5 ms·

I assume you mean the Enterprise version? Last time I checked that wasn't something individual consumers can just go out and buy. But regardless of that, from

I assume you mean the Enterprise version? Last time I checked that wasn't something individual consumers can just go out and buy. But regardless of that, from Microsoft's perspective, does it make any sense to not offer the option to disable telemetry on all versions? From what I see, all it's doing is giving them bad publicity while driving potential users away to other platforms. And for what? Probably a few basis points in telemetry data that won't even make a dent to the overall trends in their telemetry data.

Aleman360 11y ago
Because telemetry is a key tool used to improve quality. What software dev doesn't think logs and crash dumps are useful?
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Recording how long someone's had their browser open, how many hours of games they've played or how many photos they've viewed is not a log or a crash dump or in any way related to quality. It's just creepy and invasive.
  - AlexandrB 11y ago
    > ...how many hours of games they've played or how many photos they've viewed... That part jumped out at me too. This probably means they're recording the name (or even hash?) of every executable you run and comparing to a list of known game .exe files. In addition they're recoding how long you have been using each executable (if not start/stop timestamps). I'm not a security expert but it seems like this kind of information could be correlated with (for example) Tor exit node traffic to unmask a Tor user or other fun surveillance uses.
    - WorldMaker 11y ago
      Hashing .exe names is way too much work. Since Vista Microsoft has provided an opt-in way for a game installer to optionally flag "Hey, I'm a game". This was used for the mostly useless "Games Explorer", but also little bits of other functionality. Also, the Microsoft Store has an entire category called "Game" and can just use that. Worst case though, by "game" it might just use the Window's Xbox app's determinant for shortcuts like Win+G which is essentially, from what I gather, "Does it use DirectX? y/n".
  - us0r 11y ago
    How about copying/pasting code, inserting tabs into code, inserting break points into code, how many projects you have, references, when you save, why your code wont compile. Visual Studio is probably the primary reason I'm even bothering with Microsoft but fuck me they collect a lot of unnecessary shit. They claim its "anonymous"... Some of this doesn't seem so anonymous to me: "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Location.GeoId":x, "Context.Default.VS.Core.BuildNumber":x, "Context.Solution.LastSolutionBuildID":x, "Context.DebugSession.VS.Diagnostics.Debugger.DebugSession.StartupProject.UniqueGuid":"{x}", "Context.DebugSession.VS.Diagnostics.Debugger.DebugSession.UniqueGuid":"{x}", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsInternal":"False", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsOptedIn":"True", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsMicrosoftInternal":"False", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Type":"External", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Id":"x", "Context.Default.VS.Core.Machine.Id":"x", "Context.Solution.ActiveProjectGuid":"{x}", "Context.Solution.SolutionSessionID":"{x}", "Context.Solution.SolutionID":"{x}" Short of actual source they send everything (and details) you do in VS in real time.
- lewisl9029 11y ago
  Offering the option to disable telemetry means Microsoft won't get telemetry data from the intersection of users who 1. don't just roll with the defaults for everything (many UX studies have shown that this applies to only a tiny percentage of users), and 2. care enough about privacy to want to turn telemetry off (this number is likely tiny relative to the overall Windows 10 userbase considering how great the adoption rates of Windows 10 has been so far despite mandatory telemetry), and 3. use Windows 10 (a significant percentage of users in 2. have already avoided Windows 10 specifically because of the mandatory telemetry). That intersection of users seems absolutely miniscule relative to the overall Windows 10 userbase, and in most cases the telemetry data they contribute is not going to be any larger than a margin of error in Microsoft's Windows 10 overall telemetry trends. Nobody is going to argue that telemetry isn't useful for developers, but at some point you have to decide if it's worth it to force users into giving you telemetry data if it means driving potential users away to competitors and giving fuel to a very vocal minority of users that write unfavorable articles and comments on news sites, blogs, and social media at every opportunity because of this decision.
  - Aleman360 11y ago
    Agreed that there should be a way to opt out, and I think there is on the install screen. Whether or not it's a complete kill switch probably depends on a particular definition of "telemetry," and in today's cloud connected world it's probably hard to draw a line. > many UX studies have shown that this applies to only a tiny percentage of users Ironic because that's exactly the kind of thing telemetry is excellent for proving. It's quite useful for informing and providing quantitative feedback on UX.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > Whether or not it's a complete kill switch probably depends on a particular definition of "telemetry," and in today's cloud connected world it's probably hard to draw a line. Uh, no, it's really not.
caskance 11y ago
Both the enterprise and educational versions offer you full control. Consumer versions offer what I consider to be enough control, but obviously that's subjective. If you offer the option to disable telemetry, some people will disable it. If there is any pattern to which people do this, and we all know there is, it introduces sampling bias and casts aspersions on any conclusions you draw from that data.
- khedoros 11y ago
  It seems like they're trading one bias for another. I suspect that the population of users likely to disable telemetry have a lot in common with the population of users likely to just stick with Windows 7 and remove the updates that added telemetry collection. Personally, I'd probably be satisfied if Microsoft gave me the tools to examine the telemetry that my computer wants to send. Not making that available to users makes me feel like they have something to hide.
  - caskance 11y ago
    They already made that trade by allowing enterprise customers to turn it off. They also tell you exactly what types of data they collect, along with where and how. That's not consistent with wanting to hide the extent of their telemetry.
    - magicalist 11y ago
      > They also tell you exactly what types of data they collect, along with where and how where?
      - caskance 11y ago
        In the official documentation for the feature that critics never want to read.
        khedoros 11y ago

