Tech News Is Winn 11 Spyware?

Twistty · Feb 9, 2023

CLICKABLE VIDEO LINK REMOVED.
Read https://www.teamos.xyz/threads/site-introduction-and-rules.186021/

The video says it all.
Wonder why someone cannot fully "fix" those extra features?

Setting up nextdns or pihole is a pain.

Linux is probably the best option - but not truly an option for many uses - especially at work.

Thanks for the post SnowMonkey

SnowMonkey · Feb 10, 2023

^^^ Wow. This is the process described in the article. What a pisser.

Not sold on Linux as a full replacement yet. And needing Office for work has me tied up.

May end up going with two machines, one Linux for fun and the second with MS set up just for work.

Cyler · Feb 17, 2023

I wonder when people will understand the difference between telemetry and.. spying. To shock you a bit more, do you think only windows have telemetry?

How about MacOS

Telemetry is not what you think it is... Apple or MS and others, don't care for what you have on your hard disk, they can't make money out of it. Now think that are 3 BILLION windows users, who would parse all that data if they indeed were looking at your photos and messages etc? Not saying that companies aren't also doing "bad" things. But it's not through what you think it is.

If you like to have a good conversation over this, more than glad to do so.

SnowMonkey · Feb 18, 2023

I know the diff. And others doing it too doesn't make it ok. I call it spying when an app is surreptitiously looking over my shoulder to gather data about how I use the sw. The way telemetry is being used now isn't just to improve the sw, its a revenue source. So the dev has an added incentive in tweaking the next version to also be more effective in the data gathering and harder for the end user to opt out. Or at least so far the convenience seems to be worth the trade in control over our own info.

Cyler · Feb 18, 2023

I understand it may be a lot to read but some things are not easy to explain.

SnowMonkey said:
I know the diff. And others doing it too doesn't make it ok.

I never said it was ok for MS to do it, I just pointed out the fact that other OSes do it too even the ones we don't think they do and so it's not a MS issue only.

SnowMonkey said:
I call it spying when an app is surreptitiously looking over my shoulder to gather data about how I use the sw.

Telemetry much like any tool can be used for good and for bad. Similar to the knife, a doctor can use it to save a life, and a criminal to take a life. Is the knife good or bad? Neither I think is the correct answer, it's just a tool.
Telemetry is the collection of data that can be used for either:

Troubleshooting/solving issues (crashes, bugs, incompatibilities, etc),
Monitoring performance and gathering metrics (see how new code performs in various hardware specs, is there a significant slowdown, and why)
Usage statistics so one can determine which things people use most/least so they can improve the most used and remove/focus on the least used.

Anything that is collected that is not related to the above 3 categories and is not sufficiently explained as to why is collected, can be considered spying. If I forgot something apologies. If you agree to this definition, then before we say "spying" we should post proof or evidence about what is collected that doesn't apply to the above 3 conditions, and believe me, I will be with you. Now don't get me wrong, I am not defending MS here or anyone, but going totally generic and saying "all telemetry is bad" is not helping either. Just trying to say what is right. Big tech companies have for sure done shady things, but that doesn't mean telemetry as an idea is bad.

With some examples below I will try to tell you the use of telemetry or at least the use as it should happen.

Everyone who is in the high-tech and support fields knows that when someone has any issues with their PC, the first questions we ask are:
Which windows do you use? Which software do you have issues with? What was the error message you got? What were other apps running if any?
and then, based on the problem we will ask more specific questions.
What are your hardware specs? Have you updated the drivers? Have you checked to see if anything else is running that can create conflicts? Have you tried safe mode? Have you overclocked the PC? Is the internet/network setup right? Which browser are you using? have you visited any "bad" sites that may have viruses?
Now, which of the above can be considered spying? Because the amount of info that you release either directly or indirectly reveals a lot about you.

The hardware in the past 10 years alone, has become so complicated and the software scales that in multiple orders of magnitude. Think of Windows, and on how many different combos of Chipsets, CPUs, Graphic cards, Disks, mice, keyboards, wifi, network, sound, game controllers, and other devices, can be installed, and all those hardware components use software drivers. Each driver may work fine on its own, but when you combine it with someone else driver, it may cause issues, if you try to install old drivers with a new OS, it may cause issues again, etc. Now add to the formula other types of software (for example a driver or windows update, which can cause photoshop to not perform well or crash) and you can start to understand how complicated the issue can become.

