Windows 10 privacy

[BobH]

I see all of the things you mention as erosion of basic protections that equate to human rights. Why the right to privacy was not elevated to a greater point in the US Constitution I think was because those who wrote it could not conceive of the sorts of things you mention. Tracking should be allowed only by warrants issued by duly elected or appointed authorities. Yes, that is an extreme position; but I lived most of my life wherein such intrusions were impossible; and there were no ill effects on society or the economies of human life. I fear that the intrusions will not be so benign nor insignificant.

Remember Lord Acton's dictum: "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[RonH]

This thread relates to the early days of Windows 10.
Following some years of usage perhaps views on privacy have changed and I would be interested to learn what security settings are now recommended for the 'average' user's protection. Or maybe the views of our members do not vary from the above posts.

[HansV]

With the half-yearly updates, Microsoft has improved what can be set in the Privacy settings window. The opinion on which settings are recommended vary wildly.
The free utility O&O Shutup10 has been mentioned in this forum. It provides very detailed control over Windows 10's privacy settings, with explanations and recommendations: the green ones are completely safe to disable, the red ones should NOT be disabled because they could disrupt the normal functioning of Windows 10, and the orange ones might have some side effects so it's up to your preference.

[Argus]

A late comment to a post by Joe, as well as the topic.

Let's not think that any of this technology in Windows 10 is new. It has been around for a long time and has been used by "good" guys and "bad" guys for various purposes.

It's true that it's been around for some time, or rather growing over time as it has become possible, Joe. As for cell phones (mobiles), when we got NMT here in the '80s (and later GSM) no one thought about using tech and data to locate people. At the time cameras were usually not small enough to fit half a dozen on every bus etc. Some of these techs, and similar, have been added/used to help people, to find someone in an emergency, to bring down crime levels etc. All that can be discussed, but what we see with software, as in this case an OS, and hardware added to track (such as supposedly harmless counting all Wi-Fi enabled devices within a certain area) is that it's been added because it's possible, and there is usually no direct benefit to the ones being tracked.

As for Windows 10: Apart from being an OS in perpetual development, but moving so slow it takes years to gather settings in one place (showing consistency has never been a Microsoft hallmark), and an OS that threw out the UI with the bathwater to adapt to a brave new world, to not much use since they've stopped selling phones (well one could say it's a way of looking up-to-date, since just about everyone interacts with a similar UI on their phones and whatnot), it has also embraced the mantra of sharing everything with everyone, almost.

What's, for example, the point of sharing your user pic (whatever that might be) with, eh, "apps". That started with Windows 8, one could say it all started with mobile phones. I wouldn't call that a long time ago. Or one gazillion telemetrics with Microsoft that we didn't see in earlier operating systems.

Well, one way to look at it is that it's possible, and since I mostly use the downlink, so why not, there's an almost idle uplink capable of 50-100 Mbps sitting there, help yourself, Microsoft. And after all, the OS is now a service. Who knows, they might fill the downlink with ads (if they could get away with it).

Yes, eliminating tracking is pretty much impossible, but I see no wrong with keeping software related tracking to a minimum. It's telling that privacy policies are now as long as T&Cs. O&O Shutup10 and similar are great, but how many use a firewall to block certain outbound traffic, or block images in e-mail if they are not part of the mail?

[RonH]

Thanks Hans for this link. However, since the software alters register settings I will stick to twiddling the standard Microsoft Setting adjustments ... which presumably also make registry changes but only ones that Microsoft offer to users. Whether these setting adjustments actually do as stated ....

My post above was 'curiosity' but as you say there will be many different opinions. I turn off those that I consider to be unnecessary and/or very invasive. As Argus highlights, everything we do is tracked. We clear the browser history which sort of cleans our device but nothing else. All my email contacts are held by eg Google, Outlook whoever. When I travel I ensure that the detail is not logged in Maps but of course 'they know where I am'

I heard this morning that some schools have tracking and facial recognition of students. Are they concentrating? If not how best can we assist? Who are they friends with? My Facebook 'activity' is limited to downloading my daughter's pictures of the grandkids. Facebook says 'put a name to this face'. Why? My guess is that then it will troll throughout its vast library and link all images with 'this face'. I am constantly bombarded with 'People you may know' even though I only have two friends and I know for certain that they do not know most of them. My Facebook settings are as tight as I can make them.

All my medical records are tracked. What I purchase and from where is tracked ... and so on. So, I just do what I can to 'feel good', recognising that whatever I do is of limited value.

Yawn. Got up early this morning due to the cat. Must be the reason I am waffling on.

[Doc.AElstein]

thread relates to the early days of Windows 10.
Following some years of usage perhaps views on privacy have changed ..... Or maybe the views of our members do not vary from the above posts.

