4 ms·

All can be turned off in Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) - it's very expensive and not sold to consumer nor small business at all. But

by frik 11y ago

All can be turned off in Windows 10 Enterprise LTSB (Long Term Servicing Branch) - it's very expensive and not sold to consumer nor small business at all. But think about your doctor, your lawyer, etc. many smaller business, cheaper Windows 10 editon (non LTSB) they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data. You say such PCs shouldn't be online at all? But they are and many of them run on Windows. Scary.

Silhouette 11y ago
You say [doctors', lawyers' and many smaller businesses'] PCs shouldn't be online at all? But they are and many of them run on Windows. Scary. And almost certainly very illegal in a lot of places. Not only do you have whatever routine data protection rules apply, but in cases like medical data or legally privileged information there are higher standards required in many jurisdictions as well.
- bashinator 11y ago
  I work for a company that has to maintain HIPAA compliance, and we're all utterly horrified by Win10.
lstamour 11y ago
Technically the bit about it not being sold to small business is not true. You can get LTSB through Software Assurance through Windows Intune licensing on a per-user basis through Microsoft Online Services for companies of 5-250 people. And you don't need LTSB or Enterprise/Education SKUs to turn them off, you just get more convenient toggles there. Ultimately you're responsible for what services run on your computer, and your computer's configuration. If you don't trust the OS manufacturer, as someone else pointed out, why are you running their code in the first place? ;-)
- geofft 11y ago
  Because you have external requirements (the software you need to run only supports Windows, there aren't any outsourced IT providers in your area that know how to manage any other OSes, regulators will be confused, etc.) that demand you run the OS regardless of whether you trust it. Or because you don't trust any of the other options either, which is an entirely reasonable stance.
  - Silhouette 11y ago
    I wish people would stop downvoting posts that make reasonable points in a civilised way. The parent post gave two perfectly sensible and polite answers to the question that was asked, even if not everyone might agree with them.
gtirloni 11y ago
they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data How?
- doctorpangloss 11y ago
  You're a defendant in a trial against the government. You open an Explorer window that tries to render a preview for a PDF document titled "Doug Malone's Testimony." The PDF is busted and the preview renderer errors out, posting the error message with the file name automatically to Microsoft. The government subpoenas your Microsoft account, trolls the error reports and learns your legal strategy. It didn't matter if the file was on your super duper secret encrypted drive. It doesn't even matter if it's in the file name; maybe the preview code dumps the whole file contents in the error report. Maybe the preview code is buggy and just logs file names. The report is cached until you're next connected to the Internet and delivered as part of "routine diagnostics."
  - yuhong 11y ago
    Note that error reporting in Windows has been there since XP though.
  - craigvn 11y ago
    If the government were after info like this I doubt they would spend too much time trolling through crash logs, why not just subpoena your email or phone logs.
blakeyrat 11y ago
> But think about your doctor, your lawyer, etc. many smaller business, cheaper Windows 10 editon (non LTSB) they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data. Are they more likely to than if they were using Windows 7? Or OS X, for that matter? You make it sound as if Microsoft's software is actively trying to steal personal information, instead of just sending boring shit like "what error code did that crashing application just produce". Sure, it's possible that Windows 10 is more likely to leak data, but I'm not going to just accept it without at least a tiny bit of evidence.
- yuhong 11y ago
  There is a good article on the difference between different telemetry levels here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85).aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85...
serge2k 11y ago
> they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data any evidence of that beyond "it phones home!"?

by frik 11y ago

Silhouette 11y ago

You say [doctors', lawyers' and many smaller businesses'] PCs shouldn't be online at all? But they are and many of them run on Windows. Scary. And almost certainly very illegal in a lot of places. Not only do you have whatever routine data protection rules apply, but in cases like medical data or legally privileged information there are higher standards required in many jurisdictions as well.

bashinator 11y ago
I work for a company that has to maintain HIPAA compliance, and we're all utterly horrified by Win10.

lstamour 11y ago

Technically the bit about it not being sold to small business is not true. You can get LTSB through Software Assurance through Windows Intune licensing on a per-user basis through Microsoft Online Services for companies of 5-250 people. And you don't need LTSB or Enterprise/Education SKUs to turn them off, you just get more convenient toggles there. Ultimately you're responsible for what services run on your computer, and your computer's configuration. If you don't trust the OS manufacturer, as someone else pointed out, why are you running their code in the first place? ;-)

geofft 11y ago
Because you have external requirements (the software you need to run only supports Windows, there aren't any outsourced IT providers in your area that know how to manage any other OSes, regulators will be confused, etc.) that demand you run the OS regardless of whether you trust it. Or because you don't trust any of the other options either, which is an entirely reasonable stance.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  I wish people would stop downvoting posts that make reasonable points in a civilised way. The parent post gave two perfectly sensible and polite answers to the question that was asked, even if not everyone might agree with them.

gtirloni 11y ago

they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data How?

doctorpangloss 11y ago
You're a defendant in a trial against the government. You open an Explorer window that tries to render a preview for a PDF document titled "Doug Malone's Testimony." The PDF is busted and the preview renderer errors out, posting the error message with the file name automatically to Microsoft. The government subpoenas your Microsoft account, trolls the error reports and learns your legal strategy. It didn't matter if the file was on your super duper secret encrypted drive. It doesn't even matter if it's in the file name; maybe the preview code dumps the whole file contents in the error report. Maybe the preview code is buggy and just logs file names. The report is cached until you're next connected to the Internet and delivered as part of "routine diagnostics."
- yuhong 11y ago
  Note that error reporting in Windows has been there since XP though.
- craigvn 11y ago
  If the government were after info like this I doubt they would spend too much time trolling through crash logs, why not just subpoena your email or phone logs.

blakeyrat 11y ago

> But think about your doctor, your lawyer, etc. many smaller business, cheaper Windows 10 editon (non LTSB) they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data. Are they more likely to than if they were using Windows 7? Or OS X, for that matter? You make it sound as if Microsoft's software is actively trying to steal personal information, instead of just sending boring shit like "what error code did that crashing application just produce". Sure, it's possible that Windows 10 is more likely to leak data, but I'm not going to just accept it without at least a tiny bit of evidence.

yuhong 11y ago
There is a good article on the difference between different telemetry levels here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85).aspx https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt577208(v=vs.85...

serge2k 11y ago

> they will unintentionally leak your confidential personal data any evidence of that beyond "it phones home!"?