Aleman360 11y ago

Because telemetry is a key tool used to improve quality. What software dev doesn't think logs and crash dumps are useful?

mattmanser 11y ago
Recording how long someone's had their browser open, how many hours of games they've played or how many photos they've viewed is not a log or a crash dump or in any way related to quality. It's just creepy and invasive.
- AlexandrB 11y ago
  > ...how many hours of games they've played or how many photos they've viewed... That part jumped out at me too. This probably means they're recording the name (or even hash?) of every executable you run and comparing to a list of known game .exe files. In addition they're recoding how long you have been using each executable (if not start/stop timestamps). I'm not a security expert but it seems like this kind of information could be correlated with (for example) Tor exit node traffic to unmask a Tor user or other fun surveillance uses.
  - WorldMaker 11y ago
    Hashing .exe names is way too much work. Since Vista Microsoft has provided an opt-in way for a game installer to optionally flag "Hey, I'm a game". This was used for the mostly useless "Games Explorer", but also little bits of other functionality. Also, the Microsoft Store has an entire category called "Game" and can just use that. Worst case though, by "game" it might just use the Window's Xbox app's determinant for shortcuts like Win+G which is essentially, from what I gather, "Does it use DirectX? y/n".
- us0r 11y ago
  How about copying/pasting code, inserting tabs into code, inserting break points into code, how many projects you have, references, when you save, why your code wont compile. Visual Studio is probably the primary reason I'm even bothering with Microsoft but fuck me they collect a lot of unnecessary shit. They claim its "anonymous"... Some of this doesn't seem so anonymous to me: "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Location.GeoId":x, "Context.Default.VS.Core.BuildNumber":x, "Context.Solution.LastSolutionBuildID":x, "Context.DebugSession.VS.Diagnostics.Debugger.DebugSession.StartupProject.UniqueGuid":"{x}", "Context.DebugSession.VS.Diagnostics.Debugger.DebugSession.UniqueGuid":"{x}", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsInternal":"False", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsOptedIn":"True", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.IsMicrosoftInternal":"False", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Type":"External", "Context.Default.VS.Core.User.Id":"x", "Context.Default.VS.Core.Machine.Id":"x", "Context.Solution.ActiveProjectGuid":"{x}", "Context.Solution.SolutionSessionID":"{x}", "Context.Solution.SolutionID":"{x}" Short of actual source they send everything (and details) you do in VS in real time.
lewisl9029 11y ago
Offering the option to disable telemetry means Microsoft won't get telemetry data from the intersection of users who 1. don't just roll with the defaults for everything (many UX studies have shown that this applies to only a tiny percentage of users), and 2. care enough about privacy to want to turn telemetry off (this number is likely tiny relative to the overall Windows 10 userbase considering how great the adoption rates of Windows 10 has been so far despite mandatory telemetry), and 3. use Windows 10 (a significant percentage of users in 2. have already avoided Windows 10 specifically because of the mandatory telemetry). That intersection of users seems absolutely miniscule relative to the overall Windows 10 userbase, and in most cases the telemetry data they contribute is not going to be any larger than a margin of error in Microsoft's Windows 10 overall telemetry trends. Nobody is going to argue that telemetry isn't useful for developers, but at some point you have to decide if it's worth it to force users into giving you telemetry data if it means driving potential users away to competitors and giving fuel to a very vocal minority of users that write unfavorable articles and comments on news sites, blogs, and social media at every opportunity because of this decision.
- Aleman360 11y ago
  Agreed that there should be a way to opt out, and I think there is on the install screen. Whether or not it's a complete kill switch probably depends on a particular definition of "telemetry," and in today's cloud connected world it's probably hard to draw a line. > many UX studies have shown that this applies to only a tiny percentage of users Ironic because that's exactly the kind of thing telemetry is excellent for proving. It's quite useful for informing and providing quantitative feedback on UX.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > Whether or not it's a complete kill switch probably depends on a particular definition of "telemetry," and in today's cloud connected world it's probably hard to draw a line. Uh, no, it's really not.

caskance 11y ago

Both the enterprise and educational versions offer you full control. Consumer versions offer what I consider to be enough control, but obviously that's subjective. If you offer the option to disable telemetry, some people will disable it. If there is any pattern to which people do this, and we all know there is, it introduces sampling bias and casts aspersions on any conclusions you draw from that data.

khedoros 11y ago
It seems like they're trading one bias for another. I suspect that the population of users likely to disable telemetry have a lot in common with the population of users likely to just stick with Windows 7 and remove the updates that added telemetry collection. Personally, I'd probably be satisfied if Microsoft gave me the tools to examine the telemetry that my computer wants to send. Not making that available to users makes me feel like they have something to hide.
- caskance 11y ago
  They already made that trade by allowing enterprise customers to turn it off. They also tell you exactly what types of data they collect, along with where and how. That's not consistent with wanting to hide the extent of their telemetry.
  - magicalist 11y ago
    > They also tell you exactly what types of data they collect, along with where and how where?
    - caskance 11y ago
      In the official documentation for the feature that critics never want to read.
      - khedoros 11y ago