I am thinking that about now might be the time that some people that have resisted installing Windows 10 might think seriously about installing it
It seems that enough people have been made aware of the first attempt of Microsoft to take over us, such that Microsoft may have now gone off to try and do a better job by some later attempt
So maybe if you are careful, then Windows 10 is OK to use now… .…_

( In Germany we have very strict data privacy laws. They have been tightened up a few times even more in recent years. ( This usually means we have even more small print to sign to or click on, to pretend that we read it. Also we have lots more paper to sign to allow people, such as Doctors, to do things that they have already been doing for generations) )

_…..When Windows 10 was first introduced it was frequently discussed on the main news and other radio and television debaters here. In its standard default settings it was mostly thought by legal experts as doing illegal spying. There was even talk of banning it/ and or punishing Microsoft for setting it out as they did from that little pop up thing …!!! But I think it was very difficult to decide who or what was breaking the laws. One argument I heard at the time is that a long and expensive legal case might lead to Windows 10 being banned here or forcing the default options to be changed. But by then probably Microsoft would be pushing the next operating system, so there was not a lot of support for going down that road.
I expect when the robots take over and start killing us they will be running the latest Windows operating system and it won’t be possible to stop them legally. ( Hopefully there will be enough of us “rule breakers” about to fight them
…” you are experiencing a car accident” … “The Hell I am”… … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xQjDHgVlDg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

You still find many major businesses and Hospitals here using XP.
A very popular stable business solution seems to have been XP and often XP and Office 2010.
Currently that is under constant attack from upgrades which kill it. Thanks partly to help here, I have been able to fight that effectively. For a couple of months some of my Forum time has been spent helping other people get over this problem. But I expect a lot of people either will not catch the workaround or may not necessarily want to use it as it means disabling updates.
The effect will probably be to help encourage people finally to get Windows 10: Some professionals that were holding on to supporting much older systems have said to me that if they must update now, then they would probably go for Windows 10 now, as they were not so keen on Vista and Windows 7.
I don’t have enough inside information to know if that the plan of the current XP Office killer updates was to encourage the current trend to update to Windows 10 … – those and new updates keep coming , and now, 3 months later, Microsoft must be fully aware of what they are doing … I note also that in the Microsoft forums that I have been posting in , that posts reporting bad updates sometimes vanish!!! I have helped in some of those Threads… and currently I am blocked from posting in them……

I expect there might be a trend to update from XP to Win 10, with some attempted control of the security issues on install…..
At the 2015 time there were official German government sites advising against Windows 10 instillation and / or giving advice on how to adjust the privacy settings. Strangely some of them are no longer there ?? .. but if you do a quick Google search with an appropriate German expression equivalent of like win 10 protect my privacy http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+10+Privats ... %C3%BCtzen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; then you get lots of info, including from German computer magazines, who have a good reputation here.
( You get a similar list of help if you do the English search as well I think.)

I think I may install windows 10 on at least one machine next Winter. This thread will be one I will have a re read of when I do. ( assuming Microsoft don’t kill Eileen’s Lounge with an update in the meantime :) )

Alan

Ref
http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=31405" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=31600" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mso ... 0c3?page=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... -kb4461522" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mso ... 61f?page=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.excelforum.com/microsoft-wi ... grade.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-general ... -10-a.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhAFWW-p7PQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[stuck]

Thanks Hans for this link. However, since the software alters register settings I will stick to twiddling the standard Microsoft Setting adjustments ... which presumably also make registry changes but only ones that Microsoft offer to users...

I might be wrong but I think that the settings that O&O Shutup10 changes are all user accessible, some are just very hard to find. I use it, as Hans does, to turn off those settings that are recommended, i.e. the green ones. The most obvious effect is that Cortana disappears (NB that doesn't mean it's uninstalled, it's just disabled) and the search box behaves like a simple search box, which is much more to my liking. I've not noticed any ill effects from the changes is made by O&O Shutup10.

Ken

[Argus]

Off topic.
To be honest, and I know that this has been discussed in another thread, I have no problem with the fact that an update to a supported product (Office 2010) could make it difficult to run said product on a not supported product (Windows XP).

The latter has been through both mainstream and extended support, an extra-long life cycle at that, over 12 years, and is something that ended almost 5 years ago. Office 2010 is supported till 2020, I think. It certainly wouldn't be fair to all users of Office 2010 to say, sorry, we can't implement this change since it won't work with Windows XP. Windows XP has seen Office 2000, Office XP, Office 2003, Office 2007 and Office 2010, all with service packs.

(You could, for example, run Office 2000 on Windows 95; extended support for Office 2000 ended in 2009, extended support for Win95 stopped at the end of 2001.)

[Doc.AElstein]

Hi Angus. I fully agree with you. I always prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt. So I am happy to accept that it is just a coincidence that, a lot of “good” being done on supported products is coincidentally doing a bit of “bad” on unsupported products. I have no problem at all in agreeing with that. Also I support, and have also the newer still supported products.
All of this I have also said in the other Threads.
I fully agree that it would be unfair to all users of Office 2010 to say, “sorry, we can't implement this change since it won't work with Windows XP”…
The issue is some strange goings on which could be interpreted as deliberately trying to kill off XP and sabotage users using this.. I stress could …_
_.. I can accept , for now, that those might be coincidences also … :) … but I am watching my back... :)
( Edit... I just noticed that your left eye is winking at me .. ;) ) )

[HansV]

So you have no beef with Angus?

