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jakinov

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  1. But even if the points are app specific and you can tell that they are they don't explicitly mention it only applies to the app. There's mentions of them tracking successful logins, payment types, offer prices, purchase quantity. Does that mean it's tracking what I buy on Amazon.ca on Chrome? You are picking somewhat ambiguous points on their own that can be interpreted as broad and using that as evidence that they say they are going to be sending off payloads of my files or doing deep monitoring of inside 3rd party applications. It says it collects information about the files (which generally means metadata) when it crashes. The file types also suggest that this applies to Microsoft applications though not native. Yeah I didn't read the studies, I at most read the abstract, title and your "summary" of it. What exactly am I missing from not reading the actual body? I got the jist of them, I'm not denying how they conducted their study but it still doesn't apply to our situation because you are comparing something with much higher magnitude and using a study with situation that just doesn't apply to the one in our discussion. You have given no proof that they are scanning my Chrome history or doing deep monitoring on any of my applications or sending the payload of my files. I do know know 100% what Microsoft is doing they could be secretly sending data through covert channels. But I know what they say they are doing and what the DPA says they are doing. The NSA and Microsoft is a whole different issue and not related to telemetry data. This telemetry data except maybe Edge browsing history is not very useful for the NSA. What's useful is when people use Skype which generates chat history and when they use outlook.com which generates emails stored in people's accounts which nobody has issues with them collecting. Unless you want to start talking about how Microsoft handles the data once they already collected it; or how companies like Facebook, Discord, Steam shouldn't be keep your chat history and companies like Yahoo and Gmail shouldn't be keeping emails stored on their servers. I don't see the relevance of NSA and PRISM in our discussion. Well then I'm sure they disabled it then. And aren't self-censoring so for those people a prompt won't fix anything.
  2. Exactly how is Windows behind in software technology? Also, UWP isn't perfect, it has limitations, possibly some performance issues, and performance tradeoffs; but it gets better all the time. UWP is not as flexible building traditional Win32 apps so it's now as powerful in that sense but it's more powerful for developers in the sense that you can build apps a lot faster and with modern features than you could with Win32 app or even if you use other Microsoft framework (of course it varies with the framework, WPF comes close).
  3. That's just for regular usage. Here are some additional info they collect for "device health and crash data": It's not explicitly mentioned that this only applies to Microsoft's native apps so there's some level ambiguity when you are reading that section on it's own for some of the points but based on the context and how things are described in various other sections of that same page it's high likely that the article is just covering Windows and its native apps, at least when they talking about things inside the apps. I think it's fair to be suspicious and say that it could be secretly doing it anyways, or that this means they are. But based on this article, I personally am not interpreting it as them saying they are tracking what I do inside third-party party apps, collects the user data from 3rd-party apps, or my personal files. But that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't secretly doing any of that either. But the type of data collection Microsoft is doing is not nearly as sensitive as the data the NSA tries to collect (that all of those studies you linked are referencing). Your using studies that talk about mass intrusive government spying and comparing it to telemetry data. Your comparing the government trying to record all your phone calls, store all your pictures/videos, record all your text chats, and browser history to functionality that tries to collect usage statistics, and information that can help them possibly troubleshoot problems or possibly sell (besides Edge browser search/browser history, I don't know how much of the data they are collecting is worth selling). Also, all those studies are about how when the user knows they are spied on that they will behave differently and self-censor. Which I don't think really applies to our discussion. Why would a user self-censor himself using a product like Windows 10 if he doesn't know that he's being monitored? Again, I don't think that's the case. If it were, you would think they'd make a bigger deal about it, instead of it being at the end, where it's like "oh they also collect this". The issues that DPA have mentioned is that; not everything is disclosed, the data isn't fully anonoymized, users aren't prompted better, and settings can change. They haven't made any complaints about overreaching or them sending non-telemetry data as telemetry data.
  4. DPA is likely referring the native built in apps created by Microsoft, the articles I read aren't coming from Chrome or Firefox. It's likely coming from their built-in news reader. Browsing history and handwriting collection on default settings has already been known. This is a Microsoft Privacy Statement not a Windows Privacy Statement. I've read the snippets that circulated around during the initial launch of Windows that quoted excerpts and all the stuff that was quoted was very broad because the document is about how Microsoft as a company collects your data from it's wide variety of products and services and the type of data that could be collected and what they do with it. There is a page I believe somewhere that's supposed to be (it's not) an exhaustive list of what they collect by them; that should be your basis of what they say they collect from windows vs. what they actually collect. Not their broad privacy statement.
