6 ms·

This would be too big an oversight for a company trying to get more business adoption. According to Microsoft, the data is anonymized and run through a virtual

by ewzimm 11y ago

This would be too big an oversight for a company trying to get more business adoption. According to Microsoft, the data is anonymized and run through a virtual shredder before being sent. Here's their statement on it: “Some of this data is stored on your device and some is sent to Microsoft to help improve these services. Data sent to Microsoft for product improvement is put through rigorous, multi-pass scrubs to remove sensitive or identifiable fields (such as email addresses, passwords and alphanumeric data) and strings are chopped into very small bits and stripped of sequence data to prevent the information from being identified or put back together.” http://blog.laptopmag.com/windows-10-privacy-issues-exaggerated http://blog.laptopmag.com/windows-10-privacy-issues-exaggera... It amazes me that this information isn't easier to find and I end up being the one defending Microsoft. I definitely recommend using Free Software only if you want to be absolutely sure of confidentiality.

linkydinkandyou 11y ago
How do you think Apple gets their spell-check data, or improves Siri's voice recognition? In any event, during the installation process, you do see a screen where you can turn all this off. It's not off by default, but viewing these settings was part of my Windows 10 installation experience.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  I thought the options to turn off defaults were pretty clear during the installation process. Requests to make options more explicit and visual are reasonable, but it bothers me that Mozilla and others are acting like "choose my default programs" or "custom settings" are too obscure for anyone to understand. You also have the option to delete your history.
- ionised 11y ago
  Turning those things off still doesn't prevent Windows 10 from sending tracking and usage data to Microsoft though, even when you're only using a Local Account instead of a Microsoft Account.
- xigency 11y ago
  I don't know, how about using a dictionary and doing research? Otherwise wouldn't every commonly misspelled word show up incorrectly in spellcheck? There is quite a bit of work in the field of speech recognition, too, and it's entirely possible to create a functional model without recording every user's voice and storing that information on a server. Even if they require speech samples, or samples from different languages, they should at least pay someone for that information. I was disappointed when I learned that the voice recognition feature in Siri wasn't local to the phone.
- amyjess 11y ago
  I can confirm: I bought a Surface Pro 3 the other day, and when I first booted it up, the setup screens explicitly asked me which privacy settings I'd like to enable.
  - icewater0 11y ago
    Do you know if there is any information sent to Microsoft by default for which they did not offer you a screen widget to click that says "off"? Do you know what actual data is, and is not, sent to Microsoft as you use your device? Even if you do, will you still know once Microsoft pushes a mandatory update and/or changes its 12,000 word terms of service?
- vetinari 11y ago
  > In any event, during the installation process, you do see a screen where you can turn all this off. It's not off by default, but viewing these settings was part of my Windows 10 installation experience. The problem is that Windows 10 does not respect you having this turned off. It will send away your data, even if you turned off all the switches. Don't you see this as a huge problem?
fweespeech 11y ago
FWIW, I believe they try to do these things however, I'm not sure how its technically possible. Various security measures rename sensitive fields into things that are basically random strings that are stored in a session. [e.g. Fields to change your password? They are set to something like 2ajefklaj23324rk] There is also the issue of people who write erotica for fun. Or doctors writing down notes for patients.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  Here are some references to explain how data is anonymized: http://www.caida.org/data/anonymization/index.xml http://www.caida.org/data/anonymization/index.xml
zvrba 11y ago
> I definitely recommend using Free Software only if you want to be absolutely sure of confidentiality. So, has anybody ever audited build farms for Debian, Ubuntu, etc? Have we ever seen a breakdown of their income sources? How do you know that the binaries you install are built from the sources you can browse or download from the net? Do you compile everything yourself?
- ewzimm 11y ago
  Debian and others realize that this is a problem, and you absolutely shouldn't trust anyone at their word. There's an ongoing effort at Debian to make all builds reproducible so that you can verify that they were built from the sources they provide for inspection. This should be completed soon. For the situation I'm talking about where absolute confidentiality is required, the right way to do it would absolutely be auditing all code and compiling from source, assuming you're working in an organization that has that kind of capacity. But for most cases, just dealing with an organization you trust is enough, whether they provide source or not.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    > "There's an ongoing effort at Debian to make all builds reproducible so that you can verify that they were built from the sources they provide for inspection. This should be completed soon." Ah, good to know. Do you have any links to articles or discussions about this? Would like to learn more.
- tired_man 11y ago
  You can trust Microsoft. Don't worry about it. They'd never do anything to compromise your privacy. Just ask them. /LOL.
- icewater0 11y ago
  While it is true that most end users of Free software do not audit or compile their own binaries, the situations aren't even remotely comparable.
mikeash 11y ago
Do I understand this correctly that they are sending back everything you type, but they try to scan the data for things like e-mail addresses or passwords and remove those bits first, and then send the data back in pieces so it can't be reassembled? If so, that sounds unbelievably error prone. What if your password is of the "correct horse battery staple" form, rather than the standard unreadable scramble? It seems impossible to reliably distinguish that from other text. Does that mean that Microsoft then has your password? Even anonymized, that's a massive problem.
- ewzimm 11y ago
  It's not everything you type, just bits and pieces stripped of sequence, and most of what's saved is on your device only. They specify that what they send is only "some," and logically, everything typed into the billion devices they're shooting for would be too much data for even Microsoft to handle. Passwords and the like are probably identified by the type of field they're entered into, as Windows forms and websites have explicit identifiers for passwords, and it would be easy not to record this. I think this analysis is more for things like analyzing the frequency of terms and which characters tend to follow other characters, but I don't have much more information, and I agree that there needs to be more shared about how this works.
  - orclev 11y ago
    So, here's a question then, assuming that's true, why send it? If its been so thoroughly anonymized that nothing useful can be gleaned from it, why bother sending it in the first place? If it is possible to derive useful info from it, that seems to directly contradict the idea that no sensitive information is going to be exposed (there being no realistic way to programmatically identity only sensitive information without some very specific domain knowledge). You can't have it both ways, either the info isn't useful in which case they have reason to transmit it, or else it's exposing potentially sensitive information and they shouldn't be transmitting it.
    - ewzimm 11y ago
      I can only speculate, but I would guess it goes something like this: You type "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." You continue typing other stuff. 30 minutes later, there's a queue of random slices like: { "lazy dog", "chocolate donut", "brown fox" }. That gets encrypted and sent into a big pile of other data for a machine learning algorithm to develop better typing prediction. I would like to know if that's the gist of it or if there are other things happening. Hopefully there will at least be a developer blog or something like that to better explain it.
chris_wot 11y ago
They made a statement to a magazine. Where is that statement on their website, and where is the information that discloses what they are sending? I'd like to see precisely how they anonymize the data, and I'd also like to know what data it is.
Lawtonfogle 11y ago
Because companies haven't failed to anonymize data before with the general public being left to pick up the tab. If Microsoft was a known moral bastion who had perfect security might not be a problem. But it isn't and it doesn't, so there is only one response: NO! (OK, there are more responses, but I'm not sure if they are allowed with HN's code of conduct.)

