12 ms·

Let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to eat. But even without opening the menu, you've had the chef call every person in town to let them kno

Let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to eat. But even without opening the menu, you've had the chef call every person in town to let them know you're here. It's just, gross.

naikrovek 4y ago
That's not what's happening. that's not even a good analogy. A better analogy would be this: let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to eat. But, without even opening the menu, the waiter needs to know that I'm there so they can bring the menu to me and greet me. They also bring water in case I am thirsty right now. BY FAR (if not entirely) this is what Windows does. Do you need updates? Are you an Autopilot machine used in the enterprise? Do any of your installed applications need updates from the Windows Store? These are all normal things, but people who don't understand how Windows handles these things consider them all spyware. None of them seem to be aware that you can install a telemetry viewer application and see everything sent to Microsoft from your PC if you're so concerned with what is being collected. You can also, from that application, delete the stuff Microsoft has collected about you from that machine. They go straight to "oh I can get views if I complain about Microsoft and sound very offended by it!" So, that's what they do. It's just annoying.
- joeframbach 4y ago
  Which actor in your analogy is scorecardresearch.com?
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    The hidden camera in the waiter's tie.
  - nightski 4y ago
    Do we know that request originated from the OS and not some other app the user had installed?
    - vorticalbox 4y ago
      They used a "fresh install" so default everything.
      - naikrovek 4y ago
        that means nothing. fresh install of a custom image? fresh install of what ISO image? insider build or release build? maybe the DNS server being used by default is being hijacked, or the ISO they created, if they created one, has an app installed by the ISO creation tool which made it. not all of those are legit. I set up a VM and installed Windows 11 Home on it and captured all traffic after initial setup and a reboot. I saw nothing going to any non-microsoft domain.
        vorticalbox 4y ago
        They download the iso from Microsoft website and installed it.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    tell me that comes from Windows and is not the result of a redirect that some app's HTTP request encountered and I'll try to find an answer. when I boot up a Win11 Home VM and capture all traffic, I don't see any traffic to that host at all, so I can't tell you where that comes from.
- gigel82 4y ago
  The app you're talking about is called Diagnostic Data Viewer [1]. However, your statement is not correct. It's true that most system diagnostics / telemetry flow through this application; however, that's only one part of the network requests going out of your system. There are network requests being made every time you type a character in the start menu (whether or not you have web search enabled). That is not considered telemetry so it does not show up in the Diagnostic Data Viewer. It is also not possible to disable it (there were various group policy and registry settings that worked at some point in time, none of them do any more on latest versions of Windows 11). Similarly, when the "recommended" container of the start menu refreshes itself, it does a lot of network traffic, none of which is recorded in DDV. And of course, any applications that come with the system but are not core OS (OneDrive, Office, Store, Xbox, Cortana, Explorer, etc.) will send their own telemetry (and other network requests) which do not go through DDV. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-data-viewer-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic...
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    if you turn off typing and inking in privacy settings, does the start menu stuff stop?
    - gigel82 4y ago
      No, not the last time I checked this (a few months ago).
- photoGrant 4y ago
  Your waiter is calling every Tom Dick & Harry to just wait. I'd say if everything requires a phone call, you've already lost me as a customer. Your analogy is worse, if we're...y'know. Doing that.
- xg15 4y ago
  Weird how Windows XP managed to be a perfectly usable operating system without doing any of those things...
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    I don't think you can fairly compare XP and Windows 11 given how much more Windows 11 does than XP. even just looking at enterprise management alone, XP is uncontrollable by comparison. forget all the end-user features that didn't exist in Windows XP. might as well compare Win11 to MS-DOS if you're thinking along those lines.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Indeed, these lame comparisons are just as bad today as I remember them over 20 years ago when I was a young lad and Windows XP launched and everyone hated it thinking it would bomb (including me) because "why do I need this bloated OS with a colorful paintjob when Win98 does everything just fine?" It's pretty hilarious to see history repeat itself at every new Windows launch. Rinse and repeat. "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong!"
    - ineptech 4y ago
      For a regular home user, what does Win11 do that WinXP couldn't? Everything I can think of (drivers, screen res, multiple monitors) is incremental improvements to what we already had, I can't think of a feature they've introduced since XP than I want. edit: This is probably too glib; certainly more recent Windowses are superior for application developers, which end users benefit from indirectly. It's the user-facing parts of the OS that seemed to have gone in the other direction.
      - jodrellblank 4y ago
        > "Everything I can think of (drivers, screen res, multiple monitors) is incremental improvements to what we already had" All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? (Besides, they're just improvements on what we had before so they don't count). Apart from the drivers, screen res, multiple monitors, virtual desktops, Windows Defender, updated DirectX, newer hardware support, hypervisor isolated secure password store, app store, WiFi, audio stack with per-program volume control, OCR engine, voice recognition engine, Cortana, online backup and file and settings sync, touch UI and the $8Bn/year Surface line it enabled, improved security, hypervisor backed WSL Ubuntu and Android engines, Windows Sandbox, SSD TRIM support, Bitlocker full disk encryption, ClearType and improved fonts for screen reading, GPU accelerated compositor, face recognition biometric login, QR codes on BSODs, all of... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista#New_or_changed_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista#New_or_changed_f... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_11 ... what have Microsoft added or changed in Windows since XP? btw I don't even use windows and I didn't want any of those things anyway.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > Do you need updates? [...] Do any of your installed applications need updates from the Windows Store? If the checking for updates for anything is happening without my consent, that's bad. > None of them seem to be aware that you can install a telemetry viewer application Or, more likely, they don't trust it.
- smeagull 4y ago
  Updates happen when I say they happen, not before.
  - naikrovek 4y ago
    you are why windows updates are now forced. because you will not update until forced in most situations. you simply are not aware of every security fix or vulnerability found, and therefore can't know when you should update. in the early 2000s there a few very large profile windows viruses that spread like crazy, despite patches being released months or years earlier. the viruses took out networks across the globe and caused considerable mayhem for days. congress had hearings and several tech companies testified, including Microsoft. congress wanted to know why users weren't forced to update their computers, and Microsoft said that they can't control what their users do. congress blamed Microsoft for users not patching their systems. so this happened a few more times and Windows Update was improved continuously going forward. now you're forced to update, because people who thought they knew all about security failed to update when they should have. now, users blame Microsoft for forcing them to patch their systems.
    - smeagull 4y ago
      I don't lose work because of an update, because I don't use windows. I can't be why windows updates are forced, because I haven't used windows since 7. I can update a system package, a library or even a kernel without losing a process. Tell me again why windows needs to force the user to update?
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      I blame Microsoft for requiring reboots for updates and making those reboots destructive to my state. If I could go to bed at night and know that everything will be where I left it in the morning, that would be fine. I can't, so I take extraordinary measures to ensure that my computer remains under my control. Up until fairly recently it rebooted while under active use; something which is never acceptable. No update ever made is that important. It updates when I say it updates, and not a moment before. Congress and Microsoft can GFT if they don't like it.
herbst 4y ago
That said politician still has the choice to not use Windows. It's more like the politician goes to a huge public event with livestreaming and everyone filming everything and then obviously everyone knows. I am not defending Microsoft. I just don't get why people would use software they don't like or even trust.
- antback 4y ago
  The fact that the politician use or not Windows does not exempt that the behavior is dirty and gross.

