4 ms·

Doesn't every phone do this to make the swipe style keyboard work and autocorrect?

by Already__Taken 10y ago

wingerlang 10y ago
Yes, they do. Maybe not sending it to some server though.
- mattmanser 10y ago
  Maybe not sending it to some server though Those 8 words change are what we're talking about. A keyboard app obviously needs to use your data to improve auto-correct. When it starts sending that data off-device, however, that's a whole different ballgame.
  - bad_user 10y ago
    > A keyboard app obviously needs to use your data to improve auto-correct. No, that's not obvious, in fact that would be the opposite of what a keyboard's auto-correct should do. Because the whole point of having auto-correct is for the keyboard to correct my mistakes, not learn from them or from the mistakes of other people that also don't know how to spell. For this reason for example Swype on iOS has been basically unusable for me, because it makes more mistakes than I do. And no matter the implementation, now every time I choose to override the auto-correct decision for a certain word, I always end up pausing because I fear that from then on, the word will be added so some personal dictionary that I don't want. Basically learning from what the individual types is a disservice to the individual. Also, on iOS custom keywords need explicit permission for accessing the Internet. And on Android I found no mention anywhere that Google's Keyboard sends telemetry to its parent. People just assume that for some reason.
    - Nullabillity 10y ago
      The point of auto-correct is to fix it when you fat-finger something, not when your belief of how to spell something is "wrong". There's a reason auto-correct isn't a thing on desktops.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - DanBC 10y ago
      They need the data to know whether you meant eg "from" or "form", which they get from context by looking at hundreds of millions of occurrences.
  - wingerlang 10y ago
    They might "obviously need" this data if they want to synchronise the improvements along all your computers and devices. Or to make the general dictionary pick up on new terms automatically and give them to other windows users. Edit: The full quote is actually: > We also collect your typed and handwritten words to improve character recognition and provide you with a personalized user dictionary and text completion suggestions. Some of this data is stored on your device and some is sent to Microsoft to help improve these services. You can turn the Send Microsoft info about how I write setting on or off in Settings. Which means they don't send EVERYTHING so it's not really a keylogger (unless you also count the keyboard-helping stuff keyloggers?). Furthermore on that link, it seems to me that the data they would be sending to their servers is the ones about the other services like speech/handwriting to feed into their system to machine-learn recognition. And it is all turn-off'able which is a plus. It seems like most people will assume the worst, I am not saying you're wrong but it doesn't seem like some "malware" thing like other people are saying..
    - Piskvorrr 10y ago
      Aaaand tends to turn itself back on. "Accidentally." Oops. (Also, my "malware" comment was about the forced upgrade to WinX, not about WinX itself, as I have even noted in the last sentence.)
    - cantrevealname 10y ago
      >> some is sent to Microsoft > Which means they don't send EVERYTHING In any mathematical or logical context, "some" can be a proper subset of "all" or equal to "all". Any lawyer or judge thinking logically would agree. If the matter had to be confronted in court, Microsoft's legalese covers the case where they capture and store everything. Another way they can hedge is by not capturing something innocuous and uninteresting, like words you type into Microsoft Help or Group Policy Editor. Now they can say that they don't capture and store every single thing.
cm3 10y ago
While it's the same problem on phones and you can disable stuff there, it's less of an issue because creation (media, software) happens on a PC and that's a lot more critical. Also, on phones Apple or Google doesn't sneak in an update which re-enables the previously disabled data collection settings. Microsoft went so far to rename NT services to thwart disabling. If Microsoft doesn't fix this soon, they'll either get a lawsuit or lose serious market share. It's a pity because the kernel and surrounding subsystems are getting better with each Windows release. Maybe something like nLite can be used to create a Windows image that doesn't contain the nasty stuff, but then an update would reinstall them The icing on the cake is that even when using Windows Enterprise edition in a Windows Domain, you cannot control what updates are installed as you could before. This is a huge problem because stuff you don't want will be slipped back in. They just lost their mind.
kuschku 10y ago
And that’s why you use the AOSP keyboard, not the Google spyware keyboard.