How is MS (or any company) supposed to know which specific hardware/software or worse combo of hardware/software causes what problems and what the issue is so that they can fix it in future updates?
Similar to what I said above when problems happen, we need to collect data about:
The hardware used and the software and drivers used, and the conditions/actions done that led to the problem. especially at the time of the error, and then questions specialized on the issue itself. In order to avoid back and forth that cost time, it's better to collect as much info as one can in one go, even if a lot seems useless. Details that to the "untrained" eye may seem irrelevant to an expert can be the difference between success and failure.

Little known fact: When Win 8 came out and had performance/stability issues, through telemetry they figured that it was an unstable Nvidia driver that caused the real issue behind the crashes. From the reports they got, they noticed that PCs with a specific driver from Nvidia would crash a lot more often than PCs without, and then they worked on the details with Nvidia and solved the issue. If it wasn't for said telemetry it would have taken FAR longer to figure out things.

And to make it clear, not everything is about errors. Some telemetry is used to measure the performance of new things and to make software better, some may be used for security reasons, and lots of other cases. Again one example,
There are right now about 300 different graphic card chips from Nvidia starting from 610 all the way to 4090. Let's say I make software that uses Cuda cores... Am I supposed to buy every different card and build several PCs just to test and see if there are any issues (not only errors) and validate the performance? Do you see how impractical this is?

I think companies may need to be more transparent on telemetry use, but then again, in the end, it will come down to how much can one trust any transparency level a company will show but also how willing and knowledgeable is one to understand what is being said. Google, for example, states that will store your password on its servers, and at a quick glance, you may find this bad but think about it... if they don't store your password, how is their software going to know that the password you type to log in is the right one?

So here is a question and thinking exercise. If MS releases a version of windows that will remove completely, 100% all telemetry, but they have a check box that states "You are not allowed to complain or post negative remarks if something goes wrong and we don't fix it fast or even at all because we don't know about it or collected details about it in a timely and proper manner. You will keep using this version of windows with said errors/bugs/slow performance till eventually it will get fixed" would you use it and accept it? and if you and I know enough about PCs, and we were willing to do it, do you think the average PC user should too?

SnowMonkey said:
so far the convenience seems to be worth the trade in control over our own info.

Sadly this is the case for far more things than we think about. You get locked out of your house, you call a locksmith, and they ask for ID when they arrive to be sure who you are and that the house belongs to you. Now they know who you are and where you live and your ID number... I guess there is always a trade-off but as long as you can choose to use something that doesn't do what you don't want it to do we can be ok. Sadly fascinating as a topic about freedom/choice can be, this is not the topic I wanted to talk about but we can have a discussion if you want. I just wanted to focus on telemetry and its use and that it's not the "demon" people make it often to be but that doesn't mean it can't become one also if left unchecked.

randomuserx · Feb 19, 2023

Well, telemetry poisoning? I'm predicting an insane push-back with the exponential progress of AI.
Telemetry, is actually an Achilles-heel. There're numerous of attack vectors.

SnowMonkey · Feb 19, 2023

Greetz Cyler, and super propz for the considered response. Thank you.

True, there is benefit and a legit need for telemetry. As the mighty Spiderman said, 'With great power comes great responsibility'. It seems for now there are a whole variety of OS systems that are becoming so expansive that maybe we haven't yet figured out what the preferred boundaries should be. And you have to be smarter than the tool your trying to use. As a techy ID10T its at times frustrating trying to figure out how this stuff works

kVertix · Feb 20, 2023

When I took a look at how Windows 95 was built, I noticed how it stores lots of user activity in the registry and there was no way to purge it without using "PrivaZer" like 3rd party tools. The profiling data is a treasure trove for forensics people, or spies. Yet the profiling data was not sent anywhere back then. Registry's profiling feature is now stronger than ever.
But would an evil aligned company actually use telemetry or user profiling data to make the OS great? For me it seems they are probing for the 6.5/10 quality: intentionally designing the OS to be not professional enough to prevent good user productivity, but not bad either so majority would continue using.
With Windows Vista there came Windows Error Reporting. Oh how users were proud to submit all the errors. "The error reporting feature enables users to notify Microsoft of application faults, kernel faults, unresponsive applications, and other application specific problems." But did actually anything get fixed that way? Many years later I read in an article (was it by Snowden?) that the WER was actually invented to find new exploits in software, especially programming errors that provide admin access; info to sell for huge profit.
I can't move over to a Linux OS either as majority of software I use doesn't run there, and there's no proper Linux alternative. But the biggest turn off is that I have no idea how to secure/firewall a Linux OS. Last time I tried nothing worked and as if allowing to secure your OS was not implemented.

randomuserx · Feb 20, 2023

kVertix said:
But the biggest turn off is that I have no idea how to secure/firewall a Linux OS. Last time I tried nothing worked and as if allowing to secure your OS was not implemented.