  5. I don't have issues with them checking what files I open with what programs. I have issues with them taking the actual contents of the file and send it to themselves. I would be genuinely interested if you could show me where it says that it's collecting my data (not data that I use program x but data that I store or generate inside of it like browsing history) from 3rd party applications. Sure, and they should fix that. I'm not arguing that Microsoft isn't doing anything wrong in respect to the EU laws in questions or any other laws from other parts of the world. I initially, essentially, said that I don't personally care about the new information that has come to light about what else they are collecting. I don't see how drugging people is comparable to collecting telemetry data by default. Also, it's not that I don't believe in any laws to protect consumers, I've mentioned a couple that I'm in favor for, which is strict laws on sensitive information and proper overall disclosure but I personally find the data harmless and so I personally don't see the need for a business to go out of the way to make sure that the user gets prompted to accept. Firstly, I'd like to reiterate that I do believe in clear disclosure of what is collected and I'm not saying Microsoft properly did so. When it comes to consent, context matters, if it comes down to you using a product or service that chooses to monitor your behaviors (without breaking any other laws, again not saying Microsoft not currently breaking laws, I'm speaking in general) I don't see the need for explicit consent and I don't think it matters if they know it or not. Since you like to use analogies, a more relevant analogy that I can think of is recording people. Recording people is considered an invasion of privacy (and covered in most or maybe all countries under privacy law), if I disclose somehow that I have cameras installed in a store that I own (e.g. in my country you must have a sign that says you have cameras). I don't see the need to have a gatekeeper that makes sure you understand that you are going to be recorded if you fail to take some personal responsibility and realize that if that kind of "invasion of privacy" is too much then you should pay more attention. Again, I do believe in restrictions depending on the case, so that store shouldn't be able to scan my drivers license, bank card, record my pin, and credit card and be able to keep that information in it's entirety without asking; which is similar to my OS stance, where they shouldn't be collecting sensitive PII without explicit consent.
  6. Which programs? Their programs? What do you mean by inspect inside programs? To me there's a big difference between them looking at how many tabs I like to keep open, how often I use certain features than them sending my search history. Which I believe gets sent if you use Cortana but then that doesn't classify it as telemetry because it's a feature that sacrifices privacy for functionality. Edge also sends browsing history by default but that was also already known. I will start to care if Microsoft starts collecting my data if they start looking into programs they don't own and starts collecting things like my information from resume.docx and starts dipping it's fingers into Chrome files. But I don't care that it knows that I have Chrome installed and Word installed and how often I use both. That's not what I meant. What I meant was why should a company not be allowed to do it, if it's something you choose to use. If I choose to use Windows and they tell me that they are going to harvest all my data, what's the problem? I never said they weren't. I was just talking and expressing my views in regards to where I think privacy laws should be and what companies can and cannot do. By upfront I mean, they aren't saying we don't collect shit but really they are. I wasn't talking about specific laws that are currently in place, I was speaking broadly expressing my views on what privacy laws I think should exist (and shouldn't) in general. I consider the prompt an example of explicit consent. I consider if they don't prompt you and some data harvesting is on and they don't lie about what is being collected that that's implicit consent. Even if you are not aware that they are collecting information at least depending on the class of data. My belief is that, if some software is collecting telemetry data and it says somewhere that they are collecting this information, that software shouldn't have to explicitly ask for that permission before it starts collecting. I believe that as long as it says somewhere that X,Y and Z will be collected, The fact the user uses the product is implicit consent for them to collect the data. Where I think laws explicit consent is required, is when information is more sensitive such as the payload of files or with PII; I think that information you should have to give explicit consent. I think it's all pretty subjective but generally PII that you could somehow get anyways is not considered sensitive (e.g. name and address) but of course it depends on the situation and person, some non-sensitive PII for an average person like their address is much more sensitive for public figures. But even for some regular joes, that's too sensitive for them and that's why people opt out of phonebooks. In my country, the privacy laws in regards to PII if I recall correctly doesn't make distinction between non-sensitive and sensitive info but the distinction does exist in other countries like America. I just google'd PII just now, and the distinction between sensitive PII is often made when defining it and discussing it. Apart from Edge and Cortana sending information about the webpages that I may visit by default. All the new information presented at all the levels described doesn't strike me as all that sensitive personally. The issue I see is that yes they are violating laws in certain places in the world which is bad and they claim the data is anonymous but is isn't which is also bad. But in terms of the information that is being collected in and of itself, even if it's not properly anonymized, it doesn't bother me personally that Microsoft is collecting and has it.