Doesn't every phone do this to make the swipe style keyboard work and autocorrect?

wingerlang 10y ago

Yes, they do. Maybe not sending it to some server though.

mattmanser 10y ago
Maybe not sending it to some server though Those 8 words change are what we're talking about. A keyboard app obviously needs to use your data to improve auto-correct. When it starts sending that data off-device, however, that's a whole different ballgame.
- bad_user 10y ago
  > A keyboard app obviously needs to use your data to improve auto-correct. No, that's not obvious, in fact that would be the opposite of what a keyboard's auto-correct should do. Because the whole point of having auto-correct is for the keyboard to correct my mistakes, not learn from them or from the mistakes of other people that also don't know how to spell. For this reason for example Swype on iOS has been basically unusable for me, because it makes more mistakes than I do. And no matter the implementation, now every time I choose to override the auto-correct decision for a certain word, I always end up pausing because I fear that from then on, the word will be added so some personal dictionary that I don't want. Basically learning from what the individual types is a disservice to the individual. Also, on iOS custom keywords need explicit permission for accessing the Internet. And on Android I found no mention anywhere that Google's Keyboard sends telemetry to its parent. People just assume that for some reason.
  - Nullabillity 10y ago
    The point of auto-correct is to fix it when you fat-finger something, not when your belief of how to spell something is "wrong". There's a reason auto-correct isn't a thing on desktops.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - DanBC 10y ago
    They need the data to know whether you meant eg "from" or "form", which they get from context by looking at hundreds of millions of occurrences.
- wingerlang 10y ago
  They might "obviously need" this data if they want to synchronise the improvements along all your computers and devices. Or to make the general dictionary pick up on new terms automatically and give them to other windows users. Edit: The full quote is actually: > We also collect your typed and handwritten words to improve character recognition and provide you with a personalized user dictionary and text completion suggestions. Some of this data is stored on your device and some is sent to Microsoft to help improve these services. You can turn the Send Microsoft info about how I write setting on or off in Settings. Which means they don't send EVERYTHING so it's not really a keylogger (unless you also count the keyboard-helping stuff keyloggers?). Furthermore on that link, it seems to me that the data they would be sending to their servers is the ones about the other services like speech/handwriting to feed into their system to machine-learn recognition. And it is all turn-off'able which is a plus. It seems like most people will assume the worst, I am not saying you're wrong but it doesn't seem like some "malware" thing like other people are saying..
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    Aaaand tends to turn itself back on. "Accidentally." Oops. (Also, my "malware" comment was about the forced upgrade to WinX, not about WinX itself, as I have even noted in the last sentence.)
  - cantrevealname 10y ago
    >> some is sent to Microsoft > Which means they don't send EVERYTHING In any mathematical or logical context, "some" can be a proper subset of "all" or equal to "all". Any lawyer or judge thinking logically would agree. If the matter had to be confronted in court, Microsoft's legalese covers the case where they capture and store everything. Another way they can hedge is by not capturing something innocuous and uninteresting, like words you type into Microsoft Help or Group Policy Editor. Now they can say that they don't capture and store every single thing.

cm3 10y ago

While it's the same problem on phones and you can disable stuff there, it's less of an issue because creation (media, software) happens on a PC and that's a lot more critical. Also, on phones Apple or Google doesn't sneak in an update which re-enables the previously disabled data collection settings. Microsoft went so far to rename NT services to thwart disabling. If Microsoft doesn't fix this soon, they'll either get a lawsuit or lose serious market share. It's a pity because the kernel and surrounding subsystems are getting better with each Windows release. Maybe something like nLite can be used to create a Windows image that doesn't contain the nasty stuff, but then an update would reinstall them The icing on the cake is that even when using Windows Enterprise edition in a Windows Domain, you cannot control what updates are installed as you could before. This is a huge problem because stuff you don't want will be slipped back in. They just lost their mind.

kuschku 10y ago

And that’s why you use the AOSP keyboard, not the Google spyware keyboard.