by ewzimm 11y ago

linkydinkandyou 11y ago

How do you think Apple gets their spell-check data, or improves Siri's voice recognition? In any event, during the installation process, you do see a screen where you can turn all this off. It's not off by default, but viewing these settings was part of my Windows 10 installation experience.

ewzimm 11y ago
I thought the options to turn off defaults were pretty clear during the installation process. Requests to make options more explicit and visual are reasonable, but it bothers me that Mozilla and others are acting like "choose my default programs" or "custom settings" are too obscure for anyone to understand. You also have the option to delete your history.
ionised 11y ago
Turning those things off still doesn't prevent Windows 10 from sending tracking and usage data to Microsoft though, even when you're only using a Local Account instead of a Microsoft Account.
xigency 11y ago
I don't know, how about using a dictionary and doing research? Otherwise wouldn't every commonly misspelled word show up incorrectly in spellcheck? There is quite a bit of work in the field of speech recognition, too, and it's entirely possible to create a functional model without recording every user's voice and storing that information on a server. Even if they require speech samples, or samples from different languages, they should at least pay someone for that information. I was disappointed when I learned that the voice recognition feature in Siri wasn't local to the phone.
amyjess 11y ago
I can confirm: I bought a Surface Pro 3 the other day, and when I first booted it up, the setup screens explicitly asked me which privacy settings I'd like to enable.
- icewater0 11y ago
  Do you know if there is any information sent to Microsoft by default for which they did not offer you a screen widget to click that says "off"? Do you know what actual data is, and is not, sent to Microsoft as you use your device? Even if you do, will you still know once Microsoft pushes a mandatory update and/or changes its 12,000 word terms of service?
vetinari 11y ago
> In any event, during the installation process, you do see a screen where you can turn all this off. It's not off by default, but viewing these settings was part of my Windows 10 installation experience. The problem is that Windows 10 does not respect you having this turned off. It will send away your data, even if you turned off all the switches. Don't you see this as a huge problem?