[Argus]

So you have no beef with Angus?

[RonH]

Returning back to O&O ShutUp 10 ... this is an interesting article though doubtless folks you have already viewed:
https://www.howtogeek.com/273513/why-yo ... indows-10/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HansV]

As with other tools, you have to be careful when you use O&O Shutup10. If you're not sure about a feature, do not disable it. And if you don't feel comfortable using it at all, that's fine.

[RonH]

Agreed Hans. I'm neither comfortable nor uncomfortable but do wonder if many of these options to 'Turn Off' really work. Even my favorite Chrome, on which I regularly delete all-time browser history, remembers where I have searched and any forum comment which I have posted is remembered for all time. Even prior the availability of internet to the masses there is a writing about me ... copied from a magazine.
Hey, I have nothing to hide so Why Worry, Be Happy

[viking33]

thread relates to the early days of Windows 10.
Following some years of usage perhaps views on privacy have changed ..... Or maybe the views of our members do not vary from the above posts.

I am thinking that about now might be the time that some people that have resisted installing Windows 10 might think seriously about installing it
It seems that enough people have been made aware of the first attempt of Microsoft to take over us, such that Microsoft may have now gone off to try and do a better job by some later attempt
So maybe if you are careful, then Windows 10 is OK to use now… .…_

( In Germany we have very strict data privacy laws. They have been tightened up a few times even more in recent years. ( This usually means we have even more small print to sign to or click on, to pretend that we read it. Also we have lots more paper to sign to allow people, such as Doctors, to do things that they have already been doing for generations) )

_…..When Windows 10 was first introduced it was frequently discussed on the main news and other radio and television debaters here. In its standard default settings it was mostly thought by legal experts as doing illegal spying. There was even talk of banning it/ and or punishing Microsoft for setting it out as they did from that little pop up thing …!!! But I think it was very difficult to decide who or what was breaking the laws. One argument I heard at the time is that a long and expensive legal case might lead to Windows 10 being banned here or forcing the default options to be changed. But by then probably Microsoft would be pushing the next operating system, so there was not a lot of support for going down that road.
I expect when the robots take over and start killing us they will be running the latest Windows operating system and it won’t be possible to stop them legally. ( Hopefully there will be enough of us “rule breakers” about to fight them
…” you are experiencing a car accident” … “The Hell I am”… … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xQjDHgVlDg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; )

You still find many major businesses and Hospitals here using XP.
A very popular stable business solution seems to have been XP and often XP and Office 2010.
Currently that is under constant attack from upgrades which kill it. Thanks partly to help here, I have been able to fight that effectively. For a couple of months some of my Forum time has been spent helping other people get over this problem. But I expect a lot of people either will not catch the workaround or may not necessarily want to use it as it means disabling updates.
The effect will probably be to help encourage people finally to get Windows 10: Some professionals that were holding on to supporting much older systems have said to me that if they must update now, then they would probably go for Windows 10 now, as they were not so keen on Vista and Windows 7.
I don’t have enough inside information to know if that the plan of the current XP Office killer updates was to encourage the current trend to update to Windows 10 … – those and new updates keep coming , and now, 3 months later, Microsoft must be fully aware of what they are doing … I note also that in the Microsoft forums that I have been posting in , that posts reporting bad updates sometimes vanish!!! I have helped in some of those Threads… and currently I am blocked from posting in them……

I expect there might be a trend to update from XP to Win 10, with some attempted control of the security issues on install…..
At the 2015 time there were official German government sites advising against Windows 10 instillation and / or giving advice on how to adjust the privacy settings. Strangely some of them are no longer there ?? .. but if you do a quick Google search with an appropriate German expression equivalent of like win 10 protect my privacy http://lmgtfy.com/?q=windows+10+Privats ... %C3%BCtzen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; then you get lots of info, including from German computer magazines, who have a good reputation here.
( You get a similar list of help if you do the English search as well I think.)

I think I may install windows 10 on at least one machine next Winter. This thread will be one I will have a re read of when I do. ( assuming Microsoft don’t kill Eileen’s Lounge with an update in the meantime :) )

Alan

Ref
http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=31405" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=31600" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mso ... 0c3?page=3" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/hel ... -kb4461522" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mso ... 61f?page=4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.excelforum.com/microsoft-wi ... grade.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-general ... -10-a.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhAFWW-p7PQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

WHEW!!!

[BobH]

While we are on the subject of O&O ShutUp, I'll state my experience using it - after being told about it by Hans - has been uneventful so far. I used it to turn off Cortana and set a few other variables to add privacy.

I revisited my settings after reading about the green, red and orange advisories. I turned a couple of options back on that I had turned off in my zeal to stop prying eyes (eg, allowing apps to run in the background), but I have question about the OneDrive option. I don't use OneDrive. I see no reason to use it. To prevent it being used by accident or intent by someone hacking me, i turned the option off. What, if any, harm might that cause to Windows or to me?

Inquiring minds . . .

[HansV]

If you don't use OneDrive, leave it disabled. It won't cause any harm.

[BobH]

Thanks, Mr. V!