7 ms·

"Keylogger" may be a little bit of an inflammatory way to put it, but it gets the point across: Windows sends an unspecified selection of your keyboard inputs t

"Keylogger" may be a little bit of an inflammatory way to put it, but it gets the point across: Windows sends an unspecified selection of your keyboard inputs to Microsoft's servers, and it doesn't inform you what it's sending or when it's sending it. If you want to language-lawyer it, fine. Calling that property of Windows 10 something different doesn't change what Microsoft's doing, and it doesn't make me like it any more. That is the point. Missing the point is why you're being downvoted.

scholia 10y ago
I'm not missing the point. Calling it a "keylogger" isn't just inflammatory, it's wrong. Being upset about what Windows 10 actually does is fair enough -- I understand that not everyone wants things like telemetry and personalization (or maybe just not on Windows). It's not an excuse for claiming it does things that it doesn't do.
- eximius 10y ago
  Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere?
  - scholia 10y ago
    No. What would Microsoft do with billions of keystrokes from approaching 1.5 billion PCs? Especially since most of those keystrokes are probably Solitaire or GTA or some other game, or else they're from email or social networking (where somebody else has far more interest in your keystrokes). In any case, running a real keylogger in Windows would be a magnet for the NSA and similar services, which would end up being far more trouble than it was worth....
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      >> Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere? > No. Then you should say "It's not a keylogger because it doesn't send keystrokes anywhere". Not fuss about whether the definition of keylogger requires capturing every key. But please explain how "send samples of my typing" does not involve sending keystrokes.
      - pryce 10y ago
        Suppose Microsoft wanted to analyze some pretty interesting parameters of typing - - frequency of different keystrokes - frequency of keystrokes as a function of the preceeding 1, 2 or 3 keystrokes - mean delay between any set of keystroke pairs - standard deviation of delay between any set of keystroke pairs Would you be able to design a system to collect this information that would not allow reproduction of any particular sentence typed by a user? Would you be able to design a system that collects this information locally, creates the probability matrixes and sends them to Microsoft without sending the keystrokes themselves? The proposed system above is almost trival to build, and yields significant and useful information that Microsoft would be interested in collecting. I am not an expert in this area, nor am I clear that the above is what Microsoft is doing; but it is what I would imagine they want built, and it seems to be a pretty legitimate way to collect information without exposing the user to an actual keylogger and avoids most of the security issues that such a thing entails.
        RaleyField 10y ago
        We don't know how it works. Why wouldn't Microsoft explain exactly what is sent and make it inspectable. > frequency of keystrokes as a function of the preceeding 1, 2 or 3 keystrokes Sequence that's unusual in a language and has reported frequency that's above what you'd expect from errors will probably be part of recurrently entered password. Depending on how stupidly the telemetry is done this could be leaking significant amounts of data for certain users. Did random poorly informed user agree to this? Probably not.
        scholia 10y ago
        > Why wouldn't Microsoft explain exactly what is sent and make it inspectable. I agree with you: I think it should. I also think we should get the same info for Android and iOS as well, but we don't. Further, what about the massive amount of telemetry built into online services such as Gmail and Facebook? Again, there is only silence.... By the way, I think that the typing stuff is only relevant to on-screen keyboards, where Microsoft does a huge amount of tricky stuff to make text entry more accurate. [0] Windows 10 obviously has a built-in touch keyboard.... [0] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2012/12/06/the-secrets-of-the-windows-phone-8-keyboard/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2012/12/06/the-s... Although that's about Windows Phone, Windows 10 is a mobile operating system designed to merge the PC, phone and Xbox platforms.
  - Klathmon 10y ago
    By that definition HN is a keylogger...
    - oceanswave 10y ago
      The difference is that the implicit contract is that HN is getting the keystrokes that I submit while this textbox has focus, like this text, but not when it doesn't, like the entire source to the death star that I just typed out after clicking outside this textbox. The contract that you opt-into and on-by-default on W10 indicates that if I clicked the desktop and proceeded to type the entire source to the death star, there is a possibility that all or part of those keystrokes would get sent to MS and possibly stored, even though I had no intention of communicating or transmitting that information.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - Retric 10y ago
      HN does not collect keystrokes, I typed a word here "" erased it and that information was not sent to HN.
      - tedunangst 10y ago
        And if you typed that comment on Windows 10, would Microsoft know what word you typed?
        scholia 10y ago
        No.
        Retric 10y ago
        How else do you expect "as I type" to work? Do you think the OS is reading your mind so it knows ahead of time what your going to erase?