fweespeech 11y ago

FWIW, I believe they try to do these things however, I'm not sure how its technically possible. Various security measures rename sensitive fields into things that are basically random strings that are stored in a session. [e.g. Fields to change your password? They are set to something like 2ajefklaj23324rk] There is also the issue of people who write erotica for fun. Or doctors writing down notes for patients.

ewzimm 11y ago
Here are some references to explain how data is anonymized: http://www.caida.org/data/anonymization/index.xml http://www.caida.org/data/anonymization/index.xml

zvrba 11y ago

> I definitely recommend using Free Software only if you want to be absolutely sure of confidentiality. So, has anybody ever audited build farms for Debian, Ubuntu, etc? Have we ever seen a breakdown of their income sources? How do you know that the binaries you install are built from the sources you can browse or download from the net? Do you compile everything yourself?

ewzimm 11y ago
Debian and others realize that this is a problem, and you absolutely shouldn't trust anyone at their word. There's an ongoing effort at Debian to make all builds reproducible so that you can verify that they were built from the sources they provide for inspection. This should be completed soon. For the situation I'm talking about where absolute confidentiality is required, the right way to do it would absolutely be auditing all code and compiling from source, assuming you're working in an organization that has that kind of capacity. But for most cases, just dealing with an organization you trust is enough, whether they provide source or not.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  > "There's an ongoing effort at Debian to make all builds reproducible so that you can verify that they were built from the sources they provide for inspection. This should be completed soon." Ah, good to know. Do you have any links to articles or discussions about this? Would like to learn more.
tired_man 11y ago
You can trust Microsoft. Don't worry about it. They'd never do anything to compromise your privacy. Just ask them. /LOL.
icewater0 11y ago
While it is true that most end users of Free software do not audit or compile their own binaries, the situations aren't even remotely comparable.

mikeash 11y ago

Do I understand this correctly that they are sending back everything you type, but they try to scan the data for things like e-mail addresses or passwords and remove those bits first, and then send the data back in pieces so it can't be reassembled? If so, that sounds unbelievably error prone. What if your password is of the "correct horse battery staple" form, rather than the standard unreadable scramble? It seems impossible to reliably distinguish that from other text. Does that mean that Microsoft then has your password? Even anonymized, that's a massive problem.

ewzimm 11y ago
It's not everything you type, just bits and pieces stripped of sequence, and most of what's saved is on your device only. They specify that what they send is only "some," and logically, everything typed into the billion devices they're shooting for would be too much data for even Microsoft to handle. Passwords and the like are probably identified by the type of field they're entered into, as Windows forms and websites have explicit identifiers for passwords, and it would be easy not to record this. I think this analysis is more for things like analyzing the frequency of terms and which characters tend to follow other characters, but I don't have much more information, and I agree that there needs to be more shared about how this works.
- orclev 11y ago
  So, here's a question then, assuming that's true, why send it? If its been so thoroughly anonymized that nothing useful can be gleaned from it, why bother sending it in the first place? If it is possible to derive useful info from it, that seems to directly contradict the idea that no sensitive information is going to be exposed (there being no realistic way to programmatically identity only sensitive information without some very specific domain knowledge). You can't have it both ways, either the info isn't useful in which case they have reason to transmit it, or else it's exposing potentially sensitive information and they shouldn't be transmitting it.
  - ewzimm 11y ago
    I can only speculate, but I would guess it goes something like this: You type "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." You continue typing other stuff. 30 minutes later, there's a queue of random slices like: { "lazy dog", "chocolate donut", "brown fox" }. That gets encrypted and sent into a big pile of other data for a machine learning algorithm to develop better typing prediction. I would like to know if that's the gist of it or if there are other things happening. Hopefully there will at least be a developer blog or something like that to better explain it.

chris_wot 11y ago

They made a statement to a magazine. Where is that statement on their website, and where is the information that discloses what they are sending? I'd like to see precisely how they anonymize the data, and I'd also like to know what data it is.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

Because companies haven't failed to anonymize data before with the general public being left to pick up the tab. If Microsoft was a known moral bastion who had perfect security might not be a problem. But it isn't and it doesn't, so there is only one response: NO! (OK, there are more responses, but I'm not sure if they are allowed with HN's code of conduct.)