Why Microsoft yanked its latest Windows 10 update download: It hijacked privacy settings Microsoft withdrew downloads for its latest official edition of Windows 10, version 1511, after it meddled with people's privacy settings. Earlier we reported how Redmond disappeared the update, which could be fetched via the official media creation tool (MCT). The download became available in mid-November after Microsoft …
Mentioning Microsoft an virginity in the same breath is almost a technical oxymoron. Better to mention prostitution and Microsoft would be a more honest opinion. Technical excellence and Microsoft parted company some time ago when the rabid marketeers with a shared braincell decided they were masters of the universe.
" It will take a major security breach to wake people up."
No it won't. J. Q. Public isn't concerned about security other than protecting their credit card numbers.
What WILL wake people up is Microsoft's Ransom-as-a-Service rentism business model. When people suddenly become aware that it's costing them a bomb to run their comuters each month and wonder where all the money's going, that's when they'll wake up and realise they've been diddled.
I don't think an exodus to Linux will happen straight away. But I think it will gradually gather momentum once the rentism kicks in and people start looking for ways to cut costs and get their files back without having to pay the monthly ransom to continue working with them.
> And, of course, they say, in big letters, "This program wants to access your System Restore data to return to your old settings. Please click here to approve this"...
In your world, I suppose they should say "this operating system needs to access your computer's memory. Please click to approve this" about 8 billion times per microsecond.
Seriously? You object to the system using System Restore to restore your system? Or you're just being a bloody idiot? Which is it?
> Seriously? You object to the system using System Restore to restore your system? Or you're just being a bloody idiot? Which is it?
Oops, nice False Dilemma. You fail to realise there's a third option, so let me explain it:
System Restore is there for ME to restore MY system to a configuration that worked after something has gone wrong.
It is NOT there for SOMEONE ELSE to run a piece of software, browse through my previous settings and change them WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!
Does that make it clear now?
https://bookofbadarguments.com/
The print edition would make a good xmas present for junior minds, it's basically a cut-down version of the Wikipedia List of Fallacies. But with cute drawings!
> That old thing called System Restore. Or whatever they call it now. The
> same method that lets you uninstall an update would allow them to find out
> your previous settings and put them back in place. No data would need
> transmitting to MS for that.
Except your passwords have already been uploaded to Microsoft, replicated across a bunch of disks in multiple data centres, found their way onto backup tapes, and probably downloaded by your friends:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/30/windows_10_wi_fi_sense/
The only way to undo this is going to be to change your passwords absolutely everywhere.
They spotted it, pulled it, and now communicate their d'oh moment. To me that is ok. No, it should not have happened, yes, it nevertheless did. But "oopsie" indeed...
(usually run some flavour of Linux, and we too had strange things happening, gotta admit this, folks! And as an admin I was close to some really stoopid blunders as well - don't ask...)
"They spotted it, pulled it, and now communicate their d'oh moment. To me that is ok. No, it should not have happened, yes, it nevertheless did."
So, you catch sight of the bloke in the stripy jumper, wearing an eye mask and carrying a bag labelled "swag" outside of your house. He points to himself and says, "Look at me, what am I like?" and disappears into the bushes.
And that's OK.
I think not.
The whole situation is rather strange. I updated two Pro 3s and our home office heavy-lifter and in all cases all the privacy defaults I had turned off during custom install were still turned off. This update appears to have had random effects which does suggest that on this occasion it was a F**kup rather than deliberate action.
""when the November update was installed, a few settings preferences may have inadvertently not been retained for advertising ID, Background apps, SmartScreen Filter, and Sync with devices.""
""when the November update was installed, a few privacy settings preferences had purposefully been turned back off for advertising ID, Background apps, SmartScreen Filter, and Sync with devices."
TFTFY
So, according to your tinfoil hat conspiracy theory, Microsoft's master plan here was to do it on purpose and then embarrassingly tell everyone they did it by mistake, and then revert it all back?
What exactly would be the point of that, other than deliberately making themselves look stupid?
Nothing tinfoil hatter about it...
MS's record over the past 3 months has shown us exactley what they are after and will do almost anything to acomplish their goal of assimilating every user and acruing every bit of data about them. If you thinks that's tin foil hattery, you crack on with your farce book and twatter accounts. At least I know i'm doing something to protect my last shreds of privacy...
First they got caught...
You missed the "cover up" from the lawyers...
Then the misdirection that it was "inadvertent"...
What may have been inadvertent was the actual release - as the users hadn't YET been conditions to accept everything MS poops out - and the information that they can rummage through your restore to get things they shouldn't have.
along with a number of commentards, I think that this was deliberate. They (MS) put all this crap in thei OS and we go and disable it. so why wouldn't they want to enable it again?
This is nothing more than
The Shape of things to come.
or
seconds out, round 2.
This is not over yet, not by a long chalk.
> along with a number of commentards, I think that this was deliberate.
Of course you do. This surprises absolutely nobody.
Should anyone be surprised that you specifically are dumb or obsessed enough to think a company (any company at all) would deliberately set out to alter settings so that at some point in the future they might possibly be able to steal data from an apparently completely random and quite small subset of upgraders, then withdraw the update that could (in a handful of cases) cause the settings changes (that might or might not allow data to be stolen depending on applications used, presence of firewalls, whether the machine was even used or not), admit that they did it (claiming incompetence) and turn all the settings back again?
Given your posting history, I think not.
Seriously, you need to get out more. You're making David Icke look rational.
"so that at some point in the future they would be able to" capture the passwords, preferences, and viewing habits of the hundreds of millions of users who failed to realize the settings had been changed.
As everyone should know by now, data is money. Money is power. Information is power. Q.E.F.D., the more info you have, the more power you can grab.
How could anyone not understand this?
> The only reason this became an "incident" is because they GOT CAUGHT.
Except that they didn't. They pulled the patch themselves when there were no reports of it doing anything weird and when asked why, told people why.
If they'd "GOT CAUGHT" then the usual Win10 Hate Brigade would have been trumpeting this for the last week. They weren't.
You're wrong.
> So just like the id that gets passed to Google Analytics by pretty much every website you go to then.
Technically it is not the website that passes stuff to Google Analytics, it is done directly from your machine by Javascript that is loaded from the web site. That JS does not run on _my_ machine because it gets blocked by NoScript and Ghostery.
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