scholia 10y ago

I'm not missing the point. Calling it a "keylogger" isn't just inflammatory, it's wrong. Being upset about what Windows 10 actually does is fair enough -- I understand that not everyone wants things like telemetry and personalization (or maybe just not on Windows). It's not an excuse for claiming it does things that it doesn't do.

eximius 10y ago
Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere?
- scholia 10y ago
  No. What would Microsoft do with billions of keystrokes from approaching 1.5 billion PCs? Especially since most of those keystrokes are probably Solitaire or GTA or some other game, or else they're from email or social networking (where somebody else has far more interest in your keystrokes). In any case, running a real keylogger in Windows would be a magnet for the NSA and similar services, which would end up being far more trouble than it was worth....
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    >> Does it log keystrokes and send them somewhere? > No. Then you should say "It's not a keylogger because it doesn't send keystrokes anywhere". Not fuss about whether the definition of keylogger requires capturing every key. But please explain how "send samples of my typing" does not involve sending keystrokes.
    - pryce 10y ago
      Suppose Microsoft wanted to analyze some pretty interesting parameters of typing - - frequency of different keystrokes - frequency of keystrokes as a function of the preceeding 1, 2 or 3 keystrokes - mean delay between any set of keystroke pairs - standard deviation of delay between any set of keystroke pairs Would you be able to design a system to collect this information that would not allow reproduction of any particular sentence typed by a user? Would you be able to design a system that collects this information locally, creates the probability matrixes and sends them to Microsoft without sending the keystrokes themselves? The proposed system above is almost trival to build, and yields significant and useful information that Microsoft would be interested in collecting. I am not an expert in this area, nor am I clear that the above is what Microsoft is doing; but it is what I would imagine they want built, and it seems to be a pretty legitimate way to collect information without exposing the user to an actual keylogger and avoids most of the security issues that such a thing entails.
      - RaleyField 10y ago
        We don't know how it works. Why wouldn't Microsoft explain exactly what is sent and make it inspectable. > frequency of keystrokes as a function of the preceeding 1, 2 or 3 keystrokes Sequence that's unusual in a language and has reported frequency that's above what you'd expect from errors will probably be part of recurrently entered password. Depending on how stupidly the telemetry is done this could be leaking significant amounts of data for certain users. Did random poorly informed user agree to this? Probably not.
        scholia 10y ago
        > Why wouldn't Microsoft explain exactly what is sent and make it inspectable. I agree with you: I think it should. I also think we should get the same info for Android and iOS as well, but we don't. Further, what about the massive amount of telemetry built into online services such as Gmail and Facebook? Again, there is only silence.... By the way, I think that the typing stuff is only relevant to on-screen keyboards, where Microsoft does a huge amount of tricky stuff to make text entry more accurate. [0] Windows 10 obviously has a built-in touch keyboard.... [0] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2012/12/06/the-secrets-of-the-windows-phone-8-keyboard/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2012/12/06/the-s... Although that's about Windows Phone, Windows 10 is a mobile operating system designed to merge the PC, phone and Xbox platforms.
- Klathmon 10y ago
  By that definition HN is a keylogger...
  - oceanswave 10y ago
    The difference is that the implicit contract is that HN is getting the keystrokes that I submit while this textbox has focus, like this text, but not when it doesn't, like the entire source to the death star that I just typed out after clicking outside this textbox. The contract that you opt-into and on-by-default on W10 indicates that if I clicked the desktop and proceeded to type the entire source to the death star, there is a possibility that all or part of those keystrokes would get sent to MS and possibly stored, even though I had no intention of communicating or transmitting that information.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - Retric 10y ago
    HN does not collect keystrokes, I typed a word here "" erased it and that information was not sent to HN.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      And if you typed that comment on Windows 10, would Microsoft know what word you typed?
      - scholia 10y ago
        No.
        Retric 10y ago
        How else do you expect "as I type" to work? Do you think the OS is reading your mind so it knows ahead of time what your going to erase?