Let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to eat. But even without opening the menu, you've had the chef call every person in town to let them know you're here. It's just, gross.

naikrovek 4y ago

That's not what's happening. that's not even a good analogy. A better analogy would be this: let's say I'm a politician at a restaurant. I just want to eat. But, without even opening the menu, the waiter needs to know that I'm there so they can bring the menu to me and greet me. They also bring water in case I am thirsty right now. BY FAR (if not entirely) this is what Windows does. Do you need updates? Are you an Autopilot machine used in the enterprise? Do any of your installed applications need updates from the Windows Store? These are all normal things, but people who don't understand how Windows handles these things consider them all spyware. None of them seem to be aware that you can install a telemetry viewer application and see everything sent to Microsoft from your PC if you're so concerned with what is being collected. You can also, from that application, delete the stuff Microsoft has collected about you from that machine. They go straight to "oh I can get views if I complain about Microsoft and sound very offended by it!" So, that's what they do. It's just annoying.

joeframbach 4y ago
Which actor in your analogy is scorecardresearch.com?
- pessimizer 4y ago
  The hidden camera in the waiter's tie.
- nightski 4y ago
  Do we know that request originated from the OS and not some other app the user had installed?
  - vorticalbox 4y ago
    They used a "fresh install" so default everything.
    - naikrovek 4y ago
      that means nothing. fresh install of a custom image? fresh install of what ISO image? insider build or release build? maybe the DNS server being used by default is being hijacked, or the ISO they created, if they created one, has an app installed by the ISO creation tool which made it. not all of those are legit. I set up a VM and installed Windows 11 Home on it and captured all traffic after initial setup and a reboot. I saw nothing going to any non-microsoft domain.
      - vorticalbox 4y ago
        They download the iso from Microsoft website and installed it.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- naikrovek 4y ago
  tell me that comes from Windows and is not the result of a redirect that some app's HTTP request encountered and I'll try to find an answer. when I boot up a Win11 Home VM and capture all traffic, I don't see any traffic to that host at all, so I can't tell you where that comes from.
gigel82 4y ago
The app you're talking about is called Diagnostic Data Viewer [1]. However, your statement is not correct. It's true that most system diagnostics / telemetry flow through this application; however, that's only one part of the network requests going out of your system. There are network requests being made every time you type a character in the start menu (whether or not you have web search enabled). That is not considered telemetry so it does not show up in the Diagnostic Data Viewer. It is also not possible to disable it (there were various group policy and registry settings that worked at some point in time, none of them do any more on latest versions of Windows 11). Similarly, when the "recommended" container of the start menu refreshes itself, it does a lot of network traffic, none of which is recorded in DDV. And of course, any applications that come with the system but are not core OS (OneDrive, Office, Store, Xbox, Cortana, Explorer, etc.) will send their own telemetry (and other network requests) which do not go through DDV. [1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic-data-viewer-overview https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/diagnostic...
- naikrovek 4y ago
  if you turn off typing and inking in privacy settings, does the start menu stuff stop?
  - gigel82 4y ago
    No, not the last time I checked this (a few months ago).
photoGrant 4y ago
Your waiter is calling every Tom Dick & Harry to just wait. I'd say if everything requires a phone call, you've already lost me as a customer. Your analogy is worse, if we're...y'know. Doing that.
xg15 4y ago
Weird how Windows XP managed to be a perfectly usable operating system without doing any of those things...
- naikrovek 4y ago
  I don't think you can fairly compare XP and Windows 11 given how much more Windows 11 does than XP. even just looking at enterprise management alone, XP is uncontrollable by comparison. forget all the end-user features that didn't exist in Windows XP. might as well compare Win11 to MS-DOS if you're thinking along those lines.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Indeed, these lame comparisons are just as bad today as I remember them over 20 years ago when I was a young lad and Windows XP launched and everyone hated it thinking it would bomb (including me) because "why do I need this bloated OS with a colorful paintjob when Win98 does everything just fine?" It's pretty hilarious to see history repeat itself at every new Windows launch. Rinse and repeat. "Am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong!"
