that effort winning WW2, Vietnam, iRaq and Afghanistan to be thwarted by some ungrateful Europeans who want to run their own rubbish email servers and refuse to pay for things that have no business being free. They should be grateful for our shield of protective nukes and corporate hegemony which have kept a few of us richer them them, which is their punishment from God for being foreign.
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