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NASA is finding exoplanets every day, and the LHC is probing quarks at high energies, yet nobody seems to know what is and isn't sent to Microsoft on Windows 10

NASA is finding exoplanets every day, and the LHC is probing quarks at high energies, yet nobody seems to know what is and isn't sent to Microsoft on Windows 10, despite the relative simplicity of doing so (and arguably equal importance as this could be giving Microsoft access to billions of dollars of trade secrets for example). Are any security researchers actively researching this topic? Even if crash documents are encrypted over the network, couldn't these questions be answered by patching root certificates, setting up fake diagnostic servers, tracing the stack with a debugger, etc? Even a reproducable test of making Word crash 10 times, measuring the bandwidth, changing the document size slightly, and remeasuring could give some insight into this question.

pjc50 8y ago
Ultimately this will have to be dealt with by one of the Information Commissioners of the EU. I don't think anyone could argue either consent or business necessity for a process this opaque.
fredley 8y ago
Quarks and Exoplanets are deliberately trying to hide.
- LandR 8y ago
  Are you missing a 'not' ?
  - squarefoot 8y ago
    And btw Quarks and Exoplanets usually don't employ armies of lawyers to protect against poor scientists attempting to reverse engineer their behaviour.
    - gruez 8y ago
      Any source that Microsoft ‘s suing people for this?
      - AstralStorm 8y ago
        It isn't, but it is not exactly legal in light of the license for the debug build. And handling a multi million dollar suit is nobody's idea of a good time when there is no payoff.
Thaxll 8y ago
This is not true actually, in some enterprise network your host won't be able to talk to MS directly so there is no way for your machine to send any data to MS.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  "some enterprise network" != total market running windows 10.
criddell 8y ago
I wonder how much confidential health information Microsoft pulls from computers in hospitals and doctor's offices?
- oliveshell 8y ago
  Interesting question. I would speculate (read: hope) that at least in a hospital, they’ll be running the Enterprise version and have it properly configured not to leak data by IT staff who know about HIPAA compliance. The average small physician’s practice may be a very different story, however.
  - BentFranklin 8y ago
    I hate that there are special rules for "enterprises." Every person and every business is an enterprise.
- stevenicr 8y ago
  I have spoken with several lawyers offices, both the secretaries and the attorneys - and most have no idea what I'm talking about in regards to telemetry and default settings upon machine setup or during updates. Same with accountants and some dental offices. Luckily I did find one that does encrypted off site backups three times a week, and fired his last secretary for clicking okay on a windows warning overlay that installed malware once. Not a lot of data points, but so far 1 out 20 or so sensitive professions I have polled are using windows completely ignorantly of the privacy ramifications.
gruez 8y ago
The better comparison is that we have volunteer crackers bypassing DRM with obfuscated code (Denuvo) within days of release. To my knowledge Windows doesn’t have obfuscated code (except maybe for activation related stuff) and they even provide symbols in some cases.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  What would you gain from actual analysis of a debug version of one OS build that will be completely different in 6 months, perhaps even before that? Additionally, getting that debug version does actually require signing a restrictive license... What you will find is mostly reasonable debug data, feature click and run traces and OS memory and driver state dumps. Obviously some of this might be critical data nobody should ever get.
  - gruez 8y ago
    >What would you gain from actual analysis of a debug version of one OS build that will be completely different in 6 months, perhaps even before that? Microsoft provides symbols for both release and “checked“ (debug) builds
meruru 8y ago
>Are any security researchers actively researching this topic? What's the point? If you're using Windows you already lost. Use a FOSS OS if you care about your data, it's really the only answer.

pjc50 8y ago

Ultimately this will have to be dealt with by one of the Information Commissioners of the EU. I don't think anyone could argue either consent or business necessity for a process this opaque.

fredley 8y ago

Quarks and Exoplanets are deliberately trying to hide.

LandR 8y ago
Are you missing a 'not' ?
- squarefoot 8y ago
  And btw Quarks and Exoplanets usually don't employ armies of lawyers to protect against poor scientists attempting to reverse engineer their behaviour.
  - gruez 8y ago
    Any source that Microsoft ‘s suing people for this?
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      It isn't, but it is not exactly legal in light of the license for the debug build. And handling a multi million dollar suit is nobody's idea of a good time when there is no payoff.

Thaxll 8y ago

This is not true actually, in some enterprise network your host won't be able to talk to MS directly so there is no way for your machine to send any data to MS.

craftyguy 8y ago
"some enterprise network" != total market running windows 10.

criddell 8y ago

I wonder how much confidential health information Microsoft pulls from computers in hospitals and doctor's offices?

oliveshell 8y ago
Interesting question. I would speculate (read: hope) that at least in a hospital, they’ll be running the Enterprise version and have it properly configured not to leak data by IT staff who know about HIPAA compliance. The average small physician’s practice may be a very different story, however.
- BentFranklin 8y ago
  I hate that there are special rules for "enterprises." Every person and every business is an enterprise.
stevenicr 8y ago
I have spoken with several lawyers offices, both the secretaries and the attorneys - and most have no idea what I'm talking about in regards to telemetry and default settings upon machine setup or during updates. Same with accountants and some dental offices. Luckily I did find one that does encrypted off site backups three times a week, and fired his last secretary for clicking okay on a windows warning overlay that installed malware once. Not a lot of data points, but so far 1 out 20 or so sensitive professions I have polled are using windows completely ignorantly of the privacy ramifications.

gruez 8y ago

The better comparison is that we have volunteer crackers bypassing DRM with obfuscated code (Denuvo) within days of release. To my knowledge Windows doesn’t have obfuscated code (except maybe for activation related stuff) and they even provide symbols in some cases.

AstralStorm 8y ago
What would you gain from actual analysis of a debug version of one OS build that will be completely different in 6 months, perhaps even before that? Additionally, getting that debug version does actually require signing a restrictive license... What you will find is mostly reasonable debug data, feature click and run traces and OS memory and driver state dumps. Obviously some of this might be critical data nobody should ever get.
- gruez 8y ago
  >What would you gain from actual analysis of a debug version of one OS build that will be completely different in 6 months, perhaps even before that? Microsoft provides symbols for both release and “checked“ (debug) builds

meruru 8y ago

>Are any security researchers actively researching this topic? What's the point? If you're using Windows you already lost. Use a FOSS OS if you care about your data, it's really the only answer.