  7. I know what they aren't collecting which the actual payload of any of my files. As a consumer that's the question I should be asking if I decide out of my own free will to use a product. In regards to your question, well why shouldn't companies be able to collect private data about you without explicit consent? It's their product or service and they should be able to operate however they'd like as long as it doesn't violate any laws. I'm not against privacy laws either. Laws should enforce how companies store and handle sensitive PII, ensure that companies are upfront with what they collect (so explicit consent shouldn't be needed in most cases). I believe that users shouldn't need to give explicitly consent unless we start talking about sensitive PII which laws should definitely cover. For example, Microsoft shouldn't be allowed to give people my address and phone number unless I agree to it but I think most other things are fair game. I don't have any idea how many data-points or its that are collected. But the number really doesn't matter as much as the class of content.
  8. It likely doesn't include actual content that I would likely want to keep private. I don't particularly care if Microsoft knows that I like to open Chrome 50x a day or that I may have Torrent downloading programs installed. Personally, I would care more if they were exporting the data when they scan my documents and they start taking files from my computer that they shouldn't be. I would for example care if there's proof they were taking things like Chrome history files but I don't care if they track that I use Chrome and my usage patterns. Correct me if I'm wrong but there's no evidence that the things like key logging when disabled actually still get sent? The big concern was that if you shut off all those settings data that some telemetry is still sent and in this article that data isn't as anonymous as Microsoft claims.
  9. I personally don't care. Even if the data is not anonymized properly, the fact that they have that data and can prove that I'm the owner of that data the info they collect doesn't bother me since it's just telemetry data. I also don't think there's proof that they are deliberately being nefarious or are just extremely negligent. I worked for a really big global IT company and you'd be surprised how negligent people can be when it comes to things like this. If it wasn't for external auditors and business needs to meet certain compliance standards everything would be pretty sloppily handled and many things probably still are or at least were for a while.
  10. Edge not IE. But maybe. I might have somehow received a bad build because nobody else had the problem from clean install. Another possibility is that maybe it has something to do with me being an insider and a bug gave me an unstable version of Edge on my regular computer?
  11. So since using Edge was super buggy and unresponsive. I had a suspicion that when applications on Windows want to open a webpage, the Windows API they use could be somehow connected to Edge. Edge is a replacement for Internet Explorer which used to be heavily baked into Windows and a lot of things relied on IE. I read somewhere last night where a Microsoft developer mentions that most programs nowadays still use old APIs for opening web pages trying to explain to a user why they Outlook takes forever to open links in their browser. So, I googled how to reinstall Edge. I followed this link: http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-reinstall-microsoft-edge-in-windows-10/ And voila! Everything works properly now.
  12. So I just installed Windows 10 via Media Creation Tool on a USB. From what I understand the version of WIndows is the latest with FCU included. So I installed it, everything seems fine; however, if I click a link in some program like Skype, it should open up in my default browser right away. It opens but it takes like 5 minutes, and depending on the program opening the link it will make the program hang and the browser (Edge or Chrome) will work fine but eventually a tab is created and page is open 5 minutes later. This is also installed on a brand new computer. I tried reinstalling Windows but that didn't fix the problem. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing the problem or any tips on troubleshooting?
  13. Not ATM. Microsoft doesn't roll out design changes all at once. They do it slowly... Their new design thing is to make things not just transparent but blurry transparent. kind of like how some versions of Android and iOS do it. They have adopted it to many UI elements but not all yet. Their Icon redesign for example, came out in waves. They aren't going to do glossy anymore but they mad add "light" (not shiny but more glowy). They haven't actually announced they will do this but it seems they are planning to redesign Windows Explorer though.
  14. Been around for a while maybe a year ago in the first Creators Update. Color is based on theme color.There's also a black theme for settings.
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