Try Portmaster, it's pretty visual, which is not common on Linux.

Cyler · Feb 21, 2023

kVertix said:
WER was actually invented to find new exploits in software, especially programming errors that provide admin access; info to sell for huge profit.

No offense my friend but there are so many wrongs in this phrase alone... I don't know where to begin with.
1. Even today there is no software that can find exploits on other software automatically... If it did exist. all hackers would be useless since this is the reason they live.
2. Getting admin access is not so hard if one doesn't take care of the hardware locks also, and so no, it doesn't have huge profits at all. Especially back then, without Secure boot and UEFI, all you needed was a dos boot disk and to know which file to edit. Just google for windows admin access and you will get millions of results.
3. I could go more with the MS sells to who exactly and what do you think is profit for MS, a 2 TRILLION dollar company? Do you think they care to sell an exploit for $1000 or $10 000 when they actually pay 10 times that to learn for new exploits (bug hunt programs)?

Please we all need to understand something. A secure PC is 50% software and 50% hardware. By hardware we mean, enabling Secure boot, and UEFI mode instead of legacy mode, and having a decent bios password. Restric USB/Network boot. By software we mean decent Admin Password, using a NON-admin account for everyday things, use Bitlocker on the system drive. Just the above will make your system 95% impenetrable and almost 100% safe from all script kiddies and wanna-be hackers. Think about it, you can't boot a win PE or linux (kali) hack tools, to extract/reset passwords, you cant change BIOS options to enable boot, you don't have admin access, and your files are encrypted in case someone removes the disk from the PC or tries to reset bios.

kVertix said:
With Windows Vista there came Windows Error Reporting. Oh how users were proud to submit all the errors. "The error reporting feature enables users to notify Microsoft of application faults, kernel faults, unresponsive applications, and other application specific problems." But did actually anything get fixed that way?

Yes, it did. How do you think bugs are found and fixed without knowing where the problem is? The fact that they don't advertise it has simply to do with.., pride or fame. But if you check any changelog of most software, you will find it there. "After reports, we identify this and that problem and fixed it".

kVertix said:
Many years later I read in an article (was it by Snowden?) that the WER was actually invented to find new exploits in software, especially programming errors

I am sorry to say but either you read it wrong, or whoever wrote the article you read, wrote it wrong. Let me show you how simple it is. WER has 6 levels of reporting, 0 to 5. Level 0 was the NON-critical and not important errors, Level 5 was the High risk - Very important System errors. Levels 1 through 5 were ALWAYS encrypted. Level 0 was not. The reason is that Level 0 reports could be used by local/network admins to detect and correct issues internally within a company. If they were encrypted, MS would have to give access to all levels for obvious reasons. So yes, if one could read said error reports, they could see or guestimate what was going on in the PC... but here is the real issue. If a person has access to your PC and can access the error report folder... what stops him from gaining much more detailed information with other, much better ways? A person with admin access to a PC can see EVERYTHING, and windows report logs would be at the very bottom of the list of things to check.

We need to distinguish the theoretical vs practical implications and limits of getting access to data from a PC.

If a knowledgeable person can have physical access to a nonsecured PC... that PC is screwed and so is its owner... period. It doesn't matter what it runs, if I can have physical access and boot what I want... the PC will get cracked and info will be stolen, with very few exceptions.

Just food for thought.

SnowMonkey · Feb 24, 2023

...nom nom nom....good cracker!...I suppose if all the tech savvy types were to opt out of telemetry in a particular warez it could lead to a dumbing down of the program over time as the feedback for a more sophisticated development could be limited.
Speaking of which, if autodesk is listening, I could use a big ol DUMB button to fix my CAD mistakes all at once please

DGrigorescu · Feb 24, 2023

Actually I remember years before how in a few occasions sending error reports helped me. There was a critical error after boot to desktop and something like “do you want to be notified when a fix for your problem is ready?”. I clicked “yes” and after few days they gave me a working solution (ms fixit? text file with instructions? - don’t remember)

Cyler · Feb 24, 2023

Just want to make something clear, cause I think a lot of people mistake one for the other. Telemetry ≠ Feedback. Telemetry is only about the measurements that the software collects automatically regarding its performance, crash, and usage. About the quality of the software and its functions and user interface and interactions,... oh yeah that's a totally different story. The software (and hardware) can become...dumber because I guess people are people. They hire the wrong people to code, and the wrong managers to lead, they make decisions based on greed, but thank god, not always