  - ineptech 4y ago
    For a regular home user, what does Win11 do that WinXP couldn't? Everything I can think of (drivers, screen res, multiple monitors) is incremental improvements to what we already had, I can't think of a feature they've introduced since XP than I want. edit: This is probably too glib; certainly more recent Windowses are superior for application developers, which end users benefit from indirectly. It's the user-facing parts of the OS that seemed to have gone in the other direction.
    - jodrellblank 4y ago
      > "Everything I can think of (drivers, screen res, multiple monitors) is incremental improvements to what we already had" All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? (Besides, they're just improvements on what we had before so they don't count). Apart from the drivers, screen res, multiple monitors, virtual desktops, Windows Defender, updated DirectX, newer hardware support, hypervisor isolated secure password store, app store, WiFi, audio stack with per-program volume control, OCR engine, voice recognition engine, Cortana, online backup and file and settings sync, touch UI and the $8Bn/year Surface line it enabled, improved security, hypervisor backed WSL Ubuntu and Android engines, Windows Sandbox, SSD TRIM support, Bitlocker full disk encryption, ClearType and improved fonts for screen reading, GPU accelerated compositor, face recognition biometric login, QR codes on BSODs, all of... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista#New_or_changed_features https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista#New_or_changed_f... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_new_to_Windows_11 ... what have Microsoft added or changed in Windows since XP? btw I don't even use windows and I didn't want any of those things anyway.
JohnFen 4y ago
> Do you need updates? [...] Do any of your installed applications need updates from the Windows Store? If the checking for updates for anything is happening without my consent, that's bad. > None of them seem to be aware that you can install a telemetry viewer application Or, more likely, they don't trust it.
smeagull 4y ago
Updates happen when I say they happen, not before.
- naikrovek 4y ago
  you are why windows updates are now forced. because you will not update until forced in most situations. you simply are not aware of every security fix or vulnerability found, and therefore can't know when you should update. in the early 2000s there a few very large profile windows viruses that spread like crazy, despite patches being released months or years earlier. the viruses took out networks across the globe and caused considerable mayhem for days. congress had hearings and several tech companies testified, including Microsoft. congress wanted to know why users weren't forced to update their computers, and Microsoft said that they can't control what their users do. congress blamed Microsoft for users not patching their systems. so this happened a few more times and Windows Update was improved continuously going forward. now you're forced to update, because people who thought they knew all about security failed to update when they should have. now, users blame Microsoft for forcing them to patch their systems.
  - smeagull 4y ago
    I don't lose work because of an update, because I don't use windows. I can't be why windows updates are forced, because I haven't used windows since 7. I can update a system package, a library or even a kernel without losing a process. Tell me again why windows needs to force the user to update?
  - Karunamon 4y ago
    I blame Microsoft for requiring reboots for updates and making those reboots destructive to my state. If I could go to bed at night and know that everything will be where I left it in the morning, that would be fine. I can't, so I take extraordinary measures to ensure that my computer remains under my control. Up until fairly recently it rebooted while under active use; something which is never acceptable. No update ever made is that important. It updates when I say it updates, and not a moment before. Congress and Microsoft can GFT if they don't like it.

herbst 4y ago

That said politician still has the choice to not use Windows. It's more like the politician goes to a huge public event with livestreaming and everyone filming everything and then obviously everyone knows. I am not defending Microsoft. I just don't get why people would use software they don't like or even trust.

antback 4y ago
The fact that the politician use or not Windows does not exempt that the behavior is dirty and gross.